DRK guard got messed up

[Satyagrahi]

I primarily log in to play DRK in Crystalline Conflict. Right now there is a big problem with guard. If you have guard up and try to use an action such as Impalement to restore your HP, your enemies will be able to damage you before your action is registered.

This is a huge problem. It means that it is virtually impossible now to come out of guard without dying.

Guard is essentially a death sentence.

It did not used to be this way. What changed? When you were under heavy attack or your HP was low, you used to be able to pop up guard, and then come right out of it with an AoE like Quietus to safely restore HP.

Now you simply die.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Fellow DRK player here. Game has changed and Guard traded certain strengths for weaknesses and vice versa. More reactive to a variety of attacks (asuming reasonable latency), more punishing at the tail-end of Guard. Enemies can time delayed attacks close to the end of your Guard duration. You can do more fancy things with Guard now, but dropping Guard at a bad moment is simply more punishing.

Manage your MP more wisely and use Recuperate before hitting Impalement so you have an HP buffer. You want to use Guard more proactively to mitigate damage against bigger hits that you can reasonably react to, rather than get hit and then bubble up.

[Satyagrahi]

So when you have guard up and you cancel it early by popping off an action that restores your HP, your feeling is that all of the enemy hits should get recorded before your action?

To me this is wrong. You used to be able to come out of guard safely. It’s not about managing your MP. You will find yourself in plenty of situations where you had all the MP in the works but you died because the animations have changed and now you die when you use impalement.

So if you are in a crowd holding down the crystal for your team, our out in front soaking hits, prepare to have all enemy actions count before yours if you have guard up.

Has nothing to do with advanced planning or managing your MP or getting better at the job. It’s a matter of a tank job no longer being able to tank.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

So when you have guard up and you cancel it early by popping off an action that restores your HP, your feeling is that all of the enemy hits should get recorded before your action?

No, what I was saying is that when someone does an attack that would time itself with the end of your buff duration, it is better to hit Recuperate because it would give you a 15000 HP buffer than to use Impalement. Like if MNK inputed Phantom Rush in such a way that it would time just as it ends.

To me this is wrong. You used to be able to come out of guard safely. It’s not about managing your MP. You will find yourself in plenty of situations where you had all the MP in the works but you died because the animations have changed and now you die when you use impalement.

The changes have downsides as you listed them, but also benefits and it is essentially changing up how you play DRK as a whole. Whether or not you want to relearn this is up to you.

You can react-Guard now when you had to predict-Guard and potentially whiff it entirely. Inversely, the end of your Guard timing simply now matters and you need a backup plan that isn't "I press Quietus/Impalement" - or you need to plan your HP management better and improve your gameplay so you don't get caught like this in the first place. You gained options and lost some and it is up to you if you want to accept that or go play Warrior for example.

So if you are in a crowd holding down the crystal for your team, our out in front soaking hits, prepare to have all enemy actions count before yours if you have guard up.

Has nothing to do with advanced planning or managing your MP or getting better at the job. It’s a matter of a tank job no longer being able to tank.

If you are tanking on crystal, you should ideally do this with the following conditions:

1.) Salted Earth can be used (Mitigation + regen dome for yourself)
2.) You try to hold in an area where you can walk back and forth with a wall/pillar for LOS protection
3.) At least one stack of TBN available
4.) At least 5000 MP available with (close to) full HP
5.) Impalement in reasonable CD distance (1-6s CD remaining)
6.) You aren't going into a 1v3 crystal hold (exception if Overtime is happening)

You have more than enough tools to be a tank and your Guard can still be quite powerful - you just can't do Guard -> Impalement at low HP. However, you CAN do it at 50-75% HP remaining if you predict the enemy is trying to hit you hard as soon as Guard ends, because the increased damage and therefore increased lifesteal snapshots as soon as the hit lands.

TL;DR: You have to be more proactive with your tools, DRK can still tank - you simply have to learn how in this new system.

[Satyagrahi]

TL;DR: Guard is death sentence for DRK below 50% HP, and I am perfectly ok with all enemies getting their hits in before my action counts, even though I was the one planning ahead and taking initiative.

[Mawlzy]

So when you have guard up and you cancel it early by popping off an action that restores your HP, your feeling is that all of the enemy hits should get recorded before your action?

To me this is wrong. You used to be able to come out of guard safely. It’s not about managing your MP. You will find yourself in plenty of situations where you had all the MP in the works but you died because the animations have changed and now you die when you use impalement.

So if you are in a crowd holding down the crystal for your team, our out in front soaking hits, prepare to have all enemy actions count before yours if you have guard up.

Has nothing to do with advanced planning or managing your MP or getting better at the job. It’s a matter of a tank job no longer being able to tank.

I wonder if this is because recup has that silly "flex" animation, and attacks register until the animation is complete?

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you - I have played DRK for a LONG time and it is still the job I main in PvP, before and after does not matter to me. The job works worse in specific aspects you described them and is something you had to adjust on, however Guard DOES work as I described it and I have been actively playing like that.

Salted Earth is not a tool I use to come "out" of Guard, it's something I do before pressing Guard. I think of 5v5 pvp more in macros of actions and not just "I press a button, but I still die, why is this not working". If you hit the point where you are being ganged up numerous times as your Guard ends, then either your positioning, your game sense, your situational awareness and/or your gameplan for DRK are flawed.

It does not matter that you are "initiating an action when you had guard up" - for the same reason you can react faster with Guard, you will lose your Guard protection as soon as it actually ends, with server ticks taking a HUGE backseat. You need to start experimenting with the snapshot changes, Guard is more powerful in some aspects, but weaker in other aspects.

I will give some benefit of doubt and think that a reason why your problems with Guard currently exist is literally latency. At low latency (less than 50ms) the game works incredibly well, but it obviously works different than pre-7.1 pvp. Above that, especially in the triple digits, you will definitely struggle a bit and need to adjust based on that.

Also, I refuse to take "if you think X, duel me" seriously as an argument. This isn't CoD.

[Satyagrahi]

No, what I was saying is that when someone does an attack that would time itself with the end of your buff duration, it is better to hit Recuperate because it would give you a 15000 HP buffer than to use Impalement. Like if MNK inputed Phantom Rush in such a way that it would time just as it ends.


The changes have downsides as you listed them, but also benefits and it is essentially changing up how you play DRK as a whole. Whether or not you want to relearn this is up to you.

You can react-Guard now when you had to predict-Guard and potentially whiff it entirely. Inversely, the end of your Guard timing simply now matters and you need a backup plan that isn't "I press Quietus/Impalement" - or you need to plan your HP management better and improve your gameplay so you don't get caught like this in the first place. You gained options and lost some and it is up to you if you want to accept that or go play Warrior for example.



If you are tanking on crystal, you should ideally do this with the following conditions:

1.) Salted Earth can be used (Mitigation + regen dome for yourself)
2.) You try to hold in an area where you can walk back and forth with a wall/pillar for LOS protection
3.) At least one stack of TBN available
4.) At least 5000 MP available with (close to) full HP
5.) Impalement in reasonable CD distance (1-6s CD remaining)
6.) You aren't going into a 1v3 crystal hold (exception if Overtime is happening)

You have more than enough tools to be a tank and your Guard can still be quite powerful - you just can't do Guard -> Impalement at low HP. However, you CAN do it at 50-75% HP remaining if you predict the enemy is trying to hit you hard as soon as Guard ends, because the increased damage and therefore increased lifesteal snapshots as soon as the hit lands.

TL;DR: You have to be more proactive with your tools, DRK can still tank - you simply have to learn how in this new system.

Again it is not about being proactive
It is not about having MP
If you think salted earth is your answer for coming out of guard, please let’s dual

It’s about how wrong it is to have all your enemies get their attacks in when YOU ARE THE ONE INITIATING AN ACTION with guard up.

[Satyagrahi]

Also TBN is glitched coming out of guard too, so there’s that.

Guard is broken on DRK right now due to animation. It did not used to be.

[Satyagrahi]

This is not a thread about putting up things prior to guard. I have played DRK in PvP since day one on multiple characters in multiple data centers. Every single one of your tips like putting up salted earth prior to guard is a given. Those are the basics and are a given. You offered them as an answer to the new guard animation glitch. They are not an answer.

I am talking about the fact that you used to be able to use an action such as Quietus coming out of guard. Now, the system registers all the actions of your enemies during your animation when -YOU- were the one initiating an action WITH GUARD UP.

THAT
IS
WRONG

The answer of “just go play another job” or “understand the game” better cannot be taken seriously.

DRK did not used to have this problem.

Now it does.

Having MP does not fix this. This job is literally designed to thrive on that razor edge of risk/reward you get from sacrificing your HP for damage and skirting the line of having low HP as a tactical tool.

Currently, guard does not work properly for DRK.