Hi all,

 

I wanted to communicate some changes we are making to guard for 6.1.4 that are going to be live on PTS soon. We’ve heard your feedback about Guarding in PVP and we are hoping to address some of those concerns with this change.

 

We’ve added a 50% damage penalty to DPS disciplines while they are guarding allies. The full text of the new DPS guard is:

 

 

All this means is that while you guard allies as a DPS discipline, you do less damage while you are guarding that ally. It’s worth noting that this only applies to the DPS disciplines, Tank disciplines do not suffer this penalty and can freely guard as usual with no penalty.

 

The purpose of this change is to discourage the use of guard in every situation in PVP. While we feel like guarding is a useful skill and important to the advanced classes that have access to it, it has become clear that it is being abused in PVP by guarding and guard switching with no penalty. This makes PVP unbalanced towards the disciplines that have access to guard.

 

With this change, we are hoping that guard is used more thoughtfully in PVP while still retaining its usefulness in certain situations. We’d love to hear your feedback on this change, specifically if you think it helps the PVP experience overall, if the penalty feels fair, and after you get your hands on it if there’s any noticeable difference to guarding and team composition in PVP.

 

Thanks!

Excellent change. Can't wait to see it in action.

Hi all,

 

I wanted to communicate some changes we are making to guard for 6.1.4 that are going to be live on PTS soon. We’ve heard your feedback about Guarding in PVP and we are hoping to address some of those concerns with this change.

 

We’ve added a 50% damage penalty to DPS disciplines while they are guarding allies. The full text of the new DPS guard is:

 

 

“While active, the guarded player takes 5% less damage and generates 25% less threat. In addition, so long as you remain within 15 meters of the guarded player, 50% of all incoming damage from enemy players is transferred back to you.

You deal 50% less damage while guarding.”

 

 

All this means is that while you guard allies as a DPS discipline, you do less damage while you are guarding that ally. It’s worth noting that this only applies to the DPS disciplines, Tank disciplines do not suffer this penalty and can freely guard as usual with no penalty.

 

The purpose of this change is to discourage the use of guard in every situation in PVP. While we feel like guarding is a useful skill and important to the advanced classes that have access to it, it has become clear that it is being abused in PVP by guarding and guard switching with no penalty. This makes PVP unbalanced towards the disciplines that have access to guard.

 

With this change, we are hoping that guard is used more thoughtfully in PVP while still retaining its usefulness in certain situations. We’d love to hear your feedback on this change, specifically if you think it helps the PVP experience overall, if the penalty feels fair, and after you get your hands on it if there’s any noticeable difference to guarding and team composition in PVP.

 

Thanks!

 

So, once again the PvE community must suffer because of the abuse by the PvP community. Good to know, good to know.

Can you please make the 50% damage penalty only apply to damage to other players, the same way the damage transfer on guard works? Having dps guard in operations is a common way of handling certain mechanics, and this will completely ruin the way people do those fights.

So, once again the PvE community must suffer because of the abuse by the PvP community. Good to know, good to know.

not really, guarding is for tanks, dps using it in pve can also be seen as an "abuse" aswell

Excellent change Chris! I think most people feel dps being able to offguard is okay, as long as there is a a significant trade-off. As you mentioned, it's currently the default best choice in nearly every solo ranked situation. Lowering the damage output from the person that's guarding is exactly the type of change I was hoping to see.

Make sure that this change does not effect the gameplay of PVE (guard is important for threat management in certain boss mechanics) and the change will be fine.

 

Stop scapegoating PVE for wrongdoing in PVP.

Can you please make the 50% damage penalty only apply to damage to other players?

 

Since this change is focused around PVP, I think this is a reasonable request.

 

It could read something like: You deal 50% less damage to enemy players while guarding.

 

Chris, can you explore this option and how it would effect PVP and PVE?

Well, I'm thrilled about the prospect of a nerf to my class utility with no survivability buff! Excellent idea, will really help the just absolutely dominant pvp class of focus and vigi guardians. Really, maybe I'll actually have a reason to play the absolutely horrible concentration sent i have but that was just totally outclassed with no utility or team play because it can't guard! (/sarcasm for the challenged among us).

 

Ok, on to more serious discussion. As I've said, do what you want up to taking guard away totally, I really don't care.

 

I still see irony in that even BWs combat devs are suddenly, after what, 3 major expansions and over half a decade since they got rid of skill trees (and thus, swappable forms), taking issue with dps guard.

 

What changed since then? If this is a problem BW chose to ignore for over half a decade, why address it now? Because there are more players in PvP who can't dps is my guess.

 

Also, what of the raid bosses where this is a mechanic? Yes, guard already has a pvp and pve mechanic, so it would seem possible to make the dps penalty pvp only. But this is BW we're talking about. I fully expect something along the lines of a straight 25% damage nerf regardless of whether I have guard on or not. And that might get fixed somewhere down the road 9 months from now. (It took them what 6 months to address the battlefield command/warmonger bug and another 3-4 months to fix it?)

 

And finally, when I play dps guardian, id argue most of my protection comes from taunts, not guard. Taunts are off the GCD, spammable on CD, have no effect on my dps (which guard actually did in pvp because you go through DCDs faster, and if you're not careful enough die faster), and have a major effect on the opponent dps. Where's the fury and outrage against guard? Where's the BW nerf on guard?

 

But I guess, its nice to know where BWs priorities lie. No content updates in nearly a year, fixes to major class bugs (like warmonger/battlefield command) take nearly a year, idiotic decisions like amplifiers and endgame pve being level 70 are locked in; but no dps guard nerf, that's the real problem with swtor!

 

Good to know you have your priorities right, Mr Durel. Oh, and its also nice to know Mr Musco found someone to do his dirty work. Good job guys, really excellent decision and you totally have your priorities and strategy straight for a game with an obviously limited budget and scope. Ok, sarcasm off again, this makes me even more confident in my decision to basically leave swtor for the new marvel avengers game. It might be buggy, glitchy, and crash frequently, but hey, you guys prepared me well for buggy and glitchy games! As long as SE/CD fixes the issues there in less than a decade, they already have a leg up on EA/BW.

 

TLDR: fine, I don't care. But seriously BW figure out your prioriites already.

Hi Chris,

 

I have to agree with the many concerns for PVE. As a long-time raider in the game, this is going to create a nightmare for PVE. PVE was not mentioned a single time in this post, which leads me to believe it was not even considered in this decision. Changes like this may make one side of the player base happy and content, but you are simultaneously stabbing your raiding community in the back. I strongly agree that this should be 50% reduced damage against players. In raiding situations where a single tank is used, fights like the hateful entity for example, this leaves the group with 1 guard. Only 1. At that point, the guard may as well just be a talent for the tank classes, because it effectively removes any change a DPS will use it. I apologize if my words seem harsh, but decisions that improve one half of the game and push the other half away need to stop. There has to be a division in these 2 aspects of the game.

 

Thank you,

A Concerned Player

Since this change is focused around PVP, I think this is a reasonable request.

 

It could read something like: You deal 50% less damage to enemy players while guarding.

 

Chris, can you explore this option and how it would effect PVP and PVE?

 

I'll echo this.

 

The guard doesn't reduce/transfer NPC damage, so it shouldn't cost DPS their damage to NPC's..

Its a good change, just make sure it does not affect PVE cause dps guarding players in operations has become a common thing.

You deal 50% less damage while guarding.

 

NOTE: lack of defining PvP wordage (ie: ...while guarding against attacks from other players).

 

so yet again PvE is getting shat on because of PvP abuse... gg bw

 

I am also sensing a prime break point for tanks that bw is going to foul up and leave tanks in a lurch for weeks/months when they break tank guards - as if breaking tank taunt mechanics was not bad enough, now this trash

Edited September 16, 2020 by Kaveat

This is the single best PvP change in years. Push it to live. This will revitalize PvP in my opinion.

This is the single best PvP change in years. Push it to live. This will revitalize PvP in my opinion.

 

Probably, but then what will it do to PVE in the process?

 

Make tanks more valuable?

 

hmm.... /ponder

 

p.s. Why the heck did BioWare implement a 'guard' for DPS in the first place lol ( Never underestimate the power of human player's imagination & inginuity )

Edited September 16, 2020 by Nee-Elder

I am not a PvP player. I'm not up to date on PvP mechanics and how they can be exploited. As a PvE player, guarding a team member is helpful in so many reasons. Can you please confirm that these changes only apply to PvP situations and do not affect PvE at all?

TLDR: fine, I don't care. But seriously BW figure out your prioriites already.

 

Your whole post is just laughably out of touch, which is what happens when you don't play ranked. Offguard in healer games is nearly always a deciding factor. Not skill, not class composition in any other regard, just whichever team has more offguards. Even in all dps games, it's extremely good. And yes, that applies to dps juggs as well. The good ones that use force bound and grit teeth, and kite to survive, can do very well with another offguard on their team, to the point where they can become oppressive. Dps juggs with no offguards, no tanks and no healers are indeed still vulnerable, but that's a separate issue.

 

And as to "why now?": better late than never. Offguard is more viable for sins and juggs with double vanish and grit teeth, and there are tons of pts around thanks to powerlode. I don't believe offguard has ever been more of a problem than it has been in this meta (I could be wrong on that, since I didn't play for a few years). Bioware has actually listened to the ranked community on this issue, which is awesome.

 

Literally anyone that plays ranked pvp knows this change is amazing. The effects on pve are negligible.

Edited September 16, 2020 by JediMasterAlex

Literally anyone that plays ranked pvp knows this change is amazing. The effects on pve are negligible.

 

naturally you're happy about changes that are good for your particular bit of the game. i for one am not looking forward to the inevitable broken tank guard or permanent dps loss or whatever else this just happens to break because bw can't fix something without breaking something else.

 

as for PVE, a PVP focused change should be designed so that it doesn't affect them at all. which should be doable because guard already works differently in both. But probably isn't because the 2 people that work on swtor at BW are a practical joke.

Probably, but then what will it do to PVE in the process?

 

Make tanks more valuable?

 

hmm.... /ponder

 

It will not.

 

For PvE guard is a handy threat reduction, but that's basically it. It doesn't help others take less damage.

 

It's a tool for tanks (or others to help tanks) to keep threat. It will not make people look to tank (possibly the opposite) or make tanks more valuable in content where they're not require already (aka, vet FP, open world groups)...

 

I do see it getting more annoying for new tanks in large groups (16m content, open world DvL, etc) where they might be fighting bursty DPS for threat and not have a co-tank to help guard... or force new tanks to juggle more things right away, but certainly not make PvE tanks any more valuable.

 

p.s. Why the heck did BioWare implement a 'guard' for DPS in the first place lol ( Never underestimate the power of human player's imagination & inginuity )

It used to be tied to stance (only those in tank stance could guard in either mode) but they made stances passive to make things 'easier'. The stance buffed defenses, nerfed DPS output and allowed Guard to be used.

 

IIRC the damage nerf was also a lot lower than 50% - like 10%?

an excellent change in my opinion, it won't have any effect on PvE, something that I was afraid of (a situation where Bioware adjusts pvp and it has a negative impact on pve) but will solve a lot of the issues that the pvp:ers are facing in ranked

 

good stuff bioware, looking forward to checking it out on pts

so we realize:

-> changes for pvp good (but could be even more punishing)

-> changes for pve ****

-> communication was: we patch for pve. noone expected good pvp changes and game in pvp rip. look at operatives they can solocarry every warzone if not completely retarded. this should not be.

 

=> better thing to do might be:

-> get us pvp gear and skill + utilitiy set balanced for pvp and one skill + utility set balanced for pve

 

=> you will be able to balance pvp and pve perfectly fine without crashing gameplay for a class in the other envoirment

=> easy to do since you can flag for pvp or pve (maybe make a thing to prechoose your utilities for pvp and pve)

 

This would solve like 90% of balancing problems. just seperate pvp from pve. there are so many skills and utilities in the game it's literally unbalancable from my pov.

This is a good change. It turns Guard fromm being something that gets constantly used into something that requires a decision to use.

It definitely should only reduce damage dealt against enemy players, so that way PvE players can still use it.

Can you please make the 50% damage penalty only apply to damage to other players, the same way the damage transfer on guard works? Having dps guard in operations is a common way of handling certain mechanics, and this will completely ruin the way people do those fights.

 

While if it is possible to make this a PvP only change, I'd agree that is the way to go, I don't think people realize how little guard does in PvE. Beside the strong damage transfer mechanic that is PvP only, guard has only 2 affects: a small threat reduction and a tiny damage reduction on the guarded player.

 

The threat reduction is the useful piece here. Guarding the top DPS can help the tank hold aggro. Therefore if a DwT is among the top DPS, they should be guarded anyway not guarding someone else. Also a healer should almost never be guarded for the purpose of threat reduction. Healers pulling threat is due to their abilities applying threat to all enemies, not the amount of threat they are generating, so a guard wouldn't fix that issue.

 

The damage reduction provided by guard is negligible. Currently it is only available for a maximum of half the group (guarded players can't guard someone else). In addition the players receiving a vast majority of the incoming damage (the tanks) don't want to be guarded due to the threat reduction.

 

Guard is an ability that is used in PvE usually because it is there and it is a set it and forget about it ability. I'd wage if guard were bugged and not working in PvE, it likely wouldn't even be noticed in more than 99% of encounters, at least not until studying parses after the fact.

 

However since there a few fights where the guard might make it a little easier, it would be better if the proposed change could be PvP only. My point is only that it wouldn't be nearly as big a deal as some people are making it out to be if that turns out to be unfeasible.

an excellent change in my opinion, it won't have any effect on PvE, something that I was afraid of (a situation where Bioware adjusts pvp and it has a negative impact on pve) but will solve a lot of the issues that the pvp:ers are facing in ranked

 

good stuff bioware, looking forward to checking it out on pts

It actually has a huge implication for PvE groups. DPS who guard will have their DPS reduced by 50%. That is an enormous effect on PvE, wouldn't you say?