How to Buff Guardian

(hawkeyeguy99) #1

So I think Guardian is in an actually pretty good place right now after playing a couple of matches with her. (I didn’t buy her right away) But I think she’s in need of a small boost to her kit to be a better pick in matches because she doesn’t currently reach her potential with the kit she has. So her biggest problems in my opinion are her lack of distance protection (her sky shield is very close quarters) and her lack of any regen on health. Here’s my proposed fixes:

  1. Allow skyshield to be mobile.
    Much like Kira’s laser, Guardian should be able to throw down sky shield and then tell it to move to a certain location (just like the teaser that was released on Twitter). This allows her to remain hidden, and still protect her teammates from behind cover. It wouldn’t break the game at all, but it would allow for further options in the ability.

  2. Decrease the time till personal health regen and make it faster.
    Allow Guardian to start regenerating health faster than other mercs, and let her get it back slightly faster. She doesn’t have good sustain for the fact that she needs to be close to the front line to be useful. (especially on EV maps) To have faster health regen would allow her to be more viable as the front line protector she is made it be.

Thoughts?

(woodchip) #2

Moveable skyshield is not a great idea. That minimizes what already little decision making goes into using it.

I definitely think Guardian should have toughness as a passive. But one major problem with this is ‘elegance’. Guardian already has a special passive. Giving her 2 would probably feel pretty weird.

Honestly, I would rather she just had some kind of healing mechanic. I cannot get over a medic that needs to be the third medic on her team. It could even be very slight: like have her drone heal the nearest injured ally at the rate of passive regen.

There’s no question that her dome is strong enough to make her viable on certain maps. The entire issue to me is that in her current state she produces a situation where 3/5ths of a team come from 1/5th of the roster. The way her Rez works, she actually has positive synergy with other medics. (Not only do other medics fill the gaping gaps in her kit, her high HP + ranged rez makes her an extremely strong 3rd medic). Also I really dislike the feeling of being punished for locking her in as my medic in casual games when no one else decides to heal.

feels bad man. Although hurtsall is fun to shoot and Skyhammer is fun to cuck.

(Sorotia) #3

Why would they do that? All they know how to do is nerf except in the case of Proxy and the pub scrubs.

But back on topic…better health regen and removing the cooldown on her revive would be my two biggest wishes.

(Press E) #4

Honestly she needs to be made into a practical medic, so she can become a viable choice in actual competitive matches, instead of just playing a different actual medic. As it is, it feels like she was only playtested by assault mains, rather than actual medics. And DB definitely doesn’t need more assault oriented mercs…

As a medic main ever since I started playing DB, having more than one teammate die close together is fairly rare, and it only happens a few times each game, compared to how many times two players will die at the same time, but in different locations. Because of this, an AoE revive isn’t really as much of a major ability as guardian makes it out to be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a neat idea, but it needs something else to back it up.
For whatever reason, the devs decided to give the AoE revive a cooldown. As I said, having more than one teammate die close together is rare enough, and a cooldown not only leaves you stuck doing nothing if a teammate dies farther away, but also encourages useless 30 HP tap revives, because she gets a bigger cooldown the longer she charges it. Sure, tap revives can work on other medics that can actually heal you after, but guardian can’t.

Her range is also a major issue I’ve noticed. Not so much for her, but for other medics. Being able to revive at range is, primarily, spark’s entire draw. She doesn’t need another person to take her place, and another reason not to play her. But beyond that, because there’s no indication that guardian is preparing to revive a teammate besides her glove (that you can rarely even notice), it means your teammates have no idea what you’re doing. An aura could be rushing over there with a full defib charge, only to be beaten by a 30 hp revive from a guardian half way across the map. Sure this isn’t so much of an issue if your team communicates well, but that doesn’t happen very often.

As for her drone, one of the big things I noticed in her trailers, was that the drone seemed that it was intended to be used proactively. See an airstrike marker? Throw down a drone. This is also reinforced with her guardian angel ability. But because the drone takes so long to deploy, it’s usually not very helpful. The drone as it is, is more of a preventative measure. No one with half a brain will throw anything at a drone while it’s up, they’ll just wait. This means that guardian doesn’t actually get much XP, because she’s not actively disabling anything, merely delaying its use in the first place. And because her revive is so broken and she really doesn’t have any other abilities that can bring in XP, she usually doesn’t get very high in the scoreboard.

Now, that’s a lot of ranting. What would I actually propose be done about it?

  1. No cooldown on her AoE revive, or one similar to spark’s revivr, that only gets triggered if the charge is held too long. This is the biggest issue with her currently, and as long as it exists, she’ll never be a practical choice for a medic.
  2. Massively reduce the range she can place an AoE bubble, or just make it into a phoenix pulse type bubble, tied to herself.
  3. Significantly reduced deploy time on her drone, but perhaps in exchange, a smaller area of coverage.
  4. Increased XP for disabling items, as well as XP for deployables/objective/mercs/etc that are shielded inside her dome. For example, points for throwing a drone over the EV or a cluster of teammates, meaning she’ll get XP for preventing the use of projectiles in the first place, not just when she destroys one.
(ImSploosh) #5

I don’t want to see any more passive abilities. They added that terrible passive ability to Guardian which lets her see airstrikes and Kira’s laser indicator better, but in turn that made it buff the laser somewhat. I just don’t want to see a nerf to the laser simply because of that ability. People complain they can’t see the indicator or have no idea when it’s coming down.

I mean, I personally don’t have a problem, but I’m Kiratana til I die so I don’t want her touched <3

(Sorotia) #6

@ImSploosh said:
I don’t want to see any more passive abilities. They added that terrible passive ability to Guardian which lets her see airstrikes and Kira’s laser indicator better, but in turn that made it buff the laser somewhat. I just don’t want to see a nerf to the laser simply because of that ability. People complain they can’t see the indicator or have no idea when it’s coming down.

I mean, I personally don’t have a problem, but I’m Kiratana til I die so I don’t want her touched <3

Or maybe they can fix it lol

Funny I didn’t hear a warning for the Arty strike right on top of me but seconds later while I’m on the ground I can hear a warning for the Arty strike 40 feet away.

(Meerkats) #7

I disagree with Skyshield being mobile; it’s already a pretty good ability and doesn’t need an effectiveness buff. That said, it hardly generates any exp., so an exp. generation buff would be appreciated, maybe converting exp. an opponent would receive into appropriate exp. at a diminished rate ( preventing 40 damage to a player results in 20 support exp., preventing 100 damage to an objective results in 50 objective exp. ).

I also really don’t like passive Guardian angel and would like the changes associated with it ( markers being more difficult to spot for other mercs ) reverted entirely.

Since Guardian’s kinda motif is drones, maybe give her a healing drone that she can attach to another a friendly player that heals them passively, like Zenyatta’s orbs. Releases a constant stream of nanites or whatev. Less effective than a health station, but enough to keep them topped off when they aren’t taking direct fire; maybe 16 HP / s. Then, when the drone runs out of nanites after ten seconds, it self-destructs, performing a burst of 40 HP immediate healing.

An ability like this has good synergy with players who flank, permitting them to receive some support even while away from the team, and really synergizes with light mercs who receive a greater percentage of their health in total healing.

Essentially, I would like Guardian to have some form of healing, but Skyshield is already a good ability, so it would be dumb to give her a good healing ability. However, there’s no point in giving her an useless ability, so I’d like her to receive an useful, though not necessarily good and fairly limited, niche healing ability.

With that in mind, the healing drone would have tons of restrictions: the healing done should scale ( non-linearly; Thunder receives 10% per tick at 16 HP / s., Kira might receive 12% per tick @ 12 HP / s. ) with total HP healed to benefit light mercs somewhat less. Moreover, only one healing drone can be active at once, and the drone deactivates if it travels too far from the originating Guardian, preventing the drone from supporting very deep flanks ( though the time limit in itself should be enough ). The drone’s healing should not stack with other sources of healing, and has a cooldown between uses.

As for her drone, one of the big things I noticed in her trailers, was that the drone seemed that it was intended to be used proactively. See an airstrike marker? Throw down a drone. This is also reinforced with her guardian angel ability. But because the drone takes so long to deploy, it’s usually not very helpful.
That would be a reactive use, and Skyshield does come up fast enough to block an airstrike.

(pumpkinmeerkat) #8

Her revive feels clunky and slow compared to other medics. Only seems useful when last alive after a firefight to revive multiple friendlies. She’d be more useful with a heal ability than a revive IMO but I doubt that will change.

Sky Shield is super useful but I think it should remain active until destroyed with a longer CD to incentivize better placement and make it a better defensive tool. Forcing gunplay by zoning out explosives is only a good thing IMO - shouldn’t be limited time only.

I actually think a larger version of the sky shield could be a secondary objective type build-able for attackers. Could zone out an area away from the secondary objective from air support. If SD aren’t going to tone down explosives it would be nice to have more ways to counter them.

(Artyrim) #9

Played a match as Fragger vs 3 Guardian in team, and her ability is already annyoing .A Guardian in a good team can be useful if paired with aura,rhino, turtle and bushguy. Buffing with health ability will make her better than other medics .

@Sorotia said:
Why would they do that? All they know how to do is nerf except in the case of Proxy and the pub scrubs.

Pfff… Proxy is op. If you talk about mines then Yes mines that can be heard,seen,destroyed and for blind people there is even an augment are just too op compared to granades and other shits

(woodchip) #10

I forgot to bash the revive. The lack of healing makes the revive feel very… uncomfortable to use. With most medics underfire you go for the tap and then heal, but you really don’t want to do that solohealing as guardian, so you go for charges more often that leads to more failed rezzes, which of course feels awful.

Also being on the receiving end of a guardian tap heal and having 30 HP and no healer in sight is super feelsbad. And then as has been discussed to death pulling off a charged heal only for someone else to die and now your on CD feels awful too.

Guardian is frankly a design mistake. She’s actually very strong when you stack her with a bunch of other healers, because both her abilities strongly synergize with healer turtles. There isn’t actually much room to buff her because of this comp-dependent upside. And of course the 3x-4x healer comp is not desirable from a design point of view.

Meanwhile she cannot fill her role and is truly painful both to play and to play with as a solo medic. Everything about her medic role feels anemic and gimped. Ultimately, she’s still a fast Merc with an AR, which in DB will always be fun, but her actual kit adds very little fun value aside from the guilty pleasure of effortlessly hardcountering level 10 skyhammers.

This is why I am very glad the PTS is opening up so we can try to stop feelsbad design in the future. At least it only took 2 big Merc release misfires for SD to start making process changes.

Guardian is so messed up at a conceptual level I almost wish she was made into an engineer. A hardcountery medic, who is especially good at protecting turtles, that starts out awful and gets better the more medics you have on your team. Like, come on now. I know we’re working with people who originally put Javelin out to the PTS with no charge time on her rocket but… get smarter, I guess?.

Screw it let’s end this rant with another rediculous rant.

Make Guardian an engineer.

Take away her rez.

Add a healing mode to her drone. Guardian can either use drone in shield form or as a healing zenyatta orb, making her a good hybrid support character for low throughput healers like Sparks.

Nerf HP to 100.

#11
  • Passive health regeneration as an innate ability for herself or within her shield for the team.
  • Revive pulse cooldown dependent on the amount of teammates revived rather than the charge. No cooldown for a single revive.
  • 10 more health or 10 more speed.

That’s all I think would be necessary.

(Press E) #12

I think she’s fine without a healing ability personally, and that’s coming from a medic main.
Any decent medic knows that revives are more important than healing in most cases. If a medic has a good revive ability, they won’t really need to heal teammates. That’s the concept behind sparks anyways, and it’s why she’s sometimes used in ranked with no proper healing merc. There’s no reason guardian can’t be the same.
Not being able to heal herself also provides an interesting tactical tradeoff. On one hand, guardian is designed to be assaulty and help push objectives. But not being able to heal herself means that she’s limited in that regard, and still has to rely on her team, while keeping them alive with revives.

@Wintergreen said:

  • Passive health regeneration as an innate ability for herself or within her shield for the team.
  • Revive pulse cooldown dependent on the amount of teammates revived rather than the charge. No cooldown for a single revive.
  • 10 more health or 10 more speed.

That’s all I think would be necessary.

I really hope SD doesn’t add any more passive abilities tbh. I’d rather something that actively requires the player’s focus and concentration, instead of more easy noob abilities.

Having a cooldown for more than one revive doesn’t make much sense either. It still leaves the potential of not being able to revive a teammate, and it’s such a niche thing that I’m not even sure why a cooldown would be required at all.
If there absolutely had to be a cooldown, I’d tie it to her range though. The further you are from your revive, the larger the cooldown, with no cooldown for close range revives. Sparks is supposed to be the ranged medic, and guardian is indirectly nerfing her by taking a major part of her job away. Although as I said in my comment, I’d rather they just remove the range and cooldown altogether.

Her health and speed are fine imo. If anything I think I’d actually reduce her health slightly. She’s fairly fast, and she should have the health to match that, sort of like kira. More 100 HP mercs would be nice to have anyways. DB definitely doesn’t need any more assault mercs, so making her slightly less tanky in terms of HP would make me happy.

#13

@STARRYSOCK I get your point about the passives, but what about it being only a thing within the shield or within a certain vicinity of Guardian? That’s somewhat active if it requires players to track her or go seek shelter in the shield, especially if it’s delayed. Similar to how Javelin’s ammo works. I think some amount of healing could benefit her. Now that time has passed she feels a bit misplaced.

(Your worst knifemare.) #14

+10 hp on revives

(Press E) #15

@Lord_Coctus said:
+10 hp on revives

That could be a cool concept actually. Revive a teammate to heal yourself. I definitely wouldn’t mind that.

It could also apply to other mercs too. Get a kill, get ammo or restore your abilities a bit, etc.

(GatoCommodore) #16

i still vote on the 1hp per second under her dome
or, give -5 damage from all source while under the dome

(Your worst knifemare.) #17

@STARRYSOCK said:

@Lord_Coctus said:
+10 hp on revives

That could be a cool concept actually. Revive a teammate to heal yourself. I definitely wouldn’t mind that.

It could also apply to other mercs too. Get a kill, get ammo or restore your abilities a bit, etc.

I meant her teamates get 10 extra hp, though I like your version more.

(Szakalot) #18

i was also thinking: small heal (5hp tap, 15hp full charge) for Guardian whenever she revives someone. More HP for multiple revives

Its hardly gamebreaking (its not common to get more than 10-20 revives in a game), but would give her that needed sustain, doesn’t stack with heavyheal combos and make for a cool playstyle between offensive AR plays and passive Guarding and Healing to get some HP back up

(CombatMist) #19

@Lord_Coctus said:
+10 hp on revives

You mean get up perk for +9 on tap and +30 on full charge? The HU52 is the answer to all her reviving problems. If supplies was not broken that may as well. Get up + recharge is amazing synergy. Also recharge works for both abilities. The max normal cool down on bionic pulse if you hold it longer than needed indefinitely is 10 seconds. So 10 is treated as the cool down so recharge always regardless of the charge time reduces 1 second. This makes a tap take only 2 seconds on cool down and can revive to 100 in about 1 second charge with about a 3-4 second cool down. Which is quite reasonable. 100 hp revive is a healthy amount for mercs with 120 or less hp. Because of get up you dont need to charge as long and it charges faster which means less cool down. WIN and win. This work for me all the time. Like phoenix you do a short charge if low on time

(Theatrum) #20

I think her problem is that she is just too defensive. She has very little versatility. If her sky shield also destroyed enemy deployables such as turtles shield she would become a bit more useful in a range of situations. Rather than being purely reactionary.

Her heal needs to have no cooldown or something greatly reduced. She currently gets alerts for hurt mercs but no way to help them until they are downed.

There could be other options such as making her drone or revive heal or give ammo but I think this just keeps her in the same box she’s already in.