forum.playrohan.com

**edited 4/13/10..still going through some edits but I’ve at least begun to bring it up to date ^.^**

A lot of the other class forums seem to have guides for classes, so I feel like it's about time we have one dedicated thread to the Guardian class. I know a lot about the class as I have played both a strength build and a dexterity build both with very good gears. I also have witnessed first hand the strengths and weaknesses of both builds as I PvP a lot =)

**These views are just my opinions and are based on my personal experiences. As always, your opinions are welcome should you decide to share them.**

Alright, on to the good stuff:

Base Stats
Strength Build: Most people follow a 3:1 strength to vit build or a full strength build. You can opt to set a base vitality of around 50-100 or so (both are less than 1 vit per level) if you choose, but I wouldn’t go any higher than ~125 base vit which is I think almost exactly 1 vit per level.

Dex Build: This build is often referred to as a cash-user's build as it is incredibly gear-dependent. I don't suggest using a full dex build, but instead a 3:1, 4:2, 6:2 dex to vit stat distribution. With the addition of crafted accessories, a full dex build or 1 vit per level up to level 50 or so is becoming more feasible.

Hybrid Build: This is the most arguably the most powerful build for a Guardian. It is centered around the idea of “constant white hits with devastating crits.” The main end game stat build is 100 base dex and the rest strength. I believe this results in adding 1 dex/rest strength per level up until level 76 or 86…I forget what default dex is haha. With a crit sword you can deal out some great damage at the cost of being very squishy with the lack of damage drop 100% of the time. This is combated by most of us Hybrids by carrying a damage drop sword of some kind as well as our crit sword. I personally prefer carrying melee/crit and HP/dd swords, but it takes experience to know when to switch off the damage drop to go for the kill without getting caught with it on. A good dhan or templar will make very quick work of you if you are caught without damage drop on…so be cautious.

A less gear-reliant build would be 2:1:1 str:dex:vit per level until you are comfortable with your amount of vitality/dexterity, then just start pumping strength. The point of a hybrid build is to crit though…so a crit sword is highly recommended. The only difference between hybrids and dex builds is that we deal damage on hits we don’t crit as well, but also crit for less damage. It’s a choice of constant dps vs random-ish crit spike damage if you look at hybrid vs dex.

Skills
The base Human skill tree looks vastly different for both builds. Starting with the absolute minimum, these are what they should look like:

Strength Knight:
5 Imbue
1 Taunt
5 Rising Might
5 Sharpen Blade
1 Invoke

Dex Knight:
5 Imbue
1 Taunt
5 Protection
1 Psychic Crash
5 Crash Above
1 Sharpen Blade
5 Invoke
5 Bless Shield
5 Charge

Psychic Crash and Crash Above are HIGHLY recommended as even towards end game you end up having a pretty ridiculous amount of free points...I just suggest getting this as every Dex Guardian IMO should have this possible 3rd stun. You don't have to level it right away in order to save points for the Guardian tree (mainly because you use a lot of points on the Knight tree as it is), but it's definitely a must-have by end game IMO.

Hybrid Knight:
5 Imbue
1 Taunt
5 Rising Might
5 Sharpen Blade
5 Invoke

The only difference between a Hybrid build and a Strength build on the first tree is Invoke. It's a must-max for the Hybrid build, while the Strength build doesn't really utilize it at all.

Now, as a strength build myself, I highly suggest putting 5 points into Sharpen Blade. When you turn 50 and get Sword Mastery, these are amazing buffs to have on that help greatly with PvP against players close to your level (not to mention PvE, too). I have said this so many times before, but weapon damage is one of the most underrated things in this game. Many players try to be 'cheap' and save points for the more flashy skills like Order Swing and Crazy Standing...but with this bare minimum build you will have plenty of points to max all of the necessary skills on the Guardian tree as soon as they become available.

Why not Protection? This buff has actually seen a great increase with the addition of enhanced armor. I’m not 100% sure if the increased base armor values are factored into this buff, but either way this buff drops physical damage a pretty good amount – enough to heavily consider getting it. I will label this buff as optional, but if you can spare some points for it, definitely grab it.

On to the Guardian tree...

Strength Guardian:
5 Sword Mastery
1 Taunt Roar
5 Rush
5 War Cry
5 Crazy Strength
1 Final Crash
5 Crazy Standing
3-5 Blue Drain
5 Order Swing
5 Heavy Weapon
5 Crit Aura
1 Roha's Blessing
5 Knight Symbol
5 Stone Skin

Skills that should be maxed as you get them: Rush, Crazy Strength, Crazy Standing, Order Swing

Dex Guardian:
5 Physical Blow
1 Taunt Roar
5 Rush
5 War Cry
1 Crazy Strength
1 Final Crash
5 Crazy Standing
1 Blue Drain
5 Order Swing
5 Heavy Weapon
5 Crit Aura
1 Roha's Blessing
5 Stone Skin

Skills that should be maxed as you get them: Physical Blow, Rush, Crazy Standing, Order Swing, Crit Aura

Hybrid Guardian:
5 Sword Mastery
5 Physical Blow
1 Taunt Roar
5 Rush
5 War Cry
5 Crazy Strength
1 Final Crash
5 Crazy Standing
3-5 Blue Drain
5 Order Swing
5 Heavy Weapon
5 Crit Aura
1 Roha's Blessing
5 Knight Symbol
5 Stone Skin

Skills that should be maxed as you get them: Rush, Crazy Strength, Crazy Standing, Order Swing

These are still just the basic skill builds to follow. Throughout all my time spent doing PvP, I rarely wish for a longer duration of Roha's Blessing, yet love Stone Skin being maxed due to how it lasts for the entire duration of Order Swing. If you wish to have Roha's Blessing do the same, level 3 lasts for 30 seconds. With these skill distributions, there will be plenty of points left over at level 62 and above to work on the rest of your tree to make your character fit your playing style.

Accessories
I strongly suggest crafting your own accessories or having a friend craft them for you in exchange for crafted weapons or armors. The craft system is very strong early on in this game all around and should be utilized. If you aren’t lazy you can craft yourself a set of your own accessories when you reach ~5 levels higher than the required level. I say ~5 because mobs aggroing you while you’re gathering is a pain in the ass to deal with, but definitely try and get in crafted accessories all game long. It helps with the dex problem, pdef problem (extra vitality), and gives you some nice strength bonuses that are otherwise hard to find at the early levels especially.

If you don’t opt to go this route (don’t know why you wouldn’t, it’s free to do just a little time consuming but definitely worth it), then stick with either +strength, +dex, or +vitality accessories. When you hit level 50-60, you should definitely either already be in crafted accessories or be using Wings of Solemn Death (15str, 15dex, 15vit).

Weapons
Strength/Hybrid: Definitely try to use the crafted weapons early on up until about level 70 or so (depending on how far you want to refine your 4th tier gear). If you can afford it, socket them with the attack power option as well as attack speed, crit, and HP leech. The 18% HP leech option is 2nd most important socket in my opinion simply because it puts you at such an advantage in PvE. You don’t need great armor in order to be able to level in spots that would otherwise be too hard for your level. I think around level 30 I was able to do the entrance of R1 with ease self buffed simply because I was leeching back so much HP per hit.

After level 65-70, you should be looking for weapons with melee attack + strength, dexterity, or vitality (or health percentage). Melee attack is the main option, but it will cost you a lot more if you have a bonus stat with it (which also means they’re worth more if you find one and want to sell it).

There has been a lot of talk lately about what is the best option to put on a forged sword…and my answer to that is that it is purely personal preference. My advice would be to assess your playing style and act accordingly. For example, if you want an offensive weapon option and are a pure strength build, crit option probably isn’t the best for you. You might fair better off with attack speed or weapon attack. Surely if you’re a dex build you’re not going to want to add damage drop as your main option simply because you can’t kill anything without crits!

If you have an ancient sword, you should enhance it to at least +5 if not further as the extra damage helps in PvP. It’s not as noticeable in PvE but certainly couldn’t hurt

Dex: All weapons (daggers) should be made with +dex or a mix of +dex and +vit and should be using 4 crit option items when forging the unique. Playing a dex build with anything but a unique critical percentage dagger is just flat out painful and I do not suggest it.

Armor
All Guardians should be looking for +physical defense armor. The higher you can get it, the better. Until about level 60 or so, crafted armor sets are really nice and free to make (as I said before, just time consuming) and they actually out-perform their unique counterparts. If you opt to go the normal armor route, try to enchant your armor if you have extras and enhance them to +5. The difference in pdef is huge because the pdef bonus is “pure” defense as opposed to “inflated” defense, but that is an entire debate by itself. Every little bit helps but if I remember correct you only get +1 bonus pdef for every level enhanced on Enchanted Froianne so I’m not really sure if that’s even worth the effort On Enchanted Bedron, enhancing a full set makes a huge difference.

Which pet should I use?
Any Guardian should be focused on using the right pet for the right situation. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t focus on leveling just one of them up (as it takes a lot of time!), but if you want to be mobile you should choose a Soft Kahto. If you want to be able to take a few more hits, try out a Molly or a Honey Bear. Ultimately, the fused pets blow any other pets in the game out of the water so if you can afford it you should focus on getting one of those as soon as possible. The two most popular are the Fairy and the Lion.

Tigers have kind of been phased out as a main pet to use these days. I don’t see them often anymore (even on dhans and dex Guards) as a Molly helps so much with survivability, and a Lion gives some decent survivability as well as some offensive power with the attack speed bonus. It’s hard to do damage if you’re not alive!!

PvP!
The essential skills to PvP are Rush, Crazy Standing, and Order Swing. There's much more to being a successful Guardian in PvP, but as you play you must learn through your own experiences how to play your character well. There is very little I can tell any Guardian to help them improve in PvP other than practice. I got plenty of advice from a fellow Guardian in my guild, but none of it was of any use to me until I was able to go PvP every day against a rival guild.

The best piece of advice I can give is to know your opponent. It's useless to go after somebody who you hit 4's on, so if you are out-matched you can simply help out in group PvP with your stuns, War Cry, and Heavy Weapon instead of being a main killer. Otherwise, just go after the people you know you can kill within a single rush...or help stack stuns on more powerful players in order to drop them with a team effort.

The most important thing to remember about your character is that this game is based around group PvP. If you are into duels, that's cool...and you can build your character that way. All I'm trying to say is don't look at a build and come up with a billion counters to it and then think it sucks..because the truth is, half of it is just theory anyway. I see people in other forums question certain aspects of builds because of the 7 million counters to a certain skill...but that's why this game IS balanced. Any build is countered and it's important to play your character to its strengths and not its weaknesses.

--About Blue Drain:
First of all, you all know I wouldn’t have edited this guide without including this skill as the best skill we have (strength/hybrid Guards at least)…so I couldn’t resist. My advice is to take it up to whatever level past 3 that you are comfortable with. A level 1 Blue Drain isn’t going to full drain anybody unless you have a stupid amount of melee (I’m talking like 11k+ which isn’t 24/7 achievable), however a level 6-7 Blue Drain will full drain pretty much anybody outside of psy-based characters with just self buffs (which IS 24/7 achievable…provided you didn’t just get debuffed lol).

Shield?
For a Dex build, a shield is an absolute necessity.

For Strength/Hybrid builds, once again this depends on your playing style. If you're somebody who wants to just go full out offensive, use a dagger in your off-hand. If you want a little bit more survivability as well as the extra stun, go for the shield. It is possible to become a very good Guardian with either route, but I suggest having both a dagger and a shield in your inventory which you can use at any time.

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Guardians are the most versatile class in the game in my opinion. We can tank, deal respectable damage, and we have some nasty control skills for group PvP. They’re mainly single target (or with War Cry, you gimp yourself pretty hard as well), but they make huge differences in group fights if used on the right person at the right time. You can either save somebody from a sure death or ensure a kill yourself.

edited: 4/13/10

If you have any questions/comments, feel free to post them or you can reach me through PM. I check these forums pretty much every day and will be checking back on this topic as well.

I'll be editing this guide as I think of more stuff to put in it...it's kind of a spur of the moment kind of thing. Didn't really plan it out or anything, heh...so there could be some stuff missing. If you see an issue you would like to discuss, post it and I'll add it in.

maybe boomer can say something about hybrid that would quite interest me

Stopped playing Rohan for a while and never got around to making my Hybrid gear because YNK jipped me on my RP yet again. They charged my credit, but I received no RP. Pretty irritating.

I agree with your point on protection, I cut that out of my guardians build. You should definitely have invoke to level 5+ since crits do wonders with crazy standing + OS. Also you might want to have physical blow for your strength guardian tree, works good with a bear on top.

Those are the basic builds. The Hybrid build is very strong.

Flare wrote:I agree with your point on protection, I cut that out of my guardians build. You should definitely have invoke to level 5+ since crits do wonders with crazy standing + OS. Also you might want to have physical blow for your strength guardian tree, works good with a bear on top.

I maxed Invoke around 70 and I actually maxed Physical Blow right away...instead of being able to max Stone Skin right away. To me, the 20% HP (level 6) is far too valuable to ignore. However, if you're more of an offensive Guardian then you don't really need it. Those 5 points could help me greatly, but meh.

I was just posting the very basic skill builds since people always ask for them. I figured it was easier than going into the advantages/disadvantages of my personal skill build.

How do you feel about getting dex to 50 by level 50 in a strength guardian with sword and dagger? i believe it works out to like every 10 levels add 4 to dex

i personally think that if you're going guardian, you shouldn't just leave it to "imbue"... guardians and defenders get different toggles for a reason, because they stack with other skills they have. you know shield burden right? its annoying moving half as slow. but have you ever been burdened with frozen active? "oh hello mr. snail. wait! slow down, wait for meeeeee!" that sums it up pretty well. -80% mobility.

guardians as you know have heavy weapon, -50% attack speed. its hell to deal with only once in 2 seconds, but add another 30% from darkness and they'll be hating life. even a dagger wielder will be as slow as a zhen, and a dekan will be as pissed as they would if you debuffed dragonform off them, attacking at an incredible 2340 attack speed with no speed boosts.

by the way, level 7 burden and frozen = 100% moblility drop = root effect. and level 7 heavy weapon + darkness = 100% decrease in attack speed = half as many attacks.

blazing and divinity are more of training skills, but still aren't that usefull. you get a 1/13 chance of absorbing 1/11 of the damage you deal, so on average you regen 1/138 of the damage you deal. easily duplicated by adding 1% absorb on your offhand dagger or main weapon or something from a teardrop of edoneh option item. and 1% from an offhand dagger is 1/100, so its even better than that and saves some skillpoints.

however, if you are a pve specialist, then maybe blazing or divinity are more usefull to you. frozen has almost 0 uses in pve. unless you need to run from a monster, which is not likey,. darkness does effect monstes, but they attack so slow anyway, you probably wont notice its effects when they activate.

so in short. blazing and divinity are only for extreme pvers, frozen for defenders, darkness for guardians.


Weapons: Strength: if you run an offhand dagger, it should always be melee attack, regardless of level. remember though that your offhand dagger's stats will be reduced by 80% rounded down, so a 12% melee dagger is only 2%, a 34% dagger only 6%, but that bonus is still incredible. and totally worth it.

Weapons: Dexterity: it is best to make the level 18 unique dagger over and over till you get a satisfactory critical rate, then continue to make new daggers after that trying for better dex or vit bonuses as you go, but critical rate is the most important 6% + is acceptable, but until you get critical aura, you're still going to have a shitty damage rate. in all honesty i'd recommend restating to dex after you get critical aura


as far as accessories go, a good item for a strength guardian to use from 25 and up is the black turpin's chain. this is a VERY scarce item. it can only be obtained by killing the dungeon elite monster "Agony Samantaka" in Black Dragon Sanctuary. stats: 10 strength, 7 dexterity, 100 hp. have a higher level friend get them for you. (2 hour spawn time for agony samantaka, lv 50 monster) even once you get 35 for rings of prodigious power, unless you get eywear or earings with dexterity, you should have 2 rings of prodigous power and 2 black turpin's chains. another drop from this monster is the black turpin's bracelet, 10 dex 7 str 100 hp, which is also a good alternative drop. its third drop is the brooch of agony, 10 agi 7 dex 100 hp, for agility dhans.

KingoftheCoopahs wrote:so in short. blazing and divinity are only for extreme pvers, frozen for defenders, darkness for guardians.

I never really notice the Darkness effect in PvP...I tend to notice Frozen's more. I actually know a dex Guardian on Marea who maxed Blazing and Divinity in order to have 100% resist to either Darkness or Frozen; whichever her opponent is using.

I'd personally advise to just go 5 Frozen and say screw Darkness because it's worthless as a Guardian -- Heavy Weapon is a sure thing and lasts much longer, plus attack speed only matters to Humans, HE's, strength Dekans, and Dhans. Frozen is universally beneficial as everybody uses mobility.

I've said it before...if I could re-skill, I'd use Frozen. However, at the end of the day, it comes down to personal preference and what works best for your playing style. If you're willing to bypass the benefits of an imbue in PvP, go for Blazing or Divinity in order to have 100% resist to your choice of either Darkness or Frozen.