Hello o/
So, I’m an ex-WoW player and played mostly Paladin as a tank class. What pretty much is hammered into my muscle memory is, keep the boss’s aggro on yourself and stack block only if you can’t dodge it. Unfortunately, that wisdom does not apply on LA, as here there isn’t exactly a tank class in the traditional sense. In essence they’re all dps with some having a few support skills baked in. This is fine, but it makes me struggle with what is focal in dealing with guardians, and that is countering.
At the moment, I’m practicing in Tier 1 raids with my Wardancer main, trying to read boss patterns and getting the hang of using my Counter key when that blue light shimmers. Though I’m getting results, it’s still a bit of a struggle since I target the boss’s head by hovering my mouse over it which is a hit and miss dependent on how much I panicked getting that Counter to go off while I’m in the middle of another skill. I peg that to my inexperience and hopefully will get that sorted, but my main challenge right now is positioning, because 90% of my skills produce best results striking from the back while Counter is all about striking from the front.
All in all, I’m sure experienced folks must know a thing or two about successfully disabling the boss consistently. Mind if I request you to share some wisdom? I read around some topics written by Korean players about how to make use of head and tail markers that can be activated in menu settings, but I don’t think our game version has those(unless I missed em?).
Also, should I be purposefully looking to position myself for counter windows or just do it if the possibility arises. A fair few folks put a lot of stock in exploiting that counter opportunity for more dps but I’ve rarely seen it being utilized in random PUGs.
Either way, help would be appreciated as I want to be helpful to fellow players in raids and not a bumbling liability 
Thank you in advance.
My advice would be not worrying about counters in Guardian Raids, just keep practicing because counters matter more in Abyss Dungeons when you’re not just outgearing it.
Some Guardians just have ridiculous counter windows that you’re not hitting without watching for specific tells or just blind luck. As for the UI that helps determine front/back, I think that might’ve gotten mentioned in the roadmap? But it’s been a few days since I looked at it that I’m not sure.
Yes, we are missing a number of QoL changes, one of them being Head/Tail indicators. Hopefully we get that in the next content release.
Gunlancer is the tank class
Here is a question, does positioning matter for counter skills?
You need to hit the boss head-on with a counter attack, however it’s actually more specific than just getting a frontal attack.
I’ve gotten the latter without landing counters during the window.
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So i need to hit the boss head on in the face? My class has a lot of back attacks… why would they do this?
With boss aggro being RNG, you can still attempt a counter even as a back attack class since it’ll turn to you if it’s aiming for you. Of course that’s reliant on you actually still having a counter up instead of using it in your rotation.
As a berserker chain blade is the counter skill, and my highest damaging stuff says back attack on it, chain blade says front attack. Thats why im asking.
If i hit it anywhere with that skill while its glowing blue does it still counter? Even if i hit it in the bum?
Doubt it. Counter only works from the front. You can however make it work even from the side as long as you are aiming for the head with your mouse. That’s what I’ve observed about counter skills. They turn wherever your mouse is pointing, even if its behind the character.
I wouldn’t get too used to that, Chain Sword is actually one of the skills getting changed from Frontal Attack to Back Attack.
But yeah, as said no. They have to be head-on attacks, it doesn’t matter if the skill says Frontal/Back/whatever other tag.
As of now, Counter need to be hit from frontal. about 170 degree view from Boss head. You can counter from slightly off from side; don’t need to be directly in front, just need to be in front view from Boss. You cannot counter from directly side or from back.
So currently my choice is doing more damage from behind, or countering from front.
Cause its impossible to move from back to front AND get the counter off in time.
Because you have lots of mobility in your kit, you can preemptively prepare for counters and go back to back attacking a boss. This game is not just a spam your skills on cooldown. Once we get into later legion raids youll start to understand this game plays more like a fighting game. Position yourself, and find opportunities to unleash tons of damage on the boss when most vulnerable. You have plenty of downtime to keep your counter skill off cooldown to use it. That being said, youre not the only one in the group with a counter. So if its disavantegous to you, have someone else do it.
I saw this small video about how players adjust Counter in their rotation and from what I can gather, it’s more about exploiting opportunity rather than go looking for it. Maybe more experienced folks could shine a better light, but I’ll leave the video as reference here:
Yes, so when it isnt getting used as a counter it still gains positional benefit from back attacking. Practically all counters are changing to this with classes that mostly rely on back attacks.
Protip for most guardian raids. Counter is badly designed for most bosses. Some bosses it is good for (i.e. Luminos, Helgaia, Armored Necrasena) but even then you need to have a good counter (range and counter frames) for it to be consistent anyway.
There will be t3 content coming later that’ll make much better use of counter and can focus on it then. Both Bosses of the first Oreha Raid are decent targets for counter.
All counters must be frontal attacks.
A change in KR allows back attacks to exist, but the counter itself still has to be a frontal attack lol.
Counter’s kinda just a bonus if you’re at the right place at the right time, I’d not focus on it.
In some fights like Velganos the risk isn’t worth the reward, anyway.
