View Full Version : Guardstance?
I don't know about you guys, but since SE announced that the level cap is going rom 75 to 99, i've been wishing for a way to level guard more easily.
In order for Guard to skillup, it needs to proc, and it isn't proccing often, so SE why not give us an ability similar to Counterstance, maybe make it so either our Evasion or our Attack are put to 0 and it increases the chance to guard, give us MNKs an easier time to skill guard pleaaaase :P
Amarok
03-08-2011, 11:10 PM
I like this idea, most of the problem is our high eva and counter skill when trying to skill up guard. I'd like to see a Berserk kind of thing, but put eva and counter down to near nothing while Guardstance is up.
I shoulda put a Dev tag on this one lol
Dhragon
03-09-2011, 01:59 AM
Evasion will go up, even with shadows still up. You can evade the attack and it not consume a shadow.
They need give monk ability make guard proc more or Job Traits like Pld Shield Mastery
Cream_Soda
03-09-2011, 03:40 AM
They'd actually have to make guard useful in order to make something like guardstance worth it.
You can parry w/ shadows up for example. Parry also blocks not only all damage, but lets you complete casting spells.
With shield, you still take damage, but it's reduced much more than guard, shield procs way more often than guard, and still prevents spells from being interrupted.
With guard, w/o stacking guard+ in every slot, on any mob higher than EM w/ capped guard, you have the same guard rate as lv 0 guard, 5%. From there, if you guard, utsu is still getting interrupted.
Plus, with 60%+ counter rate (up to 76 in abyssea), that's only a 40% chance that you're even going to have a chance to proc guard, then add in the low proc rate itself, and out of shield, parry, and guard, it has the least benefits of the three.
They need to fix guard itself before they just increase the guard rate, especially if you have to sacrifice something else for it.
Edit: Also, if the mob is EM or lower and you do have a decent proc rate on guard, it still doesn't make a diff because with monsters that weak, you can avoid the damage all together with evasion gear, so evading is going to be a priority to guarding there as well. Not to mention that they hit for much lower damage as well, so you're getting less utility from that portion of the guard proc as well.
From someone who had guard capped for over a year before they raised the level cap to 80, the only time I found guard useful was in ballista, which is pretty much dead on the majority of the servers now.
Neither parry or guard ever proc, so I would say that they're both equally useless.
Cream_Soda
03-09-2011, 04:00 AM
Nah, even w/ the same abysmal proc rate, parry still offers a lot more when it does proc.
An adjustment to proc rate would make parry pretty awesome.
An adjustment to guard proc rate would still render it useless because even when it does proc, you're not getting much from it.
Even if they are both useless, I wouldn't go as far as to call them equally useless.
They'd actually have to make guard useful in order to make something like guardstance worth it.
You can parry w/ shadows up for example. Parry also blocks not only all damage, but lets you complete casting spells.
With shield, you still take damage, but it's reduced much more than guard, shield procs way more often than guard, and still prevents spells from being interrupted.
With guard, w/o stacking guard+ in every slot, on any mob higher than EM w/ capped guard, you have the same guard rate as lv 0 guard, 5%. From there, if you guard, utsu is still getting interrupted.
Plus, with 60%+ counter rate (up to 76 in abyssea), that's only a 40% chance that you're even going to have a chance to proc guard, then add in the low proc rate itself, and out of shield, parry, and guard, it has the least benefits of the three.
They need to fix guard itself before they just increase the guard rate, especially if you have to sacrifice something else for it.
Edit: Also, if the mob is EM or lower and you do have a decent proc rate on guard, it still doesn't make a diff because with monsters that weak, you can avoid the damage all together with evasion gear, so evading is going to be a priority to guarding there as well. Not to mention that they hit for much lower damage as well, so you're getting less utility from that portion of the guard proc as well.
From someone who had guard capped for over a year before they raised the level cap to 80, the only time I found guard useful was in ballista, which is pretty much dead on the majority of the servers now.
The thing about guard is that the higher level the skill the more damage it negates, so yes it is extremely useful, so to say that it does not negate as much as shield is ignorance. That is, taking Aegis and the like out of the equation.
Cream_Soda
03-09-2011, 04:30 AM
The thing about guard is that the higher level the skill the more damage it negates,This is completely and utterly wrong.
Guard skill ONLY affects proc rate. Guarding w/ 0 skill and guarding w/ capped skill will mitigate the exact same damage.
No it isn't as my guard was capped as of 75, IT mobs at lower levels of guard would hit for around 50 on a proc, and at the time of cap the damage negated on the same IT mobs was brought down to around 18. There is plenty of evidence to support this, especially Genomes entire guide on leveling up guard. Look into it, the higher the skill the more damage guard will negate.
Cream_Soda
03-09-2011, 04:37 AM
Again, you're wrong.
Firstly, Genome was horrible with his testing. Remember his claims for AGI raising kick attack rate?
Secondly, my guard was also capped at 75 and for over a year.
Thirdly, he didn't even claim that.
Genome said that guard procs were -1 to enemy PDIF, which is essentially a negative crit (as a crit is +1 to PDIF). You'll notice that when you guard a crit, it'll do the same damage as a regular hit.
This is not dependent on your guard skill in any way shape or form.
Edit: Directly from his live journal thing
Guard damage reduction
Guard is a great defensive skill, it reduces damage taken by subtracting one from enemy's pDIF. That means it turns criticals into non-criticals, and can greatly reduce damage from normal hits. pDIF ranges from 0 to ~2.46 and is capped at those values so the % damage decrease from subtracting 1 varies.
However, guard seems to have a higher, non-zero, lower bound, so if you are already getting hit for just ~15 for example, your guarded damage will also be just 15 (no change), and not 0 (you can see this in the video with 7dmg after phalanx). I don't think that's ever mentioned in discussions about guard and should be tested more to figure out the exact lower bound effect.
On average the damage reduction tends to be about 75% (for example from 80 normal damage to 20 guarded damage, or from 200 to 50). Where does the number -1 pDIF come from? I am not really sure to be honest, it's never linked to any reference or test. However it at least matches its effect on critical hits damage (which is probably where it came from, since critical hits add +1 to pDIF, and that's well tested and easy to verify), so it's probably a good assumption, however as I said it doesn't explain well situations where normal hits and guard hits are capped at the same non-zero lower value. One possibility since I observed this mostly on chigoes is that it's not something about guard but something about chigoes, for example if they have an extra +15 damage to their hits even when their pDIF is 0.
Please point out where this says anything about guard skill having an effect on the mitigation.
Once again, not necessarily, as the damage negated on a critical hit during a guard at higher levels in guard skill has shown that the damage is considerably less than a regular hit.
Cream_Soda
03-09-2011, 04:42 AM
Check my edit, I didn't know you posted.
If something almost never procs, despite being semi decent when it does, it is not by any means extremely useful. How much do you think Guard reduces the overall damage you take?
Cream_Soda
03-09-2011, 05:16 AM
I'm fine w/ the conclusion of -1 PDIF guestimated in the testing.
Also, I hate the avatars on this site. I can't tell you two apart half the time.
Yeah, I dunno why I they won't allow us to upload our own avatars.
Also, according to two JP sources.
http://ffxi.wikiwiki.jp/?%A5%B9%A5%BF%A5%F3%A5%C0%A1%BC%A5%C9%A5%B8%A5%E7%A5%D6%2F%A5%E2%A5%F3%A5%AF
http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/609.html
Guard Skill only affects guard rate.
Cream_Soda
03-09-2011, 05:35 AM
I'm pretty sure he already realized he was wrong a while ago, since he stopped posting.
However, the extra confirmation is nice.
Good detective work.
Bring the blond guy back when they let us use custom avatars.
Matsuya
03-09-2011, 09:13 AM
why care to guard when u can counter 80%+ of the time in abyssea. Now if SE somehow makes outside of abyssea work again then ya it might be handy on some things like tankin HNMs on mnk .......
Because Counter can't proc on a TP attack unlike Guard (which negates the Damage iirc) and honestly, i've read that people think that migitating damage, even by the littlest amount don't matter, i think is wrong, how many times has everyone on any job survived by the skin of their teeth after a TP move or just soloing mobs.
That 100 damage hit that killed you at 75 health could have a slight chance of being migitated and help you survive, then heck it's not so bad, every little helps, right?
and then of course there are thoes who just want Guard capped for the sake of it being capped lol
Cream_Soda
03-09-2011, 09:43 AM
(which negates the Damage iirc)
It doesn't. It'll say the move missed in your chat log, but if you look at your health bar, you certainly take damage, just reduced damage (like any other guard).
i've read that people think that migitating damage, even by the littlest amount don't matter, i think is wrong, how many times has everyone on any job survived by the skin of their teeth after a TP move or just soloing mobs.
That 100 damage hit that killed you at 75 health could have a slight chance of being migitated and help you survive, then heck it's not so bad, every little helps, right?
When your guard rate w/ capped guard is 5% and with 0 guard is 5%, it's the absolute same chance of preventing death in that situation.
If you're jamming guard+ into every slot to increase that 5% chance, you're still going to take more damage overall because now you're removing useful defenses, such as PDT gear.
No actually I had to go to work, but once again this is all speculation, with comments like "seems" in there does not make the statement anywhere near conclusive. The only people that can confirm or deny this is the development team. There is math that does determine the boundaries of actual damage reduced, but ultimately that is just a set threshold, everything else goes off of the tic function which is predominant in almost any programming language that generates a "random" but not really random number within that threshold, therefore it is entirely possible that guard skill at higher levels can reduce more damage taken as that threshold can change with the values of the skill.
Stormy
03-09-2011, 03:43 PM
Guard has been discussed and tested to death over the years. If there were any damage reduction benefit with increased guard skill, it would've been found ages ago, but it hasn't been found, because that effect does not exist.
And honestly, unless the devs make some some radical changes to the way guard works, it's not worth discussing any further, for reasons CS and others have elaborated on in this thread and elsewhere, dozens of times.
Cream_Soda
03-09-2011, 03:45 PM
No actually I had to go to work, but once again this is all speculation, with comments like "seems" in there does not make the statement anywhere near conclusive. The only people that can confirm or deny this is the development team. There is math that does determine the boundaries of actual damage reduced, but ultimately that is just a set threshold, everything else goes off of the tic function which is predominant in almost any programming language that generates a "random" but not really random number within that threshold, therefore it is entirely possible that guard skill at higher levels can reduce more damage taken as that threshold can change with the values of the skill.
I love how you back pedal.
"oh go do the research, I'm right you're wrong"
Research is presented
"oh, only the development team knows"
Not the same tune you were singing earlier.
Zetonegi
03-09-2011, 05:23 PM
No actually I had to go to work, but once again this is all speculation, with comments like "seems" in there does not make the statement anywhere near conclusive. The only people that can confirm or deny this is the development team. There is math that does determine the boundaries of actual damage reduced, but ultimately that is just a set threshold, everything else goes off of the tic function which is predominant in almost any programming language that generates a "random" but not really random number within that threshold, therefore it is entirely possible that guard skill at higher levels can reduce more damage taken as that threshold can change with the values of the skill.
Here I'll clarify it for you. After extensive testing, it has been found that Guard has an effect of ~1-PDif. Additionally, Guard has a very low proc rate, such that if the mob is difficult, then the difference between capped and uncapped Guard skill is nonexistent(read always 5%).
To put it another way. Guard is to MNK as Staff skill is to SMN. It doesn't matter how pimp your gear is, Melee SMN is going to be bad.
darkShirou
03-09-2011, 11:06 PM
Half of you are full of crap, so before anyone else continues, EVERYONE read everything here, and on its discussion page:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Guard
There is nothing in that page that either wasn't posted here or that is largely unsubstantiated (some theoretical formula posted by some guy who never posted any kind of data to reinforce it.)
Captain
03-13-2011, 03:02 AM
I don't think we need a "guardstance" but I do think that the rate at which we guard needs to be increased, aswell as the rate at which we gain skill-ups for it, otherwise if mnk isn't slowly becoming a new tanking type job, needs more offence, cause we all know outside of abyssea on monsters that matter, mnk is pretty much shitpiece so infact all the more reason to increase the effectiveness of guard so we aren't dealing shit dmg and taking massive dmg.
Unless they let us use atmas outside of abyssea, I honestly hope they don't do that, abyssea should be the only place for that insanity.
Cream_Soda
03-13-2011, 03:06 AM
mnk is pretty much shitpiece so infact all the more reason to increase the effectiveness of guard so we aren't dealing shit dmg and taking massive dmg.
Speak for yourself.
I agree with your statement if it's directed toward bad players and bandwagon monks, but this was never a problem for good monks, lol.
Protey
03-13-2011, 03:16 AM
indeed, my LS has mnk tank pretty much everything in sky/sea. If you're a good mnk with decent support you can tank pretty much anything in the old zones with only a few exceptions.
Captain
03-13-2011, 03:19 AM
Speak for yourself.
I agree with your statement if it's directed toward bad players and bandwagon monks, but this was never a problem for good monks, lol.
So you're telling me, you was able to be effective on something like Kirin, WITHOUT zerging at level 75 as opposed to a samurai? and don't pull out the "oh ur ls must have sucked if it wasn't zergin kirin lol1" I'm talking about just how effective mnk was in endgame, because it honestly wasn't and if you think it was then, I have nothing more to say.
Cream_Soda
03-13-2011, 03:21 AM
Ok so you want to talk about which job is more effective at fighting kirin the most ineffective way? Just to make sure I'm understanding you correctly.
ITT: Kiting kirin is end game and zerging him is not!
P.S. Kirin is the only mob in the game as well!
Captain
03-13-2011, 03:27 AM
Ok so you want to talk about which job is more effective at fighting kirin the most ineffective way? Just to make sure I'm understanding you correctly.
ITT: Kiting kirin is end game and zerging him is not!
P.S. Kirin is the only mob in the game as well!
Nice come back man, you totally proved to me that you was totally exceptional and was able to be effective at endgame at 75 on mnk with your chi blast build and epic win. /clap.
Cream_Soda
03-13-2011, 03:32 AM
Nice come back man, you totally proved to me that you was totally exceptional and was able to be effective at endgame at 75 on mnk with your chi blast build and epic win. /clap.
or how about I kill my Kirin in under a minute while you meditated and ran in and ws'd once every 2 and a half minutes?
The only thing you've proven is that your LS was below par. Was your ls one of the ones who kited it for so long the thing ran out of MP before you were able to kill it?
Mnk was a very effective job a killing kirin in the most effective way to kill it.
Mnk was the go to tank for salvage.
Mnk was able to tank the small things like Dynamis, Limbus and Einherjar as well as most of their NMs and Mega Bosses
Have tanked Khimera and Cerb on mnk
Etc. etc.
A) again mnk was effective on Kirin. I'm sorry your ls utilized crappy strategies
B) Does none of my list constitute as endgame?
Captain
03-13-2011, 03:37 AM
or how about I kill my Kirin in under a minute while you meditated and ran in and ws'd once every 2 and a half minutes?
The only thing you've proven is that your LS was below par. Was your ls one of the ones who kited it for so long the thing ran out of MP before you were able to kill it?
Mnk was a very effective job a killing kirin in the most effective way to kill it.
Mnk was the go to tank for salvage.
Mnk was able to tank the small things like Dynamis, Limbus and Einherjar as well as most of their NMs and Mega Bosses
Have tanked Khimera and Cerb on mnk
Etc. etc.
A) again mnk was effective on Kirin. I'm sorry your utilized crappy strategies
B) Does none of my list constitute as endgame?
Salvage hell no, the rest totally!, mnk was definitely number 1 choice for tanking in all of those events. Average mnks at that, any mnk could straight tank cerb and khimera couldn't it? yeah.
Cream_Soda
03-13-2011, 03:39 AM
So what are you basing your mnk was a shitpiece statement on? 1 monster that mnk wasn't even shit on, if you used any half decent strategy on it?
Cream_Soda
03-13-2011, 03:40 AM
Average mnks at that, any mnk could straight tank cerb and khimera couldn't it?
idk what the average mnk was like on your server but on Fairy/Sylph, every mnk that I would trust to do something and me personally go on another job was on my friend list.
That being said, the average mnks on my server were always something I'd personally avoid.
Captain
03-13-2011, 03:49 AM
So what are you basing your mnk was a shitpiece statement on? 1 monster that mnk wasn't even shit on, if you used any half decent strategy on it?
Sorry man, but mnk was shit at endgame in general, salvage and dynamis mnk was good, anything else it wasn't very effective, you can tell me all about your great exploits on mnk all day with the massive amounts of time it took for you to even reach such a point back in those days and I will say the same, mnk was shit at endgame, or to put it in nicer words for you so you don't cry more about it, it was the probably the least effective melee type for endgame. But anyway Guard needs to be fixed.
Cream_Soda
03-13-2011, 03:55 AM
You're going back and forth on yourself.
You just said
mnk was definitely number 1 choice for tanking in all of those events.
and just flopped back to
but mnk was shit at endgame in general
So again, I ask. What are you basing this on? Because as it is now, you're not making a very good point, lol.
Define all the activities you consider "general endgame", the most efficient method to do that event, and why mnk was not a effective in the execution of that strategy.
plds tanking with DD (without buffer in pt) SATA Wsing the pld?
Protey
03-13-2011, 04:07 AM
how SE implemented MNK reminds me of the original FF on Nintendo. At first MNK (in FF it was called Black Belt) sucked, but at high level it is the most powerful DD in the game. The same is for FFXI, as we get higher and higher in levels MNK becomes like a god.
I do agree that guard needs to be fixed. It's ridiculous that you can have capped guard and still get hardly any procs against anything worthwhile. I hope SE makes AF3 +3 in next update with something like guard activation rate + on the gear or at least something to fix guard.
Cream_Soda
03-13-2011, 04:11 AM
I hope SE makes AF3 +3 in next update with something like guard activation rate + on the gear or at least something to fix guard.
Please no, lol don't waste good gear on guard activation rate.
As I've said before. Guard as it is now doesn't do much in comparison to parry/shield. They need to change how the thing even works before worrying about activation rate.
Captain
03-13-2011, 05:04 AM
You're going back and forth on yourself.
You just said
mnk was definitely number 1 choice for tanking in all of those events
and just flopped back to
but mnk was shit at endgame in general
So again, I ask. What are you basing this on? Because as it is now, you're not making a very good point, lol.
Define all the activities you consider "general endgame", the most efficient method to do that event, and why mnk was not a effective in the execution of that strategy.
It's called sarcasm lul. Seems rather visible to me but I dunno guess I need to make it more obvious next time.
Also edit: I can't really prove much for you in terms of endgame because i was never asked to come mnk aswell as everyone else who perhaps had it lvled, lulz.
Cream_Soda
03-13-2011, 05:17 AM
Well, look at 90% of the posters on these forums. It's hard to tell whose actually serious if you don't know them and who are the genuine tards, lol.
Captain
03-13-2011, 05:23 AM
Well, look at 90% of the posters on these forums. It's hard to tell whose actually serious if you don't know them and who are the genuine tards, lol.
Your signature seems to be implying something to me.
Cream_Soda
03-13-2011, 05:29 AM
Don't let the g6 fever fool you boss :D