test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Guardian Fighter - Don't work well as Tanks 20% too high / Block Immunity not always working
Ava
Member Posts: 20 Arc User
If this has been addressed in another post, feel free to tell me and I'll post a comment on the other one. I couldn't find a post about this but it is an issue that many have addressed in game.
I understand the need to have healers be required in dungeons, however, this 20% of damage going through a Guardian Fighter's shield is way too much. You have Paladins out tanking Guardian Fighters and I remember watching the Paladin stream with the devs stating that that would not happen. There are WAY less Guardian Fighters now because they do not tank very well. I'm not a bad tank either. The issue that continues to happen is that while maintaining aggression from enemies/critters they will surround the GF. Once surrounded the enemies in front of the shield are doing 20% damage and the ones behind are the GF have combat advantage. Even with the feat to reduce the effectiveness of combat advantage against you, the damage is still too much to handle. Backing away to keep enemies in front does not work because they speed up to stay behind you, and the moment an enemy's strong attack hits your shield (mainly the bigger enemies, you take almost your entire health bar in damage then the critters in front of your shield finish you off. It used to be that your stamina would drain when enemies attacked your shield but it was 100% block or something close to that if I'm misremembering the amount blocked. I understand the need to change that due to overwhelming amounts of critters draining the stamina too fast, however the other system was a lot better. I believe a much better solution would be to implement the old system and slow down stamina drain from attacks on the shield or reduce the amount that goes through the shield from 20% to 5% or at most 10%. Guardian Fighters would still need healers as the party cannot be sustained by a Guardian Fighter since they cannot provide healing to the party. (If the reason for the Blocking mechanic change from "drain on damage taken" to "percent of damage now goes through shield" was due to Guardian Fighters having too much defense then a happy medium is honestly a reduction in that amount. GF's should still need healers, but when you can't take on critters because they all attack for so much through the shield, that makes for an extremely underwhelming "Tank". To sum this up with a final thought for whoever is reading this and hopefully you've gone through this entire novel of a feedback, think about it this way.
Guardian Fighter takes 20% damage (1/5), has 15 enemies attacking him. They will automatically attempt to surround, which results in about 8 in front of shield's effecting "blocking area" and about 7 behind him or just out of his effective "blocking area". That means that after all is said and done, it's as though he is taking damage from a total of 9.6 enemies without having a shield. The way this is figured is that if 1/5 damage is blocked, every 5 critters is a full critter's amount of damage. There are a lot of critters in this game, 15 is a small example. Imagine dungeons with more that that many around you at once. Even getting out of AoE's will not save you. I hope I've been able to explain this well enough, and I hope it gives enough detail as well. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Scott is an amazing director and has turned this game around in so many good ways. I can tell he actually cares and listens and has a lot to fix and has shown that he is actually doing what he promised to do when he came into this game. I have faith that this will be addressed at some point. Hopefully he's are now if he wasn't already. I hope this one comes soon! Thanks, again!
Block Immunity:
Guardian Fighters are always slowed then eventually stunned/stuck in place inside of spider web AoE's, even while blocking. They should be immune, it even says immune while blocking but it doesn't work. Not sure if this was intentional but please fix this, if it was not intentional).
Guardian Fighters are slowed then eventually frozen by Control Wizards "chill" stacks. They go through the shield block and at the normal 6 stacks GF's are frozen. This happens even when you were blocking the entire cycle of attacks. The damage is reduced but chill stacks still are applied regardless of you blocking the attacks and you are then frozen. Immunity is not working correctly for this either. The patch went out to fix this happening on other classes while they are immune, but now Guardian Fighters are having this bug happen to them.
I understand the need to have healers be required in dungeons, however, this 20% of damage going through a Guardian Fighter's shield is way too much. You have Paladins out tanking Guardian Fighters and I remember watching the Paladin stream with the devs stating that that would not happen. There are WAY less Guardian Fighters now because they do not tank very well. I'm not a bad tank either. The issue that continues to happen is that while maintaining aggression from enemies/critters they will surround the GF. Once surrounded the enemies in front of the shield are doing 20% damage and the ones behind are the GF have combat advantage. Even with the feat to reduce the effectiveness of combat advantage against you, the damage is still too much to handle. Backing away to keep enemies in front does not work because they speed up to stay behind you, and the moment an enemy's strong attack hits your shield (mainly the bigger enemies, you take almost your entire health bar in damage then the critters in front of your shield finish you off. It used to be that your stamina would drain when enemies attacked your shield but it was 100% block or something close to that if I'm misremembering the amount blocked. I understand the need to change that due to overwhelming amounts of critters draining the stamina too fast, however the other system was a lot better. I believe a much better solution would be to implement the old system and slow down stamina drain from attacks on the shield or reduce the amount that goes through the shield from 20% to 5% or at most 10%. Guardian Fighters would still need healers as the party cannot be sustained by a Guardian Fighter since they cannot provide healing to the party. (If the reason for the Blocking mechanic change from "drain on damage taken" to "percent of damage now goes through shield" was due to Guardian Fighters having too much defense then a happy medium is honestly a reduction in that amount. GF's should still need healers, but when you can't take on critters because they all attack for so much through the shield, that makes for an extremely underwhelming "Tank". To sum this up with a final thought for whoever is reading this and hopefully you've gone through this entire novel of a feedback, think about it this way.
Guardian Fighter takes 20% damage (1/5), has 15 enemies attacking him. They will automatically attempt to surround, which results in about 8 in front of shield's effecting "blocking area" and about 7 behind him or just out of his effective "blocking area". That means that after all is said and done, it's as though he is taking damage from a total of 9.6 enemies without having a shield. The way this is figured is that if 1/5 damage is blocked, every 5 critters is a full critter's amount of damage. There are a lot of critters in this game, 15 is a small example. Imagine dungeons with more that that many around you at once. Even getting out of AoE's will not save you. I hope I've been able to explain this well enough, and I hope it gives enough detail as well. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Scott is an amazing director and has turned this game around in so many good ways. I can tell he actually cares and listens and has a lot to fix and has shown that he is actually doing what he promised to do when he came into this game. I have faith that this will be addressed at some point. Hopefully he's are now if he wasn't already. I hope this one comes soon! Thanks, again!
Block Immunity:
Guardian Fighters are always slowed then eventually stunned/stuck in place inside of spider web AoE's, even while blocking. They should be immune, it even says immune while blocking but it doesn't work. Not sure if this was intentional but please fix this, if it was not intentional).
Guardian Fighters are slowed then eventually frozen by Control Wizards "chill" stacks. They go through the shield block and at the normal 6 stacks GF's are frozen. This happens even when you were blocking the entire cycle of attacks. The damage is reduced but chill stacks still are applied regardless of you blocking the attacks and you are then frozen. Immunity is not working correctly for this either. The patch went out to fix this happening on other classes while they are immune, but now Guardian Fighters are having this bug happen to them.
It would be meaningless to fight with you now. You're too scared and ashamed. Live with the shock. Keep it bottled up inside you. Silently.
-Goku-
-Goku-
0
Comments
If 15 enemies are on you, it is matter how you implement aggro management and coordinate it with rest of team.
All mod6/7 experience is bad for tanks, since they suffer from damage resistance bug. It is more like feature to ensure a team with low DPS never drop T2 boss (like in few hours) because sooner or later tank dies.
— (The unwritten rule)
Frankly before tinkering with adjustments to hardness of these things.. FIX this and bam, things are much more doable for everyone.
The boards have been saying `there is way less Guardian Fighters now because they suck` for this or that since I started playing.
Yes, GFs have always been the red-headed step children of NWO. Some parties see me joining the group and instantly leave before my screen loads.
IMO, their real potential is kept locked down because some think the block is OP in PVP. I think most class nerfs come from PVP whining. But staying invisible 100% of the time is ok though...geez
I can deal with the 20% getting through the block (it used to be 100% blocked). My main gripe is the 100% damage getting through while blocking which I've seen numerous times in the combat logs. It's broken and will probably remain broken.
Mod 6 really borked the class to a whole new level.
-The DR bug is still there so we can die in a single hit we don't even see. Bug threads
-Defense stat got nerfed.
-Enemy arm-pen skyrocketed. Why have defense at all?
-Our feats/stats are just hosed.
--Our HP feat doesn't work with the new mod 6 gear. Bug thread
--Amour specialization doesn't work. Bug thread
--Steal Defense is bugged. Bug Thread
--Iron Warrior takes too long and will kill you more then save you.
--Most HP comes from gear and not constitution any more, so our primary stat is useless.
--Strength focus (15% STR increase) translates to less then 4% DMG, so probably broken. Just confirmed.
-Our block radius got cut to less then half, but OP can block 360 (while healing).
-Mob AI got smart and tries to flank us constantly for combat advantage. Didn't used to.
-Mark duration got cut.
-Mod 6 gear does not give proportional HP for tanks.
-Conqueror capstone got hella-nerfed. (It used to give lots of power).
The list goes on and on....
So to summarize, all our best tanking abilities where changed, broken, or taken away and given to the OP and we got a damage increase to lessen complaining from the last 16 guys still playing the class.
So we're a hybrid semi dps/semi tank class now, when Mod 6 pushed parties back into the holy trinity of needing a strict tank, healer, dps, etc. When LFG calls go out for a tank, they specifically say OP.
My GF is under a city overpass right now with a sign on his neck saying he'll tank for food LOL.
Of course it's not just that, there are bugs that have to be fixed, sometimes I notice I take way more damage than I should in dungeon delves. Then after the first wipe, the damage I take is back to normal (scorpions hitting for 60k with block before wipe and for 8k after wipe). Something is off.
It is not the way that I implement aggro. The issue is simple. Enemies will surround you and you cannot keep them all in front of your shield. They speed up to a point where it is not possible to keep them away from your back. Of course you want to keep the enemies away from your back. The problem is that they "snap" into positions around you. It is impossible to do that now. Take the quest for the Class Artifact. Those spiders move at a tremendous speed around you and attack immediately. I was fighting 3 enemies. 2 where spiders. One spider fly around me so quickly. It was instant, then attacked and kept moving to my backside. There was no way to move quick enough to keep them in front. And it's not about party coordination. GF's would always be able to keep adds in front by being tactical, moving back, using other abilities as well. The issue is not about low dps not winning either. The fact of the matter is, if the requirement is low, then low should be able to win. That's a whole other subject though.
Hop on a tank, grab 2 enemies and one will try to get behind you and will get a speed boost like companions do when they try to catch up to you and it will get behind you. You cannot avoid this. Certain enemies are easier to keep in front but most enemies you cannot do anything about. I'm not a crappy tank either. I did very well for so long and was always able to keep adds in front of me and at least survive one or two getting behind then re-positioning them back to the front. Enemies instantly "snapping" to your back is ridiculous. It's unavoidable and they will always surround you now, no matter how good a tank you are. I'm not dumb, I don't LET them do anything. It's totally out of the GF's control now.
-Goku-
THANK YOU! The AI is ridiculous. That NEVER used to happen like that. It is unbearably constant. There is no let up for them flanking. There's no way not to keep them in front through any technique. They will ALWAYS surround you and you have no way at all to avoid it. They are essentially glued to your back. Didn't know about the block radius getting cut down. That explains a lot, and yeah the HP from gear is no where near reasonable. It's not much more than TR gear's HP boost.
-Goku-
Easiest solution for all this is to just buff defense so you can survive a hit with shield down, but your life will go down quickly if you dont bring up your shield.
Don't expect a balance patch anytime soon though, this topic has come up during MOD5 release, and there has been zero word from devs.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
As for the class balance or whatever the devs call it now, it's pretty pathetic. The fighter class isn't a hard class to balance especially when you have so much D&D source material out there. The problem is that career PvP players keep complaining and then the elitist people complain, and so forth that the class takes a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> and now it's "Homer Car." Yes, the fighters in this game are <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> and should be redone.
Having worked at other studios, I'm surprised to see Cryptic drag their feet on this one; other studios tend to address these issues rather quickly.
I put a lot into buffing defense, but its still the same. My GF getting hit when shield is not up is pretty much a one-shotter most of the time, even from critters. Iron Warrior helps, but you need to stand still for like two full seconds to activate. If you activate and move too soon after, it doesn't activate.
— (The unwritten rule)
It's just an added stat to other defensive gear I currently have.
This stat enables me to regen something about 10k HP per tick. Giving us in combat regen will make the game a cakewalk.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
I rejoiced when we finally got our blocking tied to stamina, instead of the flat hp's rate our shield basically had before with 100%. So we blocked 100% dmg but our shield had x amount of hp's that regen at a certain rate.
Now it's directly tied to stamina, so no matter how many people are striking you, your shield guage lowers at the same rate. However they put a big hole in our shield causing us to only stop 80%. Then they went and nerfed regen and lifesteal into the ground so it went from important stats to useless. Those things all added up on us, and yes a BIG part of why we have that dumb 80% is because of pvp. This is why we should have seperate gear for PvP versus PvE so you can give them different stats and have them work differently.
What needs to happen is to return to 100% blocking for GF, I mean we already got a lower frontal cone for our block. (which is basically useless beyond 3 enemies now) So why shouldn't we at least be able to block 100% from the 3 guys standing in front of us. I have some limited success using the right mouse click to quickly shield bash enemies in the circle surrounding me. This quickly turns me to face whoever is using their red skill on me, but all the small hits still add up badly. I mean when you're blocking by the way, not the slower shield bash.
All in all GF needs a lot of improvements, even after they finally get around to fixing all the bugs with our class. That AP bug first and foremost needs to go, it's like we don't even have armor at all sometimes and it just causes wipes in dungeons where you should have won. Even for Paladins they get affected by the AP bug. Getting one shotted while you have full hp's, full bubble hp's and full temp hit points, plus you are blocking, and using a 50% dmg reduction daily skill should simply not happen...
Search @Longshire for 12 Foundry Quests, all are story driven adventures
Story -- Medium/Heavy, Combat -- Light/Medium, Lore -- Medium/Heavy
-Steel defense can fail to activate, i have to assign a new passive then change it back to steel defense to get it working again.
-Knight's valor can bug up when partied with a OP, it will prevent you from interacting with objects and/or riding your mount.
-Knight's valor sometimes deactivates on it's own.
Aside from that GF's are pretty ok, some parties tell me they prefer GF because aggro is more controlled compared to OP, of course we can't heal ourselves.
Giving the GF in combat healing would be a terrible idea. It's really easy to make yourself a turtle with well over 4k regen. With the HP we have it will be up of 14k HP regen ticks - OP as hell.
Pre mod6 Life Steal was so broken I can't find the words to describe it. Whoever stacked it was an immortal God. If they bring it back - I quit.
There's really no rocket science needed to build a protector GF that will never have it shield depleted to max. There are numerous skills/boons/feats that will boost your shield to very high durability piece of metal/dragon bone
I personally don't have an issue with loosing 20% of the block. A bit of practice and it's easy to maintain a full block meter.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
It is not the way that I implement aggro. The issue is simple. Enemies will surround you and you cannot keep them all in front of your shield. They speed up to a point where it is not possible to keep them away from your back. Of course you want to keep the enemies away from your back. The problem is that they "snap" into positions around you. It is impossible to do that now. Take the quest for the Class Artifact. Those spiders move at a tremendous speed around you and attack immediately. I was fighting 3 enemies. 2 where spiders. One spider fly around me so quickly. It was instant, then attacked and kept moving to my backside. There was no way to move quick enough to keep them in front. And it's not about party coordination. GF's would always be able to keep adds in front by being tactical, moving back, using other abilities as well. The issue is not about low dps not winning either. The fact of the matter is, if the requirement is low, then low should be able to win. That's a whole other subject though.
Hop on a tank, grab 2 enemies and one will try to get behind you and will get a speed boost like companions do when they try to catch up to you and it will get behind you. You cannot avoid this. Certain enemies are easier to keep in front but most enemies you cannot do anything about. I'm not a crappy tank either. I did very well for so long and was always able to keep adds in front of me and at least survive one or two getting behind then re-positioning them back to the front. Enemies instantly "snapping" to your back is ridiculous. It's unavoidable and they will always surround you now, no matter how good a tank you are. I'm not dumb, I don't LET them do anything. It's totally out of the GF's control now.
Here's a tip, go round in circles
In PvE, Fighter's Recovery and Guarded Assault are all you need as well as a healthy supply of stamina, for those new to GF Iron Warrior is excellent but it does leave you vulnerable with it's incredibly slow animation, the Iron Vanguard can counter this with Frontline Surge, it has an incredibly quick animation and flattens everything not cc immune/resistant, immediately.
They need to buff the Guardians instead of nerfing the one class that actually works as a Tank right now. Nerfing the Paladin would mean neither tank class can do it's job well.
Putting the shield back to 100% dmg reduction would go a long way to helping since you can get hit from behind by several skills even while blocking. Aoe's for example like the TR smoke cloud will hit you whether you block or not, because the attack comes up from the ground, not at you.
Changing some of the Guardians feats and skills for protecting their teammates would be a good thing as well. While also looking at ways to improve their ability to taunt, that don't require slotting main skills. Paladins can effectively taunt using class features and feats, that option really isn't there for Guardians at the moment. The best way to keep a boss on you is to take the chance popping Iron warrior for the 300% threat bonus, and then go on a stab over your shield spree. For taunting multiple enemies you need to use main skills that taunt everything, and mark them. It would be better if Guardians could also use feats and class features to taunt, so they can free up their skill slots more.
I do like some of the changes they made such as the Damage reduction bonuses on some skills for awhile, like after the taunt dash it boosts DR 30% for a few seconds, since my Guardian has 50% DR to begin with this puts him at 80% while not blocking. Iron Warrior is even higher and lasts longer so you are able to avoid having to block for awhile if you wanted to.
I think with a few buffs to their skills, and especially to their feats and class features, it would allow them to tank and taunt more effectively and bring them in line with Paladins.
Search @Longshire for 12 Foundry Quests, all are story driven adventures
Story -- Medium/Heavy, Combat -- Light/Medium, Lore -- Medium/Heavy
When i see paladin taking tank and heal place, doing 360 bump in pvp and in god mod, tr and wizard they tanks and still have dps, i dont recognise the game at begining where trinity was still working.
U cant block if enemi is far from u, u cant block all controles (root or freeze), u cant use skill when u block, u are a victim in pvp in fact. In dongeon it is same,but enemis focus your back and one shoot u, even if u block u take lot of damage.
It is crazy to see that the stronger class at beginning of game has become so weak. Money kill everything...