Why are there virtually no 'guard skills'?

I find it really odd that PoE2 came with an intention to provide more meaningful game-play, but left us to rely on passive defense like armour, regen, etc. There are a couple of exceptions, but you would think they'd add cooldowns like 'molten shell' (from PoE1) or something since they want us to press more buttons?

If anyone can tell me what their reasoning might be, I'd love to hear it. Active defense skills (aka 'Guard Skills') were a fun way to compensate for a lack of passive defense.

Instead of weaving in and out of combat or constantly dodge rolling, we could have occasional periods that enable us to keep fighting. It is nice thing to have and doesn't make the game less engaging.

edit:
See https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Guard_skill

There are ways to reflect ailments onto yourself using notables, uniques, or support gems which will activate charms that can roll guard. You obviously need to invest into charm charge sustainability for this to be dependable, but it does exist as an option.

There is the Vanguard support gem.

There is Warbringer's Jade Heritage.

There is Fortifying Cry.

There is Olroth's unique life flask and Heavy Drinker notable for normal life flasks. The Heavy Drinker option works well on builds that use the concoct support gem and invest into flask sustain.

For other avenues of guard functionality they don't explicitly call it "guard" but it functions similarly:

Life remnants which let you over-cap life - functionally similar to guard, part of Acolyte/Blood Mage ascendancies.

Acolyte of Chayula also has Darkness - functionally similar to guard.

Invoker's got meditate.

Witchhunter's Sorcery Ward is almost permanent guard.

Minions have Frost Mage command skill.

There is also semi-pseudo-guard in some functions like Ghost Dance or instant thorns leech.

I'm probably forgetting a few pseudo-guard mechanics but this was all just off the top of my head, I bet there's more.

I suppose if you are looking specifically for an active "press this button to temporarily take less damage" skill we have Raise Shield which doesn't get more "guard" than that lol.

"

karsey#2995 wrote:

There are ways to reflect ailments onto yourself using notables, uniques, or support gems which will activate charms that can roll guard. You obviously need to invest into charm charge sustainability for this to be dependable, but it does exist as an option.

There is the Vanguard support gem.

There is Warbringer's Jade Heritage.

There is Fortifying Cry.

There is Olroth's unique life flask and Heavy Drinker notable for normal life flasks. The Heavy Drinker option works well on builds that use the concoct support gem and invest into flask sustain.

For other avenues of guard functionality they don't explicitly call it "guard" but it functions similarly:

Life remnants which let you over-cap life - functionally similar to guard, part of Acolyte/Blood Mage ascendancies.

Acolyte of Chayula also has Darkness - functionally similar to guard.

Invoker's got meditate.

Witchhunter's Sorcery Ward is almost permanent guard.

Minions have Frost Mage command skill.

There is also semi-pseudo-guard in some functions like Ghost Dance or instant thorns leech.

I'm probably forgetting a few pseudo-guard mechanics but this was all just off the top of my head, I bet there's more.

I suppose if you are looking specifically for an active "press this button to temporarily take less damage" skill we have Raise Shield which doesn't get more "guard" than that lol.

Here is what I mean by 'Guard Skill'. Notice that it has the key term 'Guard' as a tag.
https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Molten_Shell
Here is a whole list of other guard skills.
https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Guard_skill
Notice the commonalities between them, and how they are unlike the things in your list.

Notice how most of the things you listed are passive, and if you like I can go through your list and explain why each thing is not relevant.

edit:
Encase in jade, Fortifying cry - these are the exceptions, but require a specific ascendancy or a shield. Like the title says, there are "virtually no guard skills".

"

karsey#2995 wrote:

There are ways to reflect ailments onto yourself using notables, uniques, or support gems which will activate charms that can roll guard. You obviously need to invest into charm charge sustainability for this to be dependable, but it does exist as an option.

There is the Vanguard support gem.

There is Warbringer's Jade Heritage.

There is Fortifying Cry.

There is Olroth's unique life flask and Heavy Drinker notable for normal life flasks. The Heavy Drinker option works well on builds that use the concoct support gem and invest into flask sustain.

For other avenues of guard functionality they don't explicitly call it "guard" but it functions similarly:

Life remnants which let you over-cap life - functionally similar to guard, part of Acolyte/Blood Mage ascendancies.

Acolyte of Chayula also has Darkness - functionally similar to guard.

Invoker's got meditate.

Witchhunter's Sorcery Ward is almost permanent guard.

Minions have Frost Mage command skill.

There is also semi-pseudo-guard in some functions like Ghost Dance or instant thorns leech.

I'm probably forgetting a few pseudo-guard mechanics but this was all just off the top of my head, I bet there's more.

I suppose if you are looking specifically for an active "press this button to temporarily take less damage" skill we have Raise Shield which doesn't get more "guard" than that lol.

Pretty much

Took the words out of my mouth

Completely unrelated

Frost Mage command skill - Protects your minions, not you.
Raise shield - You must stop attacking to use this. You must also use a shield.
Meditate - Requires you to run out of combat, Ascendancy node.
Ghost Dance - passive defense
Darkness - passive defense, Ascendancy node
Instant thorns leech - passive defense
Sorcery Ward - passive defense, Ascendancy node.
Life remnants which let you over-cap life - passive effect, requires you to kill things and run to remnants.
Vanguard support gem - passive effect, procs when you stun an enemy
Olroth's flask - Not a skill, and benefit is conditional
Heavy Drinker - passive skill tree node that enhances flask effect.
Keep in mind that flask effects are lost as soon as you reach full life.

Arguably Guard Skills

Warbringer's Jade Heritage (Encase in Jade) - Requires specific ascendancy.
Fortifying cry - Requires a shield.

There are virtually no guard skills in PoE2.
https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Guard_skill

I wasn't trying to disagree with you about the existence of explicit guard skills. It's fine if you just think guard skills are cool and want them in PoE2.

It was more that your post could be interpreted as request for guard functionality itself, so I felt it was fair to bring other mechanics with varying degrees of functional or outcome similarity into the discussion.

I think we could get some more love in this department in PoE2 but I don't think it necessarily needs to be in the form of explicit "guard" skills.

As for the ones that most closely resemble "guard" skills - my opinion on fortifying cry is that I wish it wasn't associated with shields and it's functionality was moved to a support gem similar to raging cry.

I also don't really like Jade Heritage mostly because it makes me run out of buttons on my skill bar and using ctrl+ a button to activate a skill on top of WASD movement feels like I'm learning guitar chords in the middle of combat.

So in practice Jade Heritage ends up mostly being a permanent passive 10% physical damage reduction which, while nice, relegates it to being an extremely boring yet mandatory-feeling ascendancy bonus.

I think the most benefit I ever got out of the actual "guard" portion was from pre-emptively using it before popping Essences or when I approached pre-nerf Silverfist/Zekoa.

The whole manual guard active skill concept doesn't strike me as something that really fits satisfyingly into the "flow" of PoE2 combat and I think I prefer having guard functionality baked into other mechanisms which sets it up to be cleverly automated/triggered in the scenarios where I'd want it.



I guess the down-side of that approach is that it's not intuitive for people looking specifically for "guard" from an explicit active skill.

"

karsey#2995 wrote:

I wasn't trying to disagree with you about the existence of explicit guard skills. It's fine if you just think guard skills are cool and want them in PoE2.

It was more that your post could be interpreted as request for guard functionality itself, so I felt it was fair to bring other mechanics with varying degrees of functional or outcome similarity into the discussion.

Yeah I didn't assume so. It seemed like I wasn't being clear about what I meant. The conversation goes nowhere if what I'm saying isn't clear.

It's basically a button you press to gain a strong layer of defense for a short period (mid combat), but it's a specific class of skills in PoE1 (see wiki link) that barely exists in PoE2.

It's strange that it barely exists in PoE2, despite seemingly aligning with the game's "vision". I find it even more strange that no one ever mentions this. None of the players, and no one from GGG. Also despite survivability and defenses being common complaints since 0.1.

It's a complete mystery.

would need massive nerfs to our defense if they add them.

Dont need them in poe2 is the reason.

"

Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

would need massive nerfs to our defense if they add them.

Dont need them in poe2 is the reason.

Assuming that's true, they still would have had to decide not to put them in before it became true, right?
What do you think the reason is? I can't make sense of it. I would have thought it matched what they initially wanted PoE2 to be.

Also worth noting there are clever ways to make things scale up, or only be significant, with a *lack of* defense.

hopefully from a balance perspective as they wouldnt fit currently.