Player Guide: Class Changes Summary: Warden

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Originally Posted by furtim

That's actually a pretty good idea. It would let you see the benefits from both gear changes and temporary buffs in real time without cluttering your screen like the character panel does.

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Quit stealing my ideas council member.

If I was a council member I don't think I'd advertise it. Come expansion day I'm assuming most of the players will blame you[all council members] for the changes to the game. I know I will ;) There in lies the brilliance of Turbines plan

Step 1: Create player council
Step 2: Change entire game and player classes
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit

I'm only guessing that ??? means throw player council under the bus to take the fall.

Before anyone reports me, please don't I was just kidding. I'm on super secret probation and have not problems with furtim or any other player council member.

Did anyone at the PBE get the chance to tank a raid? All changes look really, really bad on paper - are they that bad outside of theory?

btw. is our Dev as silent in the Betaforum as he/she is in this forum?

I didn't have the time to read through all the posts (im in the middle of my law exams) so pls excuse me if these questions have already been answered.

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Originally Posted by Sheilyn

Did anyone at the PBE get the chance to tank a raid? All changes look really, really bad on paper - are they that bad outside of theory?

btw. is our Dev as silent in the Betaforum as he/she is in this forum?

I didn't have the time to read through all the posts (im in the middle of my law exams) so pls excuse me if these questions have already been answered.

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1. no, would have to figure out a useful rotation before trying that though. Rotation will be more dependent on what you're tanking now; multimob tanking will be fine except insofar as our multi-mob aggro skills (and max targets) are weaker/lower than those available to guards; on single target we'll be outperformed by guards quite handsomely, modulo stat curve changes. Keeping up defensive buffs may or may not be necessary, but will be nigh-impossible in either case.

2. yes.

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Originally Posted by Sheilyn

Btw. is our Dev as silent in the Betaforum as he/she is in this forum?

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Total post count atm, 52. Up from 7 last time I checked, so I guess she has 45 posts in Beta Forums, for, I think all THREE of the classes she was moderating, (US, LM and minis if I read right from the Beta testers), which I dont have access to.

Hey, I would rather she was working on fixing the broke stuff than typing in forums and let Sapience handle communications. Though I still say, Dev communication is the only thing that may fix the coming storm when the class changes goes live, even if it is solely for PR purposes. CS will not be enough for most people.

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Originally Posted by Darlgon

Total post count atm, 52. Up from 7 last time I checked, so I guess she has 45 posts in Beta Forums, for, I think all THREE of the classes she was moderating, (US, LM and minis if I read right from the Beta testers), which I dont have access to.

Hey, I would rather she was working on fixing the broke stuff than typing in forums and let Sapience handle communications. Though I still say, Dev communication is the only thing that may fix the coming storm when the class changes goes live, even if it is solely for PR purposes. CS will not be enough for most people.

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FYI communication in beta was very very light. Also Orion proved you could communicate with the players and do your job. Might have taken him a few updates but I think he got his design ideas across.

I'm so annoyed, I have to post. Why oh, why have they taken our threat leeches away? What possible reason did they give? No Aggression anymore?

I'm happily tanking the boss off to one side, well ahead on threat. I see an add spawn and go for the healer. Do I pop a couple of Agressions to resolve the problem safely? No, I can't do that anymore. I prep an EoB and run over to the healer, bringing the boss with me. The boss swipes at me and the healer with frontal AoE, killing the healer immediately. I then log and delete my Warden forever.

Why would they do that.

Rant over

We still have javelins don't we? I know I've been gone awhile but I don't think they took those away from us!

A javelin? Against the threat generated off a 6k heal? What if there are two adds?

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Originally Posted by Higenetc

A javelin? Against the threat generated off a 6k heal? What if there are two adds?

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Thanks for the reminder.. REALLY?? Javelin of Deadly Force is the tier 7 CAPSTONE OF THE YELLOW LINE?

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Originally Posted by Higenetc

A javelin? Against the threat generated off a 6k heal? What if there are two adds?

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There's a lot of anger toward this xpac. I get it. It's probably not the best time for someone to come back after missing the past year and tell you all how everything is fine. Which I'm totally NOT doing... I mean I quit for a reason. I'm only saying the scenario you laid out is a pretty bad strawman. No one is making you run over to the healers and kill them, and that's certainly not your only option. You could throw javelins (at triple damage threat, would pull them pretty quickly) or have an offtank taunt then pull it off them (which is probably going to be pretty common with the way threat works now).

I can't speak accurately to threat numbers, but I'm going to try. Yes WOF should pull aggro from an 8k heal. I don't know if it's still this way, but it was believed that heals are about half of damage threat. So you have to pull off 4k worth of damage threat. 1 WOF to the back should hit 3k+ at level 95 right? 3 times damage threat gives 9k damage threat.

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Originally Posted by Darlgon

Thanks for the reminder.. REALLY?? Javelin of Deadly Force is the tier 7 CAPSTONE OF THE YELLOW LINE?

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Yeah this is pretty messed up. I guess it's just because it's the "javelin" line, but it doesn't really fit with the rest of the theme of that line IMO. We would have needed a new skill here, a nice group buff type of thing. Heck blue line capstone fits better here than JODF doesn't it?

I'm not even going to start on how lame throwing javelins to generate threat sounds.

Actually, that scenario happens quite a lot. Last boss in SG, first boss in Bells, last boss in Bells - all rely on position of boss being away from healer, and 6 man content shouldn't need an offtank.

Jav skills, Resounding Challenge, or a stance swap to assailment and some ranged Resolution/single target dps skills will be your best ways to pick up adds from range without moving a mob with Frontal AoE considerations.

I won't be shedding a tear over the loss of aggression, in many ways I still resent the skill almost as much as EoB in the post Orion Revamp for how 'easy-mode' it made threat for us. Keeping modest threat transfers on DoW and Conviction would be another step towards making warden tanking in HD effective and enjoyable. It offers some valuable skills that provide both self-buffs and threat, which we will be sorely in need, and as long as the transfer values remain modest they would remain a valuable part of a VARIED, FLEXIBLE, INTERESTING tanking skill suite.

Javelin of Deadly Force does have a 15 or 20s buff attached to its use, that ups your personal damage output, so it isn't simply the old skill. It is definitely worth using every time its off Cooldown in a dps scenario, but it is in no way as powerful as the Way of the Spear capstone to Recklessness Line. Having the buff apply to the whole fellowship would be the easiest way for the skill to fit the group buff/debuff theme of Assailment. Another would be for every target hit by JoDF to have a more potent version of Marked target applied.

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Originally Posted by Darlgon

Thanks for the reminder.. REALLY?? Javelin of Deadly Force is the tier 7 CAPSTONE OF THE YELLOW LINE?

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yeah I know what you mean I said this in surveys and many people said this in the forums. it just didn't seem fair that we can get defiant challenge by level 17 ish but we have to wait til 50 ish to get javelin of deadly force. it depends on how fast we do the class deeds.

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Originally Posted by Higenetc

I'm so annoyed, I have to post. Why oh, why have they taken our threat leeches away? What possible reason did they give? No Aggression anymore?

I'm happily tanking the boss off to one side, well ahead on threat. I see an add spawn and go for the healer. Do I pop a couple of Agressions to resolve the problem safely? No, I can't do that anymore. I prep an EoB and run over to the healer, bringing the boss with me. The boss swipes at me and the healer with frontal AoE, killing the healer immediately. I then log and delete my Warden forever.

Why would they do that.

Rant over

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threat changes were never really tested all that well it seemed. I have full confidence that things will go over well enough with tanking. and with aggression you still had to run over to the add and hit him with it making the boss follow you (might have wanted to use conviction). and also adds really don't normally one shot anyone. stats are getting a huge boost in effectiveness especially vitality so it's perfectly possible to see hunters minis etc breaking 10k morale.

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Originally Posted by spelunker

Jav skills, Resounding Challenge, or a stance swap to assailment and some ranged Resolution/single target dps skills will be your best ways to pick up adds from range without moving a mob with Frontal AoE considerations.

Javelin of Deadly Force does have a 15 or 20s buff attached to its use, that ups your personal damage output, so it isn't simply the old skill. It is definitely worth using every time its off Cooldown in a dps scenario, but it is in no way as powerful as the Way of the Spear capstone to Recklessness Line. Having the buff apply to the whole fellowship would be the easiest way for the skill to fit the group buff/debuff theme of Assailment. Another would be for every target hit by JoDF to have a more potent version of Marked target applied.

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Well.... Since we ARE talking about loosing aggro while tanking DURING COMBAT, stance swapping to A$$ailment is out. Especially because we will no longer have stances either. They are now trait trees.

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Originally Posted by Darlgon

Well.... Since we ARE talking about loosing aggro while tanking DURING COMBAT, stance swapping to A$$ailment is out. Especially because we will no longer have stances either. They are now trait trees.

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If it hasn't been explained well enough already, threat is based off of damage dealt, and classes with a tanking specialization have their damage threat values multiplied by around 300% when they specialize in their tanking tree. So a Warden specced for determination who does 1000 damage in ANY form on a mob will hold aggro over a hunter who does 3999 damage to the mob. While I can't honestly say I tested things to know that threat works when you swap into assailment stance while specced for determination, I would consider it a bug if it didn't.

We still have 2 stances, btw. Into the Fray, and Assailment. One is melee range gambits, one is Ranged, Assailment simply had its min range values eliminated and a penalty for fighting in melee while in the stance applied.

Apologies if we beta testers haven't conveyed this information well enough already, but I'm positive its been stated on a number of occasions how both threat and our stances will work.

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Originally Posted by spelunker

If it hasn't been explained well enough already, threat is based off of damage dealt, and classes with a tanking specialization have their damage threat values multiplied by around 300% when they specialize in their tanking tree. So a Warden specced for determination who does 1000 damage in ANY form on a mob will hold aggro over a hunter who does 3999 damage to the mob. While I can't honestly say I tested things to know that threat works when you swap into assailment stance while specced for determination, I would consider it a bug if it didn't.

We still have 2 stances, btw. Into the Fray, and Assailment. One is melee range gambits, one is Ranged, Assailment simply had its min range values eliminated and a penalty for fighting in melee while in the stance applied.

Apologies if we beta testers haven't conveyed this information well enough already, but I'm positive its been stated on a number of occasions how both threat and our stances will work.

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Sigh.. Guess I missed that one.

So they have a trait line named Assailment AND a stance called Assailment. Yeah.. that is in no way confusing. The way it read they dropped stances for trait trees. (Edit: Even tho, the more I think about it, the more I remember that was in the dev diary or something.)

Still means you would have to totally drop your current target and only single target the rogue mob. Lord help you if there are more than one. Also, you would risk incurring that close proximity hit point penalty. I guess that is what the reinvisioned DC is for.

(FYI, in your example, the tank would have 3000 threat (1000 * 3), so he would NOT hold threat over a hunter with 3999 damage btw.)

FYI.. someone linked to their website with a comparision of all class changes in the main HD thread.

This is the warden specific one:

http://lotroplayers.mymiddleearth.co...-a-first-look/

He seems, unfamiliar (-ish?) with some warden terms, but shows off how the trees work pretty well.

One question tho. It shows the top tier Assailment line skill Snapshot as having a "Snapshot- Ambush"? Does this mean we can Ambush WHILE in combat?

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Originally Posted by Darlgon

FYI.. someone linked to their website with a comparision of all class changes in the main HD thread.

This is the warden specific one:

http://lotroplayers.mymiddleearth.co...-a-first-look/

He seems, unfamiliar (-ish?) with some warden terms, but shows off how the trees work pretty well.

One question tho. It shows the top tier Assailment line skill Snapshot as having a "Snapshot- Ambush"? Does this mean we can Ambush WHILE in combat?

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Snap shot is the tier 7 passive granted by the assailment spec (not to be confused with Jodf, which is the capstone trait you must acquire via a point). This passive gives you a low chance to proc "snap shot" every time you use a basic builder (not a mastery). Snap shot pops up a new quickslot screen default at the center of your window that has all assailment javelin skills on a seperate cooldown. When snap shot procs you can use any 1 of these jav skills (including ambush, which has no induction, but otherwise functions normally).

The chance for a builder to proc snap shot was reduced over the rounds of beta as I initially remember it going off about 20% of the time, while in the last round it seems to be under 10%. Its also worth noting that in the last round I tested in you could proc snap shot from builders in either melee or ranged stance.

While the snap shot skills are defaulted to a popup quickbar, you can drag them from your skills menu to your normal quickbars, where they stay greyed out until snap shot procs. So you aren't forced to manually click the new window to use the skills.

This also seems like a good point to note again how broken having 2 45% aoe slows which each have a longer duration than their cooldown, on a ranged class with no inductions or movement restrictions. Soloing things like the Isengard gate trolls on level without even needing to use a heal or defensive skill is pretty broken

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Originally Posted by spelunker

This also seems like a good point to note again how broken having 2 45% aoe slows which each have a longer duration than their cooldown, on a ranged class with no inductions or movement restrictions. Soloing things like the Isengard gate trolls on level without even needing to use a heal or defensive skill is pretty broken

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Must have been changed recently because the last time i looked at the snap shot version of hampering jav it was the regular 30% version of the skill. Maybe this was changed in the last build.

Its also worth noting that all hots can now be using in assilment, though the healing on them isn't as well scaled as their melee versions.

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Originally Posted by spelunker

Snap shot <data>

This also seems like a good point to note again how broken having 2 45% aoe slows which each have a longer duration than their cooldown, on a ranged class with no inductions or movement restrictions. Soloing things like the Isengard gate trolls on level without even needing to use a heal or defensive skill is pretty broken

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Thanks for the explanation..

Wow.. something broke on the OP side? Weird.

For me, it still all smacks of breaking something that didn't need fixing in the first place.

I liked the idea that aggro was this vague, mysterious entity, that had no numbers associated with it. If I wanted to it to be easy for me to know if I can hold aggro against a hunter, I'd have played a game which had aggro and dps meters.

I fear that the future of aggro balancing will simply be to ask that champ or hunter what their melee offence is, divide it by 3 and then check my own melee offence. As long as my figure is higher, I'll be fine and there's nothing to worry about. I accept that it may not play out like that, but that's the way the changes read a present.

I really don't like the idea of having the javelin to use for range aggro. The foundation of the warden class is that flow/fluidity you get from gambits/masteries. Less panic reactional tanking, more about building things in advance in readiness.

Aggression was a great skill. If a few mobs peeled off you, as long as you still had one in melee you could bring them back.

Ok.. so Conviction no longer leaches threat. But, it is a Finisher? How does that work?

My kin did a end of the current era raid last night, one of which was Draigoch (Surprise, he bugged as phase 3 started) and the other being Survival of the Barrowdowns. Will we be able to Conviction kite like we used to with HD?

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Originally Posted by Darlgon

Ok.. so Conviction no longer leaches threat. But, it is a Finisher? How does that work?

My kin did a end of the current era raid last night, one of which was Draigoch (Surprise, he bugged as phase 3 started) and the other being Survival of the Barrowdowns. Will we be able to Conviction kite like we used to with HD?

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no more leech and kite.
you will guardian the mobs.




for clearification in turbine's lore tanking is guarding.
and a tank is just guardian

If it helps, just pretend that Defiant Challenge is Conviction.

But, really, the idea is that you grab and hold aggro by dealing damage. You shouldn't need to be spamming threat leeches, because you have innately higher threat than everybody else in the fellowship. If you lose aggro, DC pulls it back for you. If that sounds really simple, it is, because you're supposed to be spending most of your brainspace on maintaining a defensive rotation.

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Originally Posted by Higenetc

For me, it still all smacks of breaking something that didn't need fixing in the first place.

I liked the idea that aggro was this vague, mysterious entity, that had no numbers associated with it. If I wanted to it to be easy for me to know if I can hold aggro against a hunter, I'd have played a game which had aggro and dps meters.

I fear that the future of aggro balancing will simply be to ask that champ or hunter what their melee offence is, divide it by 3 and then check my own melee offence. As long as my figure is higher, I'll be fine and there's nothing to worry about. I accept that it may not play out like that, but that's the way the changes read a present.

I really don't like the idea of having the javelin to use for range aggro. The foundation of the warden class is that flow/fluidity you get from gambits/masteries. Less panic reactional tanking, more about building things in advance in readiness.

Aggression was a great skill. If a few mobs peeled off you, as long as you still had one in melee you could bring them back.

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Some of what you say seems contradictory. Maybe I'm just not understanding well, but I think you could be well served by opening your mind a bit to these changes because what you're saying you like about Warden tanking and don't like about this new update don't seem very different.

You like proactive tanking, not reacting to when things go bad. That's great, it's a good part of the warden still I think (building up buffs, heals). But then you lost me when you said you preferred to just use Aggression any time you lost a mob... That's about as reactive as it gets! So instead of not even having to look at where that mob is and who it's attacking you used 1 Gambit and got it back. Now you just have to look for it and hit it with a javelin. Javelins are very Warden, much more than clicking 1 button to get aggro on everything. There's really not much of a difference here in my mind.

Another thing about Aggression... it seems like you have some concerns about the +300% damage threat and how it takes away from what a Warden truly is. Why do you like Aggression so much then? I feel like that is about as easy mode non-Waden as it gets. I mean you're not building up threat to stay ahead, you're not being proactive at all, you have 1 button that gives you back threat on any mob you're currently engaged with.

I'm just not quite understanding your position, it seems as if you don't like some of these new things just because they're different than what you're used to but if you really look at it not much has changed from the things you do like.