Dev AMA: Barrier on guardian is on the table

[RabbitUp.8294]

> @Kuya.6495 said:

> I'd say the opposite. Every skill in tome of courage has a viable in combat use, but tome 3 on tome of resolve is pretty useless, since you are better off stacking swiftness on chapter 1 from courage. If they added barrier to chapter 3 of resolve, then it might be worth using during a defensive rotation. And actually, now that i think about it, putting barrier in tome of resolve makes pretty good sense as long as it's not a very big barrier. You can barrier up your team to soak up damage, and then heal them up while the barrier protects them.

 

I think the problem with Tome of Resolve is that it's a swiss army knife and the format of tomes works against it, since you are forced to spam, but there's nothing worth spamming, unless you want swiftness.

 

You have skills that serve such diverse purposes, from a bubble that protects you from ranged attackers only, to a taunt only useful in melee range. From a skill that makes you immune to condi, to a skill that reduces physical damage only.

 

There's no central theme, no "use this for burning"/"use this for healing/cleansing". It's supposed to be "use this to reduce incoming damage", but depending on what you are facing, you might find that there's only 1-2 skills in the tome that can actually help you. It's not the hard mitigation Shield of Courage was.

 

In that sense, barrier would fit Tome of Courage. You would have a skill to press to take less damage that works in every situation, like SoC was. And even visually, it's the yellow tome, and barrier has almost the exact shade of yellow. It would better work as a personal barrier only on skill 2, like gain barrier and gain additional barrier for every enemy you taunt.

 

Still, all that been said, for balance reasons, I would prefer FB to not get barrier. If guardian gets barrier, at first at least, it should come through the core class.

 

As for the skill 3 on Tome of Resolve, what it needs is to be a blast finisher, so you can combo it with Shining River.

[LetoII.3782]

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> Keep in mind, the original question was about giving barrier to core specs and that's what Karl responded to, so we are talking about core guardian getting barrier, not DH or Firebrand.

 

The weakness of a Vanilla Virtue is really what forces Tomes to have such modest effect. Were basic virtues to be puffed up in such a way they'd need to subtract from Guardian in other place it would mean more of our power could be derived from our class ability, which would be great. :)

 

Anything that ends up with Tomes becoming engineer toolkit facsimiles really <,<

[RabbitUp.8294]

Heh, actually that's important, Virtues are the one place they can put barrier in that can never be abused by the elite specs. And vanilla F3 is really crappy, so barrier could help there.

[Kuya.6495]

In that case, as long as the barrier is only tied to core f3, i can see no reason to not agree to a barrier there as long as dh and fb can't use it.

[RabbitUp.8294]

I mean, I would still like to see barrier replace the heal on Shield of Absorption, but if they are reluctant, then F3 is a super safe option. I mean, the only base guardian still in use I know of is Radiance hammer, so it's not like it will powercreep things.

[Mikau.6920]

They could add it in the weaker skills and no one uses. Like Hallowed Ground, Signet of Mercy or Merciful Intervation.

[draxynnic.3719]

Silly thought, but if we assume that ArenaNet thinks putting healing on Wave of Wrath would be too strong, what about putting barrier for allies on Wave of Wrath? If the allies in question are being hit than a small amount of barrier would be effectively equivalent to a small amount of healing, but it wouldn't be something you could use to quickly heal somebody up who isn't in immediate danger.

[RabbitUp.8294]

> @draxynnic.3719 said:

> Silly thought, but if we assume that ArenaNet thinks putting healing on Wave of Wrath would be too strong, what about putting barrier for allies on Wave of Wrath? If the allies in question are being hit than a small amount of barrier would be effectively equivalent to a small amount of healing, but it wouldn't be something you could use to quickly heal somebody up who isn't in immediate danger.

 

I don't see how healing others would be the issue. If anything, if it *only* healed others, it wouldn't contribute to the bunkering in pvp.

[draxynnic.3719]

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> > @draxynnic.3719 said:

> > Silly thought, but if we assume that ArenaNet thinks putting healing on Wave of Wrath would be too strong, what about putting barrier for allies on Wave of Wrath? If the allies in question are being hit than a small amount of barrier would be effectively equivalent to a small amount of healing, but it wouldn't be something you could use to quickly heal somebody up who isn't in immediate danger.

>

> I don't see how healing others would be the issue. If anything, if it *only* healed others, it wouldn't contribute to the bunkering in pvp.

 

Some people have raised it as a potential reason for not giving Wave of Wrath a healing component, suggesting things like making the heal only apply if at least one enemy was struck and things like that. I wouldn't commit to agreeing with it myself, but barrier would be one compromise.

[Knox.8962]

Spammable barrier essentially eliminates the decay mechanic that barrier has currently.

[Brutaly.6257]

Which version of guardian needs barrier the least? Imo DH

Which version needs it the most? Imo FB.

 

Add barrier to a mechanic that FB can excel within and that DH has the least of.

[brannigan.9831]

They should add it to the grandmaster trait Indomitable Courage. Radiant DPS builds would be the bomb with that.

[otto.5684]

VoC seems to be the prime candidate for barrier. Though they will need to probably remove aegis.

 

I still think that reducing VoC CD from 45 to 30 sec is a much better alternative.

[Professor Sprout.1560]

> @Knox.8962 said:

> Spammable barrier essentially eliminates the decay mechanic that barrier has currently.

 

Speaking as a player who is happily enjoying scourge right now but would also be interested in playing a barrier support guardian, this is an important detail to note. Right now a barrier once applied will remain at full value for around 1 second, then decay down to zero over around 6 seconds. Not only will new barriers stack with a character's preexisting barrier value up to the cap, but any new application of barrier will reset the 1-second and 6-second timers for that target. Hence if you put barrier on an autoattack like Wave of Wrath that can hit at least once per second you could in theory keep a barrier up on a target forever.

 

Now, since the guardian would have to do nothing else but spam a weak autoattack this sort of barrier maintenance behaviour might not be OP; my objection to this idea however is that it might be rather boring. I also feel that the bigger question should be addressed explicitly first: how should the different defensive elements of a support guardian be distinguished at a high-concept level?

 

One way to look at it would be to say that aegis is designed to block single-hit burst damage and barrier to block multi-hit burst damage (with healing there to cover sustained damage). However in practice I could see it being very hard for a support guardian to ensure that the right mechanic is blocking the right attack - many high-end encounters feature single-hit bursts and smaller hits at the same time. For example, the Chaos Fractal the Brazen Gladiator has a high-damage CC attack on its third greatsword hit that is a perfect candidate for an aegis block; and the arena features electrified tiles that are perfect candidates for a barrier block. If an ally is standing on an electric tile and is about to be hit by the greatsword, how does a support guardian ensure that the right mechanic is blocking the right hits?

 

By no means is giving both barrier and aegis to the guardian a bad idea (I think it sounds quite exciting), but to make it work you might have to change how one or both these mechanics work. For instance, I could see fewer problems in using both at once if aegis worked more like the Mesmer's distortion mechanic - keep the current mechanics whereby you apply it as a boon, but have it apply somewhere between 0.5 and 1 second of block once the boon is triggered. And create a special case handling whereby the decay of barrier is suspended for any character who is in that 0.5-1sec aegis block window.

[RabbitUp.8294]

Barrier could synergize with aegis if guardian was allowed to have a trait for it. Like while an ally has your aegis, their barrier doesn't expire. Or if was too abusable, applying aegis to allies delays the barrier decay timer by 2 seconds.

 

Then barrier would work as padding for aegis, to absorb the next bits of damage after aegis blocks an attack. But that's very close to what scourge is trying to achieve.

 

Without this kind of synergy, I think the next best course of action is to give barrier to some big cooldowns, like F3 or Shield of Absorption. This gives barrier a different use, more selfish. Whereas scourge uses barrier as an alternative to healing, and weaver uses it as an alternative to regen, guardian would use as an alternative to blocking.

 

Instead of a continueous 2s-3s block other classes have, guardian would have barrier. It's not spammable, but comes in big chunks. Unlike healing that is permanent and requires that you first take damage (it makes little sense for a shield to require you to get hurt first so you can heal back up), barrier expires so you still need to time it properly and can be used preventatively. In that sense, it's a lot like a block that stops a limited amount of damage.

 

So, I do feel that in that capacity, barrier can play a distinct role among guardian's other defensive tools, and a instead of muddying its identity, it can actually help define it better.

[Revan.2015]

Considering the relatively low health pool of guardians and how toughness doesn't really do much giving guardians barrier would help their survivability (mainly in PvE). My main issue with guardian is that you can spec into dps and become fragile as glass or spec into support and lose basically all sense of decent dps. There is no real balance between the two.

 

In comparison, a warrior and a necro can achieve high survivability while retaining pretty high dps.

[Lucentfir.7430]

PoV(Traited Shouts) granting barrier on top of conversion would be quite nice. Could be baseline for "Hold the Line!", that skill specifically I thought would also be a worthy candidate to have a short term resistance added to it, but I guess barrier works too.

 

-Edit- Also another thing that can be done is replacing the healing portion of 'Writ of Persistence' with barrier, but higher numbers considering it decays (300 barrier a tick would be good considering you can stack symbols)

[CptAurellian.9537]

I was thinking of that, too. Hold the line currently is pathetic - the other shouts at least do some job, but who needs a few short seconds of protection and regen?

[Brutaly.6257]

Even though i agree that shouts (personally i love shouts as utilities) is a great candidate for barrier i cant help thinking about that i think FB is the build that needs barrier the most. Even though it would be design wise smarter to add to shout as a utility i believe its better to add barrier to aegis but place the trait for it in virtues or honor.

 

This would mean that a standard DH would have the least access to barrier and FB would have the most access to it. And this imo is the key to a successful implementation of barrier.

 

It would also address a lot of the shortcoming aegis has as a boon.

 

I am all for an other solution as long as FB is the build that actually get the most barrier and DH the least as long as the trait/skill/boon is accessible for core.

[Aeolus.3615]

With the ammount of easy unblokcables at range, DH now is a rally bot, could get selfish barrier form core guard... maybe, dh its a class if JI port n' trap blender fails.. Dh will probably get reckt.. its a dumb gameplay.... the traps were a huge mistake.

 

But IMO core guardian should gain barrier in a selfish way (IF Anet really want barrier to all... rather than balance the game), i dont want to end to fight zergs or groups of offensive builds stacking tons of barrier with such easy access to dps...

 

What if trait force of will would give X extra hp plus X barrier based on vitality (and/or healing power), looks like would be a minimal gain :\ ..probably wou ld need a slight boost...

Reason: Thoughness is useless in this game due how diminish returns work on defensive stats, and class has low HP pool due be a highest toughness class.. does not make sense at all when that does not work and its 12%-15% less damage than light classes, and arround 6%-7% from medium, so this needs to be actually kinda strong'ish to help rally both DH (where unblok is mostly useless) and Spambrand.

 

Where the Barrier effect on guard would be something like:

- overheals would fill the barrier to a limit of the initial barrier from force of will, add barrier from other sources would be applyed and degen normally.

- guardian shield dome could apply barrier (nowadays gets easilly interrupted even with stab up, that gets easilly removed as well), the barrier would only be up while dome is active, and would would not apply more than force of will provides, this would be more " from the dome momment" rather than actually something to LEECH from stacking, th emomment the dome is off that value gets cutted on affected allies.

 

The point is bring some utility to what is mostly useless, and guard core has lot of skills that have fallen behind.

 

@Brutaly.6257, Spambrand has already lots of good stuff, if barrier hits guard, needs ot be themed and something that will work no matter the next and actual elite traits are...

Dont get me wrong but that line of tough where relies on " give best for actual trait that every one must play".. thats exactly the mentality that Anet did/does and made the game in the awfull pvp state...

 

EDIT: i would love changes to shouts (they feel lackluster nowadays) but i would prefer other type of changes rather than apply aoe barrier... :\

[RabbitUp.8294]

Hold the Line giving barrier makes a lot of sense thematically, and would help the skill, but at the same time, it would make it too similar to Retreat.

 

I don't like the idea of all shouts having barrier and I don't get the hate shouts get, Receive the Light, Save Yourselves, Stand your Ground and Feel my Wrath are all very good skills. Even Retreat was seeing some use, though Firebrand now spams enough aegis and swiftness with the tomes.

 

> @Brutaly.6257 said:

> Even though i agree that shouts (personally i love shouts as utilities) is a great candidate for barrier i cant help thinking about that i think FB is the build that needs barrier the most. Even though it would be design wise smarter to add to shout as a utility i believe its better to add barrier to aegis but place the trait for it in virtues or honor.

>

> This would mean that a standard DH would have the least access to barrier and FB would have the most access to it. And this imo is the key to a successful implementation of barrier.

>

> It would also address a lot of the shortcoming aegis has as a boon.

>

> I am all for an other solution as long as FB is the build that actually get the most barrier and DH the least as long as the trait/skill/boon is accessible for core.

 

I don't get this logic. If, for example, Shield of Absorption had barrier, would that be a problem because DH can use it? How is it different from all our specs having access to Shelter and Renewed Focus, or all warrior specs having access to a 3s block on shield, Endure Pain, Defiant Stance, etc?

[RabbitUp.8294]

And a reminder to all the people that act like barrier would break the class or something, or that it needs to have heavy restrictions.

 

You do realise that most of the times, especially in pvp/wvw, barrier is worse than healing, right? And that there's a cap to barrier equal to 50% max HP, and with guardian being one of the low health professions, we have the lowest cap.

[Aeolus.3615]

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> Hold the Line giving barrier makes a lot of sense thematically, and would help the skill, but at the same time, it would make it too similar to Retreat.

>

 

True, thematicly makes sense :\, but for what ive seen barrier is gained over time from skills or stacks, shouts are for fast results, or instand results, use shouts and gain 1k-2k barrier doesnt feel right either, cause due barrier degen, the provided barrier would be ending very week?

 

EDIT:

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> And a reminder to all the people that act like barrier would break the class or something, or that it needs to have heavy restrictions.

>

 

 

My Oathbound Paladin (mace shield similiar to a Guardian) on Neverwinter actualy has barrier :}

IF we could have hammer shield :| barrier build.....here....

BTW I quoted u on a post (up) wanted to quote @Brutaly.6257 ._."

[Genesis.8572]

Maybe give Barrier to a reworked staff? What if Staff 5 gave Barrier to allies who passed through it?

[Aeolus.3615]

Genesis.8572 ✭ that might make barrier to easy to stack on WvW blobs, at small skale will be hard to apply it