Warden Feedback Thread

[HerpThatDerp]

There should be 30k in the blue tree and like...100k at the END of red and yellow^^...

I brought this up earlier in this thread but finesse is so, so much stronger for wardens that it's absurd. It's necessary to be able to do any difficult content comfortably and even makes a massive difference in landscape content (to have a bit of anyway). It affects red and blue pretty equally, because they both rely on applying dots; one for threat and one for damage. I honestly think there should be a large finesse bonus attached to In The Fray, or at least a large bonus accessible to both traitlines.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't 10% finesse be closer to 40% application chance for dots? If an enemy b/p/e's the hit itself or resists the application, we lost all of the damage of the dot, and dots make up almost all of our damage.

[Hildilas]

I brought this up earlier in this thread but finesse is so, so much stronger for wardens that it's absurd. It's necessary to be able to do any difficult content comfortably and even makes a massive difference in landscape content (to have a bit of anyway). It affects red and blue pretty equally, because they both rely on applying dots; one for threat and one for damage. I honestly think there should be a large finesse bonus attached to In The Fray, or at least a large bonus accessible to both traitlines.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't 10% finesse be closer to 40% application chance for dots? If an enemy b/p/e's the hit itself or resists the application, we lost all of the damage of the dot, and dots make up almost all of our damage.

If they gave us 3 taunts like the Beo for example you wouldn't need to concentrate on finesse too much in blue. OR let our attacks generate even MORE aggro in blue. Or at least in blue all dots ignore the resis of our target...To give us and the LM x% finesse would probably be easier tough. Or very high finesse on warden shields. Higher on DD shields maybe....I need to slot DD jewelery etc as a tank. Feels off. 20k is already better than nothing but they can do better :P

[dgparielle]

First of all: Thanks to the Devs for your efforts on the balancing. English is not my native language, so i apologize for possible errors in my text.

Regarding the changes to the Warden on BR

Good:
- Adding a Singletargettaunt was really important and I like the implementation. Thanks for listening to the playerbase.
- Scaling the ratings of +phy. mastery in the red skilltree and +Finesse in the yellow skilltree. Also the scaling of the ratings.
- Rearranging the position of some Traits.

I have to say, in my opinion updating the yellow line to start with changes to the Warden is bad prioritizing. Yellow Warden was never played much because the traitline simply wasn't viable and although it is a great to finally see some work on it, i think most players wish for changes to the blue and red line first. The recent feedback in this thread substantiated this assumption. I will post suggestions for red and blue line after commenting the changes on yellow.

_____________________




YELLOW: These changes are a step in the right direction but not enough to make yellow Warden a desired class in groups or raids.

- I appreciate the increase of the debuff duration for marked and diminished target and think this is a good change, because it gives the Warden more time to focus on the actual gameplay (Gambits and especially the Procs in yellow).

- You scaled some ratings up, but you obviously forgot to scale the critical rating which is given when selecting the yellow traitline itself - it is a measly +460 to crit. Please consider scaling or adding an other value instead.

- The +mastery rating on "Fire At Will" (+2520) seems still to low. Consider reworking this skill or scale it a bit to be usefull.

- The setbonus "Dogde this!"/the skill itself seems lackluster. Same goes for the Snapshotversions of the javelinskills (except Javelin Of Deadly Force). When you are trying to deal damage (even just supportdamage since you play yellow), you are almost always better off spamming Wall of Steel for DPS or building some other Gambits like Adroit Manoeuvre for your group. The animationtime is simply not worth the damage the Snapshots or Dodge This! yields. My suggestion is to give the yellow Warden something like the bonus "Unconventional Strikes" from the red skilltree instead. Increasing the procchance for the group-buffs from the Gambitbuilders would fit the concept of the yellow traitline (supporting the group while dealing reasonable damage). An enhanced procchance on debuffs like "Behind The Shield - Marked" which gives a 10% damage to moral return, would greatly add to the viability of yellow wardens.

- The now achievable -8% outgoing damage on mobs seem decent, but I can't determine whether it has an actual impact or not. After my observations on BR i tend to assume, that damage output of mobs affected by this hasn't notably changed. Perhaps someone else can privide hard numbers on this?

- The Critical Defence Debuff of the Precise Throw Gambitline does not seem to have a notable effect on mobs (!). Although you can debuff a mobs critical defence by 6022+7273+8727= 22022, i could not observe a damage increase of the critical hits dealt to them. I tested this on the training dummies in the tavern's crafting hall, on the dummies in Glân Vraig and on some of the Hidden Threats in Mordor. All targets were debuffed by -22022 critical defence from the Precise Throw Gambitline. For the comparison we used Penetrating Shot (Hunter) and the dotticks of Grave Wound (Captain), since these skills always deal the exact same amount of damage. The results on the normal critical hits (not devasting hits) were compared. There was no damage increase. Proof: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/180510/22hn2x7f.jpg Same goes for the Penetrating Shots. They critted with 71077 damage, whether the debuff was active or not.
Perhaps my understanding on how critical defence works/should work is wrong. Please correct me if so.

- The increases to the debuff-duration of Marked Target and Diminished Target mean, that the current setbonus on the AoM-T2-Set for the yellow line is useless. With an uptime of 1 minute, there is no need to extend this for another 10 seconds. Even worse, it also means, that those players who were lucky enough to get one or even two of those Lvl 85 golden Warden-Earrings (which they can still equip!) are favored unfairly. This earring sets the debuff to -15% by default with the possibility to futher increase the effect via the skilltree. Put a maxlevel on these earrings, so they can not be equipped with Lvl 115.
Right now, newer players would have to utilize the old Featured Instance Set, if they want a significant setbonus for their yellow line. Playing new content with old sets with old stats isn't particularly funny and does not seem to fit your design philosophy either. Futhermore has the Featured Instance Set become unavailable too. My suggestion is to change the setbonus on the AoM-T2-Set to the setbonus of the old Featured Instance Set.

- The DPS of the yellow line in its current state is somewhat okay, but given the lack of potency of the debuffs, it's not viable enough. If you update the potency of some debuffs and add more group benefit in general to the yellow line, to compensate on the lacking DPS, it will be fine. If you decide to keep the debuffs and buffs a yellow Warden brings like it is on the current BR preview, you need to further increase the damagepotential. Either way: Yellow line still needs some work if you really want to make it viable in groups/raids.

____________________




Now on behalf of more important things: The Damagespec Redline and the Tankspec Blueline

The Red- and Blueline, especially the Blueline, need way more attention than the Yellowline (imo). These are the core Traittrees of the Warden and are by far the most played. And they are not fine in their current state.


RED: Many others already rightly pointed out, that your MeleeDPS classes are too far behind in comparison to the ranged damagedealers (except the Burglar which is now with the nerfs to Hunters and Runekeepers a really strong, if not the best, DD). In general you should bear in mind, that meeles have to take higher risks in a raidenvironment to fulfill their role (puddles, AOEs, etc). Therefore their DPS-potential should be close to ranged DDs (if not on par). All Melees suffer from Finesse not having an effect on Partials. A change to this would not only benefit the Warden, it would benefit all Melees as well and solve a lot of issues. Also the way Hunter with Fireoils, Runekeepers with -Fireresistance and Loremasters with -Fireresistance interact is too advantageous.

- On BR with BIS-Gear, 222750 Mastery/130k Finesse/overcapped Crit I managed to phrase ~43000 DPS on the 3-minute-Dummies. I saw some phrases of others reaching about 47-48000 DPS. Compared to the damagenumbers of Burglars in particular, we are way off. Even if Hunters and Runekeepers are nerfed now, given the numbers they still can achieve on BR, we are still off compared to them.

- We need a way to resolve the issue with the Partials. And as others stated, the requirement of 200k Finesse to get no resists on DoTs on Raidbosses is also very crippling to our DPS. Wardens need an effective way to penetrate Partials and Resistances. Or you need to change how Finesse works/the system in general.

- The Traits "Spear Sweep", "Quick Sweep" and "No Mercy" are useless. As a WardenDD you want to maintain as many DoTs as possible on your target, not cash them out. Also the damage these Traits yield (if you were to skill them) is completely lackluster. My suggestion is to replace these Traits with something more usefull, preferably with a way to penetrate Resists or Partials.

- The Trait "Warden's Triumph" has little use, because neither the Gambits "Warden's Triumph", nor "Adroit Manoeuvre" has a place in the rotation as a Redline-Warden at the moment. IMO both Gambits are per se cool and have usefull effects - if they were playable (meaning viable) they would greatly add to the fun of Wardengameplay. My suggestion is to give us a way to extend the duration of the buffs these two Gambits provide, so they can perhaps fit in the rotation and see actual play. If this happens, it would mean, that the Trait "Wardens Triumph" would become usefull.

- The Trait "Honed Spikes" is utter nonsense and not worthy of being a capstone for the Redline! Please remove it and give us something usefull/worthy of a capstone instead. Desireable options for a replacement were given in this post and in this thread.






This is the most important part. If you don't want to read my whole post, please read at least the following

BLUE First an analogous quotation of Tybur from the Anniversary Stream: Wardens were designed to be the best Tanks, if you can utilize their full potential.

Given that - if i recall correctly - you aim to bring some of the old "class fantasy" back, the Blueline desperatly needs some changes. Wardens were the second Class added, which was meant to be a fully viable tank and, oh boy, have Wardens fallen behind. Adding a singletarget taunt was a good and necessary step in the right direction, but it is not nearly enough to make Wardens a desired tank in groups or raids.

The core problem is the lackluster survivability of wardens and the huge amount of damage they take. Wardens are tanks with the ability to stack avoidances and rely on their selfheal like no other. Currently (raid)bosses are designed to have mostly hard hitting abilities which can't be blocked, evaded, or parried. Therefore all the Wardens Gambits which increase B/P/E have limited use against bosses (these Gambits are only great if Wardens tank trashmobs). This means Wardens have to suffer the big hits with their 50% mitigation (52% at best with Dance of War and Conviction). Since Mordor bosses hit even harder than before, increasing this problem by a great margin. At the release of AoM, Warden tanks were simply to squishy to survive the big hits. Now, with the Northern Strongholds Essences they finally can reach enough moral to tank the bosses. But Wardens are still very stressfull tanks even for good healers - they still take double, if not more damage than any other tank in bossencounters. Given your recent changes to Minstrels on BR, Wardens will once again be very difficult, if not impossible, to heal. Even BIS gear wont give them the ability to tank successfully.

- Wardens have only a maximum of 52% mitigations and no way to effectively reduce their incoming damage from large boss hits.

- Wardens once had great selfheal, but in regards of the current moralpools the Shield-Spear-HoTs simply are too weak. E.g. ~4500 Moral HoT (tooltip) from "Restoration" compared to 170.000 moralpool. Or even worse, as others pointed out, the Traitbonus from Blueline which adds an instant heal to Restoration, a whopping +1756 heal...

- Wardens have their only active mitigation/emergencytool tied to their AOE-Taunt. Given enough mobs are taunted, Wardens have 12 seconds of godmode of 90% mitigation. After that they fall back to their lousy 52%. As others stated this is a bad design. Not only can it wreck havoc on your raid/group if you have to use an AOE-Taunt compulsorily to get some mitigation in a pressing situation. If there is only one (boss)mob, your "emergencyskill" only gives you 60% mitigation for 12 seconds. Having a 12 second mitigationuptime and fearing 8 seconds to go SPLAT! is not fun at all.

- Never Surrender as a "passive" emergency skill has lost much of its use, given how squishy Wardens have become.

- Wardens have many Gambits/Traits which provide a raw value like +xxxx to physical or tactical mitigation. With the Essence-System, these Gambits are not very usefull. People prefer to cap their mitigations with the essences, because you can't always be sure (particullary as a tank who has to react to the flow of the battle) to have the time to keep your mitigation-giving gambits up.

- Wardens have Gambits which boost their B/P/E by large amounts, but the buffdurations are too short. Once we had +10 seconds on defensive buffs, but imbued legendary items have stripped us of it.



What the Wardens needs:

- A propper way to mitigate damage. 52% mitigation isn't enough, we need at least to be able to maintain 60% the whole time, not just 12 seconds. This could be well and easily achieved if you would scale up the +% mitigation which Dance Of War and Conviction provide. Otherwise the mitigations could be placed on Shield Mastery (+% phys. mit.) and Shield Tactics (+% tact. mit.).

- A way to increase the duration of some of our defensive buffs (24/28 seconds is too short).

- HoTs which are scaled/usefull in regards of Lvl 115 values (easily 170.000 moralpool).

(- Propper itemization in the future. The agilitybase Armor and Jewellery has lower basevalues in vitality, which aggravated the squishyness of Wardens. Maybe you can find a way, in which Wardens could benefit from the +Healing Relics? This could also help with the HoT issue).

(- Maybe a real emergencyskill.)




Regarding the Traitree:

- The Trait "Warcry" only gives +2716 Evaderating for 5 Traitpoints. This needs to be scaled in regards to the new Lvl 115 ratings.

- The Trait "Careful Shieldwork" is okayish, but could use some adjustment upwards.

- The Trait "Defiance" needs to be decouled from "Defiant Challenge". My suggestion is to perhaps make it a "real" emergenyskill like Shield Of The Dunedain or Guardians Pledge. Otherwise, you could implement the Reflect which Defiant Challenge gives into this Traitslot, so that you can chose to skill your AOE-Taunt without having a reflect effect on yourself compulsorily. Having a reflect compulsorily can mess up some of the bossfights like Ost Dunhoth - Huorns.

- The Trait "Impressive Flourish" gives way too little bonuses for the possible 5 Traitpoints. This needs to be scaled in regards to the new Lvl 115 ratings. Or, like i said above, strip it off its +mitigation values, since the Gambits with +mitigation have no use, when players cap themselfs with essences.

- The Trait "For The Free Peoples" is completely useless. Remove or rework it please to give it a meaningfull effect, worthy of a capstone. My suggestion is to maybe add the +10 second duration on shieldgambits we once had to a capstone.

- The Trait "Fellowship Protector" is useless in its current state and not worthy of being a capstone. As I explained, players prefer to cap their mitigations with essences and don't rely on Gambits to get their +xxxxx mitigation numbers. My suggestion is, like said above, an increase to some buffdurations.



Thanks for reading!

Very accurate summary of the problems of a warden. I was recently testing changes to red and blue line. As far as i can say the changes to the red line are pretty substantial, but do not really go towards the "problem" of being a dps warden. The changes to the tankline are also nice to see and definitely go in the right direction missing the spot just so narrowly.

DPS:

The Point of being a DPS-warden is to stack ur dots in the best order and to keep them going for as long as the battle lets u to. Although the changes to the mitigations-debuffs from the yellow trait tree are very helpful in regards of the usefullness of a warden in a raid/fellowship, it does not really compensate the high resistance and finess discrepancy bosses bring along. As Imbrahil stated a way to surpass this would be a necessary and very useful way to make melee dps-character like the warden a viably option.

Tank:

In the past the skill to play a warden was to keep yourself buffed with bpa-ratings and mitigations, while tanking mobs with damage and heal yourself in the meantime if necessary. Now that most of these buffs are obsolete, evading, blocking or parrying hits is only an option for not-boss-mobs and not to mention the quiet ridiculously low value of the shield-spear-gambitline+conviction makes the warden a bad tank in nearly every notable raid/fellowship content.
The +5% mitigation basevalue, the possibility to reach and keep 60% mitigations without any big trouble and the single-target taunt combined with a long substantial debuff to the target are a really nice start to make wardens a viable tank. But The attempt to make the defiant challenge a sort of buff with a low mitigation value not only is bugged on Bullroarer the last time i tested, but also is just not hitting the spot it needed to hit. As Imbrahil also stated would it be more helpful to implement a mitigation value or incoming damage reduction to a skill separated from the aoe-taunt which is still the most important way to keep mobs at you due to the long cooldown of the single target taunt and the fact that you have neither the time nor the damage in regards of physical mastery rating to tank mobs with damage like a warden used to do.
My approach would be to separate the defiant challenge from the mitigation buff and either implement a new skill or gambit (with an intern cooldown) to get a sort of survival skill with incoming damage reduction or +X% mitigations for a short amount of time like every other tank has. Also if the warden still was designed to not be dependent on focus heal of a healer like he was in the past, it would be necessary to double or even tripple the value of healing through shield-spear-gambitline and conviction that is now a very effective and usefull skill again.

Thanks for reading

[Constrictions]

I am counting Guardian as 70% mitigation class, since Guardian can maintain +10% fortification buff nearly 100% uptime. Also Captain has high damage reduction, so incoming damage is much lower.

Incoming Healing should help Warden survive high ammount of taken damage, if high spike damage will be distributed into damage over time, so healer and warden will have time to deal with increased damage. Captain has +incomming healing buffs since Helms Deep, +20% increase for warden isn’t problem.

+10% Partial Mitigation should help with overal taken damage, it will mainly increase survivability on trash fights, where we will suffer much higher damage without Defiant Challenge mitigation per target buff.

For tactical hits, warden should get additional buff +5% to tactical mitigation or -15% incomming tactical damage on gambit (Shield Tactics for example)

Also why Warden as avoidance tank has lower possible avoidance caps than Guardian and Captain? Avoidance tank = higher partial avoidance?

True, I wasn't considering Fortification. :/

Higher partial mitigations is something that I reckon is in the right direction. Perhaps also if they rescaled the BPE % per rating curve, so that it is significantly harder for tanks (in general) to get anywhere near cap avoidances, allowing the warden to have some kind of advantage in this regard.

It also makes no sense that heavy armour classes can get anywhere close to capping their base evade chance. They're meant to be wearing iron plate for gods sake.

well... on paper yes. practically, guards have 100% uptime for ~75% mits (depending on group can range from 72 to 78%), so calling them 60% cap is quite far from reality.
Cappies have permanent -15% incoming damage on top of their 60% mits, which is like 66% mits permanently, increased by the fact that those -15% stack with -10% from scrolls and several other active reductions that make them even stronger. Plus, they have a herald with 3% mits increase. Practically, this makes cappies permanent mits be 70%.
The only heavy armour tank that does not have permanent 70% mits is champion. And there is a reason why no one takes champtanks serious: They suck.

So while you are technically correct, that heavy armour is capped at 60%, all actually regularly used heavy armour tanks realistically run with 70%+ mits.


Thats completely correct. I just dont see devs changing the way they create instances. I'd like if they did that and made all enemies skills avoidable (which obviously increases the damage an average hit does if unavoided), but I dont see it happen. I totally hate it, if anything ignores mechanics just to make it more simple. Mechanics are there to be fought with, not without. Doesnt matter if its coded, that NPCs ignore players mits, avoidances, whatever or if players can ignore mechanics because of too good equipment and bad scaling... I hate it. Mechanics that can easily be ignored shouldnt exist at all.

Just want to make a note: my snootiness is not directed at you personally. I have contempt towards the idea that wardens should be these paper thin defensively until they start pressing buttons, because that, by definition, is not what a tank is meant to be like.

I agree with Joedangods reply to you. It's a major issue in terms of balance for the warden as an avoidance tank, that there are no significant differences in avoidance chances or partial mitigations between the avoidance tank (warden) and mitigation tanks (cappy/guard/champ).

@Krindel If they changed bosses so that a warden is able to tank it "easier" the guardian is able to go afk during the fight :3 They won't change boss mechanics anyway so pls just let them give us the 5% mits and 20% morale...for everything else they need to change the GAME and they won't do that.

They should buff all self heals, too. Scale everyting correctly to lvl 115. Maybe give us a good panic skill... And that's all...Don't desire sth that won't come true anyway and don't destroy sth many wardens really wanted since day 1.

Even with 5% mits AND +20% morale buff the BEST warden will still be a worse tank than the BEST guardian. They could even give us 20% inc healing too and it would still be just like that...
Think about it...with more morale you could slot inc healing essences or sth... We would have more viarity more options.
Hunter has +8% mits in the tree, burglars have 7% I think and Beos have 5%. It is time that we also get sth.

Oh and BTW...the Beo tank is at 65% phys mits in fight..just saying..also medium armor..just sayin...has a nice panic skill with 60% inc dd reduce just sayin...has 3 taunts with short cds...On live I rate the beo tank higher than the warden tank and he cannot even block and is bugged :3

Perhaps if mitigation tanks are being given such a steep advantage in mitigations (e.g. fortification, cappy -15% inc buff), wardens are justified in recieving some kind of armour mitigation buff. However, even with this there would still be work to be done to make them a functional avoidance tank.

The instance design team needs to stop making unavoidable hits a thing. If anything, they should replace unavoidable hits with hits that are high in 'avoidance penetration'. That way, if wardens ever got the advantage in avoidances they're meant to have, they wouldn't be penalised by tanking these bosses in a way thats over and above the mitigation tanks.

[Beltharas]

Very accurate summary of the problems of a warden. I was recently testing changes to red and blue line. As far as i can say the changes to the red line are pretty substantial, but do not really go towards the "problem" of being a dps warden. The changes to the tankline are also nice to see and definitely go in the right direction missing the spot just so narrowly.

DPS:

The Point of being a DPS-warden is to stack ur dots in the best order and to keep them going for as long as the battle lets u to. Although the changes to the mitigations-debuffs from the yellow trait tree are very helpful in regards of the usefullness of a warden in a raid/fellowship, it does not really compensate the high resistance and finess discrepancy bosses bring along. As Imbrahil stated a way to surpass this would be a necessary and very useful way to make melee dps-character like the warden a viably option.

Tank:

In the past the skill to play a warden was to keep yourself buffed with bpa-ratings and mitigations, while tanking mobs with damage and heal yourself in the meantime if necessary. Now that most of these buffs are obsolete, evading, blocking or parrying hits is only an option for not-boss-mobs and not to mention the quiet ridiculously low value of the shield-spear-gambitline+conviction makes the warden a bad tank in nearly every notable raid/fellowship content.
The +5% mitigation basevalue, the possibility to reach and keep 60% mitigations without any big trouble and the single-target taunt combined with a long substantial debuff to the target are a really nice start to make wardens a viable tank. But The attempt to make the defiant challenge a sort of buff with a low mitigation value not only is bugged on Bullroarer the last time i tested, but also is just not hitting the spot it needed to hit. As Imbrahil also stated would it be more helpful to implement a mitigation value or incoming damage reduction to a skill separated from the aoe-taunt which is still the most important way to keep mobs at you due to the long cooldown of the single target taunt and the fact that you have neither the time nor the damage in regards of physical mastery rating to tank mobs with damage like a warden used to do.
My approach would be to separate the defiant challenge from the mitigation buff and either implement a new skill or gambit (with an intern cooldown) to get a sort of survival skill with incoming damage reduction or +X% mitigations for a short amount of time like every other tank has. Also if the warden still was designed to not be dependent on focus heal of a healer like he was in the past, it would be necessary to double or even tripple the value of healing through shield-spear-gambitline and conviction that is now a very effective and usefull skill again.

Thanks for reading

+1

These seem to be the biggest couple of issues in the present build. If we can get these addressed we'll be in a good spot again.

[xcentralx]

Blie line warden currently has many problems, gambits, legacies and traits all need to be reworked. The legacies are poor and unhelpful, and the traits are probably even worse off with capstone bonuses like morale tap on gambit builders. Probably the worst cap stone in the game. this single trait reflects the whole of blue line right now.

Tankiness
Since avoidances are no longer a thing, wardens take far too much damage because the lack in mits that avoidances were suppose to make up for no longer works.
1. increase mits to 60% (5%pasive, 5% conviction) to make up for the loss in avoidance mechanics
2. add damage reduction to the Shield Up gambit (15-20% range) (Maybe 30% and each hit reduces it by 5%)
3. incoming healing should be added to each shield-spear HoT, 5% to each, maybe a stacking sytem based on crits, or just a direct buff from the gambits

4.Critical hits are another issue for wardens, increasing the mitigations and dmg reduction will help with this already, but self ehals were supposed to be the other side of the coin to help make up the difference in damage taken. so between avoidances and self heals a healer would work just as hard ot heal a warden as a guard. Self heals cannot save you from a 1 shot, unless...
a. Shield Tactics should have a critical defense mechanic to it, turning the critical hit (or portion, ie. whatever crit D % you have) into a DoT would be a new interesting
mechanic that would allow self heals to make up for the damage difference. Right now there are roughly 6 useful gambits out of 30, so this would help remedy that
also.



Cooldowns:
1. Seperate defiant chaleneg mits and force tuant, make a seperate cd for mits (ie. 20-25% mits for 20-30s 1-1.5min cd)
2. Instead of NS cd starting on application haev it start on usage, critical hits and critical heals should then reduce the cd by 2-4s
3. some type of avoidance cd, could be helpful for trash pulls or ads in a boss fight

Utility:
1. Warden has nothing to offer here. All other tanks have soem way in which they can aid the group from taking damage. This could be a cooldown skill that turns 50% of the groups damage into a DoT( simialir to the Crit D idea) this way once again wardens self heals could find a role, attach a 30% inc healing buff to this skill also.
2. Think about adding an additional group benefit to conviction ie. inc healing or mits


Miscellaneous:
1. Make gambits quicker, gambits build too slow to be reactive. incrase attack speed and animations.
2. Reduce CD of masteries when hit with a crit or based off of something
3. Dance of war and defiant challenge animations are too long
4. Gambit buffs are too short, 30s base with a 10s buff duration legacy needs to be added back. Wardens have so many gambits but not all are relevant, or if they were you couldnt keep them up anyway due to the short durations.

I could go more into legacies and traits but I will just say, look at legacies and traits to make these changes. Do not make a vanilla class, make a class you build around a goal or tank style (boss, trash). Something that you can make better or worse depending on how you gear out and trait.
1. ie. legacy/blue trait +% of critical hit Turned into a DoT, or +crit DoT duration (thus reducing magnitude fo each DoT and increaseing self heals benefit)
2. duration legacies and traits are great, other than that use these to alter mechanics


If you are thinking that this is too much and warden would be OP, captains and guards currently have more survivability thatn what i haev just laid out for wardens. These changes would help close the gap for sure, but damage taken would still put wardens at the highest, depending on the percentages and magnitude of these additions to wardens. even if these put wardens ahead, wardens still haev fewer cool downs or utility than either guard or captain.

[jomanjy]

for red warden i feel like they need much more dps increase. spear bleeds damage is lower now because of the invisible 25% bleed damage, aoe bleeds got buffed apparently but it is still too low, imo you should increase the damage of all bleeds by at least 20-25%

since defiant challenge now only apply 1 mitigation buff (+5% only) maybe you should remove the -50% outgoing healing from redline passive ? or make it at least 25%.

edit: still you must fix martial fury trait from redline, 15% chance is so low, either increase the proc to 30-35% or change the trait in a whole to mitigation bypass/resist trait.

[Osglinthor]

I have not yet updated BR and I doubt I will do it for this round.
Devs are quick to remove anything that seems OP or not working as itended wich is obviously fine under right context.
This update is suposed to air next week and so far we had no communication from dev/devs working on warden.
There has been zero work done to future proof red line and make it viable ST dps with some AoE.And just tiny bit of work done on blue line.
I can only guess initial dot hit still has not been returned to gambits,we still require 201k finesse and are still only class that is unable to have 0% mitigation target.
Obviously devs have different things in mind for warden and any feedback here seems to be ignored outside of "OP" mitigation debuff nerf and not working as itended 25% bleed damage.
Thats about it,done with posting feedback here or testing chages for now as I have no itention of wasting more of my time.

[Skoch]

for red warden i feel like they need like they need more dps increase. spear bleeds damage is lower now because of the invisible 25% bleed damage, aoe bleeds got buffed apparently but it is still too low, imo you should increase the damage of all bleeds by 10-15%

since defiant challenge now only apply 1 mitigation buff (+5% only) maybe you should remove the -50% outgoing healing from redline passive ? or make it at least 25%.

/seconded

Woe the DPS on this class I'm confused as to the purpose of the Warden now, compared to other classes.
Is it the best Tank? No. Is it the best Single Target DPS? No, not even close. Is it the best AoE DPS? No. Is it the best Debuffing/Buffing Class? Nope, not this either.
What's the point?

The reason for the Red-line -50% outgoing healing was due to cross-traiting Defiant Challenge Mitigations/per target buff from Blue-line. With this nerf to Defiant Challenge, the reasoning behind such a dramatic reduction to heals is unwarranted. Personally, I'd rather see Defiant Challenge mitigations per target returned but that's likely not going to happen for various reasons. Therefore, please revert back the -50% incoming healing debuff in red-line. Thank you

[Elwha]

Not much to say here. Good try I guess, if this is the end of our class balance it's ending as a miss. Maybe it's time to consider tossing the Warden and Champ into the Beorning pass as well.

As it sits now regarding t2/+ content.
-Blue Wardens can not compete with Guards or Cappys to tank as main in the most challenging content. Based on your own words the Warden should be favored #1 to fill this spot as the most skilled should be the best tank in the game. This is currently not possible. There are already explanations in this thread why.
-Red Wardens can not compete with hunters &/or possibly RK's to fill a DPS spot. Red Champs are in a similar position. If you don't plan to nerf mitigation(its been talked to death) debuffs we need a 33% boost to DPS and 50% boost to finesse, then some more testing. There's no reason that a full red spec Warden, Champ or RK for that matter shouldn't be viable to fill a ST DPS role!

[gaara908776]

Red Line seems to be in a good spot dps wise to me right now. Consistently parsing 50k after perfecting the mastery order in my new rotation. However, as others have said, Blue Line changes look good but we still need either some sort of improved group utility or better "Oh ####" skills for when things go wrong, or when there is going to be large spike damage. The disparity between Guardian and Warden has lessened drastically with this update, but now we're essentially a Yellow Captain with crappier mits, no group buffs, and poorly scaled self heals. If our self heals were scaled properly to match the insane Mordor level morale pools, we'd probably move from third string behind Cappies and Guards, to being tied with either Guardians for main tanking role, or Captains for off tanking role. Either of which I would be fine with at this point.

[Archiemundo]

Red Line seems to be in a good spot dps wise to me right now. Consistently parsing 50k after perfecting the mastery order in my new rotation. However, as others have said, Blue Line changes look good but we still need either some sort of improved group utility or better "Oh ####" skills for when things go wrong, or when there is going to be large spike damage. The disparity between Guardian and Warden has lessened drastically with this update, but now we're essentially a Yellow Captain with crappier mits, no group buffs, and poorly scaled self heals. If our self heals were scaled properly to match the insane Mordor level morale pools, we'd probably move from third string behind Cappies and Guards, to being tied with either Guardians for main tanking role, or Captains for off tanking role. Either of which I would be fine with at this point.

I'm admittedly on my work laptop but I am getting no where near 50K parses. A lot closer to 30-35k in the current build. Care to share your priorities? Also are you keeping bleeds constantly up or letting them drop off for the burst before refreshing?

[gaara908776]

I'm admittedly on my work laptop but I am getting no where near 50K parses. A lot closer to 30-35k in the current build. Care to share your priorities? Also are you keeping bleeds constantly up or letting them drop off for the burst before refreshing?

I keep them all up constantly, all 3 spear bleeds, all 3 light DoT's from the precise blow line, all 4 DoT's in the War Cry/Brink of Victory line, as well as the DoT from impressive flourish.

I try to prioritize applying the DoT's from the highest to the lowest damage obviously and no I don't intentionally let Bleeds fall off as that results in a DPS loss.

Generally I open with Unnerring Strike, then Mighty Blow sp+sh+(fi-sp), then I use my Sp-Sp mastery to get battle memory, then SoV built with fi+(sp-fi)+sp, then Desolation with (fi-sh)+fi+(sh-fi), then SoD built with fi+sh+fi+(sh-sh), Piercing Strike (fi-sp)+(fi-fi), then Power Attack with (sp-sh)+fi, then BoV (fi-sh)+fi, then precise blow fi+(sp-sp), then impressive flourish, then war cry or goad depending what masteries are up. Then I start over again with my battle memory SoV. Basically I prioritize highest dps gambits>lowest dps gambits, but I try to be as flexible as possible and keep all of my masteries on cooldown as frequently as possible. This frees up a ton of time in the rotation. In between each rotation and at the start of a fight before I pop recklessness I also make sure to re apply both of my mitigation debuffing javelins, this doesn't have to be done every rotation but if you can its good to increase the chance of getting a double proc on marked target. Also, you want to anticipate your Recklessness timer, I.E make sure at the 1.5 min mark to have as many of your masteries not on CD as possible. Despite warden's having rather terrible burst dps, this cooldown is really integral to maximizing your damage. This is due to the fact that whatever damage multipliers you have at the time of applying your DoT will last for the entire duration of the DoT. So you wan't to get as many gambits into that 20 second window as possible. Using battle memory regularly in your rotation on your 4 or 5 builder gambits really maximizes your chance of double procs and increases the amount of DoT's you can fit into a recklessness cycle.

The beautiful thing about the Warden Class, and the reason I've stuck around with it as my main despite being nerfed to pieces throughout Mordor, is that when you're doing everything right the rotation just slows so effortlessly that you no longer even need to memorize which DoT's you have up. The masteries essentially direct you to the next gambit and it flows nicely once you get used to it.

BTW all of the builders in parentheses represents an individual mastery. Hope this helps.

edit: There is a noticeable hitch after using Brink of Victory and Piercing Strike for me, and slightly less pronounced hitches after precise blow and impressive flourish(battle memory helps counteract these two as they're at the end of your rotation). These hitches can drastically screw up a parse and I wish Dev's would fix them but I think it's just something we're going to have to live with for the foreseeable future.

Cheers

[siipperi]

Red warden should keep its reduced healing and it should be even stronger debuff.

[Imbrahil]

In my opinion, tying +5% mitigation to Defiant Challenge is not the best choice designwise. There are situations, when you simply can't use an AOE-Taunt, because it would screw your group/the other tank up. (My guess is that this change to DC was done, because it was the technically easier way to further reduce the mitigation cap between Wardens and Guardian/Captain. I assume that it would have been incompareable harder from a programming perspective to change some other Gambits/Traits in comparison to altering a already exsisting Skill which functions in somewhat the desired way. And we all now, that you don't have many resources/time and need to deal with spaghetti code, so yeah...)



But I acknowledge the fact, that you now get the +5% whether you actually taunted something or not (live only when taunted). I also acknowledge that this change to DC (22s mits duration/20s cooldown) puts us in a better spot than the previous update, since we can now relatively easy maintain 63% mits (55% default, +5% from DC, +3% from Dance Of War and Conviction) and have enough spare time to do other Gambits. One could even say, this change boils down to almost the same result, which an increased buffduration on Shield- and Fist-Gambits would have yielded: Since we don't need that much time anymore to maintain sufficient mitigations, we have more time to do other stuff. Given the changes to DC I think it isn't as urgent as it was to raise the buffduration on Shield- and Fist-Gambits. Although it should really be considered in the future.
And we can go even up to 65% all the time, when we use Impressive Flourish and Maddening Strike, but then you won't have much time left to do something else than keeping the 65% stable...

But overall, the need to press DC every ~20 seconds feels somewhat dull to me. In my opinion, Wardens should preferably get the desired effects via Gambits and not so much via "normal" Skills. I know, that Update 22.2 will soon hit the live servers, and time is running out. I can live with the current situation, because it's definitely an improvement to our current one on live. But regarding a balance pass/changes in the future, my proposal is:
Give Shield Mastery +5% physical mitigation and Shield Tactics +5% tactical mitigation and keep the one minute uptime on these Gambits. Detach the +% to both mitigations from DC and put them in a real emergency skill (not a Gambit, because it needs to be fast). Reasons why this is a better choice designwise where stated by multiple users in this thread. The emergency skill should give around +15-20% to both mitigations with around 15 seconds duration and ~2 minutes cooldown. Apart from that, keep the +% mitigations on the Impressive Flourish Gambitline.
Other desireable changes to Blueline Warden were stated in this Thread, so I won't repeat them. Please consider them


Our damage output with the fixed AoM-Set is now ~50k dps (probably more with 4xAoM and 2x red Throne), which seems okay to me. As far as I know, no one had the possibility to test the changes in a raid environment, so we need to wait until the update hits the live servers to see how our dps fares in these scenarios. But I assume, that the hinderance of the Finesse requirement/Partials and the general way melees play will put us in a somewhat mediocre spot. Regarding the other issues with Redline Warden (Martial Fury, Honed Spikes, etc.), I think it is safe to say that there is still much room for improvement. Good proposals where given in this Thread by numerous players, please consider them.


Lastly, I heavily second what gaara908776 and others said: If you have any time left before the Update hits the live servers and can make a small/quick adjustment please, please scale our HoTs and Moral-Leeches to appropriate Mordor values. There is still a gap between Wardens and Guardians/Captains, although it has been reduced. Scaled HoTs and Moral-Leeches will help to close this gap further to a point, where I am confident with playing this on live. If you can make this last adjustment, I would even call this first balance pass (for the most part) a success for the Wardens primary role - Tank.

I thank you for the work you have done on Warden, and that you listened to some of the feedback give in this Thread. Please keep this up. And please, at some point, talk to us - okay?

[siipperi]

I'm gonna comment on HoTs and morale leech. Current mitigation caps is 62 or 63% (+ what you get from your group). To allow class have significantly stronger HoTs it means class with be utterly broken in terms of a tank. 5k HPS single target, Over 7k HPS as group tanking situations. That is extremely potent combined with debuffing/buffing class already does when cross traiting to yellow -mitigation and -induction (extremely potent now with hunter being red line). Devs need to be extremely cautious of this. Warden can already solo in live T2CM 3mans (like CoS) with with 10%+ less mitigations. I'm not objecting like 20% morale tap increase but going beyond that will cause some serious issues how much warden is capable of soloing instances. normal self heals on other hand do not need to be stronger.

[Kander]

I'm gonna comment on HoTs and morale leech. Current mitigation caps is 62 or 63% (+ what you get from your group). To allow class have significantly stronger HoTs it means class with be utterly broken in terms of a tank. 5k HPS single target, Over 7k HPS as group tanking situations. That is extremely potent combined with debuffing/buffing class already does when cross traiting to yellow -mitigation and -induction (extremely potent now with hunter being red line). Devs need to be extremely cautious of this. Warden can already solo in live T2CM 3mans (like CoS) with with 10%+ less mitigations. I'm not objecting like 20% morale tap increase but going beyond that will cause some serious issues how much warden is capable of soloing instances. normal self heals on other hand do not need to be stronger.

On live guardians have way higher self heal than warden in aoe situations, got 1 skills that heals him and puts a morale pool of 250k morale, another skill that sets 100% block chance and heals on block and another skill that gives 20% to all avoids as emergency skills. I honestly doubt warden self heals are OP, they're actually pretty bad. When a good healer could heal you around 5-6k HPS (lvl 100 IIRC) and you could self heal 3-4k HPS on a single target fight it was meaningful, now you can self heal 5k hps at single target tanking while minis heal you for over 20k HPS single target, and ofc enemy damage got balanced around that mini heal not your warden heal, so in fact it's been a couple of updates since warden self heal was not even worth using because it wouldn't make a difference, you just tried to keep your avoids on 100% ignoring self heals.
Just want to remind you that with the short time buff duration we have on live if you want to keep 7k hps+63% mits + avoids + debuffing mits + buffing inductions you just don't have time. Basically keeping your avoids up just takes 80% of all your time, keeping your self heals with morale taps and shield gambits takes 100% of your time. Right now I'd suggest drastically increasing duration of all HoT, gambit buffs. (right now they are ~30s, make it 1 minute at least). Also please separate the mits from defiant challenge from the only aoe taunt we got, we basically right now need to spam an aoe taunt in order to get our mits up and that could really screw multi tank fights.

[siipperi]

On live guardians have way higher self heal than warden in aoe situations, got 1 skills that heals him and puts a morale pool of 250k morale, another skill that sets 100% block chance and heals on block and another skill that gives 20% to all avoids as emergency skills. I honestly doubt warden self heals are OP, they're actually pretty bad. When a good healer could heal you around 5-6k HPS (lvl 100 IIRC) and you could self heal 3-4k HPS on a single target fight it was meaningful, now you can self heal 5k hps at single target tanking while minis heal you for over 20k HPS single target, and ofc enemy damage got balanced around that mini heal not your warden heal, so in fact it's been a couple of updates since warden self heal was not even worth using because it wouldn't make a difference, you just tried to keep your avoids on 100% ignoring self heals.
Just want to remind you that with the short time buff duration we have on live if you want to keep 7k hps+63% mits + avoids + debuffing mits + buffing inductions you just don't have time. Basically keeping your avoids up just takes 80% of all your time, keeping your self heals with morale taps and shield gambits takes 100% of your time. Right now I'd suggest drastically increasing duration of all HoT, gambit buffs. (right now they are ~30s, make it 1 minute at least). Also please separate the mits from defiant challenge from the only aoe taunt we got, we basically right now need to spam an aoe taunt in order to get our mits up and that could really screw multi tank fights.

Only if you pull more targets than Warden can leech heals from. It only works in easier instances in that case, otherwise it's not sustained healing but since you want discuss about that what about double never surrender? Problem of warden on level 100 was you could with ease be self sufficient with healing as a tank. Even now current single target self healing is huge especially with reduced potency on minstrels. When bosses will do 7-9k DPS on you as a tank and you can self heal good 4k easily while doing other stuff that helps group on top of it it really helps your healer, who see their heals essentially halved. AoE tanking will be quite bit harder but it's fine since DC was OP as hell and on top of it class still has 20s cooldown on AoE taunt, meanwhile their competitor has 1 min cooldown on their AoE taunt + worse aggro generation.

Yeah I'm aware you need to sacrifice a bit on healing to keep mitigations up but considering group buffs HPS stays still on those numbers. Imo 30s duration is fine on buffs. There should be decision to be made on them. Warden already gets a pass on free 10% mitigations and extra morale bonus to their tank line. Making them having significantly more self healing is simply bad way. Class can have just one of these increased a lot without breaking class in terms of too OP and warden has both already on high levels.

[Kander]

Only if you pull more targets than Warden can leech heals from. It only works in easier instances in that case, otherwise it's not sustained healing. Problem of warden on level 100 was you could with ease be self sufficient with healing as a tank. Even now current single target self healing is huge especially with reduced potency on minstrels. When bosses will do 7-9k DPS on you as a tank and you can self heal good 4k easily while doing other stuff that helps group on top of it it really helps your healer, who see their heals essentially halved. AoE tanking will be quite bit harder but it's fine since DC was OP as hell and on top of it class still has 20s cooldown on AoE taunt, meanwhile their competitor has 1 min cooldown on their AoE taunt + worse aggro generation.

Yeah I'm aware you need to sacrifice a bit on healing to keep mitigations up but considering group buffs HPS stays still on those numbers. Imo 30s duration is fine on buffs. There should be decision to be made on them. Warden already gets a pass on free 10% mitigations and extra morale bonus to their tank line. Making them having significantly more self healing is simply bad way. Class can have just one of these increased a lot without breaking class in terms of too OP and warden has both already on high levels.

I think we do not agree, until lvl 95 all the buffs warden had to keep to buff their defence were shield tactics and shield mastery (1 min 10s duration both) morale taps, dmg gambits, or self heals were a way to get aggro and damage a bit or survive better, wardens never had to keep constantly 8-9 gambit buffs of 30s duration in order to have their defences up.

[HerpThatDerp]

At this point, Vastin seems to be the only dev actually paying attention to feedback and really commited to making changes. The classes with threads that were started by FriendlyHat (including this one) are not receiving the changes they ask for or need. They're not even receiving developer input.

What is the point of these feedback threads if they're not really being taken into account?

These class changes are literally years overdue and they're being half-assed. What the hell SSG?

I just came back and resubbed after years because I heard that my favorite classes were getting reworks, but it seems the only classes really improving are guardians, lore-masters, and hunters.

[siipperi]

I think we do not agree, until lvl 95 all the buffs warden had to keep to buff their defence were shield tactics and shield mastery (1 min 10s duration both) morale taps, dmg gambits, or self heals were a way to get aggro and damage a bit or survive better, wardens never had to keep constantly 8-9 gambit buffs of 30s duration in order to have their defences up.

You forget one important thing. You can have 40s duration on those buffs.

That to me is the most fun part of warden as a class. If it was just to keep 3-4 things up and otherwise AFK I would just play guardian. If that's overwhelming amount to players they can choose not to use everything but turbine gives class tools to choose from. Warden should be the most potent tanking class in the game if you are involved to the gameplay 100% of time doing perfect rotation. If not it should be significantly worse imo. It should be high skill ceiling class, in fact highest skill ceiling in this game. I'm all about giving warden a ton of tools but they should build them. It's not the same class as 8 year ago. Neither are other tank classes. People have used that argument earlier in this thread. Game is just not same game it was in 2009 and design of classes need to change to suit the needs. If players are against, sure have your old warden that we have in live. I frankly prefer beta one with significantly more interesting tanking rotation and better survivability, while offering great group utility as a tank and can switch to highest DPS as tank character on the fly.

[siipperi]

At this point, Vastin seems to be the only dev actually paying attention to feedback and really commited to making changes. The classes with threads that were started by FriendlyHat (including this one) are not receiving the changes they ask for or need. They're not even receiving developer input.

I think they have listened quite a bit warden feedback. Knowing a lot of stuff I have pointed out being problematic for the class have been implemented (ST taunt, more mitigation building options, and so on). But other class like minstrel is just dreadful that one has no clear direction what they want to do with it.

[HerpThatDerp]

I think they have listened quite a bit warden feedback. Knowing a lot of stuff I have pointed out being problematic for the class have been implemented (ST taunt, more mitigation building options, and so on). But other class like minstrel is just dreadful that one has no clear direction what they want to do with it.

Except so many of the new/tweaked (and even old) abilities as they currently stand on Bullroarer are completely busted or worthless. So many broken interactions (though minstrels really do seem to be getting the worst of it).

These changes are supposed to go live NEXT WEEK. That means they're probably going live as they currently stand. This is completely unacceptable. With how often they make sweeping class updates like these, we'll be stuck with these issues for years, if the game lasts that much longer.

[xcentralx]

You forget one important thing. You can have 40s duration on those buffs.

That to me is the most fun part of warden as a class. If it was just to keep 3-4 things up and otherwise AFK I would just play guardian. If that's overwhelming amount to players they can choose not to use everything but turbine gives class tools to choose from. Warden should be the most potent tanking class in the game if you are involved to the gameplay 100% of time doing perfect rotation. If not it should be significantly worse imo. It should be high skill ceiling class, in fact highest skill ceiling in this game. I'm all about giving warden a ton of tools but they should build them. It's not the same class as 8 year ago. Neither are other tank classes. People have used that argument earlier in this thread. Game is just not same game it was in 2009 and design of classes need to change to suit the needs. If players are against, sure have your old warden that we have in live. I frankly prefer beta one with significantly more interesting tanking rotation and better survivability, while offering great group utility as a tank and can switch to highest DPS as tank character on the fly.

Confirmed Russian troll who mains gaurd.

A perfect rotation right now yields literally nothing. Avoidance gambits are useless when most attacks bypass avoidance. Crit D has heavy DR so no grounds are made there and even if it did it's below guards. Self heals are low, Cappy heals more. Zero utility for the group except small dps increase, which is a mute point when all of these buffs you so perfectly kept up with your perfect rotation yield you nothing and you end up dead.

Buffs aren't 40s, 24-30s is top.

This update is not a success for warden a as of update 4 bc it still leaves wardens with nothing to change their standing. It's too little too late. If a boss hits for 200k and you move wardens morale from 150k to 190k it's still a wipe. So everything that was changed is still useless. Devs need to read this, interact and make relevant changes. Increasing Gambit builder morale tap by 100% is a joke.

[siipperi]

Confirmed Russian troll who mains gaurd.

A perfect rotation right now yields literally nothing. Avoidance gambits are useless when most attacks bypass avoidance. Crit D has heavy DR so no grounds are made there and even if it did it's below guards. Self heals are low, Cappy heals more. Zero utility for the group except small dps increase, which is a mute point when all of these buffs you so perfectly kept up with your perfect rotation yield you nothing and you end up dead.

Buffs aren't 40s, 24-30s is top.

This update is not a success for warden a as of update 4 bc it still leaves wardens with nothing to change their standing. It's too little too late. If a boss hits for 200k and you move wardens morale from 150k to 190k it's still a wipe. So everything that was changed is still useless. Devs need to read this, interact and make relevant changes. Increasing Gambit builder morale tap by 100% is a joke.

First off, if you have just 150k morale as tank warden in group you are under geared in live. On very much minimum 170k in groups as tank warden and if boss hits you for 200k you are messing up mechanic in instances/raids. If you think wardens offer no utility to the group you really need to re-read your skills, traits and gambits.

Second point:
https://i.imgur.com/uJf1439.jpg