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GF Class Advocate Feedback
damnacious
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 354 Arc User
Hi fellow Guardians! 
Until the next Module, I have been chosen as our Class Advocate and I hope that between us we can work towards creating a great class.
Thank you to all of you for your previous enthusiasm in providing your feedback in the Mod4 thread and others that have been created since. I really appreciate the care you've shown and the changes that have resulted.
In order to compile your feedback more easily, please use this thread to bring to my attention any comments, questions or suggestions you might have. If you have any bugs to report, I recommend posting them in http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?901-Bug-Reports first, but you can certainly feel free to post them again here too!
If you would like me to place your feedback in the weekly report, when posting to this thread, please be as clear and detailed as possible and use the following format and color style:
Bug Report: Supremacy of Steel
Spec: All
Since the last patch, SoS reflected damage is being mitigated and doesn't generate as much AP.
Question: Barkshield, Augmented Thayan Bastion, Guard and Mitigation
Spec: All
How does the armor enchantment Barkshield and the boon Augmented Thayan Bastion take affect in relation to Guard and Mitigation? Is damage reduced by Barkshield and Augmented Thayan Bastion first then reduced by Guard?
Suggestion Topic: Increase Improved Vigor to 60%
Spec: Conqueror
With the recent changes to Action Point Gain, Improved Vigor could be increased to activate at 60% rather than 50%. This would greatly increase the survivability of the Conqueror GF while tanking and in PVP and may benefit other builds too.
Comment Topic: Where I see the role and future of the GF to be
Spec: All
I'd love to see the GF become more of a 'tank' type character that is more about taking damage than dealing it. I feel the GF is, with Mod4, getting much closer to this ideal. I would like to see the GFs mitigation and survivability increased proportionately with the difficulty of challenges and the capacity for the GF to pull and hold aggro maintained. I would like to see the GF continue to develop more utility rather than damage for PVP and essentially have the GF fill an essential tank role in every party.
If you would like to generally discuss anything about GFs, please consider doing so here too, yet please be aware that your opinion may not be included in the weekly report to the development team if it does not follow the above format and style.
NOTE: This thread is specifically designed to provide a single place for GF players to provide their feedback on the class. This thread is not designed for non-GF players to criticise the feedback of GF players, regardless of the value or veracity of that criticism. If you are not a GF player and aren't prepared to provide your GF focussed feedback designed to improve the class, then please do not post in this thread. Instead, feel free to post your opinion in either your own thread or the thread of someone else.
Taking a lead from Todesfaelle, I would also be interested to collect your perspective on the following questions. Please post your responses in the same number and color format if you would like your perspective to be considered for the weekly report:
1. What do you like about the GF class?
2. What do you LEAST like about the GF class?
3. In what direction do you want to see this class go?
Please also consider private messaging me here on the forums with your contributions or by sending me mail in game to my handle @damnacious. Please feel free to send me a private message in game too, yet please be aware that I may not be able to respond or give your perspective the consideration it deserves (including passing it on) and I would prefer if you sent me some mail or posted here instead so that I can properly action it.
I will be submitting weekly reports to both Gentlemancrush and Akromatic each Monday.
If you have any questions, concerns or feedback about the job that I'm doing for you, please do not hesitate to contact me!
Many thanks in advance guys for your assistance and contributions!
Damnacious
Until the next Module, I have been chosen as our Class Advocate and I hope that between us we can work towards creating a great class.
Thank you to all of you for your previous enthusiasm in providing your feedback in the Mod4 thread and others that have been created since. I really appreciate the care you've shown and the changes that have resulted.
In order to compile your feedback more easily, please use this thread to bring to my attention any comments, questions or suggestions you might have. If you have any bugs to report, I recommend posting them in http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?901-Bug-Reports first, but you can certainly feel free to post them again here too!
If you would like me to place your feedback in the weekly report, when posting to this thread, please be as clear and detailed as possible and use the following format and color style:
Bug Report: Supremacy of Steel
Spec: All
Since the last patch, SoS reflected damage is being mitigated and doesn't generate as much AP.
Question: Barkshield, Augmented Thayan Bastion, Guard and Mitigation
Spec: All
How does the armor enchantment Barkshield and the boon Augmented Thayan Bastion take affect in relation to Guard and Mitigation? Is damage reduced by Barkshield and Augmented Thayan Bastion first then reduced by Guard?
Suggestion Topic: Increase Improved Vigor to 60%
Spec: Conqueror
With the recent changes to Action Point Gain, Improved Vigor could be increased to activate at 60% rather than 50%. This would greatly increase the survivability of the Conqueror GF while tanking and in PVP and may benefit other builds too.
Comment Topic: Where I see the role and future of the GF to be
Spec: All
I'd love to see the GF become more of a 'tank' type character that is more about taking damage than dealing it. I feel the GF is, with Mod4, getting much closer to this ideal. I would like to see the GFs mitigation and survivability increased proportionately with the difficulty of challenges and the capacity for the GF to pull and hold aggro maintained. I would like to see the GF continue to develop more utility rather than damage for PVP and essentially have the GF fill an essential tank role in every party.
If you would like to generally discuss anything about GFs, please consider doing so here too, yet please be aware that your opinion may not be included in the weekly report to the development team if it does not follow the above format and style.
NOTE: This thread is specifically designed to provide a single place for GF players to provide their feedback on the class. This thread is not designed for non-GF players to criticise the feedback of GF players, regardless of the value or veracity of that criticism. If you are not a GF player and aren't prepared to provide your GF focussed feedback designed to improve the class, then please do not post in this thread. Instead, feel free to post your opinion in either your own thread or the thread of someone else.
Taking a lead from Todesfaelle, I would also be interested to collect your perspective on the following questions. Please post your responses in the same number and color format if you would like your perspective to be considered for the weekly report:
1. What do you like about the GF class?
2. What do you LEAST like about the GF class?
3. In what direction do you want to see this class go?
Please also consider private messaging me here on the forums with your contributions or by sending me mail in game to my handle @damnacious. Please feel free to send me a private message in game too, yet please be aware that I may not be able to respond or give your perspective the consideration it deserves (including passing it on) and I would prefer if you sent me some mail or posted here instead so that I can properly action it.
I will be submitting weekly reports to both Gentlemancrush and Akromatic each Monday.
If you have any questions, concerns or feedback about the job that I'm doing for you, please do not hesitate to contact me!
Many thanks in advance guys for your assistance and contributions!
Damnacious
Post edited by Unknown User on
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This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Spec: All
Comments
First I'd like to say thanks for gathering this stuff and passing it on. I've never left feedback on a game before. But I love the GF class, so now that Cryptic has these class advocates I thought I'd pass on some things I've noticed about GFs in mod 4. Hopefully I formatted it properly.
I’ve played a GF since beta and really enjoyed the Conq feat tree up until Mod 4. It was a high burst striker that was easy to learn but difficult to master. For the longest time though, Conq was the only way to spec because Prot and Tact were so bad. With the GF rework in Mod 4, the feats are in a much better place now, so I’m glad for that. I’ve actually respecced to Prot and really like the extra mitigation.
Unfortunately, some of the skills that were reworked have been made so good to the point where they’re now almost mandatory. I’m referring to Knight’s Valor(KV) and Into the Fray(ITF). These skills provide a huge benefits to the party in both pve and pvp. Which is great, the GF was never a class sought after for pve or pvp content before. These buffs are good for the class and the game, they are just boring to use.
The GF only has 3 skill slots. Fill 1 or 2 of those with KV and/or ITF group buff, and you’ve just removed 1/3 or 2/3 of my interaction with the game and replace it with an always on buff, or a buff I just mindlessly click over and over. So I’m left with 1 or 2 skills left, and I’m now taking half of my teams damage. So the only way to not die while doing this is to keep my shield up most of the time. Now that my shield is up, I can’t use any encounters or Daily powers and am stuck with just Shield Slam and Aggravating Strike. And thanks to the new Shield block mechanics I can keep my shield up almost indefinitely. So now I’m a roaming buff bot holding down shift so I don’t die, shield slamming mobs to keep my shield block up, dropping it only to get off a quick encounter or daily before raising my shield again.
These are not fun game mechanics, but unfortunately they are very effective mechanics. Playing like this, I can carry the most under geared, unskilled players through any dungeon I want. I can carry my team in PVP, unless the other team has a GF doing the same thing to cancel me out. Then it comes down to which GF has better gear, spec, glyphs, etc. There is obviously some skill required to play this way. You have to point your shield in the right direction, and be at the right places at the right times. But overall the mechanics feel dumbed down compared to how GFs played before Mod 4, both in PVE and PVP.
Now, no one is forcing me to play this way. I can spec conq and load up some DPS skills and go run eLoL or pvp and have fun like I used to. But those specs are much less effective then the buff bot builds I described previously. In PVE, that same PUG I just carried would wipe constantly and probably disband or kick me. In PVP, my team would most likely lose if there was a GF on the other team running KV unless we greatly out geared them.
So you are now making me choose to play something fun vs something effective. That’s not a choice I want to make. I want something fun AND effective. But currently the GF has no such options for me. Some people would argue that these defensive turtle builds are fun, and that slowly walking around buffing and damage reflecting is fun. And while I don’t agree, I don’t think destroying this play style is a good idea. It’s always good to have more choices then less. I just want to see that defensive play style balanced with other more offensive play style choices for GF so that they can be equally effective, or at least closer to equally effective then we are right now.
I see the current state of GFs similar to the current state of TRs, where the perm stealth builds are the only effective ones for PVP. You could run something else if you want, but you would just be hurting your team. Thankfully the TRs are getting love next mod, but how can we help GFs? That’s Cryptic’s job, but I’ll offer some suggestions.
Suggestions
First, I would gut our “Special Power” Mark. It’s lame and not fun to use. Change our Mark mechanic to mirror the GWF mechanics. Certain abilities that Cryptic can decide will automatically apply mark and persist on the target for a certain number of seconds. This will allow us to still build and hold aggro, and apply the mark debuff while also freeing up our Special Power for something that's actually special.
Second, now that Mark happens automatically we have an extra button to play with. I would change our Special Power to a dual mode button. You could think of it like a stance, which some other games have. Basically one mode is an offensive stance, and the other is a defensive stance. The offensive stance would provide a buff to myself and surrounding allies similar to Into the Fray. You can tweak it from it’s current form to fit this new always on state. The defensive stance would be similar to Knight’s Valor, providing a defensive buff to nearby allies.
With these changes, you’ve now freed up 1 or 2 buttons that used to be just for buffs, to allow us to use other skills that are more fun. And provide some benefit to having 2 GFs on one team, since our DPS is pretty terrible. This will also free up 2 encounter powers so you could add some new toys to the GF toy chest. You could also add other stances, and introduce mechanics that do things when changing them in or out of combat. All things that would make the class more fun to play. My 2 cents. Thanks for reading.
Powers like boar charge, bull charge, takedown and many more are sometimes going through block.
Guard sometimes stays up permanently until let go.
Guard can just drop for no reason.
Guard sometimes doesn't activate right away.
Using aggravating strike grants AP even if hitting mid air, out of combat.
Villains menace sometimes doesn't grant cc immunity.
Steel defense doesn't grant immunity from all dmg.
Steel Grace doesn't seem to mitigate the duration of control effects.
Stamina regen and bonus from sets and items not working.
Griffons wrath losing 2 charges instead of one.
Griffons wrath losing a charge if canceled.
Anvil of doom sometimes not even hitting and still goes on cooldown ( Usually happens when jumping or hitting small opponents).
Knights valor sometimes deactivating for no reason.
Knights challenge sometimes deactivating for no reason.
Crescendo not hitting if enemy moves out of range (makes no sense though since its auto stun lock, and if its already hit people shouldn't be able to move out of range).
It would be good if some of these could be fixed, and it would improve gameplay in both pvp and pve
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1. Change Shild talent or Guarded Assault so it will give pure % bonus deflection .
Reason: GF have the lowest deflection in the game and plate classes in D&D have the highest deflection chance .
2. Change Enduring Warrior so instead killing give you some life it shoud give pure % LS stat or pure % Regen stat.
Enduring Warrior (?) dont represent the name of this passiv skill. Also GF is not a killing machine any other class have better LS and self healing then GF (ps: when you slot ,it will heal you in a full dungeon run only 72000-80000 hp total this is nothing"with 50 k hp").
3. Change Enchanced Mark to give bonus dmg for guardian and when you slot it your mark last for 1 min. Noone use this passive.
TAB:
rework our TAB like this: 2xdamage to each (may some talent will diminuish damage to us to 90/80/70/60/50%), marked target do 50% damage to allies. Or give us the possibility to multi mark with our tab
Crushing wave (At-will power):
Make this power more fast
Into the fray:
Make this power cast like KV (on the run)
Villain menace:
Increase the damage of 30% and make immune to CC when casting animation
Enforced threat:
Make cast animation faster
Ferocious Reaction procs randomly, mostly after the soulforged enchantment
I second these, very reasonable and will improve a GF's 'life'
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
If you imagine the Guardian Fighter as a class that tanks, we will need to have content where tanking is necessary. The biggest buff to Guardian Fighters was the enemies in the new skirmish/dungeon hitting very hard, thereby requiring an actual tank to take the damage. Do you expect that this will continue in future content?
His sentiments echo my own. I am just burnt out of playing Neverwinter currently due a LARGE part to this above, and second due to the high cost of characters now with not only 3 artifacts mandatory to be competitive but now also TWO pieces of artifact equipment. I was basically "forced" to cannibalize my second character this module just to make room for AD for artifact equipment for my "main" - a GF, which now leaves my GWF high and dry when I try to play him because he is purely out-geared by other players' main characters.
Its really silly to me this game is "catered" towards a casual demographic but then Hinders the casual player from making alts by creating this massive "AD-wall" NOT a gear wall, an AD wall, because a casual player can barely farm enough to get artifact equipment on ONE character let alone multiple characters.
SUGGESTIONS:
"Certain abilities that Cryptic can decide will automatically apply mark and persist on the target for a certain number of seconds."
- For this I would JUST like to see Threat Rush / Enforced Threat "mark" become a "hard mark" like the GWFs on "Daring Shout" and "Threat Rush". This would make our mark effectiveness the same.
" I would change our Special Power to a dual mode button. You could think of it like a stance - This is a VERY good idea. For an "Offensive Stance" Insert "Into the Fray" however remove the cast timer - it just turns into a passive buff that the guardian has and gives to his allies. (The main function here is the damage buff, run speed and stamina gain, so you can remove Temp HP here.
The "Defensive Stance" should be "Knights Valor" however reduce its effective range to say 60' - since its now a "passive" and requires no activation. This allows for the GF to swap between the two depending on the situation and provide good benefits in both situations.
This frees up the encounter slots to be used effectively and gives the GF alot more "control" and "interaction" with the game.
My FINAL suggestion is to make Artifacts and Artifact Equipment "Bind on Account". This is because it is SO costly to level that equipment up, its very frustrating and un-motivating to have alts now with the massive AD sink... I would love to play my GWF or TR again, but dont have 20 million AD sitting around to ensure he is at a competitive level for PVP specifically
I would suggest everything in this post for the class, well done
Venril- SW
Lurch- GF
Mini Ven- DC
Yup!
Basically for your weekly feedback just copy/paste what critorisaurus wrote. Thread closed, thats a wrap people thanks for coming!
And I do not think the developers could change something about the general gear race people are forcing themselves into because it simply starts in the heads of the players and not in the game itself.
There's no room to get philosophical in this thread. Comments, Suggestions, Bug Reports, sure. Waxing philosophical on the state of the players and how they use the class, not so much.
Supremacy of Steel prepares us to lash out at enemies who dare strike us, returning a portion of the damage we receive, yet it carries internal, expressed damage values. Lashing out makes this daily seem like a retaliatory strike, not reflecting damage. Supremacy of Steel needs to proc our glyphs to remain competitive in PVP and to remain viable in pvp, particularly since SOS now respects damage resistance and deflection. Developers made it stop acting like a reflect ability yet still took away our ability to generate threat damage in PVP with it and defend a node effectively in PVP with it.
I just tested Shores and LoL on epic, 6 runs and 2 runs respectively, and SOS was the worst daily I could use to protect and defend my group after previously being the best option we GFs had for generating damage threat.
Let's lash out at enemies who dare attack us, and either take away their ability to resist or grant us the application of glyphs.
-Sig Blood Knight@tehsig
I dont agree with this. Many folks use mark as a long range controlled means to pull mobs. It out ranges any other power and is extremely effective in establishing mob control before the squishies run in. I personally would not like to loose that ability, just so mark can be tied to other powers. Even if it was tied to ALL available powers, something highly unlikely. It would still not have the flexibility of being an ability you can use at will, over distance, and anytime you need it. The tab mechanic, might be dull, but it is not without merit or completely useless.
I honestly don't want to have to lunge across the room, dragging the rest of the mobs with me. Just to mark that a lone archer pelting one of the squishies.
Not an issue IMO. So you lose the ability to "pull" mobs... Honestly who cares. Have a CW use magic missile and then when the mobs get close Enforced Threat, or Lunge or Frontline Surge ANY number of encounters will bring you to the top.
Just because you cant "mark pull" things thats NOTHING in the gran scheme of things. Also FYI a "mark pull" isnt even in DnD.... BTW you could also use Knights Challenge to pull things, maybe with encounters freed up, that would be a good "go to"
All in all, what critorisaurus wrote is SPOT on. The class is now a buff bot and not as much fun LARGELY due to such a lack luster class mechanic (Mark).
Swapping out Mark for another "stance" feature as mentioned above, has been brought up and pretty much universally agreed upon by a large majority of GFs.
Making the "tab" operate as a passive "buff" that changes gameplay depending on stance would be HUGELY beneficial to the class.
If they did that it would also create two "holes" for encounters that need to be placed into the GF talent line-up. One good option would be Daring Shout (GWF Power) that could be inserted.
So Daring Shout + Enforced Threat would be two great AoE Mark abilities that would give you ease of tanking and youd have room for them too considering either ITF or KV would be on your tab!
Honestly ITF on Tab would solve ALOT of the GFs issues and KV on tab would solve the "reflect" build they want to nerf, but do it in a realistic way without breaking the build.
I agree that situationally it's nice to be able to mark things. In my post I mentioned that moving KV/ITF to the special power would free up 2 encounter powers. They could change mark into an encounter power, and then GFs could choose to use it or not. Right now we have no choice.
It is room and you are an example, why; but we are nowhere close to being philosophical, so stop being ridiculous.
I tested the changes to Supremacy of Steel too and I got no problems so far with the recent changes, you simply have to adapt and change your use of it; the usefulness of every power is situational and comes at a price. (And now Supremacy of Steel has a definite drawback too and is no longer the best option for a daily.)
The developers said it did not work as they want it to and I cannot see any argument from the player base here or elsewhere why they have failed; although they should compensate for it in one way or another. (They could readily increase the effectiveness of it now.)
At least, I would like to see that a Guardian Fighter gets better control over threat than a Great Weapon Fighter with mark; it would not be necessary to make the mark permanent the Guardian Fighter but the hard taunt could be changed so that the enemy definitely tries to attack the Guardian Fighter at least once giving him a superior ability for pulling enemies together.
It wouldn't be a choice a GF without the ability to mark targets as needed, isn't a tank. So it would be, an all but required encounter power. And a less effective one at that. There is no encounter power in the game without some level of cool down, even the powers with multiple uses have some level of cool down associated with them. The main advantage of mark currently is its unlimited unrestricted useability and its extreme long range. Making it an encounter would, by default, limit its useability.
And yet we are faced with an issue currently... That our TAB is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> and its only benefit is a "pull" and to give us a damage boost and allies combat advantage- which should never have happened.
So we are faced with a cross roads. Do we keep the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> tab just for the sake of "pulling" mobs - which isnt even in DnD. Or do we look to the good of the class and change it. We do lose some slight utility but what we lose in utility we gain so much more in effevtiveness.
Look ive run it all in PVE and mark pulls are not only unnecessary most times groups run so fast you dont have half a chance to use it.
Id rather see ITF put on tab along with KV as "stances" that we can passively use as an "aura" and they can create a solo "taunt" encounter wity a suer low CD of say 6 seconds that can work like tab mark does now... All youd then lose is the ability to spam mark but your gaining SO much more...
Any changes will have pros and cons but what outweighs the other?
No wait I can see it. Make the big X mark the tab ability on it. Then we get the 4 encounter option other classes have, off-tab it just becomes a ranged pull that dissapears the second the target hits you. Then imagine the utility of a tab-enhance ITF or ET or pick-your-favorite-encounter.
Remove combat advantage from mark for both GF and GWF. They can give back damage (if needed) in other areas.
Combat advantage should take skill and awareness to get - and maybe be more beneficial too (such as higher crit or it ignores some types of resistance?)
Its rather silly tyat this somewhat unique buff was given for free all because of a lackluster tab ability.
Id much rather be in favor of marked targets dealing less damage to teammates than having teammates deal more damage to marked targets.
Like combat advantage being a random proc for Renegade CWs (moved deeper into feat tree, also nerfed), or a perpetual buff for the party with an HR slotting Aspect of the Pack (which does mean not slotting other class features)?
I'm not saying that adding combat advantage to mark was a great decision, only that the game has other examples of it not particularly requiring skill to get.
Daunting Challenge in Tactician path.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
I also want additional playtesters pulled from the high end community to test PVP changes before they're implemented, because whomever is currently testing PVP changes before things go live has failed this community.
Also, losing leaderboard position after winning a match. This is not a GF-specific problem, but there has been no action on this. Let's remind them how important it is to reward players for participation in an activity.
-Sig Blood Knight@tehsig
- Get our GF "advocate" to test some of these things out, and maybe even ask for feedback and you'd have a much better system.
instead of losing thousands of players each mod/patch - you might even start gaining them! It'd be crazy if just one PWE game would listen to the players, and prove that they can make a good game. I know I'd spend a lot of money on one that did that.
- Message - Please test any and all changes to the GF before implementing to the live server, with someone OTHER THAN the people who have been testing them up to this point. Please