Feedback: Enforced Threat What about giving this power a buff like "For each target hit by this power you gain 2% damage mitigation for 10 seconds." 20x2=40% damage mitigation maximum in dungeons, 5x2=10% damage mitigation maximum in Domination matches. Balanced? Oh, could we also increase the animation speed?
M6 almost drains your soul given how boring it is. (c) joocycuzzzzzz
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elveMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 336
edited June 2014
Feedback: Damage/Thread Generation
Correct me at any time if I'm wrong but the threat generation/damage balancing seems really off to me.
Currently we have 100% increased thread generation from Mark(taking the threat to 2 x Damage) and additional 100% thread generation from Enhanced Mark(3 x Damage). That means that the damage focused tank is supposed to do just a little bit more than half the damage of any DPS class to keep the combat advantage and the more defensive tank is supposed to do about 1/3 of the damage of the DPS class.
Some people are struggling with that amount of damage so the answer was to increase the thread generation. The preview shard thread generation is about 3 x Damage with normal mark and 5.25 x Damage with Enhanced Mark. So now to hold the agro a high DPS tank is supposed to do just above 1/3 of the damage a DPS character does and a low DPS is supposed to do just about 1/5 of the damage of a DPS character.
Of course there are different ways to increase/decrease threat by the tanks/dps and the mark cannot be active all the time but I really think this is the baseline for bosses and small groups of enemies.
Still, doesn't that sound kind of wrong? The DPS classes certainly do not have 3 or 5 times less health and overall defence than GFs so why would GF's damage be so low?
My suggestion - roll back the thread generation from mark and increase the damage of GFs by about 25%. It should be sufficient to keep tanking GFs on the agro and will give the offensive GFs much needed increase in damage to compete with the other classes in DPS if they choose to forgo their defence in favor of offensive stats.
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guille23mxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 340Arc User
10k is one skill. Even a dc can hit for that much. I like my suggestion better, to be honest. A flat depletion decrease of 200% along with the current system we use on live and the thing is perfect. So we'd have 3 times as much guard meter and then we would actually be able to take more than 2-3 bigger hits, without being able to survive infinitely. (just a few seconds, longer)
---
i am also not in favor of the timed block - gates, as i mentioned before. Blocking has to be available without depletion, at all times. Because, we have no real reliable form of anti cc, our movement is beyond slow, plus as i mentioned, tying it to a timer would grant other classes too many advantages on us, when in fact blocking should be our advantage and not a burden as it is on pts.
please devs .
Listen to his comments.
This guy knows what he is talking about.
And as a "all full time gf" i know this guy represent us all of gf out there.
Please scrap the PTR version and BUFF the LIVE version to 200% or more so we can take much more hits.
Please!
+100 to his comment!
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guille23mxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 340Arc User
edited June 2014
DEVS.
In the current state the GF is presented in PTR...
I would have to respect TACTICIAN to NEVER LIFT THAT SHIELD AGAIN and at least gain some AP to regain back healt through a daily.
Imagine it from the PVP point of view .:
you go against a permastealt Bile TR and he bombards u with daggers or a HR that roots the heck out of u and snipe from afar.
Were dead. Easily.
CONCLUSION:
Give us the Old Block but BUFFED.
All the other changes seems nice
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guille23mxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 340Arc User
I have made changes to the patch notes below and made BLUE what the changes are. This is how they SHOULD read.
General
Threat: Distance based threat has been removed. Threat is now purely calculated based on Damage and Healing. Threat bonuses still calculate as normal.
Stats
Strength: Now provides Stamina Regen rather than Guard Meter and has been increased to 2% per point (up from 1%)
Constitution: Each point of Constitution increases max HP by 4% (up from 2%) and increased Armor Penetration by 1%(moved from Dexterity)
Dexterity: Each point of Dexterity increases deflection chance by 1% (up from .5%) and increased critical strike chance by .5%(added to dexterity)
Powers
[*]Block: Now consumes stamina while active. Reduces incoming damage by 100% while active. Stamina regeneration on the Guardian Fighter has been increased 100% to bring this concept inline with the goal of the guardian fighters block ability. This should put the base recharge time on block somewhere around 10 seconds. (Note base stamina on block meter lasts 5 seconds - same as the TR stealth)
[*]Block: Now activates more quickly and has a .25 second cooldown after being released (down from .5 seconds)
[*]Mark: Now causes you to deal 200% (up from 100%) additional threat on Marked targets.
[*]Mark: Marked targets now grant combat advantage to the Guardian's Allies.
[*]Mark: Mark will now taunt foes briefly as well as place the player at the top of the threat list.
[*]Enhanced Mark: Now grants 75% bonus threat per rank (up from 33%).
[*]Knight's Valor: Now transfer's 200% (up from 50%) of the threat allies deal to you.
[*]Enforced Threat: Can now hit up to 20 (up from 8) nearby targets.
[*]Tide of Iron: Now restores Stamina instead of Guard Meter. The amount of stamina restored had been doubled. [*]Shield Talent: This feat has been re-worked. Shield Talent now reduces stamina consumption by 10/20/30% and also increases run speed by 3/6/9% on the Guardian Fighter.
[*]Enforced Threat: Now restores Stamina instead of Guard Meter.
[*]Shield Slam: Now restores Stamina instead of Guard Meter.
[*]Into the Fray: Now restores Stamina instead of Guard Meter.
[*]Iron Warrior: Now increases Stamina Regeneration by 50% while active rather than reducing damage Guard meter takes.
[*]Iron Warrior: Base threat bonus increased to 200% (up from 150%).
[*]Iron Warrior: This power now properly increases threat generation.
[*]Iron Vanguard: Threatening Rush: This power now has 3 charges which completely refresh every 9 seconds. This means all three stacks regenerate every 9 seconds.
[*]Iron Vanguard: Frontline Surge: This power now stuns players rather than proning them. The stun time has been increased by .5 seconds. No change on NPCs.
NEW: [*]Guarded Assault: This power now reflects 2/4/6% of income damage back at your attacker (up from 1/2/3%). [*]Anvil of Doom: This power now provides a damage bonus to targets under 35% health (up from 25%). [*]Knee Breaker: This power now slows targets by 30% for 2 seconds. Rank 2: Damage increased 10% and +1 second to slow. Rank 3: Damage increased 10% and +1 second to slow. [*]Bull Charge: The knockback on this power has been removed. It now only prones targets. Rank 2 and 3 provide a damage increase of 15% each (up from 10%).
Feats
Armor of Bahamut: *REWORK* When Stamina is below 30%, you take 2/4/6/8/10% less damage from all sources.
Shieldmaster: Guard now drains Stamina 4/8/12/16/20% more slowly. (Up from 2/4/6/8/10%)
Reckless Attacker: *REWORK* Provides damage bonus up to 25% based upon the amount of health missing.
ReInforced Surge: The additional .5 seconds added to prone, now also applies to stun when attacking enemy players.
Pin Down: The additional .1/.2/.3 seconds of prone duration also apply to stuns when attacking enemy players.
Item Sets
Wilds Knight Set Bonus: Now grants Stamina rather than Guard Meter.
PVP Set Bonus: Now grants Stamina rather than Guard Meter.
Black Ice 2 piece Set Bonus: Now grants Stamina rather than Guard Meter.
[*]Bull Charge: The knockback on this power has been removed. It now only prones targets. Rank 2 and 3 provide a damage increase of 15% each (up from 10%).
I liked alot of the stuff you suggested, to do ALL of that would of course make us pretty fricken OP IMO but there are a lot of really good ideas in there for the Devs to work with.
I just want to comment on the suggestion I quoted above:
I really enjoy the Knockback on Bull Charge, it provides so much utility in PvP, you can do so many things with it strategy wise, from moving an enemy into a teammates attack, protecting teammates, bleeding on a node, putting them in corners or separating them from the crowd to make it easier to focus them. Stuff like that.
I would be FINE if they took the range away (its cool but I really don't need it) and left the prone/knockback. Damage buff I have no opinion on either way. I'm of course fine withe a DPS increase but it probably will not be necessary if our stat allocations get tweaked.
I don't know how any of this effects PvE so if what I'm supporting, or if what I'm ok with losing effects PvE terribly please let us know, I'm sure something can be found that works best for both PvE and PvP.
Enemy Team
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited June 2014
When I play Guardian Fighter in solo PvE, Bull Charge with the mega-knockback is nice because you can separate out a single big mob almost indefinitely until it's the last thing standing. By the time it comes back to chew on you, you're pretty much ready to throw it away again. It's a useful strategic battlefield management ability, plus it's really fun. It's probably useful in certain fights like clearing the platform in Spellplague too (not one I've personally done on GF).
I won't have it slotted for groups because mob scattering is bad PvE team play... you want to AoE stuff in a tidy clump whenever possible. I play as a TR a lot, and knockbacks are horrible for TRs because they tend to cause a lot of our potential damage to be wasted (knocking our target away right when we're using Lashing Blade or starting strike 3 of Duelist's Flurry), or occasionally to kill us (throwing something off a ledge while the TR is already Flurry-locked on it). So this is a power I particularly hate seeing used when I'm pugging for skirmishes. It tends to eff everything up except the GF's own damage numbers.
In brief, I think the knockback on Bull Charge has wonderful applications in PvE (and PvP), when used well. On the other hand, a GF that's bad at playing in groups can really make a mess of things with Bull Charge the way it currently works, so I'd be able to see a bright side to losing that mega-knockback as well.
I tested all changes for the upcoming module 4 on all classes, and i dont think anything is gona change in PVE for GF, cw still has too much control/damage in the same time so there will be no or little place for a GF in dungeons, But this can be fixed by making some good party buff powers on GF (i like mark buff but its not nearly enough to make GF wanted in pve no matter how good he is in tanking). after hours of testing i have to say i agree with ppl who want to keep the block version on live server but buffed for a change. Would also like to keep moving speed and reaction time like on test server, i REALY like those.
Suggestion 1: make that Into the fray gives at least 15% damage boost to party(or some crit severity?) + more on tactician tree. This would great in pvp too.
Suggestion 2: make that iron warrior (since its pretty much useless with enforced threat buffed) has a long cooldown (25/30 sec) but resurect a single fallen ally from distance like eye of lathander artifact does.
Suggestion 3: Replace knee breaker with a whole new party buff power, nobody use knee breaker
Not really sure where this would go but thought I would throw it here.
Suggestion: I think it would be really cool to see dual swords/offense in one stance and defense/shield in the other. It is definitely cool for HR's and I think it would add a ton of diversity. I dont think this would work for all classes but GF could benefit from it and really seperate it from GWF's.
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katbozejziemiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 856Arc User
edited June 2014
Feedback: Block The way block works now just doesn't feel good, gameplay wise. I can't even tell when I actually blocked something, and the stamina drain is too fast (or the regen is too slow). I don't really understand what was the thought behind this change instead of improving the existing one in terms of durability.
Feedback: Block The way block works now just doesn't feel good, gameplay wise. I can't even tell when I actually blocked something, and the stamina drain is too fast (or the regen is too slow). I don't really understand what was the thought behind this change instead of improving the existing one in terms of durability.
Also, the high speed crab walk looks very silly
I agree. The base duration needs to be roughly doubled, the regen of the block needs to be cut roughly in half, and THEN lets see how that plays.
After really testing this, I think a MAJOR part of the issue is with the block regen. I mean a GWF can pop unstoppable, gain tankiness and HP, come back out and within seconds if taking enough damage pop it again.
TRs have encounters that fill their entire stealth meter allowing them to perma stealth...
Im not saying we need a "perma guard" build to just be a troll, but I am saying block needs to have a significant recharge increase so its something that even once a GF expends his entire meter, he knows he just has to hold out a few seconds to be able to block again.
I keep coming back to roughly a 5 second BASE duration with around 8-10 seconds on the recharge. With feats/STR/Gear/Boons this means you can ROUGHLY get close to an 8 second uptime with around 8 seconds on a full recharge.
So the idea is that for every 1 second out of block, you regain 1 second of block.
Id like to see and test THIS out on the PTR. Id really like the other changes to the notes I posted a few pages back as well. I hope the DEVs can make all the changes - even if it makes GF OP, atleast you know then you went to far...
Otherwise im afraid GFs will still just be such a pitiful class compared to all others (maybe except Destroyer GWF which will basically be made of paper in pvp mod 4)
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lvl99looterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 682Arc User
edited June 2014
Can we test out unlimited guard on the test server?
Hey guys, I wanted to drop in and let you know about a change we are making and some of the rationale behind the reworked block behavior.
In the next week or two we will be increasing the block duration substantially. This will make it easier to withstand much longer assaults by large numbers of foes.
Additionally we have the following changes going in at the same time.
Guardian Fighter: Threatening Rush: Threatening Rush is now usable At Will again, without charges or a cooldown. Great Weapon Fighters still use the charge based system.
Guardian Fighter: Block will now grant CC Immunity while active.
As for the reasoning as to why we changed block the way we did I have to explain how old block worked and why it was problematic. Old block functioned as a secondary HP bar that was calculated based on your maximum HP and feats, and could not be drained more than 20% in any single hit. While this sounds good on paper in practice it actually means that when you manage to pull aggro on enough targets you end up getting the whole meter drained out rapidly (sometimes in only 5 hits depending on how strong the foes were). This then left the Guardian with no tools left in his kit. It also provided complete damage protection which meant that healers had to be ready for large spikes of incoming burst damage, and the only way to respond to that in time was to have a lot of heal over time effects rolling so that when those spikes of damage came in there were heals already coming in.
Given those problems we wanted to give the Guardian more control over his survivability as well as increase the symbiotic relationship between healers and tanks so healers can have more options added to their toolkit beyond "put down astral shield". To do this we decided that block shouldn't eat ALL incoming damage and should also get stronger as your damage resistance does. To facilitate this we have changed block to be an 80% multiplicative buff (this means that the damage you would have taken gets multiplied by .2 while block is active). This means that your armor still matters a lot, and defensive improvements always help you. It also means that healers face far less spikes of large damage and see much more consistent incoming damage on tanks, which makes it much easier to deal with changes on the battlefield, and when we get a chance to look at Clerics means we can give them more styles of healing that make sense in more situations. Given these new changes we also wanted to make taunting and mob control more potent so Guardians can better fill the role of grabbing foes and gathering them up so your allies can destroy them with impunity.
We would like to see testing performed in dungeons and in PVP matches to see how the changes have adjusted that gameplay. We are also well aware that Guardians can no longer preemptively just hold up their shield indefinitely. We want Guardians to have to choose their timing more carefully but be rewarded for doing so, and the new block system provided much more of that feeling during our internal testing.
Guardian Fighter: Threatening Rush: Threatening Rush is now usable At Will again, without charges or a cooldown. Great Weapon Fighters still use the charge based system.
Just so you know, the scenario you typed there is currently flipped (GWF has the Live Threatening Rush and GF has the Preview Threatening Rush).
Feedback: Block I don't like the way blocking works at the preview server at all. This is not a matter of how fast the guard meter should recover, or other tweaks to that new blocking mechanism. It is not about the new guard/block beeing strong or weak. I have played the GF class extensively, and I suggest to completely scrap this new block/guard mechanism and keep blocking/guarding the way it currently is at the live server.
This is my biggest concern. If there is only one thing you change about the current preview changes to GF class, then please completely drop this new blocking/guard mechanism.
Feedback: Enhanced Mark Enhanced Mark already is a good class feature. There is no need to improve it further, that will just make it an overpowered class feature compared to our other class features. Let's keep a balance among the class features for our GF class, so that we will have interesting options rather than very few must-haves. If it was intended to increase our threat, then just raise the general threat a GF generates a bit.
Feedback: Threatening Rush Threatening Rush is important for the mobility of GFs. Please don't turn this at-will into an encounter like power with a cooldown. I heard that this change was the result of GWFs spamming Threatening Rush in pvp. If that is the problem, please fix the cause there, and macke changes to GWF, but don't touch the Threatening Rush of GFs.
Feedback: Constitution providing more hp This is a good change, since I always felt that CON gave me as much as the secondary stats DEX and STR. Please keep this change.
Feedback: Fighter's Recovery I know that nothing regarding this daily has been changed at the preview server, but I still want to let you kow that the casting time is too high. During that time you can die in T2.5 dungeons. Already I find myself triggering fighter's recovery while still having full hp in anticipation that I will need it the next seconds.
We are also well aware that Guardians can no longer preemptively just hold up their shield indefinitely. We want Guardians to have to choose their timing more carefully but be rewarded for doing so
with this change you made the full def tank useless,
where you could block 90% of the time when you weren't doing mass pulls and would only stop blocking to cast skills,
since you cant use the increased dmg with Balanced Shield Fighter and keeping up the stacks of Iron Guard is hard now too, you can only use guard like the other class to dodge large attacks/AoEs and to block the first spike of the pull.
Hey guys, I wanted to drop in and let you know about a change we are making and some of the rationale behind the reworked block behavior.
In the next week or two we will be increasing the block duration substantially. This will make it easier to withstand much longer assaults by large numbers of foes.
Additionally we have the following changes going in at the same time.
Guardian Fighter: Threatening Rush: Threatening Rush is now usable At Will again, without charges or a cooldown. Great Weapon Fighters still use the charge based system.
Guardian Fighter: Block will now grant CC Immunity while active.
As for the reasoning as to why we changed block the way we did I have to explain how old block worked and why it was problematic. Old block functioned as a secondary HP bar that was calculated based on your maximum HP and feats, and could not be drained more than 20% in any single hit. While this sounds good on paper in practice it actually means that when you manage to pull aggro on enough targets you end up getting the whole meter drained out rapidly (sometimes in only 5 hits depending on how strong the foes were). This then left the Guardian with no tools left in his kit. It also provided complete damage protection which meant that healers had to be ready for large spikes of incoming burst damage, and the only way to respond to that in time was to have a lot of heal over time effects rolling so that when those spikes of damage came in there were heals already coming in.
Given those problems we wanted to give the Guardian more control over his survivability as well as increase the symbiotic relationship between healers and tanks so healers can have more options added to their toolkit beyond "put down astral shield". To do this we decided that block shouldn't eat ALL incoming damage and should also get stronger as your damage resistance does. To facilitate this we have changed block to be an 80% multiplicative buff (this means that the damage you would have taken gets multiplied by .2 while block is active). This means that your armor still matters a lot, and defensive improvements always help you. It also means that healers face far less spikes of large damage and see much more consistent incoming damage on tanks, which makes it much easier to deal with changes on the battlefield, and when we get a chance to look at Clerics means we can give them more styles of healing that make sense in more situations. Given these new changes we also wanted to make taunting and mob control more potent so Guardians can better fill the role of grabbing foes and gathering them up so your allies can destroy them with impunity.
We would like to see testing performed in dungeons and in PVP matches to see how the changes have adjusted that gameplay. We are also well aware that Guardians can no longer preemptively just hold up their shield indefinitely. We want Guardians to have to choose their timing more carefully but be rewarded for doing so, and the new block system provided much more of that feeling during our internal testing.
Thank you all for your continued feedback.
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
Crush, I sincerely thank you again for your well explained feedback.
I am looking forward to the increased block duration, but I also STRONGLY encourage you to look at the block recharge rate. Like you said it "leaves guardians with no tools in their kit" once block is down.
Where a GWF takes enough damage to gain unstoppable again, and a TR has multiple encounters to use to regain stealth, and even encounters like ITC to make them almost damage immune for short bursts outside of this, guardians have nothing like this.
Because they have no dodges, or even a gap creator/closer like sprint, they rely HEAVILY on block meter. Having the recharge time THAT high really kills the ability for a GF to "time blocks" - which is the goal.
Sometimes a GF can predict when big attacks are coming and prevent that, but other times they are just using it to survive and having a GF blow his entire block meter just to NOT die, then leaves him nothing in his kit to try and compete...
So dropping the amount of time it takes to fully recover (aka increasing the base recharge rate) will dramatically help here.
Also, PLEASE consider re-working some of the skills and ESPECIALLY recosider the STAT benefits like you did with CON. I love this change, but I also think GFs need some love in the crit/deflection department as well - as another tool for outside of block...
Feedback: Block The conqueror will suffer from this new block mechanic since he will lose dps even if no mob is hitting him. That especially is the case for players with a high ping who have to predict what comes ahead and have to raise their shield earlier. Somethimes the aniticipated attack comes later, or doesnt impact at all. And still we will lose dps for this. Then there is the issue about temporary hitpoints. there are feats that only trigger if you have temporary hitpoints. with the new guarding mechanism, I can't protect my temporary hitpoints, because I will allways suffer damage.
I feel that some players want to be able to block more damage because they expect the GF to be something that it is not: A pure tank that sits in one spot and takes all damage. A GF is NOT a tank. A GF relies heavily on movement, aggros mobs, takes some damage, and provides more dps or more damage taking or more party buffing (conqueror/protector/tactician). It might take some time for some to figure this out. Our class is easy to start with, but not easy to master. This is what makes our class fun. Please keep it that way and keep the current blocking/guarding mechanism at the live server.
(I have played GF continually since a couple of days after open beta started.)
We want Guardians to have to choose their timing more carefully but be rewarded for doing so, and the new block system provided much more of that feeling during our internal testing.
Thank you all for your continued feedback.
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
We already ARE rewarded for carefully choosing the timing regarding blocking: When we raise our shields, we can only move slowly. So we already do carefully choose when to raise our shields.
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zhaofuoMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 129Bounty Hunter
Hey guys, I wanted to drop in and let you know about a change we are making and some of the rationale behind the reworked block behavior.
In the next week or two we will be increasing the block duration substantially. This will make it easier to withstand much longer assaults by large numbers of foes.
Additionally we have the following changes going in at the same time.
Guardian Fighter: Threatening Rush: Threatening Rush is now usable At Will again, without charges or a cooldown. Great Weapon Fighters still use the charge based system.
Guardian Fighter: Block will now grant CC Immunity while active.
As for the reasoning as to why we changed block the way we did I have to explain how old block worked and why it was problematic. Old block functioned as a secondary HP bar that was calculated based on your maximum HP and feats, and could not be drained more than 20% in any single hit. While this sounds good on paper in practice it actually means that when you manage to pull aggro on enough targets you end up getting the whole meter drained out rapidly (sometimes in only 5 hits depending on how strong the foes were). This then left the Guardian with no tools left in his kit. It also provided complete damage protection which meant that healers had to be ready for large spikes of incoming burst damage, and the only way to respond to that in time was to have a lot of heal over time effects rolling so that when those spikes of damage came in there were heals already coming in.
Given those problems we wanted to give the Guardian more control over his survivability as well as increase the symbiotic relationship between healers and tanks so healers can have more options added to their toolkit beyond "put down astral shield". To do this we decided that block shouldn't eat ALL incoming damage and should also get stronger as your damage resistance does. To facilitate this we have changed block to be an 80% multiplicative buff (this means that the damage you would have taken gets multiplied by .2 while block is active). This means that your armor still matters a lot, and defensive improvements always help you. It also means that healers face far less spikes of large damage and see much more consistent incoming damage on tanks, which makes it much easier to deal with changes on the battlefield, and when we get a chance to look at Clerics means we can give them more styles of healing that make sense in more situations. Given these new changes we also wanted to make taunting and mob control more potent so Guardians can better fill the role of grabbing foes and gathering them up so your allies can destroy them with impunity.
We would like to see testing performed in dungeons and in PVP matches to see how the changes have adjusted that gameplay. We are also well aware that Guardians can no longer preemptively just hold up their shield indefinitely. We want Guardians to have to choose their timing more carefully but be rewarded for doing so, and the new block system provided much more of that feeling during our internal testing.
Thank you all for your continued feedback.
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
Thanks for the Feedback Crush
Guardian Fighter: Threatening Rush: Threatening Rush is now usable At Will again, without charges or a cooldown. Great Weapon Fighters still use the charge based system.
This is also a good change but can you also take into consideration the FLS prone for players - we need those to keep or ability to knockback our foes in PVP as well. again the FLS change was cause by GWF not the GF.
Block incoming 80%
To facilitate this we have changed block to be an 80% multiplicative buff (this means that the damage you would have taken gets multiplied by .2 while block is active)
I still don't like the 80% damage - here is something to think about i guess, most Guardian fighter rely on block on situations he knows that he will die or to block CC.
If we are only talking about a swarm of small trash mobs then why would you block this if your DR can take care of multiple hits, the only time you would raise your shield is if you are already within the 15% to 5% of your HP and your pots are in cooldown - by putting a 20% damage that goes through our block then that defeats the purpose of trying to save your life - a guardian fighter would never raise his shield if his HP is already full unless he knows that a certain hit can kill him even if your in full HP, so i don't see the reason why a healer would deal with spikes on damage here.
example scenario: 100% block rate
a GF with multiple mobs let say 15, if he can take all 15 mobs without raising his shield then a 100% shield block will help here if the healer got lazy here. 80% block rate
a GF with multiple mobs let say 15, if he can take all 15 mobs without raising his shield then a 80% shield block will still kill you here if your healer got lazy
Again this scenario gives out that he will only raise his shield if his HP is within 15% to 5% and pots is still in cooldown.
Hey guys, I wanted to drop in and let you know about a change we are making and some of the rationale behind the reworked block behavior.
In the next week or two we will be increasing the block duration substantially. This will make it easier to withstand much longer assaults by large numbers of foes.
Additionally we have the following changes going in at the same time.
Guardian Fighter: Threatening Rush: Threatening Rush is now usable At Will again, without charges or a cooldown. Great Weapon Fighters still use the charge based system.
Guardian Fighter: Block will now grant CC Immunity while active.
As for the reasoning as to why we changed block the way we did I have to explain how old block worked and why it was problematic. Old block functioned as a secondary HP bar that was calculated based on your maximum HP and feats, and could not be drained more than 20% in any single hit. While this sounds good on paper in practice it actually means that when you manage to pull aggro on enough targets you end up getting the whole meter drained out rapidly (sometimes in only 5 hits depending on how strong the foes were). This then left the Guardian with no tools left in his kit. It also provided complete damage protection which meant that healers had to be ready for large spikes of incoming burst damage, and the only way to respond to that in time was to have a lot of heal over time effects rolling so that when those spikes of damage came in there were heals already coming in.
Given those problems we wanted to give the Guardian more control over his survivability as well as increase the symbiotic relationship between healers and tanks so healers can have more options added to their toolkit beyond "put down astral shield". To do this we decided that block shouldn't eat ALL incoming damage and should also get stronger as your damage resistance does. To facilitate this we have changed block to be an 80% multiplicative buff (this means that the damage you would have taken gets multiplied by .2 while block is active). This means that your armor still matters a lot, and defensive improvements always help you. It also means that healers face far less spikes of large damage and see much more consistent incoming damage on tanks, which makes it much easier to deal with changes on the battlefield, and when we get a chance to look at Clerics means we can give them more styles of healing that make sense in more situations. Given these new changes we also wanted to make taunting and mob control more potent so Guardians can better fill the role of grabbing foes and gathering them up so your allies can destroy them with impunity.
We would like to see testing performed in dungeons and in PVP matches to see how the changes have adjusted that gameplay. We are also well aware that Guardians can no longer preemptively just hold up their shield indefinitely. We want Guardians to have to choose their timing more carefully but be rewarded for doing so, and the new block system provided much more of that feeling during our internal testing.
Thank you all for your continued feedback.
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
Thank you for the update it looks like we are moving in the right direction. The current guard system does encourage tactical shield use. Properly deployed my shield is only used for a) big hits, and b) unavoidable CCs when Menace is down. I cannot say if your re-work will make this sort of deployment effective but I am more than willing to try except that Preview crashes every time I launch it (see bug report thread). I would suggest you listen to the blessed few who have a working preview copy on the regen rate. The process has been to use the shield for those instances then a) 'dodge' using TR and LS or b) FLS the mobs to get a breather or c) fighter's recovery and DPS yourself to stable HP while taking all hits. This is not a lot of time in which to regain guard (stamina). Given that we will be aggroing more than twice as many mobs with a stronger taunt this could prove really problematic for a GF coming out of his cycle to realize he only has 30% of a guard (stamina) meter at his disposal. Likely something like the early archery HRs who would aggro mobs then string them across the dungeon trying to stay alive.
Feedback: block One more thing about this new blocking mechansim. I often use Aggravating Strike, not because I want to attack while having my shield raised, but because I want to have the taunting effect that makes a mob engage me. Now I will lose guardmeter even if that mob doesn't attack me (because it is currently stunned/proned/otherwise controlled). Please don't let this new guard mechanism go live.
Some additional changes to better change the divide between Iron Vanguard as a Tank/Control option and Swordmaster as a raw damage dealing option
Guardian Fighter: Weaponmaster's Strike: This power now deals ~48% more damage.
Guardian Fighter: Flourish: This power now deals ~55% more damage and stuns for 3 seconds (2 seconds on players).
These changes will bring the damage in line with what a GWF is capable of using the same powers. Great Weapon Fighters will be getting the reverse treatment on Iron Vangaurd powers (so they will deal the same damage a Guardian Fighter would with the same power).
Mr. GMC, what about conqueror specs? All i keep seeing is tank this, tank that , tank here, tank there. For example, i am not going to play my GF as a tank. Can we address it's damage output and stat passives a little further? There's already plenty of suggestions on this thread about how to accomplish that.
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Do your internal testing against a perma stealth TR, a dodge crazy HR, a sprinting GWF, please. If our block depeletes just by holding our shield up... what's going to happen? Considered these classes have ways to literally get immune from damage for more than 5 seconds or just are able to run away. Especially with the 80% mitigation, what is going to happen, if a TR attacks us from stealth? We will be left with 50% power, an already damaged health pool and then certain classes can just finish us off, with ease.
When I play Guardian Fighter in solo PvE, Bull Charge with the mega-knockback is nice because you can separate out a single big mob almost indefinitely until it's the last thing standing. By the time it comes back to chew on you, you're pretty much ready to throw it away again. It's a useful strategic battlefield management ability, plus it's really fun.
I'd just like to echo this since it nicely described my point of view as well. I unslot it on the occasions I do group stuff since knockbacks can be annoying.
I see it as one of those things where not every skill is equally useful in all facets of the game, players however tend to expect everything to be useful for how they play the game.
When I 1st read about shield bar working like stamina I thought that might be a good idea. When i tried it out on preview not so much. But the changes on preview got me to thinking, why does the shield have to break at all. The weapons of characters hitting the shield cant break so why should my shield. Shield block should be made to last indefinitely but in return will only provide partial damage blocking like on the preview. If you think thats a little too strong then the dr shielding provides can scale down over the time you are blocking.
I would still have a block meter thats used when you block cc, lets say 5 blocks from full, and also used as a stamina bar for a sprint. This would give the gf choices in how to avoid dmg/cc and costs associated with which way you do so. Sprint too much and cant block cc, use all your charges to block cc and no more sprint.
One of the problems with the gf is how fast your block meter is burned through and the changes for mod 4 dont really change this. The gf is a 1 trick pony once your shield is gone you are a sitting duck while almost all the other classes have multiple ways to avoid dmg/cc. My suggestions go a long way towards fixing this problem without I think becoming game breaking in any way.
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damnaciousMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 354Arc User
In the next week or two we will be increasing the block duration substantially. This will make it easier to withstand much longer assaults by large numbers of foes.
I will have to wait and see before i comment too much more on the above Guard changes, yet i have a sneaking suspicion that simply decreasing the rate at which the Guard depletes will not be sufficient against a mob of 20 NPCs. I surmise that the Guard Meter replenishment rate will need to be increased too.
I have also sort of noticed that the Guard can dramatically 'drop' from 1/3 - 1/4 full to broken instantly when it is hit with large hits, possibly crits.
Is there the possibility of confirmation that the Guard is not subject to additional depletion due to hits and is purely a time-based depletion rate please?
I will have to wait and see before i comment too much more on the above Guard changes, yet i have a sneaking suspicion that simply decreasing the rate at which the Guard depletes will not be sufficient against a mob of 20 NPCs. I surmise that the Guard Meter replenishment rate will need to be increased too.
I have also sort of noticed that the Guard can dramatically 'drop' from 1/3 - 1/4 full to broken instantly when it is hit with large hits, possibly crits.
Is there the possibility of confirmation that the Guard is not subject to additional depletion due to hits and is purely a time-based depletion rate please?
This is correct, Guard has NO reaction to incoming damage now. It is purely a time function.
This is correct, Guard has NO reaction to incoming damage now. It is purely a time function.
The problem is, it drains while just having our shield raised. Conquerors lose dps with every second... perhaps you can make it work differently for each spec? Conq/Prot/tact? One way to accomplish this would be to tie, the stamina depletion to our capstones. Conquerors should not have to suffer this kind of damage loss, due to their stamina depleting on it's own. If we get hit, then it should start to deplete but not prior to getting hit.
Comments
What about giving this power a buff like "For each target hit by this power you gain 2% damage mitigation for 10 seconds." 20x2=40% damage mitigation maximum in dungeons, 5x2=10% damage mitigation maximum in Domination matches. Balanced? Oh, could we also increase the animation speed?
Correct me at any time if I'm wrong but the threat generation/damage balancing seems really off to me.
Currently we have 100% increased thread generation from Mark(taking the threat to 2 x Damage) and additional 100% thread generation from Enhanced Mark(3 x Damage). That means that the damage focused tank is supposed to do just a little bit more than half the damage of any DPS class to keep the combat advantage and the more defensive tank is supposed to do about 1/3 of the damage of the DPS class.
Some people are struggling with that amount of damage so the answer was to increase the thread generation. The preview shard thread generation is about 3 x Damage with normal mark and 5.25 x Damage with Enhanced Mark. So now to hold the agro a high DPS tank is supposed to do just above 1/3 of the damage a DPS character does and a low DPS is supposed to do just about 1/5 of the damage of a DPS character.
Of course there are different ways to increase/decrease threat by the tanks/dps and the mark cannot be active all the time but I really think this is the baseline for bosses and small groups of enemies.
Still, doesn't that sound kind of wrong? The DPS classes certainly do not have 3 or 5 times less health and overall defence than GFs so why would GF's damage be so low?
My suggestion - roll back the thread generation from mark and increase the damage of GFs by about 25%. It should be sufficient to keep tanking GFs on the agro and will give the offensive GFs much needed increase in damage to compete with the other classes in DPS if they choose to forgo their defence in favor of offensive stats.
please devs .
Listen to his comments.
This guy knows what he is talking about.
And as a "all full time gf" i know this guy represent us all of gf out there.
Please scrap the PTR version and BUFF the LIVE version to 200% or more so we can take much more hits.
Please!
+100 to his comment!
In the current state the GF is presented in PTR...
I would have to respect TACTICIAN to NEVER LIFT THAT SHIELD AGAIN and at least gain some AP to regain back healt through a daily.
Imagine it from the PVP point of view .:
you go against a permastealt Bile TR and he bombards u with daggers or a HR that roots the heck out of u and snipe from afar.
Were dead. Easily.
CONCLUSION:
Give us the Old Block but BUFFED.
All the other changes seems nice
PLUS 100 to this!!
I BACK it UP!
I liked alot of the stuff you suggested, to do ALL of that would of course make us pretty fricken OP IMO but there are a lot of really good ideas in there for the Devs to work with.
I just want to comment on the suggestion I quoted above:
I really enjoy the Knockback on Bull Charge, it provides so much utility in PvP, you can do so many things with it strategy wise, from moving an enemy into a teammates attack, protecting teammates, bleeding on a node, putting them in corners or separating them from the crowd to make it easier to focus them. Stuff like that.
I would be FINE if they took the range away (its cool but I really don't need it) and left the prone/knockback. Damage buff I have no opinion on either way. I'm of course fine withe a DPS increase but it probably will not be necessary if our stat allocations get tweaked.
I don't know how any of this effects PvE so if what I'm supporting, or if what I'm ok with losing effects PvE terribly please let us know, I'm sure something can be found that works best for both PvE and PvP.
I won't have it slotted for groups because mob scattering is bad PvE team play... you want to AoE stuff in a tidy clump whenever possible. I play as a TR a lot, and knockbacks are horrible for TRs because they tend to cause a lot of our potential damage to be wasted (knocking our target away right when we're using Lashing Blade or starting strike 3 of Duelist's Flurry), or occasionally to kill us (throwing something off a ledge while the TR is already Flurry-locked on it). So this is a power I particularly hate seeing used when I'm pugging for skirmishes. It tends to eff everything up except the GF's own damage numbers.
In brief, I think the knockback on Bull Charge has wonderful applications in PvE (and PvP), when used well. On the other hand, a GF that's bad at playing in groups can really make a mess of things with Bull Charge the way it currently works, so I'd be able to see a bright side to losing that mega-knockback as well.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Suggestion 1: make that Into the fray gives at least 15% damage boost to party(or some crit severity?) + more on tactician tree. This would great in pvp too.
Suggestion 2: make that iron warrior (since its pretty much useless with enforced threat buffed) has a long cooldown (25/30 sec) but resurect a single fallen ally from distance like eye of lathander artifact does.
Suggestion 3: Replace knee breaker with a whole new party buff power, nobody use knee breaker
Suggestion: I think it would be really cool to see dual swords/offense in one stance and defense/shield in the other. It is definitely cool for HR's and I think it would add a ton of diversity. I dont think this would work for all classes but GF could benefit from it and really seperate it from GWF's.
The way block works now just doesn't feel good, gameplay wise. I can't even tell when I actually blocked something, and the stamina drain is too fast (or the regen is too slow). I don't really understand what was the thought behind this change instead of improving the existing one in terms of durability.
Also, the high speed crab walk looks very silly
I agree. The base duration needs to be roughly doubled, the regen of the block needs to be cut roughly in half, and THEN lets see how that plays.
After really testing this, I think a MAJOR part of the issue is with the block regen. I mean a GWF can pop unstoppable, gain tankiness and HP, come back out and within seconds if taking enough damage pop it again.
TRs have encounters that fill their entire stealth meter allowing them to perma stealth...
Im not saying we need a "perma guard" build to just be a troll, but I am saying block needs to have a significant recharge increase so its something that even once a GF expends his entire meter, he knows he just has to hold out a few seconds to be able to block again.
I keep coming back to roughly a 5 second BASE duration with around 8-10 seconds on the recharge. With feats/STR/Gear/Boons this means you can ROUGHLY get close to an 8 second uptime with around 8 seconds on a full recharge.
So the idea is that for every 1 second out of block, you regain 1 second of block.
Id like to see and test THIS out on the PTR. Id really like the other changes to the notes I posted a few pages back as well. I hope the DEVs can make all the changes - even if it makes GF OP, atleast you know then you went to far...
Otherwise im afraid GFs will still just be such a pitiful class compared to all others (maybe except Destroyer GWF which will basically be made of paper in pvp mod 4)
In the next week or two we will be increasing the block duration substantially. This will make it easier to withstand much longer assaults by large numbers of foes.
Additionally we have the following changes going in at the same time.
Guardian Fighter: Threatening Rush: Threatening Rush is now usable At Will again, without charges or a cooldown. Great Weapon Fighters still use the charge based system.
Guardian Fighter: Block will now grant CC Immunity while active.
As for the reasoning as to why we changed block the way we did I have to explain how old block worked and why it was problematic. Old block functioned as a secondary HP bar that was calculated based on your maximum HP and feats, and could not be drained more than 20% in any single hit. While this sounds good on paper in practice it actually means that when you manage to pull aggro on enough targets you end up getting the whole meter drained out rapidly (sometimes in only 5 hits depending on how strong the foes were). This then left the Guardian with no tools left in his kit. It also provided complete damage protection which meant that healers had to be ready for large spikes of incoming burst damage, and the only way to respond to that in time was to have a lot of heal over time effects rolling so that when those spikes of damage came in there were heals already coming in.
Given those problems we wanted to give the Guardian more control over his survivability as well as increase the symbiotic relationship between healers and tanks so healers can have more options added to their toolkit beyond "put down astral shield". To do this we decided that block shouldn't eat ALL incoming damage and should also get stronger as your damage resistance does. To facilitate this we have changed block to be an 80% multiplicative buff (this means that the damage you would have taken gets multiplied by .2 while block is active). This means that your armor still matters a lot, and defensive improvements always help you. It also means that healers face far less spikes of large damage and see much more consistent incoming damage on tanks, which makes it much easier to deal with changes on the battlefield, and when we get a chance to look at Clerics means we can give them more styles of healing that make sense in more situations. Given these new changes we also wanted to make taunting and mob control more potent so Guardians can better fill the role of grabbing foes and gathering them up so your allies can destroy them with impunity.
We would like to see testing performed in dungeons and in PVP matches to see how the changes have adjusted that gameplay. We are also well aware that Guardians can no longer preemptively just hold up their shield indefinitely. We want Guardians to have to choose their timing more carefully but be rewarded for doing so, and the new block system provided much more of that feeling during our internal testing.
Thank you all for your continued feedback.
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
Just so you know, the scenario you typed there is currently flipped (GWF has the Live Threatening Rush and GF has the Preview Threatening Rush).
I don't like the way blocking works at the preview server at all. This is not a matter of how fast the guard meter should recover, or other tweaks to that new blocking mechanism. It is not about the new guard/block beeing strong or weak. I have played the GF class extensively, and I suggest to completely scrap this new block/guard mechanism and keep blocking/guarding the way it currently is at the live server.
This is my biggest concern. If there is only one thing you change about the current preview changes to GF class, then please completely drop this new blocking/guard mechanism.
Feedback: Enhanced Mark
Enhanced Mark already is a good class feature. There is no need to improve it further, that will just make it an overpowered class feature compared to our other class features. Let's keep a balance among the class features for our GF class, so that we will have interesting options rather than very few must-haves. If it was intended to increase our threat, then just raise the general threat a GF generates a bit.
Feedback: Threatening Rush
Threatening Rush is important for the mobility of GFs. Please don't turn this at-will into an encounter like power with a cooldown. I heard that this change was the result of GWFs spamming Threatening Rush in pvp. If that is the problem, please fix the cause there, and macke changes to GWF, but don't touch the Threatening Rush of GFs.
Feedback: Constitution providing more hp
This is a good change, since I always felt that CON gave me as much as the secondary stats DEX and STR. Please keep this change.
Feedback: Fighter's Recovery
I know that nothing regarding this daily has been changed at the preview server, but I still want to let you kow that the casting time is too high. During that time you can die in T2.5 dungeons. Already I find myself triggering fighter's recovery while still having full hp in anticipation that I will need it the next seconds.
where you could block 90% of the time when you weren't doing mass pulls and would only stop blocking to cast skills,
since you cant use the increased dmg with Balanced Shield Fighter and keeping up the stacks of Iron Guard is hard now too, you can only use guard like the other class to dodge large attacks/AoEs and to block the first spike of the pull.
Crush, I sincerely thank you again for your well explained feedback.
I am looking forward to the increased block duration, but I also STRONGLY encourage you to look at the block recharge rate. Like you said it "leaves guardians with no tools in their kit" once block is down.
Where a GWF takes enough damage to gain unstoppable again, and a TR has multiple encounters to use to regain stealth, and even encounters like ITC to make them almost damage immune for short bursts outside of this, guardians have nothing like this.
Because they have no dodges, or even a gap creator/closer like sprint, they rely HEAVILY on block meter. Having the recharge time THAT high really kills the ability for a GF to "time blocks" - which is the goal.
Sometimes a GF can predict when big attacks are coming and prevent that, but other times they are just using it to survive and having a GF blow his entire block meter just to NOT die, then leaves him nothing in his kit to try and compete...
So dropping the amount of time it takes to fully recover (aka increasing the base recharge rate) will dramatically help here.
Also, PLEASE consider re-working some of the skills and ESPECIALLY recosider the STAT benefits like you did with CON. I love this change, but I also think GFs need some love in the crit/deflection department as well - as another tool for outside of block...
Thanks!
The conqueror will suffer from this new block mechanic since he will lose dps even if no mob is hitting him. That especially is the case for players with a high ping who have to predict what comes ahead and have to raise their shield earlier. Somethimes the aniticipated attack comes later, or doesnt impact at all. And still we will lose dps for this. Then there is the issue about temporary hitpoints. there are feats that only trigger if you have temporary hitpoints. with the new guarding mechanism, I can't protect my temporary hitpoints, because I will allways suffer damage.
I feel that some players want to be able to block more damage because they expect the GF to be something that it is not: A pure tank that sits in one spot and takes all damage. A GF is NOT a tank. A GF relies heavily on movement, aggros mobs, takes some damage, and provides more dps or more damage taking or more party buffing (conqueror/protector/tactician). It might take some time for some to figure this out. Our class is easy to start with, but not easy to master. This is what makes our class fun. Please keep it that way and keep the current blocking/guarding mechanism at the live server.
(I have played GF continually since a couple of days after open beta started.)
We already ARE rewarded for carefully choosing the timing regarding blocking: When we raise our shields, we can only move slowly. So we already do carefully choose when to raise our shields.
Thanks for the Feedback Crush
This is also a good change but can you also take into consideration the FLS prone for players - we need those to keep or ability to knockback our foes in PVP as well. again the FLS change was cause by GWF not the GF.
Block incoming 80%
I still don't like the 80% damage - here is something to think about i guess, most Guardian fighter rely on block on situations he knows that he will die or to block CC.
If we are only talking about a swarm of small trash mobs then why would you block this if your DR can take care of multiple hits, the only time you would raise your shield is if you are already within the 15% to 5% of your HP and your pots are in cooldown - by putting a 20% damage that goes through our block then that defeats the purpose of trying to save your life - a guardian fighter would never raise his shield if his HP is already full unless he knows that a certain hit can kill him even if your in full HP, so i don't see the reason why a healer would deal with spikes on damage here.
example scenario:
100% block rate
a GF with multiple mobs let say 15, if he can take all 15 mobs without raising his shield then a 100% shield block will help here if the healer got lazy here.
80% block rate
a GF with multiple mobs let say 15, if he can take all 15 mobs without raising his shield then a 80% shield block will still kill you here if your healer got lazy
Again this scenario gives out that he will only raise his shield if his HP is within 15% to 5% and pots is still in cooldown.
Thank you for the update it looks like we are moving in the right direction. The current guard system does encourage tactical shield use. Properly deployed my shield is only used for a) big hits, and b) unavoidable CCs when Menace is down. I cannot say if your re-work will make this sort of deployment effective but I am more than willing to try except that Preview crashes every time I launch it (see bug report thread). I would suggest you listen to the blessed few who have a working preview copy on the regen rate. The process has been to use the shield for those instances then a) 'dodge' using TR and LS or b) FLS the mobs to get a breather or c) fighter's recovery and DPS yourself to stable HP while taking all hits. This is not a lot of time in which to regain guard (stamina). Given that we will be aggroing more than twice as many mobs with a stronger taunt this could prove really problematic for a GF coming out of his cycle to realize he only has 30% of a guard (stamina) meter at his disposal. Likely something like the early archery HRs who would aggro mobs then string them across the dungeon trying to stay alive.
One more thing about this new blocking mechansim. I often use Aggravating Strike, not because I want to attack while having my shield raised, but because I want to have the taunting effect that makes a mob engage me. Now I will lose guardmeter even if that mob doesn't attack me (because it is currently stunned/proned/otherwise controlled). Please don't let this new guard mechanism go live.
Guardian Fighter: Weaponmaster's Strike: This power now deals ~48% more damage.
Guardian Fighter: Flourish: This power now deals ~55% more damage and stuns for 3 seconds (2 seconds on players).
These changes will bring the damage in line with what a GWF is capable of using the same powers. Great Weapon Fighters will be getting the reverse treatment on Iron Vangaurd powers (so they will deal the same damage a Guardian Fighter would with the same power).
Mr. GMC, what about conqueror specs? All i keep seeing is tank this, tank that , tank here, tank there. For example, i am not going to play my GF as a tank. Can we address it's damage output and stat passives a little further? There's already plenty of suggestions on this thread about how to accomplish that.
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Do your internal testing against a perma stealth TR, a dodge crazy HR, a sprinting GWF, please. If our block depeletes just by holding our shield up... what's going to happen? Considered these classes have ways to literally get immune from damage for more than 5 seconds or just are able to run away. Especially with the 80% mitigation, what is going to happen, if a TR attacks us from stealth? We will be left with 50% power, an already damaged health pool and then certain classes can just finish us off, with ease.
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Thanks for reading.
I'd just like to echo this since it nicely described my point of view as well. I unslot it on the occasions I do group stuff since knockbacks can be annoying.
I see it as one of those things where not every skill is equally useful in all facets of the game, players however tend to expect everything to be useful for how they play the game.
I would still have a block meter thats used when you block cc, lets say 5 blocks from full, and also used as a stamina bar for a sprint. This would give the gf choices in how to avoid dmg/cc and costs associated with which way you do so. Sprint too much and cant block cc, use all your charges to block cc and no more sprint.
One of the problems with the gf is how fast your block meter is burned through and the changes for mod 4 dont really change this. The gf is a 1 trick pony once your shield is gone you are a sitting duck while almost all the other classes have multiple ways to avoid dmg/cc. My suggestions go a long way towards fixing this problem without I think becoming game breaking in any way.
I will have to wait and see before i comment too much more on the above Guard changes, yet i have a sneaking suspicion that simply decreasing the rate at which the Guard depletes will not be sufficient against a mob of 20 NPCs. I surmise that the Guard Meter replenishment rate will need to be increased too.
I have also sort of noticed that the Guard can dramatically 'drop' from 1/3 - 1/4 full to broken instantly when it is hit with large hits, possibly crits.
Is there the possibility of confirmation that the Guard is not subject to additional depletion due to hits and is purely a time-based depletion rate please?
This is correct, Guard has NO reaction to incoming damage now. It is purely a time function.
The problem is, it drains while just having our shield raised. Conquerors lose dps with every second... perhaps you can make it work differently for each spec? Conq/Prot/tact? One way to accomplish this would be to tie, the stamina depletion to our capstones. Conquerors should not have to suffer this kind of damage loss, due to their stamina depleting on it's own. If we get hit, then it should start to deplete but not prior to getting hit.