your opinion about guards.

[licho]

Hi,
I would give copper for a though about guards.
Which one you use, how useful you find them, do u swap guards from some reason? Do u consider guards something worth thinking off or its actually filler which sometimes happens, but never worth thinking off.

The best response is from ppl who use some, and can tell if they liked it or not.

So far i played only with earthgrab on wizard and do not like it (eg, wizard is cool) since it has quite low proc rate, and i do not play in close combat that often.

[Sirea]

For tank types that'll get hit a lot, Disintegrate and Lightning Strike are probably the best. Following that are Corrosive Salt and Crushing Wave. I happen to like Incineration Guard, even on resistant mobs it hits for a decent amount, but there are many end-game mobs that are immune to fire, so that lessens it's usefulness.

For defensive-type guards, I like Earthgrab, Enervation, Radiance, and Freezing Ice. Air guard can be fun as well.

As far as usefulness, it really all depends on your playstyle and your character's purpose. I'd read up on some of the various guards here and see if there's any you think would be useful for what your characters usually do.

[Pape_27]

I use two guards

1) Airguard - good for knocking opponents down and getting a nice 30 hast boost every once in awhile

2) Bracers of the Galcier/Cold Shield Guard - it procs quite often and is a nice likke damage reduction guard and adds a little bit of damage.

[Claymorep]

It depends on what class and role You are playing...

Considersations on guards depend if You are an ac build or not and if You takes a tons of hits like aggro-melees or a try to don't be hit like a casters, rogues, aa or healers.
For example guards on ac builds or always under displacement run-away-as-fast-as-you-can casters are near useless (whats the purpose to don't to be hit and have 3-4 guards that broke when You will be hit?)
In past there were a good combo between intimi dr absorpion tank (not ac) that reducing damage in turtle mode was anyway able to dps using 4-6 guards.

For example a good guard for a ranger, rogue or any melee with some sneak attack extra damage it's absolutely a radiace that helps a lot (normally a rogue use radiance gs weapons too).

Another good guard for melees is earthgrab for criticals amplifications and for a gs item it have the nice appealing to be a single shard.

A common guard is air guard for the same earth appealing above and the very good % of happening (very usefull on solo players, but near useless on casters and bards that can be constantly be under haste, not so good for the trip part as even if it broke 10% of times You have to hope in a 1 rolled by mob)

A damage dealing good guard is corrosive salt that don't suffer near any kind of resistance.

In past a good guard was lighting for the scenografic flavor combo of 2 lighting weapons and a guard item while nowadays ca 600 damage is not so good vs epic mobs and the % (2,5%) is too low.

Nowadays it depends a lot from Your play environment (read epic/non epic) cause in epic environment mobs hit hard and You have to beat them down so fast that they don't have time to deal more than 2-3 hits so a great guard has become the radiance that causes mobs to walk around and use no target attacks. If You have rooms (gs) for other guards an earthgrab can be usefull, for the rest it's only a matter of what epic items You have.

Clearly the discussion can take in consideration any single class and play style but I think it will become a bit too long

Personally I have:
Pally dps: Radiance, air and incineration on red armor
Ranger aa: Radiance, air, magma on red helm and incineration on red armor (corrosive and wave guard on dt)
Fvs caster: Radiance, air and poison on envenomed cloack

[Arasimaru]

Earthgrab. At least for all my melees. They get hit enough to see it proc at least once per fight, assuming our caster doesn't hold everything instantly. +50% damage for me tends to be better than most guard price, except the biggest ones.
I like air guard for leveling though. Yay haste!

Conc opp probably works well for casters too. Haven't tried it yet, but have heard many good things.

[FuzzyDuck81]

My thoughts, based on experience:

Air: occasional knockdown of enemies or a self-haste, very handy on my battleclonk & FvS.. relatively cheap GS to make & includes a 3xhaste clicky too. Love it, seems to proc pretty often.

Radiance: occasional light damage & blind attackers... use it from time to time on my FvS since theres a good chance the debuff wil proc too so it does a little extra damage & then they subsequently have less chance to hit me - a nice one & seems to proc fairly often.

Enervation: Procs occasionally, is a nice one to have.

Freezing ice guard: pretty low proc rate but is nice to immobilise an enemy thats attacking - no helplessness bonus to damage though which is a shame.

Earth guard: similar to freezing ice but makes them helpless so your retaliatory attacks will take them down that much faster.. a very nice one. 3x earth greensteel is another relatively cheap one too & will also let you summon the dense earth elly as a handy decoy & support summon.

Disintegrate: low proc rate, but has saved me a couple of times when i've been tripped & then the attacker has been spontaneously disintegrated

Ooze: nice to lower enemies AC & its fun to have a few puddings around.

earthen: having a stoneskin appear from time to time when you get hit, (even by ranged attacks) is a very handy little bit of damage mitigation. Seems to proc fairly often too.

Corrosive salt: seems to proc fairly often & damage appears to be untyped

Concordant Opposition (procs on being hit so is technically a guard): come on, you dont know how good this one is? really?

overall, guards are obviously best if you're actually getting hit otherwise theyre just sitting there - melees benefit most naturally, however they can all be situationally useful. My personal favourites are effect guards rather than damage type ones since they'll be useful without the risk of drawing unwanted aggro, or damaging things when you dont want them to (certain quests, or if you have to kill things in a limited timeframe).

[Jevern]

You're probably thinking the proc rate is low because you get hit way less often than the melee who are in the middle of all the chaos swinging their weapons. I find earthgrab guard pretty useful on my fighter. My rogue loved radiance guard and air guard before she TR-ed as well. Basically, anything that prevented me from getting hit and giving me more damage on mobs with my weapons. I haven't tried the less-damage-but-proc-more-often guards yet.

I'd imagine guards would be more useful to your melee toons (if you have any) rather than caster toons though. With the exception of concordant opposition, which is a nice caster item.

As for guard swapping, usually I don't do it. It's a nice bonus effect on my greensteel items, particularly because none are dual shard items - They're useful when they proc, and I didn't have to sacrifice five or six LDS for them because I simply don't have that many. My rogue's radiance guard came from her DT. It's worth noting that I don't have any guards that actually proc *damage* though, cuz you'd need to take those off in HoX. And when you have mobs that cleave but don't want their attention, I suppose.

[Carpone]

Guards are an ancillary benefit, not the primary reason you obtain certain gear. For example, I didn't craft the Epic Envenomed Cloak for the Poison Guard, or the Epic Boots of Corrosion for the Disintegration Guard. Even as a tank where you're expected to get hit alot, guards are not all that useful.

[Templarion]

1) Airguard - good for knocking opponents down and getting a nice 30 hast boost every once in awhile

I tried Air guard through 2 lives. After those I changed it to Destruction.

After all, GS haste clicky is easy to create and after you have 2-3 of those you don't need haste buff from Air Guard. In addition, the trip is too often saved by the mobs. In my opinion, the trip from Air Guard should not have the saving throw - like blindness from Radiance. Atm, trip doesn't usually happen, when it does it lasts only very short time and you don't get auto-crit or anything fancy like that.

Brief: Air guard is useless. (Details above. If you disagree I would like to read the arguments.)

About the topic, I have understood that only tank-types can benefit from guards and they are really needed only in a few raids. Other than tanks should have something else in the place of a guard.

[wootvenu]

I use bracers of glacier on my wiz, proc rate is good and i like it.

[FuzzyDuck81]

I use bracers of glacier on my wiz, proc rate is good and i like it.

Forgot about that one, but got it on my clonk & FvS too & yeah, having that blue fireshield appear from time to time is awesome on any class for damage mitigation... plus it looks nice

[Feralthyrtiaq]

The more you get hit the more guard effects will proc, but you must mitigate the damage from having a lower AC.

Concordant Opposition gives Hp and Sp back when hit and helps a lot to mitigate damage.

My 2Ftr/6Pal/10Monk uses

Conc Op GS
Nightmare Guard Mabar Cloak
Haste/Trip Guard on Sword
Madstone Boots/Earthgrab GS
Corrosive Salt on DT
Stoneskin From Stalwart Trinket

Something procs nearly every fight with an AC usually around 35-40 and the 20% Miss Chance from Mabar Cloak.

[ArloOne]

For me:

Barbarian: Corrosive Salt, Disintegrate

Caster: Earthgrab, Air, Con opp

Rogue: Air, Radiance, Ice

Just what I like.

[SensaiRyu]

Magma guard and Freezing Ice guard on my DT armor.

I think I've seen magma guard proc once - since lvl 18 or so. I'm a first TR and at lvl 20 - for the purpose of figuring out now many times I've been hit... If it procs on a 1% I'm rolling consistently at the other end of the curve.

I've seen ice proc a few times - the most noticeable instance was what appeared to be an AOE, the nearby floor was covered with ice and I had 2 frozen monsters in front of me. Other procs were less dramatic but still noticeable.

Disintegrate guard on one of my other toon's armor procs occasionally and it's definitely nice to see it work.

I would be happier if the proc animations were more distinct... or if I got some scrolling text that said something like, "Dang this magma guard finally worked!" Then I wouldn't be thinking that slotting spell penetration instead (on my pure monk) would be more worthwhile

[Pape_27]

Brief: Air guard is useless. (Details above. If you disagree I would like to read the arguments.)

I can honestly understand where you are coming from based on its proc rate, but I would tend to disagree with you about it being useless.

First, its relatively inexpensive to make, like most single shard recipes.

Secondly, the trip air comes with three 1.5 minute long haste clickies. The FvS i use it on does not have access to an extended haste spell, so its the best haste clickie in the game (and the second best clickie available imo, rez being the number 1).

Thirdly, when it comes to mobs, if you are surrounded by three or four enemies, its a boon to have one of them knocked on their back side.

And lastly, and lol, yes, I do do this, when I run away from mobs and continue to get hit by things like arrows, the 30 haste proc gives you a nice little boost to clear a little more space between you and the trailing mob.

Is it the greatest guard out there? No, but it does what is intended. Would I like to see it proc more? yes I would, but I can live with the low proc rate.

[landofshishio]

Barb :
I use earthgrab quite usefull and slay living guard
SOrc: air guard / Glacier frost guard
Range/barb/fighter : earthgrab/ slay living

[knightgf]

Concordant Opposition (procs on being hit so is technically a guard): come on, you dont know how good this one is? really?

Yeah, its not really that good. I certainly wouldn't rely on it to activate when it does, especially if im low on mana. Drink a pot, rely on echoes of power or get a spellsong vigor instead.

As for other guards...meh, its just the cherry on top of the cake, theres no one guard I find particularly useful, but most of them have their benefits.

[Ulfgaar]

I use Air Guard on most of my characters. My character that I have been working on the most also has Earth Guard. The combo goes of quite a bit.

[grodon9999]

Guards are an ancillary benefit, not the primary reason you obtain certain gear. For example, I didn't craft the Epic Envenomed Cloak for the Poison Guard, or the Epic Boots of Corrosion for the Disintegration Guard. Even as a tank where you're expected to get hit alot, guards are not all that useful.

100% agree. They do not proc enough to give noticeably good DPS and there's often something better to slot in it's place. it's kinda cool when they go off, but I wouldn't waste mats crafting guards.

[Sirea]

Yeah, its not really that good. I certainly wouldn't rely on it to activate when it does, especially if im low on mana. Drink a pot, rely on echoes of power or get a spellsong vigor instead.

As for other guards...meh, its just the cherry on top of the cake, theres no one guard I find particularly useful, but most of them have their benefits.

Con-Op is best when paired with the Torc. If you have the HP, damage mitigation, and self-healing capabilities to deal with several mobs beating on you, Torc + Con-Op can be a very effective way to regain mana. When my PM wizard solos Sins of Attrition I typically will gather up 10-20 mobs and let them pound on me for 20 seconds or so, typically such a method gains me a few hundred SP before I cast a Wail and go on my merry way. I never have to use the shrines or potions.

I do agree with the others about guards being a secondary benefit to some GS items. For example, if you are looking to craft a HP item, you can look at what you can craft and if you have the ingredients you can make something that will come with a decent guard. But the +45 HP is the primary reason to make it. The guard is an indirect benefit.