Guard Skill

Has anyone noticed an improved rate (slighty improved) rate of guard and skillups after june 21 update? I feel like i guard much more often as of late.

I have, too. Got to 70 without getting to 30 Guard...and now it's nearing 100 after more or less a few hours farming.

Capped guard at 75 mnk, tried skilling for 2hrs last night, low procs, as usual, and not a single .1

Maybe they just increased the lower level guard procs?
Or maybe it's just normal for me to guard this much and I never really noticed it before ._.

Hey Pimpstix,

What you might be noticing is probably related to the Agi vs Dex check that is factored into the Guard Equation. While I won't claim to be an expert, I've done a lot of experimenting before and after the update and determined a few things you might find interesting.

For starters, after this last update, I have noticed that I do guard more frequently than before, though the rate of skill ups remains about the same (Little to none. Ha ha). Since my gear hasn't changed and the mobs I skill up haven't changed, it leads me to believe that the reason for this lies in the overly complicated math associated with the game.

Don't hold me to this. This is all experimental math, but it seems to be fairly accurate in my own experiments.

As it stands, I have 193 Guard Skill (With gear on. Skill+ is the same as having the base skill). In that same guard set, I have a total of 96 AGI.

My theoretical activation formula is as follows:

(Player's Guard Skill / 4) * (1 + (Player's AGI / 100) - (Enemy's DEX / 100))

To briefly explain what this formula says: Your Skill determines a "Base Activation", which is enhanced by your AGI and lowered by your enemy's dexterity. In short, if your enemy has 10 DEX and you have 100 AGI, you'll guard a lot more than if the reverse were to happen.

Using the experimental formula andassuming 140 Dex (which seems to be about right, for DC/EM enemies, which I solo for skill), I have a 27% Chance to guard. Prior to the last update, this seemed to be quite right.

Since the update, however, I think SE dropped enemy DEX and gave them some kind of Accuracy+ to compensate for their lower DEX. Assuming those same mobs (Gigas in Upper Delkfutt, the ones that drop Pallas/Alky pop items) but at a lower Dex, I think they reduced it to roughly 99.

If my formula is still true, then my guard chance rockets up to 46%. The dex drop may not be as much as my theorectial figures, but it might help to explain why you are seeing what you are seeing. I'm always looking for people to test my formula. One Monk can't test something as effectively as say... 30. It's all about what players are seeing, after all.

Even if the reduction is minor, say 120 dex vs 140, the guard percentage still increases to 36.67% chance to guard, a fair deal improved over 27%

I hope this gives you some idea of what might have happened. Happy Guarding!

Tiger you should try pulling multiple steelshells at 80MNK/40DNC i have a feeling that'll be a good way to skill past 75 cap. I havent got there yet but have had much success with the crab familys all the way up.

I'd be willing to help test that out for you if you point me toward the tools to do it with.

Placebo effect, as for the skill ups, I don't doubt though. Higher the mob is over your skill level, the better skill ups, ect

Well, I hadn't heard anything about guarding more after the update until now, but I've noticed it since around my birthday (the 20th), so I chocked it up to luck more than an update.

We were discussing this in LS the other day about parrying. I think they may have tweaked it cause I have gotten 4 parry lvls in Ro'Maeve on COR in the past 3 days doing pages, went from 162-166.

Sounds like Martial Mastery was up.

Martial Mastery hasn't been up since before the 20th on Shiva, so.

well pimpstix i have guard skill 201 with gear I am a 75 mnk but i am also leveling pup to catch up guard which is much easier then begging a friend to keep me alive lol at my point i cant solo 3 to 6 mobs to speed up the process of guard but since me an you are on the same server we can team up

I thought I noticed increased guard activation and skill up rate shortly after the patch. But after actually gearing up to try level guard I agree with Tigerwoods, I think it's just the Placebo effect. My skill is at 184 (somewhere around 220 with gear) and I was getting skill ups just as slowly as before.

Was martial master active?

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Martial_Master

It was sad I got a party sync to 37 as my 78MNK the other night and was getting guard skillups.

I was told to go to like the boyahda tree and skillup on the black mandys.

Haven't tried it yet though.

Nope, no martial master, my AGI is soooo low, and i usually end up tanking in my EVA build gear, and yet, everytime i go fight mobs EM-T at 75+ i get .1-.3 guard skill within an hour. (Plus that extra TP from tactical guard, which is very nice for solo play) Now, im really glad i put the time into skilling guard up (still only 224 but no longer feels stuck there)

just got my mnk to 80 recently and going to start my quest for guard... ugh at 80 right now.

would i be better off syncing down to say 30 and solo/duoing mobs since then my evasion/parry/guard skill will be around the same levels?

Just use mandies in tree, pull a bunch with phalanx up andhave them wail on you

I noticed a small boost to counter, guard, and parry skills with the update. I wasn't 100% sure though and asked around... some said they saw similar increases, some said "GTFO CHUPA!". It's not a big difference, maybe like 5-10%, but it seems to be an increase nonetheless. Some people don't pay attention to things either... so they wouldn't notice the increase. (the same ones that play blm and didn't notice they gimped sleep timer/resists back in the day...)

I got some gear and decided to try to cap guard due to the increased guard rate... but yeah, skill ups still suck balls like always. But, I do guard more... just don't get skill ups off it -.-

Funny note, had like 10 crabs on me in the tunnel and people kept commenting that I had a terrible case of crabs ; ;