Thread: New Guardian Skill: Rend

Like many players with Guardian toons, I greatly bemoan the state that Guardian Dps is in. Of course DPS is a Guardian's secondary role, however even well-geared guardians with exclusive DPS gear underperform far worse then other classes do at their seconday role; to the point that most raids will turn down a DPS guardian without even a thought. This makes guardians as possibly the least desired class in the game, with only exceptionally talented and exceptionally geared Guards being the... well... exception.
In order to make guardians more desirable I posit the addition of a new skill: Rend. Rend would not actually increase the DPS of the Guardian, but would apply a -500 Armor debuff per Guardian debuff on an enemy for 10s. So an enemy with 2 Haemorrage bleeds, a Salt the Wound bleed, a Fray the Edge debuff and a Sting timed corruption removal would receive a -2500 Armor debuff for 10s, then the skill would have a 1m cooldown or so. Obviously if these values could be adjusted if it proved too powerful or too weak. This would make the guardian carefully time his skills so as to get the most out of Rend. It would also make OP guardians valuable to a raid since all members could take advantage of the armor debuff.

Also I think the skill Protection could use an adjustment, as it is a very underpowered skill at the moment. I would like to see it adjusted so that the advantage incurred would depend on the class receiving the buff.
As it is now:
Parry/ Block Stance
Increases BPE (adjusted by LI leg.)

OP Stance
Increases melee damage by 2%

This is for all classes. I would like to see the following:

Parry/Block Stance

Grd

Increases BPE

RK

Increases Tact Mit

Hntr

Increases Armor

Wrdn

Increases Incoming Healing

etc... And:

OP Stance

GRD

Increases Bleed Damage

RK

Increases Tact Mastery

HNT

Increases Phys Mastery

WRD

Increases Outgoing Healing

Obviously these are just examples I quickly thought up of; actual implementation would depend on balance etc.

I hear ya,and agree with most of it,but it won't happen. Turbine/wb doesn't like or care about the guards. Sorry to say that,but that's what they've shown me. (goes for hunters and creeps also,red headed step children locked in a closet and forgotten)

I have never really figured out what good a - amour value really does. Right now if you use an Axe you can reduce armor by over 2k. But I never seem to do more damage when the target is suffering from a rend.

But as for tanks in general I think they are in a very good place for the most part. But I will say that with more 1st agers being used I see aggro being stolen once more. Something that has not been an issue until the just recently. This is from tanks with good 1st age tank belts maxed out. (not mine but other tanks I run with)

So the old DPS overcoming aggro issue might be coming back again.

I dunno if a 10s armor debuff on a 1m cooldown would singlehandedly make an OP Guard 'valuable' in a raid...

How about something more like Warden's GMWT tied to Overpower stance, where it increases the chance of triggering a weapon's inherent debuff? That way, you could stick your axe's -armor debuff (or club -attack speed, etc.), but more regularly and reliably, and without the forced window of a cooldown skill.