Ok, this might not make a lot of sense to some people, so let me explain my first idea for the TAB skill:
Targets with Focused Mark take additional damage from your character's AoE attacks.
Here's the problem the developers are having. Guardian Fighters are fine in PvP. They don't want to make them overpowered just to bring them up to par in PvE. There's lots of ways of doing this (increasing PvE armor abilities, increasing the target caps/damage/abilities of certain skills), but doing this via the TAB skill is kinda tricky, since the TAB skill is pretty useful in PvP too.
The Guardian Fighter's AoE skills are Villain's Menace, Frontline Surge, Enforced Taunt, Lunging Strike (sorta) and Terrifying Impact. Most of these skills are best put to use in PvE (Frontline Surge was nerfed for PvP). So in PvP this wouldn't make a huge different (other than maybe add an interesting new play style for GFs in PvP). In PvE however you could use this to pick out a particularly dangerous mob from a pack or just use it on a boss itself and do extra damage to it with your AoE skills, which you're normally spamming anyway. Imagine being able to maintain aggro on a particular target while mostly using crowd control on everything else.
In addition to this I'd really like to see the ability to change TAB skills to something else. It'd be nice to have several options which can be selected like any other power. How about some TAB powers that modify blocking?
1. When holding TAB, your character cannot attack or move while blocking, but blocking ability is doubled.
2. If you hit TAB just as your blocking meter reaches a critical low, you perform a powerful counter-attack.
3. Holding TAB charges a powerful shield bash that deals heavy AoE damage but exhausts your guard meter.
Imagine being able to trade your Mark for one of these, depending on the situation.
...Here's the problem the developers are having. Guardian Fighters are fine in PvP. They don't want to make them overpowered just to bring them up to par in PvE. ...
OK, there is your real misconception. Guardian Fighters are definitely NOT fine in PvP. That's where you can really see the value of mechanics and relative power. Maybe for the new player or low gear score stuff. But when you finally gear your GF up, it cannot hold a candle to the other mele classes. At the high end PvP there are two types of rogues, both with way higher damage and ridiculous survivability. They are the Impossible To Catch Rogues and the Perma-stealth Rogues. Both have perfect Barkshields and huge regen/life steal to heal back up if they get into trouble. They troll nodes with almost no chance of dying. Perma-stealth can be pulled out of stealth by Frontline Surge but you cannot do enough damage to them to prevent them restealthing and healing back to full health, as their Path of Blades and Daggers whittle away at you using their perfect Bilethorns.
While Impossible To Catch is like 6 is seconds of TOTAL IMMUNITY to CC and damage if used to come out of stealth, it is far superior to anything the GF gets for survivability. Plus 3 Dodges that also provide total immunity to CC and damage. These guys are invulnerable for a very long time and invisible the rest. Let's stop calling it stealth because when you are facing a guy directly with no obstacles between you, he is not stealthed in the least. He is simply invisible, which should be a mage skill not a rogue's. Once attack begins, stealth should be suppressed for 3 seconds. At high end PvP these are practically unkillable solo by any class.
So maybe you want a more direct comparison? How about the high end Great Weapon Fighter? Well we have a shield so should be more survivable right? Wrong. Laughably wrong. Unstoppable is another CC immunity skill, and it comes with temporary hit points crazy speed to fuel life steal and high damage resistance. Any GF knows that it is a fools fight to go against a well geared GWF. They are the true Tank-Mages and have everything they were supposed to have and everything GF's were supposed to have. Healing suppression will hurt them but they will still be light years ahead of Guardian Fighters in PvP. It isn't competitive in the least.
I accept that Rangers are the paper to our rocks with five - count 'em - five dodges, and a ghost thing that only uses like a quarter of their daily and does more than our entire daily Villain's Menace does.
How to fix it? Assuming the Devs do not want to fix mechanics like Impossible to Catch, Unstoppable and the Ranger Root thing, the only workable solution that I see is to give us an easy to obtain CC immunity or total immunity like the other mele classes have. Make it so that whomever has our perma mark is unable to CC us. Because the most direct thing would be to give us Unstoppable as a class special instead of mark or to give us Impossible To Catch as an encounter power. Just the thought of those powers scared people so much they probably started saying "overpowered" in their minds before they even finished reading the sentence.
See, GF's are woefully underpowered at the high end gear when compared to other mele classes because of these very powers. IMHO avoiding CC should be precious and avoiding damage should b limited. In PvP all of the Rogues and GWF's are built around these broken mechanics and built for ridiculous survivability. GF'S don't do enough damage to compete, yet both the GWF and TR can kill us in one cycle of encounters. GF may be the guy with the shield, but he is the least survivable and does the least damage. He cannot compete with other mele. Too bad really, because it is a class almost everybody loves to play in NW and that is far stronger in the pen and paper game.
Or as I suggested on the preview forum, make it like the HR. Tab is a block / non-block stance switch. This would mean we would get all sorts of threat/defense related "block encounters", but this would be way harder to implement.
I think that'd be really beautiful, something like a switch from shielded mode to attack mode where we have -15%mov/+30%def in the shielded one and +15%mov/+15%dmg in the attack one. Obviously one can't use its shield to parry during the attack mode (and during which the GF puts the shield on his back.
Obviously the % i put there were random, but I think it'd be really interesting
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klangeddinMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 882Arc User
edited April 2014
I understand it may feel underwhelming compared to other tab abilities of other classes, however, for tanking it is excellent, for grabbing adds that are very far away it beats everything else we have at our disposal. It's also our only "pull" (in the mmo traditional sense of the term)
If you remove it, we may face problems in grabbing adds from the distance and pulling. It may become a lot harder to deal with various T2 boss fights as well.
All I'm saying is: just be careful what you wish for. I'd rather have some pvp utility added into it, like a 25% damage reduction to all other players while marked. (similar to the Tactician paragon feat, but more powerful and baseline to all)
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schweifer1982Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,662Arc User
edited April 2014
The new tab of GF:
Suggestion 1: Summon migthy Valindra Gabbing your enemy and giving it 2000 dmg /sec untill the taget is dead .
Suggestion 2: Heal the GF from 1% hp to 100%
Suggestion 3: Reflect the incoming dmg 300% back
Suggestion 4: Steath for 1 min
Suggestion 5: CW disguise
But realy .
I think Sorpions come over here is the best solution and if the target are cc imm the GF got to him + he got enforced agro.
1) Tab now = Knights Valor. This does what GFs roll is intended to do... Protect the group. The Current "Guard Meter" is now a "charge meter" showing when Knights Valor will be ready again, Instead of it lasting <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> duration with a CD, the ability charges via time - like a TR stealth meter, and then is used with a slow drain. Taking damage drains the "shared damage" faster, not taking damage drains the meter much slower - in a sense it has a "damage cap" on how much damage can be split with a team - maybe this number is based on max HP?
2) Bull Rush knockback is removed and now the ability just knocks a target down - This ability is more like a charge+stun rather than a ping pong ability....
3) Griffons Wrath charges now on a 9-10s base CD - comparable to Bullrush. Also - requires a target to use (so it cant miss, just like bullrush or lunge strike)
4) Block meter is NOT hit or damage based but purely DURATION based. Block is the "stamina bar" for GFs now instead of its block meter... TRs/HRs have dodge that consumes stamina, GWFs sprint, DCs/CWs-"blink", these abilities are used to avoid damage, just like block. The base duration for guard is around 7 seconds of holding block sustaining unlimited damage - feats, boons and gear can extend the duration and also improve the regen time on how this is done - just like any other class (stamina based)
Now the GF has improved group PVE and PVP "tab" function (that they dont have to sacrifice damage encounters for) - making them truly a "tank/damage absorb class" guard meter has improved so one TR flurry cant wipe it out completely, GF vs GFs cant perma "block" against eachother... GFs tab ability now has meaning to a group, and with proper timing a GF can rely on their guard meter to sustain some serious damage...
KV is useless for a large part of Gfs out there.Cause if KV is activated and someone from the group gets a 50k critical from boss....Gf dies.Also reflected hits on party members hit GF in full.KV is a very risky choise.Most GFs avoid it completely.
"This does what GFs roll is intended to do... Protect the group. "
The defender branch?yes.The tactician?A hybrid.yes and No.The Conq??Not one to a million.
GF conq description:Paragon Feat Tree: Conqueror (Offense)
The Conqueror wields weapons with skill and mastery, dealing heavy damage to foes with enhanced damage dealing powers, Criticals, and Combat Advantage.
^^^
protect the group?maybe in WoW or other MMOs.Here Conq is a dps.Again for everyone to see.From in game OFFICIAL description.
Paragon Feat Tree: Conqueror (Offense)
The Conqueror wields weapons with skill and mastery, dealing heavy damage to foes with enhanced damage dealing powers, Criticals, and Combat Advantage.
One more time.....:
Paragon Feat Tree: Conqueror (Offense)
The Conqueror wields weapons with skill and MASTERY, dealing HEAVY DAMAGE to foes with enhanced DAMAGE dealing POWERS, CRITICALS, and COMBAT ADVANTAGE.
Ok GWFs/TRs/CWs....GF Conq by design is a dps branch of GF.Generally speaking(not for you Ayroux ) stop spreading misinformation based on your limited knowledge of the class and your past WoW experience.
Ok we know most of you you do not want GF conqs to be dps but official description says other things.
"2) Bull Rush knockback is removed and now the ability just knocks a target down - This ability is more like a charge+stun rather than a ping pong ability...."
Bull rush is really fine after last patch.No GF has a problem with it.Lower activation time wouldn't hurt.But as of now BR is fine.No GF compalin about it.Just some GWFs complain in PVP cause we make poing pong with them .
"3) Griffons Wrath charges now on a 9-10s base CD - comparable to Bullrush. Also - requires a target to use (so it cant miss, just like bullrush or lunge strike)"
One charge or three of it?Current is one charge about 5 secs.if you r talking about three charges in 10secs i agree.it is usefull.And yes it would be great not to miss.
"4) Block meter is NOT hit or damage based but purely DURATION based. Block is the "stamina bar" for GFs now instead of its block meter... TRs/HRs have dodge that consumes stamina, GWFs sprint, DCs/CWs-"blink", these abilities are used to avoid damage, just like block. The base duration for guard is around 7 seconds of holding block sustaining unlimited damage - feats, boons and gear can extend the duration and also improve the regen time on how this is done - just like any other class (stamina based)"
Hm....As of now the full default block meter i think it equals to 4780 HP.max damage to it is capped at 18% no matter the hit.I just read it on a very old forum post during beta.With Shield talent,sharandar boon,bloodcrystal boon and the pvp armors block is not really so terrible.I am not for time duration but increase its "life" its HP.A 50% increase would not hurt.
Not only that;basically we need better stats.Where is arm pen on our armors?Tr/HR armors have huge armpen ,Gfs armors none.Except 2 sets with a 400 bonus in having 2/4.Big deal.HR chest piece has 400 armpen by its own!!
@hypervoreian. the part where you said knights valor would get a GF killed if receiving a 50k hit from boss would kill him,first of all you take 50% of that which is 25k hit,which all GF's should have more than that for health+if you have KV active you should have shield up taking that damage,or what i do is have steel defense passive which i use KV, then hit a daily right away taking no damage for half of the time for KV, i would actually prefer tab being KV since if used right,would make the GF a more wanted class again.(thats just my opinion, about the KV part)
Well actually i can see TR's having that kind of damage side of it since they are kind of supposed to be "glass cannons", though Gf's could use that damage.the main problem is that whatever bonus we have for GF's that other classes dont is not enough,like we get regen quite a bit,though the gwf does too about the same we need a boost in regen and arpen or crit.
I understand it may feel underwhelming compared to other tab abilities of other classes, however, for tanking it is excellent, for grabbing adds that are very far away it beats everything else we have at our disposal. It's also our only "pull" (in the mmo traditional sense of the term)
If you remove it, we may face problems in grabbing adds from the distance and pulling. It may become a lot harder to deal with various T2 boss fights as well.
All I'm saying is: just be careful what you wish for. I'd rather have some pvp utility added into it, like a 25% damage reduction to all other players while marked. (similar to the Tactician paragon feat, but more powerful and baseline to all)
This is close to my own opinion. For perspective, I play high-defense, KV GF and I never PvP. While I appreciate the pulling aspect of Tab as currently implemented, it seems painfully weak beyond use as a pull.
I would like Tab to be allowed to target either an opponent or an ally.
When targeting an opponent, the result should be the current pull, plus a much stronger mark as described in 4E rules and cited above by another poster. Essentially, marking an opponent should result in a hard taunt and ongoing threat, the marked opponent providing combat advantage to the rest of the GF's party, and a significant decrease to the marked target's damage output against any target other than the marking GF.
When targeting an ally, the effect should be in essence a single-target version of Knight's Valour -- intercept half of incoming damage, transfer that damage to GF, and build threat against attacking targets based upon the amount of intercepted damage.
It seems to me that this is consistent with the guardian fighter's primary role as a defender, and adds more utility to Tab in PvE and PvP without making GF Tab an overpowering mechanic.
Comments
Targets with Focused Mark take additional damage from your character's AoE attacks.
Here's the problem the developers are having. Guardian Fighters are fine in PvP. They don't want to make them overpowered just to bring them up to par in PvE. There's lots of ways of doing this (increasing PvE armor abilities, increasing the target caps/damage/abilities of certain skills), but doing this via the TAB skill is kinda tricky, since the TAB skill is pretty useful in PvP too.
The Guardian Fighter's AoE skills are Villain's Menace, Frontline Surge, Enforced Taunt, Lunging Strike (sorta) and Terrifying Impact. Most of these skills are best put to use in PvE (Frontline Surge was nerfed for PvP). So in PvP this wouldn't make a huge different (other than maybe add an interesting new play style for GFs in PvP). In PvE however you could use this to pick out a particularly dangerous mob from a pack or just use it on a boss itself and do extra damage to it with your AoE skills, which you're normally spamming anyway. Imagine being able to maintain aggro on a particular target while mostly using crowd control on everything else.
In addition to this I'd really like to see the ability to change TAB skills to something else. It'd be nice to have several options which can be selected like any other power. How about some TAB powers that modify blocking?
1. When holding TAB, your character cannot attack or move while blocking, but blocking ability is doubled.
2. If you hit TAB just as your blocking meter reaches a critical low, you perform a powerful counter-attack.
3. Holding TAB charges a powerful shield bash that deals heavy AoE damage but exhausts your guard meter.
Imagine being able to trade your Mark for one of these, depending on the situation.
OK, there is your real misconception. Guardian Fighters are definitely NOT fine in PvP. That's where you can really see the value of mechanics and relative power. Maybe for the new player or low gear score stuff. But when you finally gear your GF up, it cannot hold a candle to the other mele classes. At the high end PvP there are two types of rogues, both with way higher damage and ridiculous survivability. They are the Impossible To Catch Rogues and the Perma-stealth Rogues. Both have perfect Barkshields and huge regen/life steal to heal back up if they get into trouble. They troll nodes with almost no chance of dying. Perma-stealth can be pulled out of stealth by Frontline Surge but you cannot do enough damage to them to prevent them restealthing and healing back to full health, as their Path of Blades and Daggers whittle away at you using their perfect Bilethorns.
While Impossible To Catch is like 6 is seconds of TOTAL IMMUNITY to CC and damage if used to come out of stealth, it is far superior to anything the GF gets for survivability. Plus 3 Dodges that also provide total immunity to CC and damage. These guys are invulnerable for a very long time and invisible the rest. Let's stop calling it stealth because when you are facing a guy directly with no obstacles between you, he is not stealthed in the least. He is simply invisible, which should be a mage skill not a rogue's. Once attack begins, stealth should be suppressed for 3 seconds. At high end PvP these are practically unkillable solo by any class.
So maybe you want a more direct comparison? How about the high end Great Weapon Fighter? Well we have a shield so should be more survivable right? Wrong. Laughably wrong. Unstoppable is another CC immunity skill, and it comes with temporary hit points crazy speed to fuel life steal and high damage resistance. Any GF knows that it is a fools fight to go against a well geared GWF. They are the true Tank-Mages and have everything they were supposed to have and everything GF's were supposed to have. Healing suppression will hurt them but they will still be light years ahead of Guardian Fighters in PvP. It isn't competitive in the least.
I accept that Rangers are the paper to our rocks with five - count 'em - five dodges, and a ghost thing that only uses like a quarter of their daily and does more than our entire daily Villain's Menace does.
How to fix it? Assuming the Devs do not want to fix mechanics like Impossible to Catch, Unstoppable and the Ranger Root thing, the only workable solution that I see is to give us an easy to obtain CC immunity or total immunity like the other mele classes have. Make it so that whomever has our perma mark is unable to CC us. Because the most direct thing would be to give us Unstoppable as a class special instead of mark or to give us Impossible To Catch as an encounter power. Just the thought of those powers scared people so much they probably started saying "overpowered" in their minds before they even finished reading the sentence.
See, GF's are woefully underpowered at the high end gear when compared to other mele classes because of these very powers. IMHO avoiding CC should be precious and avoiding damage should b limited. In PvP all of the Rogues and GWF's are built around these broken mechanics and built for ridiculous survivability. GF'S don't do enough damage to compete, yet both the GWF and TR can kill us in one cycle of encounters. GF may be the guy with the shield, but he is the least survivable and does the least damage. He cannot compete with other mele. Too bad really, because it is a class almost everybody loves to play in NW and that is far stronger in the pen and paper game.
I think that'd be really beautiful, something like a switch from shielded mode to attack mode where we have -15%mov/+30%def in the shielded one and +15%mov/+15%dmg in the attack one. Obviously one can't use its shield to parry during the attack mode (and during which the GF puts the shield on his back.
Obviously the % i put there were random, but I think it'd be really interesting
If you remove it, we may face problems in grabbing adds from the distance and pulling. It may become a lot harder to deal with various T2 boss fights as well.
All I'm saying is: just be careful what you wish for. I'd rather have some pvp utility added into it, like a 25% damage reduction to all other players while marked. (similar to the Tactician paragon feat, but more powerful and baseline to all)
Suggestion 1: Summon migthy Valindra Gabbing your enemy and giving it 2000 dmg /sec untill the taget is dead .
Suggestion 2: Heal the GF from 1% hp to 100%
Suggestion 3: Reflect the incoming dmg 300% back
Suggestion 4: Steath for 1 min
Suggestion 5: CW disguise
But realy .
I think Sorpions come over here is the best solution and if the target are cc imm the GF got to him + he got enforced agro.
1- block the next actk of marked target 1 time CD:12 seg (whitout guard meter decreases)
2- increases the chance of deflect the target
3-counter the next atck on next 7 seg CD: 15 seg
4-enchant your shield whit holy aura and refletc 500-800 or 15% of atck for 7 seg CD:20 seg
5-vengeance buff increases 5% dmg every hit from markeds targets max 3 stack
6-heavy guard you shield become unbreakable but you cannot move or atck
7-break weapom the next atck of marked targets drecreases 10 % weapon dmg 1 time every 10 seg
8- for the glory - recovery the guard meter % for each enemy in 30 feet
9 fear me -reduce atck-run speed for 3 seg
1) Tab now = Knights Valor. This does what GFs roll is intended to do... Protect the group. The Current "Guard Meter" is now a "charge meter" showing when Knights Valor will be ready again, Instead of it lasting <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> duration with a CD, the ability charges via time - like a TR stealth meter, and then is used with a slow drain. Taking damage drains the "shared damage" faster, not taking damage drains the meter much slower - in a sense it has a "damage cap" on how much damage can be split with a team - maybe this number is based on max HP?
2) Bull Rush knockback is removed and now the ability just knocks a target down - This ability is more like a charge+stun rather than a ping pong ability....
3) Griffons Wrath charges now on a 9-10s base CD - comparable to Bullrush. Also - requires a target to use (so it cant miss, just like bullrush or lunge strike)
4) Block meter is NOT hit or damage based but purely DURATION based. Block is the "stamina bar" for GFs now instead of its block meter... TRs/HRs have dodge that consumes stamina, GWFs sprint, DCs/CWs-"blink", these abilities are used to avoid damage, just like block. The base duration for guard is around 7 seconds of holding block sustaining unlimited damage - feats, boons and gear can extend the duration and also improve the regen time on how this is done - just like any other class (stamina based)
Now the GF has improved group PVE and PVP "tab" function (that they dont have to sacrifice damage encounters for) - making them truly a "tank/damage absorb class" guard meter has improved so one TR flurry cant wipe it out completely, GF vs GFs cant perma "block" against eachother... GFs tab ability now has meaning to a group, and with proper timing a GF can rely on their guard meter to sustain some serious damage...
I was in PE and checked a TR standing next to me.he just wore T2s armors.
Body: something like 279 power ,300 arm pen.head:the same...
I stand in awe.And what Gfs a fighter class get?the bonus from KC armor full set a 400 arm pen ...:(
This shows to me that Gfs really need some better itemization among other things
This is close to my own opinion. For perspective, I play high-defense, KV GF and I never PvP. While I appreciate the pulling aspect of Tab as currently implemented, it seems painfully weak beyond use as a pull.
I would like Tab to be allowed to target either an opponent or an ally.
When targeting an opponent, the result should be the current pull, plus a much stronger mark as described in 4E rules and cited above by another poster. Essentially, marking an opponent should result in a hard taunt and ongoing threat, the marked opponent providing combat advantage to the rest of the GF's party, and a significant decrease to the marked target's damage output against any target other than the marking GF.
When targeting an ally, the effect should be in essence a single-target version of Knight's Valour -- intercept half of incoming damage, transfer that damage to GF, and build threat against attacking targets based upon the amount of intercepted damage.
It seems to me that this is consistent with the guardian fighter's primary role as a defender, and adds more utility to Tab in PvE and PvP without making GF Tab an overpowering mechanic.