Taunt isn't good.
It kind of works to get an enemy close.
But once they are next to you, you either spend an as action to give them +2 to hit you, or they can just walk way. Neither is a good option.
That +2 to save DCs is really harsh too. Makes it far easier to take down a Guardian with poison, disease, fear or some other Fort or Will effect.
Taunt is just a mess altogether.
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Mock battle testing so far level 1 teams of 4.
I paired the guardian with a giant barb, a divine witch with stoke the heart, and a wit swashbuckler.
Other party had a 2handed fighter, warpriest, ars gramatica wizard, and a precision shortbow ranger.
I wanted to see how bon mot would help the guardian get off better taunts.
Unfortunately I went through one whole battle without taunting. The first round guardian needed to use most of the turn to move keeping up with the other members of the party. That same battle though I used intercept strike once but it was a pivotal moment where the giant barb was going to die. I did use unkind shove to break up flanking on allies and add some damage quite a bit. The reason the guardian only got to use intercept strike once was because a grease spell put him on the ground round 2.
After playtesting with mock battles I can see the guardian is starved for movement and really needs to have more of an effect on positioning both party members and enemies. I liked that unkind shove gave them a bit of damage while shoving, that might be my fav level 1 feat for them now. My choices then became to i shove and break up that flank on my ally and get some damage? or do I just attack? and shoving won out there. If the guardian hadn't been prone round two they could have intercepted that turn and the fight would have been much easier for the guardians team.
Giant barb as a teammate carries the guardian really well and the guardian makes up for the clumsy oafs low AC. Ultimately a protected and buffed giant barb just wrecks unchecked. But the guardian is spending their turns mostly just trying to keep up movement wise with the barb using sudden charge and as the barb gets better movement as levels progress I suspect this is not going to be easy.
Suggested Feat
Taunting charge - Two Actions
You charge across the battlefield using your momentum and the weight of your armor to slam into enemies. Stride twice, if you end your movement adjacent to a foe perform a shove. If the shove succeeds you may taunt them using the same result as the shove.
Although this is compressing 4 actions taunt seems so difficult to justify using over moving into position for a intercept strike which may take more than one stride to do it really needs to be thrown in with other moves you already plan on doing to get some value from it. Like with shielded taunt.
Shove doesnt feel like as high a value move as say a trip so I felt it could be condensed with taunt to feel like your getting a quality activity with the two strides. Shove does feel a lot better with unkind shove but thats a feat investment so it should.
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Another observation.
As the guardian levels into those rough spots for weapon proficiency but keeps pace with athletics through skill ups and magic gear athletics based maneuvers become the most accurate thing they can do with their 0 map action. Unless fighting lower level foes map -5 or more is likely to be a wasted action and the reward for a strike hitting is just 1 handed weapon quality. Strikes being less accurate from chassis seem less appealing than striding to be adjacent to allies, taunting/raise shield (especially with the feat) as second or third actions.
Not seeing any 1 handed weapons that have both the shove and trip traits. Might have to go shield and gauntlet to keep a free hand.
I think the class really just being an armored athletics ram loses a bit of appeal for me, using weapons is hindered without martial proficiency or some other way of getting decent accuracy with weapons.
War priest does have similar weapon proficiency but you can expect most of their turns to get a lot out of casting a spell for two actions and strikes coming out when there's room for one at 0 map.
Gortle's guard ability suggestion would at least give guardians a situation where they have a better chance of hitting and it fits the guardian theme of looking out for allies.
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Another observation.
As the guardian levels into those rough spots for weapon proficiency but keeps pace with athletics through skill ups and magic gear athletics based maneuvers become the most accurate thing they can do with their 0 map action. Unless fighting lower level foes map -5 or more is likely to be a wasted action and the reward for a strike hitting is just 1 handed weapon quality. Strikes being less accurate from chassis seem less appealing than striding to be adjacent to allies, taunting/raise shield (especially with the feat) as second or third actions.
Not seeing any 1 handed weapons that have both the shove and trip traits. Might have to go shield and gauntlet to keep a free hand.
I think the class really just being an armored athletics ram loses a bit of appeal for me, using weapons is hindered without martial proficiency or some other way of getting decent accuracy with weapons.
War priest does have similar weapon proficiency but you can expect most of their turns to get a lot out of casting a spell for two actions and strikes coming out when there's room for one at 0 map.
Gortle's guard ability suggestion would at least give guardians a situation where they have a better chance of hitting and it fits the guardian theme of looking out for allies.
It has been my position for a while now that the defensive classes make best use of athletics rolls as it scales faster.
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After participating in 2-fight playtest w/ a Guardian and Commander, yeah, I will echo a lot that has already been said. Witch(me) + Guardian + Giant Barb + Commander w/ a thrown weapon. As default as possible, no FA, no Call of the Wild stuff.
We played at L8, and the combination of Master Athletics and 0 Class reward for Strikes meant that our Guardian I think swung a Strike only once, and that was because said foe had already been Tripped.
The damage reduction on Int Strike is strong, but that really is the whole class in practice. The comparative power on the rest of their kit is extremely bad in comparison.
I'd like to push for an increase to the personal dmg resistance of 3 for being targeted themself. I think Guardian needs not just the armor specialization's resistance, but a class feature to enhance that value, at least by half again, perhaps literally doubling it.
That little 3 resistance was so nothing compared to Int Strike, that even the one in a million foe that passively created hazardous terrain did too much damage for the Guardian to ignore. It was either 2d6 or 2d8, and the Guardian absolutely could not afford to eat the extra damage.
The issue is that Int Strike (and 10hp per level) means that every bit of HP the Guardian has is worth more, making chip damage that goes through the resistance *more* of a problem for the guardian than for the Giant Barb next to them.
At the VERY least, the Guardian needs to be able to use that Int Strike selfishly to preserve their own HP. I get that Shield Block is there, but as soon as Taunt is good enough to actually change foe behavior, the Guardian will crumble. However Taunt, ect is changed, the G needs some other alteration to make them survive direct hits better than they currently can.
Because the biggest weakness and issue of the class is that the Guardian only functions if they are the 3rd wheel in a Strike exchange. As soon as our Guardian was actually attacked, they crumpled. And once they were too low to want to Int Strike, things got bad fast. A single Fireball almost death spiraled our party, and a 2nd one would likely have ended us. Enemy casters, and AoE in general, is a serious kryptonite, more than I expected it to be.
The ONLY time the Guardian looked good / passable was when the stars aligned so that the G was not being swung on, and they were reducing dmg via Int Strike. That one Reaction really did seem like 70%+ of the class' actual in-practice power, and ~15% of that remainder was Athletics.
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Taunt was even worse than I expected. Barely used, and still had to contend w/ a save chance.
During the 2nd fight, the Guardian made a rare Taunt (resulting in 1 of 2 total save fails), and this time the GM decided to play it like the foe would ignore their prior target. They Strode to the Guardian, then immediately crumpled them in 2 Strikes, because, again, the Guardian has barely anything to keep them alive if they are the primary target. And because they are always trying to eat some dmg via Int Strike, they will never be topped off enough to survive focus fire.
I also do not even know which Threat Technique was selected, as I do not think it was triggered once during the 2 fights. That is how absolutely irrelevant it was.
Our party would 100% have died if not for the Giant Barb. I had 1 or two good spells be failed during the first fight, but an early save in fight 2 had my Witch's contribution on the lower end than I would have liked. Even the Commander found their optimal turn by the end of fight 1, and ended up just doing a Tactic boosted Strike + command the Barb to get an extra swing for most of fight 2.
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Back to the Guardian.
I like my earlier suggested "dynamic/sticky taunt" alternative even more now, and in the post-game discussion, the others reacted quite well to a copy/paste of the idea. They even immediately understood the benefit of putting the G's -2 on the G themself, as it does not stack with things like being flanked.
With a self-sabotaging and confident remark or gesture, you lower your guard to draw the violent attention of foes. You choose if the Taunt has either the visual or the auditory trait. When you perform this action, you gain a -2 circumstance penalty to all defenses and saves against your target(s). This persists until you perform a successful skill check or attack roll against that foe, until they fail a save against your hostility, or until encounter mode ends.
You may direct your Taunt to goad a single foe within 60 feet, or attempt to draw attention from a group, invoking a Will save against all foes in a 5 ft burst within 30ft.
Repeated Taunts against the same target within the same turn have no effect. The outcome of the single target version is always the fail effect.
This effects lingers upon each foe until they perform a successful skill check or attack roll against you, until you fail a hostile save from them, or until encounter mode ends.
Critical Success: The creature is unaffected.
Success: For any hostile action or attack roll, the creature is considered to have a -1 circumstance penalty to the result against any of your allies.
Failure: As success, but the penalty is -2.
Critical Failure: As success, but the penalty is -3
Overall, I should say that Guardian was a "passable" class, though barely. And that was mostly due to the base chassis of the system filling the G's massive holes (Athletics being the "OP" bar to measure against), with scarcely anything from the G class itself being relevant. And if our Guardian had taken something else aside from that L8 extra Int Strike Feat, I don't think the G would have squeaked out that "not terrible" grade.
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Wow, I completely forgot about Hampering Sweeps.
Our Guardian was thrilled to run into fight #2 versus 2 melee 2 caster foes and try to lock down the melee with the ability.
Once he discovered those foes were quite content to butcher the G and Barb, he realized it was a waste of an action.
The trouble is that while H Sweeps does change foe behavior, it does not interfere with the foe actions. Foes know they cannot escape, and as such, never waste an action to do so.
In that fight, the G did reposition a bit later to Trip and then Grapple a caster to stop them from retreating to the back of the room. I do think there was one turn where the G would have used H Sweeps again if he remembered instead of Grappling at MAP (which I think landed), but other Actions like Grapple do more to a target than just prevent movement.
I can see H Sweeps being situationally OP as hell, but I do think that in general people are overestimating the times where a proactive spend of an Action like that will genuinely put the foes into a bad situation. If the G themself could take hits, that might change things.
And whenever I say "situationally extremely good, otherwise kinda meh" that is some of the highest praise I can give the design an ability like that.
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However, if I played with a team planning on H Sweeps, there's a chance some nerf might be needed. While pf2e does in general seriously lack terrain/ square-based hazards, there are a few.
Floating Flame is an R2 spell that only gets to move 10ft on a Sustain, but that's enough to brutalize any foe stuck in a G's (base 5ft reach) sweeps. To be honest, seeing how nuts Primal (and even Arcane) can be, yet more good eating for those lists via remaster spells like Floating Flame kiiiiinda makes me sigh at the Occult spell list. At least Illusory Creature is in there...
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I've got an objection. If a class with 10 HP/level, the best AC of the game, extra damage reduction from armor and Shield Block goes down with two hits, every other character would have faced the same fate or worse.
PF2e isn't really a game where a single character can tank alone for long, Guardian or not.
Good critique about Hampering Sweeps.
I've got an objection. If a class with 10 HP/level, the best AC of the game, extra damage reduction from armor and Shield Block goes down with two hits, every other character would have faced the same fate or worse.
PF2e isn't really a game where a single character can tank alone for long, Guardian or not.Good critique about Hampering Sweeps.
The issue worth critiquing with G is that the Taunt is his foe-side contribution. If the G fares far worse as the actual target of a foe's attacks, then the G class should not be designed with a Taunt like that. Either Taunt as a concept needs to go, or the G needs to be able to use it.
I agree that pf2e is a generally high-dmg game, and while that is not the G's fault per-se, it may mean the concept of the Taunting Guardian is a bad fit for pf2e as a system. Possibly an incompatible concept, as it may let loose too many glass cannons.
The G would fare a lot better with a real heal-bot, but the "big dmg big heals" nature of combat does mean that the G concept as a class is worse off if they can always get blown up by a streak of statistically inevitable luck. And having a PC invested into heals would reduce the damage output, meaning more time for us to run out of HP.
I think he had just used Int Strike to block a bit for the Barb from the other melee foe, and all but the Commander were less than 50% HP. My Witch had long since ran out of focus points for Life Boost, and had 1 R3 Soothe for an emergency. (and the G being down was not an emergency due to them contributing so little to the foe's end, it had to be saved for the Barb or Commander)
In fight 2, the G went dying once, was brought up once, then dying again, and left dying for his own safety while the fight finished up.
The Commander jumped forward to use Def Swap to protect the Barb just in case while we cleaned up.
Fight #2 was really, really close to a TPK. I think the GM pulled his punches and stopped using AoE spells. We had one fireball and one fire cone spell sent at us by the 2 casters, and that was it. Pretty sure there was at least another AoE in their list that the GM just didn't use, because it would likely have killed us.
Guardian really needs to be something more than a bunch of dmg mitigating Reactions. Ours worked because he was also a Trip bot that helped the Barb run wild over foes. (But he could not give the Barb flanking due to the adjacency requirement, lol).
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It may seem backward, but even something like letting foes leave Hampering Sweeps in exchange for a Strike (that does not burn Reactions, but would accumulate MAP if mult foes ran out) would be better for G as a class.
From a psychology standpoint, foes will choose to risk it and will get hit a lot, and that's a big amount of free damage the G needs to be contributing.
Technically, that's only a nerf from as-is H Sweeps, as it's a new choice that foes are currently denied. Perhaps make those attacks a Taunt-only rider, which gives the devs a lever to deny the attacks to PCs dipping into a G dedication.
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I've got an objection. If a class with 10 HP/level, the best AC of the game, extra damage reduction from armor and Shield Block goes down with two hits, every other character would have faced the same fate or worse.
PF2e isn't really a game where a single character can tank alone for long, Guardian or not.Good critique about Hampering Sweeps.
The reason the Guardian keeps going down so fast is because the class mechanics make you give up that high AC and HP. Taunt wipes out that high AC and makes you very vulnerable to a competent enemy. Intercept Strike gives up your HP because your taking a hit for someone else.
Guardian isn't really a tank so much as a "Designated Loser", designed to go down instead of another (more capable and important) party member.
Contain Foes, Stance
Requirement: An adjacent enemy
You make it difficult for enemies to move away from you once they have gotten close. You and each adjacent enemy are Immobilized. Affected creatures can make an Escape check to end this stance.
(Replacement for Taunt).
Timber Sentinel Stance, 2 actions, stance
You gain 5 temporary hit points per level that last until the stance ends.
When an adjacent ally takes damage, they can treat these temporary hit points as if they had them.
This stance ends if you move, or the temporary hit points are depleted.
*could use another name.
Brace for Impact, 1 action.
You position yourself in order to absorb the next blow. Gain temporary hit points equal to twice your level that last until the stat of your next turn. While you have them, you reduce forced movement by 5'.
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I'm not sure if posting your own homebrew feats and features repeatedly is gonna be conductive to the feedback thread. Might as well just make your own thread for that, bud.
Intercept Rail Gun
Line up a bunch of Guardians and one ally. Attack the ally with dagger.
The ally takes damage and the first Gardian uses Intercept Stike.
Now that he is taking physical damage, the next one in line can use Intercept Strike.
Repeat until the dagger is moving at relativistic speeds.
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Even if the effect of taunt was tweaked to make it a capable action for the round I think there is still a problem with it.
Using taunt every turn on the same enemies is not really a fun action, Its kind of a chore with little benefit. As it is some might just not use it.
If taunt's -2 AC/DC draw back is removed and it is given a duration then theres an opportunity for the threat techniques to do something for the Guardian or their allies for a more substantial duration without having to reapply every round.
This also frees up the Guardian even with a strong taunt to have a less static routine.
Taunt could have the following changes.
No AC/DC penalty for the guardian.
-2 circumstance penalty to hit on success or crit fail or fail.
The difference comes in the duration taunt lasts.
On success the foe is only slightly distracted taking the penalty on only its next attack action.
On fail its 2 rounds
on crit fail its 3 rounds
Crit Success is no effect as it is now
success here is much less effective but that is ok if success is much better and if threat techniques are developed to to more than they do now while a fie is taunted.
I don't think Taunt should be used every round, I see it as a tool in the Guardian's toolbox, not a you must always do this action.
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I don't think Taunt should be used every round, I see it as a tool in the Guardian's toolbox, not a you must always do this action.
I feel that is only because as it is its not worth doing every round.
If the threat techniques are improved to where you dont want to spend any rounds without them then taunt will have the support it needs to be more relevant (given some tweaks to the actual ability).The threat techniques are not great as is and dont encourage taunt use to be every round.
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I would adjust intercept strike to function like the commanders defensive swap ability (removing from commander all together). This would make use of the improved AC since guardian becomes the target, would ultimately aggro enemies who try to target your allies and act to draw attention to you. Add in the resistance to damage and stacking with a shield block you would have effectively 2+lvl+shield hardness DR.
I would even be tempted to allow the guardian to grab an ally and swap places when making a reflex save or other area effect, allowing the guardian to take the damage (with reduction) instead of the ally.
As for taunt? Well why not use feint and demoralise (losing the 10 min limitation), possiby even diplomacy to force the enemy to notice you. Constantly leaving them flat footed or frightened should draw their ire.
Add athletics to stop a target moving when they try to leave a threatened area, no damage just a quick grab to stop them or tangling them in your shield or weapon that halts their movement.
I suppose what I am saying is make taunt a skill based reaction and expand the skill list through either class feats or level based abilities.
Good points.
In my opinion, just like Intercept Strike, it should be replaced by the commander's Defensive Swap and improvements should be gradually added to it (such as allowing the use of Shield Block in the same reaction, just as the Champion has Shield of Reckoning) the same should be done with Taunt, it could be replaced with an improved version of the commander's Standard-Bearer's Sacrifice, but without the Requirements and the limitation of it being a ranged attack instead with a trigger based on the opponent using a hostile action that doesn't include the guardian, which is actually completely opposite to Taunt's current problems, as not only is it a reaction, it doesn't punish you for use it.
It's curious to see that there are already alternatives to the problem, but in the feats of another class!
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I don't think Taunt should be used every round, I see it as a tool in the Guardian's toolbox, not a you must always do this action.I feel that is only because as it is its not worth doing every round.
If the threat techniques are improved to where you dont want to spend any rounds without them then taunt will have the support it needs to be more relevant (given some tweaks to the actual ability).
The threat techniques are not great as is and dont encourage taunt use to be every round.
[Emphasis mine] This is the clearest analysis of the problem I find with Taunt/Threat techniques. I essentially do not want to use Taunt because it doesn’t feel a) useful in combat or b) in the group’s interest because the tension between Taunt and Ferocious Vengeance is…off. As I’ve said elsewhere, I Taunt to get an enemy to attack me, but only get a buff *if they don’t*. So what do I want them to do? For the group? For me?
And ultimately the benefits of Furious Vengeance just aren’t anywhere enticing enough to want to Taunt.
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After doing some thinking on this class, I think this is the first time I thought a playtested class needed to go back to the drawing board. Honestly.
Aside from the messy chassis issues, the wildly broken feats, that are often either lackluster, too powerful or anti-synergistic. There are some major conceptual issues with the class that a single round of playtesting and then having a wildly different, and untested, class in a different state on final release is not good. This already happened and we call it the Alchemist.
Of the major concepts I'm talking about, one is the passive playstyle that makes the class boring in play due to lacking proactive things to do other than position and waiting, something the Champion doesn't do. And the other is simply how narrow the class scope truly is, both in terms of mechanics and the concepts it enables. All Guardians will play and feel largely the same with this current implementation.
As the other playtester, emptyptr_97, made the effort of showing us. There are many types of guardians, bodyguards and all around "defenders" we should be covering with this class. Yet, the current guardian only offers a single type, the beefy heavily armored meat shield with sword and board. That really doesn't sound like a PF2e class. It's the item dispenser alchemist all over again.
Am I alone in this?
Playing tanks is my JAM. I love them in most games. I'm playing one in my current campaign with my Champion. I had no desire to play a Guardian and GMing for one just showed it more clearly.
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Other core issues.
Physical defenses and protection only is the core assumption of the class. Can be expanded to some elements which is good but that should just be a chassis upgrade for all guardians not an opt in thing at the expense of other feats. Reason being the class needs to be able to protect allies from the kinds of threats that are more common at higher levels when they are a higher level guardian to be able to contribute.
In that same vein at higher levels they could use an in chassis aoe defense for allies close to them if they are expected to be adjacent for intercepts at higher levels. If the guardian is taking a hit to make it happen the benefit should be a net positive for the party and the guardian should be able to survive it given all the other damage they are expected to take for the team.
Armor spec is a sometimes nice extra but too limited to be a main defense for the guardian. If the guardian is staying at 10 hp and expected to pull enemy attention and take additional damage from intercepting for allies give the guardian a something much less conditional as their personal damage protection. If you want to tie it to a threat technique so they only have it against taunted targets go ahead but make it stronger if that is the way you go with it.
Make taunt a thing the guardian does once against a foe for 2 or more turns. This way the reworked benefits of threat technique(and they really could use a rework towards benefits that a guardian will always want active) stay active for longer allowing the guardian to have a more varied routine turn by turn.
Do something with zone of control type mechanics for the guardian. Intercept Foe actually simulates this a bit by allowing them to help allies within stride distance but maybe do the same with taunt. Since taunt is something that works even on things immune to the mental trait make taunt physically imposing by having the guardian stride to that foe and get in their face when they taunt. (there is more balancing to do if striding is part of it but im sure Paizo can make it something that works well)
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Finished up another playtest session. Mostly the same players.
L8 party: Witch (Me) + unarmed Thief Rogue + Whip Guardian + Commander (Inspiring Martial).
The first fight was a wild stress test where 2/4 hero points were gone before we had an action due to crit-failing against AoE damage. One caster + troop of Avalanche Legion. Second fight was VS a young red dragon.
Compared to the last playtest, this one was undeniably smoother and further away from TPK.
However, I must agree that the Guardian really should go back in the oven. This time, the Guardian used Int Strike only once or twice at most. For both fights. They had learned to not even use the class-boosted Athletics maneuvers, and instead raw Tripped with the whip. This whip did not even have Striking runes, but the Rogue next to them had (the new and improved) Gang Up & Opportune Backstab.
The Guardian did Strike a few times, but literally only to trigger the Rogue's Backstab.
It seemed the Guardian ignored their Guardian actions much more, and their performance improved considerably.
Like last time's Giant Barb, the star of the show was certainly the Rogue, who even used Wolf stance with Amphisbaena Handwraps. They were the target of the Commander's Strike Hard!, so the best rounds involved the Rouge getting a 0 MAP Strike themself, a 0 MAP Strike Reaction via Guardian's whip, and a 0 MAP Strike via the Commander. Yeah, I don't know why Rogue got buffed either.
While the Guardian performed for the team, with one turn even involving a Swap --> Ranged Trip with a Bola to take down a flying dragon, I cannot stress enough how much they did not appear to be a complete martial character. They did use the compressed Raise + Taunt action, especially against the dragon, but that was more for the later Block than the Taunt.
Hampering sweeps did get to shine a bit, sort of. Again, it's very hard to say what would have happened if the action were not used, but the dragon failed a Shove to disrupt the Guardian.
The Commander had a notable turn when the dragon first descended, moving and using Form Up to let us spread out before the dragon could attack. The main issue they faced was the "1 tactic limit" issue meaning that every turn possible, it was just Strike Hard! + something else. They even rolled back another Form Up explicitly because they forgot that it would prevent the Rogue from getting another Strike.
My Witch attempted to use the new Lesson of the Shark's hex, but I was literally never able to cast it. The 2A nature of the spell, and very tricky initial trigger combined to ensure that it never happened. I was counting on a sustained Rouse Skeletons as the primary trigger. The first fight was too quick and brutal, ending before my actions as lowest initiative in turn 3. The second fight was VS an often flying dragon. A serious issue is the mechanic of Duration: Sustained requiring the spell be "use it or loose it." In practice, that really is asking too much, especially for spellcasters that need 2A to cast.
This time around I did not try to crowbar Starless Shadow's auto-Frightened effect, and while I did really try for it, it never triggered once. I spent my single spare Feat on Familiar Conduit for more flexibility in my positioning, but it wasn't enough. The Human Witch also used 3 General Feats to get Heavy Armor (and Bulwark), which actually made the difference on 2 reflex saves, I think. I positioned well enough to never get swung on, though I still took a dangerous amount of AoE damage.
Right at the end, we all moved in on a Form Up to finish of the dragon, and my full HP Witch went down to ~5 HP in a single Reactive Strike. With so many spells requiring 30ft range, it was rather disheartening to play a 6HP/L class when the GM did not hold back. Without a hero point, my familiar would literally have gone Dying 2 before I was even able to act due to the foe initiating with a fireball.
I can see why others are not happy with the state of such casters, even post-remaster.
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Overall, this playtest reinforced and solidified the impressions from the first run.
The way Strikes lag behind Athletics at L8 is not okay. Even with Expert Strikes, Guardians are much better off whip Tripping than properly swinging. That's just comically absurd.
Intercept Strike is still too narrowly triggered, and any effort/actions spent to trigger it more often are a waste, making the party fall behind the foes. Focus on getting them dead, always.
Commander is great, but super-duper repetitive. This post-game chat was not as long as the first, but this Commander also commented about how few Tactics they could hold.
Rogues are even more of monsters than they used to be, the mutual benefit of Gang Up was put to great use for that Guardian + Commander, and even the "or finesse melee unarmed attack" was worth capitalizing on for that Thief with Wolf Jaw Monk attacks.
Squishies are not super viable in "not holding back" play. This issue is doubled with Witches. Not only can you go down to a single lucky roll even by level 8, but your familiar may go down from a single average one. Without the Damage Avoidance:Reflex ability and some luck, mine would have died just from incidental AoE before we could scatter. Even with Lifelink, my own HP was too low to be able to eat that damage. The Occult list can absolutely do good damage in return, but it's still far less than a martial, and with far more problematic trade offs.
Even the healing/utility side of an Occult Witch's tools like Life Boost paled in comparison to Battle Medicine and Treat Wounds: Ward Medic. Both for both in-battle healing and for between fight recovery.
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In my opinion, the Guardian is not a complete class, and it's not really that close. Especially if Hampering Sweeps is nerfed, the class needs a new core.
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Am I alone in this?
Nope. I'm not seeing many/any voices saying the Gaurdian is in a good state.
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Made a level 3 Guardian for a convention PFS game with GM permission. Rest of the party was a pair of level 2 Magus (Inexorable Iron/Starlit Span) and a level 1 Bard (Lem pregen).
Both the GM and I were pretty excited to try it out, because we're both fands of shield oriented party protecting Champions and this is the same theme. So thematically I think its super cool. Unfortunately, in play it didn't go so well.
1. Taunt just feels bad to use. The most common outcome was a success, so I'm effectively lowering my own defenses by 2 to boost other folks by 1. For 1 action against 1 enemy, that is a lousy trade. I felt pretty action starved to set this up even with Shielding Taunt, and I can't imagine trying to do this regularly without that.
One enemy did critically fail. That enemy did attack me, and hit rather hard thanks to my lowered AC. We both felt that something was needed along with this to make it useful, like some resistance against the taunted enemy or something, because although I was tougher than the other PCs, I wasn't invincible and in fact was at dying 2 by the end of the last encounter.
Group Taunt being core instead of a mid level feat would help, although I doubt the GM would appreciate having to make and track the effect of all those saves every round. (This actually felt clunky in play even with just 1 target, since we need to track who it is and what the result is. If you had multiple Guardians doing this, it would be really unpleasant to track without a VTT.)
Or even better: Hampering Sweeps, which I didn't take but which is almost certainly a better taunt than Taunt itself as it prevents enemies from disengaging with you. Forcing them to stay next to you means that if they're melee they simply don't have many other targets anyway.
2. Intercept Strike feels too limited. The limits that it's only physical and must be adjacent to use it were really limiting. they also caused problems when we fought a Bomber Alchemist: in order to be in position to use Intercept to protect anyone (and actually use my signature class feature), I'm setting at least one person up to take splash damage from those bombs... which I can't Intercept. So either we spread out and I can't protect against the enemy archers, or I get next to someone and boost the splash damage coming in.
It was nice that the source of the attack didn't matter so it worked against ranged (which something like Retributive Strike doesn't), but otherwise it felt really limiting. Even just having to stay next to people to use it limited what I could do unless I just abandoned that.
3. Threat Technique was literally never relevant at any point. I had Furious Vengeance, but it never came up. Using it requires me to taunt, the enemy to ignore the taunt, then me to get close enough to that enemy with enough actions left to be able to strike them, and the strike to land... for 2 damage. I never got that 2 damage, but it isn't much even if I had.
Mitigate Harm also would have never come up up since the times I got crit it was not from a taunted enemy, but if it had been, the resistance at level 3 is 3 which isn't much with how hard enemies crit for.
4. The armor specialization resistance didn't matter at all because nothing did slashing damage (full plate). This was just an adventure specific thing and thus could have helped more in another adventure, but yeah.
5. Action economy feels rough. I originally wanted to make a 2h reach weapon Guardian and do stuff that way, but there's absolutely no way I'd have ever had the actions to both Raise Haft and Taunt in the same turn unless that's all I'm doing (because I usually have to move if I actually want to be able to use Intercept). So I went with a shield, and Shielding Taunt was the only thing that made this feel workable. That's just a feat tax that you have to take if you want to Taunt and use a shield, and the fact that it's not an option with Raise Haft is really unfortunate.
Obviously spending every turn doing nothing offensive is not a good way to win a combat, so that's just out. And if you're never using Taunt, why are you playing this class? (and if you are using Taunt without a shield/some defense boosting ability, you're going to get crushed.)
Having played and GM'd party defense focused Champions, I feel like I'd have been more effective had I just played that. Like, they do the same thing, except they can protect against non-physical damage out of the box and come with healing out of the box. Nothing in the core package here is ahead of that. Like, Retributive Strike mitigates the same amount of damage, you don't need to be adjacent to the target, AND it lets you counterattack, all at level 1.
The first time I read the class I was worried Guardian would step too much on the toes of Champion that way... but my experience was that Champion is just plain better at it. Granted this was level 3 and some of the higher level feats may change that up a bit, but I'm not really convinced of that.
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Am I alone in this?Nope. I'm not seeing many/any voices saying the Gaurdian is in a good state.
I think this is probably the playtest class that needs the most work to release in the history of PF2, but I didn't playtest the Witch or the Investigator during the APG playtest.
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I think this is probably the playtest class that needs the most work to release in the history of PF2, but I didn't playtest the Witch or the Investigator during the APG playtest.Am I alone in this?Nope. I'm not seeing many/any voices saying the Gaurdian is in a good state.
Investigator was messy, but it was incredibly flavorful. The problem was, and still remains, the combat prowess, but it is still a class that rocks on what sets out to do, even if it can be a bit GM dependent (nothing that a player on top of their features couldn't help). Witches were never really going to fail completely because it's a spellcasting class, that's always strong (specially mid to high levels).
With the Guardian, the issue is much more complicated because it can't even justify its very existence yet, let alone enable multiple character concepts that have their own flavor, like every single class in the game (except the Alchemist).
Am I alone in this?Nope. I'm not seeing many/any voices saying the Gaurdian is in a good state.
agreed.
However, I want to put in my support for the idea of a Gardian in general.
We could use an non-magic alternative to the Champion.
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Yeah, I *want* a non-divine alternative to the Champion. But I do not want to be the guy who wants to get hit a lot.
The basic problem with the Guardian is that both Taunt and Intercept Strike are sort of "feel-bad" mechanics. The first lowers your AC which is supposed to be your basic thing, and the second lowers your HP (less than the ally who would get hit, but still.)
Both "preventing your ally from getting attacked" (with things like hampering sweeps) and "punish your enemy for attacking your ally" are more fun!
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However, I want to put in my support for the idea of a Guardian in general.We could use an non-magic alternative to the Champion.
Totally agree. We need a second defender class.
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After reading some of these tests adn thinking about my own, what if Intercept strike was by default the range of intercept foe as basic change to the ability. Also allow taunt to be applied with an action as it is now but also apply taunt to the foe that damages a guardian from an intercept strike as a bonus free action. I also stand by my suggestion to make the effect of taunt a flat -2 to hit and make the success level determine the duration of the taunt.
Threat techniques still need to become something a guardian really wants to always have on so they need to be reworked as well but this set up for taunt and intercept strike would help apply taunt in more situations.
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Yeah, I *want* a non-divine alternative to the Champion. But I do not want to be the guy who wants to get hit a lot.
The basic problem with the Guardian is that both Taunt and Intercept Strike are sort of "feel-bad" mechanics. The first lowers your AC which is supposed to be your basic thing, and the second lowers your HP (less than the ally who would get hit, but still.)
Both "preventing your ally from getting attacked" (with things like hampering sweeps) and "punish your enemy for attacking your ally" are more fun!
Yeah, this. If you look at the other "protect your allies" class in Champion, it's a lot more active. Want to keep things from attacking your allies? You can do things like grab/trip, physically get in the way, etc. The reaction lets you do cool things, and abilities like Shield Warden let you use another tool to help protect people. It works, and it's active. They get hit hard anyway? You can heal them. If the enemy does turn on you, you've got great defense to stay up there longer and continue being a problem.
Intercept Strike requires the Guardian to really limit their positioning options and then hope the right person gets attacked with the right damage type so they can do something about it. Taunt requires burning an action to hope the target fails a save which then weakens your own defenses which isn't really what you want when Intercept requires using your own HP to defend people.
Like, these two things work at cross purposes: you need HP to use Intercept and live, so you don't want to lower your defense via Taunt since it'll cost you the HP you need. You're actually better off just using Intercept since you'll take less damage that way thanks to the resistance.
Maybe Hampering Sweep should become baseline and Taunt should become a feat instead, since Hampering Sweep just feels better to use: you're actively impeding foes, making them fight on your terms, and you're not stripping off your own defensive bonus in order to do it. Even if you add a reflex save or some other way to break out of that, it just feels better in play.
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I wonder if Guardian could work by just having a 15ft aura (in place of taunt) that makes all enemies in the aura take a -2 circumstance penalty to attacks and DCs if they don't include you as a target of their activity. Threat techniques can just trigger off them choosing to target an ally while inside your aura.
Then just give it stuff to help lock enemies near it - grapple/trip bonuses, a reworked hampering sweeps, etc. - and it should gel together.
Unsure where intercept fits in this, it would probably need a different reaction.
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If you want to have a penalty for antagonists who continue to attack your allies when they could instead be attacking you, have it turn on when you hit them or get close enough to hit them.
That makes a lot more sense for "you should not ignore the heavily armed person with a sharp thing who is close enough to hurt you" than "someone is yelling at me from a long distance." Like even "mindless" stuff like oozes should have "pokes are coming from there" be relevant to them.
I feel the class is structured around taunt and threat techniques, right now they ineffective in too many situations for a guardian to consistently help the party.
If a duration taunt is not the way to go an alternative could be whenever the guardian succeeds at an attack ability like a strike or a maneuver or takes damage for an ally with intercept strike, taunt is applied to the foe. I dont think taunt should do exactly what it currently does but if there is a taunt ability it could be something that guardians just apply as a player has their character do the things that they find fun in combat (with low accuracy strikes though actions will be funneled to maneuvers over strikes.)
Whenever taunt is active on an enemy the threat technique abilities become active as well. Threat techniques are the space where the class can be encouraged into different playstyles. What they are right now isnt enough to incentivize different styles of play.
A zones of control could be a base class ability allowing the guardian to use other base class features in its area. Things like intercepts, or any other way the guardian takes one for the team.
Hampering strikes should not stay as is, right now it is a crutch for the class since the classes chassis abilities are not where they need to be yet.
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Right now, I am playing a guardian for the beginner box adventure, but I also GM'd a level 5 Guardian in Scenario 1-17: The Perennial Crown Part 2 during PaizoCon! Here are my initial thoughts:
-Hampering Sweep is way too powerful. The fact you can just prevent all enemies from moving out of your reach is too busted. I know I see a lot of people wanting this as the class feature compared to taunt, but this would need to get a rework. Perhaps an enemy can attempt an escape check against your class DC with the current feat. Critical failure means not moving, failure you treat the movement as greater difficult terrain, success is difficult terrain, and Critical Success the enemy is not hampered by the guardian and can move as normal. We could have it be in sync with the taunt ability; the enemy subject to the guardian's taunt is hampered until the start of the guardian's next turn. This way, the guardian is concentrating on one person and not an entire army within reach. We can change the number of actions it takes for the guardian. Two actions to hamper an enemy, or the guardian spends their entire round preventing a select--not all--couple of enemies from moving away.
-With a tower shield, the scenario guardian was able to spend two actions (shielding taunt and take cover behind the tower shield) and raise their ac to Thirty! Combined with a third action of hampering strike, the Webhekiz encounter did not feel fun to run. Sure, a taunted enemy had a +2 to strike the guardian, but there was no way any of the Palace Guards (Tier 5-6) were able to hit the guardian outside of a roll range of 18 through 20. King Webhekiz had a better chance with spells that forced saves and a 15-20 range of success with his Striking Scepter, but not a huge chance. I think I was able to do damage to the guardian in the scenario because of the obstacle failures in the beginning of the scenario, the King's lightning bolt, and I was able to hit with Qxal's Avatar (+20 to hit). Sure, the guardian did have to spend their entire round to accomplish this feat (which a 30 AC is impressive on its own and this is the fantasy of the guardian), but the guardian should not be able to be to prevent all creatures around them from moving away and be able to prevent a lot of hits with a high AC—it doesn’t seem fair to the GM.
-Taunt, conceptually, is cool, but I feel like it is missing something to make it a great class feature. Perhaps we can add “Guardian tactics” like “Come at Me!” (one or two actions) Prerequisite: Enemy subject to the guardian's taunt failed or critically failed: A creature that failed or critically failed a will save against the taunt must make another will save. Failure means it must try to strike the guardian next round, critical failure means it must spend its entire round coming after the guardian, success gives the creature a +3-circumstance bonus to hit if it chooses to strike the guardian with any of its attacks next turn, and critical Success is like the success condition but with a +5-circumstance bonus. The numbers are high with the success conditions, but it incentivizes the GM to target some of the “Tower-shield Sallys”, and the guardian can prevent their allies from being hit by making them an easier target. You can add other abilities like this to give the taunt something more where failuire does what the guardian intends, and success may punish the guardian for their reckless tactics.
Overall, I do love the guardian, but I want to make sure the guardian is fun for the GMs to run as well.
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Then just give it stuff to help lock enemies near it - grapple/trip bonuses, a reworked hampering sweeps, etc. - and it should gel together.
Unsure where intercept fits in this, it would probably need a different reaction.
IMO
Zone of control + a reaction that triggers off the "enemy".I.e
Theat technique
Ferocious Vengeance: reaction
Trigger: when an enemy within reach makes a hostile action that does not include you.
Make a melee Strike against it immediately after.
Mitigate Harm: reaction
Trigger: when an enemy within reach makes a hostile action that does not include you.
Reduce the damage it deals by 2+your level.
That solves the positioning issue, as you just want to be next to the biggest enemy on the field.
And that provides a nice counter point to the Champion which has abilities that act on allies.
Obviously there's room for a few "ally" feats (Bodyguard) . But yea. Focus on enemies.
One thing about threat techniques they are too restrictive in when they apply. If taunt is active on anything then the threat techniques should be active.
Furious vengeance upgrade at level 5. when striking an taunted target apply your weapon or unarmed attacks critical specialization on a success or critical success. Even if you dont have access to crit specs yet.
Dropping this here in this thread for convenience's sake, we haven't playtested yet but here's my first impression as someone who plays an awful lot of tanks in an awful lot of different games (and types of games), expect to see one more post from me in this thread for a post playtest follow up, this is partially based on some number crunching we've been doing, and it's modified as a result from what was said in a different thread the other day:
Boss-tier encounters (PL+3) with Moderate Will progression are going to Succeed vs. Taunt on 75% of rolls, which means they'll be hitting even the Guardian's high AC with 50/50 accuracy *on their second attack* - and they'll still be critting the Guardian's allies approximately 40% of the time (which is still a very unhappily high occurance of critical hits.) The accuracy on the second attack gets even better if they have an Agile secondary weapon.(Thanks to WillDigForFood who posted this on my discord)
Not having a dedicated healer in the context of the above would very much scare me. I think that the tuning on the Guardian's 'hit me presence' and tankiness might be off, it's vital for a tank to have a catch-22 loop where the enemy neither wants to hit the tank because they're the least efficient thing to hit, but also needs to hit the tank because otherwise the tank is too annoying, right now the Guardian looks like it doesn't do either quite well enough-- its hits are ignorable on above level creatures, the penalty from taunt is small, and worse due to being a check, and hits and crits from those creatures will still rock it's world. The core design I think is excellent, but my thoughts is that numbers need to be moved--
Switch Key Stat to Constitution, but give them the same attack proficiency progression as the Barbarian and various other martials. This evens out their to-hit to make it more consistent but they're actually still the worst hitter of the martials since they'd have Inventor to-hit with no overdrive to make up...
I just want to verify that my viewpoint hasn't changed from additional testing, these still feel like the right moves for the class-- everything it does is very fun, I'm just feeling the pain of where the specific of the numbers were actually put in a way that more or less matches what I wrote here. Additional tankiness or stickyness should come from class feats and cost actions.
A big factor I will say is that the class really wants the largest possible HP pool, as well as healing to do its job well-- its worth attacking due to taunt penalty, but the game makes it naturally squishy, but if you take Mitigate Harm to deal with that yourself its likelier to bog down the game, and that means FV feels like both QOL and unviable. Especially due to reducing your own AC with Taunt and not having Mitigate Harm to make up for it.
Intercept works better due to the reduction, but that's a big part of why its worth it to attack the guardian: because you can get more done by working through it's health first unless it has Mitigate Harm, but mitigate harm means you're a nonentity and can only really make it work by following your ally around and intercepting damage because the target is about to ignore you as soon as they realize you have MG.
What's happening here is that because the choice to MG or FV emphasizes different parts of the tank loop, one is better than the other based on the skew of the base loop-- in this case the Guardian is stickier than it is tanky (because Intercept Strike's reduction is so annoying for the monster), so MG is favored, but that also makes them less likely to attack you, which reduces its value and further emphasizes falling back on the intercept, making intercept feel like a safety net for not being able to get the right balance of offensive and defensive pressure-- and you still can't take FV because MG is too important to survival once the boss swats you for intercepting their strike last round.
Healing mitigates this because you can just take big healing spells to restore your HP instead of reducing the damage manually, so the question becomes: how do we feel about requiring a dedicated healer for FV builds vs. playing MG if you don't have one. Shields are an option too, but my lil tests were using a Greatsword Guardian for Dark Knight Vibes.
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I think con main stat would be bad, they don't do anything with Con. Class just needs proper martial progression.
The bigger issue I've run into with testing though has just been that the class has too many caveats. Too many things that are restrictive, like the designers were afraid of letting the class be good.
Why does Intercept only work on physical damage?
Why does Intercept Foe only work on melee attacks?
Why does Taunt make them so much squishier and more vulnerable to AoEs and elemental attacks they can't even protect against?
Vengeance gives the a damage bonus if you don't respect their mechanics, but why is that bonus so weak? Paladins get a MAP-free strike out of the deal.
Why are they a martial with alchemist attack progression?
It reflects in the discourse too. The ideas are nice, I don't even think Taunt is a bad core idea, but everything is framed around the downsides of the Guardian, or what the Guardian isn't allowed to do, rather than what they enable.
I'm not going to do a big writeup because it was a short game, but one thing the Guardian at the table kept saying variations on "Oh, nevermind that doesn't work" or "Oh for some reason I can't do that" when looking at his abilities.
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NGL: I hate how Mitigate Harm works. The whole idea of "if you're playing this correctly you will get crit a lot so here is some slight protection against that" just feels bad. I'm supposed to be the toughest character on the field, why am I getting crit more often than the Paladin that is better at literally everything else? (Hell, if you don't go for a shield build and shielded taunt, you'll be getting crit more than the Fighter at a lot of levels).
On top of that, the scaling of it is weird and clunky, following a progression that nothing else uses, so how much its actually mitigating is weird and another thing you have to track. It also doesn't stack with your armor specialization, which is another case of Guardian abilities not working well together.
I'd actually prefer if it was just the Fortification effect Guardians get later on. Move that up to level 1 so you can simply "nope" crits and its both a lot cooler and a mechanic that already exists. You could give the class booth that AND Furious Vengeance out of the box and it still wouldn't be overpowered.
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Intercept Strike: This is where we get juicy. Change intercept strike's trigger to 'An adjacent ally takes damage or an adjacent enemy deal damage to an ally'.
oh I really like this both thematically and because Intercept would no longer discourage flanking
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NGL: I hate how Mitigate Harm works.
On the subject of frustrating restrictions. Between mitigate harm, intercept strike, and armor specialization you have several different sources of resistance which are all mutually exclusive.
This is a general rule, so it's not like a guardian specific problem, but it adds to the feeling of the class struggling with features that have so many caveats to them.
If you Intercept a crit mitigate harm doesn't provide a benefit because resistance doesn't stack. That's kind of a specific scenario, but it's also really emblematic of a feelsbad ability interaction.
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NGL: I hate how Mitigate Harm works.On the subject of frustrating restrictions. Between mitigate harm, intercept strike, and armor specialization you have several different sources of resistance which are all mutually exclusive.
This is a general rule, so it's not like a guardian specific problem, but it adds to the feeling of the class struggling with features that have so many caveats to them.
If you Intercept a crit mitigate harm doesn't provide a benefit because resistance doesn't stack. That's kind of a specific scenario, but it's also really emblematic of a feelsbad ability interaction.
Yeah, feelsbad is right. Guardian has a lot of "this feature doesn't work with this feature" and "these two features actively work at cross purposes." It's like they couldn't decide what tank trope they wanted to lean into and so did a bit of everything.
This one could be fixed by replacing Mitigate Harm with the Fortification you get later and having Intercept Strike make you the target of the attack outright, though. Then you might get crit, but you have a chance to just no-sell it, which DOES work with your resistance. Then it's three abilities all working together.
Maybe that would be too much, but going from "the Rogue got crit, grabbed, and rended" to "I got crit, negated the crit, took reduced damage from the hit, grabbed, and rended" is a massive swing and IMO would let the Guardian shine a lot brighter. It's also something that no other class can really pull off.
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I love the give cover to an ally ability. That could easily be a more core feature, giving cover/ greater cover to allies around you and any when you are closer to the enemy is a great tank/ blocker effect.
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After digesting my own playtest for two weeks, I do have feedback.
I want to start off by saying that I love the core concept of the class. A focus on a heavy armor wearer that is defensive in nature. I want this class to succeed and shine and I get the idea that a lot of other posters do as well.
Unfortunately, unlike the Commander, I do not think Guardian is close. I do not see a reason to play a Guardian over a Champion to fill the "tank" role at the moment, and having a non-Divine defender-type option is something that the game would benefit from.
I think it starts at Hit Points. The Guardian, as described when announced and in the playtest, is supposed to take hits for other people. That is a great concept for a character.
Why does it have 10 HP a level? Why not 12? Why not - since HP are no longer tied to dice - 14? If the job in combat is to take damage so other people don't have to, the first tool in the toolbox is HP, and they are not high enough - as many playtests on these boards have shown - to do the job for very long.
I am fine with Armor and Weapon Proficiencies where they are. I know many people might not agree with the latter, but I am ok with the Guardian being focused on defense if the chassis is upgraded to allow them to do that better.
The next issue is Guardian Armor. At first glance, getting Armor Spec at level 1 looks powerful. However, two issues quickly pop up. The first is that Armor Spec, in general, is just terrible. It's easily forgotten in play when people get it as it's just not impactful. Secondly, as a sidebar /on the exact page/ where Guardian Armor is points out that it does not stack with the benefit of another class feature: Intercept Strike. As I said in my initial playtest report, if you have to have that type of sidebar that effectively says 'This level one feature and another level one feature conflict with each other., that should be a red flag for you that something is wrong.
I would rewrite Guardian Armor to be: When you are in Medium Armor you gain 1+level Resistance to all Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage. When wearing Heavy Armor, this becomes 2+level. In addition, you can rest normally in medium or heavy armor.
This would allow the Guardian to take more hits and be more of a mitigation tank, and give it the survivability that it currently lacks.
It would necessitate two other changes.
Intercept Strike would lose its DR, as that would be baked into the class. As a result, I'd give Intercept Strike the step - and only the step - from Champion's Ranged Reprial feat to give the Guardian a little more positioning flexibility at low level. In addition, I'd change the Level 13 class feature of Greater Armor Spec to be Greater Guardian Armor and give it 'add your potency rune to the DR from Guardian Armor.
Threat Technique, as others have said, is just not impactful. I do not know how I would adjust it, but if it is going to stay in place, it needs adjusting.
I think Intercept Strike is fine, though I would like to see it get a full feat chain so that a player could really lean into it as a core element of a build.
Taunt.
Taunt is close. I think the core mechanic is good. I would keep Taunt as a Will save, but I would change the effects slightly as follows:
Enemy Crit Success: No effect on the enemy, no penalties to the Guardian.
Enemy Success: As it is now. -1 to the enemy on non-Guardian targets, +2 vs the Guardian.
Enemy Failure: The enemy gets the current -2 to Non-Guardian. In addition, the debuff on the Guardian goes to +1.
Enemy Crit Failure: The enemy gets the current -3 to non-Guardian. In addition, there is no penalty against the Guardian, and the enemy's first action of the next turn must be to Stride towards the Guardian or melee Strike at the Guardian.
This is just a first iteration, and can very likely be improved.
I am not going to get into Feats, as the impact of Feats depends on the class features.
Guardian needs a lot more defense to be equal to Champs, given that Champs have magic and mystical abilities to help with tanking. Hopefully my comments help the dev team to give people the class many of us want to see. The core concept is great, it just needs more mechanical tweaking to get there.
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I would rewrite Guardian Armor to be: When you are in Medium Armor you gain 1+level Resistance to all Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage. When wearing Heavy Armor, this becomes 2+level. In addition, you can rest normally in medium or heavy armor.
2+level is an absolutely massive amount of DR to have always on and will drastically swing encounters. Cosmos Oracles get half that and my GM still finds it annoying just how much damage I can stop.
It should stay the current value of resistance Armor spec and later greater armor spec give but call it superior armor spec and allow that 2+armor potency apply to all physical, and later apply to elemental damage as well in chassis. We could end up overtuning the class if we give it the 12 hp and massive damage resistance.
But the failings I think come in hardly appplicable threat techniques rarely supporting a taunt that doesnt incentivize much use.
Improve these two features of the class to where a player is excited to use them and keep the threat technique going every turn and the class will be fine with more modest increases to survivability.
But it is true that this class when doing its job is taking an extra hit -2+level each round at low levels, more at higher levels.
My problem with the low accuracy is that they get one ok accuracy action per turn. you have to choose between a strike or an athletics maneuver and that makes the class on their turn feel stale. If they dont get martial accuracy the would need feet support combining a strike with a shove or reposition or grab or something applying map after both to feel a little more fun to play. Everyone wants to feel like they at least have 1 strike in a round to throw out and this class right now is better off using trip and if they do they wont have much chance of hitting with a strike.