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Official Feedback Thread: Guardian Fighter Changes
gentlemancrush
Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 445Cryptic Developer › Cryptic Developer
Greetings Adventurers!
Guardian Fighters have been in need of some attention for quite a while so we wanted to take this opportunity to make some pretty big overhauls to parts of the class to improve their survivability, threat generation, and group utility while still giving them a little more solo viability. These changes are slated for Module 4, Tyranny of Dragons.
Overview
Guardian Fighters struggled from a dichotomy of choice that proved to be too difficult and costly in most situations. The tradeoffs between surviving and effectively holding threat and controlling the battle were too difficult in most cases, and so we wanted to open up more options. To that effect we have quite a few changes to Block, Mark, and several powers and base stats to try and improve all of these areas.
Guardian Fighters have been in need of some attention for quite a while so we wanted to take this opportunity to make some pretty big overhauls to parts of the class to improve their survivability, threat generation, and group utility while still giving them a little more solo viability. These changes are slated for Module 4, Tyranny of Dragons.
Overview
Guardian Fighters struggled from a dichotomy of choice that proved to be too difficult and costly in most situations. The tradeoffs between surviving and effectively holding threat and controlling the battle were too difficult in most cases, and so we wanted to open up more options. To that effect we have quite a few changes to Block, Mark, and several powers and base stats to try and improve all of these areas.
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Comments
- 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.
- Constitution: Each point of Constitution increases max HP by 4% (up from 2%).
Powers- Block: Now consumes stamina while active. Reduces incoming damage by 80% while active.
- 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.
- Shield Talent: Now causes Block to drain Stamina more slowly
- 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 refresh every 9 seconds.
- Iron Vanguard: Frontline Surge: This power now stuns players rather than proning them. No change on NPCs.
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 2/4/6/8/10% more slowly.
- Reckless Attacker: Now grants its bonus based on remaining Stamina rather than Guard Meter.
Item SetsWe need to collect as much feedback as possible on this so we can tweak the feel and effects of Tanking in PVE and performance in PVP. Given that, we would like you to categorize and color code your feedback so we can sort it and act on it most effectively! Please use the below format to submit bugs/feedback.
Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
Spec: (Please enter the spec that you are providing feedback for here)
Please use “Bold” face text for the Type & Spec then type your feedback in the body of your post. If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use BLUE.
(Concise Feedback & Screen Shots are much appreciated)
Examples:
Bug: Destroyer
Destroyer’s Purpose didn’t grant stacks while dealing damge.
Feedback: Sentinel
I feel like I don’t have enough tools to stay alive under fire now and it makes tanking too hard.
Please try to play for a few hours to get used to the feat changes. Thank you again for all your help Adventurers! We look forward to hearing back from you!
Chris “Gentleman_Crush” Meyer
Feedback: Shield Activation
Other than that I am really liking what I see for the most part but further testing will be required for sure. But I don't have to play to know I will be feeling less mobile with the Threatening Rush change or that I want pressing and releasing shift to also cancel current attack animations.
The bigger question is whether the changes to how threat is generated will make the loss in mobility negligible. Without testing I can not say for sure but I do know it will make getting to position to cast attacks like Enforced Threat much harder.
Thank you for getting this out for us to test.
Additionally while this is not an absolute mandate it would be immensely helpful if posts could be formatted in a concise and clear manner. Here are some tips to get your feedback hear loud and clear.
Bug: Destroyer
Destroyer’s Purpose didn’t grant stacks while dealing damge.
Feedback: Sentinel
I feel like I don’t have enough tools to stay alive under fire now and it makes tanking too hard.
or in the discussion threads:
Guardian Fighter Feedback Discussions
Great Weapon Fighter Feedback Discussions
Hunter Ranger Feedback Discussions
Control Wizard Feedback Discussions
Warlock Feedback Discussions
I very much like the changes in general and they should help in grabbing and maintaining threat. However, with Guard only reducing damage by 80% (before or after Damage Reduction, or additive?), and stamina probably working the same as Guard meter, I feel the Guardian Fighter would be even less able to survive this increased threat.
In Module 3, Control Wizards and Great Weapon Fighters survive getting completely mobbed due to high AoE damage coupled with 10%+ Lifesteal. Guardian Fighters deal the least damage of all classes (weapon damage lower than Devoted Cleric), so even if they stacked the same amount of Lifesteal, they would not survive this.
Something that I would also like to see is Dexterity granting Critical Chance. Guardian Fighters are the only class not to gain Critical Chance from an attribute and they also do not get Critical Strike from any Armor Set, which contributes to low damage overall.
A bugfix that is missing from the changelog is also that many attacks will result in the Guardian Fighter's Guard being lowered (Bolter's Kick, Leaping Slam, etc)
The whole reason why Iron Vanguard Powers are dealing too much damage for Great Weapon Fighters and Swordmaster Powers dealing tiny damage for Guardian Fighters is because they are directly coupled.
Guard is now a function of time. Holding it drains it out, and letting go causes it to begin refilling. The damage resistance is MULTIPLICATIVE, so it gets stronger and stronger the better your defenses get.
As far as Threatening Rush, we want to see how the change shakes out first, but I am certainly not opposed to them working differently on GWF and GF. They currently have parity on all those powers, but that is by no means a hard and fast rule right now. During our internal testing the improved threat and mark mechanics meant the GF needed far less on command mobility so the 3 charges worked just fine (unless someone made a bad mistake and everything went to hell).
That is correct.
1) Powers like Enforced Threat will become must slots for the timed marks
2) Knight's Valor causes marks to go away. While this won't massively effect the threat it will now cost combat advantage *sad face*
3) Enhanced Mark will play a much lesser effect even with the massive buff. Likely it will be tossed to the wayside.
Due to these changes is a, say, 2 second delay before marks vanish out of the question?
Just to get this out there I don't expect this power synergy anomaly to make a massive impact in real playability but I anticipate this to be something the min/max crowd will place heavy concern on. Particularly in the case of Enforced Threat.
You could spam TAB mark to hard taunt everything now due to the Mark rework
No arguments from me there!
I've always taken my experience from playing Magic the Gathering to video game character builds, though. And that means understanding that something may be good but it may not be good for your build/deck. To understand my point of view I really hate all "must slots" as to me it means the power is either too powerful or the other powers are not powerful enough.
Now if GF's being welcomed to parties means we have to deal with yet another must slot power such as Arcane Singularity and Astral Shield I'd take it as a trade off any day of the week. But personally I'd like to avoid and/or minimalize that possibility as much as possible.
PvP Point of View ONLY
Before Tenacity, we were a little underpowered, but could do just fine. Tenacity took our DPS and nerfed our Prones. GF's went bye bye.
What you have done here is give them more threat generation which does nothing in PvP (and is unneeded in PvE from what I hear) and given them a better block mechanic. And you increased our HP, which will help, but was not the main issue with GF.
Thats it. Slightly better Block in PvP will NOT help! Yes we will be able to survive alittle longer but that is NOT the problem in PvP. The inability to apply MEANINGFULL DPS is the problem. AND you nerfed our prones AGAIN, the ONLY thing that we had going for us, you took it away.
What you need to do, is put us back to where we were PRE TENACITY. Fix up the DPS alittle, lenghten our prone times to compensate for Tenacity (like you did with CW control effects) and we will at least be competitive again. Thats it, thats all you needed to do man. None of this other fancy pants stuff. Just a slight DPS buff, guard rework, and fix our prones.
I'll get on preview tonight and mess around alittle, I'd like to make some videos for you Crush so you can see what I'm talking about but our forum moderators will not allow that so... I don't know what to do to help you guys out =\
Can I PM you videos? Or can you suspend the No PvP video rule in the feedback forums for us? Help us help YOU
If you need to demo how things work now, use Owlbear shard instead of Mimic.
Edit: Or I guess you don't need so many people if you use the open PvP environment, also on a preview shard to avoid disruption.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
On the subject of buff the DPS as the answer to the GF...
They are a tank . Not every class should be a DPS class. The damage output could use a slight buff IMO but they will not and should not turn into the new GWFs. Ideally they should just be the annoying hard to kill class and the features which increase team survivability and DPS is much better than further pushing the DPS race meta nonsense.
For PVP perspective you are basically putting us at a disadvantage from the likes of the kitting class. now what do you want us to do move while holding our guard up from the likes of them? - this is really unacceptable. the same old thing has been happening we are getting the short end of the stick because of the GWF borrowing our Path and thus we are also getting penalize for all those nerfs (sheesh)
Threat - this has never been our problem and we have mentioned it several times before, why are you giving us threat this much threat. that is not the area we really need (increase our WPN damage, why is the DC wpn have a bigger damage that us)
Guard - This is a good change and i appreciate it but don't take away our other mobility because of this change, you mentioned that with the threat change we don't really need to do the TR because everything will just cluster to us and what do we do? hold shift - you are limiting our play style
There is nothing to tank in this game everything can be burned down by DPS before you start changing us try redesigning your dungeons first
There's absolutely no need in threat as long as adds getting CC'd and killed with-freaking-out need of tanking them. WHY ON EARTH would you tank anything in this game, where everyone has CC, aoe and dodges. BTW, I can tank perfectly fine as it is now, without those overbuffed threat generators.
Stamina rework looks great, bonus HP look great, but nerfed FLS and TR SERIOUSLY?!! You don't nerf GWF like that, what am I supposed to do with FLS stunning people lol, you do realize, that stuns last less then 1 sec in PvP and usually end faster then animation of the ability that applied them? TR is just impressive. Give it at least 5 stacks with 4 sec recharge time.
Threat generation is the least thing in the game to make GFs viable in PvE.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?636721-So-what-is-going-to-be-done-about-guardian-fighters
Have you read any of our suggestions, at all?
---
Also, what about our currently bugged skills/feats? Such as:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?685521-Long-standing-knight-s-challenge-bugs&p=8118791#post8118791
Or:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?691841-Guardian-Fighter-Bug
---
Wouldn't it make more sense if the class at least functions properly before applying more changes and introducing eventual new bugs on top of the old ones? I did not like how GWF's were altered and made even more powerful, so i changed my main to a GF, please... let's not ruin the only great class there is left in the game. Listen to the ones playing said class, instead of the ones who just recently picked it up.
Guard meter should deplete slower because it won't get chewed away by taking damage, or at least you'll have more choice in when and how the meter gets depleted.
FLS will still be a prone in PvE.
(The changes are somewhat interesting to how I play my Tactician. Since GF is far from my primary character, I can't comment too much.)
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Exactly. People just cry about changes to their class but don't see the big picture.
When mod4 hits, CW and GWF cant insta clear rooms anymore and DC and GF become more needed
Reinforced Surge has no use now against players.
Also Heroic Feat Pin Down lost its value.
Knight's Valor still gets stuck
Feedback:
Prone was one of the main reasons why GFs could do okay in PvP, now that one of our prone skills are replaced by stun, It would be nice if we could still use those feats to increase the stun time at least.
Feedback:
My main reason for not using Swordmaster over Iron Vanguard is because I like Trample the Fallen too much, very important for DPS in PvP and PvE as well.
However, If class feature Hard Mark would cause us to gain combat advantage like allies do, that would make Combat Superiority on par with it. This way switching to Swordmaster wouldn't mean losing a ton of damage and since Frontline Surge got nerfed as well, it would open up a lot of new possibilities for Swordmaster builds.
Actually, if you decide to make Hard Mark grant combat advantage, I promise to make a GF Tactician Swordmaster build for PvP
Edit: After some testing I did realise it works like that, not sure if intended or not but thats great
I don't think they'll increase the block mechanic that dramatically to handle TWENTY monsters. Would probably see the same tactic used, agro and run around like a headless chicken.
Threatening Rush is a short-range distance closer with marking ability. It is an At-Will, not an Encounter power. Having a cooldown or timer on an At-Will seems contrary to the very definition of At-Will. If it were an encounter power, it would feed into certain enchants that effect targets when marked by encounters (Bronzewood). So, the mark is not just a means of threat.
Also, Threatening Rush has little use in PvE. Most GFs, if they want to rush ahead of the party, use Lunging Strike, followed by Enforced Threat or something like that to aggro the mob onto it. The short range of TR does not make it too applicable in PvE. So, the idea that you tested it and would not consider the affects based on its primary usage to remain close to opposing players in PvP is a striking cipher.
All classes except the GF have some means of port, sprint, jump, vanish, whatever... In PvP, in the confined space around the point totems, Threatening Rush is very useful. It helps the GF close the short distance to the opposing player very quickly and At-Will. With the cooldown, now the target can run or continue to port away with no real threat from the GF. The threat in this case is useless. Also, GWFs spam TR in PvP. So, unless you tested this in PvP instead of PvE, the nerf will be significant and remove a primary means of the GF to close distance upon targets at-will. Yes, lunging strike and bull rush also close distance, but these are affected by recovery and are encounters. I can think of plenty of times where TR helped keep my GF on the back of an opposing player as the player ran/ported/jumped/vanished away on the point totem in PvP. Now, I will not have a short range At-Will and the GF, even with a 12.5% movement bonus, will remain pedantic and outstripped.
Guild--And the Imaginary Friends
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Confirmed.
Fully feated/specced/geared for as much +block as possible it lasts <5 seconds... Also got the stamina regen from Fey boon as well...
Whats the base duration 3 seconds? That needs to be bumped up ALOT
I am playing GF since a couple of days since open beta started. I can tell this player knows what he is talking about (from this and other posts), and he is spot on. The only thing I would add are these two:
1. Give GF class a seperate forum
2. Undo the paragon path swapping of GF/GWF (I don't even need a 2nd paragon path. I prefere having just iron vanguard than the currently shared paragon paths which destroy class uniqueness)
Broken Block Feature:
This new stamina guard doesn't work in a realistic PvP situation. In old system enemy had to attack to break the guard and you had a chance to catch enemy off guard when he was using his basic attacks to take down your shield.
Now just waiting will make it break, no attacking needed. As a guardian Fighter you don't have any options you either 1)Lower the guard so it doesn't run out and get attacked or 2)Hold the guard up but enemy won't attack anyway, they will just wait until guard runs out in a couple of seconds. In none of those options you protect yourself from enemy attacks or gain any kind of advantage. Also there is no way of holding the shield up right before enemy hits you because shield is way too slow.
Feedback:
Obviously this guard change wasn't really thought trough. And this is exactly why the testing is for. To find this kind of fatal mistakes before it goes out to live. I'd suggest keeping the old system. Just the 0.40 wait time buff would be enough to make it decent, or even the old guard would be better than the terrible mess we have in Preview at the moment. Because unlike NPCs people don't attack a GF with his shield up