A Very, Very Brief Warden Overview

After reading a variety posts on the main forums, and with conversations with those in my kin, I thought that it would be good to give a brief and directed rundown on various skills and gambits of wardens, from what I have observed. This will likely be a continuing topic I would like to expand on in future posts.

General Overview:

In general wardens are a different animal, as far as tanking is concerned, from a guardian. Guardians are the proverbial meat-shield, they can soak up tons of damage, wear heavy armor and heavy shields and can stand toe to toe with most baddies. (disclaimer, I have not had a guardian past lvl 20 so this is based purely on observation.) Wardens on the other hand utilize medium armor and a “medium” shield. They do not benefit from the extra damage mitigation that heavy armor gives, but make up for it with amazing self-heal capabilities and an increase to their block, evade, and parry (B/E/P).

A warden can use all one handed weapons, though their weapons of choice are usually spear, sword, and club. This is due to the great benefits they get from passive skills when using these weapons. At level 1 they get:

• Club Training - +10% club damage.
• Sword Training - +10% sword damage.
• Spear Training - +15% spear damage.

These are further upgraded at level 15:

• Expert Club Training - +10% club damage, 4 seconds increase to inherent club attack speed debuff.
• Expert Sword Training - +10% sword damage, +1% inherent sword to hit modifier.
• Expert Spear Training - +15% spear damage, Damage from intrinsic spear bleed is now 5x.

And then again at level 30:

• Master Club Training - +10% club damage, 4 seconds increase to inherent club attack speed debuff, and the debuff happens more often.
• Master Sword Training - +10% sword damage, +2% inherent sword to hit modifier.
• Master Spear Training - +15% spear damage, the damage from intrinsic spear bleed is now 5x, and the bleed happens more often.

And if that is not enough, they get the legendary trait:

• Grand Master Weapons Training - +5% spear damage, +5% sword damage, +5% club damage, spear bleed happens more often, spear bleed damage is greatly increased, club attack speed debuff happens more often, +1% sword to hit modifier.

The warden also has 4 different stances they can enter. These stances help with the flow of battle and can either grant you victory from the jaws of death or grant you death from the jaws of victory. The 4 stances are:

• Determination - + level dependent ICMR (mine is high 800’s)
• Conservation - (+ lvl dependent ICPR (mine is high 400’s), +lvl dependent evade and block ratings (mine is in high 400’s)
• Recklessness - (-10% attack duration, +5% melee damage, -lvl dependent evade and block ratings (mine is in the high 400’s)
• The Way of the Warden (legendary) - encompasses all three into one, though it is limited to in-combat and has a cool down of 15 minutes, -10% attack speed, +5% melee damage, +lvl dependent block and evade ratings (mine is in the high 400’s).

Their trait-lines are divided up into Way of the Spear, Way of the Fist, and Way of the Shield.

Way of the Spear: [DoTs and culminating gambit]

This trait-line is considered the DPS line. This line is kind of split up into two unofficial subsets. The melee and the ranged. In the melee there are traits that increase critical chance and damage. This line also has two bleed dots which help add to DPS.

• 2 equipped – (-5% Spear Gambits Power Cost)
• 3 equipped – (+15% Spear Gambits Critical Multiplier)
• 4 equipped – (+5% Spear Gambits Damage.)

The culminating gambit for this line is Warden’s Triumph.

• Warden’s Triumph - hard hitting spear attack which adds a 10% melee damage buff for 20 seconds.

There are two Spear legendaries, Way of the Spear and Javelin of Deadly Force. The Spear capstone skill is Way of the Spear:

• Way of the Spear - increases melee damage by 5% and increases both the duration of Warden’s Triumph by 10 seconds and increased the damage Triumph by 30%.

The ranged traits increase ranged damage and decrease javelin skill cool downs. There is a ranged legendary called Javelin of Deadly Force:

• Javelin of Deadly Force - an AoE high damage attack that hits where you are looking, not where your target is.

Summary: Speaking from personal experience I have not delved too much into this trait-line aside from trying the javelin path out in the moors. I really did not notice much of a damage increase overall by going Spear, however, I do think I need to play around with it more.

Way of the Fist: [DoTs and culminating gambit]
This trait-line is considered the THREAT line. Fist gambits are primarily used to generate threat or threat over time. The Fist line also has the most DoT skills. This line also includes three of the most useful gambits:

• Fierce Resolve - Every 4 seconds, Target is drained of (level-dependent) Morale, Attacker gains (level-dependent) Morale, Duration 16s

• Resolution - Target is drained of (level-dependent) Morale
  Attacker gains (level-dependent) Morale

• Exultation of Battle - Every 4 seconds, Target is drained of (level-dependent) Morale, Attacker gains (level-dependent) Morale
  Increase Threat over time, Duration: 16s

Fierce Resolve, and its big brother Exultation of Battle, are the moral leech skills. These are the skills that keep you alive when tanking one massive amounts of mobs (5-10). I can get around 110 moral every three seconds from each mob. So if facing 5 mobs that’s 550 moral every three seconds. Both last for 16 seconds. Exultation of Battle also increases threat over time which is great for tanking. Resolution is the warden’s “Oh, shit!” gambit. This gambit gives you an instant value of moral (dependent on your level, at 60 I get about 150) from each target. So in a pinch you could heal at max about 1500 morale every 5-6 seconds. The culminating fist gambit is Desolation:

• Desolation – AoE DoT, 3 target, 25% chance to apply fear

This does come in very handy when trying to manage mobs. The set bonuses from fist line are:

• 2 equipped – (+10% Bonus to threat generation)
• 3 equipped – (+1 Fist Gambit DoT pulses)
• 4 equipped – (+5% Fist DoT Damage)

There are two Fist legendaries, Way of the Fist and Defiant Challenge.

• Way of the Fist - +10% perceived threat increase, +25% for Desolation to apply fear, and +3 max targets for Desolation.

Defiant Challenge is the warden’s closest thing to a force taunt.

• Defiant Challenge - Forced Attack, Duration: 5s, Increased Threat, On any Common, Fire, Shadow damage: Reflect (level-dependent) damage, Duration: 30s

Summary: This trait-line seems to generate more DPS for me that by going spear. This could also be due to the dot stacking which makes up most of our DPS capabilities. Fist has 4 DoTs as spear has only 2. This trait-line is fun for tanking en masse, not so good for trying to take on hard hitting bosses.

Way of the Shield:
This line is mostly considered the tanking/solo line and with very good reason. This line increases the self-healing durations as well as buffs B/E/P. Benefits of this line are:

• 2 equipped – (+ lvl dependent block rating (440ish for me))
• 3 equipped – (+lvl dependent evade rating (440ish for me))
• 4 equipped – (+10% healing over time skills)

Wardens have 6 HoTs, one of them being a fellowship HoT. All of which are stackable with each other. The fellowship HoT gambit is considered to be the culminating skill of the shield line.

• Conviction - Heals (level-dependent) Morale for your Fellowship initially, Heals (level-dependent) Morale for your Fellowship every 3 seconds for 12 seconds, Transfers a moderate amount of threat from each member of the Fellowship to the Warden.

It is also one of two threat transfer skills available to the warden. The capstone legendary Way of the Shield gives:

• +2 pules to HoTs, increases morale healed by HoTs by 10% and increases Conviction healing by 30%. This makes Conviction at 60 heal 120-240 moral every 3 seconds for 12 seconds on the entire fellowship.

Summary: This is the trait-line I run mostly due to its versatility for tank/off-tank and support role. I love this one.

For more information on skills and gambits, I’d suggest rolling a warden yourself, but for those who do not http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Warden is a good rundown.

Also here is the best diagram/flow chart I have seen regarding gambits. http://random-average.com/lotro-warden.pdf A must have for those that have yet to memorize all the gambits.