Player Guide: Class Changes Summary: Warden

[Mysterion]

Dang the beta forums are gone. Someone had posted a comparison of wardens to guards in the warden thread. It quickly pointed out the differences in number of targets and differences of our threat tools. Oh well, you guys will find out tonight (hopefully). I do remember looking at it and wondering which class was supposed to be the premier aoe tank. Something like max 10 mobs vs 13. I wish I had copied it.

[rannion]

Dang the beta forums are gone. Someone had posted a comparison of wardens to guards in the warden thread. It quickly pointed out the differences in number of targets and differences of our threat tools. Oh well, you guys will find out tonight (hopefully). I do remember looking at it and wondering which class was supposed to be the premier aoe tank. Something like max 10 mobs vs 13. I wish I had copied it.

To briefly recap the other person's post from memory:

gambits: max 10 targets / Guardian: (max) 13 targets
-5% damage debuff affect 1 target / 3 targets +1% morale heal on crit
1 threat match-up / 2 threat match-ups
1 panic button / 4 panic buttons
0 ranged threat gambits / 2 ranged threat skills
0 pure threat gambits/skills / 4 pure threat skills
DC (20s cd): 5 targets with no forced taunt / Challenge (30s cd): affect (max) 13 with a 15 second forced taunt
Single target mitigation caps at 56% / caps at 82%-92%
Need tons of finesse so dps (threat) is not BPEd / guard shield attacks leave opponents unable to BPE (translating in much more reliable threat)

[OldRanger]

Wow, when you see the comparison it is really discouraging if you like playing the tank role in a fellowship or were hoping to. It made me think about starting to level up my Guardian (L16), but I think I would look for another game instead. I don't want to support a company if it is going to break the mechanics for a character that I have so many hours invested in leveling up.

It makes you wonder what they are trying to accomplish, since I am pretty sure they don't want to make paying customers mad or make them want to move on to other games. It is also odd how significantly they are changing how the class works, which is a big deal with Wardens since they have a long and steep learning curve. It is also a bit discouraging that they would create so much having to relearn how the class works.

I wonder how long it will take them to make post release adjustments?

[Mysterion]

To briefly recap the other person's post from memory:

gambits: max 10 targets / Guardian: (max) 13 targets
-5% damage debuff affect 1 target / 3 targets +1% morale heal on crit
1 threat match-up / 2 threat match-ups
1 panic button / 4 panic buttons
0 ranged threat gambits / 2 ranged threat skills
0 pure threat gambits/skills / 4 pure threat skills
DC (20s cd): 5 targets with no forced taunt / Challenge (30s cd): affect (max) 13 with a 15 second forced taunt
Single target mitigation caps at 56% / caps at 82%-92%
Need tons of finesse so dps (threat) is not BPEd / guard shield attacks leave opponents unable to BPE (translating in much more reliable threat)

That is exactly the list I was thinking of. Thank you. Also I was wrong about finding out today, we'll have to wait until Wednesday.

[Darlgon]

I wonder how long it will take them to make post release adjustments?

RoI was 18 months of tinkering by Turbine. That was no where near as expansive as these changes.

[thunderchickn]

I was under the impression threat components of skills were being taken away? If so, how does the Guardian have "threat" skills as well as "pure threat" skills?

This list looks more like a "why Guards are better than Wardens" than an honest comparison. It's disingenuous at best. It shows every strength of the Guard, and every weakness of the Warden while not giving a single strength of Wardens. Buffs? Avoidance? ... HEALING!? Wardens need finesse to tank and Guards don't? Really? Bit of a stretch IMO.

Look, I have the same concerns as most of you. I really do. I'm concerned about the lack of leeches, and what happened to all the pure threat we got from our Gambits. I'm concerned about relying on javelins for ranged aggro. I'm concerned about spamming a clicky skill and how that will work, and with our buff durations. What I don't have sympathy for is disingenuous comparisons and misleading information leading to panic. THAT is something that hasn't changed in years on these forums, and it has never been as bad as it's made out on here.

[Mysterion]

I was under the impression threat components of skills were being taken away? If so, how does the Guardian have "threat" skills as well as "pure threat" skills?

This list looks more like a "why Guards are better than Wardens" than an honest comparison. It's disingenuous at best. It shows every strength of the Guard, and every weakness of the Warden while not giving a single strength of Wardens. Buffs? Avoidance? ... HEALING!? Wardens need finesse to tank and Guards don't? Really? Bit of a stretch IMO.

Look, I have the same concerns as most of you. I really do. I'm concerned about the lack of leeches, and what happened to all the pure threat we got from our Gambits. I'm concerned about relying on javelins for ranged aggro. I'm concerned about spamming a clicky skill and how that will work, and with our buff durations. What I don't have sympathy for is disingenuous comparisons and misleading information leading to panic. THAT is something that hasn't changed in years on these forums, and it has never been as bad as it's made out on here.

With regards to taunts:

Engage - This skill has now a 30s cd (was 1m) and is now a force taunt skill that is active for 10s, it also slows the targets' movement speed by 25% for 10s
Fray the Edge - This is now a force Taunt skill that is active for 10s
Challenge - The force taunt component has a duration of 10s, no longer snares the target if targets' attention isn't kept to the GRD, but it does provide an additional function: using Challenge has a chance to debuff the targets melee offence, once this debuff applies it takes 1m 30s for it has a chance to appear again.

under skill changes: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...mmary-Guardian

I was just posting something I found interesting from beta. I think most beta wardens were concerned with the ability to keep up buffs let alone buffs+self heals+dps for aggro. I remember Deviled_eggs (class dev) saying most of the fixes wouldn't be until 12.5 so it would seem that things are going to be a little rocky going forward. I look forward to your and other wardens' reactions starting Wednesday. Until then sticking your head in the sand and pretending that all of this information is disingenuous is probably the best reaction.

[rannion]

I was under the impression threat components of skills were being taken away? If so, how does the Guardian have "threat" skills as well as "pure threat" skills?

This list looks more like a "why Guards are better than Wardens" than an honest comparison. It's disingenuous at best. It shows every strength of the Guard, and every weakness of the Warden while not giving a single strength of Wardens. Buffs? Avoidance? ... HEALING!? Wardens need finesse to tank and Guards don't? Really? Bit of a stretch IMO.

Look, I have the same concerns as most of you. I really do. I'm concerned about the lack of leeches, and what happened to all the pure threat we got from our Gambits. I'm concerned about relying on javelins for ranged aggro. I'm concerned about spamming a clicky skill and how that will work, and with our buff durations. What I don't have sympathy for is disingenuous comparisons and misleading information leading to panic. THAT is something that hasn't changed in years on these forums, and it has never been as bad as it's made out on here.

First of all, would you please be so kind as to read up on guardian changes before making character attacks? There are few things i find more irksome than people who reflexively accuse others of 'creating panics', without reading up on things themselves, and without apparently knowing what the most important differences between guards vs. wardens are. Because, secondly, can you please explain to me why it is not pertinent to make this comparison, given that it always used to be the case that the former class had it easier to generate threat bc it needed time for bpe+heals, while being the best AoE threat generator, whereas the latter class had largely passive defenses but inferior threat generation, and fairly weak AoE capabilities? Now, I'll readily admit that I don't know for certain that it is the case that shield attacks cannot be bped, but pretty much every comparison except the debuff/heal one seem to me quite defensible: Guardians are getting no-damage threat skills; wardens are not; guardians have multiple threat copy+20% skills, whereas we have one; guard skills have at least double the max_targets of DC. All of these things are facts that are easily verified, and yet all you offer is an utterly unsubstantiated "I have no sympathy for disingenuous comparison". To sum up: it would behoove you to retract your uninformed, contrarian blather, as well as your use of that 'I'm the voice of reason' tone, given that you apparently cannot be bothered doing your homework first.

[Miloneel]

I was under the impression threat components of skills were being taken away? If so, how does the Guardian have "threat" skills as well as "pure threat" skills?

Yes, they have threat only skills. Verizal (Guardian's dev) said he realized about the importance of a tank having these tools for tanking.

This list looks more like a "why Guards are better than Wardens" than an honest comparison. It's disingenuous at best. It shows every strength of the Guard, and every weakness of the Warden while not giving a single strength of Wardens. Buffs? Avoidance? ... HEALING!?

Have in mind this was in the Beta 6 context. The final versions of both classes are still to be seen on (hopefully) Wednesday. There have been final adjustments that none of us have seen, so yeah, fingers crossed.
Regarding the "strengths" of the Warden:

Buffs: You could't keep them up as in ROR, durations were too short. If you can't keep your buffs up in a fight, what is the strength on them?
Avoidance: Both classes reached the same amounts of avoidance (capping or nearly capping BPE). Warden having more avoidances than a Guardian is just not true in ROR and it wasn't true in Beta 6.
Healing: One of the new changes to Guardians is that now they selfheal quite a lot, specially in AoE. In Beta 6 those selfheals were not too far away from Wardens. In fact, testing the same pull (STH t2 up to first boss) a Guardian survived way better than me.

Taking all that out of the equation might lead you to think different. Again, still to see the final adjustments for all classes.

[thunderchickn]

First of all, would you please be so kind as to read up on guardian changes before making character attacks? There are few things i find more irksome than people who reflexively accuse others of 'creating panics', without reading up on things themselves, and without apparently knowing what the most important differences between guards vs. wardens are. Because, secondly, can you please explain to me why it is not pertinent to make this comparison, given that it always used to be the case that the former class had it easier to generate threat bc it needed time for bpe+heals, while being the best AoE threat generator, whereas the latter class had largely passive defenses but inferior threat generation, and fairly weak AoE capabilities? Now, I'll readily admit that I don't know for certain that it is the case that shield attacks cannot be bped, but pretty much every comparison except the debuff/heal one seem to me quite defensible: Guardians are getting no-damage threat skills; wardens are not; guardians have multiple threat copy+20% skills, whereas we have one; guard skills have at least double the max_targets of DC. All of these things are facts that are easily verified, and yet all you offer is an utterly unsubstantiated "I have no sympathy for disingenuous comparison". To sum up: it would behoove you to retract your uninformed, contrarian blather, as well as your use of that 'I'm the voice of reason' tone, given that you apparently cannot be bothered doing your homework first.

I'd like for you to point out anything I said that was as much of a character attack as this paragraph.

It is disingenuous to list out all the things Guardians are better at, while leaving out the things Wardens are better at. I'm sorry if saying that hurt your feelings.

I've made a conscious effort to preface my posts with "while I haven't played for awhile" or "from what I gather", etc. I'm very surprised at the reaction my posts seem to have incited in you. Warden forums seem very aggressive lately, more than I ever remember.

[thunderchickn]

Yes, they have threat only skills. Verizal (Guardian's dev) said he realized about the importance of a tank having these tools for tanking.



Have in mind this was in the Beta 6 context. The final versions of both classes are still to be seen on (hopefully) Wednesday. There have been final adjustments that none of us have seen, so yeah, fingers crossed.
Regarding the "strengths" of the Warden:

Buffs: You could't keep them up as in ROR, durations were too short. If you can't keep your buffs up in a fight, what is the strength on them?
Avoidance: Both classes reached the same amounts of avoidance (capping or nearly capping BPE). Warden having more avoidances than a Guardian is just not true in ROR and it wasn't true in Beta 6.
Healing: One of the new changes to Guardians is that now they selfheal quite a lot, specially in AoE. In Beta 6 those selfheals were not too far away from Wardens. In fact, testing the same pull (STH t2 up to first boss) a Guardian survived way better than me.

Taking all that out of the equation might lead you to think different. Again, still to see the final adjustments for all classes.

THIS is helpful. Thank you for replying with a level headed explanation. So a lot has really changed about Guardians especially. I'm surprised to hear they have so much healing now, and quite disappointed that our buff durations are so short. A combination of all the factors is all that really matters, and it seems like the Guardians have it all. That is something I've heard before though so I'm curious what the tune of these forums will be in a month.

I'm not so sure about some of the things I have heard about our newest dev, I hope that they can catch on to what a Warden really should be quickly. If we really don't have any pure threat Gambits come Wednesday, or at least the soonest update, that could prove to be a big problem.

[Mysterion]

I'd like for you to point out anything I said that was as much of a character attack as this paragraph. My goodness, I'm sorry for suggesting that the sky might not actually be falling.

It is disingenuous to list out all the things Guardians are better at, while leaving out the things Wardens are better at. I'm sorry if saying that hurt your feelings.

I've made a conscious effort to preface my posts with "while I haven't played for awhile" or "from what I gather", etc. I'm very surprised at the reaction my posts seem to have incited in you. Warden forums seem very aggressive lately, more than I ever remember.

TBH I thought your post was kind of aggressive and derogatory to people posting information. My purpose in posting isn't about inciting sky is falling reactions just posting information I would want to know and not in beta. The sad part may be that what you consider outlandish might turn out to be true. As a former raiding warden and former raiding guard I hope it isn't as bad as what people are suggesting. I do look forward to your opinions going forward.

[thunderchickn]

TBH I thought your post was kind of aggressive and derogatory to people posting information. My purpose in posting isn't about inciting sky is falling reactions just posting information I would want to know and not in beta. The sad part may be that what you consider outlandish might turn out to be true. As a former raiding warden and former raiding guard I hope it isn't as bad as what people are suggesting. I do look forward to your opinions going forward.

I didn't mean to come across aggressive, and truthfully I have tried to put as many "I've been gone awhile" and "this is what it looks like to me" caveats in my posts. Also, my problem was not at all with your post, I just didn't quote it because I had nothing more to add that I didn't already mention.

As to the people posting information, I surely don't mean to be aggressive towards them! If that's how I come across I'm sorry. I very much appreciate the information, as I have tried to make clear to those that have given it to me (like Miloneel above). My only issue is with those same types of posts that I recognize (that never seem to go away), you know what I mean, the "Guards are better, we're going to be screwed" shtick. I've read that book, I know how it ends, I don't much care for it. I feel it is not honest to state all the reasons Wardens are screwed without a single thing that we're good at, so I stated such. It's not the posters I have an issue with, it's just that "Guards = awesome, Wardens = suck" stuff that I thought would surely have gone away by now. I feel like sometimes there is an agenda from some people. They may have already decided there are certain things they don't like, so every bit of information they put out has to follow that. They have made up their minds that it's going to suck, so all evidence has to prove that. I know it may seem like I have made up my mind to like it, but that isn't true (just as it's probably not true that people just want to hate it though it seems that way). I'm quite apprehensive about many things that I have posted. I just choose to have an open mind and decide for myself is all.

[rannion]

I'd like for you to point out anything I said that was as much of a character attack as this paragraph.

It is disingenuous to list out all the things Guardians are better at, while leaving out the things Wardens are better at. I'm sorry if saying that hurt your feelings.

I've made a conscious effort to preface my posts with "while I haven't played for awhile" or "from what I gather", etc. I'm very surprised at the reaction my posts seem to have incited in you. Warden forums seem very aggressive lately, more than I ever remember.

I am quite aware that I was confronting you, yes. The difference is that I have reasons for doing so, whereas you just have gut feelings about how you dislike guard/warden tank comparisons. Had it occurred to you that people had gotten used to guardians/wardens being about par as tanks, and that we are now very disappointed to see the devs moving away from this rough equality; and that this is thus motivated by a different intuition than 'guards are and always have been better'?

As for the 'aggression', I truly am sorry that I respond badly to the uninformed superiority that oozed from that post, but like I said before, I dislike uninformed superiority.

THIS is helpful. Thank you for replying with a level headed explanation. So a lot has really changed about Guardians especially.

It certainly is helpful, but again, the reason why I confronted you was because you could've read all this already, simply by reading the earlier pages of this thread. The fact that you didn't, and that you did not study the guardian changes before attacking me, speaks volumes. As such, I must (once again) point out to you that your "now this is helpful" remark is yet another barely veiled attack inspired merely by laziness on your part: my 'anger' was justified, as evidenced by the fact that I gave you multiple reasons why your attack was unjustified, as well as an attack.
Now, I have no interest in forum fights, so I am hoping this will be my last post on the subject, but the reason why I am confronting you about this is that I hope that this will force you to consider reading up on things yourself in the future, rather than to randomly attack people and demanding they do the work of looking up the relevant information for you. Certainly it became "personal", because I had to point it out to you, but that does not mean it was improper.

Lastly, I will ask you one more time to list at least one area in which you feel wardens outperform guardians (or which important aspect of tanking is not dealt with), given that guards were already capable of nearly capping evade while having bp at cap during RoR, so that they only lacked the extensive self-heals the warden has access to. Because I do not see it, and I find it telling that you seem to be unable to name anything either.

[thunderchickn]

Not interested in forum fighting with anyone. You very much misunderstood the tone of my post, but it looks like that ship has sailed. It happens.

[Mysterion]

Don't Stop! Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight!

Fine whatever don't fight.

So I think I'm going to miss not having a CSTM for this expansion. Their annoyances with the LI system and everything store usually aligned with mine and I always enjoyed their podcasts right after an expansion/update. I'm also going to miss the opinions of many wardens that have either disappeared or stopped playing. I won't name names to stroke or hurt anyone person's ego. Hopefully a bunch will come back to entertain me. If not its up to all of you to make getting through work on Wed,Thur and Fri a little easier this week.

[thunderchickn]

Don't Stop! Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight!

Fine whatever don't fight.

So I think I'm going to miss not having a CSTM for this expansion. Their annoyances with the LI system and everything store usually aligned with mine and I always enjoyed their podcasts right after an expansion/update. I'm also going to miss the opinions of many wardens that have either disappeared or stopped playing. I won't name names to stroke or hurt anyone person's ego. Hopefully a bunch will come back to entertain me. If not its up to all of you to make getting through work on Wed,Thur and Fri a little easier this week.

I came back and you didn't mention my name, that hurts my ego!

I also look forward to seeing how many of you feel about the changes once you're at 95 and start trying to tank stuff. Though from what our dev said it seems like we won't be in such a good spot until the first big patch . As bad as ROI first was for Wardens, I still found myself able to do the content even if it were a lot harder than it should have been. Hopefully the same can be said with HD.

If nothing else Moors might be a lot more challenging if you choose to just go with 95 crafted gear instead of 85 with Audacity lol.

[Mysterion]

I came back and you didn't mention my name, that hurts my ego!

I also look forward to seeing how many of you feel about the changes once you're at 95 and start trying to tank stuff. Though from what our dev said it seems like we won't be in such a good spot until the first big patch . As bad as ROI first was for Wardens, I still found myself able to do the content even if it were a lot harder than it should have been. Hopefully the same can be said with HD.

If nothing else Moors might be a lot more challenging if you choose to just go with 95 crafted gear instead of 85 with Audacity lol.

What will there be to tank? I'm not sure what is scaling and there is little tanking in HD so maybe being worried about not being on par with other tank classes won't even matter. I'm discounting skirmishes b/c those have been end-game for 2 expansions already and I'm tired of them.

[Miloneel]

Following the max targets problem - there is more. You don't even have to look at Guardians to see Wardens have a problem limited to 10 targets.

Champions have +5 targets on AoE skills at t2 of the yellow line, so champ's AoE skills go up to 13-15 targets.
True Heroics (the former bubble) now is a skill that affects 20 targets and the effect for a Chank is a forced taunt/threat match -up on 20 targets. Yes, 20.
Fury of Blades (new skill) seems to affect ALL the mobs that are in front of the champion (from what I can read in the Champ's Class changes Summary, please correct me if wrong).

So in a 15 mob pull with a champ AoEing, how the heck am I going to keep aggro on 15 mobs if I can only produce threat on 10 mobs?

I dont know. Lack of threat, lack of survival resources, short durations, a useless Blue Capstone Trait and Skill since Beta 1. It's just too much.

I remember pretty well when a dev said what happened with Wardens in ROI would never happen again.
We'll see tomorrow.

[spelunker]

What will there be to tank? I'm not sure what is scaling and there is little tanking in HD so maybe being worried about not being on par with other tank classes won't even matter. I'm discounting skirmishes b/c those have been end-game for 2 expansions already and I'm tired of them.

We don't know if anything worthwhile will be available for Seals at launch, but the currency is being reset, and this time ONLY raids can drop seals, so no more school farm for that form of currency. In addition to the single Epic Battle that can be done at Raid size (which I believe has a daily lock) that leaves scaled OD, BG, Erebor, and Skraids as the only ways to obtain the top tier of barter currency. Come to think of it, EBs don't drop seals in Raid size from what I remember, so only scaled raids and Skraids will drop seals. If I never did OD or BG on T1 after scaling so I don't know how they worked for drop rates, but if they drop 1 or 2 seals like T1 Erebor, T2/T2c for those instances will be the primary way to viably collect seals, and while they weren't what I would call a "true" challenge for raiding groups, they do require legitimate tanks for the most part.

Of course if seals are a useless currency at launch, we'll still be doing all dps specced sammy/sch/lib runs for our barter needs.

[Darlgon]

Of course if seals are a useless currency at launch, we'll still be doing all dps specced sammy/sch/lib runs for our barter needs.

Groan.. STILL?

[Giliodor]

Untill the first raids, we can't be sure if just broken or challenging. What's wrong with a bit of a challenge, in this game?

[Willgar_Cake]

Untill the first raids, we can't be sure if just broken or challenging. What's wrong with a bit of a challenge, in this game?

Nothing wrong with a bit of challenge, but having to completely relearn your class every year to a point where you don't even recognize it anymore - something wrong with this imo.

[Darlgon]

Untill the first raids, we can't be sure if just broken or challenging. What's wrong with a bit of a challenge, in this game?

Challenging content. Challenging raids. THAT would be AWESOME. Maybe sometime.

Breaking all the classes to create a challenge for players who have years invested in the characters, is mean.

[Ballaorf]

Okay, well, HD is out. I'm stuck at work. Reports on the live changes?

Without comparing to Guardians