Guardian AT: What do we know?

[Varkarrus]

I only just learned about the upcoming Guardian AT because of this reddit post, and was surprised to not see anyone talking about it on these SCORE forums! So I'm starting this thread to start talking about it, as well as compiling any screenshots that show things about it.

 

[Frostbiter]

Rebirth is not Homecoming. Sorry.

[Varkarrus]

ah.

 

whoops. 😞

 

(here's hoping it gets ported later)

Edited August 26, 2019 by Varkarrus

[Widower]

The Guardian AT was an experiment undertaken on Closed Beta some years ago which, I'm told, was found unenjoyable by most people. I suppose it's possible it might be revisited at some point in the future, but it's not in the cards for us right now. We wish Rebirth the best of luck with it, though.

 

(And before you ask - it's apparently Assault primaries with a weird combo of armor and support secondaries, or something like that.)

[Varkarrus]

Ah! Makes sense, since one of the most popular archetype concepts is Melee / Support, and Assault is pretty close to Melee.

[Marshal_General]

I will take melee with a side order of kinetics.

[Snakebit]

I can haz elec scrapper/storm plz? Kthxbi.

[DR_Mechano]

19 minutes ago, cejmp said:

I can haz elec scrapper/storm plz? Kthxbi.

Martial Arts/Storm Guardian plz! If it's good enough for Tsoo, then it's good enough for me.

[biostem]

I'm envisioning this as dominator assault sets as the primary, then armor secondaries with things like damage auras or other utility powers replaced with stuff from thematically similar buff/debuff sets.

 

Hypothetical set (Radiation): 

 

1. Alpha barrier

2. Radiant aura

3. Proton armor

4. Radiation infection

5. Fallout shelter

6. Enervating field

7. Lingering radiation

8. Choking cloud

9. Meltdown

[Echo Night]

8 hours ago, Frostbiter said:

Rebirth is not Homecoming. Sorry.

Wait, there's a difference?

[Tsuko]

On 8/26/2019 at 5:18 PM, GM Widower said:

The Guardian AT was an experiment undertaken on Closed Beta some years ago which, I'm told, was found unenjoyable by most people. I suppose it's possible it might be revisited at some point in the future, but it's not in the cards for us right now. We wish Rebirth the best of luck with it, though.

 

(And before you ask - it's apparently Assault primaries with a weird combo of armor and support secondaries, or something like that.)

i would give a lot to enjoy a double support AT, i still dream of a cold / kin character

[Williwaw]

On 8/27/2019 at 12:20 AM, Echo Night said:

Wait, there's a difference?

Rebirth is one of the "Issue 24" servers.  They went back to how the game was upon shutdown without all the additions and QoL upgrades that "Issue 25" and "Issue 26" have added.

 

And from that starting point, they're now starting to develop things in a different way.  (Sounds like the Guardians on Rebirth are very similar to the scrapped ones from SCORE, with Assault primaries and "Composition" secondaries, whatever those are)

 

The other main Issue 24 server, coxg, is going off the rails in its own way.

 

We've reached a point where the game is back, but now everyone's just starting to go their own way, and soon, I suspect, no two rogue servers will be alike.

[Zepp]

That sounds like a fun class to play. I was wondering if anyone on the development team has players on those servers, to see if it would be a good idea to port...

I am currently running a tournament of player-suggested ATs to see which one is the most popular... Left Bracket and Right Bracket (the idea being to see what the community actually wants out of a new AT)...

[Alty]

11 minutes ago, Zepp said:

I am currently running a tournament of player-suggested ATs to see which one is the most popular... Left Bracket and Right Bracket (the idea being to see what the community actually wants out of a new AT)...

Just gonna point out the obvious, that the 'community' as mentioned is not the whole community but a small portion who plays The Forum side missions. Some folks play regularly and don't even visit nor post on the forum. 

 

So forum polls by members are fairly limited to those who frequent the forum and browse that particular section. It's not the best indicator of what the majority of players want. It's mostly what folks who frequent the suggestion section and are inclined to tick a box, want. 😊

[Zepp]

It is a sample. Sampling is how most data is collected... And I'm trying to increase the sample size...

[Rikmach]

I've played it on the Rebirth Test Server, and it's pretty fun.  Most of the Assault sets from Dominators are ported over (They've missing Savage Assault, though), but several are slightly revised, (For example, all variations of Power Boost are changed to Build Up) and they added five new assault sets:  Gun Fu (A mix of Martial Arts/Dual Pistols, and it mostly uses different martial arts attacks than Martial Assault), Hellfire Assault (A set stitched together from the Demon Summoner Mastermind attacks and the Hellfire demon's attacks), Luminous Assault (Put together from Peacebringer Melee/Ranged attacks), Mace Assault (Mixing together the ranged/melee mace attacks from the Arachnos VEAT) and Umbral Assault (Put together from Warshade attacks),  even if they don't port over the archetype, I hope they pick these up for Dominators on Homecoming, they look good and are lots of fun.

 

As for compositions...   They're interesting.  They usually mix the key defensive powers of a Defense Set with some of the powers of a thematically similar support set, usually ones that debuff the enemy, or buff the whole team.  This means sometimes "key" support powers are missing, but that seems to be the cost of being able to take a decent hit.   The net effect ends up similar to the "Jack of all Trades, Master of None" Niche that EATs have, except, you know, much more customizable.

 

The Composition sets are Atomospheric Composition (Electric Armor/Storm Summoning), Dark Composition (Dark Armor/Dark Miasma), Energy Composition (Energy Aura/Kinetics), Fiery Composition (Fiery Armor/Thermal Radiation), Ice Composition (Ice Armor/Cold Domination), Organic Composition (Organic Armor/Nature Affinity), Pain Focusing (Pain Domination/Willpower), Radiation Composition (Radiation Armor/Radiation Emission), Reconstructive Healing (Regeneration/Empathy), Stone Composition (Stone Armor/Earth Control's Debuff powers), and Temporal Reaction (Time Manipulation/Super Reflexes).

 

Most of them are decent and fun, even with minor complains (Atmospheric composition and Dark Composition skip some of the better powers of their support sets, and keep some real dogs around, but they're still solid), and some surprising upsides (Since it doesn't have Granite Armor, Stone Composition lets you actually have a character that uses the normal stone armor powers without losing out on using a powerful defensive power), but two stand out as being... problematic.   Temporal Reaction takes it's sweet time giving you decent defenses, especially compared to the other sets, and when it finally gets it, requires much more effort to maintain and...

 

man, Reconstructive Healing.  How do you take a weak defense set like Regeneration and make it *worse*!?    It really needs a lot of work, the poor thing.

 

So, yes, Electricity Assault/Storm Summoning is totally a thing you can do, Kinda.

 

Anyhow, I encourage you guys go check it out, it's pretty neat.   and we can hope that eventually Homecoming will port it over at some point, since, hey, free Archetype.  (Though Widower has been going around pooh-poohing that idea, so don't get your hopes up, alas.)

Edited September 5, 2019 by Rikmach

[Widower]

4 hours ago, Rikmach said:

Anyhow, I encourage you guys go check it out, it's pretty neat.   and we can hope that eventually Homecoming will port it over at some point, since, hey, free Archetype.  (Though Widower has been going around pooh-poohing that idea, so don't get your hopes up, alas.)

I have no mouth to speak beyond what the Team wills.

[Zepp]

If or when Rebirth makes it open source, this will be an interesting discussion to continue. Until then, put a bird on it...

[Rikmach]

Fair enough.  I look forward to seeing how it pans out.

[nihilii]

14 hours ago, Rikmach said:

I've played it on the Rebirth Test Server, and it's pretty fun. 

You do make it sound that way! Thanks for the report. 🙂

[Zepp]

15 hours ago, Rikmach said:

Most of them are decent and fun, even with minor complains (Atmospheric composition and Dark Composition skip some of the better powers of their support sets, and keep some real dogs around, but they're still solid)

The choices they made make sense. If they optimized the sets they would have been too good...

15 hours ago, Rikmach said:

Temporal Reaction takes it's sweet time giving you decent defenses, especially compared to the other sets, and when it finally gets it, requires much more effort to maintain

It actually gets you defenses at a similar rate to Super Reflexes. Also, there has been some suggestions to remove Time Crawl and replace it with Temporal Mending. Chrono Shift requires about 230% Global Recharge to get the perma-recharge boost. But the 50% recharge boost will help you get there. That being said, I think the set looks fine as it is.

15 hours ago, Rikmach said:

Reconstructive Healing.  How do you take a weak defense set like Regeneration and make it *worse*!?    It really needs a lot of work, the poor thing.

Having two key powers (Recovery Aura and Regeneration Aura) 1000s for a 90s effect is a bit insane. Then the Tier 9 Fortitude Aura is at 240s, barely permable. I understand these three powers are insanely powerful, but having 90s on 30s off (if you have over 200% recharge with the 45% bonus from your Alpha)... it seems a bit annoying. That being said, all of those are PBAoEs, meaning your entire team will have a bonus of 400% Recovery and 1000% Regeneration for 90s and 17-18% Defense for 120s... So your entire team will be nearly invincible for that period of time... The ups and downs of playing that set will likely be quite annoying... That being said, I think this is possibly the best team set for Guardians because of the three powerful PBAoE team buffs.

 

[molten_dragon]

On 8/27/2019 at 11:48 PM, Tsuko said:

i would give a lot to enjoy a double support AT, i still dream of a cold / kin character

I was envisioning the idea of the ultimate tank the other day.  Armor primary, control secondary.  Pretty much no solo ability, but amazingly good at holding the attention of, and controlling spawns.

[Rikmach]

9 hours ago, Zepp said:

Having two key powers (Recovery Aura and Regeneration Aura) 1000s for a 90s effect is a bit insane. Then the Tier 9 Fortitude Aura is at 240s, barely permable. I understand these three powers are insanely powerful, but having 90s on 30s off (if you have over 200% recharge with the 45% bonus from your Alpha)... it seems a bit annoying. That being said, all of those are PBAoEs, meaning your entire team will have a bonus of 400% Recovery and 1000% Regeneration for 90s and 17-18% Defense for 120s... So your entire team will be nearly invincible for that period of time... The ups and downs of playing that set will likely be quite annoying... That being said, I think this is possibly the best team set for Guardians because of the three powerful PBAoE team buffs.

 

 

 

Right, but you don't pick up Regeneration Aura until level 28, (And adding more regeneration on top of regeneration isn't as great a benefit defensivelly), and Fortitude Aura until 38, meaning at low to mid levels, your only personal defense powers area Resilience (Weak Resist all), Healing Aura (Expensive on the endurance), Pain Absobtion (Has Contra-synergy with Healing Aura, Integration, and Regeneration Aura), and Integration (Moderate Regeneration boost), none of which are superstars on their own, or particularly effective together, or much comparable to the defensive powers in other sets.    I suppose the cost of being an amazing team booster is weak personal defense.

[Zepp]

I don't think it is much worse than the position Regen is right now. It is workable, but definitely requires a much different mindset than defense/resist sets. It seems great early game, poor mid game, a beast late game on a team that doesn't mind you taking a break every fourth spawn...

[Rikmach]

On 9/6/2019 at 5:40 PM, Zepp said:

I don't think it is much worse than the position Regen is right now.

I'd argue the point, but even if it's true, Regen is still one of the weaker of the older defensive sets.   and I'm still baffled by a dev mindset that adds contrasynergy to a set that's still not particularly strong in the first place.  It's not like Reconstructive Healing has the old-school Instant Healing toggle.