Guardian Reimagined

[worn scaffold]

Skimmed through this. Tagging @quaint creek as he’s the class guy right now. Lots of good information here. Thanks for writing this up!

[quaint creek]

Every class doesn’t need to be build spend

[ancient gull]

Overall I've been enjoying Guardian, just felt like some things were off, and since it isn't a popular class I figured I'd have fun with thinking what could be done with it to bring it together a bit without changing a lot. Popular opinion isn't always right and I find myself drawn to more off-meta things in games, which is what brought me to Guardian in the first place, particularly the potential I thought I saw in Barbed Shield (Iron Golem lover in D2, reflect damage is bae), but realized the potential just isn't there presently for that skill. Tanks aren't typically known for their damage, but their damage is mostly thematic--yet Guardian's output is mostly around their melee weapon more akin to a Warrior of sorts rather.

The kit became geared around utilizing Barbed Shield so that it fit thematically with what I'd imagine a brutally defensive tank on a battlefield would be like, his spiked shield in a defensive stance as he positions and allows enemies to impale themselves, then walk away from the pile he left behind xD At least it played out well in my head hahaha I like the idea of a defensive class who gets most of his damage output by people attacking him, which would have drawn me to Earthguard but I just didn't vibe with it since it is more of a caster tank 🤔

[quaint creek]

they do not spend grit

atm it's just an arbitrary requirement to using abilities, it doesn't consume grit

[ancient gull]

Interesting 🤔 I might revisit this then someday and think about what a Guardian may look like with a bit different take.

Really just trying to lean into the shield as a concept that enables solo play since right now I can 2H and ignore the shield entirely and have more rewarding solo play. Feels like the shield skills would come in handy for parties and leaves you more like a warrior for the rest of the game atm.

[willow heron]

We do plan to do augments, which could be a good opportunity to change up some of the functions of the spells, so any ideas for that are definitely welcomed 🙌

I didnt get a chance to read these before you took them down, but look forward to seeing what ideas you come up with

Augments system quick overview is here:

#general message

[ancient gull]

xD was just mostly trying to think of ways to bring Guardian into utilizing his defense offensively, which involved spending Grit as a resource (since I was mistaken and thought the resource requirement followed the format of most other classes whose resources are spent when put under that header in the tooltip). Without Grit being spent, I'd have to look at the balance of things again since earning Grit increases defense, but spending it would enable trading that defense for largely offensive gains, tying it together thematically and practically.

Mostly tried to just get Guardian to a place where it felt like the shield mattered, especially since I play HCIM, so party play isn't something I'll likely see, and the vast majority of the game would be spent outside dungeons. Which leads to the three melee abilities being basically all you really get for output, since barbed shield damage is dismal--wanted to change it from being a thematic afterthought into a core of its gameplay xD

[ancient gull]

I'd seen that, but unless the augments were significant it'd still see the shield Relic Guardian more as a temu WoW Warrior with a couple shield skills 🤣

at that point I'd likely end up using augments on the skills that matter to my overworld gameplay since that's like 90% of what we do anyway--quests and content outside of dungeons, and for IM basically 100% of our gameplay--so I'd likely end up augmenting the melee weapon skills anyway, maybe taking Barbed Shield augment if it were significant enough. So it wouldn't really deviate enough from the current style and limitations, probably just expound upon them

[willow heron]

tbh I am not as much of an expert at guardian as @paper garnet he might have some tips/tricks for the current kit to make it feel beter

but the augments would be targeted at key class-defining skills, so barbed could be a good target, one of the shield skills, etc

definitely appreciate the feedback though - if you want to send your initial thoughts i'm curious what you were thinking

[rain kite]

ryan: "I believe I removed that mechanic because it was reducing your primary defensive mechanic"
me: "Sure. But also a detriment to gameplay." "As in, before I had to make choices. Now I just click the button."

And then swapped the totem to later so it would not spend grit as quick for new players, but never put grit spending back anyway.

[ancient gull]

That's really interesting to hear, and reinforces the idea of Grit as a currency since I'd assumed it was a spend resource given the tooltips 🤔 Good to know the history of it hahaha so thank you good sir xD

think I'll put the single collage image back in the thread since I can't just delete the thread entirely, just in case they decide to one day turn Grit back into something spent. And summary of sorts instead of the huge breakdown I had before. More for the sake of posterity and less for the sake of it being considered as a rework, since I guess they want to lean away from spending resources for the class.

.
Note on the image: Original skills incorrectly given the rework suggested "Resource for empowering skills" tooltip on Grit since I was copy/pasting when making those, and pasted the rework instead of the original "Resource for powerful skills." Also notable is I didn't correct the tooltips to require a shield, as many of the Guardian skills do require a shield but it isn't stated within the skill.

Grit is a resource that stacks up to 15, and gives you additive defense values. The tooltip says it's a resource for "powerful abilities" but only Shield Wall utilizes it as a resource, although I guess it doesn't cost Grit just has a minimum stacks required. No other skills interact with Grit.

I imagined changing skills to consume Grit in exchange for enhancements, at every 5 Grit consumed milestones, making strategic play more important since using any of those skills consumes all Grit, i.e. if you have 14 Grit you'd consume all 14, but only get the milestone for the first two effects for 10 Grit. This helps mitigate the melee concepts of smash all the buttons, emphasizing more deliberate play and rotations expected of a tank. Again though this was with Grit as a resource, since I'd assumed it was with the "resource for powerful skills" tooltip, and didn't realize it wasn't consumed like other classes and just as Boh put it an "arbitrary" requirement of sorts to unlock the skill use.

The core is around buffing defense to increase offensive output, through Barbed Shield and the likes. Party play is still viable, emphasizing defensive gains for the party instead of offensive (currently Inspiring Banner grants a ~4% total increase to DPS by having them in your party given the current up and down times of the skill).

All of this was to try and give the shield Relic class more emphasis around its shields, since play outside of a party right now is infinitely smoother with 2H since your core output relies on melee weapon skills, and not your shield at all. Shield Slam and Barbed Shield and Shield Charge should theoretically bring 1H+Shield dps up to or higher than 2H, but it's not really comparable currently.

I tried to keep the updated kit as similar as possible to the current one so that it'd be easier to implement and/or test in a sandbox without a lot of new mechanics or changes to the class, essentially more a rework and less a completely new kit to build.

The important tweaks came from the mechanics of Grit consumption, and how the damage for Guardian is calculated, where defensive values play into the offensive formulas, like Barbed Shield and Defensive Strike using the Guardian's defense and DR values to supplement the damage dealt, along with Enchant Shield giving the Guardian a reply to ranged and magical attacks at a loss. In all, it was aimed to create synergies and trades with high defense, as consuming all Grit on many impactful skills would mean losing those Grit stacks, i.e. losing defense to empower abilities, i.e. using defense as a currency of sorts.

That's the gist of it, minus any balancing on the numbers since harder to imagine the correct values without being able to test how it'd feel when playing. But those were my thoughts, I'd have to sit back down to the drawing table someday and have a look at what that kind of gameplay may look like without build spend xD