Warden Changes and Feedback

[OnnMacMahal]

Gambit Chains and Advanced Technique

Gambit Chains
Gambit Chains will be staying with the class, but they will become a little more flexible.
Gambit chains are now a sequence of 4 gambits. Any gambit other than a potency gambit will count, and neither the gambit's type nor length matters.
Gambit chains are now unlocked automatically at level 30, at which point you will also earn 'The Way of the Spear' which allows you to cash out Advanced Technique earned from completing chains.
The only exception to this rule will be potency gambits (Deft Strike, Defensive Strike, and Goad) which will not contribute towards gambit chains. Gambits cast from Battle Memory do count, however.


Advanced Technique
Several new Warden skills will be ‘normal’ skills bound by cooldowns, rather than gambit skills requiring builders. These skills will have short, strong effects and moderate cooldown times. However, rather than being freely available at full strength, some will have their potency driven by Advanced Technique. Both Desperate Combat and For the Free Peoples will consume all of your Advanced Technique when used, and will become stronger with each additional Advanced Technique consumed when the skill fires.
And how will you earn Advanced Technique? You’ll receive one count every time you complete a gambit chain, up to three maximum, until they are either consumed by a skill or you leave combat.

Gambits

A note about gambits: In general, we’ve done away with the notion of gambits having different effects in Assailment. Assailment will make all the usual gambits work at range like you’re used to, but there’s no reason for a melee gambit to have a DoT while its ranged version doesn’t. Especially in cases like Unerring Strike, which currently applies nearly-identical (but stacking, because they are technically different) DoTs in its two versions, this is needlessly confusing for players. In the future, if a gambit has an effect while ‘In the Fray’ it should have the same effect while ‘Assailment’ is active.
Additionally, to maintain parity, no gambits will be locked behind a specific specialization, and no gambits will have longer-than normal cooldowns. That means Shield Mastery and Shield Tactics will always be available, and Shield Tactics will no longer have a 10-second cooldown.




Spear Gambits
¤ Gambit Sequence: Offensive Strike through Unseen Strikes
Gambits in this sequence have improved initial skill damage, and deal damage to multiple targets in front of you.

Offensive Strike
Offensive Strike no longer has a morale-tap. It is now a frontal AoE dealing moderate direct damage.

Combination Strike
Combination Strike is now a frontal AoE dealing moderate direct damage.

Boar’s Rush
Boar’s Rush is now a frontal AoE dealing moderate direct damage.

New: Unseen Strikes
Unseen Strikes is now a targeted attack, striking your current target and two nearby enemies, while consuming all damaging effects from War Cry, Brink of Victory, Surety of Death, or Desolation on each target to deal bonus damage. This will effectively ‘cash out’ most of your AoE light-damage DoTs.


¤ Gambit Sequence: The Boot through Cauterizing Steel
Gambits in this sequence have greatly improved initial skill damage and will only deal damage to your current target.

Onslaught
Onslaught deals strong damage to a single target. It will no longer interrupt your target.

Wall of Steel
Wall of Steel deals strong damage to a single target. It will no longer interrupt your target. It will no longer give you a parry buff.

Cauterizing Steel
Cauterizing Steel deals strong damage to a single target and consumes any physical bleeds from the Power Attack - Unerring Strike gambit sequence to deal bonus damage.

¤ Gambit Sequence: Power Attack through Unerring Strike
Gambits in this sequence apply physical (Wound type) bleeds which match the damage type of your main-hand weapon. These bleeds are strong, and have a longer base duration than your other Damage over Time effects. These gambits will no longer act as a discrete gambit chain. That is, Power Attack will no longer make your target temporarily weak to Mighty Blow, and Mighty Blow will no longer make your target temporarily weak to Unerring Strike.


Adroit Manoeuvre
The buff from Adroit Manoeuvre will also give you a small amount of Finesse rating.

Warden’s Triumph
The buff from Warden’s Triumph will increase both Melee and Ranged Damage, and will also add +1 pulse to all of your damage over time effects.



Shield Gambits
¤ Gambit Sequence: Persevere through Restoration
Persevere will give you a minor buff, but otherwise this sequence is entirely focused on personal healing.

Persevere
Persevere’s buff no longer gives Block and Partial Block rating, and now gives 2.5% Incoming Healing instead. It retains its heal over time.

Safeguard
Safeguard has lsot its Block and Partial Block buff. It will retain its heal over time.

Celebration of Skill
Celebration of Skill has lost its Block, Partial Block, and Incoming Healing buff. It will gain an instant morale heal (stronger initial healing than your other HoT-based gambits, but with less overall healing value.

New: Shield Up
Shield Up will give you a buff with Block rating and -2% Incoming Ranged and Tactical Damage.

Shield Mastery
Shield Mastery will give you a Block rating buff.

Impressive Flourish
Impressive Flourish has lost its DoT effect. The buff from Impressive Flourish no longer gives its old stats; instead, it now gives a Parry rating buff.

Maddening Strike
Maddening Strike will give you an Evade rating buff.

Dance of War
Dance of War will give you a buff with Physical Mitigation rating and Evade rating.

Conviction
Conviction will give you a buff with Tactical Mitigation rating and Evade rating. Conviction will still apply a HoT to you and your fellows.

Readied Blade
Readied Blade will give you a buff with Parry rating and -2% Incoming Melee Damage.

Shield Tactics
Shield Tactics will give you a buff with Critical Defence rating and Tactical Mitigation rating. It will also still give you temporary Stun Immunity.
This skill will have a 1s cooldown, like other gambit skills. The Stun Immunity effect already has a cooldown, so there’s no reason for this gambit to have a cooldown as well.



Fist Gambits
Goad
Goad has lost its damage over time effect.

¤ Gambit Sequence: Precise Blow through Spear of Fate
Gambits in this sequence will apply Light-damage DoTs to your current target. These DoT effects will pulse at a slightly faster rate than your other DoTs, and will not be cleansable, so monster players will not be able to remove them by using potions or skills.

New: Spear of Fate
Spear of Fate will apply a short, potent damage over time effect, dealing light damage to your target. This DoT have a weaker pulse and shorter overall duration than the DoT applied by Spear of Virtue, but will pulse at a higher frequency, doing greater damage in a shorter period.

¤ Gambit Sequence: War Cry through Desolation
Gambits in this sequence will apply Light-damage DoTs to a group of enemies. These effects will be weaker than your single-target effects. These DoT effects will be the ‘Cry’ resistance type, so monster players will be able to remove them.

War Cry
War Cry no longer gives you an Evade rating buff.

Brink of Victory
Brink of Victory no longer gives you an Evade rating buff.

Surety of Death
Surety of Death no longer gives you an Evade rating buff.

Desolation
Desolation no longer applies a Miss Chance debuff or a Fear effect to targets.

New: Deflection
Deflection will reduce how threatening you are to a group of enemies immediately.

Resounding Challenge
Resounding Challenge has adopted the effect it currently has in Assailment, dealing AoE damage and applying a DoT to any enemies hit. When specialized in the Determination tree, it will also increase your threat over time.
In Assailment, this gambit hits enemies in a 10m radius around your target. While 'In the Fray' it applies to targets within 20m of you.

Skills

Blue (Skills)
Restorative Shield-work
This skill no longer requires Advanced Technique. When used, it's potency will be equivalent to what was formerly achieved by using the skill with max AT.
When used, this skill gives 5 charges. While you have at least one tier remaining, you will gain +50% Partial Block chance and +25% Partial Block Mitigation. Each time you’re hit (up to once per second) one tier will be removed, healing you for 10% of your morale.

Desperate Combat
This skill will consume all of your Advanced Technique, transforming this skill for 30 seconds, and giving you a number of skill uses equal to the number of Advanced Technique consumed. Desperate Combat would have 3 possible versions (spear, shield, or fist) depending on your last gambit-type used. You could use more than one type of Desperate Combat skill by using different gambit types in between uses of Desperate Combat.
Desperate Spear: Strong AoE frontal damage, which applies a short debuff increasing the target’s incoming damage. This is a 5% incoming damage effect, and its duration stacks, so using Desperate Spear multiple times in a row will increase the duration of the effect considerably.
Desperate Shield: Weak AoE frontal damage, which applies a force taunt enemies in front of you and heals you for each target hit.
Desperate Fist: Moderate AoE damage, which stuns enemies in front of you.

For the Free Peoples
For the Free Peoples will no longer require you to use gambit builders to tier up its effect. Instead, it will immediately consume all of your Advanced Technique, instantly giving you and your fellowship a buff reducing incoming damage. Your personal damage reduction will be stronger than the group-wide effect, and the potency of both will scale depending on the number of Advanced Technique consumed.

Never Surrender
Never Surrender is now a limited-time skill. Using it will give you the Never Surrender effect you know and love, but with a few changes: the effect only lasts for 20 seconds, its health restoration will only trigger if you fall below 5% morale, and it gives you a short mitigation buff for a period after the heal is triggered.
Its base cooldown has been reduced to 5 minutes, and the blue-line trait reduces it a further 3 minutes (to a 2m expected cooldown for tanks) meaning you'll be able to use it much more frequently (though not back to back).

Red (Skills)
Shield Piercer
The Shield Piercer skill has been removed.

Recklessness
This skill no longer consumes Advanced Technique. It gives you a slightly stronger buff than the zero-AT version in Bullroarers 1 & 2.

Yellow (Skills)
Javelin of Deadly Force
Javelin of Deadly Force would be essentially unchanged, except that it would also apply the Marked and Diminished debuffs to any enemies hit. This would give you an infrequent way to apply both debuffs immediately to clusters of mobs.

Snap Shot: Javelins
Rather than give copies of every javelin skill, this effect will reset your javelin skill cooldowns. The list of affected skills will also be a bit slimmer, due to having fewer javelin skills overall: Ambush, Hampering Javelin, Javelin of Deadly Force, and Warning Shot (if specialized in Determination).

The Way of the Spear
The Way of the Spear is a self-buff skill with a 10-second cooldown. The skill will be one of three variants depending on the type of your last gambit used (Spear, Shield, or Fist). All three variants will consume all of your Advanced Technique, granting you a buff for 10 seconds, the potency of which depends on the number of Advanced Technique consumed. This skill now requires at least one Advanced Technique to be used. When consuming the maximum of 3, the buffs granted will be:
The Way of the Spear: +24% Initial Gambit Damage
The Way of the Shield: +12% Gambit Healing
The Way of the Fist: +6% Damage over Time

Rapid Techniques
Rapid Techniques is a self-buff skill which gives your masteries zero cooldown for 6 seconds and reduces your power costs during that period. The skill has a 90-second cooldown.



Javelin Skills
Ambush
Ambush no longer requires you to be out of combat to use. It still retains its induction, unless you have the Adroit Ambush trait and have used Adroit Manoeuvre in combat before using Ambush.

Marked Target, Diminished Target, Shield Piercer, Critical Strike, Wages of Fear, and Dodge This!
These javelin skills will all be removed. With so many gambits having Assailment versions, there’s simply no need to have so many instant javelin skills, which generally do insignificant damage and whose significant secondary effects will now be delivered through gambits.

Traits

Blue (Traits)
Gambit builders will no longer give stacking, partial BPE buffs. Gambits will no longer have a 10% chance for applying minor buffs.
Specializing in the Determination tree will grant the ‘Restorative Shield-work’ skill, in addition to ‘Warning Shot.’

Thrill of Battle
This trait will increase both morale-tap damage and morale-tap healing.

Shield Mastery
This trait will add 5% Physical Mitigation to the Shield Mastery buff and 5% Tactical Mitigation to the Shield Tactics buff. Both gambits will be available without specializing in the Determination tree.

Elegant Finish
Rather than adding specific bonuses to individual gambits, this trait now gives you a -Incoming Damage buff when tiering up or cashing out Advanced Technique.

Shield Tactics
This trait will give each of your Shield gambit buffs improved or additional bonuses.
+5% Incoming Healing from Persevere
+5% Partial Parry from Impressive Flourish
+5% Partial Evade and +5% Threat Generation from Maddening Strike
+5% Damage Reduction from Shield Up and Readied Blade
+3% Mitigations from Dance of War and Conviction

Revel in Combat
This trait effect has been replaced by the new skill ‘Desperate Combat.’
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War Cry
This trait gives 2-10% fist gambit damage.

Careful Shield-work
This trait gives 1-5% ranged damage reduction to the Shield Up gambit buff.

Redirect Ire
The first rank of this new trait will cause Deflection to generate, rather than reduce, threat. Subsequent ranks will increase your overall threat modifier.

Undeniable Challenge
This trait gives 1-5% ranged damage reduction to the Shield Up gambit buff.
This new trait will cause Resounding Challenge to generate additional threat rather than deal Damage over Time.

Careful Blade-work
This trait gives 1-5% melee damage reduction to the Readied Blade gambit buff.

Defiance
This trait has been removed. The 5% mitigations formerly gained by using Defiant Challenge with this trait are effectively moving to Shield Mastery and Shield tactics while you are specialized in the Determination tree.

Impressive Flourish
This trait has been removed.

Unassailable
This trait’s effect has been replaced by 3 ranks giving you +2-10 seconds of extra duration for your buffs.

Counter-attack
This trait has been removed.

Indefatigable
This trait has been replaced by 5 ranks giving +5-25% Shield-gambit healing.

Thick Skin
This trait has been replaced by 4 ranks which improve the potency of your 2-length gambits.

Fear No Darkness
This trait would improve both morale-tap damage and morale-tap healing.

Fellowship Protector
This trait now causes you to pulse a fellowship-wide damage reduction effect when you spend a maximum-tier (3) Advanced Technique.


Red (Traits)
Gambit builders will no longer give a stacking melee damage buff. Gambits will no longer have a 10% chance for applying minor buffs.
The specialization effect with reduces your Outgoing Healing by 50% has become an effect which reduces your gambit-skill healing specifically, rather than your base Outgoing Healing stat.
Recklessness no longer grants you the Shield Piercer javelin skill.

Unconventional Strikes
This trait would improve the initial-damage bonus from gambit chains.

Taking Advantage
This trait gives you a chance to deal a little bit of damage to enemies who block, parry, or evade one of your attacks.

Martial Fury
This trait gives you one additional pulse to your gambit Damage over Time effects, +10% Damage over Time, and +10% Initial Skill Damage
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On the Offence
This trait gives 2-10% morale-tap damage and healing (Offensive Strike no longer has a morale-tap).

Spear Sweep, Quick Sweep, and No Mercy
These traits have been consolidated into a single trait improving the damage from your physical spear bleeds by 5-25%.

No Respite for the Wicked
The effect from this trait would be changed to the Wall of Steel gambit line. With the Offensive Strike gambit line now AoE, applying such a strong debuff with AoE skills would make it too easy to apply this effect.

Warden’s Triumph
This trait will also add 10-30 seconds of duration to the associated buffs, in addition to its former/current effects.

Muscle Memory
This trait causes any skill used from Battle Memory to restore a small amount of power.


Yellow (Traits)
As yellow will no longer allow specialization, it will no longer have specialization bonuses. Some of its current specialization bonuses are being moved into the trait tree.
Endurance Training
This trait has 5 ranks, giving -2% attack duration in Assailment per rank.

New: Movement Training
This trait has 5 ranks, increasing shield-gambit ratings buffs from 2-10%.

Lasting Mark
This trait has been split into two traits: ‘Marked Targets’ and ‘Diminished Targets.’ The first rank in each gives the corresponding effect to certain gambits. Marked Target will be applied by any skills in the Boot – Cauterizing Steel gambit sequence, and Diminished Target would be applied by and skills in the Precise Blow - Spear of Fate gambit sequence. Subsequent ranks of both trait increase the durations of their corresponding debuffs.

Ranged Damage
This trait increases Ranged Damage from 3%-15%.

Throwing Arm
This trait now has 5 ranks, increasing your javelin range from 2-10m.

Momentum and Shield’s Up
These traits have been removed. The stances should stand on their own, and these bonuses mostly encourage quickly toggling between stances without meaningfully changing your gameplay.

Strong Foundations
This trait causes your gambit builder skills to reduce the active cooldowns of their related mastery skills (up to -2s at max rank). For example, using Quick Thrust will reduce the active cooldowns of your Spear and Spear, Spear and Shield, and Spear
and Fist mastery skills.

Piercing Javelins
Rather than giving armour penetration, this trait now reduces the chances that your javelin skills and gambits will be blocked, parried, evaded, or resisted.

Barbed Javelins, Shattered Javelins, Area Targeting, and Hurry Up with That!
These traits have been removed. This is part of the greater effect consolidation between melee and ranged gambits.
With Marked and Diminished debuffs being applied by gambits, Area Targeting doesn’t have a place in the warden’s kit.
‘Hurry Up with That’ frankly gives too strong a buff, and it affects very few roles. Notably, it didn’t improve anything for the warden who actually used Adroit Manoeuvre.

Adroit Ambush
This trait causes Adroit Manoeuvre to remove the induction from your next use of Ambush. Combined with Ambush being usable in combat, this allows wardens to ‘prime’ Ambush by using Adroit, giving access to Ambush (and its run speed bonus) without being forced through a lengthy induction.

Fire at Will
The Fire at Will skill no longer gives Mastery rating; instead, it gives +5% Ranged Damage, +5% Tactical Damage, and -10% Attack Duration.

Battering Strikes
The first rank of this trait adds a Critical Defence debuff to gambits in the Offensive Strike sequence. Subsequent ranks increase the potency of this debuff.

Suppression
The first rank of this trait adds an Outgoing Damage debuff to gambits in the War Cry-Desolation line (rather than the Offensive Strike line).

Javelin of Deadly Force
This skill now deals considerably more damage, and will apply Marked and Diminished Target debuffs (if those traits have been earned) to any enemies hit.

Snap Shot (requires Javelin of Deadly Force as a prerequisite)
Rather than give copies of every javelin skill, this effect will reset your javelin skill cooldowns. The list of affected skills will also be a bit slimmer, due to having fewer javelin skills overall: Ambush, Hampering Javelin, Javelin of Deadly Force, and Warning Shot (if specialized in Determination).

Seize the Moment
This trait has been removed. While Seize the Moment is a strong effect, it is not always a reliable proc, and when it does proc, the fact that it removes all mastery skill cooldowns for 10 seconds completely upends the flow of mastery and gambit usage. Some of you love Seize the Moment, but the whole class is designed around builders and masteries gating your rate of gambit skill use; removing that gate almost entirely by virtue of an unreliable proc has had some negative consequences for gameplay. We’re counteracting the loss of this trait with ‘Strong Foundations,’ the mechanic that causes gambit builders to reduce some active mastery cooldowns and ‘Rapid Techniques,’ which gives you periodic mastery resets for a brief time.

Rapid Techniques
This trait grants the Rapid Techniques skill.



Traceries
A few traceries have had their values adjusted slightly or their passive stat changed. Some traceries have been made obsolete by the changes above, and a few new ones have been added.
No existing traceries will be removed. Please do not delete your existing traceries. Obsolete traceries will automatically change according to the list below:


Adroit Manoeuvre Damage will become Spear-Fist Gambit Damage

Ambush Critical Chance will become Ambush Runspeed Bonus

Careful Step Cooldown & Stealth Level will become Never Surrender Duration and Incoming Healing

Gambit Lifetap Damage will become Gambit Lifetap Damage and Healing

Marked Target Double Cast will become Marked and Diminished Target Potency

Recklessness Critical Rating will become Recklessness Duration

Resolution Damage will become Resolution Damage and Healing

Resolution Target Resist Chance will become Morale-tap Resistance Reduction

Shield Piercer Duration & Evade Debuff Chance will become Gambit Debuff Duration

Shield Tactics Tactical Mitigation Rating will become Shield Tactics Immunity Duration

Surety of Death Damage over Time will become Fist-Shield Gambit Damage over Time

Wages of Fear Positional Damage will become Fist-Spear Gambit Damage over Time


New: Way of the Spear Bonuses

New: Restorative Shield-work Cooldown

New: Shield Gambit Buff Duration