I wish Guard Stance would reduce all dmg types

[Lostbob117]

Really something that Guard Stance needs. Also, give flat def stats for all def types.

[Achelousaurus]

Yeah.
If it did, tanking would be possible. In fact considering all the upgrades for it and fury gear boost becoming hu gear boost, suddenly guard stance hunter would be really viable (for specific playstyles in groups) and also have a variety of valid builds.

[Macmaxi]

If i go full fury, i can still War Cry everything in Ult including bosses and stuff and just Ride Slasher with Chain Sword all the time and i never die or need to use mates. I keep automate just in the rare case that i get juggled, or MH is on CD.

Really Guard Stance has no nieche right now (even if it was more effective), since Vampiric Blade does fill the gap if you don't feel tanky enough and only slightly reduces your damage (no damage potential).

[Shadowth117]

Well if we're going to go on about tanking, I think honestly something more interesting and unique than flat defense bonuses would be increasing evasion capabilities. Give longer, multiple, or maybe just altogether some new/alternative options for that stuff.

As an example of something entirely different, how about something similar to melee dashes that diagonally moves you up into the air from the ground to a decent height while on the ground and moves you diagonally downward back down from the air.

Because yeah, we have the standard 3 dodges, s roll, and the dual blade glide, but aside from s roll these are all very linear movements, most of which adhere to gravity in some way. There's not really any skills directly related to changing how these actually move outside of wand lovers and that changes your dodge to an admittedly useful, but pre-existing movement.

Having specific attacks oriented well for this that pull much more hate than usual attacks would also be a good addition for this sort of thing. It would really have to be done well though.

[LonelyGaruga]

Hunter can already tank hits effectively. It just doesn't need Guard Stance to do so.

[Superia]

Not only can it tank hits without Guard Stance, but it does so with approximately equal effectiveness. I think that what is being said here is that Guard Stance is useless even to people who prioritize being a "tank".

[Maenara]

Idea for a skill: "During Guard Stance, become invincible for 1/2/3/4/5 seconds after performing a Just Guard."

[Lostbob117]

Idea for a skill: "During Guard Stance, become invincible for 1/2/3/4/5 seconds after performing a Just Guard."

Pointless imo.

Why would a tank need to become invincible?

[Kondibon]

On the topic of guard stance not being required for tanking. I agree, and I think one of the best solutions would be to increase the damage you take in fury stance even more. You shouldn't be able to take hits as well as you can in fury stance, even with flash guards (which should be guard stance only imo, if fury stance gets fury JA). >_> Fury stance should decrease your max hp by like 20-30% too.

I'd also like to see hyper armor become something you can passively get with guard stance.

What lostbob said actually brings up an important point though. Why tank when it's as easy as it is to just not take damage. The extra damage you get from attacking during an enemy attack isn't that much compared to how much you'd lose from dropping fury. Add that on top of the fact that you don't even need guard stance to do that, just flash guards, automate, and maybe massive hunter... yeah...

EDIT: Oh yeah! Another idea I had was for you to reflect a percentage of the damage you take (minus defense and resistances) while in guard stance. It could be limited by range, and not include attacks that would kill you. Then I'd like to see iron will go from having a % chance to activate to having a cooldown.
The problem with tanking in general isn't that it isn't effective, it's that there isn't enough incentive to get hit on a regular basis.

[Superia]

Why should Fury Stance get nerfed just because Guard Stance is really poorly designed?

[Kondibon]

Why should Fury Stance get nerfed just because Guard Stance is really poorly designed?I think fury stance should get nerfed REGARDLESS of guard stance.

EDIT: To clarify, I think downplaying the stance weaknesses defeats a big part of what the stance skills ARE. I actually feel the same way about removing the damage reductions on Guard and fighter stances.

[Maenara]

Pointless imo.

Why would a tank need to become invincible?

Because invincibility is basically Massive Hunter, except with 100% damage reduction instead of 25%. It also makes you immune to status effects and stun.

[Kondibon]

Because invincibility is basically Massive Hunter, except with 100% damage reduction instead of 25%. It also makes you immune to status effects and stun.But then the question becomes "Why tank in the first place". The whole issue with guard stance isn't the lack of survivability anyway, as we've already discussed. It's that there's no reason to use it for face tanking specifically. Adding a few seconds of invincibility won't do anything about the fact that there's still no reason to actually intentionally take damage.

[LonelyGaruga]

Fury Combo Up is the only skill tied to Fury Stance that isn't the standardfare Up/Critical skills every damage boosting Stance has now that Hunter Gear Boost is a thing. Might as well make JA Bonus require Fury Stance if you want to lock Flash Guard from the tree. But even then, Flash Guard is only a small part of the problem, since even without it you still have units and affixes, which are really where the bulk of a player's tankiness comes from. I mean really, HP crafted units are +300 HP +12% strike resistance, and if they're Brisa, that's +380 and 9% in ice/lightning/dark. Stamina III adds up to 200 HP, Alter Arma for up to 120 HP, and Vol Soul for up to 80 HP. And then simply being a Hu/Fi gives you 728-826 HP depending on race (5 SP in HP Up 1). Skipping on Stamina III, this adds up to be

728 + 380 + 120 + 80 = 1308
826 + 380 + 120 + 80 = 1406

So now you're looking at Dimates that heal 784-843 HP. so you're guaranteed to be healed to full about every other hit with Automate Halfline, even without further investment in defensive abilities. And add Massive Hunter optionally, since it averages to 12.5% resistance to every attack type (Flash Guard is 20% to the two most common, but at twice the SP, which makes Massive Hunter the more effective tanking skill).

And of course there's Te/Hu. Deband Toughness is just outright the single best tanking skill in the game in terms of actually taking the hits. Let's take a female Newman Te/Hu as an example.

567 + 380 + 120 + 80 = 1147
567 + 380 + 120 + 80 * 1.25 = 1433

Almost 300 more HP with than without. And then add Deband Cut for 15% less damage from every hit.

But yeah. Most of this lies in units and affixes. You could lock Fury Hunter out of every defensive skill on the tree and it'd still be able to tank effectively with units and affixes geared toward that purpose. Guard Stance just plain isn't a good skill concept.

[Kondibon]

Fair enough about the flashguard stuff, but I still stress that a big part of this is that there isn't even a reason to get hit enough to justify running tanky, let alone one that relies on guard stance. Basically I want to see skills that make guard stance reward the player for intentionally taking as much damage as possible, while simultaniously increasing the damage they CAN take.

This is also why I suggested having fury stance nerfed as well though. Taking 5% more just isn't enough to justify doing 20% more damage, and that isn't even taking into account the other fury skills.
I don't think it should be as bad as LB, but you shouldn't be able to shrug stuff off while going full fury regardless of your gear. I'd even go so far as to say, if you don't invest in any defensive skills or affixes you should be getting oneshot by XH trash mob in fury. :I

Buuut that's not in-line with the other class' damage/defense ratio.

I have a lot to say about the affix system in general though, and none if it is very nice.

[yoshiblue]

Aside from insane counter damage that I like to blab about, the only other things I thought of was

-Always keeps your gears lock at half way (,but that wouldn't work much when you can get more damage done with fury stance).

-Passive health regen. (Meh.)

-Evasion/Mirage effect. (Doesn't make much sense if you're guarding though. Would be more of a gunner thing.)

-Chance of automatic parry when attacking. (Again, you're suppose to be taking damage or at least blocking.)

-Ga Wonda/Sil Dinian effect. (Boss Trolling fun if anything.)

-Revenge Attacks. (Get hit, hit back for 2x damage. Would be the epitome of Fury Stance. So no go.)

-Innate increase to heal guard. (Would have to be a hunter main only thing though. Would also make Elder Pain and Chainsawed redundant. So no.)

-Free stun for every guard. (Would make some skills like Stun Concido redundant so hmm...)

-A gauge that either makes your next PA do massive damage or increased photon blast accumulation. (eh...)

-An aura that gives a portion of your def to nearby allies.

-Slows time when you're about to be attacked/ increased perfect guard window. (Seeing as most enemies aren't tracked like bosses are, could work. Warrior perception and all that.)

-Perfect guarding nullifies damage in an AoE radius. (Wouldn't work in practice in my opinion though.)

-Perfect guard makes you immune to the attack and makes you use the first PA on your weapon. (For free.)

[Maenara]

Ultimately, since PSO2 doesn't encourage any roles besides damage dealer, Guard Stance will never be good. Ever.

[LonelyGaruga]

Fair enough about the flashguard stuff, but I still stress that a big part of this is that there isn't even a reason to get hit enough to justify running tanky, let alone one that relies on guard stance. Basically I want to see skills that make guard stance reward the player for intentionally taking as much damage as possible, while simultaniously increasing the damage they CAN take.

This is also why I suggested having fury stance nerfed as well though. Taking 5% more just isn't enough to justify doing 20% more damage, and that isn't even taking into account the other fury skills.
I don't think it should be as bad as LB, but you shouldn't be able to shrug stuff off while going full fury regardless of your gear. I'd even go so far as to say, if you don't invest in any defensive skills or affixes you should be getting oneshot by XH trash mob in fury. :I

Buuut that's not in-line with the other class' damage/defense ratio.


To be honest, Fury Stance isn't even that great by itself. Average Stance has no penalty at all and does 15% to all damage types.

Full Fury (no JA Bonus) is 58% striking, 33% ranged damage, and 10% tech damage.
Full Brave is 50% to all three types.
Full Wise is 75% for all three types.
Full Average is 26% for all three types (39% for charged attacks)
Full Weak is 48% for all three types (63% for charged attacks)
Full Elemental is 32% for all three types.
Break sucks so not listing.

Fury really wouldn't be that great if it weren't also on the same class that gives JA Bonus 1/2.

That stuff aside, rewarding players for tanking would make the most sense to encourage tanking. Probably the best idea given for tanking I've seen, really. As tanking currently stands, the main reason to do it is to get attack opportunities that wouldn't exist otherwise through the use of super armor. Having other incentives would be good, but they'd have to come from the skill tree or weapon potentials.

Ugh, thinking more about it, that has a lot of potential actually. Might actually suggest some ideas along these lines to Sega.

[Kondibon]

Ultimately, since PSO2 doesn't encourage any roles besides damage dealer, Guard Stance will never be good. Ever.
Which is why I said Guard Stance should encourage it by having some sort of bonuses for getting hit. The first thing that came to mind, as I said before, was reflecting damage. Maybe a skill that makes it so that each time you get if you get hit you get a damage increase (up to a certain point), but it goes down if you go too long without being hit, kinda like an opposite of high time.

[Maenara]

I had an idea once, a skill which takes the grand total of all damage you've taken over the past 60 seconds during Guard Stance, and adds it as a fixed number to any damage you deal.

[oratank]

may be this happen when guard stance use jg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9j5_thMBnM

[Kondibon]

I had an idea once, a skill which takes the grand total of all damage you've taken over the past 60 seconds during Guard Stance, and adds it as a fixed number to any damage you deal.I thuoght about that but I feel like it would be a bit too strong, also it kinda overlaps with the damage reflecting thing.

It's not necessarily a bad idea though, either could work.


may be this happen when guard stance use jg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9j5_thMBnMI thought about that, and I would love it, but the main reason it works in vindictus is because the bosses have specific attacks that can be blocked by it, and stunning them in other ways requires items you have in limited quantities. I'm not sure how it could work in PSO2 without trivializing group content more than it already is.

EDIT: Also, most bosses in PSO2 get stun locked for longer than I think a grab would need to last anyway. It would be kinda redundant. I would love grabbing magatsu's hand when he swats at the roofs, stopping elder's butt slam, or grabbing Loser's super speed swords.

[random idiot]

this is a jp game though, no one who plays seriously actually cares about defense, glass cannon all the way

[Kondibon]

this is a jp game though, no one who plays seriously actually cares about defense, glass cannon all the wayWhat does the game being japanese have to do with it? Every game I've played where killing the enemy is more important than surviving, and gives players ways to avoid damage completely at a high rate has this problem. That's only 3 games but still. :wacko:

[Tenlade]

this is a jp game though, no one who plays seriously actually cares about defense, glass cannon all the way

I thought tanking implied in online games that youd be taking hits in place of the other players who cant, which would be insanely helpful with all these glass canons. guard stance should be doing something crazy like giving you 10x hp in exchange of taking all the hits of every player around you, spamming vampiric blades and guarding and countering constantly to keep your hp up.

[cheapgunner]

Guard stance for me should have done 4 things to be even useful compared to fury stance builds:

0. Had access via extra lines to fury S ups and fury combo ups in the deeper parts of the fury tree

1. A massive HP boost and Def when you invest into it fully ( lvl 10 guard stance gives like 100% overall boost to your HP stat and 50% Def boost to all 3 stats )

2. Counter Edge skill from Braver built into Guard Stance and make the shock waves bigger based on gear accumulation.

3. An attack boost to all 3 Atk stats after you just guard successfully ( i.e. 5-10 sec time limit ).

-------------------------

As for the other skills, Take the burn and poison guard skills and combine them into one, and make the skill cure not just poison and burn, but mirage, shock and panic as well.

Flash Guard 1/2 and Flash Tech Guard reduce to 5 levels but keep level 5 for 100% proc and 20%/30% damage reduction ( adjust the interval gains instead ).

Add a skill that increases the number of mates, moons, and atomizers you can carry ( i.e. 5 extra all across ).

[Lostbob117]

An idea I have is for Guard Stance to make Warcry's effect like x2 more effective and aggros more enemies and bosses

[Kondibon]

I thought tanking implied in online games that youd be taking hits in place of the other players who cant, which would be insanely helpful with all these glass canons.
No it wouldn't.
See:

Every game I've played where killing the enemy is more important than surviving, and gives players ways to avoid damage completely at a high rate has this problem.

[LonelyGaruga]

The three types of fixes I always see:

1) Something that already exists or fails to address the problem.
2) Something that would break the established rules of the game.
3) Something broken compared to what a skill should ever offer.

I swear it's like people don't realize they can actually do something about this by sending their ideas to Sega. But that would require examining the problem, examining the rules that have been established, and examining potential consequences that can result from any changes made.

-Guard Stance does not need a buff to defensive abilities, because defensive abilities are already sufficient and Guard Stance's reduction of damage output will continue to be a hindrance.
-Guard Stance should not get access to exclusive damage skills not pertaining to defensive characteritstics, because that's what Fury Stance is for. It already has a damage boosting skill for Just Guards.
-Guard Stance shouldn't get all of Hunter's defensive skills exclusive to it, because then it has some offensive skills and all the defensive ones, while Fury would get all the offensive skills and none of the defensive skills, creating a stance imbalance. The goal of Fury/Guard should be to create a balance of offense and defense.
-Any changes made to Hunter have to keep in mind that it isn't just a main class, but also a subclass, and the changes have to consider how other classes would interact with it.

And so on and so on. Probably the most important thing to consider is whether a particular skill should be Guard Stance only or available regardless of Stance. What would make the most sense is to have the most extreme variations of Fury/Guard's concept being restricted to that Stance, but have the less dramatic and more tactically diverse skills be available regardless of Stance.

For example, instead of making Fury Gear Boost Hunter Gear Boost, I would think it preferable to make a Guard Gear Boost that gives Gear upon performing a JG. Of course, now it's too late for that, so can't really be helped there. Fury also definitely has too much damage restricted to it, since it's 58% of Hunter's 76% striking damage increase, while almost every good defensive skill is freely available. However, very little can be done to actually fix this. Replacing or altering Fury Combo Up so that it works regardless of Stance is the best solution I can think of for this, as it will not affect Hunter's damage at all, but will shorten the gap between Fury and Guard.

But most importantly, I think, is that Fury and Guard should not be something you build all into. There should be reason to use Guard Stance whether you tank or not. For example, if Guard Gear Boost was a thing, one could go into Guard Stance, block a few attacks, and then switch to Fury Stance with full Gear. If Guard Stance had a passive armor skill, then one could use Fury normally and switch to Guard when they wanted armor. And similarly, it wouldn't be necessary for a Guard Stance user to go all into Guard Stance, which would actually make it more versatile and create more variety in Hunter builds than just all Fury or all Guard.

But yeah, just throwing some ideas out there.

[strikerhunter]

may be this happen when guard stance use jg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9j5_thMBnM

For this to even work Sega has to make major changes because as of now bosses have no model-to-model interaction with player models, which is why wl grabs literally can't grab bosses (and holding current be broken as hell MPA wise if it does).


this is a jp game though, no one who plays seriously actually cares about defense, glass cannon all the way
Monster Hunter and Pokemon would like to have a word with you. Had you said Sega instead, I'd agree.

[LonelyGaruga]

Defense in Monster Hunter? Lol...Defense is even less relevant in MH than in PSO2. Partly because the difference between a full offense setup and a full defensive one is almost nil.

Pokemon is a turn based RPG. PSO2 is an action RPG. Can't compare the two.

[Achelousaurus]

ITT: people don't know what tanking means.
You CANNOT tank with fury hunter.
You can tank with guard stance hunter but it's not that good cause guard stance sucks (and warcry too).

Having to dodge cause you will get shredded otherwise means you aren't actually tanking (maybe a dodge tank but that's everyone in this game, especially forces).

Juast because glass cannons are common doesn't meany anything not dying from 2 hits is instantly a tank.

[Maenara]

I can record a video of me in ultimate Lillipa running Fury stance and standing in the middle of 20 enemies, doing nothing, and not dying, if you like.

[Macmaxi]

I can record a video of me in ultimate Lillipa running Fury stance and standing in the middle of 20 enemies, doing nothing, and not dying, if you like.


It's pretty much the experience i had. I even got my chainsword ready to go but then switched to something else because there was just no point.

[TaigaUC]

I thought tanking meant actually receiving all damage, not just being able to survive said damage.

[Superia]

An idea I have is for Guard Stance to make Warcry's effect like x2 more effective and aggros more enemies and bosses

I think Warcry would need several times more hate accumulation to have even a slight chance of holding down, or even affecting the aggro while you have Ra/Brs, Gunners and Fi/HUs in the MPA.

If you could actually pull the attention of most of the enemies/the boss and keep it, tanking would be much more worthwhile.


For this to even work Sega has to make major changes because as of now bosses have no model-to-model interaction with player models, which is why wl grabs literally can't grab bosses (and holding current be broken as hell MPA wise if it does).

Actually, WL grabs do not grab bosses because it would be too easy to just sling them around. Note that some bosses are able to grab you.


I thought tanking meant actually receiving all damage, not just being able to survive said damage.

I think that the act (of tanking) has an implication like that and involves surviving said damage so that others do not have to, but the adjective (tank or tanky) is readily applied to anything that survives a lot of attacks without needing to evade them.

[vantpers]

Why would anyone even need tanks in the game? Because other MMORPGs with completely different combat systems (if you can call PSO2 MMO) have them? Currently we are in a situation where you take defensive skills only to increase your damage output because you don't have to think and a huge amount of player skill goes out the window. If we increase our defensive option to be even better we either have people be completely immortal (more defense), or people be semi-immortal and with no difference in DPS compared to the mortal ones (just give them literally all the skills glass cannons have).

If we buff hate mechanics and anyone can just put one guy who really didn't want to play the game in a corner while every enemy on the map whacks at him mercilessly and he can't die anyway, then at some point we are going to be dangerously close to just unloading your DPS skills on something that doesn't even fight back. Then what's the point of action combat when it just comes down to doing DPS combo number 1.

Not working Guard Stance was never a problem. It should just be removed or completely remade into something that isn't just for facerolling the keyboard. Everyone's job being damage isn't really bad. The depth of combat in an action system isn't related to some pseudo teamwork (Weak Bullet is a wonderful example of how a teamwork skill just breaks the game because all it does is have you hope that you have a Ranger that isn't a retard, if you don't and it's Magatsu enjoy your 1/12 MPA), but how fun it is to battle enemies with your own skill. Being a tank makes it boring, you don't need to dodge anything, you won't die, you don't even need to attack properly. Just what's the point of that. And the worst thing is that a good tank is supposed to make the other guys in the party not need to care about dodging or surviving besides the very basics.

[TaigaUC]

I think that the act (of tanking) has an implication like that and involves surviving said damage so that others do not have to, but the adjective (tank or tanky) is readily applied to anything that survives a lot of attacks without needing to evade them.

Yeah, you're right.

[Lostbob117]

I think Warcry would need several times more hate accumulation to have even a slight chance of holding down, or even affecting the aggro while you have Ra/Brs, Gunners and Fi/HUs in the MPA.

If you could actually pull the attention of most of the enemies/the boss and keep it, tanking would be much more worthwhile.

I was thinking that it could just auto pull them no matter what with Guard Stance up.

[LonelyGaruga]

ITT: people don't know what tanking means.
You CANNOT tank with fury hunter.
You can tank with guard stance hunter but it's not that good cause guard stance sucks (and warcry too).

Having to dodge cause you will get shredded otherwise means you aren't actually tanking (maybe a dodge tank but that's everyone in this game, especially forces).

Juast because glass cannons are common doesn't meany anything not dying from 2 hits is instantly a tank.

A properly geared full Fury Te/Hu can take 10 hits from an Ultimate Aginis before dying (but Automate would heal to full after 5 hits anyway). Those would do about 300-400 damage to the typical player, so this applies equally to anything else that hits in that territory. Magatsu's giant face laser does about 60-70% in the same circumstances, in case you're wondering how it fares with a meatier attack. Most people are insta killed by that one unless they have Sukunahime's HP blessing.

Unlike most people, I've actually done the math for this stuff. Thank you.

EDIT: Numbers are without Massive Hunter btw.

[Superia]

ITT: people don't know what tanking means.
You CANNOT tank with fury hunter.
You can tank with guard stance hunter but it's not that good cause guard stance sucks (and warcry too).

Having to dodge cause you will get shredded otherwise means you aren't actually tanking (maybe a dodge tank but that's everyone in this game, especially forces).

Juast because glass cannons are common doesn't meany anything not dying from 2 hits is instantly a tank.

This seems like more of a difference of opinion in the definition of the word. I felt extraordinarily tanky on my Ra/Hu and Gu/Hu when I played them with Massive Hunter, Automate and ~1400 HP. But then again in this game, you could just use an all class sword on any random build and tank any enemy by just guarding forever.


I was thinking that it could just auto pull them no matter what with Guard Stance up.

I do not think it should go quite that far, as it would allow the entire MPA to deal damage with practically no need for strategy since the boss will never be interested in them. I am not sure what kind of multiplier it would need to beat out Ra/Br LN combos or limit break Fi/Hu volg combos, and it does not necessarily need to. It does, however, need to rustle jimmies a lot harder than it does currently. A guard stance user who is still pumping out damage should be able to hold on to all or most of the aggro in most cases.

[Dycize]

So basically we want Guard Stance to have a hate booster effect added to it?

[Kondibon]

There's a lot to be said about what defines tanking, but for the sake of this conversation let's limit it to being able to take extraordinary amounts of damage without having to stop.

That said, this conversation isn't even really about tanking, it's about guard stance's viability, which personally I think should come in the form of rewarding the player for actually taking hits, not blocking or dodging.

[Macmaxi]

[...] rewarding the player for actually taking hits, not blocking or dodging.


Uhhh....


I know what you mean, but this isn't a traditional MMO where someone has to take the hits to save those who can't take them.

[Kondibon]

I know what you mean, but this isn't a traditional MMO where someone has to take the hits to save those who can't take them.When did I say that's what I meant? I know defending other players isn't needed, or even that viable. If you look back then you'll see that some of us had ideas involving doing more damage when you're hit or reflecting damage you take somehow.

[Superia]

So basically we want Guard Stance to have a hate booster effect added to it?

It's just an idea. Some want Guard Stance to be really tanky, or to assist in dealing damage, or to allow the user to assume the standard tank role in drawing the attention of enemies. I do not think there is a consensus on what Guard Stance should be doing, but there is a consensus in that it should be doing something, because right now it does not do anything.

[Kondibon]

Some want Guard Stance to be really tanky, or to assist in dealing damage, or to allow the user to assume the standard tank role in drawing the attention of enemies.It should be doing all of those things honestly. :wacko:
They all synergize well and fit with the theme of the skill.

[Superia]

In my personal opinion, it should be a very potent skill and do a lot of these things. Right now it isn't even noticeably tankier than a full Fury build with automate. I do not feel it would be overpowered or overused because this game is still about damage. A lot of players, myself included, would still never use Guard Stance because DEE PEE ESSU, but it is sad to see it have probably <0.1% usage.

[Lostbob117]

So basically we want Guard Stance to have a hate booster effect added to it?

Mostly, while having the other Defenses so you can be more tanky with more variety.