Guard needs a counter

[AHChrist]

With all the knock-backs, pulls, mezzes, and snare you can't figure out how to isolate and kill a healer? That is your problem. You should go play Call of Dookie.

[Anbokr]

With all the knock-backs, pulls, mezzes, and snare you can't figure out how to isolate and kill a healer? That is your problem. You should go play Call of Dookie.

 

Yes because the healer is a target dummy and I posses 500 pulls, 222 knockbacks, a permanent snare and a passive mez. so ez

[Rheeling]

They could add like a 5-10 debuff to targets after having their guard lifted. "Cannot be effected by a guard at this time".

 

Or, what I think would be a better idea overall: Change taunt mechanics. Currently taunt spamming is even less brainless than guarding. Toss one out there, heck make it an aoe taunt, who cares! What's the real penalty? Someone might switch targets for a few seconds?

 

If a taunted target attacks the tank responsible, they should have a +15% damage increase or something for the duration. If the tank is guarding someone, the damage boost is increased to +20%, maybe 25%.

[IronFirewind]

Hoenstly it's not exactly hard to force a healer out of guard range with all of the pulls, knockbacks, slows and CC in the game. The only time you won't be able to separate a healer and tank is if you entire team is literally nothing but Sentinels and Scoundrels (in which case you focue fire).

 

Pulls alone are a hard counter to just about any sort of competant positioning. It's a zero skill, zero risk ability on a tiny cooldown that lets you yank that healer into the middle of your group to be insta-gibbed or to pull them into a hazard.

 

Then you have stuff like the Force Push > Force Leap to get the healer out of guard range while something like a Sage, Shadow or Scoundrel keeps the tank away for as long as possible.

 

Also people need to stop whinign about healers not dying. Remember that a healer healing themselves IS NOT HEALING THIER TEAM. If they do try to heal someone then interupts and pushbacks will ensure that the heal goes off much later than it should or not at all. Remember the important thing about fighting a healer: just because a healer isn't dying due to them healing themselves or running away doesn't mean you aren't hurting the other team

 

People need to stop trying to be solo heroes. They need get a guild, queue as a group and use teamwork and coordination.

[Solonius]

There is a counter for Guard, its called DPS.

[Coramac]

AoEs are too weak to do enough threatening damage and most have cooldowns+require channeling so that's a very weak argument. The only legitimate AoE is Warrior/Knight Smash which has a lot of conditions attached to it. I predict stacking Smashes will be the only way to burn through tank+healer clusters which is going to lead to more complaints. Also, this isn't very compelling gameplay and encourages people to zerg up and spam AoE.

 

It's not too difficult to do if your aren't the only person trying to accomplish that goal. There are a fair number of options outside of Sweep / Smash, but they are ones that people don't normally use (probably because the specs are absolute garbage 1v1 specs).

 

Focus Sentinels have a two target Slash which is spammable and is superior to a normal Slash.

 

Pulse Cannon in Tactics, while having the risks associated with a channel, is the hardest hitting AoE in the game as far as I know. It also deals elemental damage making it's amage on the tank significantly higher. Using it with Hold the Line offers some limited protection. Proper position offers pretty good protection vs. an interupt. In 1.2, it's going to get significantly better and easier to use with interupt protection (only a stun will break it) and a 70% snare.. Currently, it's awkward and few people stick with it long enough to learn to use it.

 

Force in the Balance isn't that bad of an ability for these purposes. It's also instant and targetable making it signifcantly easier to use. This deals internal damage which, again, is superior against a tank.

 

Smugglers don't have a whole lot here. Sweeping Gunfire is a bit difficult to set up but does some very solid damage for Gunslingers. Flyby is a lot of damage but a dot. Still good for pressure.

 

Pretty much every class in the game has a stun of some kind and a dislocation ability. Roots are very common as well. If you want to make it work, you can make it work.

 

The point is- you do have options. Most people just don't like the options and aren't using a playstyle to make it work.

[Invictusthetaru]

Unnecessary guard QQ post is unnecessary. In the PTS people are saying expertise scales as follows: 22 percent damage 16 % dmg reduction and 11-12 percent healing. This means healing is pretty much staying the same, while damage increase from expertise is essentially linear.

 

Pure DPS classes will now do more DPS than ever before. In other words, guarding a healer (as if it wasn't already) is now going to be an absolute necessity for them to last longer than 5 seconds.

 

And for your enjoyment until 1.2:

 

Guardian pushes healer one way

 

Vanguard pulls tank the other

 

Everyone attacks healer

 

???

 

Profit.

[Ahhmyface]

Unnecessary guard QQ post is unnecessary. In the PTS people are saying expertise scales as follows: 22 percent damage 16 % dmg reduction and 11-12 percent healing. This means healing is pretty much staying the same, while damage increase from expertise is essentially linear.

 

Pure DPS classes will now do more DPS than ever before. In other words, guarding a healer (as if it wasn't already) is now going to be an absolute necessity for them to last longer than 5 seconds.

 

And for your enjoyment until 1.2:

 

Guardian pushes healer one way

 

Vanguard pulls tank the other

 

Everyone attacks healer

 

???

 

Profit.

 

 

Your math skills are hilarious. Since expertise mitigation and heals "stack", DPS will do crappier dps than ever before. The dps values only reflect that.

[Invictusthetaru]

Your math skills are hilarious. Since expertise mitigation and heals "stack", DPS will do crappier dps than ever before. The dps values only reflect that.

 

How? right now it's 12 12 12 so if they "stack" that's 12 to 24

 

Soon it will be 22 to 28. In what way is that worse again?

[Crassius]

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.

 

Yeah that's a great idea. Have two people dedicated to support, instead of pew pew dps, and then give ONE SINGLE dps the ability to go right through guard, slaying the healer and making the tank who's all dedicated and specced to tank and absorb damage, an even more pointless existence than it is already.

[Ahhmyface]

How? right now it's 12 12 12 so if they "stack" that's 12 to 24

 

 

 

Soon it will be 22 to 28. In what way is that worse again?

 

Sort of, if you count the new values. It's not additive, its multiplicative. With the old values giving 20/20/20 we were looking at 1.2*1.2 = 1.44 = 44% - 20% = 24% advantage to healing.

 

 

Every point healed is worth 1.11~, and then with 16% mitigation, worth 1.1*1.16 = 1.29

 

So if you're DPSing a target with 16% mitigation, being healed by someone with 11% healing boost, and assuming my dps was equal to their heals before expertise, I need 29% damage from expertise to keep it equal. Since I get 22%, I'm still outhealed by 7%. As compared to 11% now. Instead of 24%.

 

Thank god they realized that 24% was unacceptable. Saying that we'll be doing "so much dps u will need a tank to stay up more than 5 seconds" is really hilarious.

Edited April 3, 2012 by Ahhmyface

[Cebby]

yawn qq thread about teamwork.

[Invictusthetaru]

Sort of, if you count the new values. It's not additive, its multiplicative. With the old values giving 20/20/20 we were looking at 1.2*1.2 = 1.44 = 44% - 20% = 24% advantage to healing.

 

 

Every point healed is worth 1.11~, and then with 16% mitigation, worth 1.1*1.16 = 1.29

 

So if you're DPSing a target with 16% mitigation, being healed by someone with 11% healing boost, and assuming my dps was equal to their heals before expertise, I need 29% damage from expertise to keep it equal. Since I get 22%, I'm still outhealed by 7%. As compared to 11% now. Instead of 24%.

 

Thank god they realized that 24% was unacceptable. Saying that we'll be doing "so much dps u will need a tank to stay up more than 5 seconds" is really hilarious.

 

I only say that because that happens now when a healer doesn't have guard. 2 good players with interrupts can drop a healer in no time. Now it will be even easier.

[seouleh]

Make guard scale with gear instead of it being a flat dmg reduction.

 

Make guard increase the guarded target's defenses based on the tank's defense skill.

 

This will also make tanks actually wear tanking gear instead of dps gear.

[Coramac]

Sort of, if you count the new values. It's not additive, its multiplicative. With the old values giving 20/20/20 we were looking at 1.2*1.2 = 1.44 = 44% - 20% = 24% advantage to healing.

 

 

Every point healed is worth 1.11~, and then with 16% mitigation, worth 1.1*1.16 = 1.29

 

So if you're DPSing a target with 16% mitigation, being healed by someone with 11% healing boost, and assuming my dps was equal to their heals before expertise, I need 29% damage from expertise to keep it equal. Since I get 22%, I'm still outhealed by 7%. As compared to 11% now. Instead of 24%.

 

Thank god they realized that 24% was unacceptable. Saying that we'll be doing "so much dps u will need a tank to stay up more than 5 seconds" is really hilarious.

 

Where are you getting 20 / 20 / 20...

[V-Serp]

It is impossible to outheal 4v1 focus fire. You have a 4 man setup that can try and sit there and taunt and heal all it wants, if 4 DPS pop by and aim at any of those, especially if they throw a quick CC on one of the healers first no less, that second healer is toast before he knows what hit him.

 

Yeah sure 1 person acting by themselves will lose. As will 4v4 where each of the 4 is attacking a different target. But a smart group just unloads 1 after another.