Warden Changes and Feedback

[Plidak]

I don't buy this argument. You could make the same claim about any significant defensive cooldown on any class. Obviously the ability to use a defensive cooldown doesn't make everyone in the party pack up their things and walk away from their keyboards. Our guardian might pop Warrior's Heart, or our captain might hit Last Stand. If you know they have it off cooldown, that means you have to worry less about healing them as a priority target. If a DPS has bloodlet and you know your tank has a cooldown in their pocket, that's extra assurance. Never Surrender is no different.

With all my respect but NO. You cant even compare it to guardian or captain. Their skill effect is applied ON skill use. NS go on special condition. 5% HP.
Lets say im at 30% hp. I know there will be big inc spike dmg in next 5-10 sec, so i use NS in advance. With no visaul efect on me like shield/ swords/wings/ luck sh/ting bird (aka HOMM) healer will have no way to know im using this skill and he will heal spam me, even more if he know the big hit is inc from the boss. Then outside heal spam, he will waste a shield or other cd. So far so good. But the efect of my skill WONT triger, because there is a chanse i wont go under 5%.
So at the end we have power starving stressed healer + used skill which provided ZERO efect. So no there is no class which use ANY of its skills and get zero efect.
If im wrong pls name one ?
The way we have it on betta is aceptable only IF it have longer duration / 1 min with tracery ? or if it triggers at alteast under 15% hp so we have time to react and not pre cast it but cast it on need.

This

Our guardian might pop Warrior's Heart, or our captain might hit Last Stand. If you know they have it off cooldown, that means you have to worry less about healing them as a priority target.

Healing them or not, wont cancel/prevent the efect of the skills they used. Which is not the case with warden NVS.
Because healing me and not allowing my hp to drop under 5% negate NS entirely...
We already buff bosses with taunt.
Now we get nageate to one of our main skills from being healed as bonus ?

[Helhest]

I've mentioned fire-damage a few times now. Looking at our BR3 updates specifically traits and traceries, I'm left wondering why introduce this and not give us options through one or both of those avenues to increase its abilities?

Personally, I'm sick of just spamming light-damage DoTs & SoV(SoF)/Desolation. Let's make both Spear & Fist gambits serve a purpose by way of damage type.

It's not too late, please consider adding +fire-damage type to our Red line traits and at least one fire-damage type tracery.

We have both fire & light oils, correct? Let's make both viable through choice.

Sorry, but I think you are the only one who wants to make extra +fire DMG Gear...
And If you dont like spamming light DMG dots, maybe warden is not the best class for you.

[gaara908776]

With all my respect but NO. You cant even compare it to guardian or captain. Their skill effect is applied ON skill use. NS go on special condition. 5% HP.
Lets say im at 30% hp. I know there will be big inc spike dmg in next 5-10 sec, so i use NS in advance. With no visaul efect on me like shield/ swords/wings/ luck sh/ting bird (aka HOMM) healer will have no way to know im using this skill and he will heal spam me, even more if he know the big hit is inc from the boss. Then outside heal spam, he will waste a shield or other cd. So far so good. But the efect of my skill WONT triger, because there is a chanse i wont go under 5%.
So at the end we have power starving stressed healer + used skill which provided ZERO efect. So no there is no class which use ANY of its skills and get zero efect.
If im wrong pls name one ?
The way we have it on betta is aceptable only IF it have longer duration / 1 min with tracery ? or if it triggers at alteast under 15% hp so we have time to react and not pre cast it but cast it on need.

This


Healing them or not, wont cancel/prevent the efect of the skills they used. Which is not the case with warden NVS.
Because healing me and not allowing my hp to drop under 5% negate NS entirely...
We already buff bosses with taunt.
Now we get nageate to one of our main skills from being healed as bonus ?

I’ve been Warden tanking since level 60 and honestly this version of NS is the best and most fitting to Warden that we’ve ever had. It requires skill, encounter knowledge, and timing to use properly. High skill gameplay will be rewarded adequately, as will communication with your raid group. It’ll give you a 20-30 second window to tell your healer, “ignore me” while your self HoT’s slowly provide just enough sustain to proc it when you want, while healers can focus on some other task. Drop the sustain heals or anticipate 1 shot level burst damage and boom proc full heal followed by a mitigation and incoming healing buff.

I started maining Guardian at the beginning of Gundabad after playing it casually for a while. Warrior’s Heart functions in a very similar way. It is definitely a skill that can be “wasted” as you say. During my HH T5 prog, I blew WH at the wrong time in moments of panic, when I really didn’t need to and it caused major repercussions down the line when I really needed it but had used it prematurely. IMO any defensive cooldown that isn’t timed well and used when you absolutely need it, is “wasted”. That’s literally the whole difference between an expert level tank and your average to good tank. The expert tank can “feel” moments when skills like this are meant to be used and rarely waste them because they can anticipate the damage they’re about to take.

IMO the change to NS looks amazing, completely fits the class flavor, and will be an amazing skill to accentuate the rest of the defensive toolkit.

post U35 we’ll have both self and group -inc damage buffs, a BPE/Heal cooldown, very significant self sustain via HoT’s and morale taps, decent offensive support via mit/crit defense debuffs, and one shot protection when timed well via NS. This is basically everything I’ve been asking for since before the Blue Warden changes at level 115 and it still seems to fit the very high skill cap gameplay I prefer from Warden. I really don’t know what more we could want at this point.

P.S. to the person I’m responding to. Literally your entire complaint is based around you completely refusing to communicate with your group. Even if you don’t have voice chat in a raid, all you have to do is make a hot key that types “popping NS” into raid chat and everyone will know what it means. This is an MMORPG. The entire game is predicated around players working *together* to get something done. I’ve seen some bad straw man arguments on the Lotro forums but this one has got to take the cake.

[Eadondryt]

I’ve been Warden tanking since level 60 and honestly this version of NS is the best and most fitting to Warden that we’ve ever had. It requires skill, encounter knowledge, and timing to use properly. High skill gameplay will be rewarded adequately, as will communication with your raid group. It’ll give you a 20-30 second window to tell your healer, “ignore me” while your self HoT’s slowly provide just enough sustain to proc it when you want, while healers can focus on some other task. Drop the sustain heals or anticipate 1 shot level burst damage and boom proc full heal followed by a mitigation and incoming healing buff.

I started maining Guardian at the beginning of Gundabad after playing it casually for a while. Warrior’s Heart functions in a very similar way. It is definitely a skill that can be “wasted” as you say. During my HH T5 prog, I blew WH at the wrong time in moments of panic, when I really didn’t need to and it caused major repercussions down the line when I really needed it but had used it prematurely. IMO any defensive cooldown that isn’t timed well and used when you absolutely need it, is “wasted”. That’s literally the whole difference between an expert level tank and your average to good tank. The expert tank can “feel” moments when skills like this are meant to be used and rarely waste them because they can anticipate the damage they’re about to take.

IMO the change to NS looks amazing, completely fits the class flavor, and will be an amazing skill to accentuate the rest of the defensive toolkit.

post U35 we’ll have both self and group -inc damage buffs, a BPE/Heal cooldown, very significant self sustain via HoT’s and morale taps, decent offensive support via mit/crit defense debuffs, and one shot protection when timed well via NS. This is basically everything I’ve been asking for since before the Blue Warden changes at level 115 and it still seems to fit the very high skill cap gameplay I prefer from Warden. I really don’t know what more we could want at this point.

P.S. to the person I’m responding to. Literally your entire complaint is based around you completely refusing to communicate with your group. Even if you don’t have voice chat in a raid, all you have to do is make a hot key that types “popping NS” into raid chat and everyone will know what it means. This is an MMORPG. The entire game is predicated around players working *together* to get something done. I’ve seen some bad straw man arguments on the Lotro forums but this one has got to take the cake.

Finally! Someone providing feedback who knows what’s up.

I was initially upset about losing the fire and forget Never Surrender, but this fits the flavour of “proactive and predictive” tanking of the warden.
Having it on such a short cool-down means you can really chain the cool-downs together for powerful results.

Throw down FtFP with 3 stacks, everyone in your FS gets a double -inc damage reduction. First from FtFP, second from fellowship protector and if the warden timed it right another buff from completing a stack.

Then if it’s really bad you can use RSW at the same time for more healing, BPE reduction (assuming BPE will be more relevant in the next content).

Then if its really really bad and you are still in trouble, pop never surrender and not worry about dying for 20 seconds.
Call out to stop heals maybe 5s before expiry to get more -inc damage.

If that isn’t enough to survive whatever is coming at you, then no tank is going to survive it.
Then do it all again in less than 2 mins.

[Plidak]

[QUOTE=gaara908776;8179071]I’ve been Warden tanking since level 60 and honestly this version of NS is the best and most fitting to Warden that we’ve ever had. It requires skill, encounter knowledge, and timing to use properly. High skill gameplay will be rewarded adequately, as will communication with your raid group. as will communication with your raid group It’ll give you a 20-30 second window to tell your healer, “ignore me” while your self HoT’s slowly provide just enough sustain to proc it when you want, while healers can focus on some other task. Drop the sustain heals or anticipate 1 shot level burst damage and boom proc full heal followed by a mitigation and incoming healing buff.

.

I agree. Now focus on this

. It requires skill, encounter knowledge, and timing to use properly. High skill gameplay will be rewarded adequately, as will communication with your raid group. High skill gameplay will be rewarded adequately, as will communication with your raid group. It’ll give you a 20-30 second window to tell your healer, “ignore me”

This. There is no skill in lotro /so far/ which is compleatly canceled/negated from some other player actions /speaking of pve. And NS is just this. To work, you need to be in comunication with your healer and tell him / THEME because raid have 3/ to ignore you. So yea you need to have all 3 halers in voice chat. Or ALL of them should be skilled enough to track your buff and aware of plugin usage, to not negate your buff by keeping you above 5%.
You speak of skillplay, timing and voice chat. Then we have LOTRO. Dude, yea, DUDE wth are you speaking about ? You played wrd from release ? So do i. From my almost 3 decades of mmo experience i menaged to hit multiple gladiators title and probably raid HC and Mythic raids more than your total play time. So i do see the flaws of this skill. Is great on papper. Will be great with coordinated grp i agre, but what lotro lack i coordination. And dont give me L2P #### now. Is not me L2P, its learn you healers to play. Nope i not gona TEACH EVERY healer how to heal warden, nor il go in voice comunication with all of them every time i raid /pug just to make my skill work. When SSG can only add visual evect like damn captain bubbles and healer can see skill is on and stop his heals so efect can triger. It require knowleage and timing from ALL 3 healers. First do decide should they ignore your skill and heals you, or they stop let it triger and save some power or focus atention on most needed targets /like dps taking dmg from aoe, or outhealing of tank. Also require them to track the buff duration on you, als require them to know what the bubble/shield/wings around you means and realise that you used the skill. And this is for all 3 healers in raid. So adding somve visual wont make it child easy and OP. Will just make it less tedious.

For example / SSG going in the right direction there direction/ in SV when you get a red eye, (focused) everyone can see the debuff on you + the roar indicated that someone is focused. By your logic this should be removed, both visual and hearing warning, and healer should be skilled enough to notice adds go away from tank and chasing the dps....... or whoever.


Revert damn change or add a nice visual to it. Isnt that hard and you guys still have time to do it. Thanks

[fealegwe2]

Can someone please tell me how the new never surrender is supposed to work?

you pop the skill and if you get below 5% it kicks in?
what if i have popped the skill and am at 6% and take at hit for more than 6% my health... technically i go from 6 - 0 %
and 0 is below 5 so i should then get the heals.... or is it game over YOU DIE ?

call me stupid but how different is this from the original NS where we used to get hit for more than 15% of our moral only to die and it never kicked in

[Plidak]

Can someone please tell me how the new never surrender is supposed to work?

you pop the skill and if you get below 5% it kicks in?
what if i have popped the skill and am at 6% and take at hit for more than 6% my health... technically i go from 6 - 0 %
and 0 is below 5 so i should then get the heals.... or is it game over YOU DIE ?

call me stupid but how different is this from the original NS where we used to get hit for more than 15% of our moral only to die and it never kicked in

"or is it game over YOU DIE ? "| This was before. NS didnt saved you from one shot but SSG fixed it.
The u35 NS will work like the one we have on live, but triger point will be at and below 5%, and duration on the buff wont be permanent. 20 sec base + tracery.
And no worries, even if you take more than 5% dmg, efect will kick in and you wont die from that hit.
Have fun

And yes im sure using the skil while you are under 5% will triger the efect no matter do you take dmg or not.

[Eadondryt]

Can someone please tell me how the new never surrender is supposed to work?

you pop the skill and if you get below 5% it kicks in?
what if i have popped the skill and am at 6% and take at hit for more than 6% my health... technically i go from 6 - 0 %
and 0 is below 5 so i should then get the heals.... or is it game over YOU DIE ?

call me stupid but how different is this from the original NS where we used to get hit for more than 15% of our moral only to die and it never kicked in

You press the button and it will protect you from being defeated while it the effect is still present.
Dropping below 5% morale will trigger the heal and mitigations of the skill and remove the effect.

So it’s essentially similar to last stand, only it only works for one hit that would otherwise defeat you or bring you below 5% morale.

[Sirlat]

Note I am not against changing the skill. I completely get the issues with the "double" NS in its current form.

However, the problem with this isnt just communication. You likely have your own HoTs on not to mention from other HoT classes like RK. They take time to go off and this skill has a very short window AND you have to basically die. Make it higher like 15/20% would be better since its on such a short window. Though even that is not perfect. For our own healing (as well as like RK) if we let the HoTs drop off it takes a while to get them built back up. We cant just go insta stop and more importantly insta start healing again. This only protects once so if we cant get the healing built back up fast enough (assuming we/healer let it drop so we can get below 5%) then we are toast.

Or like i said just make it a bubble that is X% of health or time runs out. As bland as that is I still prefer it to this version of NS.

[Elwha]

Sorry, but I think you are the only one who wants to make extra +fire DMG Gear...
And If you dont like spamming light DMG dots, maybe warden is not the best class for you.

Sorry about what? I never asked for gear. If the dev is going to introduce this damage type with this revamp then maybe that person should be willing to make it worthwhile. To be frank, the Warden was in a much better spot before it went fist/light damage centric. If you don't have something productive to say, please remove yourself from beta.

[Kander]

You press the button and it will protect you from being defeated while it the effect is still present.
Dropping below 5% morale will trigger the heal and mitigations of the skill and remove the effect.

So it’s essentially similar to last stand, only it only works for one hit that would otherwise defeat you or bring you below 5% morale.

So the most useful part of the skill (mitigation increase) is likely to never happen unless you get a hit that should kill you...

If that's the case I would change the skill to just make the mitigation to apply on either expiration or on use of the skill. Heal we know is useless anyways and the cannot be defeated ONCE is ridiculous compared to last stand where you know you can survive and be healed after if something goes wrong for 20s. Even warrior's heart is still better with the morale bubble. If it's not constantly active at least make it always apply mitigation on expiration or trigger so we get something to help us survive something that would have killed us otherwise...

[andys90]

I've been thinking about marked/diminished target and how there is no longer a way to reliably apply them in AoE to a group. (I know there's javelin of deadly force, but I wouldn't consider that reliable)
What if at rank 5 of the trait, they were also able to be applied by the relevant AoE gambits? This would be spear-fist gambits for marked target, and Fist-shield for diminished.

Being able to reliably apply these debuffs to groups of mobs would also make the warden more desirable to take along in group content. Just a thought.

[Plidak]

Ignore game name and look at them as champion and warden.
Video says it all. This is what we have now, what we had before, and what we will have in future (read as after update)

[Helhest]

I've been thinking about marked/diminished target and how there is no longer a way to reliably apply them in AoE to a group. (I know there's javelin of deadly force, but I wouldn't consider that reliable)
What if at rank 5 of the trait, they were also able to be applied by the relevant AoE gambits? This would be spear-fist gambits for marked target, and Fist-shield for diminished.

Being able to reliably apply these debuffs to groups of mobs would also make the warden more desirable to take along in group content. Just a thought.

And doing so would fit perfectly to the Initial thoughts to the warden revamp as mentioned in the first place:

"Why remove the ability to specialize in Assailment? The Assailment specialization doesn’t meaningfully impact your playstyle relative to specializing in the Recklessness tree, and the ‘warden at range’ identity doesn’t require a full specialization, since any warden can toggle the Assailment stance on. Most of what makes Assailment appealing right now are a few debuffs and effects which would actually benefit the Recklessness tree more if only they weren’t locked up in the Assailment specialization."

[Constrictions]

OnnMacMahal, it seems to me that this warden rework happening at the same time as the power reword presents a fantastic opportunity to re-instate warden morale surfing.

Would it be possible to reinstate the 50% morale gate on dark before the dawn, and make it a *huge* one time power steroid, like it was classically?

A suggestion here might be that a lower tier gambit could provide the current PoT effect with a much higher morale gate (75%?), with a significantly lower power return value.


With the morale gate, there shouldn't be concerns here about wardens being able to self-sustain their power indefinitely, because to get the infinite power return steroid you would have to risk defeat by 1) sitting at half the morale pool and 2) at the same time use up your rotation to build a 5-tier gambit to gain a massive boost to power.

I have not enjoyed wardens being able to effectively remain at max power indefinitely since dark before the dawn was last changed. It was a fun trade-off to have insanely powerful self heals that just absolutely chew your power pool if you decided to keep them uptime permanently, to then have a way to have insane burst of power restoration at the cost of having low morale and risk of death. It made for a really good trade-off with clear pros and cons that had to be managed very carefully and skillfully. It was a super fun mechanic that helped define the warden class as a unique playstyle. I would absolutely love to see it come back. Having a lower tier PoT gambit with a smaller power return would help people with the learning curve.


On the topic of power, will wardens retain ICPR stats? Huge bonuses to ICPR and ICMR stats have been a big part of the picture in the early history of the warden class. I would love to see them return and made more significant again, too. IIRC wardens were able to choose via their original stances to have a bonus to ICPR that roughly matched their total power pool on top of their base icpr. Or, they could choose to have a bonus to ICMR that was approximately 15-20% of their max morale pools. This seems like a good opportunity to consider whether these things have a place in the rework.

[Constrictions]

I encourage you to look at your character panel while tanking during the next Bullroarer. Your B/P/E are still very high while you're maintaining your defensive buffs. And your actual damage reduction will be lower (from -Inc Damage and from higher Mitigation %) for the entire time you're tanking, which reduces your pressure to have maxed-out B/P/E. Wardens on live right now can reach 100% partial-or-full B/P/E without much sweat, but that's clearly not enough to make them viable challenge raid tanks.




With the recent increases to your Mitigations, -Inc Damage, defensive cooldowns, and improved self-healing, B/P/E simply isn't as big a part of the picture of warden tanking. Ever since the introduction of boss skills & mechanics which bypass B/P/E, this idea of the warden as the B/P/E tank has been a lost cause.




I'm hopeful that this will be fixed in time for the next Bullroarer. Javelin DPS values will be adjusted downward to be match other 1h weapons, so you'll have no inherent damage difference between melee/ranged skills and effects.

Thanks for this.

I am a little disappointed at the idea that wardens BPE is not going to be a big part of the picture. I would still like to see Wardens take a position over and above the other tanks when it comes to tanking multiple mobs (especially, excessive amounts of mobs) because of advantages in BPE and the use of AoE morale taps.

I understand why it is a lost cause. I guess the thing for me is, that even if it needs to take a lesser role, I feel that the warden should still have a tanking advantage in this area as a distinctive part of their identity.

[Plidak]

Thanks for this.

You know what "adjusted downwards" means right ?
So you are literaly thankful for a nerf ?

. I would still like to see Wardens take a position over and above the other tanks when it comes to tanking multiple mobs (especially, excessive amounts of mobs) because of advantages in BPE and the use of AoE morale taps.

Irs already, so if you want to see one, play it.
And when i say already, i dont mean u35.
Just dont expect to hold agro better than a guardian.

[Lhimlight]

The existing/live implementation of Never Surrender has an incredibly long cooldown which, coupled with the fact that it often procs when you aren't in serious danger of dying, reduces its overall value for a warden tank. Conversely, its limitless duration means you almost always get to use it twice in short succession, as long as you haven't been doing anything for a while. This makes the skill a lot more efficacious, as long as you've been afk or at least haven't had your survivability meaningfully challenged in the past 10 minutes.

Changing the effect to a duration effect with a narrower proc window has allowed me to also lower the cooldown considerably while also preventing wardens from getting to use NS twice in a row. If you click the skill and manage to never drop below 5%, you still gain the benefit of knowing you're safe for that entire window of time, and you'll get the skill back 90-100 seconds later, which is considerably faster than ever before.




I don't buy this argument. You could make the same claim about any significant defensive cooldown on any class. Obviously the ability to use a defensive cooldown doesn't make everyone in the party pack up their things and walk away from their keyboards. Our guardian might pop Warrior's Heart, or our captain might hit Last Stand. If you know they have it off cooldown, that means you have to worry less about healing them as a priority target. If a DPS has bloodlet and you know your tank has a cooldown in their pocket, that's extra assurance. Never Surrender is no different.

is there any plans to make passive spear damage on par with racial, i know we get the extra bleed, but it still makes a dps loss.

[Levanthalas]

A question and a thank you.

First the Question:
Is it intended that the potency gambits don't change the Way of the Spear/Shield/Fist to their associated type? I know they don't count for gambit chains, and that makes sense to me.
I was experimenting today, and had the idea to use them to quickly change which effect the skill would provide, without otherwise altering a rotation, and also put Cauterizing Steal/Unseen Strikes or another big gambit in Battle Memory. Especially if that big gambit would benefit from a different "Way of the X" than I currently had ready.

Seemed like a nice fringe benefit for the potency gambits, so I was a little surprised when none of them altered the skill. IDK if this is a design choice, or just some side effect of Potency gambits not contributing to chains.

Anyway, just wanted to ask/call attention to it if it's a bug.



Now the Thank You:

I'd really like to thank @OnnMacMahal for responding to my request for communication, and to say that your response helped me process what my issue with gambits was: I was more concerned that you'd NEVER use short gambits, not necessarily that they wouldn't be used first. After getting to actually try the beta out today, I can say it honestly feels great, and I felt like both short and long gambits had their place. Thanks again for the communication, and for all your work, keep it up.

[Goatimli]

First, a big thanks to OnnMacMahal for taking the time to dig into the Warden and come out with all these changes—while I know the community doesn’t agree on all the implementations, it’s clear that a lot of work and thought were put into this update.

Below are some ideas/suggestions from a tanking perspective.

Warning Shot

Why the +5% outgoing damage enemy buff?

I don't understand this change. If the -5% outgoing damage buff we had previously was too strong, then either remove it or lessen the effects. If they wanted Warning Shot to remain a strictly taunt-focused skill and were afraid that the outgoing damage debuff factored too heavily into the rotation, just remove the effect. The only thing I can think of is that with all the other -% incoming damage buffs Wardens are receiving this update, the class was viewed as too strong and thus in need of balancing. However, I don't believe this is the case.

The Way of the Shield

I was disappointed to see the heal-bonus granted by this skill decreased from 80% in Beta 1 to 45% in Beta 3 (assuming the tracery is slotted). This is a small point, but without the tracery slotted, this skill seems like marginal utility except for the -12% incoming damage, which is common to each variation.

Never Surrender

I’m not opposed to the new version of Never Surrender in Beta 3. While others have pointed out how weak it is compared to Last Stand, its relatively short 2 minute cooldown and (tracery slotted) 31 second duration gives it a respectable ~25% possible uptime. However, only giving a 50% heal on a 5% threshold seems particular low. For an emergency, if you’re one-shotted you’ll only go back to 50% health and, while you will have +10% mitigations for ten seconds, I don’t see why this needs to be counteracted by a sizable -30% shield-line healing debuff. Perhaps remove this debuff, grant the heal/buff/and debuff upon expiration regardless of moral threshold, or increase the size of the base heal.

Speaking of the healing magnitude, I was concerned to see the tracery provide a +33% Never Surrender Incoming Healing as opposed to a +33% Never Surrender Healing. I have not had the opportunity to test this, but it reads to me that it will increase the magnitude of the heal (so +33% of a 50% heal, meaning a +67% heal overall). If the intention is to increase the heal by 17%, then the tracery is working as intended (or my math is off—a very real possibility). Otherwise, increasing the base heal to be 83% of maximum moral would make this a more worthy emergency skill, especially in light of the -30% shield-line healing debuff effect.

Desperate Combat

To begin, I like how these skills change based on the last skill used. This use to be a Rune-Keeper mechanic I particularly liked, so I’m glad to see it make a resurrection in the Warden’s rotation. I like Desperate Shield and Desperate Spear well enough, but I think Desperate Fist needs to be reworked. When you use up all your Advanced Technique and can “spam” the skill 4 times, Desperate Shield provides multiple heals (and stackable taunts) and Desperate Spear provides a stackable +5% incoming damage debuff. However, the 3 second stun provided by Desperate Fist does not stack, meaning there is little incentive to using this skill once at no Advanced Technique or four times at three Advanced Technique. Perhaps increase the stun duration per Advanced Technique used or bring back the +miss chance and fear effects from Desolation. That way you have a reason to use it when you have 3 Advanced Techniques saved.

Battle Preparation

I am not a fan of spamming skills out of combat before going into battle. I liked the direction OnnMacMahal went with the Minstrel in the recent overhaul, by making anthems only castable in combat. While I know there are some negative effects from this change, I overall like the intention to avoid some classes from having to go through a long, choreographed dance before we can start a fight. Speaking of Dance (of War), I don’t like the Warden being the odd-tank out for whom everyone has to wait before they can begin a fight. Perhaps, we could have Battle Preparation activate all of the shield line gambit buffs otherwise attainable through non-target activation (so everything you’d normally be spamming before a fight). Since Battle Preparation is already only castable out of combat, this won't be taking away from the gambit system as this only applies a benefit to the first minute or so of a fight and can’t be cast in combat.

Traceries

It’s great to see so many tanking-specific traceries. However, how do we feel about all the passive finesse stats for traceries? We have 2 finesse stats in the defensive traceries and 3 finesses stats for the utility traceries. On top of this we have +30,000 to +150,000 Finesse Rating through our Trait Trees. Compare this to Guardians and Captains who have 0 finesse stats over all their traceries. As an aside, we now also have 2 agility stats between our defensive and utility traceries while Guardians have 0 might stats.

AI Tank?

I wondered whether anyone could enlighten me on what this Determination Trait Tree passive stat means:
“+Tank Is AI Active”

Overall, thanks for this update, and I look forward to playing my Warden on live after this update.

Also, below are the Warden's new traceries, split into Defensive, Utility, and Offense

[Giseldah]

The following traits are still using old style stats:

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Stand_Your_Ground (Block, Parry, Evade)
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Cri...(Warden_Skill)

Critical Defence for Captain, Guardian are wrongly using item level stats:
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Cri...efence_(Skill)
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Cri...uardian_Skill)

[Lhimlight]

Is there any plans to update the 140 armour sets for warden, we still have a useless 4 set bonus

[Plidak]

By removing crit defence from shield fist line, you cut warden with 40% crit defence.
On live 62% On BR 20%
Do you think the measly 10% dmg reduction you give us will compensate that?
We get one shoted on boss crit strikes on live server. What about BR ? After each crit character files will be deleted from game folder ?
I can foresee that comming.
Guys, send me some of the pippeweed your smoke. Im serious.

Lots of flaws in BR build but im done bothering. Is clear that we have what you give us, so yea, waiting for release date.

Ppl already askin me this :
World] ***: 'you been on beta yday/today'
World] ***: 'why you still playing this class?'
[World] ***: 'everyone knows warden is deadclass brush

I can see why

So we see what we have when it comes live, then play or quit till you fix your thing.

[Elwha]

• RECKLESSNESS: Deep Wounds & Aggravating Wounds are the same things. Merge the two and create a new red trait that’s Spear Gambit-centric.
• RECKLESSNESS: Muscle Memory doesn’t belong where it is. If you’re insistent on keeping this, move it lower. It’s not a trait worthy of a capstone. Dark Before Dawn still provides power.
• RECKLESSNESS: Foe Of The Darkness - why is it here? Light damage is associated with Fist gambits. Fist gambits have nothing to do with Recklessness passives.
• DETERMINATION: Bane Of Shadow - why is it here? Light damage is associated with Fist gambits. Fist gambits have nothing to do with DETERMINATION passives. Consider merging Foe Of The Darkness & Bane Of Shadow and move to Assailment line.
• ASSAILMENT: The new traits structure is much improved. I couldn’t find a line or prerequisite that seemed nonsensical.
• SPEAR: Cauterizing Steel - why do not have a way to buff this? Do the new LI traceries affect specifically this skill?
• SPEAR: Unseen Strikes - current “cash out” deals less DPS than leaving the DoTs on target. Why was this created?
• SKILL: First Aid - still needs a buff for all trait lines. Lessen cool down or upgrade to clear more than 1.
• SKILL: Never Surrender - oh boy, this is a tough one. Even with the lesser cool down this change is a serious nerf outside of the 2-minute cool down in Determination. The tracery increases its duration but on the surface that’s probably not that beneficial. I don’t understand the traceries incoming healing bonus. Does this only occur if the health restore is triggered or throughout the duration or both?

[Plidak]

DETERMINATION: Bane Of Shadow - why is it here? Light damage is associated with Fist gambits. Fist gambits have nothing to do with DETERMINATION passives. Consider merging Foe Of The Darkness & Bane Of Shadow and move to Assailment line.

It have lots to do with Determination. Fist gamibts/ especialy war cry will be your "spamable gambit" as blue wrd in u35. Both for agro / because its your only 10 targets gambits after BoV downscaled to 6 targets, and for applying aoe dmg debuff /look at Suppresion yellow tree
Even on live fist gambits are big part of warden rotation. Saying they are not shows much.
Aslo why you ask this now ? it was always like this. Both blue and red trees get light dmg buff talent. Wich stacks and are not problem to get them both. You want then to delete one and get 20% nerf ? Or you are rly that naive to think they give ANY tree a talent with 40% buff to any dmg type ? (not temporaly)


With silly change to out taunt, you will need any extra bit of dmg to keep agro.

Be happy with what you have and think twice before giving them ideas