In fact, that's why I started the thread in the first place. I probably should have stated that I was hoping to hear from someone with authority about the problem. Any kind of assurance would be fine by me.
I realized recently that part of the reason why I feel like I'm doing ok (not great, but ok) is precisely because I selected the Conqueror Iron Vanguard path. It's why my Griffon's Wrath attacks are actually viable in PvP, why my damage isn't all that bad. And I do take the most damage in most games from initiating and holding aggro. I have a high gear score, but I understand that it's inflated by Reckless Attacker. So I don't expect to compete with 15-16k characters.
I feel ok. I'm not a beast but I don't feel useless. But that's the problem. It's only by selecting a very specific path that I even feel somewhat adequate...
So how are other GFs supposed to feel? Most GFs complain about the Swordmaster path because it has nothing to offer. Without the extra damage GFs can't really do their job. I'm not saying CQ is the only way to go, but the only way GFs can thrive end game is by perfectly crafting set-ups and maintaining delicate balances in gear and skills.
This is what I mean by double the work to be just as good. Why should I be getting anxiety attacks over changing a single piece of armor and agonizing over enchantments and each skill point when other classes only need to reach end game to get a sense of how to use their characters?
I gave up on that, which is why I'm mostly doing PvP and Sharandar/Dread Ring. Dungeon delves aren't that appealing anymore. I've got my tier 2 gear. I'm done. I never wanna see another Spellplague ever again. I'd rather save money for cosmetic changes because I still love my character and the aesthetics, and I firmly believe GFs are still an excellent PvP class when played correctly. I think it's a little sad that the thing I'm looking forward to the most for the next module is the new hair styles...
You're extremely unlikely to hear much from the devs about GFs outside of announcements talking about changes. People tend to take anything the devs say as a promise that this or that will happen by the next possible patch, and nobody likes that. Additionally, I wouldn't be too surprised if the devs don't actually have anything planned for GFs until they watch the results of this upcoming set of balance changes.
They did reply to me, saying that they realise that the GF has problems and they intend to fix this, but that they don't think they will make any changes until after mod 3. I find this disapointing, but considering the update has been announced, I understand they give the update priority.
They also said they have no firm plans / ideas yet as to what shape this fix will take.
They did reply to me, saying that they realise that the GF has problems and they intend to fix this, but that they don't think they will make any changes until after mod 3. I find this disapointing, but considering the update has been announced, I understand they give the update priority.
They also said they have no firm plans / ideas yet as to what shape this fix will take.
Did they message you personally or mail you or something else that you can't share? If they posted in the forums, I'd be interested to read the actual post. Curiosity and vested interests and all, you know.
Yep, we are also concerned with Guardian Fighter. No definite plans on how to help him out yet, but it is something we are considering though it may not be done in time for this Module. GWFs were touched first as their damage was out of proportion to where the damage was coming from (Deep Gash).
Thanks!
Here you go. I know not much, but at least some confirmation that they realise there are issues and that we will have to wait.
Part of the problem in this conversation is it is directed at an end-game only a handful of people participate in, and also this game gives you leash to screw yourself. The other trouble is there are mechanics in this game that have nothing to do with the GF that screw with the GF at the same time, so what <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> do you tune? I will give you examples.
For example, I have done all but 4 of the t2 dungeons. I have no trouble with my role as a GF to this point and I build straight defense except when I using KC. I don't think about PvP at all, and I play with a premade. What do I do for a group? I control mobs. Notice I didn't say tank. To me "tank" is almost a red-herring in this game because of the way adds, animations, and AEs work. You do tank, but more importantly you control the agro of what you tank. If you are just face tanking it all you are doing it wrong, and a GWF going with 3 CWs isn't "tanking" they are doing AE damage and removing the need to tank (which I will talk about in a second).
I am going to maybe blow some people's minds here with the perceived stupidity of my next statement (though I suspect not the ones that truly understand the game): a defensive GF controls mobs better than a CW if you are only counting 1 GF vs 1 CW. To complete this comparison, we are going to get into mechanics in this game that have nothing to do with the GF, but screw with the GF, but before we do so let us think about another game where the same problem was more obvious.
In Diablo 3, the Barbarian had an AE 3 second stun on a 12 second cool down. This wasn't a popular ability because of mechanics Diablo 3 had, but lets just consider it as it is on paper for a second. If you do the math, you will say, "AEing 3 seconds stuns every 12 seconds implies mobs get to do 75% of their normal damage." But, Diablo is a 4 person game. What happens if you start adding AE stuns? Two in succession reduces a mobs dps over time to 50%. Three in succession lowers it 25%. 4 in succession lowers it to 0, and you get a game where if everyone is hitting an AE CC then the mobs do not get to play at all... At each step of adding an additional person the percentage of effective dps relative to the former step is increasingly disrupted, so that going from 1 person CCing to 2 lowers a mobs dps output over time by 33%. Going from 2 people CCing to 3 lowers a mobs dps output by half, and going that final step just destroys all the mobs dps output. So in Diablo 3 they rightfully invented some mechanics to disrupt chained CCs, so at least the mobs would get to play.
In Neverwinter the effect of stacking CWs is similar though the effects are not as obvious: each additional CW does more for the over-all control of a group than the first one did.
The highend comparison that really screws with the GF is not "this group has 4 people none of them are a CW or GF which should we add for control", but rather, "this group has 4 people and two of them are CW should the last person be a CW or GF?" That last comparison is a no contest for a lot of content: take the CW. There becomes a point where you have so much CC that the mobs don't get to play at all, and that is what I was trying to illustrate with the diablo example where the AE stuns made the effect obvious. It is a little more subtle in Neverwinter because we are talking about 3 singularities in succession on 3 different waves, but the effect is more or less the same. This is before we have even talked about the fact that a CW gets to be offensive speced while it is controlling mobs where as the GF has to throw all his offense out the window to control mobs.
Anyway the guild group I usually play with for t2 is GF, TR, HR, CW, and DC, and my role is control. If you evaluate who in that group offers more mob control it is the GF and not the CW, but that isn't the same as the claim if you remove the GF and stack another CW who would have more control. These are different things!
And you might say, doing all the T2 dungeons isn't high end. Doing them fast is high-end! That was part of my initial point. I read on reddit, "GF is useless you should change to CW" advice given out to a random person. GF are not useless unless you start stacking CWs or doing trivial content imo. At that point they can be easily replaced and appear to have no value.
BTW my remark on this game lets you "screw yourself". I have a pretty poor opinion of the Conqueror tree for PvE. To me a PvE Conqueror GF is just a character that is bad at everything, and you really should reroll. IMO people use it as a stop gap to survive in a 3 CW world which is fair enough, but the problem there is at least with the Protector and Tactician the GF is better at some task than any other class. The Conqueror GF is not only beat at every task by other class, but simultaneously other classes can do everything they do better. At least with the Protector and Tactician you can define things a GF can do better in specific groups in specific dungeons than any other options. I am hard pressed to find that for a Conqueror GF.
Part of the problem in this conversation is it is directed at an end-game only a handful of people participate in, and also this game gives you leash to screw yourself. The other trouble is there are mechanics in this game that have nothing to do with the GF that screw with the GF at the same time, so what <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> do you tune? I will give you examples.
For example, I have done all but 4 of the t2 dungeons. I have no trouble with my role as a GF to this point and I build straight defense except when I using KC. I don't think about PvP at all, and I play with a premade. What do I do for a group? I control mobs. Notice I didn't say tank. To me "tank" is almost a red-herring in this game because of the way adds, animations, and AEs work. You do tank, but more importantly you control the agro of what you tank. If you are just face tanking it all you are doing it wrong, and a GWF going with 3 CWs isn't "tanking" they are doing AE damage and removing the need to tank (which I will talk about in a second).
I am going to maybe blow some people's minds here with the perceived stupidity of my next statement (though I suspect not the ones that truly understand the game): a defensive GF controls mobs better than a CW if you are only counting 1 GF vs 1 CW. To complete this comparison, we are going to get into mechanics in this game that have nothing to do with the GF, but screw with the GF, but before we do so let us think about another game where the same problem was more obvious.
In Diablo 3, the Barbarian had an AE 3 second stun on a 12 second cool down. This wasn't a popular ability because of mechanics Diablo 3 had, but lets just consider it as it is on paper for a second. If you do the math, you will say, "AEing 3 seconds stuns every 12 seconds implies mobs get to do 75% of their normal damage." But, Diablo is a 4 person game. What happens if you start adding AE stuns? Two in succession reduces a mobs dps over time to 50%. Three in succession lowers it 25%. 4 in succession lowers it to 0, and you get a game where if everyone is hitting an AE CC then the mobs do not get to play at all... At each step of adding an additional person the percentage of effective dps relative to the former step is increasingly disrupted, so that going from 1 person CCing to 2 lowers a mobs dps output over time by 33%. Going from 2 people CCing to 3 lowers a mobs dps output by half, and going that final step just destroys all the mobs dps output. So in Diablo 3 they rightfully invented some mechanics to disrupt chained CCs, so at least the mobs would get to play.
In Neverwinter the effect of stacking CWs is similar though the effects are not as obvious: each additional CW does more for the over-all control of a group than the first one did.
The highend comparison that really screws with the GF is not "this group has 4 people none of them are a CW or GF which should we add for control", but rather, "this group has 4 people and two of them are CW should the last person be a CW or GF?" That last comparison is a no contest for a lot of content: take the CW. There becomes a point where you have so much CC that the mobs don't get to play at all, and that is what I was trying to illustrate with the diablo example where the AE stuns made the effect obvious. It is a little more subtle in Neverwinter because we are talking about 3 singularities in succession on 3 different waves, but the effect is more or less the same. This is before we have even talked about the fact that a CW gets to be offensive speced while it is controlling mobs where as the GF has to throw all his offense out the window to control mobs.
Anyway the guild group I usually play with for t2 is GF, TR, HR, CW, and DC, and my role is control. If you evaluate who in that group offers more mob control it is the GF and not the CW, but that isn't the same as the claim if you remove the GF and stack another CW who would have more control. These are different things!
And you might say, doing all the T2 dungeons isn't high end. Doing them fast is high-end! That was part of my initial point. I read on reddit, "GF is useless you should change to CW" advice given out to a random person. GF are not useless unless you start stacking CWs or doing trivial content imo. At that point they can be easily replaced and appear to have no value.
BTW my remark on this game lets you "screw yourself". I have a pretty poor opinion of the Conqueror tree for PvE. To me a PvE Conqueror GF is just a character that is bad at everything, and you really should reroll. IMO people use it as a stop gap to survive in a 3 CW world which is fair enough, but the problem there is at least with the Protector and Tactician the GF is better at some task than any other class. The Conqueror GF is not only beat at every task by other class, but simultaneously other classes can do everything they do better. At least with the Protector and Tactician you can define things a GF can do better in specific groups in specific dungeons than any other options. I am hard pressed to find that for a Conqueror GF.
I actually really like this analysis.
First of all, I completely agree that "tank" is a misnomer for the Guardian Fighter. A better way of describing their role would be controller/interceptor. Guardian Fighters aren't designed to withstand constant damage. None of the classes are. The Guardian Fighter however can take bursts of extremely powerful hits with little to no consequence. The Guardian Fighter is also an excellent decoy even in teams with control wizards. It's just not apparent all the time because of how much is happening on the screen, but the Guardian Fighter is usually doing more to protect the team than people realize. Most of the mobs will turn towards the Guardian Fighter when the Control Wizard's rotation is down. That's a fact. Those few seconds the mobs are trying to decide who to attack give the Control Wizard precious time to begin their rotation again.
If there are multiple Control Wizards, then the Guardian Fighter does struggle to find its place. However, skills like Into the Fray and the Knight Captain armor can greatly boost the effectiveness of the team in these circumstances. But then another class doing additional damage would probably help the party just as much.
I find usually a Guardian Fighter is only really tanking when the rest of the party is less advanced in their gear and experience. The more experienced Guardian Fighter will have to do more to absorb damage. (That Mad Dragon run was brutal...)
In my opinion, the Guardian Fighter's support role should be expanded. In the example I gave above, Knight Captain Armor and Into the Fray help ensure that a Guardian Fighter stays relevant in a party dominated by powerful DPS characters and Control Wizards. I think the ideal fix would have been to give all the PvE armor party-boosting properties comparable to the Knight Captain's armor set rather than nerf the armor set. So I'm very disappointed in that decision.
Guardian Fighters are already relevant when there is only 1 or no Control Wizards at all. So why not make them relevant when the party is already strong enough?
Your disdain for the Conqueror path illustrates this point. The Guardian Fighter doesn't have enough flexibility to cope with different kinds of parties. Where one path succeeds, the other path fails. And like I said before, creating these paths to be optimal even in that one particular party takes a great deal of planning.
On a personal note, I respect your opinion that the Conqueror path isn't very good, but I'm going to have to disagree. Conqueror Guardian Fighters excel at generating aggro even when the party is doing high DPS. Their increased power also helps give them survivability through Fighter's Recovery. More damage means more powerful self-healing. As for the benefits of the other paths, it's a simple matter to take some of your remaining points once you reach Reckless Attacker and put them into Tactician or Protector to get some of their benefits. And Conqueror still allows you to walk the fence between PvE and PvP.
In that regard I find that the Conqueror path is more flexible and allows room to grow through skill, where as Tactician and Protector are more specialized and less effective in more situations. Not to invalidate your experience, but I've done all the Tier 2 dungeons several times except Temple of the Spider (I've still seen the end of it though), and I've done Malabog's Castle several times and have reached the end of Castle Never.
I'm not saying it's the best path, but I think it's far from "<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> yourself".
I'll throw this up while there is some interesting discussion going on regarding the GF.
Does the amount of damage the guard meter can take scale with character progression e.g. level or stats? If not should it, either in general or perhaps as part of the protector tree.
As a random idea without fully considering the consequences I was wondering about a change to Shieldmaster from a static 2/4/6/8/10% reduction to one that's based on defense, e.g 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0% of defense stat.
I normally only play the basic solo quest content so I'm likely to be playing a different game to those that do PvP and dungeons etc. This is just something I wondered about after trying some of the heroic encounters on Icewind Dale preview and noticing the significant decrease in up-time of my block against the harder hitting enemies.
I don't know whether it's part of the class design to be able to keep your shield up for long periods or whether it's more analogous to the dodge of other classes.
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lvl99looterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 682Arc User
edited April 2014
Guys, I have a REALLY good, and long post in the Baracks about the GF. Help me keep it alive!
"I fully agree. Give me a better sword!!! I want ******* sword xD give set with offensive bonus. I want to be a true warrior."
^^
+1
In this game a leather armored Tr has about 70% Dr of a heavily armoured plate Gf and his miniscule daggers do 3X the dmg of the GFs long sword... sigh...
I DO think it's pretty funny that GFs swing their sword less often than GWFs when their weapon must weigh 5 times as much and they only have 2 hands. xD
That could be a solution to the GF issue actually... faster attack speed for at-wills. Cleave/Tide of Iron/Shield Bash/wtvr aren't main damage dealers in PvP, but their damage adds up in PvE. Hmm...
GF needs some serious work done as well as the way Threat works in the game. Why would people want to take a GF to dungeons if in the end they cant even take aggro off from a CW or even a DC?? Threat is in close relation to dps (or so I understand, correct me if Im wrong) and GF has the dps of a wet noodle, its no wonder why most GF users cant do much more than what is said up there: knock people off from points in pvp and die seconds after. That said and besides of the threat/dps issue, for the archetype of a tank, GF is fairly easy to kill in pvp situations..even 1 v 1. So what exactly is this class for anyway? Any GWF is more tanky, deals more dmg and has better survivability bcs at least they can sprint away from tight spots. GF is slow, weak and on top of it easy to kill. It seriously needs some love on the side of devs ^^
Yeah pretty much, there's almost zero reason to roll a GF. Even the only good PVE set for GF's Knight Captain's is going the way of Stalwart so yeah, they're pretty much just for knocking people off points in PVP and then dying moments later.
Tenacity.... My bull charge VERY Rarely knocks someone more than a meter or two. So we really are pretty **** at that now too.
problem with GF is imo: conqueror is just too good to not be used. The class is one legged and that's the fail on it everyone using a diferent paragon path is being harmed. the rest, specially tactician has some good debuff and buffs but you get sooooo weak because all the GF armors give you less than 2k power and thats just absurd.
target cap on enforce threat is absurd it should have no cap or at least a big one (15?)
also, no options of good damage reflection or even control immunity but a slow *** daily we have to use to get our immunity and some dps.
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nwnghostMember, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
In Neverwinter the effect of stacking CWs is similar though the effects are not as obvious: each additional CW does more for the over-all control of a group than the first one did.
The highend comparison that really screws with the GF is not "this group has 4 people none of them are a CW or GF which should we add for control", but rather, "this group has 4 people and two of them are CW should the last person be a CW or GF?" That last comparison is a no contest for a lot of content: take the CW. There becomes a point where you have so much CC that the mobs don't get to play at all, and that is what I was trying to illustrate with the diablo example where the AE stuns made the effect obvious. It is a little more subtle in Neverwinter because we are talking about 3 singularities in succession on 3 different waves, but the effect is more or less the same. This is before we have even talked about the fact that a CW gets to be offensive speced while it is controlling mobs where as the GF has to throw all his offense out the window to control mobs.
And you might say, doing all the T2 dungeons isn't high end. Doing them fast is high-end! That was part of my initial point. I read on reddit, "GF is useless you should change to CW" advice given out to a random person. GF are not useless unless you start stacking CWs or doing trivial content imo. At that point they can be easily replaced and appear to have no value.
I don't think control alone is the issue.
You can stack more GF (2, 3) and have similar control to having more CWs, but your damage will drop through the floor and things just won't die, because GF damage is just above that of Clerics.
The issue is that Control Wizards have both similar, if not a bit more control than GFs while doing damage on par if not higher than GWFs.
In the past, CW control abilities were nerfed in various patches, and people still stack more CWs, not because of the control (or making up for the lack of it), but because CW has immense AoE (as well as single target) damage in addition to endless sustenance since the intoduction of ever more Gear Score boosting items and Boons (more of which will be added with Module 3). This sustenance is primarily due to life steal, which scales too well with powers that 1.Deal a lot of damage 2. Have a very high (or no) target cap. As a CW, I can cast Sudden Storm or Shard and heal to full with Life Steal. Granted, I can do that with GWF to some extent as well, but not nearly as easily as a CW. As for any other class, they either have slow attacks, comparatively lower damage (once Mod 3 hits for HR), or low target caps, so the effect isn't quite so apparent there.
To make GFs (and other classes) useful, CW damage needs to take a very large hit (and control powers can get slightly higher caps), while Threat mechanics also need some rework to be more Mark/inherent threat based, than damage based. Additionally, Lifesteal needs a rework to not favor high-target cap powers. Maybe even limit the procs to once every 0.2 seconds, so that with multi target powers, you only get life steal from one of them. Afterall, Regeneration only ticks once every 3 seconds as well, because it was too powerful in the past.
I don't think control alone is the issue.
You can stack more GF (2, 3) and have similar control to having more CWs, but your damage will drop through the floor and things just won't die, because GF damage is just above that of Clerics.
The issue is that Control Wizards have both similar, if not a bit more control than GFs while doing damage on par if not higher than GWFs.
In the past, CW control abilities were nerfed in various patches, and people still stack more CWs, not because of the control (or making up for the lack of it), but because CW has immense AoE (as well as single target) damage in addition to endless sustenance since the intoduction of ever more Gear Score boosting items and Boons (more of which will be added with Module 3). This sustenance is primarily due to life steal, which scales too well with powers that 1.Deal a lot of damage 2. Have a very high (or no) target cap. As a CW, I can cast Sudden Storm or Shard and heal to full with Life Steal. Granted, I can do that with GWF to some extent as well, but not nearly as easily as a CW. As for any other class, they either have slow attacks, comparatively lower damage (once Mod 3 hits for HR), or low target caps, so the effect isn't quite so apparent there.
To make GFs (and other classes) useful, CW damage needs to take a very large hit (and control powers can get slightly higher caps), while Threat mechanics also need some rework to be more Mark/inherent threat based, than damage based. Additionally, Lifesteal needs a rework to not favor high-target cap powers. Maybe even limit the procs to once every 0.2 seconds, so that with multi target powers, you only get life steal from one of them. Afterall, Regeneration only ticks once every 3 seconds as well, because it was too powerful in the past.
The problem with this is that nerfing CW damage will potentially ruin CWs in PvP. CWs are actually somewhat struggling there. GFs can kill them regularly...
Decreasing the CW target cap would decrease both their damage and their control abilities without ruining them in PvP, so I guess that would work. But honestly I'd rather see GFs become more powerful rather than see the other classes nerfed.
CW damages are linked to the add fest dungeons.
Make dungeon with different mobs 1-2 big guys immune to control with a lot of hp, who NEED to be tanked, precisely where some of their attacks must be blocked by the GF shield and suddenly all people are happy, TR included to burst.
Remoove the add fest and CW dammage is absolutely not OP.
CW are doing their role, be efficient against a large number of trash.
GF have nothing to tank in this game, CW faul'ts? certainly not, the GF class need a total rework about tanking or at least some dungeons designed for them.
Example : Blocking a chain lightning attack from a boss, if not he one shoot the whole team, that's the cheap way to increase the GF love especially against bosses.
Actually the CW is a PVP joke, weak with the worst armor, control almost nothing with tenacity-immune-dodge, and now pets and artifacts adding cc resist in world PVP, single target dammage medium, slow, no immunity, no stealth-invisibilty, no heal, slow.
I play a CW since the start i saw all the moove about this class, if they touch our abilities to be efficient againt a large number of trash mobs they will kill the class in PVE, and about PVP it is the worst with the DC.
And about the target cap it was already nerfed by the past, did you see a change about the GF love? NO absolutely nothing.
You don't need to change content. If GF can tank and hold aggro correctly, then CW will be less needed. After that, it's possible to look at CW damage.
For example, it's possible to reduce damage done with singularity. It will reduce over-all damage on trash or boss with a lot of add without impacting the control needed. I think there's a lot of other solution.
For PvP, I think the problem isn't in contradiction with PvE. It come from the lack of single target control and burst.
Strangely, CW have one of the biggest single target powers : Ice Knife. But that's all.
Contrary to other class, most damage come from the 4 encounters, not from the At-will. At-will have more a "maintenance" role by putting buff/debuff on target and doing some damage.
Ice ray : why is damage is so low ? It have a good control but require a double key stroke as it's nearly never used on 2 targets. A good change could be to put it single target when on Tab for twice damage.
Ray of Enfeeblement : good overall.
Repel : too much dependent on Arcane Mastery stack for make it useful. Why not increase base length and reduce the length gained through Arcane Mastery stack. or make Arcane Mastery more easy to stack.
Entangling Force : good
There's a problem with reactivity. PvP is all about reactivity but CW is really bad here. Chill Strike have a buggy animation. Most animation are lengthy. Some good power have a charge bar that reduce there usefulness (Ice Strom, Steal time).
CW lack power that can be used without target to counter invisibility.
The oppressor path just lack control, damage buff and foe's debuff.
For boosting Ice Ray, Thaumaturge is needed. And it's Renegade for Ray of Enfeeblement.
Actually ive always thought that cw's were strong in dungeons because they could stack lots and lots of spells one on top of the other my favorite spell conduit of ice and icy terrain along with smolder and spells that effect with chill strike in the same time frame thats almost 7 different sources of damage happening all at once and all in area of effect.
Add in the aoe from some of thier dailies and thats even more sources of damage going off all at once all aoe.
and of course cw has lowest defenses its a wizard in what game have they ever had more defensibility than a fighter? if you can name 3 I'll concede that they need more defense. plus it takes way more time to weave a spell than swing a sword which is why it takes them longer.
GF can only use one attack at a time to damage its why cw is so significantly more powerful anyway its a thread about gf not cw.
While they are telling us for ages: "We know you poor GF are in really bad shape at the moment, but we have no plans to change it yet, but we will...".
I just read in the Dev tracker that they have announced BIG changes are planned for the HR after the mod 3.... What the... what about us?
While they are telling us for ages: "We know you poor GF are in really bad shape at the moment, but we have no plans to change it yet, but we will...".
I just read in the Dev tracker that they have announced BIG changes are planned for the HR after the mod 3.... What the... what about us?
they have not posted anything. I think gf is so far back on the burner that we have ice forming on us. After all this time they could not get hr right. now they have to spend even more time on them, which pushes us even further back in the queue.
Comments
In fact, that's why I started the thread in the first place. I probably should have stated that I was hoping to hear from someone with authority about the problem. Any kind of assurance would be fine by me.
I realized recently that part of the reason why I feel like I'm doing ok (not great, but ok) is precisely because I selected the Conqueror Iron Vanguard path. It's why my Griffon's Wrath attacks are actually viable in PvP, why my damage isn't all that bad. And I do take the most damage in most games from initiating and holding aggro. I have a high gear score, but I understand that it's inflated by Reckless Attacker. So I don't expect to compete with 15-16k characters.
I feel ok. I'm not a beast but I don't feel useless. But that's the problem. It's only by selecting a very specific path that I even feel somewhat adequate...
So how are other GFs supposed to feel? Most GFs complain about the Swordmaster path because it has nothing to offer. Without the extra damage GFs can't really do their job. I'm not saying CQ is the only way to go, but the only way GFs can thrive end game is by perfectly crafting set-ups and maintaining delicate balances in gear and skills.
This is what I mean by double the work to be just as good. Why should I be getting anxiety attacks over changing a single piece of armor and agonizing over enchantments and each skill point when other classes only need to reach end game to get a sense of how to use their characters?
I gave up on that, which is why I'm mostly doing PvP and Sharandar/Dread Ring. Dungeon delves aren't that appealing anymore. I've got my tier 2 gear. I'm done. I never wanna see another Spellplague ever again. I'd rather save money for cosmetic changes because I still love my character and the aesthetics, and I firmly believe GFs are still an excellent PvP class when played correctly. I think it's a little sad that the thing I'm looking forward to the most for the next module is the new hair styles...
Games are supposed to be fun, not stressful.
They also said they have no firm plans / ideas yet as to what shape this fix will take.
Did they message you personally or mail you or something else that you can't share? If they posted in the forums, I'd be interested to read the actual post. Curiosity and vested interests and all, you know.
Here you go. I know not much, but at least some confirmation that they realise there are issues and that we will have to wait.
For example, I have done all but 4 of the t2 dungeons. I have no trouble with my role as a GF to this point and I build straight defense except when I using KC. I don't think about PvP at all, and I play with a premade. What do I do for a group? I control mobs. Notice I didn't say tank. To me "tank" is almost a red-herring in this game because of the way adds, animations, and AEs work. You do tank, but more importantly you control the agro of what you tank. If you are just face tanking it all you are doing it wrong, and a GWF going with 3 CWs isn't "tanking" they are doing AE damage and removing the need to tank (which I will talk about in a second).
I am going to maybe blow some people's minds here with the perceived stupidity of my next statement (though I suspect not the ones that truly understand the game): a defensive GF controls mobs better than a CW if you are only counting 1 GF vs 1 CW. To complete this comparison, we are going to get into mechanics in this game that have nothing to do with the GF, but screw with the GF, but before we do so let us think about another game where the same problem was more obvious.
In Diablo 3, the Barbarian had an AE 3 second stun on a 12 second cool down. This wasn't a popular ability because of mechanics Diablo 3 had, but lets just consider it as it is on paper for a second. If you do the math, you will say, "AEing 3 seconds stuns every 12 seconds implies mobs get to do 75% of their normal damage." But, Diablo is a 4 person game. What happens if you start adding AE stuns? Two in succession reduces a mobs dps over time to 50%. Three in succession lowers it 25%. 4 in succession lowers it to 0, and you get a game where if everyone is hitting an AE CC then the mobs do not get to play at all... At each step of adding an additional person the percentage of effective dps relative to the former step is increasingly disrupted, so that going from 1 person CCing to 2 lowers a mobs dps output over time by 33%. Going from 2 people CCing to 3 lowers a mobs dps output by half, and going that final step just destroys all the mobs dps output. So in Diablo 3 they rightfully invented some mechanics to disrupt chained CCs, so at least the mobs would get to play.
In Neverwinter the effect of stacking CWs is similar though the effects are not as obvious: each additional CW does more for the over-all control of a group than the first one did.
The highend comparison that really screws with the GF is not "this group has 4 people none of them are a CW or GF which should we add for control", but rather, "this group has 4 people and two of them are CW should the last person be a CW or GF?" That last comparison is a no contest for a lot of content: take the CW. There becomes a point where you have so much CC that the mobs don't get to play at all, and that is what I was trying to illustrate with the diablo example where the AE stuns made the effect obvious. It is a little more subtle in Neverwinter because we are talking about 3 singularities in succession on 3 different waves, but the effect is more or less the same. This is before we have even talked about the fact that a CW gets to be offensive speced while it is controlling mobs where as the GF has to throw all his offense out the window to control mobs.
Anyway the guild group I usually play with for t2 is GF, TR, HR, CW, and DC, and my role is control. If you evaluate who in that group offers more mob control it is the GF and not the CW, but that isn't the same as the claim if you remove the GF and stack another CW who would have more control. These are different things!
And you might say, doing all the T2 dungeons isn't high end. Doing them fast is high-end! That was part of my initial point. I read on reddit, "GF is useless you should change to CW" advice given out to a random person. GF are not useless unless you start stacking CWs or doing trivial content imo. At that point they can be easily replaced and appear to have no value.
BTW my remark on this game lets you "screw yourself". I have a pretty poor opinion of the Conqueror tree for PvE. To me a PvE Conqueror GF is just a character that is bad at everything, and you really should reroll. IMO people use it as a stop gap to survive in a 3 CW world which is fair enough, but the problem there is at least with the Protector and Tactician the GF is better at some task than any other class. The Conqueror GF is not only beat at every task by other class, but simultaneously other classes can do everything they do better. At least with the Protector and Tactician you can define things a GF can do better in specific groups in specific dungeons than any other options. I am hard pressed to find that for a Conqueror GF.
I actually really like this analysis.
First of all, I completely agree that "tank" is a misnomer for the Guardian Fighter. A better way of describing their role would be controller/interceptor. Guardian Fighters aren't designed to withstand constant damage. None of the classes are. The Guardian Fighter however can take bursts of extremely powerful hits with little to no consequence. The Guardian Fighter is also an excellent decoy even in teams with control wizards. It's just not apparent all the time because of how much is happening on the screen, but the Guardian Fighter is usually doing more to protect the team than people realize. Most of the mobs will turn towards the Guardian Fighter when the Control Wizard's rotation is down. That's a fact. Those few seconds the mobs are trying to decide who to attack give the Control Wizard precious time to begin their rotation again.
If there are multiple Control Wizards, then the Guardian Fighter does struggle to find its place. However, skills like Into the Fray and the Knight Captain armor can greatly boost the effectiveness of the team in these circumstances. But then another class doing additional damage would probably help the party just as much.
I find usually a Guardian Fighter is only really tanking when the rest of the party is less advanced in their gear and experience. The more experienced Guardian Fighter will have to do more to absorb damage. (That Mad Dragon run was brutal...)
In my opinion, the Guardian Fighter's support role should be expanded. In the example I gave above, Knight Captain Armor and Into the Fray help ensure that a Guardian Fighter stays relevant in a party dominated by powerful DPS characters and Control Wizards. I think the ideal fix would have been to give all the PvE armor party-boosting properties comparable to the Knight Captain's armor set rather than nerf the armor set. So I'm very disappointed in that decision.
Guardian Fighters are already relevant when there is only 1 or no Control Wizards at all. So why not make them relevant when the party is already strong enough?
Your disdain for the Conqueror path illustrates this point. The Guardian Fighter doesn't have enough flexibility to cope with different kinds of parties. Where one path succeeds, the other path fails. And like I said before, creating these paths to be optimal even in that one particular party takes a great deal of planning.
On a personal note, I respect your opinion that the Conqueror path isn't very good, but I'm going to have to disagree. Conqueror Guardian Fighters excel at generating aggro even when the party is doing high DPS. Their increased power also helps give them survivability through Fighter's Recovery. More damage means more powerful self-healing. As for the benefits of the other paths, it's a simple matter to take some of your remaining points once you reach Reckless Attacker and put them into Tactician or Protector to get some of their benefits. And Conqueror still allows you to walk the fence between PvE and PvP.
In that regard I find that the Conqueror path is more flexible and allows room to grow through skill, where as Tactician and Protector are more specialized and less effective in more situations. Not to invalidate your experience, but I've done all the Tier 2 dungeons several times except Temple of the Spider (I've still seen the end of it though), and I've done Malabog's Castle several times and have reached the end of Castle Never.
I'm not saying it's the best path, but I think it's far from "<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> yourself".
xD No hard feelings It has its drawbacks I admit.
Also, I forgot to add that the developer awareness of the Guardian Fighter's issues is a huge relief. I'm glad they know what's going on at least.
Does the amount of damage the guard meter can take scale with character progression e.g. level or stats? If not should it, either in general or perhaps as part of the protector tree.
As a random idea without fully considering the consequences I was wondering about a change to Shieldmaster from a static 2/4/6/8/10% reduction to one that's based on defense, e.g 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0% of defense stat.
I normally only play the basic solo quest content so I'm likely to be playing a different game to those that do PvP and dungeons etc. This is just something I wondered about after trying some of the heroic encounters on Icewind Dale preview and noticing the significant decrease in up-time of my block against the harder hitting enemies.
I don't know whether it's part of the class design to be able to keep your shield up for long periods or whether it's more analogous to the dodge of other classes.
I DO think it's pretty funny that GFs swing their sword less often than GWFs when their weapon must weigh 5 times as much and they only have 2 hands. xD
That could be a solution to the GF issue actually... faster attack speed for at-wills. Cleave/Tide of Iron/Shield Bash/wtvr aren't main damage dealers in PvP, but their damage adds up in PvE. Hmm...
Nothing.
It's like they sit around and go....just ignore them, they will go away.
...to other games.
Tenacity.... My bull charge VERY Rarely knocks someone more than a meter or two. So we really are pretty **** at that now too.
If you help me keep this one alive I'd be happy to. ^^
target cap on enforce threat is absurd it should have no cap or at least a big one (15?)
also, no options of good damage reflection or even control immunity but a slow *** daily we have to use to get our immunity and some dps.
I don't think control alone is the issue.
You can stack more GF (2, 3) and have similar control to having more CWs, but your damage will drop through the floor and things just won't die, because GF damage is just above that of Clerics.
The issue is that Control Wizards have both similar, if not a bit more control than GFs while doing damage on par if not higher than GWFs.
In the past, CW control abilities were nerfed in various patches, and people still stack more CWs, not because of the control (or making up for the lack of it), but because CW has immense AoE (as well as single target) damage in addition to endless sustenance since the intoduction of ever more Gear Score boosting items and Boons (more of which will be added with Module 3). This sustenance is primarily due to life steal, which scales too well with powers that 1.Deal a lot of damage 2. Have a very high (or no) target cap. As a CW, I can cast Sudden Storm or Shard and heal to full with Life Steal. Granted, I can do that with GWF to some extent as well, but not nearly as easily as a CW. As for any other class, they either have slow attacks, comparatively lower damage (once Mod 3 hits for HR), or low target caps, so the effect isn't quite so apparent there.
To make GFs (and other classes) useful, CW damage needs to take a very large hit (and control powers can get slightly higher caps), while Threat mechanics also need some rework to be more Mark/inherent threat based, than damage based. Additionally, Lifesteal needs a rework to not favor high-target cap powers. Maybe even limit the procs to once every 0.2 seconds, so that with multi target powers, you only get life steal from one of them. Afterall, Regeneration only ticks once every 3 seconds as well, because it was too powerful in the past.
The problem with this is that nerfing CW damage will potentially ruin CWs in PvP. CWs are actually somewhat struggling there. GFs can kill them regularly...
Decreasing the CW target cap would decrease both their damage and their control abilities without ruining them in PvP, so I guess that would work. But honestly I'd rather see GFs become more powerful rather than see the other classes nerfed.
Make dungeon with different mobs 1-2 big guys immune to control with a lot of hp, who NEED to be tanked, precisely where some of their attacks must be blocked by the GF shield and suddenly all people are happy, TR included to burst.
Remoove the add fest and CW dammage is absolutely not OP.
CW are doing their role, be efficient against a large number of trash.
GF have nothing to tank in this game, CW faul'ts? certainly not, the GF class need a total rework about tanking or at least some dungeons designed for them.
Example : Blocking a chain lightning attack from a boss, if not he one shoot the whole team, that's the cheap way to increase the GF love especially against bosses.
Actually the CW is a PVP joke, weak with the worst armor, control almost nothing with tenacity-immune-dodge, and now pets and artifacts adding cc resist in world PVP, single target dammage medium, slow, no immunity, no stealth-invisibilty, no heal, slow.
I play a CW since the start i saw all the moove about this class, if they touch our abilities to be efficient againt a large number of trash mobs they will kill the class in PVE, and about PVP it is the worst with the DC.
And about the target cap it was already nerfed by the past, did you see a change about the GF love? NO absolutely nothing.
For example, it's possible to reduce damage done with singularity. It will reduce over-all damage on trash or boss with a lot of add without impacting the control needed. I think there's a lot of other solution.
For PvP, I think the problem isn't in contradiction with PvE. It come from the lack of single target control and burst.
Strangely, CW have one of the biggest single target powers : Ice Knife. But that's all.
Contrary to other class, most damage come from the 4 encounters, not from the At-will. At-will have more a "maintenance" role by putting buff/debuff on target and doing some damage.
Ice ray : why is damage is so low ? It have a good control but require a double key stroke as it's nearly never used on 2 targets. A good change could be to put it single target when on Tab for twice damage.
Ray of Enfeeblement : good overall.
Repel : too much dependent on Arcane Mastery stack for make it useful. Why not increase base length and reduce the length gained through Arcane Mastery stack. or make Arcane Mastery more easy to stack.
Entangling Force : good
There's a problem with reactivity. PvP is all about reactivity but CW is really bad here. Chill Strike have a buggy animation. Most animation are lengthy. Some good power have a charge bar that reduce there usefulness (Ice Strom, Steal time).
CW lack power that can be used without target to counter invisibility.
The oppressor path just lack control, damage buff and foe's debuff.
For boosting Ice Ray, Thaumaturge is needed. And it's Renegade for Ray of Enfeeblement.
If it's good be useful in any way.
Add in the aoe from some of thier dailies and thats even more sources of damage going off all at once all aoe.
and of course cw has lowest defenses its a wizard in what game have they ever had more defensibility than a fighter? if you can name 3 I'll concede that they need more defense.
GF can only use one attack at a time to damage its why cw is so significantly more powerful anyway its a thread about gf not cw.
While they are telling us for ages: "We know you poor GF are in really bad shape at the moment, but we have no plans to change it yet, but we will...".
I just read in the Dev tracker that they have announced BIG changes are planned for the HR after the mod 3.... What the... what about us?
they have not posted anything. I think gf is so far back on the burner that we have ice forming on us. After all this time they could not get hr right. now they have to spend even more time on them, which pushes us even further back in the queue.