Quality of Life Adjustments

[PreemptiveRegret]

OnnM or whoever, please consider the following changes.

1) Battle Preparation should last longer.
2) Potency should last longer and not expire out of combat.
3) Forced March should persist like Hunter's Find the Path does in combat so you don't need to constantly reactivate it.
4) Our ranged Auto-Attack range should be increased to match the range of Javelin gambits, it is currently lower.
4.5) Also the Fist builder should have a 30 range too. Without baseline Jav skills it's harder to pull mobs, this would help. Would be nice if the +range trait affected this too.
5) Rapid Techniques should automatically give you Potency. (lowest priority but I like the idea)

I'm surprised none of these or similar changes made it in with the recent revamp because the restrictions on these skills don't contribute anything positive to your gameplay. Instead it's so extremely frustrating to have time your Battle Prep and Potency correctly for each pull and having to suffer the whims of uncertain NPC dialogue length, other players hesitating, other players jumping the gun, etc. No other class in the game has this kind of precasting requirements for pulls. I honestly think I've developed Goad anxiety with how important it is now for Spear of Fate and/or Warden's Triumph at the start of pulls, and it makes me really unhappy each time I miss the Potency window and I hate constantly having to spam Battle Prep on top of this and having to time the two (really 3, because you need Prep and Goad for Potency) all together exactly right for what is effectively like a 3s window of viability. This is all just in Red line mind you, in Blue it's even worse because you're managing all of your Shield gambit buffs on top of Battle Prep and Potency. Can we please get something to ameliorate the burden of precasting for pulls? Even if you want to keep pre-buffing, the window for some of these things shouldn't be so very small.

[LagunaD2]

I've always thought it would be a big improvement to make gambits behave like normal, clickable, hot-keyable abilities while out of combat.

Unfortunately, it seems SSG doesn't have the technical mojo to do anything that fancy.

In the last beta, OnMM said it's impossible to make Battle Prep a passive buff while out of combat, which would be another nice improvement.

A third possibility, which is probably also beyond their capabilities, would be for certain buff durations to stop ticking when out of combat.

I agree that the pre-casting problem has only gotten worse with this update, and it's a major buzz-kill.

[Regero]

I don't see the reasoning behind points 1,2, and 4. I agree with point 3, OnnMacMahal's exact quote in regards to this particular issue was "Sure, why not". Maybe the change just didn't make it in, but given how much was done with this update, I'm neither surprised nor willing to point fingers. The Warden is a class the devs have largely avoided touching since Helm's Deep and so they have languished and become out-dated as the game evolved around and away from them. I think OMM really worked hard and knocked it out of the park with this one; if the Forced March change didn't make it through, I'm not really bothered.

What do you mean about having to "time your Battle Prep and Potency correctly for each pull"? If you are along to DPS, you really only need to prep Wardens Triumph, hitting Battle Prep every 15 seconds if your group is just standing around smoking pipeweed. You can hit Battle Prep again to refresh the duration, it's very minor upkeep. Why are you so worried about Potency? You can utilize Battle Memory/Potency extremely quickly by using one of the three dedicated Masteries. As for tanking, the increased duration of our defensive buffs, across the board mind you, has helped a lot more than I ever imagined. Buffs now only need to be refreshed every, what, 80 seconds? That's nothing and you can easily keep up all of your buffs, heals, and taps, and still have time to wonder "what should I do now?"

I'm not trying to be obstinate or elitist, I simply don't follow (apologies, again) anything in your post.

[LagunaD2]

As a tank, there are six buffs you should have active before entering combat (if I haven't forgotten any), plus a pre-built opener like Resounding Challenge.

That is tedious to do repeatedly, and annoying for up to 11 other people to need to constantly wait for.

[PreemptiveRegret]

I don't see the reasoning behind points 1,2, and 4. I agree with point 3, OnnMacMahal's exact quote in regards to this particular issue was "Sure, why not". Maybe the change just didn't make it in, but given how much was done with this update, I'm neither surprised nor willing to point fingers. The Warden is a class the devs have largely avoided touching since Helm's Deep and so they have languished and become out-dated as the game evolved around and away from them. I think OMM really worked hard and knocked it out of the park with this one; if the Forced March change didn't make it through, I'm not really bothered.

What do you mean about having to "time your Battle Prep and Potency correctly for each pull"? If you are along to DPS, you really only need to prep Wardens Triumph, hitting Battle Prep every 15 seconds if your group is just standing around smoking pipeweed. You can hit Battle Prep again to refresh the duration, it's very minor upkeep. Why are you so worried about Potency? You can utilize Battle Memory/Potency extremely quickly by using one of the three dedicated Masteries. As for tanking, the increased duration of our defensive buffs, across the board mind you, has helped a lot more than I ever imagined. Buffs now only need to be refreshed every, what, 80 seconds? That's nothing and you can easily keep up all of your buffs, heals, and taps, and still have time to wonder "what should I do now?"

I'm not trying to be obstinate or elitist, I simply don't follow (apologies, again) anything in your post.

Before a pull, the last things you do are Battle Prep then cast Goad and then build a Gambit, in red probably Warden's Triumph. The pull HAS to happen within the 9 second window that Goad's Potency effect gives you out of combat or else you need to do those 2 things again, mistiming the window at all is very damn annoying and it's not uncommon to pull/get caught in the middle of 'doing it again' which is a huge setback from having missed the perfect window which relies on so many external factors. In blue it's similar except you need to cast a lot of buffs beforehand too on top of this. To be clear, I don't want to have to repeatedly do this preparation over and over for a pull, and I don't want for the pull to happen without being prepared. Either situation is undesirable.

Consider that all of this is a problem that has no reason for it to exist. Why not give Potency a 1 minute duration that doesn't expire out of combat? Why not make Battle Prep have a 1 minute duration (it expires upon using a skill in combat anyway)? Both of these would go a very long way to make life on Warden much more tolerable. Really ask, why do these timers and limitations exist as they do now? Does it serve some purpose? The only one I see is to be a pain in the ###.

[Regero]

Before a pull, the last things you do are Battle Prep then cast Goad and then build a Gambit, in red probably Warden's Triumph.

Really? This is absolutely not what I do. The last thing I do before a pull is build Resounding Challenge, which I then use to pull. I usually leave Battle Memory open for Dark Before the Dawn, Resolution, or Celebration of Skill depending on the circumstances if I'm tanking. When DPS'ing I'll usually leave one of the DoT cash-outs in there.

You're losing me on the idea that you use Goad before actually pulling. Why exactly do you feel that's critical? Further, Why aren't you the one pulling? If you're group has an overexcited hunter or something, let them pull aggro and die. Screw em. I don't see these issues as actual issues when I simply can't follow why exactly they could possibly be issues.

[PreemptiveRegret]

Really? This is absolutely not what I do. The last thing I do before a pull is build Resounding Challenge, which I then use to pull. I usually leave Battle Memory open for Dark Before the Dawn, Resolution, or Celebration of Skill depending on the circumstances if I'm tanking. When DPS'ing I'll usually leave one of the DoT cash-outs in there.

You're losing me on the idea that you use Goad before actually pulling. Why exactly do you feel that's critical? Further, Why aren't you the one pulling? If you're group has an overexcited hunter or something, let them pull aggro and die. Screw em. I don't see these issues as actual issues when I simply can't follow why exactly they could possibly be issues.

Not entering combat with Battle Memory is a waste of Masteries. Warden's Triumph is a very expensive gambit to cast, it makes a difference to have it again for free. I can't imagine a scenario where you need DBtD within 1 minute of pulling, which is how long Triumph lasts, so.

We don't live in a perfect world, I can't control every or even most pulls tanking or not. I don't think it's reasonable to expect everyone else to always be beholden to you because you're on a Warden either.

Either way I repeat, what does the low duration of Potency and Battle prep accomplish? What would be lost if we increased the duration? There's no reason to not have this change, even if (and imo very oddly) some might feel we don't need it.

[Me_the_Third]

Got a few additional requests in addition to what's already been mentioned:

A ranged pull skill along the lines of Let Fly would be greatly appreciated, particularly in landscape content. Javelin of Deadly Force has too long a cd. Ambush has an induction. Hampering Javelin's cd is a bit long, and the slow is counterproductive to getting something in melee. Warning Shot is blue line only and needs to be saved for it's force taunt in many situations. Switching to Assailment breaks the flow, especially if you're already in melee with something. Having a shord cd ranged attack to grab the next mob just greatly smooths out the questing experience.

Since technical limitations prevent free building gambits outside of combat, improving Battle Prep would go a long way. Making it so that, if out of combat, executing a gambit would reapply the Battle Prep effect would be very nice. Going a step further and, if possible, making it so that Battle Prep is automatically applied to the Warden upon leaving combat in addition to increasing the duration of the effect would make it so that an active Warden almost never has to actually cast the skill. Saving some clicks on Carpel Tunnel: The Class is great.

Right now, tank Wardens have to spend 15 seconds or so building gambits outside of combat before each pull. Considered across a raid, that's 3 minutes cumulatively of thumb-twiddling. Seconding the suggestion others have made that making an out of combat skill to apply the effects of all the gambit buffs that could be cast out of combat would save a ton of tedium in the long run.

Some Assailment gambits aren't ranged. Impressive Flourish (23) and Maddening Strike (232) are melee. The War Cry line (32-) should center on your target rather than yourself, like the Fierce Resolve line (312-) does. Same goes for Deflection (321).

[LagunaD2]

A ranged pull skill along the lines of Let Fly would be greatly appreciated, particularly in landscape content. Javelin of Deadly Force has too long a cd. Ambush has an induction. Hampering Javelin's cd is a bit long, and the slow is counterproductive to getting something in melee. Warning Shot is blue line only and needs to be saved for it's force taunt in many situations. Switching to Assailment breaks the flow, especially if you're already in melee with something. Having a shord cd ranged attack to grab the next mob just greatly smooths out the questing experience.

Right-click.

If you prefer tab-targeting, then you can click the auto-attack indicator or hot-key "Toggle Autoattack" (it's "Shift+`" on my warden; not sure if that's the default).

[PreemptiveRegret]

Got a few additional requests in addition to what's already been mentioned:

A ranged pull skill along the lines of Let Fly would be greatly appreciated, particularly in landscape content. Javelin of Deadly Force has too long a cd. Ambush has an induction. Hampering Javelin's cd is a bit long, and the slow is counterproductive to getting something in melee. Warning Shot is blue line only and needs to be saved for it's force taunt in many situations. Switching to Assailment breaks the flow, especially if you're already in melee with something. Having a shord cd ranged attack to grab the next mob just greatly smooths out the questing experience.

Since technical limitations prevent free building gambits outside of combat, improving Battle Prep would go a long way. Making it so that, if out of combat, executing a gambit would reapply the Battle Prep effect would be very nice. Going a step further and, if possible, making it so that Battle Prep is automatically applied to the Warden upon leaving combat in addition to increasing the duration of the effect would make it so that an active Warden almost never has to actually cast the skill. Saving some clicks on Carpel Tunnel: The Class is great.

Right now, tank Wardens have to spend 15 seconds or so building gambits outside of combat before each pull. Considered across a raid, that's 3 minutes cumulatively of thumb-twiddling. Seconding the suggestion others have made that making an out of combat skill to apply the effects of all the gambit buffs that could be cast out of combat would save a ton of tedium in the long run.

Some Assailment gambits aren't ranged. Impressive Flourish (23) and Maddening Strike (232) are melee. The War Cry line (32-) should center on your target rather than yourself, like the Fierce Resolve line (312-) does. Same goes for Deflection (321).

Our Fist builder should be 30-40M range imo.

Right-click.

If you prefer tab-targeting, then you can click the auto-attack indicator or hot-key "Toggle Autoattack" (it's "Shift+`" on my warden; not sure if that's the default).

Our autoattack range is like 20m, it's not great. Ranged Gambits meanwhile are 30-40.

[Me_the_Third]

Right-click.

If you prefer tab-targeting, then you can click the auto-attack indicator or hot-key "Toggle Autoattack" (it's "Shift+`" on my warden; not sure if that's the default).

Oh, good to know, thank you.

Our Fist builder should be 30-40M range imo.


Our autoattack range is like 20m, it's not great. Ranged Gambits meanwhile are 30-40.

I could get behind that change. Fixing the autoattack range seems like a good thing to add to the list.

[PreemptiveRegret]

Alternatively, it would be nice if the expires in 9 seconds out of combat effect was reversed.

Imagine if it only expired after 9s in combat. That would be phenomenal.

It would also be great if you incorporated this functionality to our shield line self buffs. If you could just buff once and the CD timer doesn't start until you enter combat. That would be such a difference maker, a massive surge in QoL.

[Tralfazz]

I think a lot of buffs could be made to run out their timers only in combat. And there seems to be no reason to have to toggle Forced March back on after every combat, maybe it was done originally to distinguish it from Find the Path but whatever the reason it's time to improve the convenience of this skill.

There is one issue with having a greatly extended or indefinite time on Battle Preparation, though: I have found that if Battle Prep is still active when I engage in combat, my readied Gambit will sometimes fire with no effect. This is obviously a bug, and it does not happen all the time, but it does happen. To be sure to avoid the bug, when it's important that this issue not occur, I wait until Battle Prep expires and then initiate combat.

[PreemptiveRegret]

I think a lot of buffs could be made to run out their timers only in combat. And there seems to be no reason to have to toggle Forced March back on after every combat, maybe it was done originally to distinguish it from Find the Path but whatever the reason it's time to improve the convenience of this skill.

There is one issue with having a greatly extended or indefinite time on Battle Preparation, though: I have found that if Battle Prep is still active when I engage in combat, my readied Gambit will sometimes fire with no effect. This is obviously a bug, and it does not happen all the time, but it does happen. To be sure to avoid the bug, when it's important that this issue not occur, I wait until Battle Prep expires and then initiate combat.

Forced March used to set you to 35% of your max power as a 'cost' before, but eventually this was removed when power mechanics became irrelevant. That's why we have this weird hold over behavior I guess.