[Review] Guard at Level 5

[daniilpb]

Spoiler:

As it sits now, I like the following suggestions but have some concerns:

Assumption: Guard Available at level 5.
Issue: Mitigation is low on Level 5 tanks and may cause playability issues/lack of use
Solution: Scale Guard to 35% of damage at Level 5

Concerns:
1. Can the Devs scale Guard percentage now for in T1? Or do we need client control for this?
2. Base 35% until Level 10 seems stagnant and at Level 5 may still be too much.

Suggestion:
If Client Control is not necessary for incremental % changes to Guard mitigation
1. Start Guard at Level 5 with a 25% mitigation.
2. Increase Mitigation percentage by 5% at each level over Level 5 to a max of 50% at level 10.

Example:
5=25%
6=30%
7=35%
8=40%
9=45%
10=50%

In this way, the base Guard ability and damage from the Guard increases with level. It does not diminish the usefulness of the Tank ability, and allows Tanks, dps and support healers to walk into the damage/mitigation as opposed to a stagnant rate with a large jump at 10.

It looks so silly. Hours of hard work to implement such saffisticated changes and for what? 2-3 hours of gameplay? People will level up from 5 to 10 in hours. It's just ridiculous.
I don’t want to sound offensive or something, I just think it’s a bit over the board.

Offtopic

[Ramasee]

Tier 1 is an Island unto itself. One of the last remnants of the game from which RoR was spawned; albeit altered somewhat.

I am not nostalgic for such things, but tanking is near and dear to my heart.

Why Its a Bad Idea:

• Tanks having Guard at Level 1 will allow other players to ridicule them for not using guard from the very start. /2 salt will flow through the T1 lakes without impedance.
• Guarded healers (with any skill) in T1 will be all but unkillable.
• No way to separate the guard from the guarded as Hard CC and Punts don't materialize until later levels save for SW and SH M1.

Why Its a Good Idea

• may help "new" players understand how to use guard.
• Players who depend upon guard to go glass cannon will have it from the start
• Healers will get semi-God-Mode at Level 1 if a smart tank is around. (Taunt at Level 7 for tanks enables full-God-Mode)
  
  ALl in all, and in conclusion, leave it alone. No Guard until Level 10. It is not necessary and the imbalance of it too early means more frustration for all.

Good points. I would counter with the following:

* Potential ridicule from people doesn't really hold much weight when it comes down to balancing gameplay mechanics. Even at level 40, one can potentially be ridiculed for not using Guard 'properly'. Ridicule comes in all shapes and sizes, yet it should not hold any weight when talking about giving the tank archetype its most fundamental skill earlier on.

* Level 10 healers with a guard at the moment can still be killed; surely a level 1 healer with a level 1 guard would be even easier to kill? Having few healing abilities in your arsenal (at level 1, you have...1 ability), coupled with a finite AP pool, will still allow for the inevitable to occur.

* CC is another issue altogether, and I can see what you mean, but isn't this already the case in regards to limited methods of separating guard from guarded with level 10+ players? How does it differ for lower levels?

I very recently managed to convince a coworker to come play warhammer for the first time. He had never played on live, or here before so his experience through tier one is brand new with experienced guidance. After discussions about what he wanted to do, we decided that he would roll a tank. I will be using his and mine experience as a basis for my points, and I will come back to his feelings below.

*Bad Idea Part 3 counter (1 and 2 have been sufficiently discussed already) - At level 8 RDPS classes gain their knockback morales. This is sufficient CC to separate guardee and guarder.

We did ORVR while queueing for scenarios; in the scenarios he was fairly happy with his class as he was able to body block a couple choke points and attack the squishy targets as I explained to him. He didn't feel quite tanky yet, but I told him thats normal for T1, missing gear and few important abilities.

In ORVR, he felt worthless. We happened to be outnumbered and pushed back to our warcamp, so he didn't get to do much except against the witch elf that tried (repeatedly) to kill me on my naked bright wizard.

The first night we got to lvl 7, and he's playing a kotbs. He was very disheartened by how useless he felt in orvr. So the next day at work (we can game at work on laptops, gangway technicians ) I showed him how my swordmaster plays in warbands and scenarios in T4. That raised his morale to want to get back at it; I told him the goodies level 10 brings.

He hits level 9, gets his snare ability, and immediately tells me how much more useful he feels in scenarios. At level 10 he gets guard and hold the line, he no longer feels useless even while out numbered in orvr.

*So yes I agree that moving guard to level 5 will make a good impact on both new players, and people trying out the archtype for the first time.

*Also to counter the carrot on stick progression arguments, you still have hold the line at level 10; which is also a defining defensive tank ability to look forward.

[ragafury]

Spoiler:

the tank archetype will still only barely be in place for both sc gameplay or warband gameplay.
- taunt CR7
- Challenge CR20
- AoE roots CR30
- KDs burried in the mastery trees on 4/6 tanks
- punts CR unlocks range widely from BO CR18, Chosen CR16 (tactic CR 36), BG CR 25, IB CR 14, SM CR 16, kotbs CR16 (tactic CR36) and so on.

The Tank archtype becomes "unlocked" with Guard, hence its importance. The rest are complimentary abilities, as noted previously.

the reduce tanks "complete archetype to guard" is a bit old for me, especially when I have 4/6 tanks on RR80/almost 60/4X/4X and the last two in the making, with my 3 highest RR tanks excelling at assist dmg + buff and debuff distribution, while soaking up dmg.

sorry but you can than argument that the other classes also only have complementaries at there career ranks and the real deal is level 10.

example:
we have to reinvent healers role to detaunters and rezzers. the other spells they get are complementary, healing, dmg spells and CC.

mdps is no longer mdps.
they are now aoe detaunter and chargers. stuff like healdebuffs, excute mechanics, pressure skills and so on are just complementary.

guard is a (ofc important) facette of the whole picture.
it's a way to soak up dmg for one of your teams members dmg so they can save detaunt for isloation or overextending for a short amount of time and don't get bursted down and keep delivering.

a good tank avoids dmg for his team member completly or opens up oppurtunities / protects them via debuffs and CC while delivering asisst dmg. guard is while doing all this ofc an important aspect.

the most important one was not re-quoted:
implementation and tweaking for 1-5 hours player gametime most ppl spending on a flag or outlevel it in PQ / PvE grind and strongly depending on player experience,


if implementation is likely:
move all career rank 10 stuff to rank 5, to even stuff out.
charges, rezz, detaunts, stealth, pet gimmicks, HTL etc.

overall, it's not such an important topic worth discussing any further by me.

[adamthelc]

If the OP is arguing under the assumption that a tanks purpose is to be a guard bot and the people that make decisions agree, then this is a change that should probably be made.

Personally I dont think thats the tanks purpose. I think the tanks purpose is to be a hard target that can harass enemies and empower allies.

Guard to me is just a very good, arguably their best, ability. With that in mind I dont think that tanks should get special treatment. Every class has good abilities they have to wait for.

I think the discussion should hinge upon whether guard really is the tanks sole purpose for being or not.

*Edited to not speak for OP.*

[dansari]

The OP is arguing under the assumption that a tanks purpose is to be a guard bot.

That's not what the OP is arguing. Don't put words in people's mouths.

[Thelen]

Open for discussion. Will be locked in TWO WEEKS from now (21st April).

Guard is a class defining ability. Should it be available from level 5? In the same vein, are there any other class defining abilities that a similar argument could be made for? Keep it relevant to the proposal.

EDIT: Level 5 is now minimum level to discuss around.

Wondering that in light of this guard change moving to discussions, we could get another look at this:

viewtopic.php?f=97&t=23426

Was declined due to "you can get from 16 to 20 in a few hours (or less)". However, ignores the other points that it is a absolute key ability to the healspec for those classes, and should be avaialble once they hit T2+ (group heal obviously too unbalanced for T1). Doesn't make sense that new healspec WP/DOK should be introduced to endgame at r16 without their most crucial ability.

[wargrimnir]

Open for discussion. Will be locked in TWO WEEKS from now (21st April).

Guard is a class defining ability. Should it be available from level 5? In the same vein, are there any other class defining abilities that a similar argument could be made for? Keep it relevant to the proposal.

EDIT: Level 5 is now minimum level to discuss around.

Wondering that in light of this guard change moving to discussions, we could get another look at this:

viewtopic.php?f=97&t=23426

Was declined due to "you can get from 16 to 20 in a few hours (or less)". However, ignores the other points that it is a absolute key ability to the healspec for those classes, and should be avaialble once they hit T2+ (group heal obviously too unbalanced for T1). Doesn't make sense that new healspec WP/DOK should be introduced to endgame at r16 without their most crucial ability.

It's not outside the scope of future changes, but at the time was impossible. Let's see how this goes to start. Stay on topic.

[Fey]

I disagree with the proposal. After too many years of playing MMOs the insurmountable lesson is that leveling up is more fun than end game. Hitting level 10 on a tank, getting a tactic slot (11 I know) and guard is a huge buff that just feels incredibly satisfying. As the RV salesman said to Homer in season 1, "Don't ruin this feeling I'm getting from ya."

[szejoza]

Imo even 5 low is a bit too low, I'd personally go for something in between, 8lvl seems the best (often, 5lvl chars are craps made within 20minutes of chill play, to get a char at lvl 8 you need to invest a little more and by that time some classes are beggining to show their strengths). Same goes for ressing

Also guard available at low lvl connected with strong bolster might push more people to do T1 lairs, I can't say if it's a good or bad thing but imo as it is essential ability to do lairs it should require at least a little of investment into chars

[zgolec]

Good idea considering sc/rvr renown gain for other classes is based on kills / heal and while being tank its not easy to earn some decent rr w/o kills. That would surely help lowbies to catch up with dps/healers on rr gain.

And since halers/dps can get nice rr since start [bolster on sc/rvr make it easy to deal huge damage or heal nice] i would opt for adding it on 1st lvl.