Contruction of a Guardian

[Tatsumonkey]

Greetings,

Prologue
Before I begin, allow me to mention that I indeed did search for some guardian discussion threads though available, still left me with some questions which lead me to start this thread hopefully to answer my questions and aid me to construct a decent character.

Goals
What i'd like to achieve is basically to tank most if not all the monsters thrown to me in game be it Normal, Epic and Legendary. Secondly is to able to mend my own wounds. These two made me look at the combination of Defence & Nature

As opposed to the popular belief of "Highest DPS == best character" I decide to tailor a character more toward my playing style of hack & slash RPG.
Yes, granted my damage might be miniscule, but not all battle are won with burst/spike damage. Endurance is another method much less explored.

Background
My background to this game is really small. I've only reach Egypt with an Assassin. Therefore my knowledge regarding items, monsters, bosses, mechanics and such are really zero. (which is why i created this thread)

Skills
I am at the point where every skill sounds appealing when i read it. However having said that from past experience (mostly from Diablo 2), on higher difficulties some skills are really useless because of either diminishing returns or monster buffs are way too high (their HP, Damage, Resistance)

For the moment this is what i have planned out
http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.a...-8-1-1-0-8-6-0

Reasons for Choosing

I did not opt for Concussive blow because I did not want to limit myself to mace class weapons. From what i read, spears have good pierce chance and that avenue of weapon seems appealing (though the attack speed might be a set back)

1 point wonder skills would be adrenalin rush and the resilence just to give it a small boost. For the moment it doesn't appeal to me to invest more than one point.

For the nature side, mainly i took the HP boosting skills, and ability to heal. Im not sure as to what value of heal i should be taking as i am not aware of the cooldown of that skill.

My idea of the nature tree is to have skills that increase regeneration (like sanctuary) and if i get bursted damage on, heal self (regrowth)
The plague side is for damage. If i understand correctly, the % should scale along with the difficulty yes? Example in Normal monster with 100 HP (skill description 10% reduction in enemy HP so reduces 10) and perhaps in Epic the same monster would have 1000 HP thus resulting in the skill reducing 100 HP (is this correct?)

As you can see also there is alot of room for improvement, If i understood correctly the max level would be 65 and according to the calculator, i still have a couple of levels to go.

I do hope that i more or less could convey what i am trying to achieve in the game and thus encourage much discussion and feedback

Thank you for your time and Happy Defending

[Spearthrower]

Heh, I just posted a similar request for info in the main gameplay board as I couldnt work out whether to post a Guardian question in the Defense or Nature sub-forums!

[Amaran9th]

Hey Spearthrower, great choice for a tank build. I am currently playing a lvl 37 Guardian in Epic Egypt. I have died twice but they were stupid deaths in the first few levels when i didnt want to use potions, so hes been doin well. Talos took a while to go down however, my tanking ability made this the first character to take the lightning stomp and not die.

As far as skills, i too chose not to use wolves or nymph, however i may reconsider once i hit legendary. i plan to max the entire heart of oak tree as i find all it skills useful. plague tree will also be maxed, very useful against most mobs. and lastly in nature, refresh is a must. i dont have regrowth but again may reconsider.

as far as defense goes, i have found the enitre adrenaline tree very useful. every time it goes off, i use rally to send my hp regen up and it also boosts my dmg. happens very often and is very useful. i choose to use club weapons and concussive blow as a lot of my gear favors stuns. pierce damage isnt that important with this build as none of the skills really complement it. im maxing the entire shield passive tree and maxed disruption to increase the amount of enemies hit by a charge. colossus is a given.

as far as play style, u can pretty much have colossus up all the time if u choose. i only have needed that for a few boss battles, otherwise its unecessary. rally when adrenaline goes off, look for stun equipment and ull be fighting a lot of dummy enemies.

i hope some of this helps you choose what to use. my setup has worked well so far, however, legendary is the true test, so the final verdict is yet to come. let me know how u fare in your hardcore experience.

amaran9th

[Spearthrower]

Thanks a lot for the reply Amaran9th.... but this is Tatsumonkey's thread and now I feel like I hijacked it!! :O hehe, sorry Tatsumonkey! A lot of what you said there corresponds to what I've been thinking of - out of interest, what's on your primary attack key (left mouse button)?

Still, I am sure that the comments made were useful to you too!

[Amaran9th]

Hehe, oops. I read ur other post in the gameplay section and then read this one so i kinda just filled in the blanks on the orignial poster, sorry bout that. well i hope i helped out both of ya, eitehr way guardian is an awesome combo.

-amaran9th

[The Dragon Reborn]

Hoi Tatsumonkey,

first of all : great first post, you obviously did some thinking before posting - a nice variation from the ususal 'how to build my uber-xxx'.

Some comments on your character ideas :

1. Disable :
Note that for the time being, Disable won't work with spears, so 'til this will be fixed this points will be wasted.

2. Batter :
The slowed attack is nice, early on I'd only put 1 point in it though due to the increase in mana cost.

3. Colossus Form :
Most players find 1 point in it is all you'll ever need - I didn't use it at all 'til now, so I couldn't say...

4. Quick Recovery :
Imho one of the best skills the defense tree offers. Shield blocks are ( without - recovery ) 1 block every 3 seconds, and you being a melee without pets tanking damage, you'll be hit quite often. With a good shield and a fast block rate, you pretty much can 'ignore' normal physical damage, in a fight concentrating on the really dangerous enemies in roughly this order :
casters, archers, spears, swords, rest

5. Battle Awareness :
I don't like BA itself, but ( depending on gear mostly ) the resistances Iron Will grants - read : STUN - are great. Maxing Focus without Quick Recovery isn't worth it imho.

6. Rally :
1 point would be enough, since with Regrowth you'll have an additional option for healing. ( it might be worth a thought to skip Regrowth and max Rally ). I'd max Inspiration for the mana reg, putting points in Defiance depending on your euqip read need for resistances.

7. Adrenaline :
1 point is fine, max Defensive Reaction sounds ok, maybe contradicts a bit your basic character layout if you have to neglect other skills for it.

Atm max Resilience is a must have. As I put it in another thread :

The skill description doesn't sound impressive, but it really is quite handy.
Technically, when Adrenaline procs, it is set on a cooldown. Resilience will allow Adrenaline to trigger more often by reducing this cooldown. No clue if this will be fixed in a future patch, but for now, Resilience reduces not only the cooldown of Adrenaline, but ALL cooldowns...
Note that this is only for skills used while under the effect of Adrenaline, so skills already on cooldown won't benefit.

Some say Resilience is bugged and refrain from (ab)using it. Since I am not aware of a statement from the developers I assume Resilience works the way it's intended to. The skill description certainly is lacking, if the skill's effects or it's description will be changed in a future patch remains to be seen.

So for now, Resilience works as a global -recharge, improving even your shield bock rate, most important imho it allows you to frequently use Rally to regain mana / health and in a fight to Charge and Batter.

I'm not very familiar with Nature, but when not using pets it seems to have little to offer - HotO for double HP, Plague sounds good, Briar Ward I had at a low level only and it didn't impress me too much...

Well, I'd think it depends how you get by with your energy, being able to cast the support spells Nature has to offer...

Anyways, have fun and welcome to the forums !

rgz,
TDR

[Spearthrower]

Hey Dragon

Your quote there from Tad Williams was the motto for my old Hardcore Diablo group, The Immortals!


EDIT: Damnit, now I am getting confused! I thought this was my thread for a moment and now I have hijacked Tatsumonkey's thread twice! Double apologies Mr Monkey.

[Tatsumonkey]

Hi Spearthrower, dont' worry about thread hijacking, its no biggie. We can have double discussions here

Thanks for the warm welcome The Dragon Reborn. Being a frequent forumer i do understand the furstration if a new person just shows up, expects to be spoon fed cookie cutter builds hence I needed to do some research and homework

As always I do hope additional feedback and experience comes along (e.g. "This skills works well in normal difficulty but starts to deteriorate end game and in Epic / Legendary difficulty)

Oh yes one more thing was statwise. Again I am not requesting statistic distribution templates but more so from reading the tooltip, and if i understand correctly, Defence Rating decreases chance to get hit critically. Also it says improves dodge.

Would there then be any rough estimate how much of Defence Rating results in x amount of returns? For example, for every 100 Defence rating, Dodge rate increases by 1% or something like that?
I just re-looked at my 'configuration' and it might be taxing on Energy. Would you say it is better to have a larger pool of Energy - or higher regeneration (thus investing in INT or Energy) I seem to think that both are pretty close to each other but slightly leaning toward INT for perhaps sometimes the small magic bonuses some weapons might have (again if i have understood correctly, INT modifies this damage)

[The Dragon Reborn]

Taken from the Knowledge - thread :

Originally Posted by Phillip Marcus

Dexterity:
Dexterity also adds to OA/DA. If you are focusing specifically on offense or defense, items that directly increases OA/DA directly are going to give you more punch per point than Dexterity, but Dexterity gives both and boosts your Piercing damage. In any case, increased OA gives you a chance for critical hits and increases the potential severity of those critical hits. You need to have an OA much higher than your targets DA to score maximal (50% added) critical hits. Note that crits only apply to melee hits, and only boost the physical and pierce damage dealt. DA works in reverse, decreasing the chance for opponents to hit you, damage you, and crit you.

PHP Code:

(pierceDamageDV * ((dexterityDV/650)+1))+(dexterityDV*0.03) 


Each 65 points of Dexterity adds 10% Piercing damage and roughly +1.95 flat Piercing damage

Intelligence:
Increases Elemental damage dealt. Also increases Elemental damage over time. Elemental damage is Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Frostburn/Burn. Note that there is an entirely separate damage type (and resistance) known as 'Elemental' damage (literally, just flat Elemental damage). This damage type is very rare however, only a few items give it as a damage bonus. A few items do give explicit resistance to it, and in the case of resistance, it DOES add to normal Elemental resistances.

Armor has no effect on Elemental damage, only resistances help against it. To the best of my knowledge, there are no immune monsters to ANY basic damage type (Elemental/Physical/Pierce) anywhere in the game, though there ARE creatures with very high resists to specific damage types.

Intelligence also increases base Energy regen, and allows you to wear 'Mage' class armor, necessary if you're going to get a high Energy regen rate later in the game, as all Mage armor comes with built in +% Energy regen mods - note that this is only really necessary for characters that depend on Energy to deal damage. Most hybrid characters can get by with Energy potion usage.

Because increasing your Elemental damage output requires a fairly heavy investment in Intelligence, you need to consider if it is worth investing in for as a Hybrid character. You may get a better return on investment from Strength (flat physical) or Dex (flat Piercing PLUS OA/DA bonuses). However, it is worth noting that point for point, Piercing OR Elemental are likely to deal more damage to most creatures than Physical is (in most cases).

PHP Code:

(elementalDamageDV * ((intelligenceDV / 650) + 1)) + (intelligenceDV*0.025) 


Each 65 points of Intelligence adds 10% Elemental damage, and roughly 1.625 flat Elemental damage (I'm not certain how far out TQ keeps the decimal)

PHP Code:

elementalDamageDV * ((intelligenceDV / 500) + 1) 


Each 50 points of Intelligence adds 10% to Elemental duration damage, spread evenly over the duration (yes, you get a bigger bonus to Burn/Frostburn!)

Couldn't find it right now, but I am sure somewhere was stated that every 100 points in DEX ( not DA ! ) gives you a 10 % chance to avoid projectiles.

If you're going to use a spear ( and therefore investing in DEX to meet the requirements ), I'd say your OA / DA values are doing ok. It's generally better to put points in STR, since you'll get more out of it, unless heavily investing in + pierce damage and / or + % pierce damage items. This might be an interesting read...Due to a Guardian's lack of skills that boost piercing damage I'd concentrate on the physical damage.

INT / Energy :
I wouldn't bother with elemental damage as a Guardian, but focus on dealing physical damage, so I'd put no points in INT. The %al increase in the little base damage you might get from your equipment and the energy regeneration bonus ( pretty small iirc, need to check later ) imho ain't worth it. Potions and / or Inspiration coupled with +% energy reg rate offer a better solution.


Well, this really depends on your gear, and imho not least playing style / skill. I'd rather have a larger pool allowing a more frequent use of skills during an encounter, thus ending this sooner and gulping a blue afterwards or waiting to take regeneration care of it while inspecting the loot instead of finding myself in the heat of battle unable to use this crucial Batter / Shield Charge, whatever, loosing precious moments realizing my energy pool is empty or waiting for it to refill. Potions = instant energy and in later stages, a small energy pool won't allow you to get the most out of the advanced versions.

I'd say some points ( maybe up to 10 ) in Energy won't hurt if you feel the need, especially taking into account that HotO / PoS and the BA tree will leave you at 200 ENE reserved and a -2 drain/sec to boot, without Colossus Form active. You'll just have to find a balance that'll allow you to play comfortably, and in general STATs won't make or break a build in TQ - items do ^^.

rgz,
TDR

[TQPurist]

Originally Posted by The Dragon Reborn

You'll just have to find a balance that'll allow you to play comfortably, and in general STATs won't make or break a build in TQ - items do ^^.

Very true... I have a Lvl60 Guardian (non twinked, since it was my first and highest level char) and have spent lots of gold on respeccing to find the right balance for my playstyle. All the defence passives and collosus form are a must, shield charge (or batter) to stun/slow, rally and its synergies are handy. Nature wise I use HoO, refresh, wolves with SoTP. Ive thrown the spare points into Nymph and plague (mainfy for testing purposes).
The main ingredient as has been said is the items you have equipped. Ive had to do it the hard way by farming and have done over 500 runs on Typhoon alone.