Is it worth returning?

[Sheilyn]

Hey there,
I'm just curious - Is the warden satisfying enough to return to lotro for him?
I stopped playing Lotro after I couldn't enjoy my Warden anymore because he was so weak compared to Guards.
Anyway Swtor turned out to be not as good as I expected because of its lame endgamecontent and now I'm looking for a mmo to play.

Is it worth returning?

[Sandsworn]

Unless you're an awesome warden, they're still pretty iffy compared to guards - weaker, less aggro.

I do believe they're implementing changes in the future to fix that up, though.

[cpdm]

I certainly think so. After U5, some friends convinced me to go play SWTOR, and I went because I wasn't enjoying my Warden so much. When I heard BR was up I came back; and while there's still a fair number of bugs, I'm having a blast tanking again.

I'm still going to play SWTOR, because it's young and will continue to improve and I still have friends there, but LotRO has become my main MMO once again.

Best advice though, is to come back as F2P and see for yourself.

[Tchad]

Unless you're an awesome warden, they're still pretty iffy compared to guards - weaker, less aggro.

I do believe they're implementing changes in the future to fix that up, though.

If you like wardens you like hard stuff. Wardens are as strong as guards now, but wardens have to build up what guards have by default or by pressing 1 key and that makes things a lot harder. Wardens can solo tyrants now and I took LC/moors alone (no creeps of course).

[MTminas]

Hmm i'd say for some part it would depend on your views, many wardens in vilya state that we are good as we are because we are "able" to complete T1 or even T2 orthank, but they never think "as good"
"if" you come back right now you will notice a lot of bugs with U6 and also some improovments, i think we are getting a bug/typo's/skill info/Li's fix in a few weeks....i'm interested in seeing how we turn out.

Up till now we have improoved, not as much as i'd liked but we have....
We are epic for soloing(we can solo tyrants in the moors) and to fight many targets at the same time(skrms generally)
i'd say find out for yourself.....and don't let assailment put you off

MT

[klorphaxius]

My Warden has been sitting unused for some times, I got him to level 71, but stopped once I heard we couldn't effectively tank end game content without being in the top 10% of the class. Now with U6 there's a ton of bugs, assailment stance is of questionable usefulness and has a minimum range. I have no intention of trying again until U6.1...maybe later if they screw that one up as well.

[Sheilyn]

Thx for the replies. So Warden still don't bring anything to the raid a guard couldn't i guess?

I think I can say without bragging that I was a top warden, however I felt more and more punished for being a Warden as all my knowledge of the game and the class couldn't make up for the classes flaws is it still the same?

[Elrendos]

I like how similar a lot of stories are here. Mine is the same too, in fact. Left because Warden was garbage after U5. Went to play SWTOR. Turned out to be not-so-great, now I'm back and loving my Warden. Give it a go. Definitely some improvements. It takes some getting used to to re-learn the basics, but nothing a familiar player cannot handle.

[Jeger_Wulf]

A question you have to ask yourself is: Do you want to learn the differences for each gambit in the three stances? I am wrestling with that myself. I knew all the original gambits quite well, but learning how they differ in all three stances is keepng me away atm. You might think that you only have to learn one stance and use it, but stance-dancing is going to be popular for the top-notch wardens from what I can tell, especially on the pull.

Otherwise, I am watching the boards as people try the new wardens on raid-tanking. While the warden appear to be stronger than they were, I don't think the verdict is in, yet, on how they rank with regard to the guardian.

[pelmysilverwolf]

U6 certainly provided some more goodies for Wardens to work with, and they're phenomenally tough now in addition to having more effective fellowship support (see conviction in recklessness.. and yes, you can stance swap through a fight pretty easily). I'd argue that they have almost as many tools as a guard does now when it comes to tanking and a few more surprises as well (trait properly and you're immune to criticals for a short while after being hit with one).

Solo and in small fellowships they're almost unstoppable though... I'm not a moors player so I can't comment on the Tyrant killing, but I've soloed through Inn of the Forsaken 75 T2, solo regularly in Limlight Gorge, and have taken champs, hunters and guards through most of the 3 man Isengard content on T1 and T2 without a healer, and without trouble. Additionally, the guards can almost never pick aggro up off of me, so I don't know why people are whining about how hard it is to build aggro.. in short, we've changed, but we're tougher than ever

[Cladariel]

If you were a good tank prior to the introduction of aggression and take the time to learn the changes to some of the gambits you will love the changes. Wardens are even more god mode than they have ever been solo and are even doing awesome things in groups, like tanking the dragon head without a healer (and I don't mean using the exploit that I would be willing to put money on being the reason so many groups have him bug constantly). Bosses like Lightning boss in ToO are made for a warden to tank when they can get B/P/E up to a total of 75% without much effort. I would definitely try it out at least as F2P.