Atavax

I'm new not only to the Guardian class, but to the game as a whole, and have recently hit lvl 80. The biggest problem im having at lvl 80 is deciding when something is an upgrade and when it isnt. i've looked on these forums, and i havent seen an comprehensive guide on stats. i've seen acouple, lists of good gear that appears to be dated, and nothing else. i'm hoping you guys can help me and other noobs with the basics of the class. such as advantages disadvantages of different weapon speeds, advantages disadvantages of block, to deflection, to parry. the advantages of different threat stats over one another such as aggression, melee crit, combat art; and what different resists should be stacked for the average encounter. and finally what abillities should be ontop of priority and what ones should be scrapped when you're running low on power.

Daal

defense and parry are some key stats to look for as a guardian.

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Daal - 80 Guardian - Vox - Retired
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Daalilama - 80 Templar - Nagafen
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Atavax

this is the type of bs im talking about. i want to understand the mechanics, not just be told overly simplistic bullshit. i am obviously not going to want to substitute 500 protection for 1 parry or 1 defense, i need to know, how they work, the reasons that make parry and defense the most desirable, so i know the appropriate ways to stack stats.

Druuna

getting pissy with someone who is trying to help isn't the way to go bud...

Trumak

The best advice is to test things out yourself.

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salle

Errr you want a comprehensive list of all stats and what they do...
lets just start with the list of which one you have to look at when choosing gear, they are usualy so different that I've sorted them into groups which are comparable and ranked them from most important to least important.

- Uncontested avoidance checks -
shield block chance% - adds to your already existing shield block chance rather than creating a new check which means it's not as much of a deminished increase.
block/parry/riposte/dodge chance% - adds a new check which in it's nature is deminishing.
shield effectiveness - adds a % bonus to the protection of your shield, increasing it's block chance effectively.

- Damage bonuses -
DPS (mod) - increases the base damage, cap is 200 at which point you get 125% added damage. (at about 100 points, haste, DA and MC are better, point for point)
Haste - decreases reuse speed of your auto attack, cap is 200 and gives 125% added speed at that point. (at about 100 points, DPS, DA and MC are better, point for point)
Double attack - adds a chanse to have your auto attack hit twice (for both main hand and offhand weapons) cap is 100.
Melee Critical - gives you a chanse to make a critical hit both with auto attack and with combat arts, cap is slightly above 100, depends on the level of opponent.

Combat Art damage - every point spent here increases CA damage (up to 50% of the CAs base damage) this will make sure your smallest and fastest reuse CAs will have the best DPS out of the lot. so make sure to use them alot.
Riposte damage - increases the damage done by riposte.......... which is non existent to begin with so quite pointless.

- Aggro -
Hate - gives you a percentual boost to aggro based on the hate you make.
Base taunt - increases the base value of your taunts.

- Stats -
Stamina - increases base hitpoints difficult to say at what rate as it's deminished.
Strenght - increases base damage output.
Agility - increases crit mit with 1k agi giving 10% and some base avoidance (I think)
Wisdom - increases all spell resistances.
Inteligence - increases base spell damage (so only for procs) gives a tiny increase in base hitpoints.

- Skills -
Slashing/piercing/crushing (skill of weapon you're using) - increases the auto attack hit rate, cap is 520.
Parry - increases the base parry chanse (the thing that comes up as "parries" in the combat spam) cap is 520
Defense - increases the base avoidance chanse (the things that comes up as "miss" in the combat spam) cap is 520

So what to look for when gearing up. well... there's no way I can give you hard numbers of this is x times better than that for anything, they depend too much on what a person already has, especially due to deminishing returns.
As a guideline I'd say start with quite an offensive AA spec and then with gear just get two sets so to speak if an item is a defensive upgrade, get it, if an item is an offensive upgrade, get it, you're gonna need both for most trash you should be able to go close to all out offensive with most healers. but on some bosses it's better to have a more defensive setup as they hit much harder and the group members are more concentrated and don't peel as much.

And remember that procs are usualy good, except heal/ward ones. the debuff ones aren't really that easy to track the effectiveness of but they still make a difference. DPS, buff and taunt ones are given just calculate their effectiveness over time and try to weigh that against whatever you miss out on.

some notes, auto attack is the way to go when dpsing with maxed dps, haste, da and mc means you're getting over 16 times the auto attack damage you otherwise would, getting more str and more weapon skill can further increase this number, as does timing auto attack swings. So thats why I've given them quite a high position, uncontested avoidance has highest as it adds tangable survivability against the hardest mobs and is hard to obtain. DA is above MC because point for point you get more dps no matter what the ratio on the wapon is, oh and you need like 110 mc to max it for heroic bosses whereass DA is maxed at 100. Also because you get more MC from the AA trees. (same thing with dps being above haste). The skills are certainly not pointless but due to how our stances work we can boost either the offensive or defensive skills easily enough to get close to the cap for when you need either.

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"The ultimate lack of self-preservation is probably to call the tank a chicken." - Ravengash

Davngr

you're not going to be able to have the same stats for everything as the situation changes so should your gear/aa/casting order.

Atavax

faking gratitude for non-informative posts and encouraging more in the future is not the way trying to get information. the way to go is to dismiss it so you dont get abunch of people giving the same bullshit responses.

Atavax

i completely agree with that. my point being, recommending specific stats without explaining what makes them better then others in some spots, doesnt allow me to intelligently change gear depending on the encounter, the group, my aa, and my other gear.

Atavax

salle,

thx alot for a fairly informative post; i have a couple questions if you dont mind answering them.

you have shield block chance% as being least dimishing, but then you have block as dimishing. what ingame stats that i'll see in gear increase the least diminshing; the shied block chance%?


does combart art damage increase any of the effects of a combat art other then the damage? such as the debuffs or threat bonuses of some of them?

do any forms of avoidance disrupt your auto-attack, if so, which ones do and dont?

does defense increase other forms of avoidance?

do any type of attack not disupt auto-attacks? if so which ones?