Guard Build

Unless Skewer and Storm strike are musts, I don't see how this wouldn't rock. Let me know what you think...

Guardian Build

You are missing out on +10% critical on power sweeps (your main combo) Crippling thrusts and skewer are also important.

If you are going to be tanking at all, goad and cry of havoc are also important(just 1 point in each).

I would plan on getting either crafted lvl 80 plate or acheronian gear, removing stone skin, then feating down both end-tier trees on polearm side

This is quick and dirty, but build toward this: http://aoc.yg.com/feat-planner?class=20&tpl=200-05,201-01,223-15,224-15,225-15,231-15,238-15,233-11,254-15,240-13,241-15,255-11,227-11,229-12,230-11,249-15,234-11,237-11,4000-25,4001-25,4012-25,4015-21,4002-25,4006-21

And see how it goes. If you find yourself tanky enough, start feathing out of the protection/armor feats. Also improved D stance blows. I will explain later.

Explain yourself NOW bitch!

i didnt click your link to see if its good or not, i am not very knowleged about guards, but from what I was told and heard in vent is there isnt a really good common build between PVP and PVE. You either go PVP, and pick up those skill/traits and go PVE and pick up thos skills/traits. Again the disclaimer being I dont know what those skills are. I typically read the EU forums for builds and what not. They seem to be less egotistic and provide good feedback to each other.

or ask Almexia a tell for his build.

Sorry had to go there! ROFL!!!!!!!

Had to leave for work, otherwise I would have explained.

Why Improved Defensive Stance blows:

Firstly, it only works in D stance(obviously)

Secondly, I've been doing some reading on the subject, and it appears that improved D stance isn't a flat increase in mitigation, even though it looks like it is if you read the feat description.

Say you have 50% mitigation from armor in neutral stance. Feating D stance to 5 looks like it should increase your mitigation to 60%. It will actually increase your mitigation by 10% * (100-mitigation%) or 5% equals to 55% mitigation. Unfeated D stance will increase it by 7% +(100-mitigation%) or 53.5% anyway. 5 points better spent elsewhere unless you are going to be 100% PVE tank. and if you are polearm spec, you aren't a PVE tank anyway(although they hold aggro better, they aren't nearly as tanky).

Improved D Stance becomes worse and worse the better gear you have. Only at 0% mitigation will it actually do what it reads. If you had 100% mitigation, Improved D stance would have no effect at all.

in other words, if you have 30% mitigation, it is 70% of what it reads, if you have 40%, it does 60% of what it reads, etc...

Krig wrote:

Why Improved Defensive Stance blows:

Firstly, it only works in D stance(obviously)

Secondly, I've been doing some reading on the subject, and it appears that improved D stance isn't a flat increase in mitigation, even though it looks like it is.

Say you have 50% mitigation from armor in neutral stance. Feating D stance to 5 looks like it should increase your mitigation to 60%. It will actually increase your mitigation by 10% * (100-mitigation%) or 5% equals to 55% mitigation. Unfeated D stance will increase it by 7% +(100-mitigation%) or 53.5% anyway. 5 points better spent elsewhere unless you are going to be 100% PVE tank.

Improved D Stance becomes worse and worse the better gear you have. Only at 0% mitigation will it actually do what it reads. If you had 100% mitigation, Improved D stance would have no effect at all.

in other words, if you have 30% mitigation, it is 70% of what it reads, if you have 40%, it does 60% of what it reads, etc...

it becomes worst and worst like you said because of your gear. That is because they have a cap on mitigation. They dont want gaurds at 70-80% mitigation to solo tank bosses. Thats the reason why. Once your fully teired out, you wont need improved D stance as much.

Victorious wrote:

Krig wrote:

Why Improved Defensive Stance blows:

Firstly, it only works in D stance(obviously)

Secondly, I've been doing some reading on the subject, and it appears that improved D stance isn't a flat increase in mitigation, even though it looks like it is.

Say you have 50% mitigation from armor in neutral stance. Feating D stance to 5 looks like it should increase your mitigation to 60%. It will actually increase your mitigation by 10% * (100-mitigation%) or 5% equals to 55% mitigation. Unfeated D stance will increase it by 7% +(100-mitigation%) or 53.5% anyway. 5 points better spent elsewhere unless you are going to be 100% PVE tank.

Improved D Stance becomes worse and worse the better gear you have. Only at 0% mitigation will it actually do what it reads. If you had 100% mitigation, Improved D stance would have no effect at all.

in other words, if you have 30% mitigation, it is 70% of what it reads, if you have 40%, it does 60% of what it reads, etc...

it becomes worst and worst like you said because of your gear. That is because they have a cap on mitigation. They dont want gaurds at 70-80% mitigation to solo tank bosses. Thats the reason why. Once your fully teired out, you wont need improved D stance as much.

They re-calculated mitigation after 50%. Theory: They did not put a "Cap" on it, but more a diminishing returns curve. It functions like a cap though, as it would make getting higher mitigation rates harder and harder to get. They probably created a curve where mitigation approaches some arbitrarily chosen rate vs armor. Its hard to explain without a graph.

Theory: Mitigation rates probably approach an arbitrarily chosen mitigation amount(possibly 100%) and an infinite amount of armor. Those with some trig/calculus classes should understand this. I am not going to figure out the formula for this; so don't ask.

I don't even know what MMO this is from, but it gets the idea across. Even though going from 20K to 30K armor is a 50% increase in armor, you only net 10% more mitigation. going from 0 to 10K armor is a 40% difference. 20K to 30K is still very significant, and should not be ignored, just taken into consideration when building your character.

A good rule of thumb, expect about 50% of what the tooltip says for Improved Defensive stance, at level 80.

I can explain more if you like, but this is your quick and dirty rule.

I like stone/iron skin because it is effective whatever stance you are in, so it is functional 100% of the time, and increases with level instead of becoming less and less effective.

Pure PVE tank, improved D stance may be better vs iron/stone skin, but that's something I am not going to test.

Defensive stance DOES increase your protection factor though.

Here's what Joe is running:
Giddeon's Build

My idea for full pvp build (only ran after gear is acquired):
Kureigu PvP build

This is what I'm thinking for a pve build until I get gear:
Kureigu PvE build

without knowing much about the class, I would do something like this: Kintano PVP build .