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Sword and boardery or How to play the guardian fighter effectively
unjustblade
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 91
So after getting my fighter to level 14 and coming to terms with it's and the games mechanics, I thought I would share what I've learned to help out anyone else who may be having trouble or who is interested in giving the class a shot.
1: The Basics
The GF is a tank. Duh.
2: A guard by any other name...
By holding down shift you are able to guard against attacks in an approximate 180 arc in front of you. Know that you cannot guard immediately in the middle of an attack animation. Note that that your guard is capable of blocking ANYTHING. Traps, magic, ogre clubs, you name it, as long as your guard meter can take it. As a GF, your guard meter is extremely important as guarding is your primary means of not dying. The more powerful the attack that is blocked, the more guard meter will be drained from you. If your guard meter is drained completely, you cannot guard until your guard meter is full again.
If this happens while you are still in combat, the only way you will be able to fill your guard meter again is through attacks that you should have been using to keep your guard meter up in the first place, such as Shield Bash, Enforced Threat and Shield Slam.
3: Do not cross the red line!
Large mobs (enemies that do not die by you looking at them the wrong way) all have powerful attacks they can use against you. All of these attacks are telegraphed. Either by certain movements, shiny lights, a large red area on the ground indicating the area the attack will hit or a combination of the three. These attacks, being more powerful will of course take more of your guard meter to block and more of your hp if they connect.
4: How to diffuse a nuke
So you have three options when facing these moves. A) you absorb it with your shield.
you lower your shield and step out of the area of effect. C) stun them out of it. Let's break down each and look at their pros and cons and when you'd want to use each.
A) Guarding:
This should be your choice if
1) You have the guard meter to take the hits and/or
2) you are at low health
3) You cannot get out of the AoE in time.
4) It's a self cast AoE IE the enemy is at the center of their own aoe. You cannot move out of those in time.
-- A no-brainer right? Well a lot of people guard no matter the situation... Like in the two below where you wouldn't want to...
Lowering your shield to sidestep and move behind an opponent.
This should be your choice if:
1) There is only one large mob and your stun/daze is on cd.
2) If there are multiple large mobs, you know the delay on their heavy hits and can time it correctly to get behind them.
3) Trying to conserve guard meter.
4) You have enough HP to take any hits that might land.
-- A very oft overlooked option. Do not stand there and get pummeled until your guard meter is gone. Wait for them to telegraph their heavy attacks, then sidestep them and move into position behind and punish with a shield bash + your heavy attacks. Always guard at the edge of an AoE as you are moving out since you will often take a few hits due to latency. Remember to lower your shield for the first few moments you are moving out of the AoE so you can move at full speed.
Also, please note that option is to SIDE-STEP. DO NOT try to back out of an AoE. You won't make it without taking damage.
C) Stun.
This should be your choice if
1) It's off CD.
2) If there are multiple large mobs, you are not concerned about possibly eating the other's heavy attacks or you are pretty sure you're out of reach.
3) You have the hp/guard meter to get out of the way because...
-- Be advised that this only INTERRUPTS their attack. They will still use a heavy attack almost immediately after the stun wears off, so you should already be moving to the side to avoid, be guarding or both.
--- General Tips ---
- Always try to kill the grunts first. This does two things. 1) It gets rid of their damage and 2) makes it easier to concentrate on the large mob and spot his attacks.
- Save your heavy attacks for the large mob in the group. Your AoE taunt and 2-3 hits of cleave should be enough to take out the trash.
- Do not spam attacks, this can leave you open.
- Go into a group of mobs with your guard up. Get a feel for the delay on their attacks, then attack in between theirs. I usually find that unless the enemies attacks are staggered, I can get in 2-3 hits of cleave or another attack and 1 cleave before I have to get my guard up taking zero to minimal damage.
- As noted by gillrmn, guarding against damage helps to fill your daily gauge.
- Enemies behind you gain combat advantage AKA beating the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> out of you more effectively. Keep them in front of you and your shield.
- Playing as a fighter, knowing the delay and range of an enemy's attack is paramount. Luckily your shield allows you to find all of that out with little to no risk. Be observant!
1: The Basics
The GF is a tank. Duh.
2: A guard by any other name...
By holding down shift you are able to guard against attacks in an approximate 180 arc in front of you. Know that you cannot guard immediately in the middle of an attack animation. Note that that your guard is capable of blocking ANYTHING. Traps, magic, ogre clubs, you name it, as long as your guard meter can take it. As a GF, your guard meter is extremely important as guarding is your primary means of not dying. The more powerful the attack that is blocked, the more guard meter will be drained from you. If your guard meter is drained completely, you cannot guard until your guard meter is full again.
If this happens while you are still in combat, the only way you will be able to fill your guard meter again is through attacks that you should have been using to keep your guard meter up in the first place, such as Shield Bash, Enforced Threat and Shield Slam.
3: Do not cross the red line!
Large mobs (enemies that do not die by you looking at them the wrong way) all have powerful attacks they can use against you. All of these attacks are telegraphed. Either by certain movements, shiny lights, a large red area on the ground indicating the area the attack will hit or a combination of the three. These attacks, being more powerful will of course take more of your guard meter to block and more of your hp if they connect.
4: How to diffuse a nuke
So you have three options when facing these moves. A) you absorb it with your shield.
you lower your shield and step out of the area of effect. C) stun them out of it. Let's break down each and look at their pros and cons and when you'd want to use each.A) Guarding:
This should be your choice if
1) You have the guard meter to take the hits and/or
2) you are at low health
3) You cannot get out of the AoE in time.
4) It's a self cast AoE IE the enemy is at the center of their own aoe. You cannot move out of those in time.
-- A no-brainer right? Well a lot of people guard no matter the situation... Like in the two below where you wouldn't want to...
Lowering your shield to sidestep and move behind an opponent.This should be your choice if:
1) There is only one large mob and your stun/daze is on cd.
2) If there are multiple large mobs, you know the delay on their heavy hits and can time it correctly to get behind them.
3) Trying to conserve guard meter.
4) You have enough HP to take any hits that might land.
-- A very oft overlooked option. Do not stand there and get pummeled until your guard meter is gone. Wait for them to telegraph their heavy attacks, then sidestep them and move into position behind and punish with a shield bash + your heavy attacks. Always guard at the edge of an AoE as you are moving out since you will often take a few hits due to latency. Remember to lower your shield for the first few moments you are moving out of the AoE so you can move at full speed.
Also, please note that option
is to SIDE-STEP. DO NOT try to back out of an AoE. You won't make it without taking damage.C) Stun.
This should be your choice if
1) It's off CD.
2) If there are multiple large mobs, you are not concerned about possibly eating the other's heavy attacks or you are pretty sure you're out of reach.
3) You have the hp/guard meter to get out of the way because...
-- Be advised that this only INTERRUPTS their attack. They will still use a heavy attack almost immediately after the stun wears off, so you should already be moving to the side to avoid, be guarding or both.
--- General Tips ---
- Always try to kill the grunts first. This does two things. 1) It gets rid of their damage and 2) makes it easier to concentrate on the large mob and spot his attacks.
- Save your heavy attacks for the large mob in the group. Your AoE taunt and 2-3 hits of cleave should be enough to take out the trash.
- Do not spam attacks, this can leave you open.
- Go into a group of mobs with your guard up. Get a feel for the delay on their attacks, then attack in between theirs. I usually find that unless the enemies attacks are staggered, I can get in 2-3 hits of cleave or another attack and 1 cleave before I have to get my guard up taking zero to minimal damage.
- As noted by gillrmn, guarding against damage helps to fill your daily gauge.
- Enemies behind you gain combat advantage AKA beating the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> out of you more effectively. Keep them in front of you and your shield.
- Playing as a fighter, knowing the delay and range of an enemy's attack is paramount. Luckily your shield allows you to find all of that out with little to no risk. Be observant!
Post edited by unjustblade on
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Comments
Oh yeah. I'll add that in. Good catch!
Also, once you attain the skills like Stab and Shield Slam, when your blocking, your left/right click will turn into new skills that can be used while Blocking. Stab is a cone attack in front of you that stabs over your shield, allowing you to mitigate damage in a block while dealing it out. I believe it also generates some good threat. The right-click is an in-block shield bash similar to the starting right-click maneuver and applies Weakness. These skills allow you to maintain your DPS even while blocking attacks. Properly mixing in these skills while blocking to your out of block skills can make you never stop dealing damage while taking no damage in the process.
St. Augustinus
Yep, I got that in the notes already. Keep in mind YOU have to regenerate your guard meter if it breaks in combat by using moves that refill it. Your guard meter will only refill by itself if you are out of combat.
Well do you mean taking damage or taking hate from enemies to protect the group? If it's taking damage, then yes, once you learn the mechanics, take into account your latency and learn to position yourself so enemies are not behind you. If you mean to take hate for the party to keep mobs on you then I really can't say yet, as I only went through cloak tower once and we literally rolled through it in about 15 minutes. : / Dem clerics and rogues man.
There's the whole other side of this, which is holding aggro - somebody earlier also mentioned that guarding changes at-wills, one of which is a high aggro move. Might be a good companion write up.
In your general tips, I wasn't a fan of Fighter's Recovery. I used Villain's Menace and Terrifying Impact. VM for damage and immunity to control effects. TI for putting things out of the fight for a moment. FR didn't seem to have the bang for the cost as those other two skills, not when I was running with my cleric companion.
Also, Strength positively affects your blocking gauge, which might be helpful for some folks to know.
All in all, awesome write up! Thank you for doing it.
guardianfighter.com
I admit, I haven't tested FR since BW2, but even then it seemed to do enough to sustain me. I also don't play with a companion. Now granted, I was using cleave to hit 3+ mobs while using FR. I didn't have the time to get into BW3. As for the holding aggro part, I completely agree, however, holding aggro in this game appears to be broken, or at least running under the Guild Wars 2 model of "Taking aggro from an enemy is an "Oh @*!*"" ability, as everyone appears to be mostly responsible for themselves, like in GW2 (or D&D for that matter). Would be nice for some clarification from the devs as to whether or not aggro is working as intended or bugged.
As for the not letting anyone behind you bit, I thought I was pretty clear with the guard only blocking 180 degrees in front of you, but I'll add something in so people know not to let things get behind you. Much obliged!
Aggro is apparently fixed and normalized (we'll see on BW4) - in various places they said that it was explicitly NOT working as intended.
I'm permanently running a companion, usually cleric.
Also - not just that block won't work on targets behind you, but that targets behind you give everything hitting you combat advantage, increasing the damage that you take from everything. More a point of clarification and severe warning - rather than a correction.
guardianfighter.com
So let's remember to keep things positive and keep the information flowing, to the benefit of all those who come here to seek solid NWO information they can use in their game.
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What my post IS is a collection of information on the basics of movement and proper use of the shield and how to utilize them both effectively.
Whoa now, relax. Nobody's attacking you, all he said was your title was misleading. Nowhere did anyone accuse you of claiming the only way to tank...
All in all some good guidelines to the class. Keep up the good work and be sure to update after BW4 if you're in it!
**I would add to the 4. A) Guarding section: 5. When all stuns/interrupts are on CD. While it's true they can just start the attack up again, they do have to start the whole animation from the beginning. And you always want pop your high-damage abilities as much as possible, which any such stun/interrupt would be an encounter or daily and thus worth popping at the first opportunity.
MY hats off to the makes of this game..
There is one abilitiy I don't quite get 100% yet though. Maybe someone with more experience could clarify it for me. And that's the tab skill: Mark target.
So if I understand it right, if I mark a target, it has reduced resistence, correct? Only from my own attacks or for the whole group?
Also if I attack the target once, the mark seems to go away. Do party members remove it too? I haven't done a lot of group content yet.
When I'm attacking out of guard it seems the mark sticks. But sometimes it gets removed when I'm hit too.
Can someone give an overview over how this ability works? Under which condition it stays and under which conditions it gets removed. It seems to be a core ability for the class so this might be useful for more players than just myself.
The important thing about Mark is it doubles your threat. So basically you Mark a boss, then Aggravating Strike it a few times. Mark also starts building threat on its own at level 15.