As usual, the Warden boards of late have been filled with quite a few really good posts, so I wanted to make sure everyone saw them. And at the bottom, there’s a pretty good in-game champ quote that I couldn’t resist re-posting 😉
The first post is centered around Warden DPS, not that we should ever be mistaken for a DPS class but what’re some ways to get a higher output. Long post short, trait spear line, high might, high melee offense rating/critical rating, and good legacies on your weapons. Personally I am leaning towards having some DPS weapons as opposed to just tanking ones as it is easier, quicker, and cheaper to swap weapons then it is to completely re-trait. Also a refresher on what good DPS rotations are, which essentially are the spear line gambits 😉
After that, we go to our main role of tanking. The first post primarily discusses the difference between the Fist line and the Shield line and when each are preferred. The thread does start with the excitement over Perceived Threat being recently fixed, which does make the First line more viable. The general consensus is that Shield is slightly better for the overall healing abilities but there are cases (BG for one) when you won’t be using your HoTs and there’s lots of –threat debuffs tossed around – making the Fist line pretty appealing. Following a similar line of thought there’s a thread on setups for BG which not only follows the trait line from above, but also has some good ideas for BG in general. If you’re a Warden planning to run BG, I’d highly recommend those posts and probably a conversation or 2 with a couple of the posters there that have actually run that raid. And actually, there’s some good tanking posts in those the would be of use for everyone running that raid.
I think I’ve talked about this a couple of times, but there’s another pretty decent explanation of the differences between Wardens and Guardians. The BG posts above got into this a bit in talking about the raid mechanics, but this post is more generic. To summarize, both are good fun classes who can tank very well with their individual strengths and weaknesses 🙂 But, IMO a well played Warden usually will provide more value to a group and to a lesser extent the raid.
My last Warden thread is another “hot-bar” setup which I think is an interesting idea (well ideas actually as the OP links to another thread). This one mainly focuses on the 2-builder mastery skills we get and can trait for but also has some nifty layouts. I’m confident my Warden bars are pretty well set (for my taste) but new Wardens or folks who don’t like theirs might enjoy the post.
I also wanted to post a congrats to Telchalin and Madame of Nimrodel who managed to duo the Sword Halls instance in Hard-mode! They’re a guardian/burglar pair and that’s certainly not a feat to be taken lightly. It gives me some ideas as I do have a number of burglar friends 😉
And finally, I love to tease my Champion friends but I didn’t realize the LOTRO devs agreed with me – check out these dwarves from Dolven View. And in case you haven’t been there, that’s the Guardian class vendor talking trash to the Champion vendor 😉