Changes to Guard ability

Kalitas · May 2019

Support
Guard: Fixed numerous issues with this ability and its morphs.
The transferred damage can no longer be mitigated a second time by the transfer target's mitigation or damage reduction. The damage is only mitigated once, from the initial target's mitigation and damage reduction.
The transferred damage is now correctly attributed to the attacker, and no longer attributed to the initial target. It will no longer scale erroneously with the initial target's damage bonuses.
The transferred damage will now retain the same damage type of the initial attack, instead of always being Physical Damage. Note that Oblivion Damage still cannot be transferred.

Guard needed a change. The double mitigation being applied by both the person casting guard and the person having guard on them should never have been how it worked. However, I believe that the resistances being applied should be from the person casting guard. Not the person having guard cast on them. I would like to hear others thoughts on the guard change as well.

WrathOfInnos · May 2019

Interesting point. If I’m understanding correctly, the new calculation means that anyone guarding anyone will take more damage than before. Healers guarding tanks will be least affected, since they will still gain the tank’s mitigation on the transferred damage. Tanks guarding healers now will take far more damage, since their own defenses will be negated on the transferred damage (seems a little backwards).

If that’s the case, I agree it should be reversed. Or better yet, just have it use whichever mitigation is higher, still without double dipping.

Iskiab · May 2019

I like it, it was pretty OP before. The guarder will have to buff their health instead of resistances now.

Kalitas · May 2019

Iskiab wrote: »

I like it, it was pretty OP before. The guarder will have to buff their health instead of resistances now.

It was OP before because both players resistances were being taken into account. Now it will just be the person being guarded. I'm proposing it should be the reverse. Otherwise yes, we will just see health tanking.

Iskiab · May 2019

Yea, it will prevent the glass canon specs surviving solely because of guard. I’m fairly confident it’s intentional that the person being guarded’s mitigation is being taken into account.

On live the damage is so negligible it’s nothing but a desert rose, bloodspawn, Nord engine with almost no drawbacks. I’m surprised it lasted as is as long as it did.

I solo queue BGs so never use it, but almost all high level premades do. It doesn’t make the premade unbeatable, but they do perform way better then they should based on one ability.

Blinkin8r · May 2019

I agree with OP in that the person casting the guard should be the one who's mitigations the damage goes through. But 99% of the time I see guard being used is in PVP between two tanks or in high end raid parses (usually only for parses).

Roboplus · May 2019

The only time I've ever used Guard was once or twice on a healer if I was worried about single target heals on a low level character.

And while the mitigation of the skill was over-preforming, it could only be in compensation for its many shortcomings. Its range is terrible during an encounter and even worse while in transit. It has a cost to activate/reactivate, in addition to its increased risk in maintaining. It's single target, and you gotta double-bar it.

If its main use was in high-end BG premades (which I wasn't even aware of), the only change I could see the nerf causing is maybe them not using it either.

brandonv516 · May 2019

Always hated this skill. Anything to make it less useful or desired in PvP is a great change.

Silver_Strider · May 2019

On the one hand, it would be logicial for Guard to apply your mitigation values to your ally. However, I can see just how giving someone cap mitigation as well as taking 30% of their damage could be somewhat busted since it turns a glass cannon build into just a cannon instead so I feel the current iteration is pretty fair, all things considered.

I do think the double bar mechanic needs to go though but that's my only real negative criticism on the skill at this point.

Kalitas · May 2019

I don't personally use the skill, I've messed with it before but it's not something I enjoy using. I was just speaking from a purely logical perspective, you would think the skill would take into account the casters resistances.

Stx · May 2019

I love the theme of this skill but needing to have it double barred means I will never use it. The range is too small.