Guard needs a counter

[MorgonKara]

I wouldn't object to some sort of anti-guard mechanic. Right now guard is simply there. Unless your tank is unconscious at his keyboard, staying within range is very easy. Get pushed? Guess what? All tanks have a leap or a sprint. They can even push back. Get stunned? Doesn't affect guard at all. When you get fights that are tank/healer vs. tank/healer then it's just an exercise is stupidity. Lalalalalaala, I can't kill you but you can't kill me. Let's all beat our skulls against the wall. For how squishy they are, DPS don't put out enough damage to make up for it. Tanks actually hit fairly well, especially Shadow/Assassin tanks. DPS can really only do one thing, maybe throw out a CC here and there(unless you're Mara/Sent). CCing the healer isn't exactly a great option either. Unless they let themselves get low, they'll be unCCed and at full resolve long before you kill them. Then they heal up and back to square one. There definitely needs to be a mechanic to counter this combination. I'd rather see that than a straight nerf to guard.

 

I agree a tank/healer vs tank/healer fight is stupid, but unless you got really unlucky with a team of half tanks and half healers than it probably just means DPS has to LTP.

Edited April 1, 2012 by MorgonKara

[MorgonKara]

Stop trying to solo in PvP and learn some teamwork. That is all.

[Kleve]

You don't need a "guard breaker" you just need to learn to focus fire and interupt properly. There's a Sorc/Guardian (sub 50 bracket) who are always in Warzones, I can normally drop the Sorc whilst the team do other things (on my Operative).

 

You aren't doing less damage, your just doing across 2 players. Taunt is what's reducing your DPS.

 

Hey look, someone who understands game mechanics.

[fungihoujo]

Snipers/gunslingers would make sense for this- sniping is generally pretty effective at bypassing armour due to the strength of the shot.

[Chaos_Distortion]

This dude is the thread winner.

 

 

They 100% had to adjust Op/Scounds before rated, or stunlocking premades would have been the norm.

 

 

But giving them the ability to get some stabs in that bypass guard in return, would be pro. It's a really good idea. I hope it carries.

What stun locking are you raving whiners talking about? Operatives stun locking someone is as much of a myth as them being able to kill someone in 3 seconds, it's a lie made up by forum bads. K.O. which makes the opener a stun is only 1.5 seconds long, dirty kick is a 4 second "melee" stun on a 45 second cd. Where in God's name are these imaginary stun locks coming from? A sorc could actually stun lock someone a lot better than scoundrels ever could (At range too.) if specced correctly. So I don't see where these imaginary Operative/Scoundrel stun lock premades would have came from, I really don't.. Let me not even get started on Sins/Shadows being able to truly keep someone cc'd forever and out of stealth too..

Edited April 1, 2012 by Chaos_Distortion

[FourTwent]

I don't care what class gets it, but Guard needs some sort of counter ability. Give the two most underperforming dps specs (I'd say 1.2 operatives and mercs--gives them something unique where some classes have trauma and some have a guard counter leading to a healthy combination of classes for ranked teams) a "guard break" that shatters guard for 5 seconds or something of the sort.

 

Right now, 2 healers + 2 tanks is literally unkillable. Two taunts being spammed massively reduces damage dealt and two guards on top of that allow healers to keep each other up while the tanks mitigate enough damage to stay above 50%. Before you come in and say "bu bu bu just separate the tank from the healer," it's almost impossible to keep a tank away from his healer unless you're a juggernaut (aka a gimped dps or another tank).

 

With guard and taunt, tanks have an enormous impact on a warzone by simply existing. A DPS or even a healer has to actively target switch, bait abilities, and focus on survivability at the same time. Address this imbalance by giving certain tank abilities reactive counters that force tanks to react, bait, and think.

 

I feel like healers in SWTOR are fine but a lot of the whining comes from tanks combined with healers. It's almost hell to solo queue as a healer when you have no active guard or tank helping you out. This leads to a balance nightmare where solo queue healers are in hell and are underpowered and where healers with multiple tanks are overpowered. It's nigh impossible to hit an in between for these two extremes.

 

Healers have to deal with interrupts/trauma and dps have to deal with taunts, guards, and the tremendous amount of CC in this game. Give guard some sort of counter.

 

Are you mad at guard or taunts?

[Warrzzone]

To preface, I play a Vanguard that can guard (not all specs can do it). I find it difficult to sympathize with so many that would like a way to counter teamwork without using teamwork themselves. As has been sufficiently pointed out, tank/healer combos have several ways to be countered. Most of those ways, however, require teamwork to pull it off. You are trying to counter a specific team makeup, and it might just require specific roles to get the job done, go figure. If you're trying to do it solo, you deserve the most likely result.

 

As for the QQ that suggests that guard requires no skill, that might be correct IF the tank contributes nothing else to the wz. If said tank ccs/interrupts/loldps's enemy healers (which are not often in guard range of your own healer) or enemy dps (which are often painfully within incoming AOE range of your own healer) then playing a tank requires more situational awareness than people tend to think.

 

I don't claim to be an elite pvper, but I'm not too bad either. I do, however, find playing a tank effectively in pvp to be a lot of work, even though not fundamentally complicated. Throwing guard on a healer and forgetting about it requires no skill, but the tanks doing that aren't the ones giving you fits either. Don't be mistakenly lured into thinking they are.

Edited April 1, 2012 by Warrzzone

[AMKSED]

Pull them 30m away from the tank then nuke the healer down with 2 good DPS classes.

 

All about coordination.

Edited April 1, 2012 by AMKSED

[yeayea]

My 50 vanguard is rarely played anymore as to make a big impact on the game is a lot of work. To perform optimally I must have a very good idea of the entire battlefield around me. So I made a DPS so I can just kill. Thanks for explaining that I had been doing it all wrong and I just stand and hit taunt. Can't believe I thought there was more than that.

[GRINnBARRETT]

Any class not tank spec is not a tank. Rage and Focus are both damage specs.

 

That may be true but it doesn't prohibit you from using guard which is the topic of this thread. :rolleyes:

 

Edit: nb4 noob "I never use guard when running my dps spec" If you aren't - learn to protect the ball carrier more.

Edited April 1, 2012 by GRINnBARRETT

[Pekish]

i read a lot of healer is op tank is op assasin is op sentinel is op... when it's obvious that the problem is a team seem to be a premade they work together they talk in ventrilo focus fire and know what to do the other sound always like a pug trying alone to fight everything and everybody

 

 

i only think that a premade vs a pug will always feel that way no matter what class u are using and what class u are fighting

Edited April 1, 2012 by Pekish

[Faat]

You really have no clue how a good tank plays. I switch guard targets based on where I am, how the situation is (healers in the back not focussed- don't need guard but maybe the dd next to me does eh?). Neither is the use of taunts.

The resource you use is your health. The damage the tank gets from guard is nonmigrated, meaning if i guard a cloth wearer I get the damage based on what he gets, if he is standing in aoe that ticks... yay.

That is why I said get skill, sorry but your concept of the tank just pushing one button at the start of the game than the healer is invincible and its an autowin is pathetic.

More active? Is checking the range and distance to your healer (in your example) passive? Geeze. With no class I have played its more important to be completely aware of your surroundings than a tank.

 

Exactly this. Playing a tank correctly is the hardest thing to do. You have to look your surrounding, guard who takes damage, taunt the most threatening ennemies, CC and DPS. It takes a lot of skill and practice to stop tunnel visionning and actually use all the tools at your disposal. Usually, bad tanks put guard on someone an lose track of him, good tanks dont even put guard on someone at the beginning of a match. You usually have to guard the low health buddy, because most players focus according to % of health. That's probably why the OP is whining, good tanks makes it harder to get easy deathblows.

[xNonphixionx]

Guard is definitely overpowered. Put guard on a Merc or Trooper healer and they become near invincible.

 

I just think we need some skills that remove buffs is all. Or nerf guard down because it mitigates WAY too much damage.

Edited April 1, 2012 by xNonphixionx

[Jabbb]

Give IA a poison that makes dmg done to a person with guard/taunt on do full dmg to the guarding tank.

 

So a PT is guarding a sorc. Apply the poison to the sorc, now all dmg to the sorc still does half dmg, but full dmg to the tank. Give it a cooldown so you can't keep it up nonstop, and you've given IA (a class that doesnt have much going for it in team situations) a vital move and made them desirable in Rankeds

[Briljin]

Adding a guard counter would prevent the rollercoaster of balance that will hit healers in every major patch--

 

The only thing that will stop it is for BW to stop listening to all the whining and QQ'ing here and to hire some developers with real PvP development experience. Until then they are going to fall into the same trap that Blizzard did. Constantly re-balancing classes based upon PvP performance.

[Calds]

healing in 1.2 is getting nerfed and rebalanced

 

/thread

 

They said /thread. Is did this go on 9 more pages?

[Faat]

You really have no clue how a good tank plays. I switch guard targets based on where I am, how the situation is (healers in the back not focussed- don't need guard but maybe the dd next to me does eh?). Neither is the use of taunts.

The resource you use is your health. The damage the tank gets from guard is nonmigrated, meaning if i guard a cloth wearer I get the damage based on what he gets, if he is standing in aoe that ticks... yay.

That is why I said get skill, sorry but your concept of the tank just pushing one button at the start of the game than the healer is invincible and its an autowin is pathetic.

More active? Is checking the range and distance to your healer (in your example) passive? Geeze. With no class I have played its more important to be completely aware of your surroundings than a tank.

 

Exactly this. Playing a tank correctly is the hardest thing to do. You have to look your surrounding, guard who takes damage, taunt the most threatening ennemies, CC and DPS. It takes a lot of skill and practice to stop tunnel visionning and actually use all the tools at your disposal. Usually, bad tanks put guard on someone an lose track of him, good tanks dont even put guard on someone at the beginning of a match. You usually have to guard the low health buddy, because most players focus according to % of health. That's probably why the OP is whining, good tanks makes it harder to get easy deathblows.

[Xsorus]

Yea, they'll nerf Guard, even though it's weaker then Warhammer Online, which had far better Healers and Tanks that were far harder to kill, and it was balanced there.

 

morons who don't know how to properly play want Guard nerfed.

[Aaoogaa]

Lets just remove all tactics and team work. Take out healers, tanks, and have every ability one shot anyone. That way the first person to click the button wins!

[Astarica]

I think it's funny that people mention pull abilities to counter Guard, since only Tank classes possess them and since Tanks always possess Guard, it's basically saying Guard requires Guard to counter.

 

The tank classes in this game have the best movement related abilities. If someone is going to get separated, it's going to be the guys attacking the healers, not the defending tank. Though with the healing nerf in 1.2 you can just kill the healer anyway, which you can already do now unless it's a Merc healer.

[finkelmana]

Threads like this make me facepalm.

 

Tanks damage mitigation is worthless in PvP. That coupled with the fact have little DPS means that guard and taunt are the only viable tools a tank brings into PvP.

 

You want to take that away? Fine, then make all all attacks avoidable and damage be reduced by shields and armor.

Edited April 2, 2012 by finkelmana

[Quor]

Counter to guard is AoE. AoE the tank and his guard target and laugh as the tank gets obliterated. If it's a smart tank and he can't get out of the AoE in time he'll drop his guard, and then you CC him and put pressure on the other target.

 

There. I just learned you good. You're welcome.

[Anbokr]

Exactly this. Playing a tank correctly is the hardest thing to do. You have to look your surrounding, guard who takes damage, taunt the most threatening ennemies, CC and DPS. It takes a lot of skill and practice to stop tunnel visionning and actually use all the tools at your disposal. Usually, bad tanks put guard on someone an lose track of him, good tanks dont even put guard on someone at the beginning of a match. You usually have to guard the low health buddy, because most players focus according to % of health. That's probably why the OP is whining, good tanks makes it harder to get easy deathblows.

 

Standing next to your healer and hitting taunt is hard. Tanks contribute to teams simply by existing and that's a problem.

 

Counter to guard is AoE. AoE the tank and his guard target and laugh as the tank gets obliterated. If it's a smart tank and he can't get out of the AoE in time he'll drop his guard, and then you CC him and put pressure on the other target.

 

There. I just learned you good. You're welcome.

 

So the only viable counter strat is to stack rage marauders/juggernauts? Nearly all other AoE in this game is channeled or garbage tier. Is that really good for the game? Just shows how broken the combination of taunt/guard with a healer is.

Edited April 2, 2012 by Anbokr

[signahead]

Probably because the combination of guard + spammable taunts is overpowered. Adding a guard counter would prevent the rollercoaster of balance that will hit healers in every major patch--a solo healer is easy pickings while a healer with a tank is crazy. What is BW going to balance around? Adding a guard counter allows for a middle ground that balances healers as healers.

 

Are taunts spammable? I'm just starting to play around with a Shadow tank alt (so I may be missing something important), but my Taunt has a 15-second cooldown and lasts for 6 seconds. If I cast it perfectly, that's 40% up-time, which to me doesn't really meet the definition of a "spammable" ability.

[Zocat]

I just think we need some skills that remove buffs is all. Or nerf guard down because it mitigates WAY too much damage.

 

Guard mitigates 0 damage. You must be thinking about taunts.