Azeroth vs. Tyria part 4: So What's A Guardian?

Last week I talked about warriors and this week Medeleth blathered on about engineers. Now it's time for someone else from the team to step up and talk about the profession they're looking at. Luckily I didn't have to resort to threats this time since we've got a volunteer. Solannis, I mean Solagar, is our resident paladin expert, so I imagine he's been off looking for a profession with a similar kind of feel. Let's see what he's found.

You are never going to get tired of mocking the name change, are you?

No, probably not. Considering that you were the one stupid enough to let the engineers try that gun on you, it's your own damn fault you're a Tauren now and the name change was your own choice.

First off they told me it would be safe.

And you took four Goblin Engineers at their word, did you?

At no point did I lie. It is safe - you've still got all your limbs, don't you?

No, I've got cow limbs now.

Bah! Now you're just nitpicking. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made in the name of progress.

Sacrifices? I'm a cow now! I had to change my name so it wouldn't be so obvious that I used to be a blood elf! Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was to walk into Silvermoon and have to pretend I hadn't grown up there?!

Okay, both of you shut up so we can get back on task. You can kill each other later when we don't have work to do. Now would you care to enlighten everyone on the profession you've been researching, Sol?

Very well, I can return to this argument at a later date. As for my Tyrian inquiries, I've been looking into the guardian profession.

So I take it that's the Tyria equivalent of a paladin then?

Well, yes and no. It's not as clear-cut as that. For you, skill and weapon style differences aside, the warrior has a very similar feel to it. You're still all about hitting someone with a sharp/blunt object and wearing heavy armor. Paladins however are a little more varied than that. Some of us are tanks, some DPS, and some are healers - we've always been one of the more versatile classes in Azeroth. Strangely it seems that for Tyrians, those three roles are somewhat amalgamated.

Ah yes, the lack of dedicated tanks and healers. Gonna have to write up something about that later. For now just focus on the guardian, since the healer/tank discussion is going to take up more than its fair share of text.

True enough. Aside from the tank/heal/DPS options, paladins were known for our more iconic abilities: enhancing others through Blessing spells, auras to provide passive bonuses for everyone in range of us, healing, and our holy-powered weapon attacks. Yes, many of us identified with our chosen weapon styles, but our power came from enhancing those weapons with the power of the Light.

So how does the guardian compare? Are you looking at the same tools, modified for the way Tyria works?

There's some similarity, but a lot is fairly different. I'll start with familiar ground. Like the warrior and engineers you and Medeleth discussed earlier, guardians have their own sets of weapons available and skills associated with said weapons. Many of these weapon skills keep with the "infused with holy power" theme that paladins are accustomed to: Shield of Judgment, Leap of Faith, Smite, and Cleansing Flame are but a few examples. There are some differences in the variety of weapons available through which to channel our might.

As a paladin my options included all manner of swords, maces, and axes in addition to the use of shields and caster off-hands. Daggers and staves were apparently considered unsporting and were as such unavailable. In Tyria however, my options are expanded. I still have the bulk of my old selections, though now they break the off-hands up into torches and focuses and now scepters are considered separate from maces. I do lose the ability to wield axes for some reason (considered uncivilized, perhaps?), but in exchange I gain the ability to wield staves.

So after all these years, you finally figured out how to wield a stick, huh? I always wondered what would've happened to a ret paladin if the end of his mace broke. Would he forget how to swing it?

I didn't make up the rules, I just followed them. For all I know, we weren't allowed to use staves or daggers simply to give casters something we weren't allowed to use. I remember a good stretch of time where healing paladins would dress in cloth instead of plate mail simply because healing plate just couldn't compete with the magical bonuses of the cloth. It made a mockery of our class, but sometimes you have to swallow your pride if you're going to perform your assigned tasks.

Let's get back to the weapons, shall we? Similar to how your warrior weapons have different strengths, ours also provide us with varying skill sets. A two-handed hammer is great for close range AoE attacks, while the one-handed mace allows for attack chains and some support abilities. The scepter seems like it should be similar to the mace, yet it provides the guardian with more of a offensive spellcaster skill set. A greatsword in the hands of a warrior is a potent AoE tool, but with a guardian it allows for more control techniques in addition to enhancing one's allies with a speed boost through symbols.

A symbol? Is that like the guardian version of a blessing?

Not quite. A blessing is a simple single-cast spell that provides a benefit to the target for a long duration. The idea behind blessings is that you cast one on everybody before the fight begins along with all of the other buffs being cast, then everyone tops off on mana before beginning the fight. Symbols aren't really targeted on allies. A symbol is placed on the ground and activated by someone stepping on it. Some can be beneficial like Symbol of Swiftness which is the greatsword speed enhancing skill I mentioned earlier. Some can do damage to your enemies, like the mace skill, Symbol of Wrath. Some even do both, like the staff skill Symbol of Protection; this symbol will damage one's foes while providing a Protection buff to your allies.

Okay, so symbols are more of a combat buff. What about pre-pull buffing?

There lies the interesting bit. I don't think they actually have that in Tyria. It's possible that there's consumables of some kind; I haven't done much research into that particular area. As for the kinds of buffs we're used to where I'll hit everyone with Blessing of Might and a priest would cast Power Word: Fortitude, I don't think those actually exist here. Other than the more short-term benefits like my symbols and your shouts, I don't believe they do long term buffing here.

Strange, but honestly that's fine by me. Before they did the consolidation in Azeroth, it was always annoying to make sure that your raid had every buff covered. I remember in those few situations where we didn't have more paladins than auras, we had to organize things so the correct groups got Devotion Aura or Concentration Aura.

Thanks for bringing up auras. That actually leads into my next point. Guardians don't have auras. Instead they have three virtues: Justice, Courage, and Resolve.

Well, at least Righteousness isn't one of the words.

You have no idea how right you are. I swear half of my spellbook had that word in it. Regardless, these virtues provide the guardian with some rather potent benefits. Courage periodically blocks attacks against the guardian. Justice makes every fifth attack cause the target to burn. As for Resolve, it gives the guardian some level of health regeneration. There's no duration on these buffs, but they're self-only. Kind of like having an aura that can only affect you.

So no party buffs other than the signets then?

Not quite. The guardian has the ability to activate these virtues. When doing so, he can then share these benefits with his allies. Courage lets everyone block their next incoming attack, Justice makes their next attacks cause burning, and Resolve will clear any conditions your allies may have in addition to providing them with regeneration. These party benefits are only temporary though and they come at a cost: activating a virtue will disable it for yourself and it will remain disabled for a duration of time, depending on which one you activated.

Interesting, that should lead to some tactical decisions while out in the field.

Indeed, rather than simply having an aura that you only consider if there's another paladin in the group, now you have to think about when you should buff your party versus when you should keep all of the power to yourself. One example of a situation where activating an aura would be in conjunction with another ability, Wall of Deflection. This ability creates a wall which will deflect projectiles. In the case where you find yourself besieged by ranged opponents, you could place this wall and have your team run behind it, then activate Resolve so everyone can regenerate out of combat. Another might be if you need to use your self-healing abilities. You could activate Justice and let everyone else add some fire damage while you patch your wounds, then jump back into the fight and regain your virtue whenever it's off cooldown.

All those years of not being able to catch a hunter in a BG make this kinda satisfying

Yeah, I can see a few good opportunities to mix in those virtues during a dungeon run. How about the rest of your abilities? Anything else interesting to add to your pally bag of tricks?

A few other odds and ends here and there. Wards are similar to symbols in that we place them on the ground, but rather than causing damage or helping our allies, they serve as a method of control. They can create impassible barriers for our foes, such as the staff skill Line of Warding, preventing them from physically crossing the threshold. They can still attack through the ward if they have a ranged attack, but this still provides a manner of control in case you want to block off enemy melee from cloth wearers or you're escorting someone that has a tendency to put themselves in harm's way.

Spirit weapons are fairly self-explanatory. Guardians can summon ghostly weapons to temporarily assist them. The only one I'm aware of at the moment is Hammer of Wisdom, but I'm told there are others. The hammer has a useful ability to knock down a foe, but using this ability will dispel the hammer regardless of when you used the skill.

Nice seeing that spirit hammer do more than give me an interrupt once a minute

Finally we share two skill types with warriors: shouts and signets. Same basic functionality for these. Shouts either buff allies or debuff foes. Signets provide a passive bonus with an additional effect when used, but this will disable the passive bonus for a time similar to activating a virtue. The actual selection available varies from the warrior list however. Some examples include Hold The Line, a shout that gives Protection and Regeneration to allies, and Signet of Wrath which causes nearby foes to burn passively and will burn and blind a target when activated.

Oh yeah, forgot about signets in the warrior post. Didn't get the info on them until I saw that stack of notes Med turned in with his engineer research. So to sum everything up, while the guardian has some additional abilities you're not used to working with, in general it's still fairly similar to the paladin?

It's hard to give a definitive answer without any first-hand experience, but based on what I've found so far, that would be the case. Any paladin looking to move to a similar profession would not be completely overwhelmed by the guardian. While there's still quite a bit of new information to process, it's likely the shortest learning curve available out of all of the professions I've seen and my personal choice for profession out of the seven we've seen so far.

Thanks for the info, Sol. That puts us at three professions down, four (well, five eventually) to go.

Don't forget you need to write something up about healing/tanking/etc.

Oh yeah, there's that too. Guess I should get started on that one while I wait for someone else to finish their profession research. Hopefully that post won't be as much of a novel as these last four.

If any of us write it, that's not particularly likely.