One reason why I feel some sets are disappointing while others feel powerful may be how Guardians were designed. I think they were mostly focused on trying to not outshine the original sets and not enough focus was put into comparing them with each other.
Overall I agree. I do think that both considerations are important, the sets *shouldn't* outshine their parents and it's good that this is a design rule. But they do need to be reasonably balanced compared to each other as well, and while honestly the archetype as a whole has fewer problems in this regard than I might have been worried about at first glance, I think Fiery Composition definitely is an example.
Regarding power replacements, the set actually did have Burn in its original version a year ago, that got replaced by Reforge in the current version of the set. I actually don't think just giving it Burn would be the fix, though. Partially this risks running afoul of the 'don't obsolete the parent sets' thing, because Burn is one of the last significant things Fire Armor has that this set doesn't. But also partially I don't think Burn would be enough, it's ultimately just a decent PBAOE attack, but I think the problems with the set extend beyond just 'not enough offense' to also include 'not enough support' and also 'not enough defense'. I thoroughly do agree that this is the time to contemplate changes, though, since the cottage rule indeed doesn't apply yet at this point.
Anyway, on to the giant huge long wall of text second part of my overall guardian feedback!
Having continued playtesting, I have more feedback on various guardian ~things~ and sets and animations and stuff.
First, as I noted on discord, the more I test various guardian secondaries, the more I feel that Fiery Composition really is underperforming. It is consistently far less survivable than every other secondary I've tested (which is all of them except reconstructive, because tbh I don't understand or have any real interest in that set) and honestly does not feel significantly ahead of most of them in terms of offense.
One way of looking at this, I think, is to note that a full third of the set doesn't significantly contribute in normal play, either because of being a naff power (temperature protection) or just highly situational (power of the phoenix, heat exhaustion). None of these powers are a problem by themselves, but when you put them all together it adds up. Meanwhile, other sets like organic (or, honestly, *most* of them) have every single power doing something pretty useful most of the time. Even if the remaining powers *were* as good as the best from other sets, this would still leave the set worse off. And when you look at the remaining powers, you've got three self-only powers (shields, consume), which are alright but not the important part, and three team powers which just don't cut the mustard by themselves. Reforge is a not-very-strong buff on only a 60% uptime after slotting, melt armor is as previously noted probably the worst -resistance power available to guardians, and soothing flames is a standard heal but not enough to carry the set. Ultimately the set just doesn't have the tools to keep up.
Fiery is pretty clearly the squishiest of all of the secondaries both in a personal and team sense, having only moderate resistances and no special tricks for the guardian and just one relatively weak heal for the team. A set like that ought to be top of the heap by a good margin for offense, but it is IMO not only pretty clearly *not* top of the heap, honestly it doesn't even feel better at offense at *all* compared to many of the sets. Energy blows it out of the water, atmospheric/ice have a *stronger* -res debuff that is available twice as often and brings mitigation to boot, temporal also has a better debuff and adds recharge, radiation has its debuff as a toggle up as often as it needs it and then adds both recharge and damage in AM and even has an AoE attack too, and even pain has a bigger radius on its debuff and a better uptime on its offense buff to partially offset the smaller numbers. For offense the only sets I'd put fire *clearly* ahead of are dark, organic, reconstructive, and stone, or in other words it's middle of the pack at best. That isn't where the hands-down-squishiest set should rank.
One of the reasons that I'd advocate for both the decreased recharge on the heal and the replacement for Power of the Phoenix is that, while the set being a bit squishy does make sense, I don't think fiery necessarily has to be quite *this* squishy. Fire armor is squishy, sure, but even it isn't *this* fragile, and thermal is a relatively evenly balanced support set between defense and offense. As such I think there's room to make the set slightly less frail while still remaining within the envelope defined by its parents, and this also means any improvements to the set's offense don't need to be quite as drastic as they'd have to be otherwise. This is also why Phoenix Renewal being a multifunction offensive and defensive 'nuke' would be IMO a good thing. And by this point I imagine I'm probably annoying you with how much I've been going on about this, so I'll stop now. ^^
(Also, as an aside, why does consume have to be this bad compared to power sink etc? It's got a larger radius and less upfront end cost, which aren't very important because it only takes a few targets for either power to give a full bar anyway, and pays for it by not being autohit *and* giving less end per target (even counting the trivial recovery) *and* having triple the recharge? Seems a bit much. Maybe make the recovery bit last as long as the debuff resistance? Or just drop the recharge to 2 minutes instead of three? And this question applies to the regular version of the power too honestly.)
Exploring the various other secondaries, my previous thoughts on endurance usage are a bit modified, mostly because a few of the other secondaries ended up being even more endurance heavy than I expected just from looking at their power lists. Notably, Ice has a *gigantic* total toggle cost, and while heat loss is great it's got a long downtime so it spends a lot of time running dry. And while Radiation has AM, it also has Enervating Field and that is just a great big 'no endurance for you' button. Dark isn't bad if you don't use Cloak of Fear, which is alright with me because I wouldn't touch that power with a 10 foot pole, but if you're one of those silly weird people who likes it then you're also gonna have a fun time with that endurance bar. And as expected stone is almost as bad as temporal. So in other words the problem, if there is one, extends to more sets than just temporal.
I'm *still* not sure if this is a bad thing or not. I think it's probably intended that endurance is a limiting factor, and in the abstract I think I'm ok with that. The thing that worries me though is still how some sets really don't have the tools to deal with it nearly as well as others, which makes me worry about imbalance between the sets in the AT. It also makes me worry a bit what happens when you IO and/or incarnate enough to remove that constraint. I mean, yeah, IOs and incarnate stuff are meant to be powerful, but I have a feeling they'll make an even bigger difference on guardians than on most ATs. Removing the endurance leash from Temporal at endgame would be a big boost to that set, for example. Again I'm still undecided what I really think about this whole issue, but I'd be a lot less conflicted if it were at least more uniform across the AT.
On the level of individual sets, I have a few other comments in addition to my general ones above. First, Stone and Ice need power order changes, both for the same reason - it's ridiculous to make them wait until level 28 for their E/N shield. For ice, I'd simply switch Glacial Armor and Arctic Fog - 20 is still a bit late for the last major shield, but a lot better than 28 and it's a simple change. For Stone, I'd rearrange a bit more - I would move Quicksand to level 4, Crystalline Armor to level 16, and put Stone Skin at level 28. This gives a bit more support capability early on, especially as that's when the -def of quicksand is most useful, gets the E/N shield in at a good time, and leaves the much less important minor resistance auto as a later choice. Both of these are already quite late blooming sets with their best two powers coming last, so *also* having to wait until level 28 just to finish out their basic self protection is especially grating.
I was thrown for quite a loop when I saw that Stone's version of quicksand has a 90 second recharge. That seems rather extreme to me, I don't think stone is a top tier secondary to start with and quicksand in particular is a good power but does not seem to warrant tripling its recharge. Quicksand is a 'sauce' sort of power IMO, it's a good power to make everything else you do a bit better, but is not actually *that* strong of a power in the long run. It's an aoe slow and -def, it's helpful but it doesn't actually bring any direct mitigation or killspeed increase. And making it such a long recharge hurts the power particularly when it is most helpful - at low levels, where the -def is actually quite useful but when it's harder to get a good amount of +rech in it. Having it available more often wouldn't really increase the performance of the set at high levels, as the power will end up available more or less whenever you need it at those levels anyway and having it stacked isn't really adding much, so I would prefer shortening the recharge to make it more useful at low levels, perhaps to 45-60s. This is especially relevant with my suggestion to move it to level 4, because having it on a reasonably short recharge at a low level would give the set much more useful support capability early on (which is a thing that many guardian sets are lacking in IMO) when the set is otherwise very late blooming.
Energy composition is still very top tier, I would have to get more experience with it in a team setting but I could see it being perhaps a little bit too strong. It's basically kinetics with self protection, which is really quite good. It is very endurance heavy for sure, but transference really steps up to the plate there as long as you don't miss or mess it up, plus energize helping as well. If it's 'too good' one possibility might be to shave a few off the target cap for fulcrum. It does a 40% boost from self plus 20% from each target with a current cap of 10, so 240% maximum. If it had a cap of, say, 7 instead, that'd be a max of 180%. This would also be a 'rein in the extremes' sort of nerf rather than an across the board nerf, which I tend to like better.
On the topic of energy, inertial siphon is also honestly *too* much movement increase IMO. If you get a capped hit (which you of course are always trying to do, for the recharge) it's more movement increase than having both siphon speed and speed boost on you at the same time. It makes trying to control your character honestly kinda obnoxious and not fun, especially on uneven terrain where you suddenly find yourself shooting off at 9999999 mph because the game decided you were in the air for an instant. It's worse than speed boost. I'd personally do the 'frontloaded buff' thing here that many other buffs do. Assuming it operates by summoning a stacking pseudopet at self for each target hit that applies the buff, I'd make a copy of the pet with no recharge buff but twice as much movement increase and have it summon that once non-stacking, and then cut the movement increase on the stacking pseudopet by a factor of 3. That would mean you'd have a larger movement buff if you hit only 1 or 2 targets, the same if you hit 3, and less if you hit more, keeping things more controllable.
For the other sets in general, Dark is solid and also IMO slightly boring. I don't think it needs my proposed modification to howling twilight in a balance sense (which is fine because it's not as big of a difference as fire's), but it'd be a fun power to play with. Atmospheric and Radiation kinda both feel like 'baseline' sets to me, solid and with a good variety of tools. They've each got staple mitigation, a few different options for additional mitigation or utility or team buffs, and the ability to ramp it up and go all out in extreme situations. Ice feels... erratic. It's like atmospheric that swaps some of its more staple powers for more situational or longer recharge ones, and as mentioned it's got major endurance issues. It still functions, I just don't care for the design as much. Pain is deceptively good, mostly because of the regneration aura I think. Its direct mitigation feels a bit weak up-front, but the aura adds up to a surprising amount of health over time. I don't think it's too strong or anything, just that it might look weak at first glance but isn't. Stone is definitely a bit of an oddball with the short recharge aoe 'heal' being an absorb instead, it demands playing differently but I think it can definitely work and it's got a good amount of mitigation. And its 'nuke' t9 is actually pretty fun, it's kinda like what I was envisioning for fiery, though stone's is actually even stronger so maybe I was a bit conservative in the numbers on mine, though better to start low and adjust up if needed rather than the other way around. (Regarding the nuke, the fact that the DoT lasts so much longer than the fire FX is a bit disconcerting, it feels weird. I'd personally make the FX last longer or the DoT happen quicker so they're the same duration, having them still be taking damage after the fire vanishes just feels off.)
I don't have as many comments on primaries, but still a few. For starters, there's still a couple of attacks with bad DPA that imo need looking at. For Earth Assault, Stone Spears moving to a 6s attack helps its DPA a lot. It's still mediocre, but it's not as terrible and the 80% knockup is nice. I still think hurl boulder should move to a 10s attack as well, though. It's currently the same DPA as stone spears with a longer animation and a much less useful secondary effect, and given the entire set only has two ranged attacks of any sort I feel they ought to be at least half decent. (I still wouldn't take it even then because I hate the animation, but it would be an easier sell.) Meanwhile, Mace Assault still has an even worse problem in Mace Beam, which is afaik the lowest DPA (single target) attack available to the entire archetype by a significant margin. Making it a 6s recharge attack wouldn't be as good of a solution here since the set then wouldn't have a 4s attack at all. I personally might just give it a 'free' energy DoT secondary effect, noting it would *still* be fairly mediocre even if it had a full 6s recharge attack's damage for free. One of those 80%/4x scale 0.15/cancelonmiss DoTs would raise its average damage to scale 1.35 and its DPA to 35.6, which is still poor but not quite as abysmal. (It'd then be the same DPA as stone spears, i.e. still poor, and imo the shorter recharge would balance out not having stone spears' pretty good secondary effect. Neither of them would really be *good* attacks still, but more passable.)
I still despise Dark Assault, mostly because of how obnoxious Night Fall's super narrow cone is to use. I would note that the guardian version of the set doesn't have to worry about an aoe immob competing with a control primary so having tentacles wouldn't be an automatic no-no... Really though this is more personal preference, similar to how I dislike Gun Fu because it IMO chose the dual pistols attacks with the most annoying animations. On the topic of pure aesthetic preference in animations, I'd personally prefer if Bitter Freeze Ray swapped its animation for the one that's used for Energy Transfer. They're almost identical (holding up the hands while powering up and then shoving them forward), but Fitter Freeze Ray has the character looking at their hands all goofily while Energy Transfer has the character looking forward at the enemy the whole time and looks much less silly. Finally, I don't like that in Psionic Assault subdue is almost a carbon copy of Mental Blast, I think subdue should be a 10s attack instead. Or, like, make one of them 7s and the other 9s, or something.
And lastly, Hellfire Assault. I like this set, it's cool, but I still think that the set would make more sense and feel more consistent if the whip attacks were all short ranged and the long range attacks were all 'normal' hellfire ones. Right now the set is really all over the place in terms of types of attacks and secondary effects, which really makes it feel like the cobbled-together patchwork it is. Even switched around it would still be a bit of a patchwork, but it would feel more like an intentionally designed cohesive set.
If I were able to wave a wand and rearrange the set, it'd go something like this. Corruption would become a 20 foot range, 8 second recharge melee attack (with appropriate changes to damage/end/damage modifier - note the FX still looks just fine when used at that range) and replace Hellfire Smash. Wrath of Hell would become a 20 foot range melee attack, also gaining slightly more damage thanks to shifting to the melee damage modifier and so being a bit more worth its very long animation time. And then I'd add a 'Hellfire Blast' ranged attack to take Corruption's former spot as a 6s ranged attack. The set would still have almost the same basic setup of attacks, overall shifting one ranged attack to melee but still having a good number of both types (and a set being a bit melee or ranged biased isn't a bad thing anyway - see energy and earth assaults). And this way the set would have a lot more thematic consistency, and honestly the whip attacks *look* better as melee anyway.
I'm not saying that this has to be done just because I say so or something, of course, especially at this late date. The set is perfectly functional the way it is, and I actually like it a lot, the unique t9 especially. This is mostly just my design OCD/sense of order protesting at something that feels messy and inconsistent.
I'm sure I will have more comments at some point, but that's it for now. I will close with some minor bug reports.
Minor bug reports. Some of these I've already reported on discord, but putting them here as well for completeness:
Stone Composition, the SFX for both Volcanic Armor and Crystalline Armor do not properly fade away after activation, instead continuing to play indefinitely.
Dark Composition, Shadow Fall has the same problem as above where the SFX does not properly fade away.
Guardian Psi Assault, Telekinetic Blow does not play an animation.
Guardian Ice Mastery, Ice Storm does not accept accuracy enhancements like it should.
Hellfire Assault, Hellfire Smash and Hellfire Burst do not play SFX.
Super Reflexes, Practiced Brawler still has the same 'SFX does not properly fade away' issue, though its animation works now.
Super Reflexes, Practiced Brawler - the absorb expires after 10s and has a 2s gap until it refreshes at 12s, this is due to the absorb having a duration of 10s and a 'non-stacking, does not replace' flag on a toggle with a 2s activation period. To fix this the activation period and the duration on the other effects should be set to 10s (with appropriate change to the endurance cost) and the absorb's stacking flag changed to 'non-stacking, replaces'. This also affects Temporal Reaction's version.
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