So Orion.. Wardens?

[LtDiablo]

Disagree. Forced March isn't even useful at that point because all of the time you "save" with it is spent recovering power. Add to that that it's only generally "useful" in towns (no mobs), unpopulated areas, cleared instances, and outleveled areas. Oh, and sometimes PvMP.

Also, does the Forced March legacy even still exist? Haven't seen that one in a while...

What's Forced March? I just call it a horse.

[geoboy]

I find it useful for running errands around town. Since they made interacting with npcs on horseback possible, it's less useful, but I still do.

Also, if I'm in the moors and chasing a creep, I'll pop it. I can use a pot if it doesn't leave me with enough power to finish the job.

[Iyvan]

Has anyone thought that the point that the masteries would still need to be traited (but perhaps in a different way to now) could mean that they would become an added bonus on the spear, shield and fist capstone legendaries? That would mean you could only trait exactly one mastery skill. That would be a pretty big nerf, but the other point Orion made about gambits that replace themselves got me thinking about this, because it would seem to me that it would be another mechanism to help you build gambits quickly to compensate for the fact that you would only ever have one of the mastery skills.

[lf2536]

Has anyone thought that the point that the masteries would still need to be traited (but perhaps in a different way to now) could mean that they would become an added bonus on the spear, shield and fist capstone legendaries? That would mean you could only trait exactly one mastery skill. That would be a pretty big nerf, but the other point Orion made about gambits that replace themselves got me thinking about this, because it would seem to me that it would be another mechanism to help you build gambits quickly to compensate for the fact that you would only ever have one of the mastery skills.

that's not an option I would welcome, it was aggrevating relearning the class during my 50s thanks to masteries (even though I can't imagine not using them now) it would be down right annoying having to relearn the class a 2nd time. no, I would say they are going to take up a legendary spot, perhaps replacing WotW or something.

[BoardGamer]

Forced March is great for mining Khazad Copper in Eregion. Hopping off and on your horse takes too long. Other than that, it is not very useful.

I a heartened that Orion seems to understand the major issues. We shall have to wait and see what comes of all this. As noted by many the key bonus of shield traiting in 6/12 mans is conviction. I am very eager to see Determination buffed. The last time I used Determination was the day I learned the ICPR toggle.

I would dearly love a useful secondary role in groups (either melee or ranged DPS, or even CC/Healing though the latter two are unlikely) And to reiterate we need a non-gambit interrupt skill.

Rapacious

[baue8673]

I'm just hoping for a clear second role. It sounds like their stated goal is three equal tanking classes, then what is our secondary? Are we getting DPS to rival a champ if we trait/build like it? Are we getting secondary healing (like cappy or something) if we trait and build for it? Cause right now, if there isn't tanking to be done, its pointless to bring my warden.

I like characters that have multiple roles. I just hope they require retraits and not stances to trigger it, otherwise its impossible to balance.

[Master_Valandil]

I would dearly love a useful secondary role in groups (either melee or ranged DPS, or even CC/Healing though the latter two are unlikely) And to reiterate we need a non-gambit interrupt skill.

Change one of our javelin skills to be usable as a close-range interrupt, rather than creating/changing a gambit... Maybe combine it with our current Shield Piercer skill... Call it "Piercing Javelin of Disruption."

[brasswire12]

I would dearly love a useful secondary role in groups (either melee or ranged DPS, or even CC/Healing though the latter two are unlikely) And to reiterate we need a non-gambit interrupt skill.

Rapacious

Couple honest questions from someone who does not have a max level Warden (me). How much group healing can a good Warden output through normal gameplay? What about if they try to maximize that ability?

Why do you think Wardens need a "non-gambit" interrupt skill? Aren't Wardens one of the better classes at doing fast interrupts already? Not in any way trying to imply that you're wrong, the need just isn't immediately obvious to me as someone who doesn't play a Warden regularly so I'm curious why you think it's necessary.

[ofMiceandHobbits]

Couple honest questions from someone who does not have a max level Warden (me). How much group healing can a good Warden output through normal gameplay? What about if they try to maximize that ability?

Why do you think Wardens need a "non-gambit" interrupt skill? Aren't Wardens one of the better classes at doing fast interrupts already? Not in any way trying to imply that you're wrong, the need just isn't immediately obvious to me as someone who doesn't play a Warden regularly so I'm curious why you think it's necessary.

In a long fight, even if you have 0% outgoing healing and 0% tactical critical chance, you can heal the entire fellowship for about 161-192 points of morale every three seconds the entire fight (assuming you are shield traits with the 15% legacy for Conviction healing).

If a warden were to build specifically for healing....well I daresay with the new outgoing healing relics we could achieve 20% outgoing heals and a pretty high tactical critical chance. I would not rule out a warden being able to group heal for significantly more than a captain (assuming its a boss fight where rally cry can only be used occasionally). I'll bet that we could get our base Convition hit on a fellowship member with 0% incoming healing to over 190 morale per non-crit tick. Factoring in critical hits and tactical critical multiplier I'll bet we could get 400-ish morale ticks on critical hits even for 0% inc healing fellowship members.

The problem of course is that a lot of the healing done by the warden is OVERHEALING, since HoT's tick of regardless of if you are at full morale or not. Regardless I do not think that Conviction needs a BUFF in any sort of way, its already borderline our most useful and sometimes overly-spammable skill for most situations.

[Mysterion]

Couple honest questions from someone who does not have a max level Warden (me). How much group healing can a good Warden output through normal gameplay? What about if they try to maximize that ability?

Why do you think Wardens need a "non-gambit" interrupt skill? Aren't Wardens one of the better classes at doing fast interrupts already? Not in any way trying to imply that you're wrong, the need just isn't immediately obvious to me as someone who doesn't play a Warden regularly so I'm curious why you think it's necessary.

It is sometimes difficult to switch mid gambit to an interrupt. If I'm tanking I will only be using the interrupt line to get to WoS every 30 seconds if I remember to put it back up. Otherwise I'm building other gambits. Killing a full gambit, then build boot (if mastery is on CD - which it always is) and firing it off isn't very easy [quick]. If you know the fight well it is easier to anticipate. Most of the time I'm not in a good position to interrupt unless I can anticipate it and have good aggro already. It is an area where I can improve in for sure. A jav skill to do it would be helpful to me but I can understand others believing it isn't in the spirit of the gambit system. I'm not a purist, so I don't care and would love more functionality.

edit added [quick]

[Antrius]

Couple honest questions from someone who does not have a max level Warden (me). How much group healing can a good Warden output through normal gameplay? What about if they try to maximize that ability?

Why do you think Wardens need a "non-gambit" interrupt skill? Aren't Wardens one of the better classes at doing fast interrupts already? Not in any way trying to imply that you're wrong, the need just isn't immediately obvious to me as someone who doesn't play a Warden regularly so I'm curious why you think it's necessary.

On my warden, by no means the best out there, conviction regularly hits for 160-200 each tick for the duration of the HoT. While that may not be much when not shield capped but its nothing to sneeze at either.
I would support an immediate jav base interrupt skill as well, now that our gambit removal tools have been changed to fast instead of immediate. By the time you clear the gambit and rebuild the boot it is usually too late.

[lf2536]

Couple honest questions from someone who does not have a max level Warden (me). How much group healing can a good Warden output through normal gameplay? What about if they try to maximize that ability?

with shield capstone you can easily pulse at 160 a pulse, multiply that by 6 fellowship members and multiply that by number of pulses, with capstone that's 6 pulses and the initial pulse so that's 7. thus: 160*6*7=6720 morale healed. that's nothing to turn your nose at.

this also make a massive difference to threat generated. iirc healing threat is equal to half that of DPS, so with a quick division Conviction is worth 3360 damage points on each active mob. assuming most trash fights have 3-4 mobs active that's worth approx 10080 damage points (assuming 3 mobs) every 18 seconds, that's alot of threat generated.

[baue8673]

In a long fight, even if you have 0% outgoing healing and 0% tactical critical chance, you can heal the entire fellowship for about 161-192 points of morale every three seconds the entire fight (assuming you are shield traits with the 15% legacy for Conviction healing).

If a warden were to build specifically for healing....well I daresay with the new outgoing healing relics we could achieve 20% outgoing heals and a pretty high tactical critical chance. I would not rule out a warden being able to group heal for significantly more than a captain (assuming its a boss fight where rally cry can only be used occasionally). I'll bet that we could get our base Convition hit on a fellowship member with 0% incoming healing to over 190 morale per non-crit tick. Factoring in critical hits and tactical critical multiplier I'll bet we could get 400-ish morale ticks on critical hits even for 0% inc healing fellowship members.

The problem of course is that a lot of the healing done by the warden is OVERHEALING, since HoT's tick of regardless of if you are at full morale or not. Regardless I do not think that Conviction needs a BUFF in any sort of way, its already borderline our most useful and sometimes overly-spammable skill for most situations.

Not that this is a direct response, but what if we could redirect our other self hots onto a certain person with control? Like a shield brother of sorts. We're not that far off from being able to somewhat be a healer. The gear available doesn't really support it, and traits might need to be reworked. But you could get there pretty easily.

[ofMiceandHobbits]

Not that this is a direct response, but what if we could redirect our other self hots onto a certain person with control? Like a shield brother of sorts. We're not that far off from being able to somewhat be a healer. The gear available doesn't really support it, and traits might need to be reworked. But you could get there pretty easily.

I like this idea a lot. A tank that can protect a certain fellowship member. I'd call it the WARDEN SHIELD WALL But instead of actually redirecting damage, we heal that fellowship member!

[striverg]

I like this idea a lot. A tank that can protect a certain fellowship member. I'd call it the WARDEN SHIELD WALL But instead of actually redirecting damage, we heal that fellowship member!

I was actually thinking something like getting healing based on how much damage this sort of "shield-brother" person does. It's something that would scale up in raids automatically based on how much damage is done... or maybe even make it something that directs a % of healing somebody does to the warden!

Finally from legacies, what comes to mind atm, for wardens using spears mostly ( I mean, we do have a trait line called way of the spear) I was kinda surprised when they gave guards melee range instead of us :/ I believe it really fits with the play style wardens have.

I was actually thinking about this a few days back. Admittedly, I haven't used a spear in years on my warden, one of the major reasons was the bleed damage is just plain meh. What if, instead of having a spear bleed they made them have some kind of extended reach? Like an inherent +.5, but since wardens have more training with spears their passives would extend this to 1.0, then to 1.5, and traiting grand master weapons training would bring it up to +2m? This would make it actually somewhat useful for other classes to use spears as well since there is no racial bonus for them or anything.

I thought the original point(yes, I said point) of using a spear was so you can poke them before they can poke you.

[BoardGamer]

In a long fight, even if you have 0% outgoing healing and 0% tactical critical chance, you can heal the entire fellowship for about 161-192 points of morale every three seconds the entire fight (assuming you are shield traits with the 15% legacy for Conviction healing).

If a warden were to build specifically for healing....well I daresay with the new outgoing healing relics we could achieve 20% outgoing heals and a pretty high tactical critical chance. I would not rule out a warden being able to group heal for significantly more than a captain (assuming its a boss fight where rally cry can only be used occasionally). I'll bet that we could get our base Convition hit on a fellowship member with 0% incoming healing to over 190 morale per non-crit tick. Factoring in critical hits and tactical critical multiplier I'll bet we could get 400-ish morale ticks on critical hits even for 0% inc healing fellowship members.

The problem of course is that a lot of the healing done by the warden is OVERHEALING, since HoT's tick of regardless of if you are at full morale or not. Regardless I do not think that Conviction needs a BUFF in any sort of way, its already borderline our most useful and sometimes overly-spammable skill for most situations.

I actually think the combination of Captain and Warden rocks for healing. The Captain adds a bit of targeted healing and of course shield brother, and then with RC for even more fellow heals. You will probably not heal many raids this way, but 6-mans are another story.

Rapacious

[XSYS]

this also make a massive difference to threat generated. iirc healing threat is equal to half that of DPS, so with a quick division Conviction is worth 3360 damage points on each active mob. assuming most trash fights have 3-4 mobs active that's worth approx 10080 damage points (assuming 3 mobs) every 18 seconds, that's alot of threat generated.

Overhealing, as far as I can tell, generates no threat.

I like this idea a lot. A tank that can protect a certain fellowship member. I'd call it the WARDEN SHIELD WALL But instead of actually redirecting damage, we heal that fellowship member!

It's an old idea, and one I still like. Rather than improving DPS, they could let wardens transfer some of their buffs and heals to another player when using a specific stance/trait setup. That way, the class's secondary role is something fairly unique: single-target buffer/off-healer with respectable damage. Sure, it'd be a lot of work, but in the long run it makes more sense to diversify secondary roles so we don't end up with three tank-or-DPS classes.

[lf2536]

Overhealing, as far as I can tell, generates no threat.

not somthing I've ever heard of.

plus, it doesn't make much sense, if that were true then all Minstrels and RKs had to do to avoid threat is overheal everyone and they would never gain aggro.

[XSYS]

plus, it doesn't make much sense, if that were true then all Minstrels and RKs had to do to avoid threat is overheal everyone and they would never gain aggro.

You misunderstand me. If a tank is at 8400/8400, a 1200-morale Bolster will generate 0 points of heal-threat. If the tank is at 7700/8400, the same heal generates 700 points of heal-threat. It's not all-or-nothing.

You can test this by having a healer spam heals on you as you move into a mob's aggro radius. The mob will attack you once, then run for the healer after the next heal hits you. If you run away from the mob or otherwise avoid taking damage, the mob will continue to focus on you despite the healing you receive.

[lf2536]

You misunderstand me. If a tank is at 8400/8400, a 1200-morale Bolster will generate 0 points of heal-threat. If the tank is at 7700/8400, the same heal generates 700 points of heal-threat. It's not all-or-nothing.

You can test this by having a healer spam heals on you as you move into a mob's aggro radius. The mob will attack you once, then run for the healer after the next heal hits you. If you run away from the mob or otherwise avoid taking damage, the mob will continue to focus on you despite the healing you receive.

that still doesn't make sense to me, if what you say is true then all a healer would ever need to do is spam heals and keep his group as near full morale as possible, if succesfull he will never generate enough healing threat as to gain aggro. that seems like a serious design flaw if true. this isn't an easy thing to do, but for a well geared and skilled healer this would not be too hard to do.

[striverg]

that still doesn't make sense to me, if what you say is true then all a healer would ever need to do is spam heals and keep his group as near full morale as possible, if succesfull he will never generate enough healing threat as to gain aggro. that seems like a serious design flaw if true. this isn't an easy thing to do, but for a well geared and skilled healer this would not be too hard to do.

It's true though. When I was on my RK duoing with a friend he would body-pull stuff while I got up healing attunment by healing myself. I was in combat just as he was, but I was healing myself and since I was at full health I generated no threat so none of the mobs would go to me even though I was in combat with them.

[ofMiceandHobbits]

Good thing that there is plenty of little minor damage that goes around in any 3/6/12 man to where Conviction is rarely used on players with only full morale.

Agreed - Over healing does not generate threat in my experience either. Buffing seems to be another story.

[ANewMachine]

It's true though. When I was on my RK duoing with a friend he would body-pull stuff while I got up healing attunment by healing myself. I was in combat just as he was, but I was healing myself and since I was at full health I generated no threat so none of the mobs would go to me even though I was in combat with them.

Unfortunately, this proves nothing. There's a concurrent debate about whether healing someone other than the mob's target generates threat. Your test could stand for either proposition.

[forceofnone]

I was actually thinking something like getting healing based on how much damage this sort of "shield-brother" person does. It's something that would scale up in raids automatically based on how much damage is done... or maybe even make it something that directs a % of healing somebody does to the warden!

Excellent! We can have the role of preferred healer for Champ tanks.

[Drglory]

My personal preference would be to totally revamp the whole Conviction "line" of Impressive Flourish, Maddening Strike, Dance of War, and Conviction to follow Conviction closer.

Add a small 30-60 group HoT to IF (no threat leech). A larger 80-120 group Hot (with minor leech) for MS. 140-160 HoT (with medium leech) for DoW. And finally leave Conviction unchanged.

This would in my eyes be a more "wardeny" approach to giving us more powerful healing. The group HoTs would not be as powerful as our single target counterparts, could have a higher powercost in order to balance. Sure you could heal a group more, but like all things warden, it would require stacking all 4 to reach its potential. With this I could see wardens be preferred in more than a few fights that have a good deal of AoE damage.