Azarael that's kind of the whole point. There are currently ZERO 6v6 Destruction groups that doesn't know to instantly kill the pet. This is not even a Guardian thing. The pet is a priority kill for Destruction groups regardless of what spec the White Lion is. This polarized "outrageous extreme" you're talking about where some 6man teams ignore the lion...I've just never seen it personally ever. Every Isha I've ever been in, the Lion is killed immediately. I literally mean within a global cooldown. The only conclusion to the Guardian White Lion in a 6v6 setting? Extremely underpowered to the point where it is not even a viable option.Azarael wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 4:47 pm You're better than this. Guardian was broken in every single format of the game.
It was broken in small scale because it allowed the master to spec defensively to boost the pet's damage. A good number of you are posting in defense of it because you knew it full well and were exploiting the hell out of it. I wasn't born yesterday, I know full well, and I don't really care about people getting their kicks from crushing other people solo with a class that has a huge advantage playing that way. It's not worthy of the slightest bit of respect.
It was broken in 6v6 because it produced outrageous extremes; either you'd crush people in a couple of GCDs or the pet would get annihilated and you'd be screwed over by that.
It was broken on warband level because the pet cannot survive, and because the idea which you and others are peddling so much of having trees based around you, the pet or a mix leads to three damage trees with a random smattering of pet-focused tactics that are designed to hackily cobble the whole thing together, and no COHESIVE design. Marauder has the cohesive design, and Order lacked that in a MDPS class (and in the current patch, still does, but that's another discussion). The entire realm suffers because you want a pet. That to me is far more valuable than any concerns about letting a NPC play the game for you.
It's been explained enough times in this thread. The problem is putting a pet on a melee class. It was a stupid idea from the beginning, and if White Lions had been a Marauder mirror and I had gutted the Marauder implementation to create the pet-based WL implementation, you would have been calling me an utter moron. And you'd have been right.
As far as warbands go, I agree with you completely. Guardian simply had no place in it. But then again, nearly NONE of us rolled the class to fill that niche warband setting. We rolled it for 3/6 man teams and roaming.
"It was broken in small scale because it allowed the master to spec defensively to boost the pet's damage".
Since we both acknowledge that Guardian was not a good pick for 6 v 6, what you mean by "small scale" has to be solo play OR possibly pug scenarios where there may be no tanks and healers or melee line or the dozens of X factors that a pug scenario can bring. But I thought this was exactly what the game WASN'T balanced around.
Here is my main point: People play the White Lion BECAUSE of our roaming capabilities in 3/6 man groups or simply roaming solo. The same goes for Witch Elves and Witch Hunters. You took away the very REASON we picked this class. If it was too powerful at roaming, we would have all been perfectly fine accepting a nerf. But a complete gutting?
If you are on a campaign to stop this kind of gameplay, why is it ok for us to lose our "small-scale" capabilities that we love so much and allow Melee SH (Extreme armor, split damage between pet, and self-heal), Toughness Magus (self-healing with Surging Violet Fire and stacking toughness), Witch Elves/Witch Hunters (Stealth and establishing most kills within a knockdown + a few seconds), 2h Ironbreakers (Grumble and Mutter), and Blackguards (built in Futile Strikes x2, built in toughness stacking, small self-heal, "potentially" built in +30% parry if going more defensive) to keep doing the things that many of them have FUN doing in game?
Since our burst damage IS higher than any of these other "small-scale" classes, I think most White Lions would be COMPLETELY open to a damage nerf to bring us more in line with say...the Melee Squig Herder. In fact, I would LOVE that compared to what's been happening the past two days. This way, our small-scale capabilities are crippled, yet we still have the option of playing the playstyle that we rolled the White Lion for in the first place.
I think I can guess what your plan is. Based on the things you've said the past few days, you want the White Lion to basically be a Marauder. My inkling is the plan is to remove damage from the pet completely, and make it more of a decorative piece that strictly exists for CC, such as Brutal Pounce and Fetch. As far as the Mastery, I'm guessing you basically want us to mirror the Marauder tooltips word for word. It's just that if we loved the Marauder so much...we would be playing Marauders. They are not the roaming class that we love the White Lion for. Personally, I'd love to see a replica of the Squig Herder tree as a replacement for Guardian more than Monstrosity.
At the end of the day, I've been let down by HOW the devs have been balancing classes lately in general.
If certain things are overtuned or undertuned, they should certainly be rectified. But all that requires is a number tuning. If you continue to not just tune, but basically keep creating brand new classes in this manner, people will potentially lose the REASON they played that class in the first place.
Let's take the Slayer for example. When Rampage was removed for Dual Wield, how many 2h Slayers did you see running around? Personally, I saw VERY few respec and go the 2h route. If I had to venture a guess why? INEVITABLE DOOM. This ability is so fun, that it has become one of the main reasons that Slayers LOVE their class. Of course this isn't every Slayer, but the ones I've talked to absolutely adore this ability and consider it a staple to what makes a Slayer a Slayer (and also Rampage of course).
Now what if, in the future, you decided that Inevitable Doom was causing too much damage? With the current mindstate of the devs, you might get rid of it completely and add a weaker alternative to the 13 point tree (maybe it'll be called "possible doom"). This is EXACTLY the type of balancing that I believe SHOULDN'T be happening. If something is overtuned, just adjusting the damage numbers is all it would take for it to be more in line with your vision of balance while still retaining the player's love and IDENTITY with that class.
What you did with Guardian...you took away the reason many of us loved the class in the first place. If our defenses were too high? All it needed was a number tuning. If our damage was too high? All it needed was a number tuning. By gutting it and turning the class into a Marauder...you're taking away the class we worked so hard to gear and level, and replacing it with a class we didn't choose in the first place.
We are all grateful for the hard work all of you put in for us. But it would just be nice if the devs could look past their own vision a little more often and be a little more responsive to why the PLAYERS love their class and this game.
Your heartfelt introduction upon your return genuinely touched us all. You kind of came to represent the leader that cares about the community. This was inspiring to many of us because our past dealings with devs left us with the conclusion that they often abused their power, and sustained themselves on their own egos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Please don't betray that. Take care.
