Am I the only one?

krubar · March 2013

Am I the only one who likes playing a striker guardian focused on attack feats?

I usually play solo and I find that playing a guardian focused on all attack is fun. I like playing a fighter with sword and shield. Guardians are great at one on one attacks and can do massive damage. There is also the cleave attack that hits everything in front of you which is great for killing minions.

I know I will play a guardian when the game launches and I will focus on doing more damage. I think more damage = more threat. When playing in groups, as long as I can keep the toughest guy in the encounter busy, my other party members can take care of the trash mobs.

Also, I did a skirmish with a party and I think I got the highest damage. Not sure if that was damage taken or how much damage I did. Thought it was the damage I did but I could be wrong. One thing you can do is get a ioun stone or a cat and put runestones and equipment on it. You then get all the stats added to your character. I had a ioun stone with two lvl 3 empower runestones and a ring with 350hps enchantment. The ring and runestones gave me about 350 power but the 350 hps on the ring didnt transfer to my character. I had like 700 power at lvl 20. Had more power than I had defense. Tried adding in experience runestones but they did not add onto my character. You can really enchance yourself with a ioun stone.

cerek2 · March 2013

I thought about doing the same as you. I get the concept entirely. The problem you'll face is, when grouping, people are going to expect you to be all defensive and holding agro. They'll look at you like you're nuts for being an offensive version of the only real tank in the game. It sucks, I don't agree with it at all, but I just know how people think. Trust me, the moment your tanking isn't up to speed or if you take offensive feats instead of agro feats, the Clerics are going to scream bloody murder on how you're a bad tank when you lose aggro.

I don't agree with any of it, this is just my experience with MMO gaming for the last 15 years, lol.

krubar · March 2013

Well, it is impossible to keep aggro on all mobs in a encounter. That is why I will just focus on the toughest guy. I think most of our encounter abilities is single target. I just think things are different with this game. Healers don't do all the healing. You use heal pots instead a lot of the time. And tanks can't keep aggro on all mobs.

I think I can be just as good at tanking as someone who focuses on defense. I can put points into increased defense and increased damage for at-will powers. Just need to skip the aggro feats.

Will I have the aggro as someone focused on aggro threat? No. But I think I will be a good tank with bosses. My primary focus will be solo play anyways. Maybe once I hit lvl 60 I might respec to a completely tank build. If a party asked if I am focused on tanking, I will say yes :P, although I won't be. I dont think you can check peoples specs can you?

bjac9 · March 2013

Sadly the conqueror feats aren't too good at the moment, some of them even require you to make really risky plays in order to get benefits

tibberton1 · March 2013

There's a conversation about these things in a different thread. Going DPS as the trees currently stand cause you to waste feat points, because the capstone ability on conqueror takes away a lot of the benefit of blocking... which makes a lot of feats less worthwhile to take. Also, by committing to conqueror's play style, you lose a lot of choice and freedom in the feats tree, which almost forces you to take certain feats, which - in turn - locks you into particular skills.

I'm hopeful that with the fix to threat, you'd be able to DPS your way through tanking. It would have you taking more damage when you get hit, because you will be blocking less, since - if you block - it will reduce your effectiveness because you'll lose overall damage. With some of the feats, and cleave, if they up the threat on our attacks (which honestly should be a thing that they do, if I was to offer suggestions), it could be viable. But even if it's viable, building the GF that way wastes feat points. If you go more traditional tank, you don't waste feat points. Which makes a traditional tank more efficient, and is a shame.

krubar · March 2013

Don't understand why you are saying I would waste feat points when I will have extra feat points to use that I am not using in threat generation. I will put those into attack feats. I will still put points into defense too. I am mainly talking about the epic feats. I have not gotten into the paragon trees yet because I only got to lvl 23.

Really wish someone had a character feats and paragon feats generator so I could compare the feats. Or at least a list of the feats in each paragon path. If there is a list someone post a link.

I like being different so I will most likely focus on attack and might go counqueror just to be different.

sephere · March 2013

I don't think that's too strange, maybe throw in a few defense feats so you can survive better,
and if you can do massive damage by being a damage spec, that might help maintain the bosses attention

I played as a dps (rogue), and when the tank was focused on the boss I would go into stealth and quickly take out the smaller monsters around the cleric, and when there's just the boss left, I would focus on that.
The dps and control wizards can take care of the smaller monsters,
and as long as you can maintain the bosses aggro and survive the hits ok,
then I think you should be ok in a group, as a damage spec.

Maybe, if you get higher level, the more elitist players might complain,
but if you can keep the bosses attention, well that's the most important part of the class, anyway

labbb · March 2013

You will get attacks that generate agro later . they do little damage BUT they will let you hold agro with dps build. AT 35 I had 4 I would use both mouse buttons , E , and 1 . The 1 was an area smash . I would try less of them unless my group had allot of dps . But I was mostly dps build and I could hold agro . Of course your dps goes way down with the lame agro attacks , but hey you have to make some sacrifices for the group . Early on you just have ' mark target ' which seemed to quit working well at about level 28 .

tibberton1 · March 2013

From the other thread, here was my breakdown of the feat tree, building towards conqueror. Remember, that conqueror's capstone ability gives you more damage based on a full guard meter. So that by blocking, you are reducing your damage output.

You don't want to take action surge, because you don't want to block that often, because that massively reduces your damage bonus from Reckless Attacker. So you are going to take the 3 points in Strength focus and 2 in toughness, I assume. Those points in toughness are meh - extra HP is extra HP.

In the next tier, you have distracting shield, which doesn't jive with Cruel Cut Style. CCS rewards Cleave damage, DS rewards shield damage. I mean, you could take both, but my assumption is you are going to Tide of Iron for the weakened debuff, and then cleave. Most trash pulls and most bosses have enough adds that cleave would give you more bang for your buck. So now you can toss an extra point into toughness, and take the AC/Defense bonus. If you go that route, you still have a stray point that you have to toss somewhere.

In the next tier, 3 points is going towards extra threat gen. This might not be as vital if they fix cleric aggro, but it was pretty much mandatory over the weekend. Then you have Powerful Attack, which increases primary weapon damage. This goes great with the cleave ability later in the tree, but compounds the problem of wasted talent points earlier in the tree.

So far, I have you at:

3/3 Strength Focus and 2/3 Toughness (Unlocks second tier)
3/3 Armor Specialization, 3/3 Toughness, 1/whatever (Unlocks third tier)
3/3 Potent Challenge and 2/5 Powerful Attack (Unlocks fourth tier)
5/5 Powerful Attack and 2/3 Weapon Mastery (Finishes off the first half of the talent tree)

You have points that are going towards a sub-par feat (Toughness), and that are going to be wasted somewhere along the way. The extra feat points from Humans both mitigates some of the problem, but also doesn't really help... because, still, where are you going to put them? And by this point, you're missing out on: AP generating from block, extra damage on shield, extra benefit from healing, and increased resistance to combat advantage. If you've done any of the bosses, you'll know that getting swarmed by adds from behind you happens. You're taking more damage in that situation. The Human feat doesn't give you enough points to mitigate that.

labbb points out the first issues with the concept: you are going to have to sacrifice damage for aggro generation later, which starts undermining your intended build. Additionally, as pointed out above, you are putting feat points into talents like toughness (extra stamina / extra HP in any MMO by end game is not really worthwhile, without damage mitigation to go with it), as well as having stray talent points that just sort of go wherever. Once you get into the paragon paths, most of the talents do not synchronize well with DPS'ing to hold threat. They just don't. And if you take the DPS enhancing abilities, you are not left with much choice while building, you miss out of good survival options, and you are pretty much locked into particular powers.

Going more traditional tank is a lot cleaner, with much higher efficiency in your point spend.

To be clear: I think this is a shame, and I think it's something - as a community - we should provide feedback on. I want your plan to be as viable as possible. It's just, as it stood on BW3, building for DPS lacked synergy within the feat trees, was less efficient, and ultimately didn't work (hopefully that has more to do with broken aggro than with the build itself). Even if it is broken aggro, though, the previous points still exist.

krubar · March 2013

Well I just dont believe you that it will not work.

Also, your theory might be fine for you but I prefer to make my own build not the suggestions you said.

If you got the feats wrote down, can you make a thread that says what feats we get in each epic feat lvl and how many points can we put into each feat? You know, first row has three feats and they are....

Also, can you do the same with paragon paths?

I dont want to do what everyone else thinks is the best build, I want to make my own.

tibberton1 · March 2013

You seem to have taken my posts as some sort of challenge towards your selected play style. I was hopeful that what I said after "to be clear" would alleviate that feeling. I *want* you to play a DPS guardian. I *want* that to be successful. I *want* that to be viable. I *want* the feat spending for that to be not-wasteful. I *want* the capstone ability not to undermine the mechanic of the entire class. I *want* playing a DPS guardian to be variable instead of locked into certain powers / feats.

You're totally free to choose however you want to choose. In your current state, it's not as viable as other choices. Because the dev team has made those choices very effective, and your choices significantly less so.

If you were purely solo'ing or purely PVP'ing, this might not be a huge deal. You're still going to have to spend points in the feat build that are wasted or unnecessary, but you won't have to worry about holding aggro (except maybe if you have a cleric companion, lol)... but once you start talking about going into dungeons, you have to understand that you have limitations and that - in its current state - the class is well built around blocking and not well built around damage.

That's not a knock on you. That's not a knock on your choice. It's honest and frank commentary on what I see as a paragon path that wasn't given the same attention as the others.

I've stated this in multiple threads now, and nobody has disputed it with actual game play, or math, or anecdotal evidence to the contrary. It's stood - uncontested - for days now. You can ignore it, and still do what you want to do. If somebody can disprove it, I'll change my stance (happily). You may not LIKE what I have said, but not liking it doesn't disprove it.

krubar · March 2013

I just dont like being told this will work and this will not work. I prefer to choose my own path, my own feats.

I think a guardian can be made to do as much damage as a dps class. Like I said earlier or in another thread, you can get a ioun stone and stack power on it so that you do more damage. Imagine adding +400 or so power from a ioun stone onto your character. Or +800 power. It is possible, I tried it. You can even add that much power when you are lvl 1.

Anyways, to each his own. I will play my way and the rest of you can play tanks. The whole point is to play what you enjoy playing.

Would be awesome if you could post all the feats for guardians, and the paragon feats. Or if someone else could. Wish I would have wrote them down.

bjac9 · March 2013

He didn't say it wouldnt work, he only said that at the moment the conqueror feats and the heroic feats dont support dps guardian.

dollahz · March 2013

Here you go krubar http://nwowiki.co/index.php?title=Guardian_Fighter .

kwsapphire · March 2013

All classes and all builds are welcome on Repeat Offenders teams. As long as you're participating (i.e. not going AFK 90% of the time), and as long as you're working with the team (and not going Leeroy Jenkins every fight) - you're welcome to join us.

We do have some min/maxers, but Repeat Offenders is about teamwork and having fun. If you want to go full-DPS on your guardian fighter (or Cleric, even), great! If you wanted to go full-support on a Rogue (I know, not possible, just saying), we'd be cool with that too! Play the character you want to play, and let's kick some NPC butt!!

krubar · March 2013

Awesome wiki. Thanks a bunch.

dollahz · March 2013

I remember you, kwsapphire!

~Azari

krubar · March 2013

A tactitian build looks interesting. Wish it had the improved damage for cleave like conqueror tree has.

After looking at that wiki, I can think of several dps builds for guardian that might work. Actually they are dual role builds focused on dps but can tank too.

bjac9 · March 2013

I just hope they release an official tree that you can check online and pick feats and stuff.

zingarbage · March 2013

Since you mentioned this, I went to check out the feats and it looks like GFs can build to have some burst. If I have this right, you can get up to 175% extra damage with 100% more power on top of that for some burst attacks. I'd be interested to see how that works out in pvp.

krubar · March 2013

Shh. Don't tell everyone. Now people are gonna wanna be a dps guardian and I want to be the only one. :P

krubar · March 2013

Really wish the +5 to ac was in the heroic feats instead of in the protector feats.

zingarbage · March 2013

krubar wrote: »

Really wish the +5 to ac was in the heroic feats instead of in the protector feats.

How exactly does AC work? How much damage reduction do you get by raising it?

kwsapphire · March 2013

dollahz wrote: »

I remember you, kwsapphire!

~Azari

Hi Azari! I'm glad you remember me, I definitely remember you too! I put your gold to good use, and will be posting screenshots of all the horse coats later tonight! ^_^

(We now return you to the topic already in progress...)

krubar · March 2013

I dont know how AC works but it has gotta be really good to get +5 AC.

tibberton1 · March 2013

Ok. Took me awhile to find anything approximating an answer for you on AC, and what I could find was horribly outdated, and is going to be marginally helpful. But I'll put it out there anyways.

My concern was defense, since that's the end stat that focuses on damage mitigation. And you don't really itemize for AC (which feeds into defense), because higher level armors have more AC so it just sort of passively increases. I didn't see any AC runes in all my time in three beta weekends, so if they exist, somebody please correct me. Long story short, I did not focus on the AC stat at all. So I had to go hunting for information (which is still scarce).

I found a video from the first beta weekend of a guardian fighter at level 30 that had 24 AC (confirmed that he had no points spent in AC increasing talents but goodness did I have to squint). So at that point in time, 5 AC would be approximately a 20.8% increase in AC, which would feed into your defense - do not know if that percentage translates directly at a 1:1 rate.

If anybody was more diligent about taking down details of that mechanic, or can clarify some of my holes, would be awesome.

krubar · March 2013

Well I had about that much ac on my guardian too. Lvl 23.

When you compare what other classes get for ac, +5 is a lot. GWF probably gets like 10 ac.

Anyways, a 21% increase in defense is nice. AC might be a multiplier for defense though.

tibberton1 · March 2013

Bear in mind, that's 21ish% at level 30, which is halfway to level 60. It might not have so much bang for the buck at later levels, but I'm having a heck of a time finding anything beyond the level 30 mark with actual information.

krubar · March 2013

Well what you get at lvl 30 for ac is probably close to max. I think higher lvl armors just have higher defense. The best shield has +6 ac and at lvl 30 you are already getting, I think, +4 shields.

I am referring to the +6 nightmare shield at the trade bar merchant.

Am I the only one?

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