Is guard too powerful?

[Amdus]

I was thinking about the game, especially scenarios and cities and about the reason why it is often so one-sided. Either a complete stomp or getting stomped.

You aren't thinking in an objective way then. The reason of why it's a stomp is because one of the sides has a better composition and more gear.

One reason I identified might be the tanks guard. Whenever there are guards around it becomes very frustrating to kill anything.

I could say that the reason I identify is that slayers under rampage ignore defenses, basically cutting through anything and anyone. And maybe, the reason of why you can't kill anything is for the reasons I mentioned above, maybe your gear is low, maybe your tactics are wrong, maybe your RR points, skill-trees are wrong, maybe you play a class that's underperforming, it could be for a plethora of reasons, but that you came up with guard being one, is just unbelievable. On the other hand, guard is a balanced mechanic that both sides have access to and nevertheless, worth mentioning is that guard was nerfed a while back.

It's not the guard alone, it's the combination of people stacking -crit, tough, wounds, use detaunt, get bubbles and heals from healers, use their own bubbles, hots, disrupt/parry/block, cleanse, abilities, morals like bellow or knock downs, stagger, interrupts, punts. There is such a great amount of defensive tools but the dps classes on the other hand have very little to counter that or break through.

So you think that people using their available CD's and defensive tools are a problem. I suppose you'd rather fight training dummies. Let's remove all those defensive stats then, right?

However, the guard seems to have the most impact on damage mitigation. Especially dps class with lots of smaller hits like the dot classes suffer the most from all that defensive stuff. Their damage is being reduced to almost zero while running maxed glass cannon builds.

That's the point of guard, is to mitigate damage on a team mate that will probably become the focus of the enemy. If your damage is reduced to 0 despite being maxed as a glasscanon, then again we have a balance issue regarding your DPS class, not guard.

With the change of how guards works for 2h tanks it has become even more powerful. They can guard the dps and add a good amount to the assist damage.

Well this is something new. I have seen plenty of 2handed kotbs having lower damage than a full healer archmage that dots from time to time. SM has low damage, Chosen has high numbers but it's all aura damage... In short, all tanks have borderline negative damage except IB, and his damage isn't that great either, just an above average for a tank, still inferior to a pure DPS class.

I think we are at the point now where melees are too powerful and one of the reasons is guard for sure. Take WEs/WHs for example. They are ment to be solo killers and have a lot of tools to survive solo. Now add guard, bubbles, heals, morals and all the stuff I mentioned before to that and you have a pretty much unkillable WE/WH that is wrecking everything in their way.

The only powerful melee class is Slayer, because they have a mechanic to pierce through defenses. Every other class is pretty much the same, some underperform even, quite a few actually. Personally, I think that all melee DPS (stealthers not included) and tanks are underperforming in terms of damage and casters lack CC and survivability.

WE/WH's are overperforming. Not because of the damage but because they have more defensive tools than some tanks like in example BG, which is extremely questionable.

How do you wanna kill such target as dps? You won't unless you have all the same tools on your side. No guard? You are screwed...

I thought your point was to remove guard? I guess you only want it removed for one faction now? Are you destro ready to claim order bias? or are you order ready to claim Destro bias? True, defensive tools and stats also bother you, let's remove everything altogether so we can just smash ourselves into each other.

Thus guard is having a huge impact on the outcome of fights. Everybody knows that. They know that they wont win city fights when there are not enough tanks. They know they need tanks... what they might not know is that it is mainly guard on top of bellow, CC and pushing power that makes them win the fight.

That's the point of guarding, to give guard bots, aka tanks a reason to exist. So again, you want to simply remove guard and all defensive stats so we can mindlessly smash each other... interesting.

From my point of view guard doesn't have enough weaknesses. Tanks barely suffer from guarding someone and dps have no counter to that.

Punt is the tool to make guard innefective, and as I said a trillion times, slayers couldn't care less about guard, they just cut through it when they pop rampage. And tanks suffer from guard damage, quite a lot, especially against slayers. Let's nerf healers too so you can kill something.

Maybe they should think about reducing the amount of mitigation from guard or add a weakness to it, like strike through for ranged dps or something like that.

So we have to render useless an already uselees archetype just so you can kill something because you're unable to organize a party and tell your tanks to punt their tanks away. Or because you're unable to properly spec ST. Interesting again.

What do you think about this?

I think my cat has given me better arguments on why should I feed him canned tunna, and the only thing he has said is meow which apparently sounds more convincing than your essay on guard.


Troll post, I don't even know why I wasted my time replying.

[Justina]

I was thinking about the game, especially scenarios and cities and about the reason why it is often so one-sided. Either a complete stomp or getting stomped.

You aren't thinking in an objective way then. The reason of why it's a stomp is because one of the sides has a better composition and more gear.
...

I was trying to make a point. Why is it so often a stomp or getting stomped? There are many factors that influence the outcome of a game and player skill and gear is of course a factor, I don't question that.

The question was if guard is too powerful, is having too much of an impact on the outcome? I said that guard is only one of many defensive tools which resulted in the question if the amount of migation without much drawback is appropiate or not. I didn't say remove guard. I basically questioned the 50% mitigation on top of all the other stuff.

There is a reason why the 2/2/2 setup is the gold standard. It makes a group far harder to kill. Thus if you don't have that setup, you are automatically in a disadvantage. Now you could argue that it is also the healers that are too powerful but there are a ton of tools to lock the healers down or reduce their healing, or just kill them. It is the guard though that prevents you from doing that and guard is also the ability that makes guard + mdps combos super powerful. With a guard the mdps can just walk in and wreck stuff, without having troubles to survive with the healers in the back. It puts mdps into a superior position where they shouldn't be. Slayers and Choppas can just run red with guard... Im pretty sure that was not the intention in first place. But at least you have a good chance to kill Slayers and Choppas. It is far harder to kill e.g. a Mara, mSH or a vanishing WE/WH. That is the cancer of the current game. You can see in ranked how hard it is too kill that mdps.

So while you are having lots of options to lock down healers or dps you have far less to get rid of a def tank guard. Your punt will probably being blocked most of the time and even if you manage to punt him, the dps will run into his direction, he can purge the snare and run back within seconds. And even if you are able to kill the dps in that time... it will be back up seconds later and you have the same struggle all over again.

I think my point is valid. Reducing guard would open up other group options and guard + mpds wouldn't be so imbalanced. Guard + melee dok is even more insane, because then you have undebuffable heals on top of that. How can someone argue that this ok in any way? How much damage would you need to kill such dok? If he has lets say 9000 life, then you need 18000 damage alone when he is doing nothing, let alone detaunt, heals, potions, bellow, toughness etc.

It's the guard that amplifies classes to god mode. Be it a healer, a dps or another tank.

[Rapzel]

So the guard change to 2h that the devs had done before in the past, was it a reduced guard or could you just not guard with a 2h? I haven't been around too long.

it was nerfed to 25% damage mitigation, then changed into needing dodge/disrupt to "parry" projectiles/spells (making block a more valuable stat than parry).

[Amdus]

I was trying to make a point. Why is it so often a stomp or getting stomped? There are many factors that influence the outcome of a game and player skill and gear is of course a factor, I don't question that.

You tried to make the point that guard plays a role on the outcome, and you failed at it. Plenty enough arguments have been made against your initial statement, not only mines. Why is it so often you say? Check the compositions, there's a pattern in the order stomping team, and I'm talking about real premade vs premade, not a order premade vs a bunch of destro pugs or vice-versa. There will always be 4 slayers, and I hope I don't have to explain why again.

The question was if guard is too powerful, is having too much of an impact on the outcome? I said that guard is only one of many defensive tools which resulted in the question if the amount of migation without much drawback is appropiate or not. I didn't say remove guard. I basically questioned the 50% mitigation on top of all the other stuff.

Guard itself isn't as powerful as you make it look. You're creating the false narrative that guard plays an important role and it simply does not. The problem with the stale and everlasting fights, as well with the stomps is a class imbalance that has never been adressed. If anything it has been worsened through a bunch of unjustified changes. One of them being the nerf of GUARD for 2handed tanks. All tanks or almost all tanks that play ranked, went 2handed as they should. The reason of why guarded people seems invincible is because tank damage is NEGATIVE. Even though they sacrifice block, 25% guard damage mitigation and I'm sure something else I'm missing, their damage is still absolutely mediocre. Is it worth the trade-off? No. But what happens when instead of going 2h you go SnB? Well it's not 25% dmg mitigation, but 50%. Now yes, good luck trying to kill anything, except if you're slayer ofc.

It's not a guard problem mitigation, it's an imbalance that stems from a massive amount of unjustified nerfs and reworks. All in favour of massive 300vs300 battles, so expect everything below 50vs50 to be imbalanced. And I already told you and others have said it too, it's not 50% for 2handed, it's way less. You can basically expect that whoever that BG is guarding will be squishier, because it will only mitigate 25% of the damage.

There is a reason why the 2/2/2 setup is the gold standard. It makes a group far harder to kill. Thus if you don't have that setup, you are automatically in a disadvantage. Now you could argue that it is also the healers that are too powerful but there are a ton of tools to lock the healers down or reduce their healing, or just kill them. It is the guard though that prevents you from doing that and guard is also the ability that makes guard + mdps combos super powerful. With a guard the mdps can just walk in and wreck stuff, without having troubles to survive with the healers in the back. It puts mdps into a superior position where they shouldn't be. Slayers and Choppas can just run red with guard... Im pretty sure that was not the intention in first place. But at least you have a good chance to kill Slayers and Choppas. It is far harder to kill e.g. a Mara, mSH or a vanishing WE/WH. That is the cancer of the current game. You can see in ranked how hard it is too kill that mdps.

Is there anything or anyone stopping you from running 2/2/2? No. Case closed.
It really is hard for some people to understand the real root cause of the issue innit? To address everything in this paragraph at once:

We are currently playing a game that has no balance in 1vs1. This isn't a secret, it has been stated multiple times. Ranked isn't balanced, cities aren't balanced, small scale roaming isn't balanced. The only thing that's balanced is 300vs300 sieges, and even there you could present a lot of arguments against certain classes that are overperforming. Achieving balance is difficult. However, in the current state of the game, do you really think that is more nerfs what would solve the issue?

Okay Slayers and Choppas run through everything. The first is obvious, well documented and highly questioned, the later? First time I hear it. Want to use the ranked example? Okay, where are choppas? Case closed.

Maras and MsH are underperforming classes, just as SM, KotBS, BG, IB, BW, Engi... wait, all classes are underperforming in terms of damage except: Slayers, WH's/WE. Which leads us to the next thing, the WE/WH question. I have already said it. The problem is not them being the typical rogue class with a lot of burst and window kill opportunity, the problem is that they have more defensive mechanics than let's say a BG which is the tank archetype. That is the thing that needs to be adressed. Balance in this game comes with a trade-off, for some classes apparently. Others are untouchable. BG had a Wall of darting steel equivalent, SM kept it, BG removed. Reason? too OP. Where is BG now? How many BG's you see? And out of all those BG's how many reach the top at cities? It's always chosens at the top protection, why is that? Why is it that despite of pretending to make the BG as the ultimate 2h tank on destro is the 2h tank that performs the worst in destro? A "super-punt" and a pat in the back, that's all BG's got.

So while you are having lots of options to lock down healers or dps you have far less to get rid of a def tank guard. Your punt will probably being blocked most of the time and even if you manage to punt him, the dps will run into his direction, he can purge the snare and run back within seconds. And even if you are able to kill the dps in that time... it will be back up seconds later and you have the same struggle all over again.

Both sides have the same tools to get rid-off guard, except order. Order has slayers which they simply pierce through all the defensive stats of the tank and kill both the guarded and the warden in a burst. The solution is not to nerf slayers or nerf guard, the solution is to buff the rest of the classes that are currently underperforming.

I think my point is valid. Reducing guard would open up other group options and guard + mpds wouldn't be so imbalanced. Guard + melee dok is even more insane, because then you have undebuffable heals on top of that. How can someone argue that this ok in any way? How much damage would you need to kill such dok? If he has lets say 9000 life, then you need 18000 damage alone when he is doing nothing, let alone detaunt, heals, potions, bellow, toughness etc.

No it's not valid and myself and others have gave you many reasons on why is not valid. It's a biased point that doesn't take in account the big picture, the health of the server or the game mechanics, but your personnal bias towards a mechanic that you don't like. And that's exactly the thing, you need damage to kill stuff, buffs are needed, reducing guard would make tanks absolutely useless and you can be certain 100% without a doubt that if we get another guard nerf, order will run without tanks. The incentives and rewards for rolling a tank are already minimal, remove or nerf their core mechanic and watch how they all quit, guaranteed.

It's the guard that amplifies classes to god mode. Be it a healer, a dps or another tank.

It's not, it's the lack of damage and utility from all classes but slayers that give the illusion of an IDDQD. In reality the truth is that the nerfs have made the game slow paced, the lack of damage have made it boring and anti-dinamic, the reward system in both RvR and Cities encourage selfish gameplay, meaning that throwing a zone is more beneficial in the long run than defend it, that going to a city as a SnB is more beneficial for your own personal gains because you'll score higher and thus get bags. It's a combination of many things, but guard isn't one of them. If anything the ability of a single class to pierce through it without consequences, remember what I said of the trade-offs?

In short, it's a terrible and biased suggestion or a troll one.

[TreefAM]

another op thing is taunt
in no game does taunt have any effect on players, but here you can stop abilities with it??? Tanks are by far the most powerful!

[NSKaneda]

another op thing is taunt
in no game does taunt have any effect on players, but here you can stop abilities with it??? Tanks are by far the most powerful!

[Tillirage]

guard is the most stupid invention i've ever seen in a mmorpg. was made, i guess, to make tanks "halfway" usefull (for example no one in wow spec tank for pvp due to loldamage and no protection compared to other specs.

Either you trolling or dont know what you are saying. WoW example utterly wrong. Tanks are literally unkilliable in pvp while offer little to average damage. People tend to play dps specs just because of the burst rotation or better offensive cds. The main reason is playing tank in pvp will drag match for too long, and its not fun to drag the game for long times, where you can play que for next match. No protection is literally brain dead example.

another op thing is taunt
in no game does taunt have any effect on players, but here you can stop abilities with it??? Tanks are by far the most powerful!

Is that why tanks are always in need. They are too strong yet majority plays dps or dps tanks.

[Aethilmar]

Is this thread still going?

I swear the WoW kiddies (and, yes, I'm including people who are in their 40s and 50s who cut their teeth on WoW) won't be happy until tanks are completely useless in PvP.

The folks who run this already nerfed the crap out of tank damage (even the "DPS" tanks like SM have lower total DPS than they did on live) and now there is some kind of obsession to reduce the role of tanks even more by going after the core mechanic.

[Bloodmasked]

I was thinking about the game, especially scenarios and cities and about the reason why it is often so one-sided. Either a complete stomp or getting stomped.

You aren't thinking in an objective way then. The reason of why it's a stomp is because one of the sides has a better composition and more gear.
...

I was trying to make a point. Why is it so often a stomp or getting stomped? There are many factors that influence the outcome of a game and player skill and gear is of course a factor, I don't question that.

The question was if guard is too powerful, is having too much of an impact on the outcome? I said that guard is only one of many defensive tools which resulted in the question if the amount of migation without much drawback is appropiate or not. I didn't say remove guard. I basically questioned the 50% mitigation on top of all the other stuff.

There is a reason why the 2/2/2 setup is the gold standard. It makes a group far harder to kill. Thus if you don't have that setup, you are automatically in a disadvantage. Now you could argue that it is also the healers that are too powerful but there are a ton of tools to lock the healers down or reduce their healing, or just kill them. It is the guard though that prevents you from doing that and guard is also the ability that makes guard + mdps combos super powerful. With a guard the mdps can just walk in and wreck stuff, without having troubles to survive with the healers in the back. It puts mdps into a superior position where they shouldn't be. Slayers and Choppas can just run red with guard... Im pretty sure that was not the intention in first place. But at least you have a good chance to kill Slayers and Choppas. It is far harder to kill e.g. a Mara, mSH or a vanishing WE/WH. That is the cancer of the current game. You can see in ranked how hard it is too kill that mdps.

So while you are having lots of options to lock down healers or dps you have far less to get rid of a def tank guard. Your punt will probably being blocked most of the time and even if you manage to punt him, the dps will run into his direction, he can purge the snare and run back within seconds. And even if you are able to kill the dps in that time... it will be back up seconds later and you have the same struggle all over again.

I think my point is valid. Reducing guard would open up other group options and guard + mpds wouldn't be so imbalanced. Guard + melee dok is even more insane, because then you have undebuffable heals on top of that. How can someone argue that this ok in any way? How much damage would you need to kill such dok? If he has lets say 9000 life, then you need 18000 damage alone when he is doing nothing, let alone detaunt, heals, potions, bellow, toughness etc.

It's the guard that amplifies classes to god mode. Be it a healer, a dps or another tank.

Usually when your team dies its because the enemy is using cheats like Nerfed Buttons.

[Battlefield]

Just was the city 12 vs 12 and Order had 4 tanks less dps but Destr 1 tank and more dps and order won cause Destr lost half of the damage cause of guards system,
after Destr could not do some kiils then some of the players left....