They didn't really handle this Defender role very well imo, threat aside.
The whole point of Defenders in 4th edition is to make the enemies focus on you, because if they don't, you punish them for it. That's what's missing from this game. Sure, we can mark targets to decrease enemy damage and supposedly increase aggro, but Defenders are supposed to do more. If an enemy ignores a Defender and goes after another target, the Defender gains bonus attacks, bonus damages, is supposed to be able to knock targets down, push them back, pull them towards him, etc.
The reason a Defender holds aggro shouldn't be because of some threat coefficient, it should be because if the monsters ignore him, he tears them a new <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> chute, and that's what is missing from them in this compared to pen and paper.
Hey there, thanks for the feedback everyone! We're continually looking into feedback for tanking, and this info is very helpful. Thanks a lot!
i realize you are trying to do some damage control and a little pr here by making some sort of comment, but your comment is about as useful to the community as not commenting at all.
your company has yet to even acknowledge that this may or may not be working as intended. that the constant add zerg in every boss fight may or may not be intended. that the sheer amount of damage those adds do requiring two astral shields stacking and the fact that they do stack may or may not be intended. that in order for groups to do the big brain boss in the illithid dungeon you have to be knocking adds and some of the mini bosses off the ledge and whether that is or is not intended design.
the dungeons aren't just broken in one way (tanking) but in many, many ways. they are nearly as broken as STO ground and space combat is in a game taht originally launched with a holy trinity and is now just tactical captains online. you have a long ways to go to prove to your new and existing customers that this is not intended design and that you are able or heck even just willing to change any of it.
Not going to get drawn into a huge debate where people defend the current mechanics, suffice to say I've played MMO's as a raid and group tank for over 12 years, tanking in Neverwinter just isn't fun.
Threat is out of whack, as stated previously I sacrificed damage feats and setup my powers in favour of threat generation and the trade off should be decent threat, despite stacking power to increase threat it's borderline pathetic.
It might work for some people but simply put I prefer MMO's whereby tanks are given the threat tools they need, then they have to decide when and where to use them, aggro too much too often and get yourself killed.
I went into two early instances with friends and immediately I became a spare wheel, the rank 15 tank companions negated my whole reason for being there.
I'll keep playing the solo game till 60. I don't expect this to get fixed though, in my experience this is a design choice and you either put up with it or leave.
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strategiczMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Hey there, thanks for the feedback everyone! We're continually looking into feedback for tanking, and this info is very helpful. Thanks a lot!
Is there any way you could let us know if tanking in its current state is the intended outcome? I'd like to know if this is all something that will be addressed at some point or if guardians were designed from the ground-up to be glorified damage dealers with the ability to mitigate a small amount of damage.
It is sad when I feel like I would be a much better tank if I rolled a trickster rogue. They can actually hold consistent threat on bosses and have better mobility to simply avoid damage that would destroy our guard meter anyway.
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mrchinoMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 12Arc User
As far as we know, the GF is supposed to fill a specific role in the group, and that role is supposed to be necessary in group content encounters. If that's true then it's not working properly. The fact that people are farming -- not just completing but farming -- epic dungeons without an actual tank class tells you plainly that there are fundamental problems with combat mechanics that include but extend beyond threat management. When people are advertising groups in chat and stating that there's no need to "waste" a spot on a tank, there's a problem. That's a fact, and personal opinions as to the efficacy of the tanking class are irrelevant in the face of that fact.
I don't at all mind that the act of trying to hold aggro involves constantly zipping around, tagging mobs, and hoping that the group knows enough to stop hitting the things I've just tagged off of them. I roll tanks because it's supposed to be a "harder" job and I find it rewarding when I do it correctly. I do mind the fact that my "threat" seems more like a suggestion than a command. I mind very much that an NPC tank companion seems to draw attention more easily than a level 60 human tank with every possible point spent in threat generation. And I mind a great deal that the supposed tank class is proving unnecessary in groups.
As it stands, you simply don't need a tank because there are perfectly viable ways to clear the encounters without one. I think that's a problem -- again, assuming the game is supposed to work the way we think it does. If instead tanking is merely a suggested approach to clearing encounters, then I suppose it's working correctly and we are extra baggage by design, because the group w/ tank approach is simply less efficient than other combinations.
Well put. I feel identical as a tank. Sure my group can complete T2 dungeons with me in them, but my space is better filled with a dps due to the huge aggro clerics / companions are pulling, or lack of aggro my abilities can pull. My role in T2 isn't as important as I wouldv'e liked. I basically tank trash mobs and help with the big guys when the adds come running in come the boss fights. I'm in strong gear. (12.5k GS roughly) and like yourself I have all points possible into threat generation, yet my guild friends are still better off adding a trickster rogue than myself. It's like a favor run when the Guardian tank comes along. "hey let's bring Infinity along so he's geared when Cryptic fix guardians" .. haha my favorite class is a joke
The one thing I do happen to be helpful in is damage absorption . Sure i take the most damage in game and my block ability and sheer defenses allow me to do just that. Is it enough to say that we are "needed" or "necessary" in dungeons, and especially the high end dungeons? No. It's not even enough to say we're helpful.
When people complain about their class, I usually say it's because they're not playing them right, they're not researching or trying out new things, or they don't understand their purpose in this entirely new game with new experiences. However, the collective of all the high end geared level 60 Guardian Fighters as well as a load of other players (Clerics AND virtually any class), are all on the same page for this.
To try to put an end to my rant, I can understand that class balancing is a very delicate transition. It requires precision and patience. I am happy to be patient in this matter if I could hear a dev tell me it's something they're working on repairing. The only thing I'd suggest is to have the synergy between classes and class balancing completed before bringing any new classes into the fray.
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strategiczMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Well put. I feel identical as a tank. Sure my group can complete T2 dungeons with me in them, but my space is better filled with a dps due to the huge aggro clerics / companions are pulling, or lack of aggro my abilities can pull. My role in T2 isn't as important as I wouldv'e liked. I basically tank trash mobs and help with the big guys when the adds come running in come the boss fights. I'm in strong gear. (12.5k GS roughly) and like yourself I have all points possible into threat generation, yet my guild friends are still better off adding a trickster rogue than myself. It's like a favor run when the Guardian tank comes along. "hey let's bring Infinity along so he's geared when Cryptic fix guardians" .. haha my favorite class is a joke
The one thing I do happen to be helpful in is damage absorption . Sure i take the most damage in game and my block ability and sheer defenses allow me to do just that. Is it enough to say that we are "needed" or "necessary" in dungeons, and especially the high end dungeons? No. It's not even enough to say we're helpful.
When people complain about their class, I usually say it's because they're not playing them right, they're not researching or trying out new things, or they don't understand their purpose in this entirely new game with new experiences. However, the collective of all the high end geared level 60 Guardian Fighters as well as a load of other players (Clerics AND virtually any class), are all on the same page for this.
To try to put an end to my rant, I can understand that class balancing is a very delicate transition. It requires precision and patience. I am happy to be patient in this matter if I could hear a dev tell me it's something they're working on repairing. The only thing I'd suggest is to have the synergy between classes and class balancing completed before bringing any new classes into the fray.
I agree. If Cryptic chooses to add more classes before current ones are fixed then I doubt they will ever be able to repair the overall damage when it comes to group balance. I understand Cryptic is not very skilled when it comes to functional group balance across all playable classes (Just look at their other games where stacking one class is king), but it is about time they learn how to achieve this or hire staff that can achieve it, especially in a D&D game where group roles are critical to the games longevity.
I have personally stopped playing this game because of the crappy group balancing. I keep up with the forums and this specific topic of tanking because I would like to see it changed. I am sure others that leave because of these issues likely won't ever touch the game again.
Cryptic has to also be careful of listening to people claiming guardians are fine, because they are not. The people claiming this are not playing tanks, they are playing damage dealers. Even then you need one of a few extremely specific sets to even be able to to competitive damage. Most of the people claiming things are "fine" earned these sets exploiting dungeon mechanics to get what they wanted. One guide author has a video on his youtube channel of him exploiting the spider boss. I am sure we would be fine if we all exploited like crazy to earn millions of AD to buy very specific sets required to actually function in a group with the GF.
For everyone else that didn't get on the exploit wagon and don't want to spend a lot of money to buy things, we're basically just getting carried until we can get the set to be useful (which most groups can't do) or we get to be extremely useless knowing our only saving grace is trying to become a damage dealer that has very strict gear requirements. This literally makes almost all GF gear pointless -- especially the stuff on the vendors.
They need to either fix threat generation or itemization. Currently they offer gear to a GF like we're defensive tanks, but then the game mechanics only allow for damage dealing GF's. It really makes no sense and the whole system is *** backwards.
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tweeter83Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
same cut and paste response to the threat question asked to the admin in yesterdays patch note forum post what a f'ing joke.
Getting dogpiled every Epic T2 dungeon fight is really obnoxious and boring. Every boss fight feels the exact same. I place my shield, use sunburst to power up my hallowed ground, then dodge and run. It feels like the people who made this game are all the people who played the Dragon Age series and thought that the second game was superior to the first. The Monster AI is like an 8-bit football game... it's almost comical the big stream of mobs that follow me around like a tail. They should make that a mini-game... go to the pirate boss and see how many mobs they can have chasing you.
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elanithMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Cryptic has to also be careful of listening to people claiming guardians are fine, because they are not. The people claiming this are not playing tanks, they are playing damage dealers. Even then you need one of a few extremely specific sets to even be able to to competitive damage. Most of the people claiming things are "fine" earned these sets exploiting dungeon mechanics to get what they wanted. One guide author has a video on his youtube channel of him exploiting the spider boss. I am sure we would be fine if we all exploited like crazy to earn millions of AD to buy very specific sets required to actually function in a group with the GF.
For everyone else that didn't get on the exploit wagon and don't want to spend a lot of money to buy things, we're basically just getting carried until we can get the set to be useful (which most groups can't do) or we get to be extremely useless knowing our only saving grace is trying to become a damage dealer that has very strict gear requirements. This literally makes almost all GF gear pointless -- especially the stuff on the vendors.
They need to either fix threat generation or itemization. Currently they offer gear to a GF like we're defensive tanks, but then the game mechanics only allow for damage dealing GF's. It really makes no sense and the whole system is *** backwards.
First, no one playing a GF right now is saying we are ok and everything is fine. The Protector and Tactician trees are currently useless because they provide only marginal increases in survival and provide no way to hold threat. What we have been saying, and fighting against, is the common misconception that GF have NO USE. We do, both as DPS and yes in this spec(Concuerer) taking damage.
Second, our "Extremely Specific Set" is our T1 armor, not some gear that requires months and months of work to farm for a normal player like your trying to make it out to be. Its not some insanely difficult armor to get, or harder to get than what any other class has to go through to get their 4 piece T1 armor. The only "Hard" piece of gear to get is the Helm, which is the exact same difficulty everyone has. Even without this 4 piece bonus we are competitive in dps (i only have 2 pieces atm) and am usually 2nd or 3rd(at most in damage done). All classes eventually get a BIS list, ours just happens to be our T1 armor, till we collect all 4 pieces of our T2. How does this make it any more difficult than some Rogue or Cleric running the same instance over and over again looking for that 1 piece of gear to drop?
Yes their was an exploit that allowed GF with specific gear/spec to 2 shot bosses. Only a very few used it, and its been fixed now and cannot be done anymore. Our normal dps did NOT change with the bug fix either, just the exploit.
Third, GF are not the only one exploiting the spider boss pathing, quite a few groups are doing it...why because its "easy". Its the same reason why people are saying "GFs are useless" and stacking 2 clerics, because its "easy". Its also why i think the Shield mechanic is going to have the stacking removed, not because clerics are taking my spot, but because it trivializes encounters.
GFs do have some things that need to be looked at, specifically making Protector and Tactician trees viable. Threat may or may not be an issue depending on what they decide to do with healing agro. And yes, I am a Tank. I may have speced to increase my dps (and therefore my threat) but i gear defensively so i can absorb the damage that is going to be coming in. Would i like to spec even more defensively sure, but right now I need the extra damage so i can keep things hitting me, so i can do my job which is to Tank.
I understand were are you coming from, but imo the problem isnt just the tanking build, the GF get completely TRASH after level 40ish.
At least i cant even do foundry quests at level 60 anymore... i CANT SOLO CONTENT at all. For some weird reason any level 60 zumbie will take a big part of my defense meter with a single strike, and for some reason every Ad makes more damage to my defense meter than the freaking boss ...
That being said i am kind of a mixed build, not 100% tank not 100% damage, but i am indeed supposed to be more durable.
And pvp is the same trash, for some reason a TR can crit me for 2/3 of my HP, even with my almost 50% damage mitigation while i need to burn ALL my skills to take like 30% of his HP?
GF in general SUCK at level 60, i feel like my GF soul got lost somewhere around the 40's.
Yeah, but in the meantime I just get to be useless.
I made a HORRIBLE mistake of gearing my tank... well, like a tank. I picked gear with the best defense, deflection, ac, and other defensive stats. I don't have enough AD to gear all over again for damage and so while my group moves on I will be left behind.
In the early dungeons my defensive gear/build was never an issue and I seemed to hold threat fine. As my group got more and more gear I could hold threat on bosses less and less.
It is at the point now that unless I completely re-gear from scratch I am dead in the water with my group.
My only options are;
A) Go back and farm the easier dungeons (that everyone is sick of doing, so good luck telling them we need to farm for me all over again)
Get enough AD to re-gear. (Which I don't have)
C) Spend real-life money on enough gear to get back into the game just to watch this change dramatically all over again if/when they fix the problems.
So, as you can see, they should fix this sooner than later. I doubt I am the first person tricked into thinking this was an actual tanking class and obtained gear for that sole purpose.
It isn't really a great situation to be in because Cryptic either can't fix a real problem or has no idea what they want us to be in their game.
I guess I should have just geared for damage from the get-go, but that is something I am paying for now.
It is kind of sad when someone playing a tanking class feels this way about gearing defensively, lol.
bro just look for "grand regent armour" this is a heavy def set that has a set bonus that gives you 20% of you def into power
I'm just a mid level GF so I'm curious how things change by epic dungeons. So far for me, tanking is really engaging in Neverwinter compared to my raid experience in WoW. Threat is a non-issue for me at my level once I understood how our Mark works. I find I'm able to hold the attention of pretty much every significant add in encounters like the tank pirate in Cragmire Crypts and never once let the boss slip away.
First let me clarify the mechanics so we're on the same page. If you know how Mark works, skip to the end.
Our Mark (applied using tab hotkey, Enforced Threat, or Threatening Rush) isn't a 'taunt' in the WoW sense. It doesn't place you at the top of the threat list and locks their attention to you for a sec. Instead it places the Mark debuff on them that multiples all threat generated by +100%. You can further increase the multiplier by another +100% when using the Enhanced Mark class feature power as well as attaching a small threat over time effect to it. The trick is that the Mark lasts indefinitely until the target lands an unblocked melee attack on you (spell hits don't remove the Mark). This aspect is what makes our Guard ability important for not just mitigating damage, but also holding threat.
The threat generation multiplier is immense on Marked targets. Without it, you'd have to outdps all your other damage dealers to keep a target's attention on you. With it, the damage dealers have to deal nearly QUADRUPLE the damage to pull threat.
From what I'm reading, it sounds like threat issues can be one of two things: tanks don't understand the Mark mechanic or the mechanic becomes unmanageable for higher level encounters (namely swarming adds). What do you find that's successful?
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darkleafazMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited May 2013
Agree with the OP.
Can anyone outline what DPS they reduced with the latest patch? I can barely taken down the caster mobs before they incinerate me!
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elanithMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Just one other note on this subject: If and when this does get fixed, there are going to be a lot of tanks out there who suddenly have the wrong spec for the job -- not because they chose poorly or out of ignorance, but because they chose correctly for how the game mechanics worked at the time. If the game mechanics are corrected such that the tanky feat tree becomes the correct tree for tanking, I hope TPTB will not expect us to pony up for the respec. The players are not responsible for gameplay changes.
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ptoastMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 3Arc User
I'm just a mid level GF so I'm curious how things change by epic dungeons. So far for me, tanking is really engaging in Neverwinter compared to my raid experience in WoW. Threat is a non-issue for me at my level once I understood how our Mark works. I find I'm able to hold the attention of pretty much every significant add in encounters like the tank pirate in Cragmire Crypts and never once let the boss slip away.
First let me clarify the mechanics so we're on the same page. If you know how Mark works, skip to the end.
Our Mark (applied using tab hotkey, Enforced Threat, or Threatening Rush) isn't a 'taunt' in the WoW sense. It doesn't place you at the top of the threat list and locks their attention to you for a sec. Instead it places the Mark debuff on them that multiples all threat generated by +100%. You can further increase the multiplier by another +100% when using the Enhanced Mark class feature power as well as attaching a small threat over time effect to it. The trick is that the Mark lasts indefinitely until the target lands an unblocked melee attack on you (spell hits don't remove the Mark). This aspect is what makes our Guard ability important for not just mitigating damage, but also holding threat.
The threat generation multiplier is immense on Marked targets. Without it, you'd have to outdps all your other damage dealers to keep a target's attention on you. With it, the damage dealers have to deal nearly QUADRUPLE the damage to pull threat.
From what I'm reading, it sounds like threat issues can be one of two things: tanks don't understand the Mark mechanic or the mechanic becomes unmanageable for higher level encounters (namely swarming adds). What do you find that's successful?
I'm only a level 40 GF at the moment and have enjoyed my leveling so far. I am speccing down the conquerer line and gearing up in power/defense gear. I haven't had any problems with the skirmishes and dungeons I've done so far but I understand I still have a ways to go before I'm level 60 and doing the epics. I don't believe I have been useless in the runs I've done. I can usually keep the boss aggroe'd to me. I usually place between 1st and 3rd in damage dealt and 1st in damage received but I've only done PUGs and no one has ever said anything bad to me.
I do understand the mark mechanic and the need to block and shield stab to build threat but when you are surrounded and your guard is depleted in 4 to 5 hits from the mobs you have marked once they do land a hit it is a very short window before they decide to peel off of you and go for the healer or other dps class in your group.
I think that the mark debuff should be set on a timer and run out after a set time instead of it dissapearing after they hit you. That way you could cycle through the mobs and make sure you keep your marks up. It would still be a challenge to keep track of all that is going on and making sure your doing your job of generating threat and keeping mobs off of the squishies.
I also agree that the GF class needs to be redone in a sense that the other trees, Protector and Tactician, need to be fixed so that they are viable builds. I also would like to see the GF be needed for the epics. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is not being needed because 2 clerics work fine or better without my class.
We'll see though, at my going rate, I'll hit 60 in a week or two.
Reading the OP made me want to roll a GF, I mean now tanks are able to deal a good amount of damage without sacrificing defensive stats (according to the two GF guides linked)?
That's wonderfull.
I briefly tried all classes and stuck with a cleric(before all this AS stacking nonsense), at first I was surprised to see almost no direct heal, but then I realized that in order to heal I had to deal damage, keep debuffs on mobs and even kite if necesary.
Great I was sick of playing whac-a-mole with health bars and now I find out that in order to tank and hold threat it is necesary a good amount of damage?
I'm starting to like this game.
The true problem I see about OP's condition is he can't respec and get new gear without either spending an absurd amount of time farming old dungeons (tbh i don't understand how your group is sick of running them, how much did you play during the short time the game has been out?) or paying real life money.
The whole point of Defenders in 4th edition is to make the enemies focus on you, because if they don't, you punish them for it. That's what's missing from this game. Sure, we can mark targets to decrease enemy damage and supposedly increase aggro, but Defenders are supposed to do more. If an enemy ignores a Defender and goes after another target, the Defender gains bonus attacks, bonus damages, is supposed to be able to knock targets down, push them back, pull them towards him, etc.
The reason a Defender holds aggro shouldn't be because of some threat coefficient, it should be because if the monsters ignore him, he tears them a new <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> chute, and that's what is missing from them in this compared to pen and paper.
Agreed! They should get giant bonuses when an enemy is attacking someone else, which goes hand in hand with a "damage = threat" mechanic. If they lose aggro they end up with a damage boost, which lets them regain aggro.
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elanithMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Just one other note on this subject: If and when this does get fixed, there are going to be a lot of tanks out there who suddenly have the wrong spec for the job -- not because they chose poorly or out of ignorance, but because they chose correctly for how the game mechanics worked at the time. If the game mechanics are corrected such that the tanky feat tree becomes the correct tree for tanking, I hope TPTB will not expect us to pony up for the respec. The players are not responsible for gameplay changes.
Respec - If they do change our mechanics greatly, than yes i would hope they would give us the ability to respec for free.
Here is the problem, lets say they throw a lot of just bonus threat at us AND also make Block OP so it works amazingly well. This sounds like it would be perfect for us to switch over to Prot spec and go to town tanking, unfortunately that isnt the case. If we respeced into this; fights would take longer, adds would pile up and make it MORE difficult to down bosses. Unless they also fundamentally change how much damage a boss is doing (non telegraphed), and they change how Prot feats effect our ability to mitigate damage, there is absolutely no reason atm to spec Prot.
For them to make us want to spec Prot or Tact they need to make them provide a service to the party that Conq doesn't provide AND is wanted (not needed, otherwise we are in the same boat we are in now with only 1 spec being viable) by the party. Right now most of the Prot talents are about keeping US alive (specifically Feats that effect Guard), which when compounded by the fact we do <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> damage in it, means even if they provide us with a bonus threat gen buff we wouldn't be able to do anything that a Conq spec GF can do right now. Our Prot feats should be about keeping our party alive, but at this point there is no way thats changing. It would take a significant effort and time recoding abilitites and i just dont see that happening. Unless they significantly change how much damage bosses dish out and beef up guard, i dont see why any of us would even want to spec Prot let alone Tact.
Respec - If they do change our mechanics greatly, than yes i would hope they would give us the ability to respec for free.
Here is the problem, lets say they throw a lot of just bonus threat at us AND also make Block OP so it works amazingly well. This sounds like it would be perfect for us to switch over to Prot spec and go to town tanking, unfortunately that isnt the case. If we respeced into this; fights would take longer, adds would pile up and make it MORE difficult to down bosses. Unless they also fundamentally change how much damage a boss is doing (non telegraphed), and they change how Prot feats effect our ability to mitigate damage, there is absolutely no reason atm to spec Prot.
For them to make us want to spec Prot or Tact they need to make them provide a service to the party that Conq doesn't provide AND is wanted (not needed, otherwise we are in the same boat we are in now with only 1 spec being viable) by the party. Right now most of the Prot talents are about keeping US alive (specifically Feats that effect Guard), which when compounded by the fact we do <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> damage in it, means even if they provide us with a bonus threat gen buff we wouldn't be able to do anything that a Conq spec GF can do right now. Our Prot feats should be about keeping our party alive, but at this point there is no way thats changing. It would take a significant effort and time recoding abilitites and i just dont see that happening. Unless they significantly change how much damage bosses dish out and beef up guard, i dont see why any of us would even want to spec Prot let alone Tact.
If you step back and analyze all this you'll see that you've touched on the core problem, which is that combat mechanics are fundamentally flawed. The fact that a dps spec is the premier tanking spec is simply a symptom of a larger problem.
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yepyepandnopeMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
GF is useless in epic dungeons no matter how you spec and gear. Get used to it. Class is broken right now.
All intelligent groups take 2x cleric 1 cw. Rest doesn't matter, although ideally you just want dps for the boss so 2x TR is best, or at least 1xTR 1x GWF. You might get a sympathy group as a GF but you'll always be the welfare leech of the party.
Agree. Anyone who says otherwise is clearly wrong.
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strategiczMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
Hopefully they will sort this out before they release more paragon paths.
I hear ya OP and agree. But they need to take some things away from GF before they fix the tanking skills you currently have. The devs need to take away your ability to block everything nearly 100% of the time, don't bother stating you cant do this, we had 3 people on one guardian with Gearscores of 9k and the guardian blocked 100% of all daily and encounter skills for over 3 minutes on one point taking no damage, as soon as they remove that ability I will agree with you to do whatever you want. Chuckle.
There is no worse feeling in the world than the moment during an argument you realize you are wrong.
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strategiczMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I hear ya OP and agree. But they need to take some things away from GF before they fix the tanking skills you currently have. The devs need to take away your ability to block everything nearly 100% of the time, don't bother stating you cant do this, we had 3 people on one guardian with Gearscores of 9k and the guardian blocked 100% of all daily and encounter skills for over 3 minutes on one point taking no damage, as soon as they remove that ability I will agree with you to do whatever you want. Chuckle.
More misinformation to try and keep the GF class from performing their intended role.
I could care less about PvP balance. It does not matter and should be an afterthought of the developers. PvE should always come first. With that said, in PvE our guard is already gimp. A single boss special not only eats it all up, but still damages us through it, which is why it is better in PvE to just dodge the ability versus trying to block it.
If you could not break guard in PvP then you're either lying or bad at PvP, none of which is an actual problem of the GF class. I mean, guard charges back so slowly that you would have to be doing next to no damage to not break it.
You do realize to get aggro from bigger/ stronger enemies....You have to manually mark them with your mark skill.
All these people complaining about threat issues with the GF and probably didnt even read the feats/skills that increase the threat the GF generates.
*sigh*
People complaining in this thread have (for the most part) cleared epic tier 1, some of them - tier 2 content.
Are you really THAT clueless to even assume they haven't read the tooltips by now?
Regardless, GF tanking and aggro management in general *is* horribly broken ATM, as is most of PvE content. It doesn't need a *fix*, it needs a revamp from scratch.
The problem with guardians IMO is not aggro management - we have an aoe taunt and a single target taunt via knights challenge. The problem lies in our survivability. We are only given slightly higher HP and resistance value so any face tanking can be done with any class. Our shift ability - block, is suppose to be the answer.
For those that do not play a guardian, whenever we put our shield up, we take damage with our block bar. The block bar gets depleted way to fast in any encounters that actually matters. For example, the wolf den boss. I have no problems getting the aggro of the shadow wolves that chases the cleric. The issue is after the taunt, now what? I have now several angry wolfs that deals extreme damage each and breaks our block bar in less than a sec. So instead of the cleric dying, we die instead.
IMO a very simple fix to the guardian is to tie the block bar not to damage, but to a duration instead. I.e. whenever the GF puts the shield up the block bar depletes at a set rate. He can no longer block when the bar is empty. However, when he is blocking, he is immune to any frontal damage and effects. This way, the GF can at least ensure a few seconds of survival when he taunts.
We can start off by having a 4 second block duration with a full bar and balance it off from there.
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tweeter83Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
i just wish our aoe taunt actually aoe'd and hit more than 5 ****ing things
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vactuskasunMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited May 2013
Apparently you never played STO. DPS or go home has been the Cryptic/PWE model for awhile now. I haven't been playing long, but I didn't see a threat drop for DPS in game. I've seen 'generate x amount less', but not an actual drop. Want to tank? DPS harder.
Comments
The whole point of Defenders in 4th edition is to make the enemies focus on you, because if they don't, you punish them for it. That's what's missing from this game. Sure, we can mark targets to decrease enemy damage and supposedly increase aggro, but Defenders are supposed to do more. If an enemy ignores a Defender and goes after another target, the Defender gains bonus attacks, bonus damages, is supposed to be able to knock targets down, push them back, pull them towards him, etc.
The reason a Defender holds aggro shouldn't be because of some threat coefficient, it should be because if the monsters ignore him, he tears them a new <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> chute, and that's what is missing from them in this compared to pen and paper.
i realize you are trying to do some damage control and a little pr here by making some sort of comment, but your comment is about as useful to the community as not commenting at all.
your company has yet to even acknowledge that this may or may not be working as intended. that the constant add zerg in every boss fight may or may not be intended. that the sheer amount of damage those adds do requiring two astral shields stacking and the fact that they do stack may or may not be intended. that in order for groups to do the big brain boss in the illithid dungeon you have to be knocking adds and some of the mini bosses off the ledge and whether that is or is not intended design.
the dungeons aren't just broken in one way (tanking) but in many, many ways. they are nearly as broken as STO ground and space combat is in a game taht originally launched with a holy trinity and is now just tactical captains online. you have a long ways to go to prove to your new and existing customers that this is not intended design and that you are able or heck even just willing to change any of it.
Threat is out of whack, as stated previously I sacrificed damage feats and setup my powers in favour of threat generation and the trade off should be decent threat, despite stacking power to increase threat it's borderline pathetic.
It might work for some people but simply put I prefer MMO's whereby tanks are given the threat tools they need, then they have to decide when and where to use them, aggro too much too often and get yourself killed.
I went into two early instances with friends and immediately I became a spare wheel, the rank 15 tank companions negated my whole reason for being there.
I'll keep playing the solo game till 60. I don't expect this to get fixed though, in my experience this is a design choice and you either put up with it or leave.
Is there any way you could let us know if tanking in its current state is the intended outcome? I'd like to know if this is all something that will be addressed at some point or if guardians were designed from the ground-up to be glorified damage dealers with the ability to mitigate a small amount of damage.
It is sad when I feel like I would be a much better tank if I rolled a trickster rogue. They can actually hold consistent threat on bosses and have better mobility to simply avoid damage that would destroy our guard meter anyway.
Well put. I feel identical as a tank. Sure my group can complete T2 dungeons with me in them, but my space is better filled with a dps due to the huge aggro clerics / companions are pulling, or lack of aggro my abilities can pull. My role in T2 isn't as important as I wouldv'e liked. I basically tank trash mobs and help with the big guys when the adds come running in come the boss fights. I'm in strong gear. (12.5k GS roughly) and like yourself I have all points possible into threat generation, yet my guild friends are still better off adding a trickster rogue than myself. It's like a favor run when the Guardian tank comes along. "hey let's bring Infinity along so he's geared when Cryptic fix guardians" .. haha my favorite class is a joke
The one thing I do happen to be helpful in is damage absorption . Sure i take the most damage in game and my block ability and sheer defenses allow me to do just that. Is it enough to say that we are "needed" or "necessary" in dungeons, and especially the high end dungeons? No. It's not even enough to say we're helpful.
When people complain about their class, I usually say it's because they're not playing them right, they're not researching or trying out new things, or they don't understand their purpose in this entirely new game with new experiences. However, the collective of all the high end geared level 60 Guardian Fighters as well as a load of other players (Clerics AND virtually any class), are all on the same page for this.
To try to put an end to my rant, I can understand that class balancing is a very delicate transition. It requires precision and patience. I am happy to be patient in this matter if I could hear a dev tell me it's something they're working on repairing. The only thing I'd suggest is to have the synergy between classes and class balancing completed before bringing any new classes into the fray.
I agree. If Cryptic chooses to add more classes before current ones are fixed then I doubt they will ever be able to repair the overall damage when it comes to group balance. I understand Cryptic is not very skilled when it comes to functional group balance across all playable classes (Just look at their other games where stacking one class is king), but it is about time they learn how to achieve this or hire staff that can achieve it, especially in a D&D game where group roles are critical to the games longevity.
I have personally stopped playing this game because of the crappy group balancing. I keep up with the forums and this specific topic of tanking because I would like to see it changed. I am sure others that leave because of these issues likely won't ever touch the game again.
Cryptic has to also be careful of listening to people claiming guardians are fine, because they are not. The people claiming this are not playing tanks, they are playing damage dealers. Even then you need one of a few extremely specific sets to even be able to to competitive damage. Most of the people claiming things are "fine" earned these sets exploiting dungeon mechanics to get what they wanted. One guide author has a video on his youtube channel of him exploiting the spider boss. I am sure we would be fine if we all exploited like crazy to earn millions of AD to buy very specific sets required to actually function in a group with the GF.
For everyone else that didn't get on the exploit wagon and don't want to spend a lot of money to buy things, we're basically just getting carried until we can get the set to be useful (which most groups can't do) or we get to be extremely useless knowing our only saving grace is trying to become a damage dealer that has very strict gear requirements. This literally makes almost all GF gear pointless -- especially the stuff on the vendors.
They need to either fix threat generation or itemization. Currently they offer gear to a GF like we're defensive tanks, but then the game mechanics only allow for damage dealing GF's. It really makes no sense and the whole system is *** backwards.
First, no one playing a GF right now is saying we are ok and everything is fine. The Protector and Tactician trees are currently useless because they provide only marginal increases in survival and provide no way to hold threat. What we have been saying, and fighting against, is the common misconception that GF have NO USE. We do, both as DPS and yes in this spec(Concuerer) taking damage.
Second, our "Extremely Specific Set" is our T1 armor, not some gear that requires months and months of work to farm for a normal player like your trying to make it out to be. Its not some insanely difficult armor to get, or harder to get than what any other class has to go through to get their 4 piece T1 armor. The only "Hard" piece of gear to get is the Helm, which is the exact same difficulty everyone has. Even without this 4 piece bonus we are competitive in dps (i only have 2 pieces atm) and am usually 2nd or 3rd(at most in damage done). All classes eventually get a BIS list, ours just happens to be our T1 armor, till we collect all 4 pieces of our T2. How does this make it any more difficult than some Rogue or Cleric running the same instance over and over again looking for that 1 piece of gear to drop?
Yes their was an exploit that allowed GF with specific gear/spec to 2 shot bosses. Only a very few used it, and its been fixed now and cannot be done anymore. Our normal dps did NOT change with the bug fix either, just the exploit.
Third, GF are not the only one exploiting the spider boss pathing, quite a few groups are doing it...why because its "easy". Its the same reason why people are saying "GFs are useless" and stacking 2 clerics, because its "easy". Its also why i think the Shield mechanic is going to have the stacking removed, not because clerics are taking my spot, but because it trivializes encounters.
GFs do have some things that need to be looked at, specifically making Protector and Tactician trees viable. Threat may or may not be an issue depending on what they decide to do with healing agro. And yes, I am a Tank. I may have speced to increase my dps (and therefore my threat) but i gear defensively so i can absorb the damage that is going to be coming in. Would i like to spec even more defensively sure, but right now I need the extra damage so i can keep things hitting me, so i can do my job which is to Tank.
I agree 100% with this fellow.
Rui M.
bro just look for "grand regent armour" this is a heavy def set that has a set bonus that gives you 20% of you def into power
First let me clarify the mechanics so we're on the same page. If you know how Mark works, skip to the end.
Our Mark (applied using tab hotkey, Enforced Threat, or Threatening Rush) isn't a 'taunt' in the WoW sense. It doesn't place you at the top of the threat list and locks their attention to you for a sec. Instead it places the Mark debuff on them that multiples all threat generated by +100%. You can further increase the multiplier by another +100% when using the Enhanced Mark class feature power as well as attaching a small threat over time effect to it. The trick is that the Mark lasts indefinitely until the target lands an unblocked melee attack on you (spell hits don't remove the Mark). This aspect is what makes our Guard ability important for not just mitigating damage, but also holding threat.
The threat generation multiplier is immense on Marked targets. Without it, you'd have to outdps all your other damage dealers to keep a target's attention on you. With it, the damage dealers have to deal nearly QUADRUPLE the damage to pull threat.
From what I'm reading, it sounds like threat issues can be one of two things: tanks don't understand the Mark mechanic or the mechanic becomes unmanageable for higher level encounters (namely swarming adds). What do you find that's successful?
Can anyone outline what DPS they reduced with the latest patch? I can barely taken down the caster mobs before they incinerate me!
They didnt touch our dps, unless they introduced a bug somewhere. They fixed a bug where with specific gear and spec we could 1-2 shot bosses.
I'm only a level 40 GF at the moment and have enjoyed my leveling so far. I am speccing down the conquerer line and gearing up in power/defense gear. I haven't had any problems with the skirmishes and dungeons I've done so far but I understand I still have a ways to go before I'm level 60 and doing the epics. I don't believe I have been useless in the runs I've done. I can usually keep the boss aggroe'd to me. I usually place between 1st and 3rd in damage dealt and 1st in damage received but I've only done PUGs and no one has ever said anything bad to me.
I do understand the mark mechanic and the need to block and shield stab to build threat but when you are surrounded and your guard is depleted in 4 to 5 hits from the mobs you have marked once they do land a hit it is a very short window before they decide to peel off of you and go for the healer or other dps class in your group.
I think that the mark debuff should be set on a timer and run out after a set time instead of it dissapearing after they hit you. That way you could cycle through the mobs and make sure you keep your marks up. It would still be a challenge to keep track of all that is going on and making sure your doing your job of generating threat and keeping mobs off of the squishies.
I also agree that the GF class needs to be redone in a sense that the other trees, Protector and Tactician, need to be fixed so that they are viable builds. I also would like to see the GF be needed for the epics. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is not being needed because 2 clerics work fine or better without my class.
We'll see though, at my going rate, I'll hit 60 in a week or two.
That's wonderfull.
I briefly tried all classes and stuck with a cleric(before all this AS stacking nonsense), at first I was surprised to see almost no direct heal, but then I realized that in order to heal I had to deal damage, keep debuffs on mobs and even kite if necesary.
Great I was sick of playing whac-a-mole with health bars and now I find out that in order to tank and hold threat it is necesary a good amount of damage?
I'm starting to like this game.
The true problem I see about OP's condition is he can't respec and get new gear without either spending an absurd amount of time farming old dungeons (tbh i don't understand how your group is sick of running them, how much did you play during the short time the game has been out?) or paying real life money.
That's the worse part.
Respec - If they do change our mechanics greatly, than yes i would hope they would give us the ability to respec for free.
Here is the problem, lets say they throw a lot of just bonus threat at us AND also make Block OP so it works amazingly well. This sounds like it would be perfect for us to switch over to Prot spec and go to town tanking, unfortunately that isnt the case. If we respeced into this; fights would take longer, adds would pile up and make it MORE difficult to down bosses. Unless they also fundamentally change how much damage a boss is doing (non telegraphed), and they change how Prot feats effect our ability to mitigate damage, there is absolutely no reason atm to spec Prot.
For them to make us want to spec Prot or Tact they need to make them provide a service to the party that Conq doesn't provide AND is wanted (not needed, otherwise we are in the same boat we are in now with only 1 spec being viable) by the party. Right now most of the Prot talents are about keeping US alive (specifically Feats that effect Guard), which when compounded by the fact we do <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> damage in it, means even if they provide us with a bonus threat gen buff we wouldn't be able to do anything that a Conq spec GF can do right now. Our Prot feats should be about keeping our party alive, but at this point there is no way thats changing. It would take a significant effort and time recoding abilitites and i just dont see that happening. Unless they significantly change how much damage bosses dish out and beef up guard, i dont see why any of us would even want to spec Prot let alone Tact.
If you step back and analyze all this you'll see that you've touched on the core problem, which is that combat mechanics are fundamentally flawed. The fact that a dps spec is the premier tanking spec is simply a symptom of a larger problem.
Agree. Anyone who says otherwise is clearly wrong.
More misinformation to try and keep the GF class from performing their intended role.
I could care less about PvP balance. It does not matter and should be an afterthought of the developers. PvE should always come first. With that said, in PvE our guard is already gimp. A single boss special not only eats it all up, but still damages us through it, which is why it is better in PvE to just dodge the ability versus trying to block it.
If you could not break guard in PvP then you're either lying or bad at PvP, none of which is an actual problem of the GF class. I mean, guard charges back so slowly that you would have to be doing next to no damage to not break it.
All these people complaining about threat issues with the GF and probably didnt even read the feats/skills that increase the threat the GF generates.
*sigh*
People complaining in this thread have (for the most part) cleared epic tier 1, some of them - tier 2 content.
Are you really THAT clueless to even assume they haven't read the tooltips by now?
Regardless, GF tanking and aggro management in general *is* horribly broken ATM, as is most of PvE content. It doesn't need a *fix*, it needs a revamp from scratch.
For those that do not play a guardian, whenever we put our shield up, we take damage with our block bar. The block bar gets depleted way to fast in any encounters that actually matters. For example, the wolf den boss. I have no problems getting the aggro of the shadow wolves that chases the cleric. The issue is after the taunt, now what? I have now several angry wolfs that deals extreme damage each and breaks our block bar in less than a sec. So instead of the cleric dying, we die instead.
IMO a very simple fix to the guardian is to tie the block bar not to damage, but to a duration instead. I.e. whenever the GF puts the shield up the block bar depletes at a set rate. He can no longer block when the bar is empty. However, when he is blocking, he is immune to any frontal damage and effects. This way, the GF can at least ensure a few seconds of survival when he taunts.
We can start off by having a 4 second block duration with a full bar and balance it off from there.