Overarching balance changes

[Bozzax]

It will be epic when our doks M3 and we kill the dps in a time stamp or any AOE disable for that matter

[Jaycub]

One of the problems I see with any kind of nerf to guard (or creation of new counters) is that it would force many people to a 2 2 2 setup (which is currently the most used anyway). Running a 1 3 2 would simply be too risky.

3-2-1 groups are already incredibly risky, wouldn't adding more counterplay or ways around guard encourage 3-2-1 setups instead of hurt them? Not really sure myself but this was the 1st thing to my mind.

3-2-1 being meta would def change the pace of the game at the 6v6 level, with how much people are against any changes at all to guard there would probably be murder mayhem if this was the case.

[Jaycub]

It will be epic when our doks M3 and we kill the dps in a time stamp

If you are gonna kill them in a timestamp why do you need to wait for DoK m3 for 6 sec stagger? Why not just Quake?

[peterthepan3]

I'm not sure where you are going here.

All i am saying is that disabling guard under certain CC is not something that will make tanks completely useless, as he implies. Nothing more.

I would be more in favor of a skill being added, to certain classes, that removes guard, than to change the way CC works for just tanks. If you change CC for a tank, you have to change CC for everyone else too IMO.

Possible new magus/engi skill?!

50ap
5 seconds enemy has a guard effect removed
30sec cd

[Penril]

One of the problems I see with any kind of nerf to guard (or creation of new counters) is that it would force many people to a 2 2 2 setup (which is currently the most used anyway). Running a 1 3 2 would simply be too risky.

3-2-1 groups are already incredibly risky, wouldn't adding more counterplay or ways around guard encourage 3-2-1 setups instead of hurt them? Not really sure myself but this was the 1st thing to my mind.

How? 1 3 2 only run 1 tank and now their enemies have more counters. Tank blocked your punt? It's ok, you still have a Stagger and a KD to remove his guard for a few seconds. If you succeed, they don't have a second tank to swap guard.

Not to mention 1 3 2 groups usually save their KD/staggers for those OH **** moments when enemy mDPS gets close and they need to kite. Why use my KD on the enemy tank (to remove his guard for 3 seconds) when there is a Mara charging my way?

This might seem like a fun little change for 2 2 2 vs 2 2 2 , but i think it would be detrimental for a 1 3 2 setup.

[Tankbeardz]

One of the problems I see with any kind of nerf to guard (or creation of new counters) is that it would force many people to a 2 2 2 setup (which is currently the most used anyway). Running a 1 3 2 would simply be too risky.

3-2-1 groups are already incredibly risky, wouldn't adding more counterplay or ways around guard encourage 3-2-1 setups instead of hurt them? Not really sure myself but this was the 1st thing to my mind.

How? 1 3 2 only run 1 tank and now their enemies have more counters. Tank blocked your punt? It's ok, you still have a Stagger and a KD to remove his guard for a few seconds. If you succeed, they don't have a second tank to swap guard.

Not to mention 1 3 2 groups usually save their KD/staggers for those OH **** moments when enemy mDPS gets close and they need to kite. Why use my KD on the enemy tank (to remove his guard for 3 seconds) when there is a Mara charging my way?

This might seem like a fun little change for 2 2 2 vs 2 2 2 , but i think it would be detrimental for a 1 3 2 setup.

I think it's detrimental overall. Throughout the years, the answer to keeping players has never been "lets make people die faster". The answer has never been to swing the nerfbat either. I don't know how many people remember how insanely broken the game was at launch, when a couple BWs/Sorcs could obliterate Warbands with AOE and magus/engi could pull entire warbands through walls...but I do. This was biggest mistake that Mythic ever made and they never recovered from it.

While no one has THE answer...I don't believe that nerfing a core skill, by buffing existing skills, is the way to go with this. I think the answer lies somewhere in the synergies of the abilities between classes (i.e. heal debuff for a WE must be triggered after an ailment is applied from another class) and more variation between solo vs group specializations.

[bloodi]

But the opposite is true also, 2 2 2 if often run because they only counter to guard comes from the tanks themselves in their punt, if we open more ways for people to counter it, having an engi/magus, using staggers that are not often used for its stagger component like SE from BW/Sorc or punts from the Sw/SH + snare will make people think twice about running 2 tanks when they can just get the upper hand, initiate and win by other means.

Overall, we would have to actually test it to see.

[Vigfuss]

Don't forget that at the highest level of 6v6 groups are killing thru guard.

What would this game look like if KD (not stagger or disarm) removed guard for the duration of the KD, and all pulls were removed from the game and replaced with something else?

[Tankbeardz]

But the opposite is true also, 2 2 2 if often run because they only counter to guard comes from the tanks themselves in their punt, if we open more ways for people to counter it, having an engi/magus, using staggers that are not often used for its stagger component like SE from BW/Sorc or punts from the Sw/SH + snare will make people think twice about running 2 tanks when they can just get the upper hand, initiate and win by other means.

Overall, we would have to actually test it to see.

There are lots of other ways to counter guard in a 6v6 and they change throughout the fight....it all depends on the coordination of the group.

[bloodi]

There are lots of other ways to counter guard....it all depends on the coordination of the group.

List them.