"Neverwinter" Guardian Fighters Galore! Quiz

Answer: Tank

A fairly basic characteristic of the Guardian Fighter. This class is the best tank in the game, clearly and definitively outclassing Oathbound Paladins in this distinction. They have all the tools at their disposal to be masterful at the job, and in doing so, it is a requirement for any serious party to bring at least one along to an epic dungeon.

Answer: Knight's Valor

Knight's Valor is considered to be a must for higher levelled tanks. Simply put, this power is directly conducive with what a tank is supposed to do. Once the tank has activated Knight's Valor, it would take an extremely mighty blow to seriously threaten the other members of the party.

The drawback is, of course, the tank can potentially be overwhelmed if such a mighty blow, or a series of mighty blows, befalls themselves and their party. It is really important to align your stats and boons correctly, and it's important to keep an eye on the enemies and your stamina level.

It can oftentimes be worth it to, if need be, preserve your stamina to block a mighty blow and to drop your shield and just take the full force of a lesser blow, so that you minimize the impact of the mighty blow. Fast decision making and precise character building long term are necessities, but if you have those two traits, you are ready to use Knight's Valor to its fullest extent!

Answer: Blacksmith

While all of these companion choices are fine in their own right, the Blacksmith is very simply the #1 choice for a Deflect build. This is because of the Blacksmith's Active Bonus, which grants a 15% chance to reflect 10% of the damage you take when you have shield up. If you the same target is hit four times, this power reflects three times the damage that would have been taken. Because a Deflect based Guardian Fighter will focus primarily on their Deflect and on their Stamina, they will be holding shield quite a lot.

This means they can not only protect themselves to a good extent, but they can also use this companion to generate an offensive presence the Guardian Fighter sorely lacks. As an added bonus, the Blacksmith himself can contribute fairly decently in combat, as he can hit opponents fairly hard with his massive sledgehammer. Together, the Blacksmith can, while providing this active bonus, essentially act as a poor man's Great Weapon Fighter, while the Guardian Fighter tanks shots for the Blacksmith.

Answer: Yes

Say hello to Valindra Shadowmantle, the bane of the Guardian Fighter's existence. Valindra has one way she can kill you in one hit, and it comes on Valindra's Tower. After you've whittled Valindra to about seventy five percent of her health, she will temporarily leave the battlefield, scream "Now you die!" before beginning to randomly blast the battlefield with some type of magical explosive.

The explosive is devastating, and it kills anyone, Guardian Fighter included, who gets hit by it. You cannot survive this blow even if you have your shield up, so the only thing you can do is get out of the way. To know where the blast is about to come, the soon-to-be effected areas will flash red for three seconds.

At that point, the explosion will hit the area. To avoid the blow, you must be in an area that isn't lit red.

This is made tricky by two differing factors. First, the red areas are fairly big and Guardian Fighters don't, by nature, invest in their Movement, so you could become afflicted with bad luck and be caught right in the middle of a developed red area, unable to avoid the onslaught. Second, even if you do leave the red area, Valindra will have mirror image minions that will attempt to push you into the red area.

They also damage you heavily upon touching them, so you need to ensure you've saved enough stamina to hold your shield against them until Valindra's round of explosives has passed.

Answer: True

This one is admittedly a trick question. No matter what you do, the Guardian Fighter is counted as a tank by queue standards, so you can't register as a DPS loadout. Having said that, because a Guardian Fighter is so passive, going through quests and dungeons alone can be quite cumbersome. Very often will you find foes who cannot threaten you, but you also cannot really kill them particularly quickly. Missions that a true DPS loadout, such as a Hunter Ranger, could blow past in a handful of minutes could very easily take a typical Guardian Fighter half an hour. To mitigate this problem, the player could choose to use their second Loadout slot to change their powers and boons to be more offensively oriented, slightly boosting the Guardian Fighter's offenses at the expense of its bulk, so that they may at least slightly speed up the process of doing missions and dungeons solo. Note, it is never recommended to take this type of build to a party or if you are, in general, meant to protect a DPS loadout.

In these scenarios, the Guardian Fighter must have maximized their bulk, or their usefulness alongside true DPS loadouts diminishes.

Answer: It allows the Guardian Fighter to build Threat quickly

In most scenarios, the Guardian Fighter will enter a enemy filled room or a boss battle first. From there, they should Mark the most threatening enemy, and lunge at them to ensure they can get right up in this enemy's face, ensuring that their attention remains on them, and not the party's DPS or Clerics. Without Lunging Strike, the Guardian Fighter's poor speed would stick out like a sore thumb, as this potentially allows the enemies to close the gap on the party faster.

This leaves the Guardian Fighter prone to not generating Threat quickly enough to divert enough enemies. By being able to Mark, and immediately reach the enemy, the Guardian Fighter is more likely to be able to generate Threat quickly enough to protect the rest of the party.

After the conflict has ensued, Lunging Strike can still be used as a means of providing a minimal, albeit slightly noticeable stronger offensive presence.

Answer: Into the Fray

Into the Fray is a useful tool in the Guardian Fighter's arsenal that allows it to buff the Movement, Power, and Recovery while also giving out Temporary HP and a 15% Stamina recovery speed up to themselves and all allies within a small radius. These boosts are crucial: DPS characters are now even deadlier, while the Cleric can make use of the Temporary HP boost to make their own healing spells even more effective. Adding icing to the cake, the Temporary HP issued is based off of the Guardian Fighter's HP, which will be significantly higher than the DPS characters, and still higher than the Cleric's HP stats.

This power is absolutely essential, and should be used ad nauseum in the heat of battle.

Answer: Hunter Ranger

Simply put, the Hunter Ranger and Guardian Fighter were made for each other. Both of their strengths benefit the other immensely, and they both cover for each other's weaknesses incredibly. The Hunter Ranger is a DPS build, which can help the Guardian Fighter actually kill things instead of sitting in one place and uselessly swinging away at the foe.

In return, the Hunter Ranger is also very frail and not capable of taking more than one or two notable hits before dying. The Guardian Fighter's bulk comes in handy here, and the Hunter Ranger can provide their powerful offenses near-uncontested while the Guardian Fighter generates Threat and keeps the foes distracted. Finally, the Hunter Ranger makes for a better fit than the Great Weapon Fighter, the runner up, because the Hunter Ranger generates all of their offense at a distance. Unlike Great Weapon Fighters, the Hunter Ranger uses a variation of a bow and arrow kit, meaning they will never actually approach what they are attacking. Because of this, the Guardian Fighter generates Threat easier since they are not worrying about their target turning a little bit and beginning to strike the Hunter Ranger, since they will not be right next to the foe.

Answer: All of these

The shield is easily the Guardian Fighter's most important tool. It can do so much for them, such as absorbing massive attacks that could have otherwise dealt major damage to the Guardian Fighter, allowing the DPS builds to hit the target harder by bashing them with the shield, or allowing the Guardian Fighter to remain in place and not surrender Combat Advantage by blocking knockback and prone based attacks.

Answer: Fighter's Recovery

Fighter's Recovery is a power that, when used, allows the Guardian Fighter to convert whatever damage they deal to the enemy into health for themselves for seven seconds. A well built Guardian Fighter can then use Cleave to strike two or more enemies for an amount of damage that will definitely be enough to negate the damage the Guardian Fighter takes, given how fast Cleave works.

This power is very much essential for a Guardian Fighter to have, as they could potentially use this pseudo invincibility to move their position if need be, whether it be to lure an enemy to their position to allow a DPS build to flank them and gain Combat Advantage or whether it be a maneuver for the Guardian Fighter themselves to escape Combat Disadvantage, this wild card of an Action is very useful when confronted by a boss or when confronted by a large number of enemies.