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Guardian Fighters needs a buff
meeggtoast
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 159 Bounty Hunter
abombination247 wrote: »Since shield block is Junk for the most part I don't think they can make it worse. Its probably the worst mechanic in game as it is. Breaking for no reason, thought its been fixed once and is better then before. Anyone that complains about the non factor shield block is amuses me.
Do you think we need a buff on our shield? Any tips on guard management?
Nevermore@meeggtoast 12.2 BiS TR
Lanaya@meeggtoast 13.4 BiS GWF
Shendelzare@meeggtoast 11.2k CN mule CW
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Guide: Meeggtoast's Destroyer Dps Guide
Lanaya@meeggtoast 13.4 BiS GWF
Shendelzare@meeggtoast 11.2k CN mule CW
Server: Dragon
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Guide: Meeggtoast's Destroyer Dps Guide
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Our class can tank just fine and our damage is just right. This goes for both PvP & PvE.
if they boost GFs guard = OP at pvp
"You got to know when to block em
Know when to drop em
Know when to back away
Know when to run"
Seriously though, nothing wrong with the ability at all. It's not meant to be a perma shield up and infinitely block everything class, that would make things HAMSTER. Guard breaks for balance purposes, just the same as you won't see clerics healing people from 10% to 90% in one power. It's balanced that way to emphasize player skill and tactics rather than the good ole "Get threat, back into corner, hold guard button down while party beats on baddies back"
Playing Guardian fighters, that is... playing an effective guardian fighter, is not that easy to do. Especially if you came into the game with the conventional mind set that this would be a tank like any other tank character. There is depth to the class, all classes in this game beyond just what previous games offered. Learn that and you will begin to think outside of the dice bag.
Gloom level 60 Control Wizard
Dusk level 60 Trickster Rogue
Dawn level 60 Devoted Cleric
Eclipse level 60 Hunter Ranger
Wrath level 60 Great Weapon Fighter
Jinx level 60 Scourge Warlock
My general tips for GF Guard are as follows:
- Anticipate using your shield for large attacks only : You eventually learn how every mob/boss/class fights and can use that knowledge to anticipate blocking the incoming damage that MATTERS the MOST.
- People playing GF often forget that they can "take it", quite a bit of it actually. That shield should be used only to offset the stacks of incoming attacks which could kill them, deflect a DoT effect, or to help flee from a potential death situation.
- NOT using your Guard... RECOVERS your Guard. It is okay to run away to get it back.
- When below 75% Guard Meter, alternate between at wills to generate more Guard recovery: Shield Slam & Threatening Rush will help generate Guard a bit faster. While awkward at first, it becomes second nature.
- When your shield breaks (Red, busted shield), hit Fighters Recovery and just whale on whatever is there to help recover it again (avoid getting knocked prone obviously). It truly makes you feel "all better" again.
- Use the Encounters "Enforced Threat", "Into the Fray" and "Iron Warrior" for speedy Guard Recovery (awesome in a pinch when your shield breaks, giving you a bit more time to get out of what you're stuck in). I have at least 1 of those 3 tabbed all the time.
- REGARDLESS of your build, it is ideal to invest at least 2 points (12%) into "Armor of Bahamut" (reduced shield break damage) in the first Protector group. The increased resistance to break damage of your shield is indispensable in ANY fighting situation.
Above all else, you just gotta be conscious of your sacred blue shield there and know when to counter the effects that are tearing it down. Because, as many of you know... "Knowing is half the battle"!
Of course, it does take a bit of playtime before you learn what enemy attacks do and what the wind up animation looks like.
But yea the solution isn't to buff GF, it's actually to buff the bosses.
They are just too easy, letting rogues tank them (while dealing retardedly higher dps) - rendering GF worthless at what they should be best at.
So yea, make the bosses 1 shot the rogues on big hit and give them moderate damage hits that really can't be reasonably dodged. GF will still survive, balance achieved.
If anything the recent buff to shield block meter was almost slightly too much. Really trivial to maintain your shield now - just use the odd iron warrior with some minor timing.
Used to have to work very hard to keep your shield up against tough bosses, probably beyond what most players could manage.. But yea now its just simple.
-Epic Dread Vault Crushed.
Characters (Dragon): Axer (60 Guardian, Leader of Crush It!), Controller (60 Wizard), Warlocker (60 Warlock)
GF need a buff , not sure what these other people are thinking. We only have one path to choose in our feats , we are not needed in 80 % of the dungeons , and our DPS is so crapy ( even specing for it ) that we can not be used for any other reason.
Fix suggestions ( dont need all of them )
- Gives us CW level knock back , so we can take the spot of one of the two CW that are used in most groups.
- Make a tanking line that works , and a DPS line that DPS , its stupid the DPS line is our tanking line.
-Give us more group buffs , so people want to take us along - like a massive team cool down reduction on encounter powers
Any of the above could go a long way to fixing us.
If a GWF had a Group AOE taunt we would be useless. We are one power away from not being needed in PVE.
Methinks maybe you're doing it wrong if you spec for pure DPS and you don't get enough. GF's can do ridiculous DPS when that's what you are aiming to achieve.
Fix suggestions ( dont need all of them )
The purpose of the GF is to keep enemies pinned to himself, and off of his party members, not to scatter them. Why would you want to push adds away from the one guy in the group you want closest to them? That doesn't make sense.
You want to knock them back then try Bull Rush and Indomitable Strength. If you're asking for an AoE knockback, that steals the CW's thunder and contrasts with the GF's role entirely.
The "tanking" lines work plenty good as is, this honestly just sounds like a gameplay style issue to me. Honestly, I'm amazed at the number of people who believe that the Conqueror path is the only viable one within the GF tree. Have you tried let alone even readwhat the other lines offer? Have you truly looked at all of the GF's abilities and come up with effective ways to combine them for "tanking"? I have a lvl 60 Protector GF and I never have a problem controlling threat despite not having the highest DPS output. Sounds like a playstyle and character build issue rather than an issue with the game to me.
Set up a build like this for turtle style threat control/tanking(lower DPS, maximum defense and control):
Feats:
Action Surge
Toughness
Strength Focus
Distracting Shield
Potent Challenge
Armor Specialization
Protector Feats
Armor of Bahamut
Plate Agility
Shield Defense
Shield Master
Balanced Shield Fighter
Iron Guard
Also grab Fight On from the Tactician tree
Powers
Enhanced Mark and Shield Talent as your class features
Tide of Iron and Threatening Rush as your at wills
Enforced Threat, Frontline Surge, and Iron Warrior as your encounter powers
Fighter's Recovery and Supremacy of Steel for Daily
Tactics
If you are being tasked with holding the main bosses then open the fight with a Threatening Mark on the boss before anyone else gets into range( that means before the monsters start moving from their spawn point. This can be done easily as Threatening Mark has great range) Pull him and whatever adds come with him to the opposite side of the area from where the rest of the group will be killing the adds at. Close the final gap with a Threatening Rush to put marks on all of the ones on you. Guard up and alternate your stab and shield slams as needed to reduce guard breaking for as long as possible. This also will spike your action points up thanks to Action Surge. When you daily is available use Supremacy of Steel and continue to guard to add more damage output on the ones attacking you. Do not discharge Supremacy of Steel! Let it linger and put some hurt on the baddies. When your guard breaks or gets low (and it will at some point) if your hp is above half then hit them with a few Tides of Iron for quick regeneration of the meter and continue to hold them. If your hp is below half, when your guard gets low use Iron Warrior for a quick guard boost and temp HP to keep you standing in front of them. Continue to guard and slam them. If marks drop hit with a quick Threatening Rush to reapply them.
If hp gets low, use Fighter's Recovery followed immediately by Enforced Threat and a Frontline Surge. I've healed well over half my 32000 HP with just that combo alone as the healing gained from the AoE damage of Enforced Threat can be massive. I know it may sound weird that you'd want more adds focusing on you when you're HP gets lower, but you do. Remember them beating on your shield will fill your action points up HAMSTER fast.
In the extremely unlikely event that you lose threat control of the boss then immediate apply a Threatening Mark (you know that little tab button with the power that so many say is worthless) close the gap with a Threatening Rush and use Frontline Surge on them. 99.9% of the time they turn around back on you.
If your group gets in trouble then they should be running straight for you to Enforced Threat or Frontline Surge the adds off of them so they can get away.
It is very important to note that you do not just spam your encounter powers. Spamming them is the biggest mistake I've seen players make because the moment you have them all on cooldown is when you'll need one or two the most. You need to save them for the situation where they will be needed since your group is depending on them. If you apply this tactic correctly(and your group is at least somewhat capable) then you should be able to keep Supremacy of Steel going up virtually non stop causing decent damage on any add beating on your shield.
Repeat this combo until your group finishes off the adds and can then gang up on the boss.
If you are being tasked with holding down the adds while others tackle the boss then you're tactics will shift slightly. You'll want more damage mitigation ability with a lesser focus on threat control. Swap out Enhanced Mark for Ferocious Reaction or Enduring Warrior. Swap out Frontline Surge for Into the Fray and Iron Warrior for Knight's Challenge. Swap out Tide of Iron for Cleave.
Open the fight the same with a mark only target the group of enemies furthest away from the boss and close the gap with a Threatening Rush. Pull the group to the side opposite of where the boss will be. Contrary to the previous tactics, you will be spamming Into the Fray here
Here's where it gets a bit dicier as this may be a moving fight. Once your group has the bosses attention, use Knight's Challenge on the boss but don't move in and attack him any you're only doing this to cut his damage output on your party members in half. Guard up and spam Shield Slam to prolong your meter and build up action points. Save action points until your guard meter breaks then use Fighter's Recovery and Enforced Threat immediately to bolster HP. Engage the group and Cleave the HAMSTER out of them while your guard meter regenerates. You may have to move away from mobs to potion up and then reengage but the good news is you will easily outrun them with Into the Fray up.
Conversely you can always use Frontline Surge instead of Into the Fray while Fighter's Recovery is up to get HP back but I have come to find that your group will take the boss down much faster and your recoveries will be available more often with the action point boost from Into the Fray.
Apply marks/Threatening Rush and Enforced Threat to any adds who stray to keep them close to you. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Why no Knight's Valor... well this ability when combined with Knight's Challenge can reduce a bosses damage against party members down to only 1/4 of normal just from your own abilities alone! Sounds great right? But there's a catch, Knight's Valor builds threat based on the amount of damage you've taken and since a "tank" is built to generate copious amounts of threat, that means the boss will be drawn to you like a moth to flame and since Knight's Challenge is up, that means double damage against you on top of the quarter damage you'll soak from what he hits your party members with. If you have all other adds dead and you are an expert in guard meter management, then this will be the best combo to use against a boss, but if other adds are still around or you aren't that great at guard meter management, this will spell your doom. The combo for this advanced tactic is Knight's Challenge, Knight's Valor and Iron Warrior. Save Iron Warrior for when Guard meter/HP get low. Spam Supremacy of Steel and laugh as the boss does tickling damage against your party.
See above tactics. The buffs are there you just need to get creative with them.
LOL
Gloom level 60 Control Wizard
Dusk level 60 Trickster Rogue
Dawn level 60 Devoted Cleric
Eclipse level 60 Hunter Ranger
Wrath level 60 Great Weapon Fighter
Jinx level 60 Scourge Warlock
You missed the whole point of my post. We are not needed or wanted in 80 + % of the content. That is why we need a buff. I through out a few ideas to make us more wanted in groups.
1) If you think we are some great dps , then you play with noobs.
2) our group buffs are a joke, and in no way make us wanted.
3) Our tanking line does not make us much more of a tank. ( since most of the time your kiting around)
4) no idea why you went on a long ramble on how to tank , I did not say at any point GF could not tank
5) If you have ever seen a GWF with taunt talents , and with defense caps you would know we are one encounter ( AOE taunt ) away from being useless.
My suggestions where meant to give people a reason to take us in a group , not make us a tank . We already have that.
GWFs can get an insane load more because a lot of there better gear gives +hp.
They can hit freakin 40k hp. (highest i've seen was 39k, but that was a halfling with low con, so yea a few more con would hit 40)
GF with good gear (not the garbage pvp set) gets to around 34k.
The benefit of con becomes more and more as you get more +hp gear since its a percentage bonus.
Also my human CW with no con focus has 20k base hp, actually had to get some rank 7 radiant hp runes cuz i felt squishy, so no 23k means you have some hp focus there.
So yea, gwfs are far better defensively then GF.
The only thing GF beats a gwf in is threat and the fact they get (better) knockbacks. But the issue is GFs are a junky "jack of all trades, master of none for pve" since:
Best tank - gwf (sometimes TR though since a few fights a gwfs aoes are a detriment)
Best dps - tr
Best cc - cw
Best healing - dc
-Epic Dread Vault Crushed.
Characters (Dragon): Axer (60 Guardian, Leader of Crush It!), Controller (60 Wizard), Warlocker (60 Warlock)
No, GWF cannot tank better than GFs, because tanking is not get in the face of a boss and stand there, tanking is gathering agro and holding it to avoid other members or the party getting hurt while doing their magical thingies...
GFs right now are awesome, fun to play, balanced (great survivality, good aoe DPS, good knowckbacks, and AoE taunts) you can get all the agro from any room in any instance and get the hold of it if you're skilled, you can self heal and live all the t2/CN instances out of the blue circle if you feel like it, and into the fray is a great buff to the party, also, either if you run GPF or Lifedrinker, the threat generation is so big that you can make small mistakes and recover the agro quickly to prtect your party.
If you're in a specially awful pug, you just switch to iron warrior/knights valor and double the odds of success of the damm pug in the instance (now, you better stay in that blue circle when running knights valor) as a conqueror, youre always the top dps (or second to CWs in pushing mobs instances) what do you freaking want more???
Yeah, there are still some groups that run 3xcw dc tr in CN and say they make the 4/4 run in 25 min... i want to watch a vid of it, but i run CN 5/day, my runs are 35m and 80% successful (there is always some HAMSTER CW who lies about experience).
IF something... i think a little better return from power and movement would be nice, but just a slight tweak, GF is probably the best designed class in the game and the best tanking job in the whole mmo history.
Incorrect. CON only affects base HP. It has no relationship to +max hp gear whatsoever.
It is trivial to check this by working out your HP backwards, i.e. taking off +HP gear with Toughness bonus, then deduct Toughness against remaining HP, then deduct CON bonus to work out your base HP. This is the same HP that you would have if you were naked, with no feats and 10 CON.
Pretty much this. I am making a alt GF that is a pure tank to theory craft on but. Lets face it GWF is by far the better tank. 2 times as much deflect at 50% same mitigation 44% + Massive regen and the possibility at the highest life in the game. Unstopable a better tanking ability then block and they have the great escape where if you block you aren't moving anywhere.
A GF would need some buffs to catch a GWF although in the tank department maybe a GWF should be toned down.
I think GF's could use a HP base buff they should have the most life in the game and best benefit of Con. Also some set bonuses for 1800 HP be nice to be thrown the GF way instead of a GWF getting all the HP bonuses. Maybe a nice HP buff so a GF has 40k life.
All in all some interesting thoughts here. I think a new skill for Tab can be added for a GF that is useful like a utility. Into the fray etc. would be nice since there is no tab skill use in PvP. Sometimes I still have to tap shift for block to function but its better then it was. Just still don't think its the answer how it is currently and a total reworking would be nice. As is you can't buff guard for PvE cause the side effect is to much for PvP so I think redoing how it works is the best solution.
So when you put a 480 HP enchant in why does it go up more with higher Con?
I am not talking about agro nor is anyone else. I am talking about how a GWF can tank the most by absorbing damage and can have the highest HP in the game. A gwf tank stats are far greater then a GF hence is a supreme tank. GF's are just squisher if a GF had GWF stats then look out there be a tank class.
It doesn't.
What you're probably seeing is a feat bonus; the HP bonus from feats does modify HP bonuses from items. CON only modifies the base HP.
So if you want a formula, it goes something like this:
Total HP = ((base HP * (1 + CON Bonus)) + HP items) * (1 + Feat bonus)
That's probably why CON gives us 2% HP per point, instead of the standard 1%. In reality, it isn't 2% at all; it's a flat bonus based on your baseline HP. I haven't checked explicitly on my Fighter to see what the base amount of HP for him is, but on my Wizard, it's 19,000 HP at level 60. CON is therefore worth 19000 * 0.02 = 380 HP per point, modified by feat bonuses. One point of CON is roughly analogous to a single rank 4 Radiant enchantment, in other words.
(Slightly better, because rank 4 enchants are only worth 360 HP, but a rank 4 enchant is the closest analogue. Point being that CON is mechanically identical to a theoretical enchant that gives 380 HP.)
(I strongly suspect that the baseline HP at level 60 is the same for every class, btw, but just on the off chance that it's slightly different for Fighters, I make the above disclaimer. My 60 GF sitting on 22 CON doesn't have as big an HP advantage as you'd expect, if the baseline value changed much based on class selection.)
Interesting. Hp needs to be separated some. Baseline on plate higher then non plate. Didn't think it was any feat changing it but I guess I can play around with it to see.
Eh, the need to separate HP based on class choice isn't obvious to me.
Actually, I think the developers intended CON to be kind of a surrogate for a base HP increase for Fighters. That is, CON only modifies base HP, so if a given class or classes (Fighters, in this case) put let's say 8 more points into CON on average than other classes do, then effectively Fighters have ~3,040 more base HP.
That's a pretty big leg up.
Players of non-Fighter classes have the option of pumping CON, of course, but they have to sacrifice other things to do it. That's good game design; frankly there aren't enough build choices in this game that are similarly meaningful. Most other build choices seem to be no-brainers for a variety of reasons.
In PVP GWF if they go defensive are sooooooooo much more tanky then GF it borders on stupid. There are countless post here of people complaining about GWF hold off 3 + people on a point with equal gear.
GWF has agro feats , if the group lets them tank for a few seconds they can hold agro on groups of mobs , and can tank it better then a GF. Since most tanking in T2 dungeons for a GF is block for 4 seconds then kite ( vs adds ).
I am not saying nerf GWF , but GF need a buff ! Two of the three lines of the feats near worthless , and give very little in terms of tankness , our DPS feat line is a joke.
Like I said before , GF are one feat ( AOE taunt ) from being worthless in the game. We are not wanted in 80 % of the games dungeons as is.