Guard Suggestion

[bogus]

This requires the fight to be solo tankable

So you saying that if DT can lock out gaurd he wont die, but when guard lock out dt then guard die? I can't follow this logic.
Noone says guard have to use everytime his full hate potential. Adjusting to situation is what we call skill when playing tank.

And even then, a DT will catch up with you soon enough

Ofc it does, that's called aggro sharing.
Or aggro resets.
Or long fight without resets when guard still outstand DT (aggro- and survwise) because most of them are protection fights. So unless we talikng about full Fearless Souls DT vs protection LL guard, guard will be good.
And 1-3min long fights swapping doesn't really mean much. You can use tanks as aggro&die only.

As I stated in my first post in thread - Soldier vs soldier aggoro difference is meaningless. Because aggro is always as high as from worst soldier needed in rotation.

You can sweet talk a Guard all you want, with the exception of a few fights, DTs are superior is all aspects.

DT's are superior in only one thing and that's dps. If we forget about Arbanus and his no protection there is no other fight where guard will have lower aggro than dt. It can have lower dps or not dps at all compared to dt who goes scarlet + talisman, but aggro vs dpsers so they start to pull of tank - never. As long as we talk about two competent players.

[Boesch]

Having just seen a guardian played by a strong player, I'm pretty sure they are fine. This guardian normally solo tanks our Zodiac fight on his DT and his guardian is still a work in progress, having no AAs to 5 points and still wearing a few bits of blues here and there. In Ti'an he held off my carnage conq doing 2500 single target DPS. According to the ACT graphing I was rolling at 3200 single target DPS for about 30 seconds of this too. He's already saying that his Guardian is going to thrash his DT.

Case closed for me based on this.

[Maark]

guard is fine class to tank with, but unlike dt, you actualy need to know what your doing to grab+hold agro.

Hehe, for me its exactely the other way around. I think guard is very straight forward and easy (somewhat boring tbh) when it comes to tanking while DT is a bit more complex.

[Schmuls]

So you saying that if DT can lock out gaurd he wont die, but when guard lock out dt then guard die? I can't follow this logic.

"Locking out" means that "nobody" will be able to get aggro until
a) said outlocker tank calms the hell down so an aggro switch is possible or
b) someone Goads.

Hope we got that definition set now. Now, you can't solo tank Louhi, so "aggro locking" is next to useless unless you can either
a) solo tank the fight or
b) the fight has periods to regain time/CDs/whatevers (Firemonk for example)

Using Firemonk as example again, a DT simple can go all out, thus locking aggro and maximising his hp tap without worry. I dare say a DT wouldn't even need the 25% intervals to heal up and get his cooldowns back, a Guard on the other hand will have exhausted his stuff around 50% and face trouble...again, the DT is tapping back up and can drop a Dread whenever, which in return means the DT will be back to full HP once the Dread is gone and other cooldowns don't seem too long off anymore.
Yes, a Guard can solo tank Firemonks as well, but a Guard needs that 25% interval breaks to heal up and get CDs back, unless you want to full gimp your healers, which we already should've agreed on is a waste of space.

Everything else is called aggro swapping and has nothing to do with aggro locking, same page yet? Good.

Ofc it does, that's called aggro sharing.

Again, nothing to do with aggro locking.
Use a fight without aggro resets and the DT will catch up just fine with that aggro locking Guard, there's no surprise element to be had here. Oh yea, pass and lead on without the Guard being able to catch up again...provided you got a long enough of a fight of course.

If we forget about Arbanus and his no protection there is no other fight where guard will have lower aggro than dt.

Well, there is no if, because that's the case and won't change. But that aside, it's beyond the topic again.
We are talking about, with the exception of just about as many fights as there is fingers on one hand, a DT can replace and far better perform than a Guardian giving it's current situations. And since dps has been so much more important ever since Khitai, you will naturally use a DT before a Guard.


Since this was probaly tl;dr for you, small recap.

Most always DT > Guard.

[kennyfisterbotm]

As this is a serious post pertaining to the lack of guard aggro in comparison "not to dps" but to other tanks "Conq/DT". I find it is completely useless to argue via forum threads with people who are so closed minded on the subject.

The fact stays, that the people arguing about this subject have yet to even tank with the DT I was refering too, yet they find their opinions correct when saying my statements or anyone else's statements are wrong.

Slovo said it best when he said it. With the build and rotation that the TEG DT's are using, guards are locked out. It's just that simple. If you don't believe me "Fine", if you think I'm a fail tank "Fine", if you think your DT's are the best in game and your tanking skills are better "Fine". Thats cool, but don't just keep saying the same crap over and over. How about you use the build that Midge is using same gear "T4" and then test it for yourself. I highly doubt you will find it easy to grab aggro with via a guard.

If you find a way of actually doing so, let me know. I'm open to suggestions. I really am! But I am about 99% sure I have already done everything I can do minus get T4 gear on my guard and use it. I hate to think that my lack of gear is the issue though. It's never been the situation before.

[Boesch]

As this is a serious post pertaining to the lack of guard aggro in comparison "not to dps" but to other tanks "Conq/DT". I find it is completely useless to argue via forum threads with people who are so closed minded on the subject.

The fact stays, that the people arguing about this subject have yet to even tank with the DT I was refering too, yet they find their opinions correct when saying my statements or anyone else's statements are wrong.

Slovo said it best when he said it. With the build and rotation that the TEG DT's are using, guards are locked out. It's just that simple. If you don't believe me "Fine", if you think I'm a fail tank "Fine", if you think your DT's are the best in game and your tanking skills are better "Fine". Thats cool, but don't just keep saying the same crap over and over. How about you use the build that Midge is using same gear "T4" and then test it for yourself. I highly doubt you will find it easy to grab aggro with via a guard.

If you find a way of actually doing so, let me know. I'm open to suggestions. I really am! But I am about 99% sure I have already done everything I can do minus get T4 gear on my guard and use it. I hate to think that my lack of gear is the issue though. It's never been the situation before.

The problem with this argument is that you say you have one fantastic DT in your guild and your arguments are relative to that DT, not anything we as readers can actually get a grasp of. Without wanting to be condescending, perhaps that DT is just a good player, while your Guards are not? It's the same when someone says "I top the parse so I am the greatest ever" but you don't know if the rest of the raid was, well, rubbish.

How much DPS can your guard hold off? How much can a DT hold off? These are metrics that most people can understand. Relative terms don't mean anything.

What is the maximum SINGLE TARGET DPS your raid members achieve in Zodiac? Do people start to pull in Zodiac? If so, when? Something such as this gives us an idea about how solid the tanking really is.

[kennyfisterbotm]

The problem with this argument is that you say you have one fantastic DT in your guild and your arguments are relative to that DT, not anything we as readers can actually get a grasp of. Without wanting to be condescending, perhaps that DT is just a good player, while your Guards are not? It's the same when someone says "I top the parse so I am the greatest ever" but you don't know if the rest of the raid was, well, rubbish.

How much DPS can your guard hold off? How much can a DT hold off? These are metrics that most people can understand. Relative terms don't mean anything.

What is the maximum SINGLE TARGET DPS your raid members achieve in Zodiac? Do people start to pull in Zodiac? If so, when? Something such as this gives us an idea about how solid the tanking really is.

I get what your saying. How about this for you though.

Midge plays a guard and a DT equally well. SAme person, same skill set, equally geared!

Midge's DT has more potential threat than his guard. He openly admits this.

This is the point I'm trying to make. I'm not trying to point player vs player, etc. It may have seemed that way since I compared myself to Midge. But at the time I had no other way of explaining the situation.

I am a pretty solid guard, it was my main since the luanch of the game. I have learned alot from other players both good and bad. "What to do vs what not to do", and this is how I have gotten as good as I am. I'm sure their are players out their that are a bit better than me, but rest assured my tanking skills are really solid.

Dps to aggro keeping capability is also based on other factors than just how much dps can you hold off of. For example, what abilities are being used, what are the group make ups like. Is cover of dusk being used, etc. Alot of variables! Thus, I don't see the point in throwing numbers on the forum thread since so many things are into the equation. That and I can't actually tell you how much I can hold off of. I can say this though, the moment someone pulls off of me I get really pissed, and do my best to not allow it to happen again. But rest assuered it rarely happens!

Case and point, DT's generate more potential aggro than guards. Simply put! Can guards still do the job? Yes! Are guards still good tanks? Yes!, Are people still going to flame over this post and state "No they aren't"? Yes!

[Boesch]

I guess in the end the only reasonable metric I see to use is how much DPS you can hold. Otherwise we all stand around saying person x or person y is fantastic on class z and that's the best class. I genuinely think Zodiac is a great measure of DPS and aggro control for Tanks. Having seen a few zodiac parses now from multiple guilds that do T4, I've seen a number where people pull hate off the tanks at around 2k single target. Some higher, some lower. That limit of DPS I believe is very important.

Until we get to that point of sharing this information I doubt we'll ever get any kind of consensus.

Yes, I'm prepared to share first if others are interested.

[kennyfisterbotm]

Taking just raw damage #'s and saying I held aggro off of this. So obviously the "X" class isn't broken etc. Is just wrong, and cant work. I've already explained the reason why with group make up, abilities, etc being in the mix.

I'll say it this way.

If I held aggro off a person doing 2000 dps at - 5% hate, thats equivilant to saying "1900 dps".

If you held aggro off of a person doing 2000 dps at - 15% hate, you would be holding off a person doing "1700" dps.

But, people won't take into affect and can't take into affect the different buffs/- hate being implemented in the raid. Not to mention alot of the time certain abilities are timed. Cover of dusk, "50% hate mod to tanks and -20% hate mod to the sin" as just one example. Also, group - hate abilities, spirit of nightfall, etc. List goes on and on.

Point being, just simply saying damage numbers and how much you held off of, just doesn't work.

The only real way for this discussion to have any meat and potatoes is for use to get ahold of each other on TL or something. But me personally, I don't even have enough time to play the game much anymore. "Rl stuff"

Anyway, I really do think the guards need some love for offensive aggro, not just stall of which you need aggro in the beginning for it to work.

[Midge50]

It's not just me. We had two other DTs my level, if not even better than myself. I hadn't parsed a fight in a long time, but my Guard when I was playing it regularly could hold on what is essentially a 2400 DPS average threshold. That varies based on hate modifiers, group buffs, etc., that are really too numerous to mention. I've tanked for Necros doing a sustained 2900 DPS who never pulled, and I've tanked for baddie Carnage Conqs only doing 1700 or so who cannot seem to keep aggro off themselves. On the other hand, my DT doing between 1300 and 2200 DPS while tanking was on a whole other level from the Guard. Schou was not incompetent. I could probably play my DT with one hand and click abilities and directionals and lock him on aggro on the vast majority of fights.