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Please allow Guard buffs from multiple tanks in PvP.


Sidrath

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2.0 has significantly raised the value of bringing support classes to the table, and I'd argue tanking trees (Immortal, Darkness, Shieldtech) received some great overhauls. In turn, I anticipate more players will bring tank specs into WZs, and therefore more Guards to spread around. This leads to a noticeable quality-of-life problem for PvP tanking:

 

Guard buffs are currently mutually exclusive. If someone is being Guarded by a tank who's nowhere near (ie >15m away), they're not really being guarded at all. Yet that Guard buff prevents any other nearby, conscientious tank from applying theirs. You need the Guardee to manually click off the Guard buff before a nearby tank can apply theirs. Quality-of-life wise, this is pretty bad: it means a bad tank on your team can actively hinder the guard-swapping of a good tank on your team. The parallel for healers would be if healer A putting a weak heal on someone in need locked out healer B from burst-healing them: it's kinda silly.

 

A simple solution would be to allow multiple Guard buffs to apply, and only the nearest tank absorbs the damage transfer. If I recall, this is the system used in Warhammer Online, where the Guard system was coined (and incidentally whose PvP team got absorbed into Bioware when it acquired Mythic?). This change would allow tanks to better control their protection of teammates, and never find themselves penalised by the actions of a wayward tank. Insofar as quality-of-life is a major concern for improving gameplay - a stated aim of the devs going forward - I can't think of a good reason to not implement this. Please give it due consideration.

 

I fully agree that another benefit of 2.0 is to encourage not only more people to queue up, but also to allow support players an important role in PvP. Tanks have always been good on rateds, but they are now more popular in non-rateds, too. healing right now is looking good, despite what many in this forum say. Give it time, let everyone get to 55 with good gear and we will see where healing truly is. Right now, though, a guarded healer and a good tank are really kick-butt. As for your idea re: proximity...interesting.

Edited by Genttry
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If I read it correctly...you want a healer to be guarded twice...by 2 tanks...of which one of them is within 15 meters...if the first tank moves too far away or dies..the other tank standing 5m away from you will automatically guard you.

 

You're basically all wanting healers to be...invincible basically?

 

Heres an idea...get a good tank. Problem solved. Why do you want to dumb down pvp even more?

 

Is this what the pvp forum has come to?

Edited by DarthWoad
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If I read it correctly...you want a healer to be guarded twice...by 2 tanks...of which one of them is within 15 meters...if the first tank moves too far away or dies..the other tank standing 5m away from you will automatically guard you.

 

You're basically all wanting healers to be...invincible basically?

 

Heres an idea...get a good tank. Problem solved. Why do you want to dumb down pvp even more?

 

Is this what the pvp forum has come to?

 

The answer would be that the effects of guard do not stack. I do not have a problem with that. Keeps the guardee from being too tough, but does allow for people being separated in warzones and easier adjustments on the fly (and I regularly play Tanks, Healers, and DPS in PVP). It's a little QoL change that would be nice, for certain.

 

And also, the worst stuff on any forum is when people are derogatory to any post that comes up that has something they don't agree with. Deal with the problem you're seeing in the post without being over the top angry about it.

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So it would be practically impossible to shut down guard in a rwz, cause cc'ing the main tank will only result in having another one guarding instantly without the need of taking away guard...notsigned.

 

correct me if i'm wrong, but wouldn't that only really affect voidstar, because don't most teams run 2 tanks, and an assassin tank is guarding the off node, leaving the other tank to be the only one at the node where the fight is at, and in huttball, a jugg tank usually carries the ball and they don't guard people as to not take that extra damage. It would definitely be a game changer in voidstar, but i don't think the other warzones will be affected that much, at least in ranked warzones.

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as soon as the guard moves out of range of his guarded target the guard buff should drop off, personally I would like to see the dopey fecker teleported back to the healer he was guarding so he is forced to do the job

95% of the time I move out of range of the person I am guarding it is because:

 

  1. I am responding to an urgent defence call (that I see no-one else is going to)
  2. I can see someone planting / capping and I've got to pull them off the door / node or otherwise interrupt.
  3. I'm just about to sprint towards the goal to score (usually I drop my guard when I have the ball admittedly, but not always).

 

In such cases, I make no apologies about doing so. Healers are important, but not that important.

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/signed. Just allow tanks to override each other's guards.

 

 

Right now there are a surplus of really bad tanks that queue up, guard someone, and then run off and hump a wall somewhere, making it impossible for me to bounce to their target when they get focused.

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Right now there are a surplus of really bad tanks that queue up, guard someone, and then run off and hump a wall somewhere, making it impossible for me to bounce to their target when they get focused.

 

Spot-on. I definitely understand that this will be no issue for RWZs since you can count on your players not unwittingly undermining the team. This fix is primarily for normal WZs - still the bulk of what gets played I imagine! - where I bet every guard-swapping tank has occasionally had their effectiveness dented by a pug tank who just didn't know any better.

Edited by Sidrath
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Spot-on. I definitely understand that this will be no issue for RWZs since you can count on your players not unwittingly undermining the team. This fix is primarily for normal WZs - still the bulk of what gets played I imagine! - where I bet every guard-swapping tank has occasionally had their effectiveness dented by a pug tank who just didn't know any better.

 

what would happen is all of yall would get your wish, and then realize that asking to take away something that is technically a "skill" that gets learned through experience doesn't benefit the "noob", it benefits the guy who could already kill the "noob" (because that guy has already figured out how to take advantage and the "noob" is still the "noob").

 

then you would understand why im saying you honestly do not want them to allow what your asking.

(for the record, im not insulting people by calling anyone noobs, gotta start somewhere^^)

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I think I understand what you mean, and sure - there is a tank learning curve like with any role. The only problem is that unlike with dps and healing, a 'bad' tank doesn't just contribute less than a good one; it actively undermines it. Insofar as Guardswapping is at the heart of PvP tanking (sure we have cc, but then again who doesn't), I'd just love players to have firmer control of this role-defining mechanic - it'd be a big deal for our quality-of-life.

 

As for the learning curve, it will definitely still be there: the tanks that guardswap pre-emptively will still save your team better than the slower, reactive tanks. And those will still be much better than the passive, "i guard my guildie" tanks.

Edited by Sidrath
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If they did this, I would much rather just have guard as an area of protection and on a cooldown to where when the tank casts it, rather than apply it on who he wants to guard, it is around himself, and teamates within the AOE of guard are all protected, until it wears off. Cooldown to offset it protecting multiple players potentially.
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If they did this, I would much rather just have guard as an area of protection and on a cooldown to where when the tank casts it, rather than apply it on who he wants to guard, it is around himself, and teamates within the AOE of guard are all protected, until it wears off. Cooldown to offset it protecting multiple players potentially.

 

Guardianship/Sonic Wall, tier 5 talent in the Defense/Immortal tree, works similar to what you describe.

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when playing my healers i keep a careful eye open for "fake guards"

 

those guys you are talking about who guard you, then proceed to run off and solo all WZ.

 

I de-click their guard right away, since all its doing to preventing a real tank from tanking for me.

 

so.../signed. At least in some form there needs to be a way to apply guard (only one damage reduction effect no matter how many guarding tanks on one guy) to someone whos out of range or currently guarded by a tank thats not actually guarding.

 

Now god forbid we get taunt capable characters to actually use their taunts during games on people attacking others...

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  • 3 weeks later...
Bumping this with another suggestion I've come across lately: to take Guard off the gcd. It won't dramatically increase the effectiveness of Guard, but from a Quality of Life perspective it'll help with those ghost-gcd or lag moments that make your Guard apply later than it should. Will also make Guarding that little bit more clutchy, which always make for more fun gameplay. Edited by Sidrath
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Thanks! So far it sounds like the 3 main solutions we could propose are:

 

1. Tanks can apply Guard to anyone, even someone already Guarded. Only the nearest tank absorbs the damage transfer. The 5% bonus to mitigation from Guard should -not- stack from multiple Guards.

Pros: Clear and simple solution.

Cons: Gives tanks the highest flexibility out of any of the proposed solutions; arguably the 'strongest' change of the three.

 

2. Guardees whose tank has been out of range (>15m) for more than a set duration (say, 10 seconds) automatically lose that Guard buff, enabling a fresh tank to take over.

Pros: It'll pretty much take care of most situations where a wayward (read: newb) tank slaps a Guard on someone and then runs to a different node. It also still allows for set plays to shine, like pulling the Guard out of range to blow up the guardee healer (something you can counter in 1. by applying two Guards on the healer if needed).

Cons: Might have to reapply Guard more frequently in some situations.

 

3. Blue "out of range" Guard icon instantly makes Guard on that person overwritable by any tank. So, you can't take over Guard or double-stack Guards on anyone already being protected, but you can take over the moment they're not.

Pros: Would allow for some clutchier play: if you spot a Guard being deliberately pulled/pushed to assist down a healer, you can take over that Guard at once. No 10s window of waiting, but also no easy pre-placing of multiple Guards on sensitive targets.

Cons: Might find yourself occasionally losing Guard on someone due to the briefest periods away from them, in the presence of overzealous tanks.

 

I support number 1 and 2. Great ideas.

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  • 3 months later...
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