Muster in the Wardens Subforum

[savetheroadtodoriath]

Not everything is a boss?
When I said I'd like the changes to include that, I was not saying they should be limited to just that. I'd like it to be well rounded.

Yes but there is a boss at the end of everything.

[Gandolf_TheOld]

If you have read this far, congratulations on your dedication. I sort of put my Warden aside a year or two ago, She was just not much fun. A Warden can solo to level cap, but as far as playing as a group tank or off tank, not much hope. I actually like the gambit system, it is different, and does require a lot of thought and planing to use effectively, keep it. As far as PvMP goes—is this still a thing?


This issues as I see them for the PvE (only) Warden:

1. Warden healing has been crippled; both the healing gambits and our moral tap gambits.

2. Gambit lag gets a warden killed faster than a Hunter can kill a mob. Gambit Lag: the lag that develops when a Warden executes several gambit builders in a row. Lag will often cause a builder to be skipped, spoiling the gambit.

3. The ranged gambits feel slower than normal gambits.

4. The Warden Forced march ability should be like the Hunters: when in combat it turns off but is automatically turned on when out of agro - change to work like the hunter's Find the Path and Pathfinder skills work.

As I think more about my Warden, I'll add to this thread

[Halphast]

as it stands right now, in Yellow you’re roughly spending 70% of the time in Determination using melee gambits. ... Allow Wardens to go 100% melee or 100% ranged without major dps shortcomings.

Yellow is my main and I've played it as 100% ranged from the start. I was recently told by "experts" that I should be swapping and making use of some of the red-line traits for melee gambits, but when I re-traited and used the best rotation I could figure out, the DPS was nowhere near what I get as 100% ranged.

Do you feel comfortable posting your yellow melee-swapping gambit rotation? I haven't been able to get a straight answer out of the people who recommended that I swap, so for now I've gone back to range-only.

[savetheroadtodoriath]

Yellow is my main and I've played it as 100% ranged from the start. I was recently told by "experts" that I should be swapping and making use of some of the red-line traits for melee gambits, but when I re-traited and used the best rotation I could figure out, the DPS was nowhere near what I get as 100% ranged.

Do you feel comfortable posting your yellow melee-swapping gambit rotation? I haven't been able to get a straight answer out of the people who recommended that I swap, so for now I've gone back to range-only.

Not me but food for thought https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AMqRbSQLDY

[Thaeawise]

If you have read this far, congratulations on your dedication. I sort of put my Warden aside a year or two ago, She was just not much fun. A Warden can solo to level cap, but as far as playing as a group tank or off tank, not much hope. I actually like the gambit system, it is different, and does require a lot of thought and planing to use effectively, keep it. As far as PvMP goes—is this still a thing?


This issues as I see them for the PvE (only) Warden:

1. Warden healing has been crippled; both the healing gambits and our moral tap gambits.

2. Gambit lag gets a warden killed faster than a Hunter can kill a mob. Gambit Lag: the lag that develops when a Warden executes several gambit builders in a row. Lag will often cause a builder to be skipped, spoiling the gambit.

3. The ranged gambits feel slower than normal gambits.

4. The Warden Forced march ability should be like the Hunters: when in combat it turns off but is automatically turned on when out of agro - change to work like the hunter's Find the Path and Pathfinder skills work.

As I think more about my Warden, I'll add to this thread

+1

Lets not beat around the bush this class has been gutted over the years for the sake of PvP balance and is a shadow of its former self. It's crippled by lag, heals and some of their traits don't scale properly or outright don't work as intended. You work four times harder than others to get worse results in a lot of cases. The faults have been listed by many users in this sub-forum and throughout this thread so there is little I can add.

Class should get a better +Spear damage bonus like Burglars get +5 Dagger dmg so that sword isn't the best option for most races.

[Atomos]

2 things that I would like to see addressed for Warden tank (blue-line):

1. The lag, especially lag spikes (sudden unexpected increases in lag), cause a lot of problems in building gambits because it can lead to incorrect sequences of gambit builders. This can mean a crucial healing gambit at a vital time is missed, which can make the difference between surviving or dying. The lag is also a greater problem for Warden in general, compared to other classes.

EDIT: Ignore the below comments - the skill has already been changed.

2. The skill that removes Stuns, Dazes etc. "Steadfast" has a very long cooldown of 2 minutes with no way of reducing it. Compared to other tanks such as Guardian which has the skill "Turn the Tables" for removing Stuns, Dazes etc. and is able to reduce the cooldown of that skill to less than 1 minute, this is much worse for Warden.

I know Warden can use Shield Tactics to gain stun immunity for 10 seconds when a predictable stun is incoming, but this is much less flexible than having a skill available that can instantly remove stun whenever you are stunned (predictably or not). Requiring a Lore-Master in your group for Sign of Power: Righteousness stun immunity is also very restrictive.

A reduction in the cooldown of the "Steadfast" skill for at least blue-line Warden would be much appreciated.

[Simba-]

2 things that I would like to see addressed for Warden tank (blue-line):

2. The skill that removes Stuns, Dazes etc. "Steadfast" has a very long cooldown of 2 minutes with no way of reducing it. Compared to other tanks such as Guardian which has the skill "Turn the Tables" for removing Stuns, Dazes etc. and is able to reduce the cooldown of that skill to less than 1 minute, this is much worse for Warden.

I know Warden can use Shield Tactics to gain stun immunity for 10 seconds when a predictable stun is incoming, but this is much less flexible than having a skill available that can instantly remove stun whenever you are stunned (predictably or not). Requiring a Lore-Master in your group for Sign of Power: Righteousness stun immunity is also very restrictive.

A reduction in the cooldown of the "Steadfast" skill for at least blue-line Warden would be much appreciated.

It's 45 second cooldown with teal tracery. Are you sure we are playing the same game?

[Simba-]

There were pages of fantastic feedback in the BR and Warden class forums over the last few years, though I think people gave up (I certainly have) and stopped posting them so some of it may be outdated.


EDIT: Just get rid of battle memory, for all lines, it's a pointless waste of time..if you are out of combat you should be able so use your masteries all the time.

It's called battle preparation, not battle memory. Lets not confuse devs and remove actually good stuff like battle "memory"

[Halphast]

Not me but food for thought https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AMqRbSQLDY

I appreciate it... and yeah the title of the video is "yellow warden" but it shows their trait-tree at the beginning of the video and it's 100% red with zero yellow traits...

All the same I watched the video and took note of the rotation. It's pretty much what I was doing, however with all their trait points in red, they were able to take greater advantage of a wider variety of red-line gambit chains and bonuses. I guess I don't understand how this is "yellow warden" when all the traits are in red and all the gambits they're using are melee... isn't this just a red warden being a red warden?

[Joedangod]

I appreciate it... and yeah the title of the video is "yellow warden" but it shows their trait-tree at the beginning of the video and it's 100% red with zero yellow traits...

Because they pop Recklessness before swapping to yellow.

[Halphast]

Because they pop Recklessness before swapping to yellow.

Ahh... ok... I wish it showed their trait setup in yellow, then. To get the best bonuses to all of the red chains they're using it's still got to be mostly red. Interesting. I'll have to investigate more red points on my own I guess!

[Strider5548]

It's called battle preparation, not battle memory. Lets not confuse devs and remove actually good stuff like battle "memory"

Memory is getting fuzzy and mind is getting old, updated original comment.

[savetheroadtodoriath]

I appreciate it... and yeah the title of the video is "yellow warden" but it shows their trait-tree at the beginning of the video and it's 100% red with zero yellow traits...

All the same I watched the video and took note of the rotation. It's pretty much what I was doing, however with all their trait points in red, they were able to take greater advantage of a wider variety of red-line gambit chains and bonuses. I guess I don't understand how this is "yellow warden" when all the traits are in red and all the gambits they're using are melee... isn't this just a red warden being a red warden?

They switch from red to yellow in order to use Recklessness as someone else said. But you should note they have the buff "Seize the Moment" which requires being fairly deep into Yellow even though most of the traits are pretty lackluster, the usual trait setup here still requires a large chunk of the red chain in order to get +1 DoT pulses though.

[danr607]

and delete yellow line pls ty

Edit: To clarify why 'delete yellow': Warden was never a ranged dps. It didn't even have a ranged stance or accompanying gambits until Isengard (75) when Orion added that in. Before that it just had its assortment of javelin skills. There is no reason for yellow to exist, and the only reason people even play it currently is because it does red better than red. It's a totally dysfunctional mess of dumb RNG and completely useless traits except for a select few that literally make it do better melee damage than the melee spec. Delete.

If I want to play a ranged dps class I'll play a hunter.

I more or less agree with these two sentiments. I believe that Wardens should be a primarily melee DPS class if they aren't tanking. If I wanted to play a ranged class I would just play Hunter. With that being said, I don't think they should get rid of yellow completely but slightly reworked. I do like how yellow offers buffs and debuffs that can be used well. It'd be interesting to play if yellow line became a type of buff/debuff line.

Last but certainly not least, a very poor decision was made somewhere in level 100 cap, to make all your DoTs removable, thus making them resistible (meaning your finesse has to check b/p/e AND resistance). This is annoying enough on its own, but with the potential incoming creep status removal, I think a reversion to non-potable dots will be desperately needed. There's no good reason for your damage to be able to be removed.

I agree this needs to be looked at as well. But it shouldn't also go back to non-pottable bleeds that ticked every four seconds for 32 seconds.

Anything else is just reiterating.
- Keep the gambit system.
- Warden tanking has been gutted following HD. A tank class that was entirely reliant on self-buffs, self-healing, morale taps/threat leeching, and bpe can't tank when it can't do those well or bosses ignore bpe.
- Lag destroys gambit building. Gambit building can be clunky at times and lag doesn't help.
- Our "oh s---" skills are lacking.

I've played Warden since MoM. I've seen a lot of stuff. Quite a few periods where Wardens were gods. Other periods where we were completely and utterly useless. Most suggestions in this thread are good and I thank OnnMac for looking at this.

[Carved]

I agree this needs to be looked at as well. But it shouldn't also go back to non-pottable bleeds that ticked every four seconds for 32 seconds.

They shouldn't be pottable, but as I said I think the Precise Blow line should once again lost its DoT component, with compensation to other non-DoT gambits (and potentially slight changes to the Power Attack line, I always thought a small mit bypass would be nice, somewhere between 10% and 30%). Warden was too strong in Helm's Deep, but this is one of the worst ways they chose to nerf it.

Edit: In fact, were the Precise Blow line to lose its DoT, it would be nice to see those 3 gambits changed into your go-to ST heavy hitters after your DoTs are up (and the Onslaught/Wall of Steel type gambits could be made into your AoE filler). Maybe give them tangible bonus damage for being used in order or something. This would do wonders for the damage profile/complete lack of burst.

[Carved]

It's called battle preparation, not battle memory. Lets not confuse devs and remove actually good stuff like battle "memory"

Personally I'd see Battle Memory gone in a heartbeat. Never liked it, never found it interesting, just further clutter and clunkiness. I do really like the idea of Battle Preparation going away in favour of masteries being usable out of combat though, it seems like an elegant solution.

[Thruili]

Last year my Warden was able to out dps my Hunter by about 5% and then the new legendary items were introduced where my poor Warden got the short end of the stick, as my Hunter suddenly dealt 25% more than my Warden. Nowadays it is even worse, as my Hunter deals about 50% more damage than my Warden over three minutes. Considering that a Warden needs half a minute to apply all sort of bleeds and dots on the target it takes some time to reach full dps potential while other classes can start at full throttle from the start.

One problem lies with the fact, that legendary items hardly help a dps Warden in their role as most traceries are outdated for years:

Marked Target Double-cast Chance is too random for my taste. I would rather have a flat percentage buff to the armour debuff like the old pre-imbuement legacy.
Spear-shield Gambit Damage only applies to the direct damage, it should increase bleed damage of the Mighty Blow line.
Spear Gambit Damage can be merged with the tracery above.
Fist Gambit Damage & Critical Chance only applies to the direct damage, it should increase dot damage of the Precise Blow line. Critical chance is not necessarily needed in this tracery, there could be a dot/bleed crit chance tracery to fill the place of Spear Gambit Damage.
Surety of Death Damage Over Time should include all dots of the War-cry line.
Gambit Builder Damage hardly does anything as these skills nowadays no longer contribute in a meaningful way to dps. It can probably be replaced by something more interesting.
Javelin Skill Damage and Javelin Skill Critical Chance are great for yellow Wardens, so I would keep them as they are.
Recklessness Critical Rating Buff is unfortunately rather useless, as a Warden at critical cap only gets a minor buff to critical magnitude. A damage buff to Recklessness (like Burn Hot has) would be better.
Wages of Fear Positional Damage would be a nice tracery if Wages of Fear was a useful dps skill. But even for pulling while questing it hardly helps you.
Hampering Javelin Duration is fine for PVP.
Mastery Cooldown is fine and needs no adjustment.

The other traceries do not help for dps and therefor are not included in this list.

I am exclusively playing a red Warden right now, as blue is not viable for tanking and yellow is far too reliant on plugins and luck for me to be enjoyable. I can see, some people love the Warden in yellow and thus I will not try to change it.
I am however of the opionon, that because a yellow Warden has more group utility through Hurry Up With That! and Focus Fire, that a red Warden should always have higher dps than in yellow. This can be achieved for instance by buffing Precision Training with a higher critical multiplier, Sharpened Spear and One After Another with melee damage instead of Spear Gambit Damage. Martial Fury could increase the damage of the dots/bleeds instead of adding a second one, thus increasing consistency and reducing randomness.
Taking Advantage should apply a single buff that keeps refreshing instead of stacking.
The red traits Basic Strikes, Way of the Spear, On the Offence and No Respite For The Wicked hardly help when dealing damage and are thus undesirable. Making them viable could remove the need to take a lot of useless blue traits for Bane of Shadow.

The individual Gambit Builder bonus could be converted into persistent stats for the Warden in order to reduce temporary effects, stress on the servers and thus lags. This includes A Warden's Strength/Skill/Cunning as well as Quick Stab - Melee Damage Bonus and all the other effects. Of course Unconventional Strikes need to be replaced with a different effect.

I hope a red Warden will once again be viable as dps in a raid/fellowship and fights are not over in like 2 minutes (Adkhat-zahhar I am looking at you).

[Faudyen]

I agree with what some others have said that it would be nice to see force march auto enable once you are out of combat like find the path.

I get the lag issues, but to kill the gambit system kills the class in my opinion.

I’m gonna go against a lot of people here but I would not mind blue line eliminated and having the warden focused on red and yellow where the melee and ranged do not have to mix. I find it annoying as melee in red line that I have to switch stances, I’m already doing 5x the work of any other class to keep up a dps rotation.

It has been so many years since blue line warden has been great and I ask myself if it can be viable in today’s lotro beyond T2 6 mans without heavy armor? Without major passive buffs? It seems like it would be an intense amount of work to blue line to make the warden a viable tank and if it’s not a viable tank, why have it?

I would also like to see the bonus’s for performing the tiers of a line in order increased, right now it doesn’t make sense to go up the tiers.

[Osglinthor]

and delete yellow line pls ty

Edit: To clarify why 'delete yellow': Warden was never a ranged dps. It didn't even have a ranged stance or accompanying gambits until Isengard (75) when Orion added that in. Before that it just had its assortment of javelin skills. There is no reason for yellow to exist, and the only reason people even play it currently is because it does red better than red. It's a totally dysfunctional mess of dumb RNG and completely useless traits except for a select few that literally make it do better melee damage than the melee spec. Delete.

The only reasons people play it is because its more fun and has a higher skill cap. RNG of red line is far worse. Only problem are 50% proc on barbed javelins instead 100% and double marked. Wich is problem in red as well alongside 15% double procs. Those are the dumb RNG parts on warden. Sieze the moment works fine. Stance dancing should be encouraged. Tho I wouldnt mind yellow (asailment stance) losing some of its range.

Current yellow is far superior to way either blue or red plays. And deleting it (mostly talking about sieze the momnet here tho other yellow key traits count as well) would be a huge mistake.

Since obviously big sugestions are out of scope. It should get merged with red>keeping stm>keeping barbed javelins tho making it 100% proc>keeping shattered javelins>removing 15% proc in red and replacing it with static only ST dmg increase>moving sweep bleeds to ST and uping their dmg while taking portion of dmg from AoE dot line>droping duration of barbed javelin bleeds to 28 sec.
These changes alone would put ward in far better spot gameplay wise. And ofc increase upfront dmg of non dot gambits(again they might need to be locked behind 5 10 sec cds) and give us back initial dot tick. But even this might be too much. Tho feels like most simple things that can be done to at least fix DPS role once and for all.

[Carved]

Current yellow is far superior to way either blue or red plays. And deleting it (mostly talking about sieze the momnet here tho other yellow key traits count as well) would be a huge mistake.

I think this is pretty telling. Yellow """playstyle""" can be summed up with 1 trait: Seize the Moment. It's the same as blue hunter, the entire trait line could be a single trait point (you can move while inducting).

Since this is a thread for feelings and opinions, DELETE SEIZE THE MOMENT. Let's not pretend they ever made that trait to use in your melee rotation, they put it in so you can be lazy and spam Ranged Wall of Steel from 40m away, but now that we have almost double the trait points to spend compared to when it was released, it has become this cancerous growth. It doesn't even change your playstyle, it just arbitrarily speeds it up. Awful trait, awful design, delete yellow warden and its associated traits.

Stance dancing should be encouraged.

This isn't 'dancing' my dude lmao. You're arbitrarily forced to swap stances every 30 seconds to press specific buttons, then swap back. Just like that, on a timer. I honestly can't believe people are defending this.

[Gandolf_TheOld]

I think this is pretty telling. Yellow """playstyle""" can be summed up with 1 trait: Seize the Moment. It's the same as blue hunter, the entire trait line could be a single trait point (you can move while inducting).

Since this is a thread for feelings and opinions, DELETE SEIZE THE MOMENT. Let's not pretend they ever made that trait to use in your melee rotation, they put it in so you can be lazy and spam Ranged Wall of Steel from 40m away, but now that we have almost double the trait points to spend compared to when it was released, it has become this cancerous growth. It doesn't even change your playstyle, it just arbitrarily speeds it up. Awful trait, awful design, delete yellow warden and its associated traits.



This isn't 'dancing' my dude lmao. You're arbitrarily forced to swap stances every 30 seconds to press specific buttons, then swap back. Just like that, on a timer. I honestly can't believe people are defending this.

No, this is not a thread for feelings and opinions. This is a thread for identifying what is wrong with the Warden and hopefully helping to work out the issues with the class. Judging from your comments, you do not play a warden. Thus, then maybe you should not comment here.

[Osglinthor]

I think this is pretty telling. Yellow """playstyle""" can be summed up with 1 trait: Seize the Moment. It's the same as blue hunter, the entire trait line could be a single trait point (you can move while inducting).

Since this is a thread for feelings and opinions, DELETE SEIZE THE MOMENT. Let's not pretend they ever made that trait to use in your melee rotation, they put it in so you can be lazy and spam Ranged Wall of Steel from 40m away, but now that we have almost double the trait points to spend compared to when it was released, it has become this cancerous growth. It doesn't even change your playstyle, it just arbitrarily speeds it up. Awful trait, awful design, delete yellow warden and its associated traits.



This isn't 'dancing' my dude lmao. You're arbitrarily forced to swap stances every 30 seconds to press specific buttons, then swap back. Just like that, on a timer. God I honestly can't believe people are defending this.

I said it should be encouraged, only reason it isnt "dancing" now as you say is because only 2 dots are usefull in ranged stance>adroit lasts long enough> and momentum buff isnt worth doing twice in rotation(it can be for some extremly rare aoe fights).

Its competly irelevent what their itention with stm was when they made it. Its how its used now. If it doesnt change your playstyle then all I can say is you are mediocre warden no offense.
It changes your rotation drasticly and makes it far more interactive where you are swaping order of bleeds depending on procs> choosing between refreshing existing mighty blow/powert attack and choosing when to go for next proc based on masteries CD. Far superior rotation than cycle trough borderline same rotation/masteries use red line has and have offered for ages.
And would only be made better with proposed changes. I dont care if you dont like it. I am simply stating a fact what would be better for class concerning its DPS role.

[Osglinthor]

I think this is pretty telling. Yellow """playstyle""" can be summed up with 1 trait: Seize the Moment. It's the same as blue hunter, the entire trait line could be a single trait point (you can move while inducting).

Totaly irelevent comparsion. And again it doesnt matter if its mostly summed up in one trait(doesnt have to be). If that trait is good. Shall we sum up red line? Or blue. Repeat same thing over and over and over oh look you rolled good dice on 15% double proc your dps good now : DDD. Oh look you keep same buffs up over and over trough same rotation you are tanking now : DD click taunt. We can all make pointless arguments like that.

[Carved]

No, this is not a thread for feelings and opinions.

yea it is my guy

Judging from your comments, you do not play a warden. Thus, then maybe you should not comment here.

???????? yea clearly never touched the class

[Simba-]

I think this is pretty telling. Yellow """playstyle""" can be summed up with 1 trait: Seize the Moment. It's the same as blue hunter, the entire trait line could be a single trait point (you can move while inducting).

Since this is a thread for feelings and opinions, DELETE SEIZE THE MOMENT. Let's not pretend they ever made that trait to use in your melee rotation, they put it in so you can be lazy and spam Ranged Wall of Steel from 40m away, but now that we have almost double the trait points to spend compared to when it was released, it has become this cancerous growth. It doesn't even change your playstyle, it just arbitrarily speeds it up. Awful trait, awful design, delete yellow warden and its associated traits.



This isn't 'dancing' my dude lmao. You're arbitrarily forced to swap stances every 30 seconds to press specific buttons, then swap back. Just like that, on a timer. I honestly can't believe people are defending this.

Nobody is forcing you to trait Seize the moment if you don't enjoy it my dude. Just act like it's not there or play another class?