How do you build your Wardens for general questing/Overworld fighting?

[iamstillwater]

Hello!

Level 107 returning Warden. I noticed the trait point reallocation to levels reset my trait points, and I can't remember how I built my Warden.

Are there still guides available for points allocation?

I love my warden as a Solo player from the Philippines, but for the life of me I can't remember how I invested my points.

Help wanted for solo play, as a result.

Should I make a Red-Primary warden, then a Blue type, or a Ranged warden as an off-spec?

[Tralfazz]

Take a look at Louey7's guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaGhdTliRY8

[Gandolf_TheOld]

Take a look at this site and the Warden builds. I Love Fired Orc – https://ilovefriedorc.com/traits/

[Daguest]

I use blue for landscape. I find red to be very lacking, and yellow is more group oriented/weird. Then go fish in red for all the bleed/light damage. Red doesn't offer that much in term of damage because it's very oriented "spear gambit damage" and light gambit are your bread and butter, not spear. It takes forever to kill something with the spear gambit bleed, when you can just nuke with SoD. Yes, warden is a one trick pony. Sadly. Single target ? You use surety of death. AoE ? Surety of death.

As such, I play warden in blue, picking lots of aggro at once, and nuke everything with SoD. If you take lots of damage, use the leech skill (exultation of battle provide a constant leeching, while resolution will do a lot of healing at once). You can also use restoration for a big healing over time. Sure, your single target DPS might not be extreme, but you can take a lot of mobs and kill them all with AoE. Which speed up the process. Obviously, do everything to increase light damage. Almost everything you do in landscape will be light damage.


Honestly, the warden is in dire need of a rework IMO. Originally, the class was supposed to be a BPE tank, which it isn't really anymore. The class have one skill that truly shine in landscape and it's SoD. Everything else is either situational or useless. Spear of virtue should be a single target equivalent, but it does lower damage and dot than SoD, with no more bonuses and no traceries. Wall of steel is even worse. Dark before dawn is entirely useless now that power is not a thing anymore. Boar rush is a joke. Adroit maneouvre/warden's triumph don't do damage, while the buff is short and kinda meh. And so you end up spamming SoD against everything and everyone, except for elite and the like where you use some healing and more DoTs. It works, it's just repetitive and a bit boring. You have dozens of gambits and most of them are literally useless.

[Halphast]

At level 107 yellow can be fun, but I agree with the above poster about only using one or two gambits.

Is there just one enemy? Ranged Unerring Strike.
Is there a big group of enemies? Ranged Resounding Challenge.
Is there a big group with one Signature enemy? RUS on the signature, RRC when the group approaches.

Then if they survive long enough to reach you in melee, Desolation and/or Surety of Death.

[Tralfazz]

You have dozens of gambits and most of them are literally useless.

At level 107 yellow can be fun, but I agree with the above poster about only using one or two gambits.

Sure, but isn't that the truth for most classes doing trivial content? I played a mid-50s Red Champion the other day and I mainly pressed two buttons (Brutal Strike and Ferocious Strike), a third when both of the others were on cooldown which wasn't often. It was plenty fun thanks to the Red Haze set bonus trait (+5 Fervor for every defeat) but it wasn't complicated, just kill-kill-kill only rarely having to disable auto-run when fighting on-level normal mobs.

[Daguest]

Sure, but isn't that the truth for most classes doing trivial content? I played a mid-50s Red Champion the other day and I mainly pressed two buttons (Brutal Strike and Ferocious Strike), a third when both of the others were on cooldown which wasn't often. It was plenty fun thanks to the Red Haze set bonus trait (+5 Fervor for every defeat) but it wasn't complicated, just kill-kill-kill only rarely having to disable auto-run when fighting on-level normal mobs.

I'm near the end of the leveling right now (lvl 137). And the issue with warden is how SoD is literally better in every aspect than any other skills bar a few. I don't want to hijack the thread, but SoD is doing literally 3,4 times more damage upfront + AoE + DoT + defensive bonus in blue, compared to basically every other offensive melee skill. Only desolation and resounding challenge are competing. The bleed line is useful for dot stacking, obviously, so that's its saving grace.
My hunter might nuke with swift bow or split shot, but they come with a cooldown so I don't spam them. Same with the minie. Even champ, without the set, I need to charge fury so I can "schwing schwing" around.


IMO, the warden suffer a lot from identity crisis. It was made as a tank, and was one for a time. I played the character when it was new, and I was a tank. Then it was swapped to DoT DPS, sort of. So now, it's still got most of the tank toolkit (but nerfed/limited) and the DoTs.

[Halphast]

Sure, but isn't that the truth for most classes doing trivial content? I played a mid-50s Red Champion the other day and I mainly pressed two buttons (Brutal Strike and Ferocious Strike)

With some classes you know you're going to be playing one-click-plus-cooldown. Hunter and Champ especially. Warden is supposed to have a huge arsenal of options but if only one or two options is any good, it's just Hunter/Champ with less DPS and more clicking.

So for me the gripe goes back to Warden having such a fun Gambit system that feels so unique, with so many attacks that seem like they should be useful, but aren't. We have Gambits that heal, but the healing is almost worthless; Gambits that buff/debuff, but you'd never know the difference; Gambits that do damage on hit, but the damage isn't enough to be useful; Gambits that lifetap enemies, but unless you're spamming them in a group of 14 enemies the heal won't help you and the damage is terrible. The only thing our Gambits really do well is stack DoTs.

The class is promoted as Tank but with a wide range of abilities to help you to solo DPS, heal, buff/debuff... it was premium, it's supposed to feel like a jack of all trades, but it's nowhere near a jack. More like a 4 of all trades, but a jack or queen of AoE DoT.

[ndc]

We have Gambits that heal, but the healing is almost worthless; Gambits that buff/debuff, but you'd never know the difference; Gambits that do damage on hit, but the damage isn't enough to be useful; Gambits that lifetap enemies, but unless you're spamming them in a group of 14 enemies the heal won't help you and the damage is terrible.

There is a way to still enjoy wardens and gambits, but not everyone will like it: use stone of the tortoise. Don't level up to the cap. In level 50 or 60 you can feel the heal and increased block from perseverance line, you evade more after executing the war cry line.