Warden Changes and Feedback

[Thurallor]

Keeping track of all different bleeds is still a bit of a pain, especially for spear gambits. This wasn't a problem in the past, because all bleeds had the same duration; it'd be nice to have a better view now that we actually need to think about what to refresh. Plugins are a thing, but I like to think they shouldn't be required.

Plugins can't actually help you there, unfortunately, because target effects tracking is buggy in the Lua API. Plugin support is not a priority for the company, and nobody currently on staff wants to spend their weekends fixing the bugs.

[ryanlotro12]

Running Blue line warden and running out of power in ~30 seconds with only using self heals rotation 21 - 212 - 2121 - 21212. Character panel says I have 1,040 power per second regen in combat and I am currently at 64k power (18k fate). Granted, it looks like the self heals cost the most power of all the gambits which doesn't quite make sense. My understanding was that tanks wouldn't have to power manage.

Each mastery is about 1k power cost and gambit builders are ~500 each, so just building up the gambits alone will counter the in-combat regen. Then using the gambits themselves means you will run out very fast. Unless the goal was to force dark before the dawn to be required in the rotation. For an extreme example, Celebration of Skill looks to be the biggest power cost skill at 9,360 power but if you add in the cost of just building the gambit it can cost upwards of 12,049 (shield bash + spear and shield + spear and spear). With the masteries you can use this skill in ~1 second. So net loss of 11k power on 1 gambit.

Maybe make masteries and gambit builders not cost power to use considering the skills themselves already cost power, it just adds to it unnecessarily.

I feel like the only people who are going to enjoy the power changes are loremasters. The game in general will require a ton of balance when everyone can no longer spam skills on cd like we have been for decades

[andys90]

Just a few quick observations I made. Haven't had time to go more in depth yet. Probably worth saying this was all at level 75 so may not hold true for cap levels.

Both red line and blue line has a pair of traits that are just duplicates of each other.
For red line. Vital points and tempered spear tips. Vital points is +20% bleed damage and Spear Tips is +25% to the power attack line. But the power attack line at the only 'bleeds', and so are the only ones affected by Vital Points anyway. Seems redundant to be doubling up on traits that do the same thing. If Vital points was Changed to improve *all* DoTs that would be a nice change.
In blue line we have the same issue with the Persevere and Indefatigable traits. One is a boost to the persevere line and one boost shield gambit line healing. But since the persevere line are the only shield gambit heals they are overlapping duplicates again.

Another thing I noticed is that the DoTs applied by ranged versions of gambits are stronger. Sometimes by as much as 20% or even more. And this is while traited for +10% melee damage and *not* traited for ranged damage.
(Have now seen that this is in the known issues)

The heal for Celebration of Skill is weaker than the initial heal of Restoration. Which makes it seem kind of pointless. This was the case when traited both red and blue. (Regarding the known issue of gambit healing being too powerful atm. Not at 75. Other than the persevere bug, heals are roughly on par with where they were on live.)

The spear-fist AoE gambits do less direct damage than the Fist Shield used to. So rather than having improved burst AoE it's actually less. Also unclear why unseen strikes has only 3 targets, making it harder to 'cash out' on a group. The reduction of targets and radius for Brink of Víctory is disappointing too.

At levl 75 power did not seem to be an issue at all. Compare to fire RK which ran out very quickly even with the highest regen food, without food my power hardly dipped.

Also agree with other posters that the 'cash out' of AoE needs to be higher, and that the advanced technique for recklessness in red line seems pointless. If it started with 3 length gambits going up to 5 maybe,. But length 2 are just not worth it.

[Solkadas]

The one quality of life thing I'd like to request, if possible, is some way to track advanced technique on the UI. With how much the warden has to keep track of, it can sometimes be a pain to try and remember just how many stacks you have at the current moment.

[Elwha]

Wants

• Shield Tactics Gambit: Why not bring the stun immunity component back to either line? (it's not like we have an in-combat sprint )

This is working actually. Sorry for the confusion.

[thymos]

The one quality of life thing I'd like to request, if possible, is some way to track advanced technique on the UI. With how much the warden has to keep track of, it can sometimes be a pain to try and remember just how many stacks you have at the current moment.

Echoing this, it'd be nice if all of our DoTs had clear and distinct icons so we could easily tell them apart. The Power Attack line all look the same, and they look the same as the spear DoT proc, and the Martial Fury proc icons on the Precise Blow line also mirror random gambits like Brink of Victory for example when proc'd by Precise Blow.

[thymos]

I agree with this point on Brink of Victory. I've relied greatly on the range and 360° area of attack of Brink of Victory when gathering groups as a tank. It is a significant loss to have its range down to nearly half and no longer a 360° attack. The experience is far better as a player when it uses the range and target attributes of War-cry than those of Surety and Desolation.

Wait, the range of Brink of Victory has been reduced? And it's not 360? This would be a catastrophic change, it completely ####s how you grab targets. This is like the definition of game breaking, I honestly cannot begin to think of any reason for such a change other than intentionally ruining gameplay.

[Elwha]

Some further thoughts. When you ramp up AT, gambit buffs and use these together you can certainly produce a respectable(not currently competitive) bursting string. I think the issue here is the lead time. Other DPS classes are bursty at the ready. Here, our burst is locked behind a slew of gambits and rotations and tracking. I think most Warden mains want that challenge but perhaps our efforts should be more highly rewarded. Recklessness has been a non-factor for too long. One option to consider might be to replace Critical Rating(or add) with Devastating Magnitude. All this ramp up with gambits and chains and AT at peak, should result in some BIG DEEPS. Magnitude will provide that boost.

[andys90]

Agree about bleed icons needing differentiation. Especially the spear line bleeds. Honestly at this point I don't care if you just stick a big 1 2 3 on them. I just want to be able to tell them apart.

Also I thought morale taps were being improved. baseline numbers seem no different. This is one of the areas that has needed attention for the longest and it's still a joke atm.

[thymos]

Some further thoughts. When you ramp up AT, gambit buffs and use these together you can certainly produce a respectable(not currently competitive) bursting string. I think the issue here is the lead time. Other DPS classes are bursty at the ready. Here, our burst is locked behind a slew of gambits and rotations and tracking. I think most Warden mains want that challenge but perhaps our efforts should be more highly rewarded. Recklessness has been a non-factor for too long. One option to consider might be to replace Critical Rating(or add) with Devastating Magnitude. All this ramp up with gambits and chains and AT at peak, should result in some BIG DEEPS. Magnitude will provide that boost.

As long as DoT damage is based on your stats when applied and not at the current moment effects like Recklessness and Way of the Fist are going to be inferior compared to other classes. Consider the first minute of combat, classes like Hunter hit their buffs and do significantly more damage immediately and those buff skills cool down as soon as possible so they get to use them more in a single fight. Now consider Warden, you don't have any Advanced Techniques that early so something like Way of the Fist is completely worthless, the later you use it the later it cools down, but then you finally do use it after say a minute but you've just spent 1 minute getting all of your DoTs up without this buff, they receive no benefit from this buff unless you reapply them with it on. Alternatively you could start with Recklessness but even that has a component of wastefulness as the effect while not worthless is still much weaker without Advanced Techniques to consume, but delaying using any buff just results in fewer usages over a long fight and more time spent putting DoTs up unbuffed. The way Advanced Techniques consuming buffs in Red line work currently makes the Warden ramp up even longer than it used to be since you effectively need to apply all of your DoTs twice now to achieve critical mass DPS. I would describe the design as completely contradictory.

Of course there's a few solutions here that are fairly simple...for example instead of buffing the damage of the Warden why not have Way of the Fist debuff the damage the enemy takes from the Warden instead? That way you aren't actually falling behind as much as the skill only becomes worthwhile when all of your DoTs are up. As for Recklessness...idk. That's a tough one because I think everyone really wants to use it to start with. Maybe have Advanced Techniques reduce its cooldown. I guess that would work. You wouldn't benefit from them at the start but as the fight goes on you'd get more uses in.

[OnnMacMahal]

- Battle Prep: I´m not 100% sure if I remember correct but didn´t you say that while you use gambits in Battleprep they shouldn´t have animations? Thats not the case at the moment.

This is referring specifically to your 3 primary builders. Up to now, using battle prep and then using 'Shield-bash' for example meant a lengthy animation. Actual gambits still have animations when Battle Prep is active, but the builders at least no longer do.

[OnnMacMahal]

Running Blue line warden and running out of power in ~30 seconds with only using self heals rotation 21 - 212 - 2121 - 21212. Character panel says I have 1,040 power per second regen in combat and I am currently at 64k power (18k fate). Granted, it looks like the self heals cost the most power of all the gambits which doesn't quite make sense. My understanding was that tanks wouldn't have to power manage.

Each mastery is about 1k power cost and gambit builders are ~500 each, so just building up the gambits alone will counter the in-combat regen. Then using the gambits themselves means you will run out very fast. Unless the goal was to force dark before the dawn to be required in the rotation. For an extreme example, Celebration of Skill looks to be the biggest power cost skill at 9,360 power but if you add in the cost of just building the gambit it can cost upwards of 12,049 (shield bash + spear and shield + spear and spear). With the masteries you can use this skill in ~1 second. So net loss of 11k power on 1 gambit.

Maybe make masteries and gambit builders not cost power to use considering the skills themselves already cost power, it just adds to it unnecessarily.

Your self-healing shield gambits are now your most power-hungry skills. That said, we'll be changing and refining power costs throughout Bullroarer, so any feedback like this is welcome.

For Bullroarer 2, builders will have no power costs, and masteries will drop down to the power cost builders presently have (~500 at level 140).

[OnnMacMahal]

Is it working as intended that traits in the yellow tree cost so much? For example "Piercing Javelins" acts as though it is a new skill, and the first rank costs 2 points. It's remarkable because a lot of the traits in this tree act this way and it seems very different compared to say Minstrel where it's only a handful of traits in Yellow that cost 2 or 3 points. And many of these aren't new skills at all but rather added effects to existing skills, which do not function like this for Minstrel or Brawler either afaik.

Also I will point out that spending 2 or 3 trait points on 1 rank of 1 trait only contributes 1 point into the branch. Is this also intended? Because with respect to all of the aforementioned, it seems very hard to get to the bottom of the yellow tree without giving up something essential.

Piercing Javelins is not WAI; it should only cost 1 point at rank 1.

The trait tree is definitely subject to change as well. It should more or less fall in line with the minstrel (where new mechanics also cost 2 points, but potency increases don't) but again, any feedback like this is welcome.

To your final question, other trait trees work similarly. That is, even if a trait costs 3 points, it only contributes 1 'progression' in the tree overall. We might need to reconsider this in light of passive trait trees (changing this across the board would dramatically reduce the cost of reaching traits deep in non-specialization trees on all classes).

[OnnMacMahal]

I think Defensive Strike, Deft Strike and Goad should be distinguished. Right now there is nothing different about them, other than the damage, which makes one strictly better and the other two useless. Maybe make them add a small buff to the next gambit used (the one that will go into battle memory) if it's the same type (Shield, Spear/Javelin or Fist).

I'll think about this. Basically all of their value differential right now is attached to which 2-of-a-kind masteries are off-cooldown depending on your rotation, but they could theoretically be differentiated further.

Similarly, Brink of Victory and Desolation are practically identical, with almost no difference. Desolation should be different (and better) to reflect the greater gambit length.
In most other gambit sequences, the length 4 and 5 gambits are generally distinguished such that there's a real choice.

The fact that these DoTs stack with each other (but not themselves) really carries most of the difference here. They do technically have increasing potency going up the chain, but optimal use of them will always be to stack them with each other rather than refreshing one of them.

Why do we need two buttons for Desperate Combat? Why can't it morph into the Desperate Spear/Shield/Fist ability while active?

For technical reasons, they cannot be the same quickslot/skill position. Originally, I had the sub-skill variants set as a flyout skill, but that would prevent you from binding it to a normal quickslot location.

Likewise, why not make Battle Prep always active when out of combat, and get rid of the button?

There's a complicated answer to this, behind the scenes. Suffice to say it has to be this way in order to function. It is annoying, but it's not possible to fix without blowing up all the class skills and fundamentally altering how gambits work.

The tooltip for Movement Training is wrong - it says +102%, +104%, etc but the effect is only +2%, +4%, etc.

This is known. It should be working correctly, if you read it without the '+' sign. This should be cleaned up before U35 goes sout.

It would save confusion if the new gambits were granted to players of the appropriate level, rather than needing to visit a trainer.

Absolutely. New skills will be autobestowed and your trait trees will be reset when these changes go live.

[OnnMacMahal]

[*]Spear Gambits should have more burst, main hand/melee, less DoT DPS. Push DoT DPS to Fist Gambits.

Your Spear DoTs are restricted to Power Attack - Unerring Strike. Both other spear lines deal stronger immediate damage. While I agree with your point, conceptually, the power attack line has existed for so long that I think moving it to a fist sequence would mostly confuse people without offering much gain.

[*]Recklessness Skill: Critical Rating needs a boost for each AT level, especially at tier 3. x2 perhaps

I'm definitely open to adjusting these values, but I'd like to see more data from using it in practice before making significant adjustments.

[*]Rapid Techniques: Duration needs a slight increase for each AT level, especially at tier 3(something like 25-30 seconds total) to allow for the engagement of other AT skills and rotation.

This was changed before Bullroarer 1; it no longer consumes AT, so it can be easily paired with other cooldown abilities.

[*]Desolation Gambit: Why not bring the fear component back to either line? (do you even know how many lone freeps I save from certain death because of this back in the day )

The fear is a little fun, but often had a negative impact for tanks. It was unreliable, frustrating when it sent your current target out of range, and occasionally caused melee mobs to step away and frontal your group.

[*]Shield Tactics Gambit: Why not bring the stun immunity component back to either line? (it's not like we have an in-combat sprint )

Shield Tactics still gives you a 10s SI. I also encourage you to take a look at the Adroit Ambush trait in yellow.

[Sindhol]

I'll think about this. Basically all of their value differential right now is attached to which 2-of-a-kind masteries are off-cooldown depending on your rotation, but they could theoretically be differentiated further.

I think differentiating Potency gambits when all the other chains have been standardized to the point of stupidity is a bad idea. The priority should be to make e.g. Brink, Surety, and Desolation meaningfully distinct (idem for all the other gambits). The Potency gambits could be consolidated into one gambit for all anyone cares.

The fact that these DoTs stack with each other (but not themselves) really carries most of the difference here.

That's not a difference. That's just having something that scales to t3.

Your Spear DoTs are restricted to Power Attack - Unerring Strike. Both other spear lines deal stronger immediate damage. While I agree with your point, conceptually, the power attack line has existed for so long that I think moving it to a fist sequence would mostly confuse people without offering much gain.

The difference between spear and fist is one of damage type, not one of skill type. Wardens are about damage-over-time in both cases. They inflict physical damage with spear gambits (the bleed-themed melee weapon) and light damage over time with fist gambits. Damage types are an under-used mechanic. Maybe you could do something with that, or builder bonuses, or Assailment gambits, instead of gambit chains?

I'm definitely open to adjusting these values, but I'd like to see more data from using it in practice before making significant adjustments.

It's abundantly clear from the tooltip that the amount of critical rating is so small as to be nearly insignficant. You can work that out by comparing to the crit rating cap.

The fear is a little fun, but often had a negative impact for tanks. It was unreliable, frustrating when it sent your current target out of range, and occasionally caused melee mobs to step away and frontal your group.

Oh no, the skill has a downside! Better remove it! Or, y'know, make it a trait, so you can choose not to have it? Eru knows we're lacking for interesting traits after your un-inspired rework. Or, since gambit chains are a big deal now, you could make it a gambit chain bonus. Lots of options to have that fear in a way that allows people to avoid the drawbacks.

You removed the fear because it didn't fit your vision of gambits doing only one thing. Seriously. Don't even pretend you have another reason.


By the by--there is no trace of learning gambits by number of icons on BR. All the gambits at the trainer have a specific level at which they unlock. If you've decided to drop that idea [of learning all 2-icon gambits first etc.], I think it constitutes taking feedback, which would make me happy (in addition to generally being a good thing).

[Elwha]

Your Spear DoTs are restricted to Power Attack - Unerring Strike. Both other spear lines deal stronger immediate damage. While I agree with your point, conceptually, the power attack line has existed for so long that I think moving it to a fist sequence would mostly confuse people without offering much gain.

I wouldn't want the attack line moved to fist, that would def be confusing. I guess my point was, for simplicity purposes, please tone down spear DoT in favor of real burst(inital hit) DPS. The fist line is perfectly posistion to take advantage of hard-hitting light DoTs.

I'm definitely open to adjusting these values, but I'd like to see more data from using it in practice before making significant adjustments.

To make our DPS significant, we either need access to more burst DPS quickly or we need this ramp up(tiers) you've dev for us to produce huge results, hence the idea of using either crit or devastating magnitude. I like where you have gone with Way of the Spear but a +40% initial hit isn't enough. It needs to affect critical/dev hits = big numbers = big burst. I also wonder how "initial hit" plays with "melee damage". Does it stack? Merge? Overwrite? How does initial hit + melee damage work with crit as a formula?

"Some further thoughts. When you ramp up AT, gambit buffs and use these together you can certainly produce a respectable(not currently competitive) bursting string. I think the issue here is the lead time. Other DPS classes are bursty at the ready. Here, our burst is locked behind a slew of gambits and rotations and tracking. I think most Warden mains want that challenge but perhaps our efforts should be more highly rewarded. Recklessness has been a non-factor for too long. One option to consider might be to replace Critical Rating(or add) with Devastating Magnitude. All this ramp up with gambits and chains and AT at peak, should result in some BIG DEEPS. Magnitude will provide that boost."

This was changed before Bullroarer 1; it no longer consumes AT, so it can be easily paired with other cooldown abilities.

I was hoping the duration would be increased since you need time to start it, then start other skills(Reck/WoTS+anything else), and then gambit. You lose several seconds there. I'll test this again and report back.

The fear is a little fun, but often had a negative impact for tanks. It was unreliable, frustrating when it sent your current target out of range, and occasionally caused melee mobs to step away and frontal your group.

Fair point. Can it be added to the red line only?

Shield Tactics still gives you a 10s SI. I also encourage you to take a look at the Adroit Ambush trait in yellow.

Yes, thanks, I realize SI. The new Adroit Ambush is really nice but I don't understand why Critical Strike was removed. Ambush and Critical Strike went hand in hand. If somehow you could merge the two and have ambush turn into Critical Strike for a brief period that would be interesting. Also, an in combat Ambush + Critical Strike = (1) AT level earned. This would encourage mobile combat, the essence of the Warden class.

[thymos]

Wait, the range of Brink of Victory has been reduced? And it's not 360? This would be a catastrophic change, it completely ####s how you grab targets. This is like the definition of game breaking, I honestly cannot begin to think of any reason for such a change other than intentionally ruining gameplay.

Yep Brink of victory's radius is now more like Surety of Death...that is deeply upsetting.

[Plidak]

Shield line healing also buffs Conviction.

And what line is conviction .....
Shield spear/Shield fist = both shield line!
So dont call for nerfs just because smth is fixed

[Plidak]

The fear is a little fun, but often had a negative impact for tanks. It was unreliable, frustrating when it sent your current target out of range, and occasionally caused melee mobs to step away and frontal your group.

I wont agree here. Warden since day 1. NO ONE complain about fear from Desolation.
Skill IS/WAS? a nice way to AoE interupt, also a great way to take a breather for 2 sec. For that time, mobs dont move more than 2-3y away from tank so this is SO false "and occasionally caused melee mobs to step away and frontal your group."
I do respect most of the work you do on warden, but i dont see why in the same time you nerf perfectly working things ?
Some creep PM flood you with tears ? So far i dont see a creep complaining how op blue wrd 2 second fear is...
Pls consider reverthing this change back
Yes im no one but il be GLAD to see a single / single post where someone is complaining or even mentioning this 2 sec fear.

[EliEvent]

I agree that the fear need to stay, it is a huge relief for just a split second. Mobs never go far as the dots break the fear almost immediately, so it is really just a brief respite as well as a chance at an interrupt.

Also I don't see it mentioned here but related to the interrupt mentioned above, what happened to the daze on Boars Rush? I'd hope we could get a blue response to the reasoning behind that removal.

Also why do some ranged gambits have only a melee range? Why are they not actually available for use at ranged? You stated that all gambits would be have the same effects whether melee or ranged yet there are some which are only cast-able in melee range, I am not online at the moment, but IIFC - Brink of Victory and Surety of Death in ranged stance still show only melee range therefor not of any real use in assailment stance.

Are these things WAI or a bug?

[Hoppa_Joel]

Wow that chart....
i tHiNk tHiS gAvE mE a mIGrAinE....
dear oh dear... I already dislike my Warden.
Can you please work on a way to give us a "change class" token?
We have change race, please think about it?

I am seriously requesting, class change option,
I create characters for roleplay and story, and not nessasarily for the class options. When Warden came out, it was Shiny, new, and I was younger, with less health problems.
I am older now, with memory issues. As well as axiety when confronted with maths which I used to be okay with, So my warden has already been on a back burner as a character to play. Why dont I re-roll? Because that character has unique pets steeds, owns a premium house, and a kin house. It is too much to juggle and woudl be too much a loss to just let go of and reroll.
Warden has became too much for me, before this, and now it looks like I will just continue to blindly mash buttons and hope something happens when I do play him.

I realize warden is loved by many, and it isnt for everyone, thus, I plead this request that you can give us an option to buy a class change.
Thank you for your time
~Signed;
Sincerely, a hobbit, that wants a simple life maybe as a farmer, and occasional barroom brawler...
~Oloric

[FrauBlake01]

I haven't been on bullroarer so i comment only on what I see in the post or what is not mentioned there.
I am primarily - almost exclusively - interested in blue spec.
And I cannot speak for pvMp because the only time I ever visited the Ettenmoors was for the training dummies before dummies for housing were introduced,
(I would be the worst imaginable pvp'er most likely)

As my post count shows, I don't post very often.
But I am very passionate about the warden, it was the one thing I was looking for the most before Moria launched back in the days of the two trees, It has been and will always be my favorite class (tank spec, now blue only), no matter how much any dev butchers it.


My completely unordered and confused thoughts:


Both blue guardians and yellow captains get +5% to their main stat bolstered BPE (block) and +5% to their main stat half bolstered parry.
Guardians get the BPE stats they prefer for their block and parry responses while captains get an additional 8% evade with a 50% chance triggered by four skills that a captain constantly uses anyway.

Brawlers have +5% parry and +5% evade and a potential additional +10% parry on top with a tier 4 Innate Strength buff. (They do not have a BPE that is only bolstered by their main stat strength however.)

Beornings build up to 10% additional mitigation by simply using their combat skills - simple click skills.

All of them have a higher base mitigation through heavy armour.

Champions are a joke of a tank (imo) so I don't comment on them. They have pretty good - and fun - dps specs however. (Red being my personal favorite.)

Why don't wardens have a +5% at least to their main stat bolstered BPE evade ?
Why do do we have ridiculously little in our traits that makes our BPE go above the cap. (+2% parry and evade, compared to 5% block and parry and more for others, without drawbacks. We have traceries, but all other tanks have the same as well.)
Why do wardens still have a tradeoff with minus evade rating in the Stand Your Ground trait ? (makes me angry every time I look at the trait, no matter if it matters or not)
No other tank has a tradeoff in any of their BPE bolstering traits.
No other tank has to live with ratings instead of percentages (pushing them over the cap).
Why is block and parry for the squishiest of tanks only 2% (with the additional drawback to evade) at rank 5 while other tanks get +5% for traited BPE stats or as a passive tree bonus without ANY drawback ?
Why don't wardens become (way) more resilient than other tanks when they have to build up their defenses in combat when other tanks have most of their mitigations and avoidances passively and their emergency skills simple one-clickers without having any prerequisites ?
While heavy arnour tanks can almost reach the old 25% limit with traits and traceries, the squishiest of all tanks cannot.
(Personally I think the concept of a BPE tank died the day the caps were lowered anyway, but that is another topic.)

We still get no in-combat movement-speed buff, fine. We are probably too agile for that wearing only medium armour instead of heavy armour.

With upcoming changes to power for healers, warden will still be the "one we only take when no real tank is available" because healers don't want to burn all power at the beginning of a fight trying to keep the warden tank alive until all the warden's defenses are fully up while a guardian does not even need to use Guardian's Ward because its stats are high enough passively.
Having a tank which at best on par with other tanks after a long ramp-up time will NEVER work in the real world. Either the warden is up to the other tanks passively or underpowered when unbuffed but completely overpowered when fully ramp-up buffed, still having the requirement to constantly monitor and renew these buffs.

Is the 'vision' for the warden tank that of a gap-filler when no real tank - including the lore master bear - is available or when content is so 'hard' that a stationary red runekeeper tank is sufficient so that "we might bring the warden tank as well, could be sufficient for this content" ?


Some required (imo) changes:
- Forced March probably holds the top spot in the 'most annoying mechanic in the game' category and out of memory I cannot recall any other similarly unquality of life skill for any other class.
- With the effects removed, the double builder gambits (spear-spear, shield-shield, fist-fist) and their masteries can be removed altogether and replaced by a single click damage skill called 'Battle Memory' which triggers the battle memory effect (as currently known)
- The battle memory effect should stay up until out-of-combat for 9 seconds or until used up, and it should only accept 4- or 5-length gambits
(as an alternative to fixing lags, pings and /dev/null-swallowed UDP packets, to make it easier to avoid mess-ups)
- the new Battle Memory skill is usable at any time, giving some tiny bit of time to check if the desired gambit is built or if any spear, shield or fist went to digital Angband
- the damage of Battle memory is the same as the - buffed up from too low - now removed Deft Strike, Defensive Strike or Goad it replaces.
- Wardens need a separate corruption removal skill (potentially without damage) and Reversal should be removed. I don't want to have to go through an ouch-ouch-ouch-BIGOUCH sequence when trying to remove a boss reflect (even when masteries are not on cooldown, there is still a building time if it's a gambit, and the usual lags 'help' with messing up the gambit additionally)
- All mastery icons look almost the same, they should be colored with their part builder colors divided by a diagonal line, e.g. fist-shield would be yellow left-top and green bottom-right, it's only six icons after the removal of the potency gambits, so it should not take weeks for the graphical designer
- Fix stances, I should be able to start gambit building in ranged stance and continue AND finish in melee stance, requiring me to fully build and finish in ranged or vice-versa is stupid. I couldn't care less if my builder is a spear or a javelin.
- Fix our traceries, half of them are for what should only be supplementary skills, the javelin skills with their partially long cooldowns. (no other class has that many traceries for supplementary skills). (and in my view, damage traceries fix something that is broken in the class or spec, like the champion's Fear Nothing legacy was a fix for a broken skill for years)
- The gambit skill should never fire when there is no valid gambit prepared, e.g. after the removal of Reversal, the gambit should not fire when I try to build Androit Maneuvre but a lag ate my last spear. (Warden's Triumph would still fire as Androit Maneuvre however if the lag ate the final fist.)
- We could use a toggle to make the Fierce Resolve gambit line single target and stronger (Similar to the solo toggle the new red captain gets), because the whole line is absolutely useless against one or two enemies, no matter how much morale tap healing and damage are boosted with traits. Not that I have a lot of trust in the balancing of the current versions of these gambits to a fun-to-use state in the first place ...
- Defense ratings instead of percentages on defensive gambits are useless when you want defensive stats passively cappedv already if possible in any reasonable way

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

...

Skills

Blue (Skills)
Restorative Shield-work
This skill will require at least one Advanced Technique, and will convert all of your tiers of Advanced Technique into tiers of restorative shield-work for 10 seconds. While you have at least one tier remaining, you will gain +50% Partial Block chance. Each time you’re hit, one tier will be removed, healing you for 10% of your morale.

Desperate Combat
This skill will consume all of your Advanced Technique, transforming this skill for 30 seconds, and giving you a number of skill uses equal to the number of Advanced Technique consumed. Desperate Combat would have 3 possible versions (spear, shield, or fist) depending on your last gambit-type used. You could use more than one type of Desperate Combat skill by using different gambit types in between uses of Desperate Combat.
Desperate Spear: Strong AoE frontal damage, which applies a short debuff increasing the target’s incoming damage.
Desperate Shield: Weak AoE frontal damage, which heals you for each target hit.
Desperate Fist: Moderate AoE damage, which applies a force taunt (not a threat copy) to each target hit.

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

Don't we have enough ramp-up time with gambits and gambit chains already that we need an additional even longer ramp-up time just to use our new 'oh sh*t' skills to their full yet still lackluster effect ?
This is a terrible.
And why any cooldowns at all when we have a practically infinite ramp-up time anyway for the skills to be really effective ?
(The other thing that is infinite is my trust in the skills used without 5 points being so lackluster that nobody wants to use them anyway without first having 5 points up. Oh, I almost forgot that my trust in even the full effect use of these skills being much weaker than other tanks' cooldowns is infinite as well.)
Example Restorative Shield-work: A 10 second boost for 50% partial block is ridiculous. The effort required to have its full potential should make it last AT LEAST 60 seconds because it does take that long to build up for its full effect (and there is not much exaggeration in that claim.)

My suggestions would be:
- Make AT skills cost one AT point (and NEVER consume more than one) but make them ONLY USABLE when an AT point is available, having their FULL effect when used
- Let us still build up to 5 AT points
- Let us gain AT points from 4- or 5-length gambits regardless of them being part of a chain or not. This will allow a warden to enter battle with a 4 or 5 prepared and have a single AT point available almost at the start of a battle.
(What is battle prep good for anyway if we are now forced to build gambit chains? for 2-length gambits ? for the Fierce Resolve gambit line only ? ... which cannot even start a gambit chain since FR is 3 builders already.)

I know that there will again be the 'balancing lament' against such suggestions (but, but but ... but then, a warden could use all three in a row!)
However, which other tank is locked out of their - by default - full potential emergency skills just because they used another one shortly before ?
or do the other tanks' cooldowns get weaker just because they used another one at full strength shortly before ?
Other tanks do not even need ANY build up to have access to them at their FULL effect.
If we have to build up yet another thing besides gambits and gambit chains, we should ALWAYS be able to use our emergency skills after the build-up, which means
- usable only with an AT point, not without one
- consuming only a single AT point for the FULL effect
- chance to build up enough AT points (the suggested up to 5) to have a reserve (5 Gambit chains take long enough to execute for 5 AT points)
Then, and only then, can we even start talking about cooldowns.
(For blue spec, I assume, red spec can have the exact same not completely stupid mechanic.)

Amd how stupid is the "Desperate mechanic" ?
I cannot use the potentially needed emergency heal because the last gambit i used was Surety of Death ? Will surely make Death a Surety.

As tanks, we need survival for emergency skills rather than a strong or weak frontal aoe.
Should be reworked as three separate skill activated when an aT point is available and sharing a cooldown.

And For the Free Peoples ?
Instead of requiring only builders, as it is now, it will require myriads of builders to build gambits to build gambit chains to build AT points, 5 times, without consuming any of the AT points away with any of the other emergency skills.
How is this an improvement ? How ?
But hey, the gambits for the gambit chains for the AT points can be built with masteries on a long cooldown and a stupid mechanic to reduce these cooldowns.
And hey, building 5 AT points will take enough time for mastery cooldwons to come of naturally lots of times.
How is this an improvement ? How ?
But hey, now it takes 7.5 seconds now to fully build it up, in the future it will be more like 50 seconds to do the same ...
How is this an improvement ? How ?

The last thing we need is WoW rogue's combo point mechanic on top of what we already have.
if we need yet another mechanic on top, it should be like my suggestion or somebody else's even better suggestion, but not such utter nonsense.

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

Can't be serious, can you ?
Why the hell do builders only reduce the cooldowns of the masteries starting with the same builder icons ?
Don't we already have enough micro-mangement of micro-managed micro-managements for micro-managing micro-managements without such stupidity ?

Any builder should reduce ALL mastery cooldowns, regardless of the starting icon of the mastery.
(Could also possibly lead to lower server stress and give us less fist-shield-shield-fist "When I grow up, I wanna be a Desolation" War Cries with a "lag stomach" between the two shields that swallowed the fist, ideally in Battle Memory.)

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

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

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

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

This is utter BS.
Here we are again. Is this part of 'streamlining' gambit lines and gambit lines having only one effect ?
Why bother cleaning up other gambits/gambit chains when a new mess is introduced into another gambit chain ?
And why do we need yet more phys and tact mitigation from several different gambits when AlL should be in shield Mastery and Tactical Mastery ?
To have yet more ramp-up time and gain basically nothing from this so-called 'revamp' other than shifting mess around from one gambit or gambit line to another ?
(The more often I read it, the more it makes me angry.)

Suggestions:

- give us Evade passively (in the blue tree, like the Captain's passive parry buff in the yellow tree, but see my rant below), remove evade from the IF line completely
- remove tact and phys mitigation, we already have them in Shield Mastery and Shield Tactics and they should be nowhere else
- if anything, make the IF line the 'parry line' only, much like war cry currently is the 'evade line' and the persevere line is the 'block line' (partially at least) and Wall of Steel is (soon was) the parry 'line'.
This implementation is the same mess we already have, with the mess moved from one gambit to another gambit.
Why remove BPE boosts from other gambits when another mess is introduced into the Impressive Flourish line ? (Which is currently less of a mess than it will be with such changes.)
Introduce another mess just to have all lackluster BPE - rating instead of percentage - boosts in a shield line ?
Silly. Just like creating thousands of gambits just to have every potential permutation of builders covered (except those having two or more builders of the same color in succession, the ones which lags and /dev/null-swallowed server packets love to produce).

Gambit Chains and Advanced Technique
Gambit Chains
Gambit Chains will be staying with the class, but they will become a little more flexible. Completing a gambit chain will require using a three-gambit sequence: a 2-length gambit, followed by a 3-length gambit, and then completed by subsequently using a 4- or 5-length gambit. After beginning a gambit chain with a 2-length gambit, the following gambits in the chain will gain improved damage, healing, and buff durations.
These gambits could be any of the gambits available to you, and they will no longer need to be part of a specific gambit sequence. That means you could use Persevere, followed by Maddening Strike, followed by Spear of Virtue. Or you could use War Cry, followed by Combination Strike, followed by Warden’s Triumph. In this last case, both Combination Strike and Warden’s Triumph would benefit from the bonuses of being part of a gambit chain, and Warden’s Triumph would also grant you one count of Advanced Technique.
The only exception to this rule will be potency gambits (Deft Strike, Defensive Strike, and Goad) which will not count as beginning a gambit chain.

And I assume that using Impressive Flourish after using "War Cry, followed by Combination Strike", in order to prevent the parry boost from falling off, will reset the chain to the start. Right ? Right ?

Gambits

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

Now, if stances would do nothing but modify the gambit range (and having different passive boosts of course) instead of building different gambits, we would not be prevented from finishing a gambit started in ranged when swapping into melee. And we could clean up the gambit skills page in the skills UI, reducing the amount of gambits displayed there. (Although it seems one of the rare places in the game where devs seem to know of the "ORDER BY name ASC" SQL clause. Should better be ordered by gambit line, then name imo but that is a different topic ;-)
Stance boosts should be enough to encourage switching to melee instead of staying in range stance the whole time. (ICMR seems pretty encouraging for a tank)

(Now imagine if a hunter could only use its melee skills when in melee and none of the bow skills, just as in the old times ...)

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

I am sure this is a typo and it should really be

Shield Tactics
This trait will bring you on par with some of the heavy armour tanks:
+5% Parry
+5% Evade
which can both bring the warden above the 15% cap while stupid ratings cannot.

War Cry
This trait gives 2-10% fist gambit damage.
...
Impressive Flourish
This trait has been removed.

I guess anything - including cosmetics - is better than what we currently have in these spots ...


Why don't we get Grand Master Weapon training back in the yellow tree ?

A blue warden wants it for the sword parry buff and we only lost it with the introduction of trait trees which was little more than a lazy (and in some instances brainless; reference: Fellowship Maneuvre buff for blue burglar) carry-over from the old system to trees.
(And warden was the most neglected class in the Helm's Deep beta already when it had no more dev at all because she needed to help finishing the Big Battle mess instead of working on the most unimportant class.)
Red wardens might like the spear bleed but blue wardens miss the free sword parry boost.

We can get JoDF back now with the removal of the yellow line, why not GMWT ?
Red warden could get something better instead and we don't need a lot of the new cr*p in the new yellow tree anyway.
(If my memory is correct, we got it for collecting pages in the old system. or was it with the Moria quest ? Does not matter, both of the two old tank specs could get it ... well, yellow was no longer a tank spec after Orion was done with the warden during Isengard ;-)


But what do I rant, reading some other posts, it seems like warden tanks are no real tanks anyway because according to the "power changes post", tanks should not have to deal with power management on top of everything else ... which seems not to be the case for wardens "tanks".


Will blue spec get a UI text element popping up, saying:
"Huge damage spike incoming in 60 seconds. The spike requires a full 5 AT point emergency skill to even have a small chance surviving it. Start building your 5 AT-points from gambit-chains built from gambits built from gambit builders NOW! Good luck to not screw up a single one. Oh, and we hope you don't need any other emergency gambit in between to prevent a defensive buff to fall off. How about freeing up your fellowship/raid slot for a useful tank like Guardian or Captain that are both much easier to heal for our new power-constrained healers anyway?" ?

Or:
"Medium damage spike incoming in 35 seconds. 3 AT points could be enough. Start building at least 3 AT-points from gambit-chains built from gambits built from gambit builders NOW! 4 would be better and safer however. Good luck to not screw up a single one. Oh, and we hope you don't need any other emergency gambit in between to prevent a defensive buff to fall off. How about freeing up your fellowship/raid slot for a useful tank like Guardian or Captain that are both much easier to heal for our new power-constrained healers anyway?" ?

Or a dialog popping up when entering a raid instance with a blue-specced warden:
"We encountered a Guardian/Brawler/Beorning with a blue spec and/or a Captain with a yellow spec of the same level on your account on this server. Do you want to relog now or be kicked from the raid and ported back to the Prancing Pony ? Your real tank will automatically re-join the raid and be ported to the raid instance once logged in. Click OK now to log out or Cancel to leave the raid and be ported back to the Prancing Pony."

Will the fellowship/raid get a /say message from the boss:
"Everybody stop for a moment ... Well, sorry DPS folks, all your gearing-up effort is for naught, you cannot bring me down any faster because we all need a fixed ramp-up time of 45 seconds for your warden tank to build up its five points of Advanced Techniques for my big hits before phase two."
Followed by a /tell of the boss to the warden tank with: "By the way: Good luck with lags ... harharharhar!"
Followed by the boss sending a /tell to all fellowship members except the warden: "I'm not of the good kind usually ... but may the Valar AND the Maiar protect you ..."


Altogether, this 'revamp' is only shuffling some mess to different places (Impressive Flourish line), little to no consolidation, little to no cleanup and introducing another mess by introducing potency points built from gambit chains built from gambits built from gambit builders and sometimes masteries, and with Shield Up and Readied Blade introducing even more gambits when we already have too many.


Seems like little to none of a blue warden's major issues - defensive ramp-up time, squishiness especially when unbuffed compared to all other tanks, the missing emergency skills, the missing quick single target taunt - are addressed. At least not in a somewhat reasonable way.
Instead, with the introduction of yet another, even worse and even more stupid, ramp-up mechanic, blue warden stays a mess at best which no healer wants to be responsible for, no matter how sophisticated and skilled the ramp-up is performed.
And on top, we also loose our tiny survival helpers, the builder morale taps.

I assume that it is not much better for red line warden which I know very very little (and which I have too little interest in to care much about, sorry).


I don't remember after which update it was when out of my characters (all classes except brawler because it did not exist back then), warden felt the squishiest of all, including all light armour classes and hunters. it was probably because my hunter and light armour characters killed the same mobs way faster while my blue warden melted away due to not having ANY defense by default in the defensive spec and the self heals being a joke, all while doing little more than tickling the enemy mobs.
(And that although level, gear and gear level was roughly the same for all classes, and if anything, my wardens always get the first pick on better gear.)


I am disappointed that a 'big revamp' is so disappointing and is caught up in introducing yet more complex new mechanics instead of fixing the blue warden's major issues.
And I am sure we will have bugs that 'will be fixed eventually'.
(With 'eventually' meaning 'whenever we have nothing better to do, it is the most unimportant class after all'.)

There have been many suggestions in the forums over several years because blue warden has hardly ever been in a really competitive spot compared to other tanks. (Where is the long asked-for single target direct skill taunt ?)
Instead, we get an even more complex 'build builders with builders built by builders' mechanic that nobody ever asked for.
The only thing missing would be a +5% spear-gambit damage passive for the blue trait line ... oh wait ...

Captain get's a real revamp -the badness of which I have yet to see -, warden gets a "let's do it now so that we are done with it and can say 'we did it'! ".

One does not simply tank with gambits only, some things just have to be direct skills, like taunts, corruption purges or emergency buttons. Just like every class now has some kind of self healing and a debuff removal skill. Which was not the case in the Age of the Trees.
Or you balance all encounters around the "one tank that cannot do anything in less than 10 seconds ... at best".


It seems to be dangerous to stare at the warden's gambit list in the skill panel for too long. Makes you want to build gambits from gambits built by gambits built from gambits built with gambit builders.
You stare at the list, and after a while, Gambit-Morgoth stares back at you, comes back from the Void, riding on top of Gambit-Ungolianth and carries you off to Gambit-Utumno and puts you to work, to breed orcs from orcs bred by orcs from orcs bred by orcs bred by orcs from orcs bred .....!
Forever!
Poor OnnMacMahal ....


PS: Thurallor's "evil purposes" will surely be a plugin that fixes stuff that should be in the game but is not: complete tooltips and skill documentation, which are missing from ALL classes, not only the warden, to be fair.

PPS: I apologize for many grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, and for most likely inappropriate language in some places. I still hope most parts of my writing are understandable.

[Thurallor]

FrauBlake01 your post was hilarious and insightful, 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. These class revamps are mini-projects that have to be staffed in advance, and once those man-hours run out, the human resources get reallocated elsewhere, and we live with what we have (with maybe a trickle of bug fixes, if we're lucky).

I second Hoppa_Joel's request for some kind of purchasable class-change option. (cf. my previous proposal of an option to choose a new class, return to level 1, but not lose credit for previous grinds, e.g. deeds & virtues -- subject to level-specific caps).

I don't want to learn to play "new warden". If I'm going to learn a new class, it will be a class with a real payoff at the end of the learning curve -- a tank class which, when played well, will be welcomed as a valued contributor in high-tier raids. (That's what I thought I was choosing when I chose warden.) However, I'm not going to start a new character from scratch and have to redo the thousands of hours of grind. Who is to say if I did that, the rug wouldn't be pulled out from under me with a nerf of that new class?

[Constrictions]

Some really interesting changes here. I need to think about them some more, but I like a lot of the decisions.

Here's a couple of concerns:
- What is happening to wardens BPE/Partial's? Warden BPE has been a core component of their defenses, and this has severely lacked for a long time, particularly since they came to rely on gambits and builders providing rating bonuses. Historically, warden mitigations largely came from having very high levels of BPE as part of their stat scaling. It is nice to see the passive bonuses being removed from gambits and builders, because this put bad incentives on the playstyle of wardens - forcing a particular meta when tanking mobs. However, there is no indication that Wardens are getting big buffs to their BPE as these rating buffs are being removed. I fear that this will negatively impact their tanking identity. Evade in particular looks like it is still going to be basically zero.

- Despite disagreeing with a very large amount of what he wrote, I second Frau's concern that many of the tanking traits Wardens have require costs that do not make sense, especially compared with the tanking meta. Other tanks get better benefits to their defences in their tanking lines than Wardens, despite having far superior passive mitigations. It makes no sense. Wardens should be head and shoulders above other tanks in the BPE and partial BPE department in the same way heavy armour is head and shoulders above in armour mitigations. IT is the only tool they have that allows them to survive the beginning of big encounters, while they are supposed to wait for self heals to kick in. It is not something that they should need to spend time ramping up in order to merely become competitive as tanks.

- With Assailment gambits becoming a ranged mirror of melee gambits, it seems to me there is a risk that the warden may end up becoming a range DPS. Javelin DPS rating is way higher, so DoT and initial damage will always scale higher with javelin gambits. The increased animation speed in determination stance has historically not made up for this.

- Do wardens no longer have a single target morale tap? If so, I strongly urge you to reconsider this.

- It is sad to see the AoE fear utility taken from desolation

- It is sad to see the interupts removed from onslaught and wall of steel. Spammable interupts have been a strong part of wardens identity for a long time. I urge you to reconsider changing this.

- I also agree with Frau that now that assailment is taken away as a unique 'line', it would make sense to allow us to continue building gambits across stance changes. Changing stance could be made to change any spear icons to javelin in the builder and vice versa. This would be a cool quality of life change.

- I also agree with Frau that BPE rating bonuses are silly, and that these should be replaced with % bonuses that give wardens an advantage over other tanks. I disagree with almost everything else he wrote, and think he has some serious misconceptions about how the class should be played.

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?