f13.net

So I'm confused.

I want to play a guardian (I'm a habitual alt roller) but looking at the skill set raises a question: with 8 skills for auras, and 3 skills for prayers all saying that you can all have one aura on at a time, are you just suppose to basically focus on 2 that you can cycle through?

Either way, I was thinking about some crazy thorns build:

http://hellgate.ingame.de/skilltree/guardian/?l=50&s=1000aa03000000a03000a0001100

Basically run around collecting dudes, pop your stationary skills of super shield and anchor, thorns aura, with some periodic prayers.  But again, I have no idea how prayers work.

Yeah it's hard to know which aura to focus on because you don't really know which are good.  I'd leave guardian alone until people get to a higher level and there is a default build.  In beta some were complaining that the shield spin ability was overpowered so maybe take that.  You also need to decide if you want to have a solo build or pure group with heals and going up the taunt tree.

Prayers are just spells that you cast like any other class, they don't count against your aura.  I don't know if ranged enemies get thorn damage.

Ranged don't.  But fortunately there's a whole other tree you can spec into to get it!  :awesome_for_real:

Up to level 22, the Aura of Health one basically makes you unkillable against anything but a single really hard boss.

Never take a taunt in a Diablo style game...  Anyone who can't handle aggro is a fucking pussy who needs to die anyways.

I found the taunt to work pretty damn good. I was playing my evoker and my roommate was guardian. He would AE taunt all the mobs, and it was simple for me to unleash AE on them all. Not so much because I would pull aggro, but it would clump them up very nicely.

Quick review of your build:

If you max Anchor, you need some taunting.  Taunt is not to keep aggro like in a regular mmorpg, it's a way to pull the mobs while you are immobile and debuff them.

Shield wall is a one point wonder.  Put 1 point in Shield wall and use the remaining 9 points in the taunting line, just spend the minimum point to get to the next skill in the line until you reach the top.

Spiritual strength is also a better investment than a maxed Shield of faith.  It will let you equip the best armors and shields.  Put 3 points in Shield of faith to get Shield wall  and put the rest in Spiritual strength.

I never tried torn aura.  I remember some vague negative comments but it's really early and most build have not been tested yet.  Try it if you want.

Sweet, good advice.  Only Taunt experience I haev was on my carnagor in beta, it was zone wide at the time.

I rolled a guardian last night. Is there much point to say max out aura of renewal?

Maxed out aura of renewal is apparently a good build, but you have to combine it with Taunt and Grand aura.  I personally prefer 1 point in aura of power + prayer of healing but my build rely on shield charge and sword of reckoning.  Both approach are viable. 

I guess my next question is whether anchor will stack onto thorns damage.  If it doesn't, might better to spend those points elsewhere.  I was revising my build, and now it looks very very spread out, I'm going for a thorns emphasis:

http://hellgate.ingame.de/skilltree/guardian/?l=50&s=12035113030702a0311110001100

Basically, pop shield of faith (+shields), shield charge into some enemies (for the fun of it), thorns aura, taunt-anchor-shield wall, prayer of retribution/healing/armor as you need it.

Hrm, my build might take too much wisdom.  Comments?

No idea abut the torn/anchor stacking.  Probably not.

You'll definitively have a power problem.  I think you could live with out the shield line, put the points into anchor and the prayers.  If you want to charge and are playing on normal, have fun first.

I'm messing around with a guardian while I wait for my local game guys to finally import the damn thing so I can jump online.

What I'm doing and I'm loving it is maxing out the left side of the skill tree (Healing Aura + Prayer of Healing and Taunts) and using a splash dmg sword. I just run into a room taunting everything that moves, gather a nice melee and start pounding away. Works like a charm and is very, very much fun. Don't know how it holds up at later levels (i'm about 20ish) but I see no reason for it not to work as my item build is based on a little gem from the loading screen "If you live longer than your enemy, you have won".

For my elite build I am debating trying to use guns for most of the game. I'm thinking a build like this...

http://hellgate.ingame.de/skilltree/guardian/?l=50&s=10000a0300070003300000047506 (http://hellgate.ingame.de/skilltree/guardian/?l=50&s=10000a0300070003300000047506)

Basically anchor yourself and go to town with some nova guns. Might make some of the boss fights nasty but for clearing things it should be pure love. Utilize the spiritual strength to reduce the stat issues since I won't be able to pump strength up nearly as much as I would like to. Probably also have to find a lot of +all stats gear. 

Hrm, I'd put some points in another aura in addition to your ranged protection ones.  You might not always need that up right?

Oh man, I haven't even thought about Elite builds.  Jesus.  This game tickles my create-a-char bone so hard atm.

How does a tanking gun class work in this game? It sounded like a cool concept to me.

I'm playing that I rely on the heal basically. You run into huge problems with needing Str for armor, Sta for health and Accuracy for the guns I really need to find some +all stat items if I am going to make this built work.

From what I've seen it's pretty hard to fuck up a Guardian unless you're playing one Elite/Nightmare. They're Ubah.

That said I'm maxing AoP, Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Retribution, Divine Guardian (wrong name?) and Shield Turn. Aura's are useful but with AoP you can leverage all the prayers so...Killer class though. My Marksman feels both fragile and less effective. But she needs a better gun, i just can't stop playing my new Guardian to get one.

With Squirrel's build you need str/sta and willpower. There's basically no running away from needing 3 stats with a guardian (from what I've been able to figure out at least) - that's why you have the skill that gives you STR for equipping purposes.

Squirrel are you maxing out the healing aura? I don't think that's viable at the moment. At level one it gives you 7.5 hp/sec with 8 mobs, and at level 10 it gives you ~10 hp/s w/ 8. I just don't think 9 points are worth it for 2.5 per second, there are just more useful skills.

My current build looks something like this - http://hellgate.ingame.de/skilltree/guardian/?l=50&s=1003010400070200770500007500 . I'm calling it debuff-healing palydan of pwn.

Still not sure about Provocation and the phasing skill. It really depends on how good I'm taunting with provocation and how much i'm managing to phase the mobs to figure out how much to put in those two.

No I'm not even putting a point in it. You can get 1 pt in Aura of Restoration off equipment which is all you need until lvl 10, at which point AoP and Prayer of Healing are way better IMO.

I should also clarify I doubt I'll max AoP. Diminishing returns on skills seem pretty harsh.

Prayer of Healing is awesome, but would you really need AoP? Like I said I'm a noob still, but I've found it hard to drop below 75% reduction. Do you really need the extra... ummm... 9% is it?

How does armor work for that matter? Maybe I'm making the wrong assumptions here :)

edit: how about maxing out the resistance aura. It gives you about 3k to all resistances, which means you can focus on gear without resistances and with +health/mana/armor/shield.

I'm a total noob too, my Guardian is my 3rd char so is low level. But the way I've been playing I do need AoP as far as I can tell. For me I'm frequently out of power, I use shield turn a lot and sword of reckoning, plus prayer of healing. I go through the blue stuff fast. So my strategy in general is to always get surrounded and then wail out the specials, using PoH to stay alive. On Boss fights it's a bit different, but since I'm not Elite yet I haven't had any trouble downing bosses. Retribution is also awesome. The aura's are cool, but they are exclusive, i prefer the prayers. And those cost power, so AoP is useful.

As far as I can tell you can't get more than 75% protection. I haven't gone out of my way to prove it, but I will tonight when I get home. And you can easily get that or around that with items and still keep your shield at around 1/5th of your health for the rare cases where you'll need it. Not sure how much 7h/s is useful at higher levels, I'd think not much. But I'd think the same thing about 9% armor value.

I'm also playing the getting surrounded way with a splash sword. I think you don't have to worry about power if you play your stats right (remembering that you DO NOT need STR and going heavy on Willpower which you'll need to deck out your char anyway). I don't know, it's purely theoretical atm before someone from beta steps in and tells us why we're wrong :P

edit: I just realized you're talking about Aura of Power? The one on the right side that gives you mana?

So, I rolled a guardian.  Easily the most fun I've had so far.  I'm going with an Aura of Defense build.

Here it is so far, if anyone cares to look:

http://hellgate.ingame.de/skilltree/guardian/?l=50&s=02030513a3040200111a00000000

I've found that Aura of Defense is ridiculous good.  The only time I die is when I forget to watch and get carried away.  I'm going for armor gear primarily.

Q:  I've read that armor is the only thing that increases mitigation in this game.  In other words, elemental damage is also mitigated by armor.  I read that the elemental stats on gear that looks like resist gear really isn't resist gear in the WoW sense.  Instead that stuff just works to resist the effects from the different kinds of attacks.  IE  physical 'resist' reduces chance to get stunned.  Fire reduces chance to get ignited, etc.  Can anyone confirm that elemental damage isn't mitigated by those stats?

OR How the hell does armor work?

I understood it the same way you did Musashi. Not sure that we're right, though, and without an in game combat log, I'm not sure how to find out.

Also. does anyone know if armor mitigates damage done to shields?

That's how it's supposed to work, but like many other things seems broken. The difference in 280, 3200, and 6200 phase resist seems to be fuckall. I was testing it with the same mob conveniently by an entry in nightmare. No gear, full gear, and full gear + booster. No difference, phased at the first hit, every time, for 8 seconds. The only difference I could find was that if I waited until I was phased, then used the booster it'd unphase me immediately. Next hit, phased for 8secs.

ymmv