Developer's Diary – Warden Updates from OnnMacMahal

[olimaxnik]

I'm a returning Warden and I would also like to know why Heavy armour has not been considered for Wardens in blue line as a way to rebalance the
warden as a viable tank. All other classes that have a tank line use heavy armour. Others have mentioned that BPE would have to boosted significantly or new instant skills would be needed but why not allow Wardens to have the option to use Heavy armour in this line? This would negate the need to significantly change heal/bpe gambit mechanics and additional instant heal skills. Tanking in medium armour has not been viable at raid level let alone 6 mans for the longest time. Heavy armour would allow Wardens to become viable tanks again since the time level 75 was the cap.

My other question is will the changes to the gambits make them easier to use or remember? This class is the most complicated to play so when I read that the changes would make the gambit system more 'flexible' I am very concerned. Adding more complexity to the gambit system will make it harder for existing and new players to fully exploit the capability of the warden class. Why not make gambit chains assignable to a key, or at least have this as an option. or even have the longer gambits assignable to a key. Maybe this is already possible and I am not aware of this but what I am getting at is I hope the changes will make it easier to use the gambits and that being more 'flexible' doesn't mean adding more options which make it even harder to remember what to press.

While I can understand the concerns regarding the complexity of the class, I personally have to heavily disagree with the Idea to make gambit chains assignable to a key. (btw. if you want to do smth. like this you could also use a macro for that but still I don´t get why you would like to do smth like this...). In my opinion this would take the uniquness of the class which is the gambit system. Playing warden has ever been a challenge and imo it should also be in the future but with the idea that you are also rewarded for taking this challenge!

[OnnMacMahal]

Will wardens remain a medium armor wearing class or will the ability to wear heavy armor be an option when in tanking mode?

No, wardens will remain a medium armour. They get several large mitigation bonuses from the Determination tree which effectively eliminate the medium-armour mitigation gap.

[OnnMacMahal]

I really like the philosophy behind most changes so far.

I like the bit about players getting 2-slot gambits, then 3-slot, then 4 and 5. Getting a 5-slot gambit at level 16 (Conviction) felt a little too hardcore. Kind of related to that: I'm wondering if the level at which Wardens acquire Masteries could be tweaked. I know they're an integral part of the class and that it's important for players to master them (pun intended) early on, but IMO getting 9 new "buttons" all of a sudden at level 21 is overwhelming, especially at such a low level. Maybe it'd be better for the players to get them more gradually over their leveling process (like 1 new Mastery per 2 levels, or 3 per 4 levels, or something like that). My 2 cents.

While I agree with you, I feel it would also be awkward to receive Mastery skills in small chunks, given that they're basically all builders 2.0. Tentatively, I have wardens now getting their 9 Mastery skills at level 24, right before unlocking the ability to use 4-length gambits at level 25.

[OnnMacMahal]

Here are a few things I'd really like to see commented on. Firstly, how will the self-heals will be handled? Currently, Warden is in a really rough spot with blue line self-heals. I mean, the Guardian has a skill on a 2m cooldown (Warrior's Heart) that is SIGNIFICANTLY better than Never Surrender (the Warden's only emergency skill) which has a 10m cooldown. That'd be "fine" if the Warden actually had any gambits that could make up the difference, but nothing even comes close to literally just that that one Guardian skill. That's not to even mention all the other amazing emergency skills the Guardian has.

Warden self-healing will be getting a decent upwards bump, especially for Determination wardens.

If anything, I'd love to see all the gambits that provide direct healing or morale leeching become % based heals. The number system feels archaic compared to other classes, not to mention how many times the level cap has changed causing certain gambits to become entirely forgotten. There have been literal years where certain healing gambits have been useless due to being numeric values that failed to scale properly, rather than a percentage which scales nicely pretty much no matter what. Is this a modernization you intend to implement with these class changes?

We're actually trying to get away from %-based healing. It gives are too much value to morale and vitality, since those stats directly improve any %-based heals, and those improvements are linear/upwards. We have centralized the core healing values though, so you won't have to fear the potency getting left behind at a level-cap increase.

And similar to our lack of burst damage, Wardens have a severe lack of burst healing. Is this something which will be addressed with those new emergency skill you talk about? Gambit wise, I'd love to see something like Celebration of Skill add a decent instant percent heal, should you execute it at the end of a gambit sequence. This would give you the option to go with either the HoT on Restoration (which would heal more, but over a long period), or an instant burst of healing at the cost of the total health Restoration provides.

Yes, this will be directly addressed by cooldown abilities. (Also, to a lesser extent by Celebration of Skill's heal)

One other thing that comes to mind: I'd love to hear your thoughts on completely removing Battle Preparation and simply making all gambit builders available to use, for free, while out of combat. Battle Prep already does this, but adds a LOT of completely needless animations and clunk to the process. Just cut it out entirely and streamline the process.

Unfortunately, Battle-preparation is necessary in order to make things work correctly. While it is a slightly annoying extra step, it doesn't hurt your combat performance (given it's only available out of combat).

[OnnMacMahal]

The only two I'm just a bit worried about are the self-heals and the BPE. Self-heals need love, especially Conviction, though the new Celebration of Skill sounds very promising. Two CoS's (one built, one from Battle Memory) sounds like it could be very good. My either concern really is the BPE though. It sounds like, particularly with the removal of the 2% buffs from builders and the Persevere-line gambits, we are losing a lot of BPE, especially partials. I think it's smart to stream-line and consolidate the effects of Gambits, and removing the 10% chance for minute effects to proc off builders is fine, but I like the niche of the Warden as an avoidance tank and would really like to see that retained in the class. I think it should be moved somewhere else, definitely, but at least tack it on to the Shield's Up line. Maybe each of those gambits gives 3% Partial BPE or something.

You're getting a little ahead of yourself with this comment, but I understand your concern. When we release a more detailed look soon, I look forward to talking specific numbers on these buffs, as well as overall BPE potential.

I also like the names you picked for things. Nice to see Shield's Up back as a Gambit, and nice to see Way of the Spear/Fist/Shield return. Now give us Way of the Warden back (only good this time)

I am quite fond of the warden's central identity/aesthetic.

[OnnMacMahal]

I really appreciate the communication and allowing for questions. I would really enjoy testing these Determination Warden changes out myself, but it will have to wait. The "cooldowns" being added, I hope are not all directly tied to battle flow. This would make the start of pulls, a huge disadvantage for wardens tanking. You would have to build up stacks of chaining gambit after gambit to use anything "substantial". The other tanks have rotations and skills that are locked being combat stages(guard with catch a breath, cappy with battle readied skills) but those are not the super clutch buttons they press. Guard has superb solo self healing and huge damage mits baseline and on CD. I just hope these are all considered when the entire pull for a warden tank is changed.

As they currently stand, the new cooldown skills are available even with no Advanced Technique. They simply start at lower potency or duration and improve with each stack of Advanced Technique you have. It will be a loss in value to use them immediately when beginning an engagement, or using two of them in rapid succession, but the system won't prevent you from using your skills entirely without having any Advanced Technique. The goal is that it rewards proactive wardens and players who are able to strategically pace out their skill usage.

[OnnMacMahal]

I have a question about the gambit chains, do you need to use 2-length, 3-length and 4/5 length in precisely that order (with no other gambits in between)? When you start building the chain, can you mix it up with the "wrong" length of gambits and then pick it up later? If you can, then that sounds pretty nice. If not, then it's adding an extra constraint on top of : which masteries are available and which gambit would give the best benefice in a specific circumstance. I guess that is called : "meaningful choices during gameplay" but I am not yet convinced, I feel like I'm already keeping track of a lot of things (buffs, debuffs, dots, hots, etc.) Some of which require plugins because the icons are many or are exactly the same (like the spear dots).

No, you don't have to use 2-3-4/5 length gambits directly in that order. Using a 2-length gambit will give you a 'gambit chain begun' buff, which will last until you use a 3-length gambit or leave combat. Similarly, using a 3-length gambit will turn that effect into a 'gambit chain in progress' buff, which will also last until you use a 4/5-length gambit or end combat. The two effects are also not mutually exclusive, so you can be building 2-chains at the same time (by using a 2-length, 3-length, 2-length, 4/5-length, 3-length, etc to maintain two active gambit chains).

I like the idea of the new non-gambit skills being "powered" by gambit usage / chain completion (it's innovative), but that will still make the beginning of fights a bit rough on warden tanks. There has been a lot of boss fights lately in which the tanks have to run in with a "cooldown" skill active for instance, to survive the initial hit(s) until the heals can start rolling in.

I just addressed this above, but your cooldown skills will still be available to you, they'll just be of lower potency or duration if you use them straight out of the gate without building any gambit chains first.

As previous posters mentioned, the self-healing definitely needs to be looked at. It doesn't scale well with increasing level caps (as was pointed out), but it also doesn't scale at all during gear progression inside a given level cap. In the first month of a new expansion, stats aren't high, mobs don't hit too hard (the high tier instances aren't available yet, etc.) and the self-healing feels mostly ok. But as you get better gear, your morale pool increases, the higher tier instances come out and your self-healing numbers remain exactly the same as they were, which isn't nearly enough anymore. Increasing your incoming healing isn't enough to bridge the gap. The simpler fix would probably be to make them % based as morale / vitality is pretty much the only stat that will really increase with gear progression.

While no healing skills should get left behind at old level caps, we actually don't want the potency of these heals to scale with your morale pool. Since your morale can (and often does!) keep going upward, it contributes to a sort of arms race between your defensive capacity and monster damage. Part of the reason monsters deal that much damage is that we have to beef them up a bit in response to things like ballooning %-based healing potency.

[Beltharas]

No, you don't have to use 2-3-4/5 length gambits directly in that order. Using a 2-length gambit will give you a 'gambit chain begun' buff, which will last until you use a 3-length gambit or leave combat. Similarly, using a 3-length gambit will turn that effect into a 'gambit chain in progress' buff, which will also last until you use a 4/5-length gambit or end combat. The two effects are also not mutually exclusive, so you can be building 2-chains at the same time (by using a 2-length, 3-length, 2-length, 4/5-length, 3-length, etc to maintain two active gambit chains).

I was pumped to see the changes in outline yesterday, and the more detail you add, the better it looks IMO. I was worried about being forced to finish a chain after you've begun it even if the situation calls for something different, but a persisting buff solves that. And starting a second chain after having begun a first one but not completing it yet is just ... beauty. Between that and the ability to use your AT spenders at four different potency levels (0-3), we'll have a ton of room for creativity and adpatation. I was worried about warden being broken; these changes really look like it is being enhanced. Thank you.

[OnnMacMahal]

No Seize the Moment, replaced by Strong Foundations... which sounds like we have to chip away at mastery cooldowns by using weak gambits in between, and there's no opportunity to use the same mastery several times in a row. Which is necessary when (for example) 3/2, 3/2/3, 3/2/3/2, 3/2/3/2/3 is a useful gambit chain..........

Ironically, you've chosen as an example one of the two gambit sequences that can only be used in melee range, as it has no javelin builder component . But no, it's the builders themselves which will reduce mastery cooldowns. So if you're trying to build the sequence above, as soon as all the relevant masteries are on cooldown (Shield-Fist, Fist-Shield, and maybe even Shield-Shield or Fist-Fist) you'll have to use your regular Shield builder or Fist builder. Using the regular Shield builder will reduce the active cooldown of all shield masteries (including Shield-Fist) and using your Fist builder will reduce the cooldown of all fist masteries (including Fist-Shield) which will help speed up the gambit sequence overall. It doesn't trivialize cooldowns entirely, like Seize the Moment does, but it still helps you use more masteries (and thus gambits) in a shorter time.

No yellow warden, now just have to be red and focus on range.

I'm not sure why you're saying this. You'll still have Assailment stance, plenty of ranged buffs, and all your Assailment gambits. 'Red' in this context is just the damage trait tree. Red + Assailment is damage-oriented at range. Seize the Moment is just one effect, not a whole class identity!

My main character is a yellow with an exclusively range build, relying on my high crit rating which regularly sets off Seize the Moment. Everything I value about the class is going in the trash, and I'll basically be a level 140 character learning a brand new class that I didn't choose to switch to. New skills, new mechanics to make the most of those skills... re-learning every gambit since it sounds like so many are changing... will my traceries be worth anything? Will they even exist?

Some of the new abilities are only for Determination wardens, so it doesn't sound like those will affect you. And you shouldn't have to re-learn more than a few gambits: I'm not significantly altering the core function of many existing gambits.

I'm trying to keep a cool head, but it really sounds like my class and build are just being cancelled and replaced with something completely new and un-tested, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Just breathe! I'm putting all this information out there so we can have a discussion about it right now (and make changes where necessary) and that process of feedback and revision will continue throughout the Bullroarer period. You're giving feedback right now: That is what you can do about it!

[OnnMacMahal]

Thank you for all the good changes coming to Wardens. I didn’t see it in your post but maybe forced march can stay on? That would be a nice quality of life bonus.

Sure, why not.

[jDzames]

This looks very promising! Self heals and emergency skills sound great, and I like gambit chains mechanic, it feels very "warden". Looking forward!

[OnnMacMahal]

One thing that wasn't mentioned here though is a bit on warden animations. I think one of Warden's biggest issues still is how many animations it has, particularly out of combat, though not exclusively so, that just feel slow, clunky and unnecessarily long.

Yes, warden animations are a bit disparate. One goal (not stated in the original post) is to make warden animation times more consistent with one another. That will mean shortening some of the excessively-long animations (looking at you, Dance of War).

The biggest ones I'm thinking of are battle preparation itself with the weird hip twist movement, and then a lot of the pre-battle buffs. The individual gambit builders themselves also feel rather clunky both in and out of combat, and then as a result even the tiniest amount of lag really messes up that rhythm and with it your entire gambit you were trying to build. I know lag is a separate issues on its own, but I sometimes wonder if the animations on builders were quicker/smoother if it would help out at least a bit.

Gambit builders out of combat (with battle-prep) will no longer have animations at all: they'll basically be identical to masteries now. In combat, builders should feel a bit snappier.

[OnnMacMahal]

I'm a returning Warden and I would also like to know why Heavy armour has not been considered for Wardens in blue line as a way to rebalance the
warden as a viable tank. All other classes that have a tank line use heavy armour. Others have mentioned that BPE would have to boosted significantly or new instant skills would be needed but why not allow Wardens to have the option to use Heavy armour in this line? This would negate the need to significantly change heal/bpe gambit mechanics and additional instant heal skills. Tanking in medium armour has not been viable at raid level let alone 6 mans for the longest time. Heavy armour would allow Wardens to become viable tanks again since the time level 75 was the cap.

Giving wardens the ability to use heavy armour would require us to change every piece of warden-specific (or even warden-oriented) gear across the whole breadth of the game. That's a ton of work, when the difference between medium and heavy armour is mostly the ability to gain an extra 10% Mitigations from rating bonuses. This is also the reason wardens get 5% Mitigations from choosing Determination as their trait specialization, and another 5% in traits(currently from Defiant Challenge; soon to be Shield Tactics and Shield Mastery) as well as a few more % from the Dance of War and Conviction.

My other question is will the changes to the gambits make them easier to use or remember? This class is the most complicated to play so when I read that the changes would make the gambit system more 'flexible' I am very concerned. Adding more complexity to the gambit system will make it harder for existing and new players to fully exploit the capability of the warden class. Why not make gambit chains assignable to a key, or at least have this as an option. or even have the longer gambits assignable to a key. Maybe this is already possible and I am not aware of this but what I am getting at is I hope the changes will make it easier to use the gambits and that being more 'flexible' doesn't mean adding more options which make it even harder to remember what to press.

Hopefully the changes should make gambits easier to remember, yes. Each gambit sequence should have a clear primary output (related to the builders used) and gambits in a sequence should more or less function the same way. We won't be making gambits 'regular' skills, as the whole class design is oriented around builders creating gambits.

[Skillzio]

No, wardens will remain a medium armour. They get several large mitigation bonuses from the Determination tree which effectively eliminate the medium-armour mitigation gap.

Just determination? One thing that gets overlooked because of the tank comparisons, is as things stand now, non-Determination Wardens currently suffer from less mitigation than the other medium classes as well as the heavy armour melee DPS specs. Hunters and Burglars both have easy access to extra mitigation that the Warden does not. Then naturally the heavy classes have more mitigation when specced for dps (or healing) too. As such, a dps Warden has worse mitigation than all other melee dps specs, and even hunters. Being squishier than hunters and champions is particularly galling. I think some people just assume that a Warden must be tougher, when in reality they aren't at all in red/yellow lines.

[OnnMacMahal]

- Self-healing: As some others have already mentioned, this is in a really catastrophic state. To give just one example: Restoration I have unbuffed arround 2 Mio Morale and it hits myself with arround 38k every 3 sec. The skill, as well as many other skills, including morale leaches which are good for groups, are far too low in terms of morale as well as the "strength" of the enemies. I'm not sure if further development of the Gambitchains would be sufficient here.

Self-heals (specifically in Determination) will be getting a bit of a boost, and some cooldown abilities will boost your healing as well.

- Why won't we be able to save "Advanced Technique" when we are out of combat? Is there a possibility to "take" at least a part of the points from the fight? Often things happen that you have to react to quickly at the beginning of a fight until everything is in order. Wouldn't it be advantageous to use at least a certain number of points outside the battle? (Of course, it depends a bit on the planned skills, which can be activated with this, just want to give some food for thought).

Sure, I understand your point, but I also don't want wardens doing even more constant buff-spam out of combat to ensure they start every fight with max AT. The skills will work with no AT, but they won't be as strong. If it's truly dire (you immediately need multiple cooldowns and even zero-AT cooldowns aren't cutting it) you might just need to lean on a healer's cooldown or two right when a fight opens.

-BPE: In my opinion, BPE has lost its importance in the past years, especially for the warden. If I remember back to level 75 times was felt every 2-3 hit blocked, dodged or parried. This was very helpful in that it gave the warden a breather to be healed. However, since the opponents now hit so hard, you have no other option as a warden but to stack vitality, which also doesn't help much since the self-healing is too low and you can no longer BPE many attacks. Are there concrete approaches to increase the importance of BPE again, or will we have to rely more on "For the Free Peoples" in the future?

Yes, there are things in the works to make BPE a little more relevant. They aren't warden-specific changes, but we don't want BPE to be irrelevant stats for tanks. It's also worth noting that BPE is still very effective when tanking groups of adds; the problem is really specifically about boss attacks/mechanics.

- Satisfaction: Currently, in my opinion, the buffs that the warden has are too low. Even if I keep all my buffs up, which are some more compared to other tank classes, I have no chance to get them. It just doesn't feel satisfying even when maintaining all the buffs. As I can see from the diary a change is also planned here, I also just wanted to point out again that significant improvements are also needed here.

I am looking forward to talking about specific buffs and numbers in detail soon, and especially when Bullroarer opens.

[PsychoSTINO]

It looks like SSG had a good understanding of the issues and I like many of the ideas they have come up with. I think they will lead to more interesting gameplay.

[olimaxnik]

Self-heals (specifically in Determination) will be getting a bit of a boost, and some cooldown abilities will boost your healing as well.


Sure, I understand your point, but I also don't want wardens doing even more constant buff-spam out of combat to ensure they start every fight with max AT. The skills will work with no AT, but they won't be as strong. If it's truly dire (you immediately need multiple cooldowns and even zero-AT cooldowns aren't cutting it) you might just need to lean on a healer's cooldown or two right when a fight opens.


Yes, there are things in the works to make BPE a little more relevant. They aren't warden-specific changes, but we don't want BPE to be irrelevant stats for tanks. It's also worth noting that BPE is still very effective when tanking groups of adds; the problem is really specifically about boss attacks/mechanics.


I am looking forward to talking about specific buffs and numbers in detail soon, and especially when Bullroarer opens.

Thank you for your answers. All in all those changes and plans sound really good and this is most likely my most anticipated update of the last several years since my main is warden.
Looking forward to it.

[thymos]

Are we getting any new skills to manage the order of gambit builders on the bar? It would make things a lot more dynamic. For example imagine a skill that...

if you have an odd gambit removes your middle builder: for example changing Brink of Victory into Goad or Dark Before the Dawn into Mighty Blow
or the opposite, an even gambit where your next builder goes into the center: for example changing Goad into Brink and Mighty Blow into Dark Before the Dawn
or inverts your current gambit completely: for example turning Surety of Death into Dance of War to be either used or built up further into Conviction
or a pseudo-potency that saves 2 builders rather than a skill: for example you have First Spear then you use this skill and it 'saves' these, you add another Fist to use Piercing Strike, then you use the new skill and have First Spear again which you can turn into Spear of Virtue or whatever.

Obviously these new skills would need to be Immediate to work smoothly, I'd really like something like this added to the Warden to make it even more complex at the highest levels making it really possible to eke out everything out of Masteries even the less used ones. It would also be nice if you could remove or reduce the CDs on Quick Recovery and Recovery.

[Osglinthor]

From the diary:
Tentatively, Strong Foundations gives your gambit builders up to -2s Mastery cooldowns of the same type. So for example (with the trait) Quick Thrust would reduce the active cooldowns of Sp-Sp, Sp-Sh, and Sp-Fi by 2 seconds. This won't reset all of your Mastery skills, and it won't let you use the same mastery 3 times in a row like StM does, but it will mean that when you're leaning hard on gambits of a certain type (if you're trying to pump out lots of Shield-Spear gambits to heal in quick succession, for example) using a normal gambit builder when you have to will help get some of your Mastery skills off cooldown.


the other resource is a skill called Rapid Technique, which simply consumes Advanced Technique to reset all of your masteries ever 2 seconds. This also won't let you click the same mastery 3x in a row, and it has a much longer cooldown than Seize the Moment, but it will let you build several gambits rapidly when you need to.

Rapid Techniques seems pointless since its missing point of what STM offered. It was ability to instantly react mid rotation with whatever gambit you needed to, increasing skill cap of the class despite being flawed with RNG. This CD would only partialy offer that since there is plenty of gambits you could build instantly and plenty you cant, while it would still focus on mastery builder mastery gameplay which is already gonna be heavly enforced via strong foundations trait. It would be much better if CD was ~30s and it offered old STM effect with maybe 2-3s duration. Which would let us react instantly with gambits.
If that is not the case then it is better to just remove rapid techniques since it devalues from masteries use while not offering gambit reactivity that STM (or should i say sustained masteries no CD) offers.

[LolarGagger]

Very pumped to see how this plays on the upcoming BR. Pretty pleased with what is outlined.

[bohbashum]

Looks great.

Especially like new idea for chain!

My biggest worries...

1. With no yellow spec, and red spec having minus healing, why would i use 21 line in red?

2. Rumour has it NS is going for red. Will we see alternative for red?

3. We are missing utility like otger tanks (run speed, AoE stun, buffs) will we see these come?

4. Will range dps traits stay? I dont want to sit in range for top dps, but its a nice option when we need it.

Other important things... kinda...

1. Why do we have battle memory 1 and no battle memory 2?

[thymos]

Rapid Techniques seems pointless since its missing point of what STM offered. It was ability to instantly react mid rotation with whatever gambit you needed to, increasing skill cap of the class despite being flawed with RNG. This CD would only partialy offer that since there is plenty of gambits you could build instantly and plenty you cant, while it would still focus on mastery builder mastery gameplay which is already gonna be heavly enforced via strong foundations trait. It would be much better if CD was ~30s and it offered old STM effect with maybe 2-3s duration. Which would let us react instantly with gambits.
If that is not the case then it is better to just remove rapid techniques since it devalues from masteries use while not offering gambit reactivity that STM (or should i say sustained masteries no CD) offers.

I tend to agree with this. I'd much rather have a skill that resets Mastery CDs or causes them to not incur CDs for a time, or both.

Hell, maybe it could be a gambit. No one uses Warden's Triumph currently, maybe it could do that? Or a trait could add this effect to it or some other skill (maybe Recklessness or For the Free Peoples).

[Jakreal]

Incoming damage is just too high!

The problem with how wardens tank has everything to do with its passive mitigations being too low and no reactionary cooldowns ON PAR with juggernaut, pledge, ward.

We dont have as many or as useful of cooldowns either. We have never surrender, a silly blue capstone (which you are addressing), and that's it.


Most of our mitigations is tied up in gambits and defiant challenge. If any mitigations are tied up in gambits they should be EXTRA like guardian fortification, not our base mitigations.

And with everything up you are STILL BELOW a guardian or cappy in mitigations.

We have self heals that will EVENTUALLY heal us (only if the self heals critical). Guardian has an immediate 700k(last time I played) catch a breath.

Spike damage is what keeps wardens below other options as tank. And it really is that simple.

[Daugon]

No, you don't have to use 2-3-4/5 length gambits directly in that order. Using a 2-length gambit will give you a 'gambit chain begun' buff, which will last until you use a 3-length gambit or leave combat. Similarly, using a 3-length gambit will turn that effect into a 'gambit chain in progress' buff, which will also last until you use a 4/5-length gambit or end combat. The two effects are also not mutually exclusive, so you can be building 2-chains at the same time (by using a 2-length, 3-length, 2-length, 4/5-length, 3-length, etc to maintain two active gambit chains).

This... this sounds AMAZING!

[Halphast]

Ironically, you've chosen as an example one of the two gambit sequences that can only be used in melee range, as it has no javelin builder component

Fair, though using ranged gambits to aggro enemies and building up 32323 to hit them hard when they reach melee is an effective tactic.

BUT I'm not going to argue anymore. In fact, thank you. You've been very patient and your explanations have helped a lot.