Region (NA/EU): NA
Suggestion(s)/Comment(s): With succession guardian representation (guardian in general really) in PVP content declining, I wanted to offer some suggestions to improve class performance without stepping into rework/overhaul territory. Awakening has received some improvements in global labs so at least one developer remembers we exist. In past years the class existed in a “bruiser” niche – melee distance attacks, strong block, many super armor abilities, with the downside of having one usable iframe ability and lethargic animations. These few suggestions will not tip the class back into favor but rather meant to be high value versus developer resource investment.
-Black Blood Descent has a gap in super armor coverage through the end of the animation. You have two options to cover this gap, continuing into the flow or using Prime Infernal Nemesis. Guardian suffers from immobility and players opt to use this skill less frequently because of the gap. See clip for reference: https://streamable.com/faqmbp . This is Black Blood Descent into Fierce Disdain vs Black Blood Descent into Prime Infernal Nemesis.
-Requesting a change to the Black Blood Descent-Frigid Wind input interaction. Currently if you use Black Blood Descent (W+Q) into Frigid Wind (W+C), the game prioritizes only the “C” input making you use Prime Infernal Nemesis. It would be an improvement to our immobility problem if this interaction was a viable option. Allow the “C” input to continue but if I input “W+C” it uses Frigid Wind. See clip for reference, despite inputting W+C the game registers Infernal Nemsis: https://streamable.com/xlqzq0 . Black Blood Descent-Frigid Wind does suffer from the gap issue I mentioned previously. If that were fixed this would be great. Most of our movement skills connect smoothly and more options promotes skill expression and rewards fluent gameplay. Additionally, this clarification already exists for Juggernaut, please consider doing the same for Black Blood Descent.
-Fierce Disdain attack speed buff duration (10 seconds) is too short. Awakening’s attack speed buff from Glorius Advance was buffed to 20 seconds. With succession's animations being no faster than awakening's it would be nice to have this quality of life improvement as well. Fierce Disdain is very important in all areas of content being our only iframe with a low cooldown, and it would be nice to not feel obligated to use it often when you may not want to.
-Fierce Disdain is meant to be our PVE iframe, yet has a gap at the end. I don't have a clip demonstrating this but if you hold Fierce Disdain against any source of damage you will see it fails to work...
-More a statement than a suggestion but I wanted to say these following skills are completely without use, locked by every player I talk to. They serve no purpose in any content but would require more resources from PA to redo.
Strike Down
Beast Demolisher
Torso Ripper
Fervor
Juggernaut Smite
Atleast give us back the black blood circle +100dp to the teammates when standing within the area, so I can be slightly useful in pvp, erm.
In the past i liked succ guard a lot, today he is kinda meh. Succ guardian definitely needs buffs.
Great suggestions. I want to add a few more points that might be worthy of consideration (though more developer consideration on class balance would be involved compared to your suggestions).
1. Succ Guardian needs more uptime on iframes.
Currently, our iframe options are:
- Absolute: Fierce Disdain (3s CD, used in tandem as melee repositioning tool)
- Prime: Infernal Nemesis (15s CD, used in tandem as ranged repositioning tool if Emergency Escape is usable)
- Emergency Escape (300s CD)
With the absurd guard-gauge-decreases-even-if-we're-not-in-forward-guard nonsense that classes like Corsair bring to the table, Succ Guardian is currently unable to do anything in Arena of Solare.
2. Succ Guardian needs more tankiness while in Super Armor.
By default, all classes receive a 10% damage reduction while in Super Armor.
For classes hand-picked by PA, this number can go up to 20%. This is why we see classes like Warrior and Valkyrie scale relatively well in Arena of Solare as a function of player skill, and this is also why Awakening Guardian is the only guardian spec played in that game mode.
Given the bruiser-oriented playstyle of Succ Guard, it's probably reasonable to keep the damage reduction percentage lower than those classes.
However, the current 10% damage reduction is not enough for Succ Guardians to perform any meaningful game action without at least a 50% chance of dying to AOE damage trades outside of cases like Node War and Siege.
The current-day squishiness of Succ Guards is not something that can be overcome with skill and willpower--only 2x JIN DR crystals can save us (see point #1).
Great suggestions. I want to add a few more points that might be worthy of consideration (though more developer consideration on class balance would be involved compared to your suggestions).
1. Succ Guardian needs more uptime on iframes.
Currently, our iframe options are:
- Absolute: Fierce Disdain (3s CD, used in tandem as melee repositioning tool)
- Prime: Infernal Nemesis (15s CD, used in tandem as ranged repositioning tool if Emergency Escape is usable)
- Emergency Escape (300s CD)
With the absurd guard-gauge-decreases-even-if-we're-not-in-forward-guard nonsense that classes like Corsair bring to the table, Succ Guardian is currently unable to do anything in Arena of Solare.
2. Succ Guardian needs more tankiness while in Super Armor.
By default, all classes receive a 10% damage reduction while in Super Armor.
For classes hand-picked by PA, this number can go up to 20%. This is why we see classes like Warrior and Valkyrie scale relatively well in Arena of Solare as a function of player skill, and this is also why Awakening Guardian is the only guardian spec played in that game mode.
Given the bruiser-oriented playstyle of Succ Guard, it's probably reasonable to keep the damage reduction percentage lower than those classes.
However, the current 10% damage reduction is not enough for Succ Guardians to perform any meaningful game action without at least a 50% chance of dying to AOE damage trades outside of cases like Node War and Siege.
The current-day squishiness of Succ Guards is not something that can be overcome with skill and willpower--only 2x JIN DR crystals can save us (see point #1).
I try to limit my suggestions to what (to me) seems like an easy argument regarding impact and balancing, but I absolutely do think we need additional DR% while in super armor. If they played the class they'd see what we mean. This latest round of class balancing seems to be PVE-motivated so I'm expecting flat damage increases and not many impactful changes tomorrow on global labs.
Didn't expect to not get anything at all in Global Lab.
I guess they really want us to reroll to something else.
They reduce the number of hits on all class and did not think that some classes were designed around number of high damage hits. Succ guardian being one of them. Then they reintroduce high number of hits on deadeye, since it seems like high number of hits are not out of question.
1. Increase the number of hits on black blood circle.
2. Give savage hack a bit more damage. Thats animation is long without a purpose other than trying to use the FG. It feels scuffed.
3. Make Q block as tanky as the lore FG. It makes no sense that Q block is paper in front of Savage hack FG.