Everytime you press Guard you are not attacking, […] Jesus christ, try harder.
You might want to take your own advice there. There are two components to DPS. Damage and Time (Per Second). Tapping C reduces your S due to not being able to attack during the Active Guard, but tapping C also increases your S due to not having to run back up to the boss that knocked you on your ass, or back off due to taking too much damage. The net result is still a reduction to your S, but it’s not by as much as you seem to think. Meanwhile, Guardian is a 14-63% reduction to a large part of your D.
Couple that with how Swordie damage oft works (high combo damage, low damage in between), and a slight stall on your relatively tame autoattacks letting you remain in range and at fuller health is going to MASSIVELY out-perform Guardian in both damage and survivability.
Two pairs of equipment amongst the overwhelming…
Two pieces of equipment? The only way to raise your pdef is level and gear. The two primary pieces of gear that give physical defense are your Top and your Pants. Now, most gear you’ll actually see is under 150 pdef, but we’ll jump straight ahead to Lolopanther Plate, since that’s basically the top you can go for at the moment. Lolo top and pants are both 179 pdef, for a total of 358 defense. Add the level scaling from Swordsman (3/4 level) at lv280, you get 568 pdef. Which gives you 56.8 defense from Rank 1 Guardian. That puts the change to +10% from +10 at a gain of 46.8- or an increase of 468%.
Now, I’ll admit, I misremembered the exact numbers. My lv235 attack while using a Venier and Karacha went down by 82. When compared to the 14 I used to lose, it is only a 486% increase to the penalty.
Last I checked, 486% is still higher than 468%. And that’s comparing the TOPMOST gear at the level cap to a non-maxed primarily dex build’s attack.
Now, are you really sure that comparing “Just two pieces of gear” to demonstrate that the bonus is NOWHERE NEAR what it needs to be is what you want to complain about?
For 1.5-4k attack enemies however this is not insubstantial […]
PDef is ■■■■■■■ LINEAR. L I N E A R. A bonus of 35% of 568 pdef is a WHOPPING 198.5 less damage of that 1.5k to 4k damage you keep pretending I haven’t seen. Rounding the bonus to 200, that’s still only an amazing 13.33% to 5%. IN EXCHANGE you lose 63% of your damage. That is over three fifths, barely under two thirds, for less than a seventh of theirs.
It is an INSANELY idiotic trade. But if you’d happily make something remotely close to it, that’s on you. Go right ahead.
From the later post
>Guardian increases your defense for dealing less damage [but more than high guard]
Ranks 12+ of Guardian reduces your damage by more than High Guard, at -52%.
Guardian had no investment value niche or otherwise OF ITS OWN
It had an easy niche investment of 1 skill point with the attribute.
Now it still doesn’t encourage investment, but makes a very solid argument AGAINST its use now- a very, very high price to use it.
Now the skill is starting to actually look like something, has a real
niche of its own before its attribute and we’re going off like its a
global nerf.
Maybe because it is.
