Warden Feedback Thread

[Krindel]

There is one nice hidden bug fix. Ranged Restoration from Battle Memory now apply heal over time. They have to fix Ranged Adroit Manoeuvre from Battle Memory, still no -attack duration and induction buff.

From release notes:

• The Warden red line trait bonus "+5% Warden DoT Damage" now properly affects the damage over time from Power Attack, Mighty Blow, and Unerring Strike.
• The Warden trait Persevere now properly affects the healing from the following skills: Ranged Persevere, Ranged Safeguard, Ranged Celebration of Skill, and Ranged Restoration. Persevere no longer affects healing from the skill Conviction, as this trait was never intended to affect this skill.
• The Warden Blue line specialization bonus now properly affects the healing from the following skills: Ranged Persevere, Ranged Safeguard, Ranged Celebration of Skill, Ranged Restoration.

I think these changes affect only initial heal but not heal over time, so this is half baked bug fix

Still no fix to skill delay, no panic skill for tanking wardens

[Tasatir]

There is one nice hidden bug fix. Ranged Restoration from Battle Memory now apply heal over time. They have to fix Ranged Adroit Manoeuvre from Battle Memory, still no -attack duration and induction buff.

From release notes:

• The Warden red line trait bonus "+5% Warden DoT Damage" now properly affects the damage over time from Power Attack, Mighty Blow, and Unerring Strike.
• The Warden trait Persevere now properly affects the healing from the following skills: Ranged Persevere, Ranged Safeguard, Ranged Celebration of Skill, and Ranged Restoration. Persevere no longer affects healing from the skill Conviction, as this trait was never intended to affect this skill.
• The Warden Blue line specialization bonus now properly affects the healing from the following skills: Ranged Persevere, Ranged Safeguard, Ranged Celebration of Skill, Ranged Restoration.

I think these changes affect only initial heal but not heal over time, so this is half baked bug fix

Still no fix to skill delay, no panic skill for tanking wardens

the skill delay is a thing what can't be.. it's so annoying.

Also that it's better to use might gear for tanking than agi. I don't want to push only the moral... let's go back to the BPE Tank.

[Hildilas]

the skill delay is a thing what can't be.. it's so annoying.

Also that it's better to use might gear for tanking than agi. I don't want to push only the moral... let's go back to the BPE Tank.

Well agility and might tanks should have the same amount of vitality on their items....They need to get rid of fate and crit redu on tank items.


+we also need tact red on agility items. That's actually why I am wearing 2 might earrings. No matter how high you bpe ratings are you need tact red. (I know that we have gambits but we cannot always rely on them.

[Ethrildar]

Attack duration and mastery skill speeds are still utterly horrible, especially in Blue without Red's passive attack duration buffs.

We're still absolutely awful tanks compared to Cappy and Guard.

Heals still haven't scaled to any meaningful amount, leaving survivability pretty poor, NS' lengthy CD makes it a terrible cooldown/saving skill.

We're 100% reliant on set bonuses (+3 DOT pulses) that are either about to be no longer obtainable or obtainable only by doing the previous update's content and will have a horrendous impact on stat gain, as well as DPS capability and tanking capability, which is already poor as-is.

[Tasatir]

Attack duration and mastery skill speeds are still utterly horrible, especially in Blue without Red's passive attack duration buffs.

We're still absolutely awful tanks compared to Cappy and Guard.

Heals still haven't scaled to any meaningful amount, leaving survivability pretty poor, NS' lengthy CD makes it a terrible cooldown/saving skill.

We're 100% reliant on set bonuses (+3 DOT pulses) that are either about to be no longer obtainable or obtainable only by doing the previous update's content and will have a horrendous impact on stat gain, as well as DPS capability and tanking capability, which is already poor as-is.

Yes, thats it.

I love my warden and the gambit system. But that wanky gambit speed makes no fun anymore.... i clan play the warden now easily with the mouse and gettin tired. At that time where all linies where open.. where you could play your warden with all exsisting gambits that was fun and ambitious. But at the moment with every change it's gettin worse..

[Krindel]

There is bug with Battle Memory Resounding Challenge (ranged, melee) and Ranged Adroit Manoeuver
Battle Memory Melee Resounding Challenge actually heal your target
Battle Memory Ranged Resounding Challenge has very low damage compared with original, also Original damage is too high
Battle Memory Adroit Manoeuver still do not apply attack duration and induction buff


Bug report filled

[WhiteWolf21x]

With Update 23, Wardens will have 29 Muster skills they are able to use. Along with the other Return to/Journey to/Milestone skills we are quickly getting to a larger than necessary amount of travel skills.

What I have in mind is 1 Muster Skill that opens up a map of the stable masters (this already exists in the collections panel)
Wardens can then port to whatever stable master they choose. (Need to discover first.) May need to add a 5 minute cd to avoid porting to many times.

This also falls in line with the "patrols the borders of civilized lands" part of the warden lore.

Not a needed change, but if its not a difficult revamp its something Id like to see.

[Ethrildar]

There is bug with Battle Memory Resounding Challenge (ranged, melee) and Ranged Adroit Manoeuver
Battle Memory Melee Resounding Challenge actually heal your target
Battle Memory Ranged Resounding Challenge has very low damage compared with original, also Original damage is too high
Battle Memory Adroit Manoeuver still do not apply attack duration and induction buff


Bug report filled

Couldn't replicate these bugs, although the initial gambit does still hit pretty hard (harder than Desolation, the DOT component at least). Shame, the heal bug could've been kinda fun haha.

[Hildilas]

No changes in the next upate? Warden class update done?

Fix Never Surrender. Lower CD and make it an actual panic! I would be okay with a cheap +60% mitigation + this bs heal of course.

Give us +15 seks on defensive gambits.

Our trait tree still needs to be adjusted to lvl 120.

Blue:

Impressive Flourish at rank 5 gives ~2k krit def, ~1500 phys/tact def. Should be around 10k krit def and 8k phys/tact def. OR +% krit def/mits rating.

Careful Shield-work and War-cry (Trait) should give % evade and block.

Persevere - Rank 5 +15% Persevere Gambit Line Healing. Could be easily 50% and would not be game breaking.

Fear No Darkness - Could also be easily 50%. Some morale tap heals like Offensive Strike and Exultation of Battle could be higher. Get rit off all those 1500-3000 heals in the game. It is outdated. We will reach 300k morake soon!






Defiant Challenge deflect ~750 damage..that's a joke. Make it %.

[Elwha]

Come on Warden dev, come out from the shadows. Red line needs work.

We're 100% reliant on set bonuses (+3 DOT pulses) that are either about to be no longer obtainable or obtainable only by doing the previous update's content and will have a horrendous impact on stat gain, as well as DPS capability and tanking capability, which is already poor as-is.

with the new raid gear not having class bonuses warden will lose at least 50% of his dps since there is no dot pulses or bleed damage set bonus and become useless again just saying

no class should ever have relied on setbonusses that much at all. Warden needs more base-pulses from the trait-trees.

If you really don't give us a new way to get the +3 DoT impulse in a new way, DD-Warden will be as irrelevant as it was before class balancing in Abyss. Wardens just need these impulses to be competetive DDs.

[Hildilas]

Come on Warden dev, come out from the shadows. Red line needs work.

ALL lines need some work. + The game NEEDS to become melee friendly again.

[Ethrildar]

ALL lines need some work. + The game NEEDS to become melee friendly again.

You mean content in which melees are continuously spam CCd and hit with massive AOE damage auras whilst putting out lower DPS than an RK (exception being AOE and not noticeably) isn't great for Wardens?

Abyss must have had some of the most un-melee-friendly boss fights ever conceived, with bosses 1 and 3.

[xxSniperxx]

Come on Warden dev, come out from the shadows. Red line needs work.

[Hildilas]

Does activity mean "has been online" or "wrote sth in the forum" though?

First would be bad, second would be "okay" If the dev took some advice maybe.

[xxSniperxx]

Does activity mean "has been online" or "wrote sth in the forum" though?

First would be bad, second would be "okay" If the dev took some advice maybe.

Activity means the last time you are logged into your forum account.

[Hildilas]

Activity means the last time you are logged into your forum account.

Well that's a shame. Sth could have happened which is not our concern but SSG should somehow care for a replacement for the time this Dev is missing. That's usually how it works in a company.

[Ethrildar]

Well that's a shame. Sth could have happened which is not our concern but SSG should somehow care for a replacement for the time this Dev is missing. That's usually how it works in a company.

To be fair, a dev's role has nothing to do with checking forum posts... Adding to that, we all know that Forum posts are by and large completely ignored. I'd imagine that particular dev has a pre-defined work track for the next 12 months, which forum warriors like us will have absolutely no impact on whatsoever.

It is someone else's job to pick through the forums, collate suggestions and worthwhile feedback and present this to the developers/powers that be... Whether or not there's actually a person doing that job, though, is seriously questionable.

[Hildilas]

To be fair, a dev's role has nothing to do with checking forum posts... Adding to that, we all know that Forum posts are by and large completely ignored. I'd imagine that particular dev has a pre-defined work track for the next 12 months, which forum warriors like us will have absolutely no impact on whatsoever.

It is someone else's job to pick through the forums, collate suggestions and worthwhile feedback and present this to the developers/powers that be... Whether or not there's actually a person doing that job, though, is seriously questionable.

they should not create feedback threads then tbh. they could just change sth without talking to us at all...nearly what this dev did actually.

+ sry but If you are dedicated to your job you do sth like this. I am a nurse and do much more than I have to, also.

++ We are paying them right? They should listen to us in some way. There were changes to the yellow line that NO ONE talked about or wanted. They spend time on sth nobody needs. We are not like: "MAKE US GOD" - you know? We are very
constructive.

[Aeowulf]

To be fair, a dev's role has nothing to do with checking forum posts... Adding to that, we all know that Forum posts are by and large completely ignored. I'd imagine that particular dev has a pre-defined work track for the next 12 months, which forum warriors like us will have absolutely no impact on whatsoever.

It is someone else's job to pick through the forums, collate suggestions and worthwhile feedback and present this to the developers/powers that be... Whether or not there's actually a person doing that job, though, is seriously questionable.

Sorry bud, i'm mostly agreeing with @Hildilas here

A devs job is not to check forums, it's to dev. But it's also not their job to post on the forums asking for feedback, which would make me think this person has a role more of a dev+ So it's either both or neither, and in this case it would need to be both.

We warden - three roles. Tanking should be their main role, it is how they should be balanced. They should be superior to Guardians because they are a a lot more work to play (up to 6 button pushes per gambit, so a guardian who pushes one button should not get something more powerful, as example) and yet in the same breathe, if that work is not put in they should be much much worse.

The way I look at it is all classes primary role should be of a quality that is very raid-suitable, in that role alone. The second tree should be for their second role, and whilst this should maybe not be the optimum choice in raids, it should be perfectly suitable for 6 man content. Their tiertiary role should be balanced mostly for soloing and small groups (3 man content) and it should be on par with the worst in the game, at this role.

just my 5cents!

~Aeo

[Hildilas]

Just another quite obvious thing I wanted to point out - just in case a def is going through the posts anytime soon.

If the Hunter - a DD class, is able to 8% Mits from a Trait the Warden should at least get another 5% as a trait :3. DD hunters are able to use these 8% even though they are skilled red or blue. The warden only has his 5% in blue.
PLUS Hunters get % evade, too. This is expensive and maybe most players won't spend points on this BUT I think this is sth the warden should have as a trait. % are always more important than plain values.

[Gertes]

Just another quite obvious thing I wanted to point out - just in case a def is going through the posts anytime soon.

If the Hunter - a DD class, is able to 8% Mits from a Trait the Warden should at least get another 5% as a trait :3. DD hunters are able to use these 8% even though they are skilled red or blue. The warden only has his 5% in blue.
PLUS Hunters get % evade, too. This is expensive and maybe most players won't spend points on this BUT I think this is sth the warden should have as a trait. % are always more important than plain values.

I actually dont know why a medium class should get nearly the same mitigations as a heavy armor class, just by using some trait points for it.

[Hildilas]

I actually dont know why a medium class should get nearly the same mitigations as a heavy armor class, just by using some trait points for it.

Well because they made this game into a game which requires high mits. They said themselves that mits>bpe. So to be a competetive Tank we need to get more mits SOMEWHERE. Through, traits, or gambits or whatever.
As we've seen the self healing tank is not welcome in this game...This would have been the other option.
OR maybe give the warden very high inc healing. Through traits and higher values through our shield spear gambit line. That would also help without only buffing mits. Actually I'd really like that.


Anyways. I was just saying that the hunter is not a tank but is technically able to reach higher mits outfight than a warden tank.

Edit: p.s.: Look..it is not like I just really want them to buff us a few % mits or ~20%inc healing. I'd also like to see more creative solutions. BUT SSG does neither have the time nor the manpower to change the warden into sth that is written down in this thread.
We need to keep it simple. So my BIGGEST wish is that we are getting longer defensive buffs. 1 min. Second place: Panic and 2-3 effects taken by first aid, shorter cd on steadfast. And 3rd place. ANYTHING that grant more survivability. Mits or inc healing or even more % morale bonus. This MIGHT look cheap but we cannot demand too much.

[Oelle]

I actually dont know why a medium class should get nearly the same mitigations as a heavy armor class, just by using some trait points for it.

I agree and dont see a reason why hunters should have that 8% mits trait.
Especially as a ranged medium armour class.
Melees (burg and warden) should have higher mits than ranged (hunter) with same armour class, not the other way round.

[Hildilas]

I agree and dont see a reason why hunters should have that 8% mits trait.
Especially as a ranged medium armour class.
Melees (burg and warden) should have higher mits than ranged (hunter) with same armour class, not the other way round.

On top of that the state that medium classes cannot get as high as heavys would still be the case even If they WOULD buff the warden another 5% on top of the 5% through blue line. That would be 70% infight with EVERYTHING up which is more diffifult on a warden than on any other tanks. If they gave us longer def buffs it would also be okay to just give us more mits % through gambits.

A guard/beo gets to 75%-80% right? WITHOUT the raid set. I am not quite sure that's just what I read and heard. So that means that a warden would not reach the "main" heavy tank (guard) anyways.
Not sure about the capt tbh but he is an (off) tank by coincidence anyway. He is a supporting class actually...

[Aelbryht]

Apologies if this isn't quite the right thread, but with the next big expansion on the way I figured it was worth posting my thoughts on ways we could improve our current Warden tanking situation, while still trying to maintain the unique flavour of the class. There's a lot of ground to cover so here goes:


1. Quality of life improvements


Buff icons

To start with I would invite you to look at the picture below and tell me which buffs I have active:



I've overdone it a bit just to show off how ridiculous it is, but this is the list of buffs I'm aware of which all share that same 'Shield-Bash' icon:

Shield-Bash - Block (Sh gambit builder)
Enduring Shieldwork (Sh-Sp line, Persevere)
Enduring Advanced Shieldwork (Sh-Sp line, Safeguard)
Enduring Expert Shieldwork (Sh-Sp line, Celebration of Skill)
Enduring Armour Use (Sh-Fi line, Impressive Flourish)
Enduring Advanced Armour Use (Sh-Fi line, Maddening Strike)
Enduring Expert Armour Use (Sh-Fi line, Dance of War)
Enduring Tactical Armour Use (Sh-Fi line, Conviction)
Enduring Evasion (Fi-Sh line, War-Cry)
Enduring Advanced Evasion (Fi-Sh line, Brink of Victory)
Enduring Expert Evasion (Fi-Sh line, Surety of Death)

You've got no visual indication of which line of buffs it is, which tier of buff is applied or whether you successfully applied your gambit chains or not. It surely can't be that difficult to switch these over so that they use a representative icon from each gambit chain? And you could either add a number or a series of notches to the icons to highlight which tier the buff is from. I'll return to chaining in a later section since there's a lot more to say about it.


Battle Preparation

This is such a needless skill and would be handled much more effectively by making the 9 gambit mastery skills always be available to us out of combat. Further to that, it would make sense to strip out any attacking/buffing element of the Sh-Sh, Sp-Sp and Fi-Fi gambits so that they could also be used out of combat to gain the potency effect and slot a gambit in to your Battle Memory before engaging. Not having access to the basic Prepare Shield/Prepare Spear/Prepare Fist single builders wouldn't be too big a loss in comparison I feel.


Recovery/Quick Recovery

It is already quite painful when you make an error in building a gambit, and you often need to take out 2 builders from your panel not just 1 or all of them, so it's hard to see why these need any cooldown at all? If it really is required for performance reasons or similar then perhaps just 1 second is plenty instead of 3?



2. Tanking Buffs


Gambit Chaining

Given the short buff durations (30s or 40s with the pre-imbuement legacies), gambit chaining often goes out the window since there simply isn't enough time to consistently work through them all and keep on top of the other demands of your tanking rotation (they also scale pretty badly but that's another story). To try and solve that I would suggest breaking up the chaining concept into two aspects, chaining and refreshing.


Chaining

As you can see from the image below you have extra bonuses that apply if you work your way up through the gambits and execute one of the finishing skills:



My suggestion is to widen the chaining concept so that it doesn't matter what order you complete the gambits in, as long as you have completed one gambit from each tier within the 16 seconds available. It would only apply to the length 2, 3 and 4 gambits, with the length 5 gambits acting as 'refreshers' instead as discussed below.

So to take the Sh-Sp, 'Shieldwork' gambit line as an example, it wouldn't matter what order you complete Persevere, Safeguard and Celebration of Skill in as long as you complete all three within 16 seconds. If you do so successfully you would gain the above 'Finishing Blow - Persevere' bonus as a stand-alone icon and buff, with the Restoration healing bonus stripped out and the Incoming Healing bonus increased to say 6%/8%/10%/etc. as appropriate to make up for it.

In the same vein, with the 'Armour Use' line, you could complete Impressive Flourish, Maddening Strike and Dance of War in any order and get the Finishing Blow buff, with an Outgoing Healing bonus used to replace the Conviction bonus currently applied. Oh and the Critical Defence and Mitigation buffs would actually apply correctly since they aren't currently functional.

The 'Evasion' line would be a bit more tricky since it has a Desolation-specific bonus but I'm sure we could find a way around it or a suitable replacement.


Refreshing

It's a simple idea really, but to tie in with the above change to chaining we would have our length 5 gambits refresh the durations of all lower tier buffs that are active in their relevant line. So if you fire off Restoration for example then you could in theory refresh the duration of Enduring/Advanced/Expert Shieldwork and the 'Finishing Blow - Persevere' chaining buff. Same goes for Conviction and Desolation in their respective lines.

To me it would be a big improvement since you would have a 30s/40s window after firing off the first gambit in a chain in which to use the length 5 refresher to sustain the buffs you've applied, so there would be much more scope for stacking our self buffs instead of just ignoring a big chunk of them.


Defiant Challenge

Given the above, it makes sense to re-establish Defiant Challenge as the length 5 gambit of the Fi-Sp line. With the following adjustments in mind:


Mitigations

The 5% physical and tactical mitigation buffs would be swapped over to Shield Mastery and Shield Tactics as almost everyone has proposed. It's such a no-brainer at this point.


Incoming Damage Reduction

To replace the mitigations buff you would instead have the following new series of Fi-Sp line buffs:

Precise Blow: -2% Incoming Damage
Piercing Strike: -2% Incoming Damage
Spear of Virtue: -2% Incoming Damage

Finishing Blow - Precise Blow: -4% Incoming Damage and some other suitable bonus(es). Some form of threat reflection? On-hit reductions to the mobs outgoing damage?

Defiant Challenge: -10% Incoming Damage

All of the above with 30s or 40s (with fist buff legacy) durations to remain consistent with other lines.

The reasoning for this being that we can peak at 65% mitigations from our self-buffs (and it takes time to establish this figure), and can get an extra 6% from fellowship buffs (as per Krindel's post here), so we would be receiving 29% of incoming damage from both physical and tactical sources. Higher than all but the Beorning's susceptibility to tactical damage. A peak of -10% incoming damage reduction would only bring that damage received down to 26.1% which is still not competitive. If that peak is -20% instead as above then the damage received drops to 23.2% which is far more in line with the other tanking options available. Bear in mind that this doesn't factor in the panic skills available to each class, and it also requires completing two full gambit chains to firstly establish the buffs to mitigations and then to incoming damage reduction as I've suggested.


Forced Taunts

To borrow slightly from the mechanic already in place for the interruption lockouts of The Boot/Onslaught/Wall of Steel, shown in the image below:



I would propose that at least one or more of the other Fi-Sp line gambits is given a 5 second forced taunt, so we would have single-target melee/ranged taunts and an aoe taunt as options to fall back on. With suitable cooldowns of course.


Mastery Skills

Since we build up the stacking 'A Warden's Skill' partial block/parry/evade buffs when using normal gambit builders in blue line, I thought it could be a nice touch for the mastery skills to build a complimentary buff 'A Warden's Mastery', which would boost partial avoidance mitigations %.

To illustrate it with examples, a use of the Sh-Sp mastery skill would grant +1% partial block mitigation and +0.5% partial parry mitigation for 20 seconds. Fi-Sh would give +1% partial evade mitigation and +0.5% partial block mitigation, Sp-Sp would give +2% partial parry mitigation and so on. Capping out at +3%/+6%/+9% for each avoidance mitigation or whatever is deemed appropriate.



Okay so this is already pretty long so I'll stop there (holy #### there is a lot wrong with the class ), but do the above ideas sound reasonable? Do they build upon the style of tanking that you associate with the Warden class?