So Orion.. Wardens?

[Celondur]

While I'm thinking about it too, I hope that "Addition of effects that will allow for some Gambits to replace themselves" bit is controllable or I see it being very frustrating at times.

I agree. With few exceptions, the efficacy of Warden skills is fairly predictable. That reliability is crucial in maintaining the flow of rotations, and transitioning to alternate rotations as the tide of battle progresses. It could be extremely frustrating if that flowing "groove" is disrupted by random "effects".

I am interested to hear more about this idea.

[Orion]

You know, its really early to tell just what all this means but after rereading Orions post i have to wonder if the Dev's really even keep a finger on the pulse of the Warden community? After all very little of the issues discussed over and over on these forums were commented on.

Not to say what Orion said was bad just not what you would expect with all the threads that have sprung up as of late.

While im thinking about it too, I hope that "Addition of effects that will allow for some Gambits to replace themselves" bit is controllable or i see it being very frustrating at times.

By the pulse of the Warden community do you mean the fact that Fist is "useless" and Masteries, Never Surrender "suck" and "we need a power tap" and, and, and...

I've been keeping up.

I am addressing what I can. My piece of bad news was that masteries will continue to need to be traited...I did not say how.

Fist, as it is built right now, is only for holding aggro. I've talked with Graal about this and we both agree that we could rework the trait line but that a rework would be a very lengthy one (new animation, new effects, testing, building, stripping it, rebuilding, retesting so on...) and one that we, simply, do not have enough time and resources for in the near future. Long term, we want to look at it and make it better. We've also discussed getting more ranged into the class, for the moment, we are focusing on getting these next iterative steps in and up.

Maybe those three trait slots will not be necessary in the future. Let me get through the Champ stuff, get the information out to them and I will turn my attention to the next class. Maybe Wardens, maybe Minstrels.

[TheOne1]

You know, its really early to tell just what all this means but after rereading Orions post i have to wonder if the Dev's really even keep a finger on the pulse of the Warden community? After all very little of the issues discussed over and over on these forums were commented on.

Not to say what Orion said was bad just not what you would expect with all the threads that have sprung up as of late.

While im thinking about it too, I hope that "Addition of effects that will allow for some Gambits to replace themselves" bit is controllable or i see it being very frustrating at times.

My thoughts exactly. Orion touched on some issues that have crept up on us, but there are huge things he is missing that have been discussed on an almost daily basis in the warden forums that needs attention. I'm not getting into all of them here, as I'm sure there is going to be some discussion thread down the road (hopeful at least) and I'm just going to save my breath for when the time comes.

Disappointed that masteries are not going to be converted to skills, hopefully there are going to be ways to make up for it.

[geoboy]

Power tap eh? Sounds like a great idea!

In any case, I will temper my expectations.

[Celondur]

This is a little off-topic, but Haakon Stormbrow had an interesting post on A Casual Stroll to Mordor a while back. It details the evolution of Champions as tanks, and the impact this evolution has had on real tanks and healers.

I am not 100% sure, but I think that I like the effect his proposal would have on tanks. And it seems fair for the champs too (he's heavily Champion-biased). I'm not sure healers would love it though.

In any case, it's a good post for the historical perspective, and for understanding what the consequences of various game design choices have been.

[grinko.at]

Please Orion, take your time. Don't try to add quick fixes, give this class some work even if it means pushing it to be the last class in the update cycle.

Make the warden a viable raid tank, and add some interesting mechanics to underused gambits. Possibly tied to a secondary role in groups.

As for Fist, my proposal was to turn it into a mixed AoE tank/DoT line, here. If you want to change it into the raid-tanking line, that would need a complete rework.

[Antrius]

I am addressing what I can. My piece of bad news was that masteries will continue to need to be traited...I did not say how.

You dog!! If that doesnt set us abuzz I dont know what will. I withdraw my preious statement until further notice!

[qannadi]

I am addressing what I can. My piece of bad news was that masteries will continue to need to be traited...I did not say how.

Maybe those three trait slots will not be necessary in the future. Let me get through the Champ stuff, get the information out to them and I will turn my attention to the next class. Maybe Wardens, maybe Minstrels.

As the OP for this, I will say, that's all I hoped to hear- a little insight of where it's at. You've definitely given us that, and I for one appreciate the time. Definitely looking forward.. Just the fact that you've looked at a massive overhaul of the Fist line is very positive- even if it does take the time and it's down the road. The thought of getting more ranged in is great as well- I think once upon a time we all thought we would be sort of ranged-off-DPS.. Having a little bit more would be great, and it would give us a role- can't take Champs because they can't always be in melee? Well, take a Warden.. we might not be top at melee DPS, but we can fill in ranged DPS and provide flexibility.

In the meantime, I shall be leveling my champ and enjoying the Orion love over there. Thanks for the posts Orion!

[ANewMachine]

This is a little off-topic, but Haakon Stormbrow had an interesting post on A Casual Stroll to Mordor a while back. It details the evolution of Champions as tanks, and the impact this evolution has had on real tanks and healers.

I am not 100% sure, but I think that I like the effect his proposal would have on tanks. And it seems fair for the champs too (he's heavily Champion-biased). I'm not sure healers would love it though.

In any case, it's a good post for the historical perspective, and for understanding what the consequences of various game design choices have been.

Haakon's dead on. Healing in the game is OP, or there's some combination of mobs not hitting hard enough/tanks not avoiding and mitigating enough, or DPS is not squishy enough relative to tanks. One of those factors is poorly-weighted, and it creates problems for balance, before we even get to aggro-swapping or the like. This is why I'm kinda disappointed in what we're hearing so far. I was hoping that the Warden/Guardian updates could be an opportunity to drastically change how tanking and damage work in the game, period. Not just a way to better "fit" us to what is, IMO, a pretty deeply flawed aggro and enemy damage system.

[greendragoon100]

So while we're spit-balling ideas, I got to thinking about stances. What if they we're retooled as follows:

Determination:

Defensive stance. Keeps the moral regen and gains the defensive buffs from Conservation. Also possibly a boost to perceived threat as long as it's not OP.

Conservation:

Power regeneration stance. Gains a big boost to ICPR. All power costs are cut by a percentage. All damage, threat generation, and healing are cut by a proportional percentage. Also possibly a cut to perceived threat.

Recklessness:

DPS stance. I would like to see a bigger boost to damage and maybe a reduction on javelin cooldowns. The tradeoff would be defense and possibly a cut in healing.


Not sure how great this would work in reality, but something to think about. It would definitely help differentiate them.

[rocketeer8015]

Fear not!

I have plans for Wardens too. There is not a lot of information that I can put out now, but the main issues that I can see with Wardens are as follows:

(Spear) DPS: There is an optimal gambit. One. There needs to be other options for dealing damage.

(Taunt) Tank: Tank training wheels. Most everything deals with drawing aggro. Morale taps will likely get adjusted to allow for raid tanking. (This gambit line is one that I am going to keep looking at because, in the distant future, it might warrant an overhaul.)

(Shield) Tank: Preferred tanking, very solid line, good skills...minor changes here.

Things that are on the table:

• Allowing the reduction in power for gambits to also apply to the masteries.
  Making Determination more attractive by adding some power regen and increases crit chance reduction
  Addition of effects that will allow for some Gambits to replace themselves when they are used (ex. Completing a Power Attack while under this effect would immediately fill the gambit bar with Spear, Shield, Taunt) All Gambit lines would benefit from this, the different stances would determine which gambit is altered.
  Enhancements to some of the Way of the Spear Traits/Trait Set bonuses
  Enhancements to some of the Way of the Shield Traits/Trait Set bonuses
  Enhancements to some of the Way of the Fist Traits/Trait Set bonuses

One thing that I will be up front about is Masteries. They are not likely to be turned into skills at any time soon.

Hmm upon reflecting on it more, i have to say im not exactly happy about this. This looks more like patchwork than actually taking care of wardens issues. Lets completely ignore tanking, since that is a controversial issue ... The other issues i see though are:

1. Masteries. Our stance and gambit based damage buffs(and their legacies) largely rely on -attack duration, yet the more we use masteries the less use we have for that. Though heavy use of masteries is what makes a good warden, in effect we are punished for using masteries that eat 3 traits to begin with. Shouldn't Recklessness buff be the same wether you are playing with masteries or without? Thats the whole point of a % buff to begin with isn't it?

2. What about skill progression? We are going to have 10 new levels soon, are we going to get 6 length gambits, maybe 7 length gambits even later down the road? We have plenty "full" lines with 5 builders already(infact most), f.e. we can't get a new bleed in the PA line with 5 length gambits and 6 length gambits would make playing without masteries even more ridiculous. This ties into:

3. Dead gambits. Why does a skill like Shield up keep lingering around wasting a valuable gambit slot? Same for every gambit after PB in the 3-1 line, they are deprecated before we ever get them. Or IF, AM or that empty 1213 gambit. I mean do we really need two identical defense buffs with different durations that don't stack?

4. Shield line, yeah its Awesome. Not. Conviction is Awesome. Infact its so good people run shield capstone just to improve that one gambit, even if not tanking. Cause god knows what our secondary role is, but we may aswell do it while keeping a fully traited, conviction up for us and our fellows. If it wasn't for conviction we might aswell trait whatever for groups even if MT, not like any of our current traits/bonus affect PB/WC/EoB/DoW spam much.

Imho the shield capstone should be a legendary(improving the gambit "Conviction" to the new gambit "Righteousness" ), and the new shield capstone be something that has neither to do with heals or buffing a single gambit. Conviction should be the trademark of a warden, a reason to take a warden into your group regardless of his spec.

Btw i never said im reasonable. Looking forward to to any kind of changes anyway ...

[ANewMachine]

4. Shield line, yeah its Awesome. Not. Conviction is Awesome. Infact its so good people run shield capstone just to improve that one gambit, even if not tanking. Cause god knows what our secondary role is, but we may aswell do it while keeping a fully traited, conviction up for us and our fellows. If it wasn't for conviction we might aswell trait whatever for groups even if MT, not like any of our current traits/bonus affect PB/WC/EoB/DoW spam much.

This can't be said enough. Conviction is why people trait Shield. Honestly if every bonus in the Shield line applied only to Conviction, I'd still consider traiting it. As it stands right now, other than Conviction, I only use 1 Shield skill on a regular basis (SM) and the only benefit I get from traiting Shield is a tiny amount of Partial Block/Evade.

[Mysterion]

This can't be said enough. Conviction is why people trait Shield. Honestly if every bonus in the Shield line applied only to Conviction, I'd still consider traiting it. As it stands right now, other than Conviction, I only use 1 Shield skill on a regular basis (SM) and the only benefit I get from traiting Shield is a tiny amount of Partial Block/Evade.

Very true. I wish legendary traits for warden were as awesome as the LM capstones. The transformation from sticky gourd to Improved Sticky Gourd is amazing.

Conviction => Improved Conviction = Some serious AOE heals massive threat transfer and can start a FM every heal pulse.

OP but ISG is amazing compared to the legendaries Wardens get. I can't wait to see how the trait bonuses are changed up. Plenty of room for improvement in many areas of the warden - stances, secondary role, threat recovery, threat management, traits, bonuses, skills, useless gambits, dps.... why do I like playing this class so much. Its an abusive relationship and I keep coming back for more.

edit: forgot to add LI legacies as an area that needs improvement

[takimeta]

Wow, now that is dissapointing. As long as the other changes make up for it, I can live with that I guess.

<snipped>
Masteries as traits for good .... ugh.

If it ain't broke, then don't fix it. I for one don't see this as a problem. Having them set as skills would make things kinda OP'd for us. I'm completely fine with our Masteries being set as traits.

[ANewMachine]

If it ain't broke, then don't fix it. I for one don't see this as a problem. Having them set as skills would make things kinda OP'd for us. I'm completely fine with our Masteries being set as traits.

The issue with Masteries as traits is that they're pretty much 100% necessary for Wardens, and they unnecessarily restrict builds. I'd love to do 5 Spear/2 Fist for the aggro lulz, but I can't, because I have to do 5/1/1. And let's face it - once you've learned masteries, you're vastly more efficient with them than without them. They're basically a requirement of raid tanking, and a near-requirement everywhere else, as they improve power efficiency and gambit speed (and thus DPS, Threat gen, healing, etc.).

[duamarth]

This can't be said enough. Conviction is why people trait Shield. Honestly if every bonus in the Shield line applied only to Conviction, I'd still consider traiting it. As it stands right now, other than Conviction, I only use 1 Shield skill on a regular basis (SM) and the only benefit I get from traiting Shield is a tiny amount of Partial Block/Evade.

I don't trait shield only for the conviction bonus, so please limit the generalizations. What about all the HoT pulses and healing percentages? I can't imagine not using HoTs and not benefiting from the set and capstone bonuses--they are the best part about being a warden IMO.

Also, in the guard forum Orion said

Our goal is not to make the Champion the only tank that people choose. Our goal is to make the tank a viable option at tank, just like the Guardian and the Warden. Options are not bad. Good tanks, be they guardians, wardens or champions are going to be desired. It may not make you feel better, not sure, but our goals are not to make any one preferable over any other.

The last sentences seems to imply the devs would like guards, wardens, and tanking champs to be on a par in tanking potential. This is confusing: do the devs want all tanking classes to be able to perform the same functions, thus equally tank in any situation? Or do they want each tanking class (or build) to fit certain roles?

It is difficult to piece together what the general dev position on aggro and tanking is, much less the ideal they would like this crucial component of the game to meet, much less how the warden as a class fits into those pictures. In fact, I would like to see a dev diary cover the "mission statement" or "vision" for aggro and tanking, much like they had for PVMP, because the messages the devs send and the lack of explicit feedback has left me, at least, confused about the role and future of wardens, guards, and tanking champs.

I, for one, will be patient in waiting for warden abilities updated and fist line to be revamped--the more time they take, I can only hope, the more feedback and balancing they will consider. And I personally would be more disappointed with wardens receiving one-click easy mode tanking skills than more soul-destroying skills like Never Surrender. So keep up the hard work Orion et al

[Overtone]

(Spear) DPS: There is an optimal gambit. One. There needs to be other options for dealing damage.

Being a Spear-traited Waden, you got my attention! Preach on...

(Taunt) Tank: Tank training wheels. Most everything deals with drawing aggro. Morale taps will likely get adjusted to allow for raid tanking. (This gambit line is one that I am going to keep looking at because, in the distant future, it might warrant an overhaul.)

Might need an overhaul? hehe Fist line is garbage. Take it to the cleaners.

Addition of effects that will allow for some Gambits to replace themselves when they are used (ex. Completing a Power Attack while under this effect would immediately fill the gambit bar with Spear, Shield, Taunt) All Gambit lines would benefit from this, the different stances would determine which gambit is altered.

This sounds really good and appears to be in the spirit of the class.

One thing that I will be up front about is Masteries. They are not likely to be turned into skills at any time soon.

[rocketeer8015]

If it ain't broke, then don't fix it. I for one don't see this as a problem. Having them set as skills would make things kinda OP'd for us. I'm completely fine with our Masteries being set as traits.

You think being able to trait for -5% spear gambit powercost or +10% threat while tanking would make us OP? Or would it be the ability to actually use a real trait out of one of our noncapped lines that would make us OP?

I don't trait shield only for the conviction bonus, so please limit the generalizations. What about all the HoT pulses and healing percentages? I can't imagine not using HoTs and not benefiting from the set and capstone bonuses--they are the best part about being a warden IMO.

So if there was no conviction, you would trait shield for 4 hotpulses and +20% heal as a tank in a full FS or Raid(im not talking soloplay here)? Not to be rude, but what are the other people in your group/raid doing if you can/need to keep up a meaningful amount of selfheals, especially the healer and DDs ... If your talking about soloplay then im fully with you.

What i think is that if you take conviction out of the picture shield becomes meh in FS/Raids to put it carefully. I would guess Orion thinks shield is fine because so many wardens use and love it(and thats true), though i think Conviction is what makes the shieldline so good.

So if conviction can make a largely unimpressive line awesome, maybe it could make other lines also awesome by detaching it from the shield capstone. As it is, i don't care what is done to the yellow line if i have to give up 50% hp/s on conviction and loose 4 pulses on it. Conviction is what makes us desireable to other fellows, atleast thats how i see it on my LM or RK.

I speak up for wardens i know on my alts because i know its a tradeoff, have to heal the tank a bit more but the rest of the group a bit less. Helps me to overall conserve power and make the run a bit smoother.

[Malephor]

I get fair mileage out of resto too.

[duamarth]

So if there was no conviction, you would trait shield for 4 hotpulses and +20% heal as a tank in a full FS or Raid(im not talking soloplay here)? Not to be rude, but what are the other people in your group/raid doing if you can/need to keep up a meaningful amount of selfheals, especially the healer and DDs ... If your talking about soloplay then im fully with you.
I speak up for wardens i know on my alts because i know its a tradeoff, have to heal the tank a bit more but the rest of the group a bit less. Helps me to overall conserve power and make the run a bit smoother.

Depending on the raid or instance the DPS and +threat from going spear traited is much more useful than a single group HoT, while in other raids the ability to keep HoTs on yourself mitigates a significant amount of damage the healer would otherwise be responsible for--it's not like our heals become useless or selfish in OD, BG, etc.

[ofMiceandHobbits]

I sometimes think that Warden shield build is a bit useless outside of Conviction spam as well, but I have to admit....

Ran CombatAnalysis in Durins Bane T2C last night on my warden and he healed the group for 270k morale. Regardless of if a significant portion of this healing was while the group was at full morale, that is nothing to snuff at.

I would wager that if a warden tried to maximize their outgoing healing and tactical critical multiplier that we could easily get that number to 350k. Useful? Maybe. Used properly by a skilled warden in the DB fight it is far from un-noticeable to a minstrel.

Leave the shield line alone while improving Spear and Fist, what are we complaining about again?

Thumbs up Orion.

Looking forward to seeing the update.

PS - Fix NS I would use it even with the penalties as long as it actually gave me aggro.

[striverg]

(Taunt) Tank: Tank training wheels. Most everything deals with drawing aggro. Morale taps will likely get adjusted to allow for raid tanking. (This gambit line is one that I am going to keep looking at because, in the distant future, it might warrant an overhaul.)

Fist was a tanking line???

I am with everyone on this that says it needs an overhaul, BUT if an overhaul is not possible in the short time-frame please try to get us the "cower" stuns (like from the sorcerers in sammath gul) that last 2s(or maybe 1s with the current 1s breakout) instead of those stupid fears that send mobs everywhere so we can't build gambits on them

As for everything else I don't feel like commenting on that stuff at this time... but I will say that wardens need some unique tools and possibly, like I said earlier, some gambits that can be used to help mitigate damage, prevent negative effects etc.(most especially this one because right now we are the ONLY class that has no way of breaking or preventing a negative effect like stun, disarm or silence, not to mention the only class that can't remove or prevent a disease/poison/wound/fear effect)

Basically I would like the warden to be it's own unique class with it's own unique skillset. Not some hodgepodge of other classes that only has the advantage of being able to spam lesser versions of some of those skills. There really is only 1 type of skill(a morale leech) that is unique to wardens and it's near useless in raid situations right now.

[lf2536]

That's not entirely fair. NS needs to be a one-button skill because it needs a cooldown, or tanking and aggro becomes ridiculously easy so that no one would miss the Masteries because we'd only use NS anyway. Gambits, as of yet, don't support any cooldowns, so it needed to be a one-button skill. The problem is that Turbine apparently don't think that a long cooldown was enough to contain it, so they put stupid restrictions on it to boot.

which is exactly what we should have expected, most of the forum members were running around like a chicken with it's head chopped off screaming "we need threat recovery yesterday and we are willing to pay for it!!!1!!111" and Turbine listened to us we got a one-button skill and lo and behold it's total fecal matter. a gambit that can be used only after death (which is possible to create) that gave us increased threat production would have been more in keeping with class design and probably worked better.

Fear not!

I have plans for Wardens too. There is not a lot of information that I can put out now, but the main issues that I can see with Wardens are as follows:

(Spear) DPS: There is an optimal gambit. One. There needs to be other options for dealing damage.

(Taunt) Tank: Tank training wheels. Most everything deals with drawing aggro. Morale taps will likely get adjusted to allow for raid tanking. (This gambit line is one that I am going to keep looking at because, in the distant future, it might warrant an overhaul.)

(Shield) Tank: Preferred tanking, very solid line, good skills...minor changes here.

Things that are on the table:

• Allowing the reduction in power for gambits to also apply to the masteries.
  Making Determination more attractive by adding some power regen and increases crit chance reduction
  Addition of effects that will allow for some Gambits to replace themselves when they are used (ex. Completing a Power Attack while under this effect would immediately fill the gambit bar with Spear, Shield, Taunt) All Gambit lines would benefit from this, the different stances would determine which gambit is altered.
  Enhancements to some of the Way of the Spear Traits/Trait Set bonuses
  Enhancements to some of the Way of the Shield Traits/Trait Set bonuses
  Enhancements to some of the Way of the Fist Traits/Trait Set bonuses

One thing that I will be up front about is Masteries. They are not likely to be turned into skills at any time soon.

hmm.... very sparse on details, but then this is Turbine we're dealing with, seems promising anyway.

[Aggie08]

[lf2536]

so much win, sadly I must spread my rep around first.