[Feedback] Justicar's Guard set could definitely use a facelift

with all respect, this is a bit old thread.
up-to-date vids are in the topic.

Sorry, Medea, those builds are grossly outdated. Even back then they didn’t show any mind blowing results. As you can see from screenshots their speed was below average. And since then balance has changed drastically. It’s a different game in terms of balance. You can see how properly min-maxed FW Comando performs in the second post to this thread (spoiler: very poorly).

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Lots of builds in the compendium are old, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t viable or fun to play. And speed isn’t everything you know. Not everyone wants to zoom around. Plus what’s wrong with having a generic set for fire? Not all sets have to be top tier.

this is the ONLY fire-dedicated set for both melee and ranged builds, and it performs well on a very small amount of them (like Desolator).
and with all respect again, watch the vids I’ve posted.
It’s neither fun nor safe to play FW now.

This build is actually more relevant

We are not even talking about speed here. As you can see in the videos above min-maxed Commando in a set that is meant for this class just crumbles in endgame. There is no fun in that.

And trust me, those builds you have linked are dated and less than viable. That’s just the nature of the game (fortunately or unfortunately). I am facelifting all of my 500 builds every patch basically.

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and still not so relevant as it was made when racial damage and FW weren’t nerfed severely.

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While I understand that changes, that OP proposed might be viewed as far too radical, I believe that this

is essential. It’s just odd that gloves have 0 % damage whatsoever.

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Heh I was about to add that caveat in an edit under my post. Just like my hybrid vit/acid spammer Dee build leaned heavy on racial, so too does this one. Taking a 8% total damage loss against the most resistant enemies to the build, and even larger ones against others by racial loss. I know my build went from feeling strong/consistent to barely able to clear 170 without dieing. (My build lost 20% undead racial, 13% cthonic, 5% aetherial)

It is worth noting that the same build is probably almost a minute slower and lost some reliability due to less leech again resistant mobs.

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Justicar suffers most from skills it supports. Forcewave isn’t doing enough damage and Blitz have too big of a CD. Justicar don’t have CDR mods to Blitz or Judgment.

But as fire generic set is good idea. Nice armor, some health and stats. Also supports three masteries. But skill bonus/mods might need slight touch, nothing more. About physical resistance, caster set with high armor is also Light Defender and it have 0. So physical resistance on heavy armor set is normal.

Oh and yes, some sets are still missing % damage, that’s right.

Blood Knight sends his best regards.

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Just some ideas, man. I don’t think that melee Fire Strike Commando is really radical. I think it could be cool and add another working archetype to game’s vast library of diverse builds. Besides it could give Commando some identity besides Fire Forcewave.

I just find that it’s a real shame that special set bonus to Oathkeeper is so underwhelming and weaker than a bonus from one medal and special set bonus to Demo is just non-existant.

6-7 phys resist will not hurt the set.

Yes, but set crowded useless skills (FW and Blitz) and I don’t see a way to give + to FS/FS lineup without rework + to skills Soldiers parts.

This is the same meme as Kriegs Grips withouts % phys damage.

Disagree that set lacks identity. It has clear identity - a crutch for every offbeat fire build in the game.

On a serious note, the main problem is the skills it supports. FW is absurdly weak after the nerf, Blitz was always weak as a dmg source and mods to it are useless.

Also the full set bonus is just hilarious. Say, you have demo among your classes. A build with 3 piece Justicar and IK helm will be stronger than full Justicar.

I think it’s better to fix the skills the set supports. Also full set bonus must be smth meaningful. And i’d trade the huge DA bonus on chest for some phys res. No DA will shield you from a meteor, especially in SR.

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I hardly ever use this as the whole set. It just doesn’t seem worth it. A quick idea I had was:

  1. Take the 4 piece bonus and make it the 3 piece bonus. Adjust dmg numbers as necessary.

  2. Take the 3 piece bonus and bake the stats across all 4 pieces. Adjust stats as necessary.

  3. New 4 piece set bonus of…don’t know. I am just kinda bored of damage procs and such. I prefer more unique alternatives like 4p Pyran.

Regardless of performance I just would like to see more uniqueness among items. As time goes on I find myself caring more about what’s fun for the time I have as opposed to what’s “balanced”.

As for the examples given being only in CR and “not everything has to be fast”. Look at it this way. I wouldn’t take this set into deep SR…that leaves one type of end game, MC farming. So is it okay to perform “ok” in only MC? Don’t know, it’s not for me to say.

Now if the problem is with the skills, then perhaps a pass over FW and Blitz is necessary. You can drive down the cool down on Judgement with gear choices and it can become quite potent. This was already mentioned above.

I give credit to those who stated or suggested anything I repeated.

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This forum is hardly representative of the player population. Shields exist, shield wps exist, why not support them. How do we know who plays any build?

Not all sets need to be capable of pulling off top-tier performance. The spectrum of balance can be broad, and it is.

As for the set. I agree with OP. +1. It does lack identity and is underwhelming for FG, however the set was always a classic option for melee demo.

Blitz is a very weak skill because it desperately needs CD reduction to perform well. It would have to be similar to what vanquisher does to VM for Blitz to do well.

I think the only thing the set lacks is phys resist. I have a brimstone shieldbreaker which has fine dps and great DA but lacks phys resist and CC resist. I use Fire Strike and Judgment. Good health, good resists. I tried to fix it with devotions a bit and managed to cap the CC resist but phys resist still lower than %20 and it is frustrating.

If we’re going to see phys res get tacked on I’d prefer to see it as a skill modifier that helps Commando more than the grab bag of general use cases. Perhaps stick it on Field Command? This way FW tactician also benefits but we don’t get a broad sweeping boost to other archetypes that are just using the armor because it’s a bundle of stats.

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And also maybe some health regen bonus on chest and gloves so it can played without lifesteal, regen focused.