Guard Needs Fixing Now, or Why We Have So Many Burst Damage Whines

Nobody's saying 1 dps should be able to kill a healer + tank. Obviously 1 dps wouldn't be able to kill a healer + tank with or without guard. That is a total non sequitor.

So, now you've said this - what exactly is the problem with synergy between roles - being stronger together than they are individually?

Grow up , what causes people to complain the most are OP classes , until today i never even found a player complaining about guard on the wz lol.

It everything a tank has got on PvP , take that and well , no more point in keeping a tank , that will mean less tank for PvE stuff until they add dual spec also ... so lets keep guard where it is.

How does it not have an opportunity cost if you're gimped to hell? The tank is tethered to a healer, they can't just guard everyone at once. The tank does less damage because he can't wander all over the place. The tank does less damage because the stance causes them to do less damage.

As a Shadow I'd have to choose to do Combat Techniques, which makes Force Breach worthless in PvP (a shadow's main form of burst damage) and also reduces my weapon damage by 5% off the bat. Even if I were a tank spec I could go wander around with Shadow Technique and gank people, but I can't. Because I'm in Combat Technique, Guarding a healer.

If it was a premade of 4 healers + 4 tanks vs 8 dps I'd put my money on the DPS.

Well, nothing, in principle. Although if your system actually gives synergistic effects only to some classes you end up with a system where the class either has to suck on its own or ends up overpowered with another class.

Either way is not really ideal from a balance perspective.

PVP should be about bringing the player, not the class. I don't see any good reason why a tank+healer combo should necessarily by design be surperior to a dps + healer combo or vice versa.

Here here..

I play a Vanguard, and a Shadow. My shadow is a damage tank hybrid, while my Van is straight tank.

The best way to beat Guard, Kill the person that is guarding, simple...

Then what is it? If a 2 man dps can't take out a healer+tank combo heads up, there's a problem with the people playing. No way is a tank dishing out enough damage to kill 2 people in the time those 2 dps's can take out the healer, with all the CC the two dps's have.

Then what are you arguing is a 2 man DPS should be able to take out a healer+tank combo? Seriously, give me the scenario in which your argument has the ideal situation is. You are arguing for the removal of an ability that takes two people. Yet it's not because you can't go 1 v2, but 2v2 might be a stand still, Or oh my god, you might need 3v2 cause a the healer+tank combo that compliments each other is too hard?

This just keeps getting better. Healing has no opportunity cost for the person being healed. It just makes them vastly better! You think we should nerf it for that reason?

By the way, Guard just moves damage around while healing counters damage. That's why it makes sense that healing takes GCDs but Guard does not. It'd make more sense if you argued that taunts should take GCDs, since they actually reduce damage (unless the taunted players switch to the tank).

The "ROLE" of tank on it's own is weaker than other roles. This is the NATURE OF A SUPPORTING CLASS.

If a "tank" could deal as much damage as a damage dealing class, then with what mitigation/control/survival techniques, it would be too strong right?

What it gives up for damage is Control. Healers, give up damage - for healing, tanks give it up - for what I call control. In this - I mean, setting the pace of things. Debuffs, forcing people to change tactics etc.

Saying bring the class, not the player - is some stupid faff that sprang up on WoW, that caused a lot of homogenisation of the "classes". Would you ignore the role of tank or healer in a Raid, or Flashpoint? Not - Shadow tank, or Trooper tank, or Guardian tank (or any of the mirrors), or Smuggler healer, or Sage healer... would you ignore the role completely?

If not - then you cannot apply that logic of "roles" to PvP. Tanking has a ROLE in PvP, as does healing and damage dealing. It's to essentially - make your plans go awry, by making it harder to do what you want to do.

You might not be able to grasp - why two weaker support classes should be stronger than a dps/support combo. That doesn't make the fact that it *can* be. If tanks were a super popular class, then you'd probably have seen it a lot in your WoW days, but tanking didn't have a role in PvP short of a short burst when Prot Warrior was silly strong.

You certainly don't have the experience of Ballista in FFXI, where Bard + Rdm or Rdm + Pld was a sickening combination - even though they didn't have the "damage" potential of other classes such as Warrior, Blue Mage, Black Mage etc. Nor - do I think you had the experience of GW, where classes like Ele/Nec was the ultimate countertank/support role.

Your experience of DD + Healer vs Tank + Healer, are personal to "you". Firstly, tanks who play in PvP are more focused on their team and teammates - over your average DD. This is because the "mindset" of the player is totally different. If you had a tank specced/geared DD player, who tried to perform like a tank, they'd fail. Miserably. Because they'd be QQ'ing about not being able to kill people. It's all about controlling the fight, and setting it to "your" pace. I've seen in my years, countless DD's pretend to be "tanks" in all sorts of situations, and for the most part, they failed (with the exception of recent years in WoW, but then tanking became so easy that a one armed 65 year old woman could do it in raids).

Why does the synergy work well, because you've got two "roles" that by nature, are more team oriented - working together. Given this - as a premise, is it any wonder, that even PUG's will gel together better than your average DD's will. They're not competing to get kills or do damage or top the charts. Their whole "roles" revolve around making sure others succeed. Knowing this - you should be able to work out why they synergise better than other roles/combinations (although rest assured - if there were DD's who played together a lot - and knew each other well, they would be able to deal with the problem).

In terms of Guard itself, no - it's not broken, and doesn't need to be fixed. There are *ways* around the speedbump that that combination sets up. Don't cry for nerfs, because the two most team oriented roles - will naturally gravitate together for the "team's" benefit.

Guard reduces the overall received damage to "ONE" person by 5%. It doesn't stop you dealing damage overall. Just means you have to change your tactics. And if a tank is making your plans go differently to the way you expected - that's part of their job description. Don't try and take it away because you can't do what you did in WoW. Seriously. Try playing PvP in FFXI. That's a WHOLE different ballgame completely, and ROLES were important. This isn't healer + 2 dps 3v3 arena team setups now.

Which would mess up PvE far worse than the PvP "balance" issue being presented here.