The Basics!

[-tomhet-]

P.S. Frankly, if you're reading this and your toon isn't at 80 you may just want to reroll into a DT and/or conq.

to any new player ignore ringofail.

[Texan615]

Thx for nice post, im not really pve player but i found it very interesting. One thing if its not hard to post your spec in :
http://joharaoc.eu/feat
Because i just cant open that one you posted and maybe some more eu players wont be able to.
This is really nice way to help new players or even some old ones that are trying to tank for first time

Agreed. Schou, your build link in your OP does not work, please correct.

[Jaedelyia]

Thx for nice post, im not really pve player but i found it very interesting. One thing if its not hard to post your spec in :
http://joharaoc.eu/feat
Because i just cant open that one you posted and maybe some more eu players wont be able to.
This is really nice way to help new players or even some old ones that are trying to tank for first time

You might not be able to open it because there's two slash ("/") added in excess in the url. (When I click, it look like this "http:////aocfeats.co[...]ae66205c61f94")

Just delete the two additional slash, press enter and you will be good. It should redirect you to http://aocfeats.com/feat/guard/11404...1ae66205c61f94, which is the correct url.

[longtail]

DO NOT trigger powerhouse while your crit % icon above is up it's redundant (or the stack doesn't really give too much increase over the gd buff alone) Rather use PH when your GD wears off.

That is bad advice.

Let me reinforce Schou's suggestion to use Powerhouse during Guard Destroyer, and in fact to get the most out of it you should only use it while GD is up. Powerhouse will be available every other GD buff.

Powerhouse:
+5% crit chance
+6% crit dmg
+50% weapon dmg

Some numbers to show why it is better to use Powerhouse with GD only...

Powerhouse with GD
Assuming base 10% crit chance.
Crit chance: 10 (base) + 30 (GD) + 5 (Powerhouse) = 45%
Calculated crit damage: 45% x 6% = 2.7% (higher of course!!)

Powerhouse without GD
Crit chance: 10 (base) + 5 (Powerhouse) = 15%
Calculated crit damage: 15% x 6% = 0.9% (meh)

Calculated crit damage takes into account the that your crit damage bonus from Powerhouse is only useful if you do in fact crit. In other words, to make the most of this crit bonus damage you should use Powerhouse only when GD is active.

[KullOfValusia]

That is bad advice.

Let me reinforce Schou's suggestion to use Powerhouse during Guard Destroyer, and in fact to get the most out of it you should only use it while GD is up. Powerhouse will be available every other GD buff.

Powerhouse:
+5% crit chance
+6% crit dmg
+50% weapon dmg

Some numbers to show why it is better to use Powerhouse with GD only...

Powerhouse with GD
Assuming base 10% crit chance.
Crit chance: 10 (base) + 30 (GD) + 5 (Powerhouse) = 45%
Calculated crit damage: 45% x 6% = 2.7% (higher of course!!)

Powerhouse without GD
Crit chance: 10 (base) + 5 (Powerhouse) = 15%
Calculated crit damage: 15% x 6% = 0.9% (meh)

Calculated crit damage takes into account the that your crit damage bonus from Powerhouse is only useful if you do in fact crit. In other words, to make the most of this crit bonus damage you should use Powerhouse only when GD is active.

Yeah I thought as much too, so for the longest time I did exactly what you wrote but then one day I decided to sit down and test out my DPS on straw man. If you go beyond say 30 seconds to like 1 minute 30 or even 2 minutes+ the overall DPS during this time actually drops (if you test it over and over again... DPS still has an element of randomness) and drops quite a bit. So I was scratching my head trying to figure out why, then realized big hitting combos like titanic smash gets a huge boost from GD alone and the pound for pound additional increase given by powerhouse doesn't really do much to boost it any higher. So, then I began playing around and started using PH as soon as GD went away from the top of my screen, then realized I was getting a substantial DPS gain. in effect what I was doing in my opinion was using PH as a filler in between the GDs and getting far more bang for my buck when the GD's crit % bonus and even more so the debuff wore off. Again, this is just my opinion and I guess everyone has different ideas on the matter.

[kennyfisterbotm]

Great guide all around. One thing I might add.What I see a lot is a player repeating through the same combo rotation without regard to shields. If your enemy's shield is to the left you should immediately prioritize dull blow/titanic blow over the overreaches. Further, there are 2 components to guard destroyer, a % chance to increase crit and the debuff portion. Its confusing because the icons for the % increase to crit is on the top of the screen and the debuff is above your enemy's nameplate. DO NOT trigger powerhouse while your crit % icon above is up it's redundant (or the stack doesn't really give too much increase over the gd buff alone) Rather use PH when your GD wears off.

Also, start off with hateful strikes and then use ardent and then cta, try not to use both CTA and ardent together at the same time. All guard combos have innate hate built in. Some more then others. For instance Shield slam has the most hate although the DPS is lower, always fire off CoH at the end of this combo you'll get a nice hate spike.

Further, during GD crit % phase its better to do OR's then SS, the hate for the two are roughly the same when GD is running and the tie breaker is the fact OR has high crit chance when the GD icon above is running and OR does more damage to begin with. Also, try to fire off your hate tools in the middle of combos, this will help squeeze a few more seconds out of them, if you are firing them off in the beginning you are wasting that portion where you're keying in the combo. Further, if you really need to crank up aggro avoid using strike and guard.

Finally, don't worry too much about gear. This is probably the only area where guardians shine. They don't need hate gear to hold aggro. Its predominantly rotation.

P.S. Frankly, if you're reading this and your toon isn't at 80 you may just want to reroll into a DT and/or conq. The potential from these two classes far FAR outdoes a guards. DON'TLISTEN TO ANYONE SAYING OTHERWISE ON THESE FORUMS. It's a true fact and judging from Funcom's history of development these two classes are unlikely to get a nerf anytime soon. Plus they both rock in PvP...added bonus.

So many things wrong here man. Sorry, but I have to fix them.

1st.

Yes, you want to use your guard destroyer "30% crit chance" along with your powerhouse at the same time. Reason? Because of the 30% crit chance you obtain and the extra 5% crit chance from powerhouse, you stack your crit chance higher on your over reaches. Notice I stated that you want to use 1 set or even 2 sets of over reaches to stack your crit bonus damage up while powerhouse is applied. THEN, you can use your titanic smash thus creating a high end crit "My guard gets close to 2k at times". This is all on the 4th-5th combo within the sequence. Read above "1st post made". Do not follow Ringofsets advice please. Nothing against him, but so far I'm not impressed.

2nd

Hateful strikes and call to arms gives you a 30% hate mod together. On top of a guards initial hate mod of 5-12%+ depending on the stance and or gear he/she has on. What this does is allow dps to go balls out at the very beginning of a fight. With Call to Arms on a quicker cool down than hateful strikes, and with cry of havoc "coh for short", and or irritates. A guard won't loose aggro to dps, "shouldn't". If the dps is playing even half way intelligently they won't pull aggro from the guard doing the above rotation etc.


3rd

Your discounting the guard class at lower level content man. And that is where the guard shines the most. Above all the other tank class's in the game. With it being the least gear dependent you don't have to have the amazing crit gear that you need on a DT, and you have more survivability than that of a conq "close call though, but still somewhat gear dependent on a conq".

The target audiance I have on this post isn't the vet players. And with that said, they probably don't have a subscription, and or very many AA's. So take Void of Madness from the DT, Stall the Advance from the guard, and Battle Commander from the Conq. What you get are very basic toons with only their respective build abilities.


And 4th

The only good advice you gave was a redundant version of what I had already stated.

[Chillee]

Why does Schou use quotations in "random places"? "Anyone"?

[kennyfisterbotm]

To segment comments that pertain to the conversation but are more "side notes".

[KullOfValusia]

This post needs to be stickied NOW... what was said in like 2 pages of this thread a LOT of people take YEARS of regular play to figure out and get. And even I didn't know that overreaches provided a bonus to crit chance when done in succession with GD. No tooltip on this FC?

BTW, Schou I never said not to mix HS with CtA just don't hit CtA and Ardent together at the sametime. And I need to test this overreach thing out... they should really really put that in the tooltip if magically overreaches right after GD gives you even more crit damage for your next combo.

[kennyfisterbotm]

The over reaches don't give a bonus to crit chance man.

Powerhouse gives crit chance. Melee increase, and when you get critical hits with what ever combo, your upping your crit bonus damage.

The benefit of using Guard destroyer, and then popping powerhouse on the 1st over reach after the Gaurd destroyer, you have a 45% crit chance, not including your passive crit chance "my guards at about 10% ish" so 55% crit chance.

This will more than likely allow your over reach to crit, stacking the crit bonus damage and then you using titanic smash "which already crits really high and hard" will crit even harder etc.

Anyway, what I just explained is in the OP already. I just didn't explain Guard destroyer well enough I guess. maybe I will give more info on this.