Warden Changes and Feedback

[Constrictions]

I think you are going in both a correct and incorrect direction with yellow traits. Introducing Yellow to add in really good utility/versatility to the wardens kit. That is awesome. I think though you are one step forward and one step back, particularly with removing the desolation fear. There's no good reason to remove this.

Assailment/Javelin stuff was really shoehorned into yellow. Yellow was originally the 'Line of the Fist' in the same way that Red was/is 'Line of the spear' and Blue is 'Line of the shield'. For the most part, Red and Blue have kept their themes and will even keep to their themes better after many of these changes. Because Javelin is being removed as a trait line, Yellow is now in a bit of a limbo. Although this is a healthier state for the yellow tree to be in than being Javelin, it is a missed opportunity for this update to return it to its proper theme. But, perhaps you could think forward and come back to it someday in the future and return Yellow line to its rightful theme of 'Line of the Fist' in a future update.


Here's an idea of how this could look:

- Keep Desolations fear. Add a trait in yellow to increase the fear chance per tick and the number of targets it can hit. Have it add an additional effect that, say, increases the targets induction timer and decreases move speed. Every time the fear chance occurs without procing the fear, this debuff tiers up. If the target is feared, the tiered debuff gets cashed out for some sort of effect (e.g., 10 second fear, or max critical defence/mitigation debuffs etc) that scales with the number of tiers. If it doesn't, the debuff effect tiers up.

- Could return a similar effect to war cry and brink of victory. Or maybe war-cry and brink could give some of those tiering up debuffs, which desolations fear would cash out somehow.

[FrauBlake01]

... but I think you know (based on well-established precedent) that we are already too far along in the process for your concerns and ideas to be taken on board.

Yes I know and I hate to have to say that I do.

... and we live with what we have (with maybe a trickle of bug fixes, if we're lucky).

... and leave the (blue) warden in the sad spot it is in currently, at least until the next 'big revamp' happens in 2034. (11 years between 2012 and 2023 results in the exact calculation of 2034 for it to happen ...)
(We had some 'corrections' in between, e.g. the removal of the useless +5% spear gambit damage in the blue line, but usually, the section 'Warden' does not appear in any patch notes, unless there is a bugfix of any reckless skill doing more than the intended damage. Usually, the warden falls - further - behind quite naturally with every new expansion.)


I did not even mention bringing back the one-click replacements for 4- or 5-length gambits from the first Helm's Deep beta to soften the long (and soon even longer) ramp-up times we have.
These got removed after much 'community revolution' back then, without adjusting any of the other things built around the assumption of their presence (+5% spear gambit damage and reduced defensive buff times among them), big parts leading to the bad reputation the trait trees have up to this day. (Stuff like locking away GMWT and JoDF in unreachable trait tree positions or trait tree bonusses, or removing skills and granting them as specialization bonus were other reasons. I personally like trait trees however.)

Here, I'd like to mention how stupid some of the 'community revolutions' are, just remember the outcry when burglars were about to get bows. A burglar with a bow and a 10 second cooldown Let Fly skill would surely have made the burglar a ranged class and the hunter obsolete ...
And so the burglar got a lackluster Throw Knife skill with a long cooldown. Glad that the brawler at least got a good Throw Beer Mug skill (inspired by a visit to the Oktoberfest) with a short cd - with tracery. Sad that the captain will still have no meaningful tool for ranged that is not on an eternity cooldown, and is not the extremely clunky archer, even after the revamp.
Side note:
In my personal opinion, Burglars should not have gotten bows anyway but newly introduced slings, beornings should have gotten them too instead of bows, craftable by either the woodworker or the tailor, but that is another topic again.
It is not impossible to introduce a new weapon class, as the brawler gauntlets, or warden javelins back in the days, prove ;-)


I am very passionate about the warden and parts of my post sound very harsh (... because I stared at the gambit list for too long and we now know what can happens then ... ;-)

This passion is in parts rooted in my tank paladin in wow being my favorite class/spec there (in the time before The Music of the Ainur).
It was the underdog tank, held back by the devs (it came on par with the warrior tank only after I had quit wow already).
It feels the same with the blue warden.
The gambit system was (and is) kind of unique, which does not mean that it shoud be over-over-over-used however.

And it had great survivability. Today, every other non-healer class and spec has some kind of self heal (even if almost useless for some classes/specs like Bob and Weave), but back in the day, only healers, half-healers and the warden could heal themselves. (Ancient stuff like Catch a Breath was never a real heal, it also always had a too long cooldown.)

Warden also had the concept of BPE tanking, while Guardians were the traditional meat and mitigation tanks.
Captains were no real tanks back then, neither were champs. (And there were of course neither bears nor perma-drunk rowdys.)

Warden was introduced primarily as a tank class (with two different tank pages in the old system, just like the guardian) with dps being an afterthought.
I still remember how proudly Jeffrey Stiefel talked about the 'medium armor tank class' in an interview.
(The wow bear was different because although only wearing leather armour, it was brought up to and above warrior health and mitigation levels - passively - in order to make up for the missing shield, the 'meat tank'.)

BPE tanking is no longer a viable concept however, it died when caps were reduced.
(And the fact that the heavy mitigation tanks have much higher BPE out-of-the-box than the 'BPE tank' speaks volumes ... I hope this stupid talk of the 'BPE tank' dies out, it is no longer viable in a world of 15% + 15% + 15% versus the 25% + 25% + 25% in the Age of the Trees.)
Did i mention boss mechanics ignoring any BPE ?
There was a post somewhere recently (don't remember where I read it) which talked about reducing the relevance of BPE altogether.

I just imagine the guardian getting a new additional mechanic of 'evade responses' with locking his emergency skills - and possibly his taunts - behind it because the class dev stared at 'response skills' for a bit too long and found that an 'evade response' was missing.
Or a captain having all defense locked behind a 'defeat response', consumed away by Rallying and Routing Cry.

Pro-active can work for defense build-ups, but the problems that come with it (ramp-up time) have to be addressed.
However, some things I mentioned simply cannot be 'pro-activated', like taunts, purges or emergency skills, they MUST be reactive, no matter how good a player thinks she or he is.

Having some ramp-up time to use the emergencies is tolerable in my view if implemented the way I suggested.
(I see my suggestions as a starting point, combo points that take an eternity to build and get all consumed away at once are no subject of discussion however.)

I have absolutely nothing against making usage of shorter gambits more attractive, but I am very much against doing so by introducing new mechanics of chains built from chains built from chains and so forth.
Making chain bonusses attractive could have done the job as well imo. (Giving a 4- or 5-length the same bonus when battle-prepared would even have softened resistance agaist it I think.)

All that said, nothing introduced fixes the problem that a warden tank enters combat as a 'squishy' (almost like hunter or light armour, apart from gear bonusses).

Stuff like moving mitigation boosts from Defiant Challenge to gambits results in yet more ramp-up time.
Well, at least Shield Mastery could be cast outside of combat the last time I played warden not fully brain-dead in lower level content, but there will surely be a way to shorten the buff times so much that any buffs fall off once the last preparable one is prepared. And fellowships and raids will surely be willing to stand and stare at the warden in awe while he/she is preparing the defensive boosts for 60 second. in reality, they will always take any other tank because they are up-and-ready immediately., And the healer will see all boosts successively fall off the second the battle starts. We all know that long ramp-up times combined with way too short buff durations might not be the recipe for the future.
If we were able to really prepare for battle, we would need some kind of 'macro' that applied all the buffs at once. Longer buff times would be nice but would still not increase the acceptance of having to wait forever for the defense-preparing warden tank before every pull. Of course, we all know that such a "macro" would have such a tiny duration that half of the buffs would already have fallen off before they could be renewed, so better not plant such an idea at all.
(Because a warden simply cannot have some quality of life.)

Side note:
I still don't know, why the blue warden, the spec depending on self buffs the most, still has no single boost that "Expires if out of combat for 9 seconds".
(Even though I'm not sure if this mechanic does even work at all, to be honest. My minstrel's ballad buffs seem to fall off immediately once the server has agreed to the mob being dead.)

And additionally, a broader picture has to be seen: Making healers burn more power does not go well with a tank requiring more attention at combat start than the healer has power for.
Puts warden tank in the top spot of the "most unwanted tank, and we'd rather even have a blue or even red champion tank before we take a warden" category.
(Healer: "But you will have the bear out as a quick emergency tank once the warden is down, right ? Hey hunter, are you in blue line for a move-and-kite-tank fight? Hey burglar and brawler, do you think you can ping-pong-tank the boss after the warden is down ? Oh, by the way, do you have anything that lowers the Share the Power cooldown? ")

And as said often enough, we have the lag problem.
We did not have any Quick Recovery or Recovery in the beginning. They were introduced as band-aids for a problem inherent to a mechanic like building gambit. Lag susceptibility and swallowed builders.


This is our second real revamp, we never had a 'Month of the Warden' in the old days (your join date suggests you were with Codemasters so you remember the 'Months of ...'), we only had the 'Orion revamp' in 2012 and the borked move to trait trees with Helm's Deep.
Warden was in a good spot for a little while after the revamp.
The new yellow was originally supposed to be a ranged support tree if I remember correctly ... which would of course stir up captains, burglars and lore masters. And rightfully so, since all these classes could do well was support, for a long time, to be honest.

If I remember correctly, it was Orion who said that there are always problems changing the warden because the hand-crafted code was so different from all the other classes that nobody really understood it. Except for himself, back then, probably OnnMacMahal now, because otherwise he could not make any changes, obviously. (But he is now caught in Gambit-Utumno, as we know, breeding orcs ... ;-)

Maybe it's time for Orion to take a quick break from the Ettenmoors ... if only for some support (until Onn is back from ...), and postpone the revamp until it's really reasonably done. (... and easier to tune in the future)


Other classes seem easier to rework, like merging red and yellow for the runekeeper, making a lot of the skills baseline again while removing the 'filler traits' - like 1%-5% tactical damage in the red tree which is nothing more than a filler trait because there was not enough reasonable stuff to fully fill 3 trees with what should always have been 2 trees from the beginning ...
(Reasonable and thought-out work was impossible during the 'one big expansion per year' days ...)

But that probably belongs to my RK rants when the RK is revamped ... ;-).


Finally, also off-topic, after all my rants, there is also a very big Thank You to SSG (and Turbine before) for making a game client that runs so well under Linux (even better than under windows before) that I could finally say goodbye to Windows altogether.
I hope that no engine/ui/whatever update in the future changes that ;-)

[Regero]

A suggestion to consider:
- Could a capstone trait in wardens blue-line be to make it so that any enemy attacks that normally bypass BPE mechanics, are required to pass warden BPE? Or would this be unfeasible due to engineering reasons?

I doubt that's possible, but if it were, such a change would fix the class in a heartbeat.


I didn't get to do a good PARS like I meant to, but I did manage to log in to Bullroarer for a few hours the other day, and wanted to say a few things:

Desolation: The fear effect is a meme. It did little to nothing in Raids where MOB's are CC-immune most of the time. It was unnecessary in non-raids. It was at peak meme-status back around the level 65 cap when the yellow line allowed a 25% fear proc from each pulse, and allowed War-Cry to also proc the fear effect. The ONLY time this was useful was in the Moors, where the Fear effect could pop spiders from their burrows. That's it. However, as another poster said, Desolation and Surety of Death, ought to be more differentiated than they were in the last iteration of Bullroarer. I don't think the fear effect did much, but the Miss Chance really needs to stay. It was an extremely useful debuff for DPS Wardens, and a good survivability buff for Wardens specced for tanking. Removing the -5% hit chance effect is a pretty nasty nerf.

Brink of Victory: Leave this one alone. It does less damage than Surety of Death, but people reach for it due to its large AOE. It's a good tool for tanking and I don't follow why you would nerf its AOE effect.

Adroit Maneuver and Wardens Triumph: Stellar. The problem, in part, with both was the low duration. This has been fixed and the new effects on both seem great. Adroit Ambush is AWESOME. I tested this in a Barrow Downs Survival Skirm and it makes a very impressive difference when used well.

Onslaught through Cauterizing Steel: Need a buff all-around. The burst damage needs to be upped, and the cash-in from Cauterizing Steel seems weak compared to Unseen Strikes, which actually seems pretty good.

Persevere through Restoration: If we're going back to the old ways of these gambits being super power-consuming, they need to be worth it. Currently, the heals (except for Persevere, it may have been just a touch OP on BR lol) are roughly the same as they are on live, except they lack the BPE buffs now. With its +incoming healing buff, Persevere can remain kind of weak and still be worth it, but the other gambits, particularly Celebration of Skill, really need higher values. Another thing to note, regarding the removal of the Avoidance ratings on these gambits is that, while messy, these effects were originally tacked onto these skills to give Wardens a bit more means of multi-tasking and to remove the vulnerability we usually suffered from at the beginning of pulls. If we're taking these values and ratings off of our healing gambits (which I'm fine with), it would be nice if they could be thrown onto Shield Mastery or something so that we can still apply them quickly.

Assailment: Hits harder than In The Fray, and I would kind of rather it stay that way. Maybe increase the power costs of Gambits used in Assailment, but let Wardens continue to hit harder at range, with the costs being the Harried effect and certain Gambits still requiring you to be in melee range to use. This seems more fun than just leveling all of the values across the board.

Gambit Chains: Currently seem to give a roughly 10% increase to most gambits used at the end of a chain. I like the new chain system, but this value could still be increased a wee bit more.

Removing the stacking effects from builders: I'm very okay with this, provided we are getting the +18% Partial BPE or +6% melee DPS from somewhere else. I couldn't get the time to PARS the DPS values, but we have lost a chunk of partial BPE in total. As other posters have pointed out, both Captains and Guardians are able to break the BPE cap easily, and +Ratings are only useful if you have large enough amounts of Partial BPE to increase the efficacy of the partial effects meaningfully. At the very least, our avoidance values really need to not decrease from where they are on live.

Traits: I overall really like the trait changes. Building my Warden felt a lot more engaging on BR that it currently does on live. I agree with others that it would be nice to see GMWT in Yellow. I also wonder if Shield Tactics isn't a bit too all-encompassing. Looking at the blue trait tree, Shield Tactics is crazy good and currently appears to be the de-facto tanking trait to reach for.

Warning Shot: Why is this skill being nerfed so hard? I can maybe understand removing the debuff, though I don't see the need and it was very handy on bosses, but buffing enemy attack when its used? Honestly, I always thought this skill was fine as-is and I only used it as a debuff on bosses and to pick up stray mobs in a pinch.


Those were my initial impressions from my limited time on Bullroarer the other day. Overall, the class feels much smoother and faster to play. It's a very noticeable change from live. I like the direction the changes are going, but blue line still needs more love, and a few of the alterations, like with Brink of Victory and Warning Shot, I just don't quite follow.

[Jokeurthewise]

Here is a couple of thoughts after this first round of testing :

- Brink of victory having a reduced range and no longer being 360° : It currently is the most reliable gambit in tanking situations to get initial attention from monsters. It is fast to build and has a fast animation. Its range and the fact that it is a 360° aoe centered on the warden make up for any mistakes in positioning. Losing those characteristics will be unpleasant.

- Having a lot of rating based mitigation self-buffs always brings the question : Should I passively cap my mitigation with my gear or not? Not capping it with gear leaves room for different essences (incoming healing and vitality mostly) but leaves me more vulnerable if a fight starts before I am done self-buffing (stray arrow from a hunter, not to put the blame on any class in particular) or if I die and get revived (in a situation that is already unstable, I am at my most vulnerable...) Somewhat related questions, do points of advanced technique drop off if you die in combat? If that's the case, then it adds to our vulnerability...

- Spreading the self-buffing on many different gambits : It has at least three drawbacks. Most groups already have a hard time waiting for warden tanks to pre-buff before a fight. Increasing that time will increase the probability of "stray arrows" starting a fight prematurely... Also, it makes for a lot of icons to keep track of under our vitals. I wasn't using any pluggins for that, but I guess I will have to! Lastly, I'm concerned it will take a lot of time to keep the self-buffs up during a fight, time that is already shared between self-buffing, self-healing and aggro management. At least on live a lot of self-buffs gambits have a dual purpose, so you can partially work on two of those aspects at the same time. I'm not saying it's unbalanced (I didn't have time to test a real tanking situation), I'm just noting the number of gambits that would be used only for the self-buff has increased. There is only 4 on live (Shield mastery, Dance of war, Celebration of skills, Maddening strike). All other gambits giving self-buffs have a dual purpose : heal, deal aoe damage or damage over time, interrupt, stun protection, etc.

- Why so many gambits that do the same thing : All of our damage over time and heal over time gambits have a purpose since they stack. Most of the direct damage gambits don't have a purpose since we can reuse the same one over and over and there is no significant difference between them... With the amount of damage that they did on Bullroarer, I can't see myself using them much at all. Just to reapply debuffs and probably the 5-length ones to cash out bleed for burst dps (when a target is almost dead or when a reflect is coming). That is perfectly fine by me btw. I'm just saying they should have unique effects if we are expected to use them all (otherwise we'll just use the one that's most convenient based on our available masteries).

- Why two stances if gambits have the same effects : Basically this. Why wouldn't I be in assailment all the time (not that I want to, just wondering)? It certainly is more versatile for dps (avoiding puddles etc.) and allows for pulling targets at range while tanking. Speaking of which, I will mourn the loss of my aoe javelin skills, those were really useful to get the attention of incoming groups of monsters (at a moments notice, instead of having prepared resounding challenge in advance).

- It is nice that defensive self-buffs are now available in red line too.

- And in reaction to some ideas that where mentioned by previous posters : Please don't change Reversal, it makes wardens one of the best class at removing corruptions.

We are too far down the line for this last comment, but I'll write it anyway : I'm not convinced such wide changes to the class were necessary. Dps was fine, just making a gambit consume our dots for burst dps (and not dying to reflect) would have been enough in my opinion. As for tanking, making For the free peoples activate at max rank right away, adjusting the self-buffs values, giving us an in-combat run speed boost and scaling the self healing properly would have solved all of the problems I encounter. But I'm aware there are as many different opinions about this class as there are people playing it. So thank you for your work and I'm looking forward to the next round of testing. If I have to relearn most everything about wardens when this goes live, I will ! As long as it allows us to get the job done while still being wadens !

[Eadondryt]

Impressive flourish and maddening strike give 1% mits as well as the ratings on live.

When tanking you need to keep up 7 self buffs plus the self heals.
On BR it’s now 9, including suppression - but that’s not required with a DPS warden in group.

With the self buffs now lasting much longer is not really an issue to keep them up.

[OnnMacMahal]

A number of you have expressed disappointment at how gambit chains and AT feel when specialized for DPS. The small-large chains provide just enough benefit to make engaging with that system optimal, but force you into a rotation that feels bad to do so. In light of that, I'm exploring a few less-restrictive possibilities for gambit chains right now:





Option 1: Directionless Chains
Gambit chains no longer start with a small gambit. Any 2-length gambit gives chain piece 1. Any 3-length gambit gives chain piece 2, and any 4/5-length gambit gives chain piece 3. When you have all 3 pieces, they combine into an AT

Option 2: Directionless Chains, re-weighted
Gambit chains are built the same as above, but the 2- and 3-length gambits are lumped together, and 4-lengths gives the middle chain piece, 5-lengths gives the final chain piece (benefits of this being that there's a more even distribution of gambits in each 'pool' contributing to a given part of a gambit chain)

Option 3: Anarchic Chains
Any gambit gives 1 chain 'link'. After 3 gambits of any kind, you receive an AT. (benefit here being that it has almost no impact on a DPS rotation, and tanking wardens can access full gambit chain benefits at lower levels)


With any of the above, chains themselves would give no inherent bonuses, and would only serve as a mechanism to gate the rate of acquiring AT.

[Joedangod]

Option 3: Anarchic Chains
Any gambit gives 1 chain 'link'. After 3 gambits of any kind, you receive an AT. (benefit here being that it has almost no impact on a DPS rotation, and tanking wardens can access full gambit chain benefits at lower levels)

Option 3 does seem to be the dankest option given.

[Elwha]

Option 1: Directionless Chains
Gambit chains no longer start with a small gambit. Any 2-length gambit gives chain piece 1. Any 3-length gambit gives chain piece 2, and any 4/5-length gambit gives chain piece 3. When you have all 3 pieces, they combine into an AT

Sorry, how is this different from BR-1 other than nerfing this "After beginning a gambit chain with a 2-length gambit, the following gambits in the chain will gain improved damage, healing, and buff durations."

Option 2: Directionless Chains, re-weighted
Gambit chains are built the same as above, but the 2- and 3-length gambits are lumped together, and 4-lengths gives the middle chain piece, 5-lengths gives the final chain piece (benefits of this being that there's a more even distribution of gambits in each 'pool' contributing to a given part of a gambit chain)

Is this option the same as BR-1 but you get to AT-3 by more gambit options but the path remains an order of 2/3-gambits, 4-gambits then 5-gambits?

Option 3: Anarchic Chains
Any gambit gives 1 chain 'link'. After 3 gambits of any kind, you receive an AT. (benefit here being that it has almost no impact on a DPS rotation, and tanking wardens can access full gambit chain benefits at lower levels).

Is this option the same as BR-1 but you get to AT-3 by simply completing any gambit chain three times in any order?

With any of the above, chains themselves would give no inherent bonuses, and would only serve as a mechanism to gate the rate of acquiring AT.

Would there still be AT 1, 2, 3, or would AT simply be AT as a singular standalone skill?

If these options provide more flexibility, the removal of the inherent bonuses is a nerf. How & what are you planning on implementing as new buffs when AT has not yet been built and/or once AT has been built and used?

[bohbashum]

1, 2 or 3

4.

2/3 are lumped together. 4/5 are lumped together. Chain is only 2 gambits. You generate AT faster if you choose too, but still have the choice to ignore them. AT is now capped at 5.

...

If I had to choose it would be 3, even if I dislike the choice to remove a working chain system now. It's a mechanic that does lock you behind stuff, but it's a mechanic that also forces you to have more choice and is more engaging.

I had fun playing with it and thinking variations on the theme. Especially combat openers which didn't follow the 2-3-4/5 theme because you did allow 2-3-2-4-3-5 rotation example to run 2 sequences at once.

1/2 are just the same issue if you think that there is an issue with chains. 2 is especially bad ### now your talking about your middle one 4s, which are slow.

The removal of the gambit buff is probably for the best. I don't really agree that blue needs to keep the bulk of the chains, it didn't work well there are your more or less the same requirement to "react" more with your gambits.

...

DPS wardens did have chains. Altho they didn't like them much. 123-1231-12312 is a chain regardless. It was forced on you for effects. Then, there was a branching chain with 121 and 1212 after them for more effects. People both liked these and hated them, mainly for the RNG.

I think this is a good example that on the surface people hate chains, but because it makes the gambit system more than just gambits and masteries, it adds a layer of mastery. One that both experts and basics players can accomplish and enjoy.

Removing the chain buff. You can ignore the chains fully once you have 3. It doesn't gate you. It just forces you to think of SOME chain, and doesn't give it you passively. With cooldowns, you may only need to think about it a tiny bit to get it and the system is mostly passive anyway. with 2/3+4/5 you would naturally get a few chains in anyway. You just have to be aware not to spam up the same few top end gambits and rotate round a little.

[Thruili]

Is there a reason, gambits are no longer of 28s duration? This would make it easier to follow a set rotation instead of using a plugin to track the remaining duration of various gambits.

[FrauBlake01]

A number of you have expressed disappointment at how gambit chains and AT feel when specialized for DPS.

Surprise, surprise, but some of us have even expressed serious concerns - on top of disappointment - about how gambit chains and AT work - independent of how they feel - when specialized for tank ...

None of the mentioned changes addresses one of the biggest problems with AT used for tank emergency skills: they are combo points that are ALL used at once when one of the skills is used.
I would not even mind if it required a full minute to build a stack of 5 AT, but I want a reserve and not be locked out of another - FULL POTENTIAL - emergency skill for another full minute when I have to used one already. I want to be able to refill the pool - which is slow anyway - if i don't need a second one, but if I need this second one -at FULL STRENGTH - sooner, there is no chance I can have it.

Who comes up with the idea of applying such a mechanic to a tank ? It can work for DPS but will NEVER for tanks.

It seems pointless to try point out what is wrong with this implementation for tanks or to - god forbid - even present better solutions, all seems to go to /dev/null anyway and DPS seems all that matters.


But hey, I won't give up, I have another suggestion to make AT useful for blue warden:

The current "emergency" skills are removed entirely.

Instead we use AT in blue line to unlock skills from other classes that fit the "new blue warden" well.

- Hide in Plain Sight from the burglar
- Still as Death from the minstrel
- Desperate Flight from the hunter
- Return to Camp from the hunter, usable in combat
- Rush from the beorning (works only in boss fights however and only when the warden's back faces the boss)

These skills have no cooldown if used with 5 AT, only if used with less (for balancing reasons) and are only usable in combat.
All inductions are removed except for the hunter's Return to Camp which gains a 30 second instead of 10 second induction because that fits better into the blue warden theme.

AT points stay after combat and are only reset upon entering combat!

Usable both in and out of combat:
- Distraction from the raven, reworked and renamed to "Warden's Distraction". Raid-wide buff that makes the fellowship/raid forget who is tanking. Lasts 30/60/90/120/150 seconds depending on AT points spent. 10 seconds cooldown. Duration can be extended with a trait by 10/20/30 seconds. Does not require AT. Lasts 10 seconds when cast with 0 AT but has no cooldown. In addition to its current effect, Battle Preparation automatically casts the 0 AT version of Warden's Distraction.

Out-of-combat only AT skill:
- Boast from the champion. Usable when defeated.

[Skoch]

Option 3: Anarchic Chains
Any gambit gives 1 chain 'link'. After 3 gambits of any kind, you receive an AT. (benefit here being that it has almost no impact on a DPS rotation, and tanking wardens can access full gambit chain benefits at lower levels)


With any of the above, chains themselves would give no inherent bonuses, and would only serve as a mechanism to gate the rate of acquiring AT.

/vote Option 3

Keep it simple and flexible.

Will you tie in bonuses under-the-hood to our base stats, or LIs, or traits, or...?

[Elwha]

It seems pointless to try point out what is wrong with this implementation for tanks or to - god forbid - even present better solutions, all seems to go to /dev/null anyway and DPS seems all that matters.

I disagree. I think finding a viable path of least resistance starts with DPS. If the revamp can't make us viable DPS, there's really no hope of a workable tank state. I actually think the underlying buffs of AT over 3 tiers or some version of that could work for DPS & tanking, assuming they work independently based on trait tree lines.

For example, for tank/blue, you could have specific timed buffs that increase with each tier-1/2/3.

• +BPE
• +Phy Mit
• +Tac Mit

Or DPS/red, you could have specific timed buffs that increase with each tier-1/2/3.

• +Melee Damage
• +Range Damage
• +Crit/Dev Magnitude

At tier 3 in tank/blue you could be in a similar state to the old DC temporarily for simply completing (3) gambit chains.
At tier 3 in dps/red you could be in a similar state of Recklessness or some new skill that allows dev crits to happen in succession temporarily for simply completing (3) gambit chains.

Not saying it has to happen this way, but it is possible to right the ship for both dps/tank together.

[Borogard]

Impressive flourish and maddening strike give 1% mits as well as the ratings on live.

When tanking you need to keep up 7 self buffs plus the self heals.
On BR it’s now 9, including suppression - but that’s not required with a DPS warden in group.

With the self buffs now lasting much longer is not really an issue to keep them up.

I agree with Above, 3 sounds the best. The most freedom, and far more enjoyable by my opinion

[FrauBlake01]

I disagree. I think finding a viable path of least resistance starts with DPS. If the revamp can't make us viable DPS, there's really no hope of a workable tank state.

I do not quite understand that because that was the case when the warden was introduced, and it was a quite workable tank in Moria.

Guardian also has no viable DPS and is still a formidable tank.
Must be that guardian IS already there that it does not have the pre-requisite of having a great DPS spec.


i had written a lot more but the forum software swallowed it as if it were a laggy game server and now i am too lazy and frustrated to rewrite it all, so I'll leave it at that.
(I know that I'm an amateur, using the forum software for writing a long text instead of preparing it in a text editor and later just pasting it, no need to tell me ;-)

Just so much: I am absolutely for improving the red warden, but I speak only blue because I know too little about the red warden.

[Jokeurthewise]

The way I see it, the problem is not so much with gambits chains but more with Advanced techniques.

The question that comes to my mind is this : Why introduce a builder / spender mechanic on the Warden ? Unless I'm mistaken (and I'm sure someone will be quick to point it out if I am, in which case Kudos to you in advance, you win an Internet I guess), we never had one in the past. We already have a special mechanic that sets us apart from the rest : Gambits.

Non-gambit skills will already be limited by their cooldowns (and maybe power cost). Why add another layer on top of that?

And I'm not even sure we need all those new non-gambit skills...

For tanking, an incoming damage reduction cooldown will always be superior to other types of emergency skills (" For the free peoples " could fill that purpose). We should be able to get all the self-healing we require from our gambits. And we have two forced taunts, which is standard for aggro management. If we want more threat, we just have to use some of our damaging gambits. As long as our self-buffing brings us at least on par with other tank classes (maybe slightly higher, since they have several emergency skills), we should be golden. (Plus or minus a utility skill for the group I guess, but that could be our debuffs like marked / diminished target, suppression, battering strike, etc. which you all tied to gambits already.)

For dps, we already have Recklessness. We'll be getting better self-buffs with improved Adroit Manoeuvre and Warden's Triumph. We'll even have some burst capabilities by consuming our bleeds. That seems to put us in a better spot already without the need for extra skills.

I'm not saying regular skills couldn't be useful or interesting, but I'm not sure they fit very well with the warden play style. In my humble opinion, that play style is this : All of your tools are always available (in your gambits), so you can adapt to any situation. If you face a challenge, you can overcome it by learning the timing of the fight and preparing in advance for what is coming (with Battle memory for instance). "Regular cooldown skills" are only for those (rare) occasions where the tools in your gambits are insufficient (lest we would be too overpowered in normal circumstances).

So my answer to "Which version of gambit chains do we like the best" is this : Doesn't matter if we deal away with Advanced techniques all together.

[Kander]

The way I see it, the problem is not so much with gambits chains but more with Advanced techniques.

The question that comes to my mind is this : Why introduce a builder / spender mechanic on the Warden ? Unless I'm mistaken (and I'm sure someone will be quick to point it out if I am, in which case Kudos to you in advance, you win an Internet I guess), we never had one in the past. We already have a special mechanic that sets us apart from the rest : Gambits.

Non-gambit skills will already be limited by their cooldowns (and maybe power cost). Why add another layer on top of that?

And I'm not even sure we need all those new non-gambit skills...

For tanking, an incoming damage reduction cooldown will always be superior to other types of emergency skills (" For the free peoples " could fill that purpose). We should be able to get all the self-healing we require from our gambits. And we have two forced taunts, which is standard for aggro management. If we want more threat, we just have to use some of our damaging gambits. As long as our self-buffing brings us at least on par with other tank classes (maybe slightly higher, since they have several emergency skills), we should be golden. (Plus or minus a utility skill for the group I guess, but that could be our debuffs like marked / diminished target, suppression, battering strike, etc. which you all tied to gambits already.)

For dps, we already have Recklessness. We'll be getting better self-buffs with improved Adroit Manoeuvre and Warden's Triumph. We'll even have some burst capabilities by consuming our bleeds. That seems to put us in a better spot already without the need for extra skills.

I'm not saying regular skills couldn't be useful or interesting, but I'm not sure they fit very well with the warden play style. In my humble opinion, that play style is this : All of your tools are always available (in your gambits), so you can adapt to any situation. If you face a challenge, you can overcome it by learning the timing of the fight and preparing in advance for what is coming (with Battle memory for instance). "Regular cooldown skills" are only for those (rare) occasions where the tools in your gambits are insufficient (lest we would be too overpowered in normal circumstances).

So my answer to "Which version of gambit chains do we like the best" is this : Doesn't matter if we deal away with Advanced techniques all together.

I think for dps it may have a point or could be something worth trying. For tanks it's a mess and here's why:

1: If you keep this long buildup in order to use full potential defensive skills they should have a really powerful and superior impact than other defensive skills on main tanks. At the moment they're not even on the same level, let alone superior to compensate for having both cooldown and long (at least 20s) buildup. If you release it as it is, the basic 1 AT cashout should be similar to minor cooldowns in impact of what other classes have (pledge, thickened hide, etc), 3 AT should be like major cooldowns of other tanks (juggernaut, last stand, warrior's heart), and 5 cashout should be literally the most powerful defensive skills of any tank, given by their duration it's impossible to stack them or even use them in quick succession and literally after cashout you'll spend half a minute getting up to AT5 just to use another skill.

2: They put more burden in tank duty, forcing you to keep and keep spamming buffs just in order to be on the same level as other tanks can do basically passively. This makes the crowd control, aggro management, awareness.. really much more difficult than with any other tank. I'm strongly against adding more and more buffs to the class, have max of 4 buffs + shield mastery and shield tactics and make those 4 buffs strong. Make rest of gambits offer something different, but don't bind survivability to spamming endless buffs constantly cause that makes the start of fight or changes of phase or mobile fights to be a nightmare because you lose all buffs by not being able to attack and becomes so squishy.

3: This system is simply not necessary to fix the class, it adds even slower pacing to a class that was the slowest of all to use skills and build buffs and skills.

I honestly don't see how the changes on BR can make the warden tank a viable choice for end game.

[Sindhol]

A number of you have expressed disappointment at how gambit chains and AT feel when specialized for DPS. The small-large chains provide just enough benefit to make engaging with that system optimal, but force you into a rotation that feels bad to do so. In light of that, I'm exploring a few less-restrictive possibilities for gambit chains right now:


Option 1: Directionless Chains
Gambit chains no longer start with a small gambit. Any 2-length gambit gives chain piece 1. Any 3-length gambit gives chain piece 2, and any 4/5-length gambit gives chain piece 3. When you have all 3 pieces, they combine into an AT

Option 2: Directionless Chains, re-weighted
Gambit chains are built the same as above, but the 2- and 3-length gambits are lumped together, and 4-lengths gives the middle chain piece, 5-lengths gives the final chain piece (benefits of this being that there's a more even distribution of gambits in each 'pool' contributing to a given part of a gambit chain)

Option 3: Anarchic Chains
Any gambit gives 1 chain 'link'. After 3 gambits of any kind, you receive an AT. (benefit here being that it has almost no impact on a DPS rotation, and tanking wardens can access full gambit chain benefits at lower levels)


With any of the above, chains themselves would give no inherent bonuses, and would only serve as a mechanism to gate the rate of acquiring AT.

Excellent idea!

Out of these, I prefer option 2 (the even distribution of gambits is a good point), but I would also be happy with 3. I like 1 the least because it still requires a lot of two-icon gambits.

You could also flat-out count the number of icons' worth of gambits used, and grant AT every X points (X being around 15?). This has the advantage that you can scale X with a trait or legacy, increasing the efficiency of AT gain (by reducing X), or even reducing the efficiency of AT gain in return for more powerful cooldowns. I did say before that I feel that "number of icons" shouldn't be a part of gambit selection (i.e. selecting a two-icon for the sake of casting a two-icon is bad), but I think that this option makes icon number a only minor concern, and one that "pulls" in the same direction that other gambit properties already do. That is, since bigger gambits are already better, and this also makes bigger gambits better, it doesn't create the tension that "ordered" chains do. And "number of icons used" is a better indication of a smooth rotation with good mastery use than "two-icon gambits used".

I don't mind (read: I'm in favour of) losing chain buffs to skills. If chain buffs stay, however, I think it's possibly a good idea to take the old gambit builder bonuses (possibly reworked), and grant them to gambits or even chains, instead of Pool 1 (two- and three-icon) gambits granting a bonus to Pool 2 gambits etcetera. Since these bonuses last for 20 seconds, you'd have to build a chain every 20 seconds. That's very easy--too easy, actually. You could reduce the duration to encourage fast gambit rotation, or--like the above--introduce a trait that reduces the buff duration in return for improved buff magnitude (so it's harder to maintain, but you get more out of it, too).

I'm really glad you're making this change, and it's great that we can discuss specific mechanics.


Edit: Restorative Shield-Work buffs partial block chance, but our partial mitigations are quite low, so it's not nearly as effective. How about having a cooldown that sets partial mitigation to 100%, effectively turning partial BPE into full BPE for a short time? It's a simple mechanic that encourages gambit buffs. (I'd still not have the duration elapse based on hits taken, as BPE really shines when you're taking a lot of hits quickly. Just remove the heal and make it a 10-15 second buff.)


Edit 2, because I can't stop: Gambits are built from sequences of minor skills. AT is granted from a sequence of gambits. Why not go all-out, split AT into spear/shield/fist, and allow us to build cooldown-level "advanced gambits" with AT? (Please don't actually do this. I'm joking.)

[olimaxnik]

I would go with option 3.

[bohbashum]

4.

Rethought some things.

Anarchy still promotes use of 2/3 gambits if for AT, because you generate it faster. It's just a less forceful way than chaining 2-3-4/5. With Beta's, you have choice "Chain or not" in rotation. In Anarchy the limit is more soft. The main negatives of 2-3-4/5 being potential mistakes and limiting "reactive" gambits from use.

Anarchy doesn't really work in practice like that tho. You will generate 3 ATs within 30second easily no matter what gambits your doing. Not to mention combos that do it in 10s. With they're skills being 2m/1m30s (3 in red 4 in blue?) Your basically not worrying about generating them faster or slower because you get them when in time anyway.

So ATs and there skills are just gated to being split up... Which feels meh too... A passive system and "cooldowns" which you use or lose it effectively.

So I'm proposing to the Anarchy crowd to help make it spicier:

• Up the AT cap to 9.
• Skills still use 1-3 AT if used.
• You can use multiple AT skills at once.
• The icon for 1/2/3 has 3 tiers (Icon 1 tier 3 would be able to use an 1 AT at 3 power.
• For 121 & 1212 gambits give ability to: Reduce AT cooldowns, or, generate more Chain/AT

This makes AT far more fluid to function with Anarchy. Less likely to feel bad for sitting in 3 AT and not using CD. Increases burst/Survival, but keeps drawup time relative.

[Sindhol]

On the topic of gambit effects

I think it's generally a bad idea that gambits lost their unique functions, like:
- Brink of Victory's radius and target count.
- The fear and miss chance on Desolation.
- The daze on Boar's Rush.
- The interrupts on Onslaught/Wall of Steel.
- The morale-tap on Offensive Strike.

I don't really like the loss of secondary buffs, like:
- The block rating on Persevere, Safeguard, and Celebration of Skill.
- The evade rating on War-Cry, Brink of Victory, and Surety of Death.

I think that the new classes of "burst" gambits overlap in a way that damage-over-time gambits don't, making two or three of the gambits useless right out of the gate, like:
- Offensive Strike, Combination Strike, and Boar's Rush are just worse versions of Unseen Strikes.
- Onslaught and Wall of Steel are just worse versions of Cauterizing Steel.

I think that it's inconsistent that some gambits did retain their secondary buffs, and some do get unique functions, like:
- Warden's Triumph provides a damage buff as well as +1 bleed pulse. (The base damage buff is still very low, too.)
- Cauterizing Steel and Unseen Strikes cash out damage-over-time effects in addition to their damage.
- Also inconsistent: the buffs on Warden's Triumph and Adroit Maneuver don't have the same duration as other gambit buffs.

In addition, I think the warden lost some abilities, reducing AoE damage output and making the rotation very bare-bones. That is, without Quick Sweep, wardens can no longer do a full AoE rotation, and they can no longer do significant AoE physical damage, only AoE light damage. (I realize that not that many things care about physical vs. light, but it should matter! And our mitigation debuffs care! Except that Javelin of Deadly Force simply does both, I guess.)


On the other hand, I understand that having all gambits in a gambit class be the same is a good baseline.


As a compromise, why don't we (that is, you, OnnMacMahal, although I'd do the work if I could ) add some traits to differentiate the gambits within a class? It would replace a lot of the duplicate "you deal more damage" traits with interesting options. It would move all the unique bits to explicit traits, making it easier to track them down (as long as you remember what you've traited). As as a developer, you could see what people use a lot and what people never take, which could help balance the effects, as well.

There could be lots of traits that are more interesting that the current straight passive buffs, like traits that:
- Increase Brink of Victory's radius and target count.
- Add a miss chance to Desolation, and a fear at rank 2/on a separate trait.
- Add a trait that makes Boar's Rush daze on crit (since it's AoE now, this might come with a target count reduction).
- Add a trait that makes Onslaught, Wall of Steel, and Cauterizing Steel interrupt every 4 seconds for 12 seconds.
- Add a trait that adds Block rating buffs to Persevere, Safeguard, Celebration of Skill, and perhaps Restoration.
- Add a trait that adds Evade rating buffs to War-Cry, Brink of Victory, Surety of Death, and perhaps Desolation.
- The above could all be three-rank traits, extending the ability to one more gambit each time (this makes each rank a significant change, as opposed to a small change to three gambits). I'd consider adding it to the longest gambit first, making it cheaper to get one stack of the effect with each additional rank.
- Add a trait that adds a morale-tap-over-time to Offensive Strike, and an instant one to Combination Strike. (This would allow more of a morale-tap rotation when combined with Fierce Resolve and Exultation of Battle).
- For all of the above, you could have the bonus effect consume an AT if it'd otherwise be too powerful. This could also be a second rank of the trait. For example, rank 1 of Boar's Rush would change the gambit to daze on crit. Rank 2 would make it consume 1 AT to always crit.

I would also...
- Move the extra bleed pulse on Warden's Triumph to a trait.
- Increase the base damage and attack speed buffs on Warden's Triumph and Adroit Maneuver.
- Increase the base duration on Warden's Triumph and Adroit Maneuver to 60 seconds.
- Move the cash-out on Unseen Strikes to a trait.
- Move the cash-out on Cauterizing Steel to a different trait.
- Add a trait (Quick Sweep), with the above as prerequisite, that turns the cash-out into a physical bleed (one bleed, based on the most powerful effect cashed out). This allows for a slightly fuller AoE rotation (since you have one extra AoE bleed).
- Add a trait, with the above as prerequisite, that allows Onslaught/Wall of Steel to cash out Power Attack/Mighty Blow separately from Cauterizing Steel, allowing up to three separate Quick Sweeps (of varying strengths). This allows for a very full AoE rotation (since you now have another two extra AoE bleeds).
- In balancing the above two, you may want to reduce the pulse count on these bonus bleeds compared to other spear-bleeds. Because 44-second bleeds would make it very easy to maintain the lot.

Now you have a consistent pattern: base gambits are the same within a class, advanced functions are all traited. Neat.


P.S. Muscle Memory is kind of meh (though it's better than Honed Spikes ). How about adding a trait that reduces the amount of reflected damage you take [from bleeds] by some [large] amount? It could be a passive ability, or it'd make for a lovely additional buff on Adroit Maneuver/Warden's Triumph/some other appropriate gambit (I'd certainly feel Triumphant if I could survive having some bleeds on a reflecting target, even if I had to stop applying new ones). It could be a shorter buff, to make it a bit more expensive to maintain.

[Helhest]

A number of you have expressed disappointment at how gambit chains and AT feel when specialized for DPS. The small-large chains provide just enough benefit to make engaging with that system optimal, but force you into a rotation that feels bad to do so. In light of that, I'm exploring a few less-restrictive possibilities for gambit chains right now:





Option 1: Directionless Chains
Gambit chains no longer start with a small gambit. Any 2-length gambit gives chain piece 1. Any 3-length gambit gives chain piece 2, and any 4/5-length gambit gives chain piece 3. When you have all 3 pieces, they combine into an AT

Option 2: Directionless Chains, re-weighted
Gambit chains are built the same as above, but the 2- and 3-length gambits are lumped together, and 4-lengths gives the middle chain piece, 5-lengths gives the final chain piece (benefits of this being that there's a more even distribution of gambits in each 'pool' contributing to a given part of a gambit chain)

Option 3: Anarchic Chains
Any gambit gives 1 chain 'link'. After 3 gambits of any kind, you receive an AT. (benefit here being that it has almost no impact on a DPS rotation, and tanking wardens can access full gambit chain benefits at lower levels)


With any of the above, chains themselves would give no inherent bonuses, and would only serve as a mechanism to gate the rate of acquiring AT.

I think option 3 is the best idea. Maybe the first two options sound nice for veterans - but this will make a complex class overcomplex for new players.
I think option 3 will make the game more enjoyable and the warden playstyle better. Options 1 and 2 will not do that for the whole playerbase.

[andys90]

Contrary to the updated notes, Spear of Fate and Spear of Virtue damage is lower this round of testing than the first. (at 75)

[Plidak]

Its long desired blue warden spring but please consider making it castable/usable on move.
At his curent state to be able to use it, you need to stop for 1 second, which is too much and make it pointless to spend points in yellow.
Example - HoR boss 1. If you stop kiting for 1 sec, you are dead/ literaly
Im sure you will add more similar mechanics in future so please make this small change.



Other changes feel fine.

Also i dont see the point of Fellowship Protector.
We are already mitigation capped/ even before u35 and as far as i know no one use this talent.
Pls give us better capstone, make it apply to fellow/raid members, or just remove.

(enlight me if i miss smth)

And why try "force" ppl to use exultation of battle by buffing it ?
Skill is useless for 5 builders gambit. No one gona hard build it, and few will waste 2 importand masteries for it.
Better buff Resolution.


Also PLEASE fix this / so i wont need to "test" on naked alt. It transfered ALL but my mains

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In general i rly like both warden and captain changes. Very promising and in some cases close to op.
Read other class changes too and none of them is bad.
I stil cant get it /even after reading your explanation/ why bother with power changes at first place, when there are many more things to fix and balance.
I can see the individual dps drop over 100k on long fights. Also roles meta shifts and some class picking over others just because they wont go power hungry midfight.
I guess you will have lot of work in the future updates

Keep the good work

[Elwha]

On top of the discussion of gambit chains, buffs, and Advanced Technique, I'd like to put forth the consideration to add fire-type damage below. Fire being our go-to burst damage, and light being our damage over time, seems ideal.

-> Warden Carvings - Create a new version or add +7% fire-type damage to our Spear Carving. (keep light-type on Fist Carving!)
-> Recklessness / Red Line - I would much prefer this in place of Muscle Memory. Perhaps as a capstone +40% fire-type damage.
-> Assailment / Yellow - Scaling up to +20% fire-type damage.
-> LI Word of Craft - +20% fire-type damage.

Thanks, OnnMacMahal! I see improvements not documented so I know you're trying in the background.