Hello everyone,

Before we dive into my post, I would like to let everyone know a bit about my background. I have been playing Black Desert Online off and on since NA release. I played on UNO until the server merge, and have been in many guilds meeting some amazing players along the way. I started as a Warrior, swapped to Musa as soon as it released, and picked up Guardian on its release as well. I played AW Guardian until Succ released, and fell in love with the playstyle. I play Black Desert with a focus on PvP, and have participated in every thing from OWPvP, GvGs, Dueling, RBF, Shadow Arena, Node wars (capped & uncapped), and Siege. I love Black Desert, and all my critiques and suggestions come from me wanting to see the game at its best. 

With introductions out of the way I would like to talk about Succession Guardians role, and its current state in the Meta. Upon release, Succ Guardian was a Juggernaut. One of the slowest classes in the game, with some of the highest Damage output. It relied on frontal guards to trade Damage, and the ability to track and flick your screen on your opponents. While never receiving any significant nerfs, the class has been power creeped by most the roster. This became especially apparent after the class reboots. Where Succ Guardian's only major changes were to smooth out some abilities interactions with the terrain. While this was good for the class, our damage advantage vs most of the roster was removed. Our trade off of mobility for damage was no longer a trade off. And we lost the ability to win most trades. The class lost its Juggernaut status, and now struggles to compete with other classes that fill the frontline role. Its now slower, has more openings, and does mid tier damage compared to other classes.

Aside from our role being taken by faster frontline classes, such as Drakania, and Berserker. The current Quick Damage Meta has made frontal guard classes weaker than they were previously. Most classes at endgame can 2-3 skill kill you after a KD or Grab. This means rather than raw damage, quick abilities, and protected movement matters much more. There are now quite a few classes that can KD you through frontal guards. As Succ Guardians main damage is done via Slow stationary FG abilities, Classes such as Hashinshin, Ninja, Kuno, Lahn, Striker, Mystic, and AW Sages can quickly bypass and KD through Frontal Guards from the front. I don't have a issue with ability's that have no collision, or ones that reposition behind me. But when it simultaneously KDs me out of FG from the front, while repositioning behind me for back attack and down attack dmg, this seems unfair.

I have some suggestions that could be made to both keep Succ Guardians identity, while making it viable in the current Meta. 

Starting off:
- Remove our FG gap from Mutilation/Black Blood Slaughter combo.
I understood why this was in the kit at launch. As our damage was so high, it was to prevent us from spamming this ability in every situation. However, this is now a unnecessary built in weakness. In large scale, you will get randomly CC'ed by AOE KDs preventing you from using your Bread and Butter damage. And as its a frontal guard, already has the weakness to get KD'ed from behind, getting your block broken, or getting KD'ed by one of the many classes with KDs that go through FGs. (Keep in mind this is a very slow telegraphed stationary ability)

- Make our Side (Frigid Wind) cancel/flow out of most our kit
Frigid Wind is an incredibly fun ability to use, however leaves us with gaps before and after use. To fix some of our mobility issues, letting this ability cancel out of some of our slow casts such as mutilation or Black Blood Circle.

- Give us a Block Buff
I genuinely don’t understand why we don’t get this. Im pretty certain we are the only shield class without one. 

- Fix our fierce I-frame to work more frequently
This is honestly more of a long shot, as its ping dependent. However I play with 30 ping, and still find this iframe unreliable. I believe it needs looked at. 

- Rework our Skill Enhancements
I believe most of our Skill enhancements are currently unviable. The exception being Mountains Echo. Honestly most of these just need damage increases, as there is no situation where these abilities can be used in combos without some sort of damage loss.

- Replace Strike down and Beast Demolisher
Both of these skills need fully reworked or replaced. I am certain every Guardian main locks these.

- Give us lifesteal on Succ abilities
Succ Guardian needs the ability to sustain itself in a fight as its too slow to chase or run away. If we are making the trade off to be slow, I think a much more fun option over damage is giving is HP for dealing damage. I think the AW Guardian changes to its passive are super fun, and would like to see something similar on Succ.

With all this being said. A lot of this is my opinions and interpretations of the class. I know not everyone will agree with me, and if I am blatantly wrong on something please let me know. I would just like the developers to read my post and possibly re-evaluate the class for themselves. 

Kind Regards, 
Kalidann

+1 all true

Quit letting people KD Guardians through FG. So dumb. Give us lifesteal or a block buff.

I'm not sure I would describe Guardian's damage as low, it's more about being incapable of applying the damage without getting ping-checked by the 20 AOE CC's being thrown everywhere. Other than that, Yeah I can agree to this.

What about other mobility improvements like adding more directions to sturdy step and making it an iframe. 

Sturdy step had a stun on it during guardian launch. Id like to see it return, as it was super fun to use. A side step would be a cool addition. 

I personally think they have to be careful giving us mobility, as our class identity revolves around being slow moving and high damage. If they overtune our mobility we have to worry about getting over tuned.  Iframes are a very powerful thing to be added into a kit. 

Alternatively, they could look at our Juggernaut skill, and either increase the startup speed, or lower the cooldown from 12 seconds to 7. 

I just wanted to bump this thread in hopes that it was atleast read by a PA GM.

Power creep is still becoming more noticable for PvP, especially with the Warrior and Striker PvP buffs recently. 

Agreed, I was asking about why it is that guardian a slow mobile ment to be tank class... doesn't have a block passive... and meawha Musa has one??? Why does dk and woosa have one??? And not guardian??? Those classes are rat guardian is a tank where did her block passive  go? Interms of att spd I could... love with it but for awaken guardian... no... why is it so slow? That makes no sence considering it also doesn't have  block passive as she supposed to have. Her animation needs a speed up or give her more att spd ingeneral, also why not give her the same 30% grab passive as warrior, striker, and of course zerker, her male counter part that has 3 or 4 grabs where our grab passive? Why is it so slow on the grab itself even.

Agreed for all of these, especially for the replacement for Beast Demolisher and Strike Down.

I'd love to see more axe throwing skills that do actual damage, Gate Crasher is so badass for this reason.

Agreed to all of the above and there is one more that I want reworked on succ guardian. The horse whistle. It is cool to see her using a horn but that animation is stupidly long and is extremely annoying during wars. May be give a war whistle and RP whistle for when we need faster horse calling.