Questions regarding Black Guard: Forming good habits early

[Darrell]

I rolled a BG in T1 to try one out and I've found myself really enjoying the class, so I'd like to take him up to 40. Right now, he's Rank 18 RR 25 and I want to do what I can to get into good habits early. With that in mind, I had some questions regarding the finer points of BG play and how I can improve upon that as I go along.

1) Obviously, I want to be using Hate-modified skills (Str Buff, Tough buff, etc) at maximum hatred. I also recently picked up the Anger Drives Me tactic, so more Hate adds to my defense. However, I have read on the IB forum that often they want to weave their AP-spending attacks with their Grudge-spending attacks. Are BGs similar in this regard? Do I want to weave my attacks between AP and Hate spending? Is it better to hold onto the Hate and only spend it if you're going for burst? I know that alternating between the two resources lets me feel like I have a lot more longevity in the fight as far as avoiding being dry on AP goes.

2) Before I've built up my Hate, should my attacks mainly be things like snare, hateful strike (I think, the one that has increased hate), and the armor pen attack? Avoid using my buffs/debuffs until my Hate is higher? Up to this point my attacks go something like: Snare, Armor Debuff (But since I'm usually under 25 Hate at this point there is no actual debuff), Strength Buff, Toughness debuff, Toughness buff, Hateful Strike, then begin again. After learning that the armor debuff doesn't seem to exist at all below 25 Hate, should I save those for later? Also, aside from AP conservation, is there a reason to use Hateful Strike over the armor pen attack? I know that a tactic can give Hateful Strike a hefty Toughness buff for you but I don't have that yet.

3) Question regarding general game plan: The idea is I want to make sure I hit RR 40 before Rank 40. Maybe even RR 45. To that end, I want to be doing a lot of RvR and scenarios as I level (mostly hitting PQs). I have heard that 29 is a nice level for the Bolster effect, so I think at 29 I will use those XP reduction potions and do nothing but RvR/Scenarios to maximize as much gain as I can at that point. On my other careers I've played, my RR always lagged too much behind and I would hit Rank 40 with RR at 35 or less. I don't want to do that on my BG if I can avoid it. Piggybacking off this question, what are some good leveling builds for BGs? On my BO, I know that once I got Can't Hit Me and Stop Hittin' Da Runts I could AoE farm like it was my job. Can BGs do something similar to make the PvE leveling easier? Is there a build I can use early on that will let me handle PvE and RvR relatively well? Generally looking to use a 2H halberd because I love the look, but I am open to using SnB if it makes my life easier getting my ranks up.

4) My Enemy addon places a blue arrow over my Guard target so I can easily spot them in the crowd. Is there something similar I can do for my Dark Protector? I found myself having difficulties enough just floating my guard, but between trying to pass guard around and use DP I sometimes get lost in the battle and lose track of who has what from me. I know experience helps with a lot of that, but if there are any addons or similar I could use to make my life easier then I would be appreciative if someone could point me in their direction.

5) Looking to the future, I want to make sure I understand the possible builds right and what they are good at.

An off-tank sort of offensive/defensive build would be something like: RoR.builders - Black Guard

A pure offensive dps build would look something like: RoR.builders - Black Guard

And a more solo-oriented build would look something like: RoR.builders - Black Guard

Obviously there is more room to play, but I just want to make sure I understand the general concept of what the trees do and what roles they can fill. As some of you may know, I've had a lot of frustration with playing the game in the past and I believe a portion of that is from trying to push a square peg through a round hole.

If you can think of any advice you would have given yourself starting out as a new BG, I would gladly welcome it. I've had tons of fun with the career so far, even when I get my butt handed to me, and it feels like a good mix of being tanky, damage-y, and helpful to the team. Someone once described BG as feeling like "a complete class" and, after having played one for a short while, I would have to agree with that description so far.

[HissiCNesS]

Hey Darell just wondering how BG life is going for ya? I am r36 rr39 and going for the high parry/disrupt self-heal build, pretty much the one you posted. Also could obtain full annihilator gear with extra 5% parry and T4 epic quest 2h Dragons End with evasion proc. I'm slotting full STR talis and initiative to have low chance to be critted and enough STR to not get constantly parried on my buffs/debuffs. Not sure about jewelry I have 3 imperious tokens and 1 empowered token, but not sure what to pick out of the offensive or defensive sets? RPs are going in reflexes, deft defender and futile strikes. Overall its a fun set up and I enjoy playing it, although I feel sometimes still a bit too squishy, so just wondering how you're doing and what set up you're running incl gear, talis, pots, rps, build and rotation? Cheers!

[Darrell]

As of this writing, my BG is currently 36/40. The experience has been good so far, though I have spent the vast majority of my playtime in sword/shield spec since T1. I leveled mostly in scenarios and ORvR, and didn't really touch PvE until around Rank 31 when I started farming for Ruin pieces. With my full set of Ruin now, I plan on getting the epic weapon quests done, the ToK jewelry, and then try to get the Beastlord quests out of the way.

My jewels are crappy Strength jewels (between +6 and +9), full Ruin and then eclectic pieces from wherever I can get them. I switched over to a Malice 2H build for AoE farming and I've been playing with it in scenarios, but it will take some time to adjust getting used to the new abilities. I feel more squishy than I did as a pure tank, and the damage isn't really there to compensate, but hopefully gear will address that.

I don't use any pots, but my BG is my Butcher and Apothecary so once his skills are levelled up I'll be able to use them. Not sure which might be best. Armor pot seems a given, then perhaps a resist similar to Volgograd? I'll have to see what my stats look like at the end to figure out what I need more of.

My renown points are currently 20 points into Parry, 10 points into Deft Defender, 5 points into Futile Strikes, and 1 point into Impetus for some initiative. At 40 I will max out Reflexes and Deft Defender, the next few points will go into Futile Strikes, and then finish with Opportunist. It will probably change before then, but that's the plan now with the experience I have with the class.

Rotation is something I'm still trying to figure out. With my 2H Malice I aim to get 15-20 Hatred to drop Shield of Rage or Pitiless Strike, and typically use this time to get my Strength, Toughness, and AA buffs going. With the increased crit, I use Enraged Beating to pump my hatred. Once my hatred is high, then I can start debuffing enemy crit, debuff their armor, refresh my buffs, throw up some Mind Killers if they are a healer/caster or if they;re a melee/ranged who is being targeted by my team's casters (since Willpower debuffs disrupt rate). I'm still trying to get the flow of the class down with the Malice spec. It seems like you want every third ability to be a Hate spender, if you want to be dealing damage, though there are probably times where you're better off saving the Hate to keep your parry high.

This is the Malice 2H I'm working towards to use at 40/40: RoR.builders - Black Guard

Something like this for a running around solo kind of thing: RoR.builders - Black Guard

It's still a big learning process for me, and a lot of what I have come up with so far has been kindly shown to me by fellow RoR players who have been willing to give me some advice. Hopefully once I get some decent levels of gear and adjust to the new build, I can make our Witch King proud.

Edit: Also, Torq wasn't lying. Enraged Beating definitely is the best hate generator we have. Playing with it is a whole new world of BG compared to relying on static hate gen.

[dansari]

You won't be able to drink an armor pot and a resist pot. You can do armor/resist/thorns and str/tough/BS/int/WP

[stillwaterww]

You won't be able to drink an armor pot and a resist pot. You can do armor/resist/thorns and str/tough/BS/int/WP

Well you could drink an armor pot and a +all resist liniment, most group setups bring a resist buff though and not sure if they stack

[HongTen]

they not stacking but u can keep it with chosen aura or shammy buff, youre still resistet when ure away from your teammate . when ure solo its pretty well with taff tactics and 940armor buff that could be applied for whole group + crit res. i dont have time to write but its pretty fast class that jumping from heal to heal and dps stacking correct debuffs and quickly jumpin back to guarded person much faster than other tanks but hes more suitable for covering the backs of wb. really tiny lively shapely thats why hes good with magic avoid . with good movement and covering he can pretty well catch am/sw. class with 28 usefull skills.

[Darrell]

In that case, I'm not sure what pots I would be using. I'm assuming that skills like Feeding on Weakness and Brutal Smash don't stack with pots? That makes me wonder if players tend to use a Str/Tough pot and use their class ability buff as a removal sponge for the other buff, or if they just take the pot and ignore whichever class ability buffs the lowest amount? Or maybe just run with an armor pot and save money?

[stillwaterww]

I run armor pot and ws+crit redux liniment most of the time. Since I selfbuff toughness and str using those stat pots would be a waste.

[Darrell]

I've recently decided to try rebinding my abilities to my mouse buttons and my cooldowns to my keyboard (it had been the opposite) to see if it would help my gameplay--namely, being able to attack without removing my fingers from the movement keys. Obviously this is leading to some awkward relearning, but it has brought up a few problems I have in my BG play which I hope can be discussed here.

1) In a combat scenario where I have little-to-no hatred generated as I go in, should my priority be to buff my Strength and Toughness or to build Hatred as fast as possible? Should I try to start the fight with Murderous Wrath for the attack speed buff to help with hate generation and damage?

2) My buffs usually work in the order of: Snare, Murderous Wrath, Strength buff, Toughness buff, Toughness tactic buff, Crit debuff, reapply snare, Murderous Wrath to refresh AA boost. Should I change the order in which I use those abilities? If the enemy is a caster, how quickly should I look to apply Mind Killer? Should I attempt to keep the armor debuff on the target, or should I wait until I'm trying to apply damage?

3) At what point should I look to transition from preserving my Hate to increase my durability into spending my Hate to increase my damage? Is there a burst phase that BG go through, where you dump all your hate? Or is it more weaving in Hate-spending attacks to debuff the enemy (Furious Howl, Pitiless Strike, Crimson Death) and benefit from increased crit tactic? Should I be weaving those attacks in regularly, rather than waiting for a damage window?

4) Where should I be looking at positioning myself in a fight? Should I be pushing on the enemy backline to debuff casters? Staying with our casters so I can challenge/snare/punt/etc enemy dps? Using a 2H makes me a bit nervous to be on the front line, because I know I'm wizard bait. Even with my WP buff up, I think my disrupt is only around 35%. I try to stick with my guard target and go where they go, but I pug a lot so good guard targets aren't always available. Similarly, what targets should I be going for? I find myself beating on tanks a lot, which is bad practice I know, because pushing in very deep at all usually sends me to the graveyard.

5) How should I be utilizing Enraged Beating? Purely as a hate generator, or is it also used for damage? Should I prioritize using a Hate-spender first, then Enraged Beating, to increase the chance of crit? Is it still worth using without spending Hate to buff the crit chance? Is it more important than Brutal Smash/Feeding on Weakness?

I understand that, like so much of this class, a lot of these answers are probably dependent on context. However, any advice that could be passed along to help me get into the proper mindset would be appreciated. I still have a lot to learn with this game, and especially BGs in particular, but I'd like to become proficient with it.

[mickeye]

I think you already answered to most of your questions. As BG isn't an easy character to play, it all really depends on situations.

1) MW with Hastened Doom is better for clothies as your AA would be doing a lot of damage. FoW and BS is better for more sustain fights.

2) I don't think MK is really any good without tactic, but I might be wrong

3) Considering your specs from post before, you should be keeping your hate highest as possible. However CD and PS are your hardest hitting abilities, so use them a lot. Generally, build up hate with EB, spend hate with CD and PS and rotate your buffs.

4) You can't expect to learn and use some sort of positioning patterns. Be smart, guard your guardee and go with the fight flow.

5) Use it on cooldown.