Thread: What I think about the "new" Warden.

For me the ranged gambits are really useless. Everytime I use only the normal ranged attacks. when I used every attack the monster is in melee range. So I use the normal melee gambits till the monster is down. It is the best way for me.


Now to a bug or what it is maybe:

Class Traits:
Why is the -15 seconds cool down for the normal javelin attacks now at the way of the fist??
Why is the Ward of Justice (+3 Goad Targets) when it is a Fist Gambit?

The Traits on the normal servers are a little bit better then the new ones here.

Hmmm was thinking about rolling a Warden..

While playing around with this last night, I found out something interesting...

If you get the legacies, "Careful Step and Ambush -Induction" and "Jav Skills Max Distance", lowering the induction time of Ambush to 2 seconds, and increasing the max distance to 40m, you can pull mobs with Ambush (while in Assailment stance), and then, hit them with ranged gambits, such as "Warden's Triumph", etc. Doing this, I was able to put out well over 10K in damage before the mob got anywhere close to me. 3K+ WT(ranged) crits are the bomb.

I tested this on the Urugrath Gate-keeper troll just for the fun of it (as I was auto-leveling the epics at the time). The new life-taps are much stronger, also, as I killed all of the trash mobs at the Uru gate with one cycle of EoB. LOL. The new EoB sucked out their eyeballs just like that <snaps fingers>. (note: I'm thinking now that having the legacy "+Ambush Crit" would really rock on a ranged/melee utility build). (Oh, my kingdom for an "Ambush -CD" legacy. LOL)

Next, on a missed Ambush (tonight, will test adding in higher agility to see it's impact on accuracy and damage), it was a very simple thing to stance dance to Recklessness, and dust their brooms in melee. The hardest part was remembering to switch back to Assailment to start the next pull. LOL.

(note: I also noticed that Dark Before the Dawn now has no morale limiter on it, so for 2nd and 3rd mob chain pulls, I was opening with DBtD to top up my power pool AND crack skulls from range. LOL. That is hot).

So far, having a blast with the new Warden changes (which I was skeptical of before giving it a try). Haven't tested everything yet, as I just got started, but leaning toward "A+" on this deal if the mitigations are back in an acceptable range of performance.

also good is: get more blocking (bad that you can't go over 25% ^^) --> switch for bleeding damage and heal you with these super healing skills (419 morale every 3 seconds for 24 seconds <-- better then before) and then rise the blocking again.

with this you can easy kill the new lvl 75 troll elite master (with ~71k morale). ^^ the next step for me is a nemesis huorn with ~140k morale.

Originally Posted by Kyubi_no_Yoko

also good is: get more blocking (bad that you can't go over 25% ^^) --> switch for bleeding damage and heal you with these super healing skills (419 morale every 3 seconds for 24 seconds <-- better then before) and then rise the blocking again.

with this you can easy kill the new lvl 75 troll elite master (with ~71k morale). ^^ the next step for me is a nemesis huorn with ~140k morale.

Soloing stuff is all well and good, but could you do any of that defensive stuff and hold aggro off hunters and champs doing 2k-ish DPS?

Originally Posted by Kyubi_no_Yoko

For me the ranged gambits are really useless. Everytime I use only the normal ranged attacks. when I used every attack the monster is in melee range. So I use the normal melee gambits till the monster is down. It is the best way for me.


Now to a bug or what it is maybe:

Class Traits:
Why is the -15 seconds cool down for the normal javelin attacks now at the way of the fist??
Why is the Ward of Justice (+3 Goad Targets) when it is a Fist Gambit?

The Traits on the normal servers are a little bit better then the new ones here.

Well 3 trait lines aren't tied as much to the 3 builders any more. Yellow trait line is ranged dps line, so lowering cd for javelin attacks there makes sense.

+3 goad targets... is useless anyways seeing as how goad generates 6x less threat than it used to lol....

Assailment is primarily intended to be a group DPS stance so having some trouble while soloing should not be a surprise. Remember that recklessness is still an option so the class still "can" function mush as it used to if you prefer. Even with the range requirements in assailment I still end up using it more than recklessness. Ambush and hampering jav with added +15 meter range allows me to kill most reg mobs long before they reach me. And, we can fight on the move so kiting is always an option too . . . its interesting to kite while building gambits but quite possible.

What I am having trouble with though is the fist traits. I dont think there is a single non leech DoT that I can use at long range, yet many of the fist traits modify fist line bleeds. Brink of Victory and Surety of Death should both be useable at range, especially since they are a group tactical damage buff. None of the tactical damage classes would be in mele range so the buff would never reach them. As far as damage goes I deliver slightly more DPS to a single target with spear traits than with fist after parsing for 15 mins. And looking at the skills themselves, the boars rush line bleeds are larger than those of the Surety of Death line. I hope the fist traits/skills get a little attention before U6. One reason for this update was to give Wardens another useful traitline . . . but so far it just hasnt so far as I can see.

One more thing I would like to see changed; the +15 meter jav skill range legacy increases the gambits range nicely but the gambit builders are still 25 meters. Hopefully they will get increased range with the legacy too.

On the whole I find assailment uber fun, but I hope a few more changes get made before U6.

it would be better when you can switch between range and melee with a button (for examble: pressing the gambit button when there is no gambit) instead of changing the warden stances.

Originally Posted by Kyubi_no_Yoko

^^ the next step for me is a nemesis huorn with ~140k morale.

Yah you'll have no problem with the nemesis either. I have about 13000 morale on BR and while fight ing the nemesis spider it never dropped below 12000.

Originally Posted by Balagast

Soloing stuff is all well and good, but could you do any of that defensive stuff and hold aggro off hunters and champs doing 2k-ish DPS?

Well I can only relate my own experiences... when I first went over to limelight gorge to play with the el. masters and nemeses a hunter happen to run across me when I engaged an EM troll. Just using a regular rotation of defensive buffs I was able to keep the troll on me the whole fight. (rotation of perservere line 2,3,4 length, IF line 2,3,4 length, SM and WoS.

I used no intentional aggro skills, and we were not grouped so the threat transfers were moot. I think the rather large HoT's we get now may be giving extra threat too, though don't quote me on that.

I'm assuming the Hunter was going all out and since good gear and weapons are essentially free on BR I assume his gear was pretty good, though I did not inspect him or anything. The fight lasted about 1 minute altogether.

Edit: Oh I should add that I was fiddling with red traits at the time so I was not tank specced. I was in determination though...

My thoughts on the new warden. buffed us where we were already strong. did NOTHING to help us where we are begging for help. Were still second place tanks in raids SIMPLY DUE TO MITIGATION! We are made to tank all content. Make us suitable for ToO t2 then let the rest fall into place. Spike damage is still unacceptable for a tank making a guardian ALWAYS more desired in practically any situation. Can we get a mitigation boost of +10% as the shield capstone?

Originally Posted by danno8

Yah you'll have no problem with the nemesis either. I have about 13000 morale on BR and while fight ing the nemesis spider it never dropped below 12000.



Well I can only relate my own experiences... when I first went over to limelight gorge to play with the el. masters and nemeses a hunter happen to run across me when I engaged an EM troll. Just using a regular rotation of defensive buffs I was able to keep the troll on me the whole fight. (rotation of perservere line 2,3,4 length, IF line 2,3,4 length, SM and WoS.

I used no intentional aggro skills, and we were not grouped so the threat transfers were moot. I think the rather large HoT's we get now may be giving extra threat too, though don't quote me on that.

I'm assuming the Hunter was going all out and since good gear and weapons are essentially free on BR I assume his gear was pretty good, though I did not inspect him or anything. The fight lasted about 1 minute altogether.

Edit: Oh I should add that I was fiddling with red traits at the time so I was not tank specced. I was in determination though...

Umm so you able to get aggro over a hunter without using any threat skills at all? I assume since he just happend to run accross you, you weren't in the same group so IF line wasn't leeching his threat. Basically... you out threat a hunter with non threat, non dps even, gambits? I really hope you dont think this will be the norm. I've seen new BR 75s too lazy to even make their own legendaries. Maybe this hunter was one of them.

Originally Posted by Beornded

Umm so you able to get aggro over a hunter without using any threat skills at all? I assume since he just happend to run accross you, you weren't in the same group so IF line wasn't leeching his threat. Basically... you out threat a hunter with non threat, non dps even, gambits? I really hope you dont think this will be the norm. I've seen new BR 75s too lazy to even make their own legendaries. Maybe this hunter was one of them.

No, like I mentioned we were not grouped.

I'm only relating the experience. The possible reasons was he was poorly equipped, not going all out, endurance stance with swift bow usage, or perhaps the 350-400 hps on myself was enough to keep the trolls eyes on me.

No, I don't expect this to be the norm. Just thought it was interesting.

Originally Posted by Erasluindor

My thoughts on the new warden. buffed us where we were already strong. did NOTHING to help us where we are begging for help. Were still second place tanks in raids SIMPLY DUE TO MITIGATION! We are made to tank all content. Make us suitable for ToO t2 then let the rest fall into place. Spike damage is still unacceptable for a tank making a guardian ALWAYS more desired in practically any situation. Can we get a mitigation boost of +10% as the shield capstone?

The biggest issue is still that they boosted Wardens in a too simplistic manner. Now Wardens will be OP in 3-6 mans (6 Warden Foundry T2CM is IMO proof of this) because of the boosts to BPE and self-heals and perhaps still sub-par in ToO T2. What Wardens need is scalable self-heals that is based on the amount of players in your raid and/or the instance you are in. Example: Restoration would heal 200 per tick in solo, 275 in 3 mans, 375 in 6 mans and 500 in raids (not suggesting those exact numbers, just that they scale up depending on content).

While big crits are still the biggest threat against Wardens, with Never Surrender, higher BPE and self-heals should ensure the Warden can take at least 1 big crit without falling, and if the Warden has a decent morale pool and is somewhat fully healed, he should survive without using Never Surrender. The self-heals are supposed to make up for the lack of mitigation, with the U6 boost to self-heals AND +10% mitigation it will IMO be too easy to survive as a Warden, especially outside raids.

As my own kinship has seen while doing ToO Tier 2, Wardens do indeed have a spot in the raid. While they're hard to keep up on morale their aggro generation/leech is key to high-DPS fights such as Acid and Shadow challenges. With these new boosts, Wardens will be having an even higher advantage in those fights.

Originally Posted by Elrantiri

The biggest issue is still that they boosted Wardens in a too simplistic manner. Now Wardens will be OP in 3-6 mans (6 Warden Foundry T2CM is IMO proof of this) because of the boosts to BPE and self-heals and perhaps still sub-par in ToO T2. What Wardens need is scalable self-heals that is based on the amount of players in your raid and/or the instance you are in. Example: Restoration would heal 200 per tick in solo, 275 in 3 mans, 375 in 6 mans and 500 in raids (not suggesting those exact numbers, just that they scale up depending on content).

While big crits are still the biggest threat against Wardens, with Never Surrender, higher BPE and self-heals should ensure the Warden can take at least 1 big crit without falling, and if the Warden has a decent morale pool and is somewhat fully healed, he should survive without using Never Surrender. The self-heals are supposed to make up for the lack of mitigation, with the U6 boost to self-heals AND +10% mitigation it will IMO be too easy to survive as a Warden, especially outside raids.

As my own kinship has seen while doing ToO Tier 2, Wardens do indeed have a spot in the raid. While they're hard to keep up on morale their aggro generation/leech is key to high-DPS fights such as Acid and Shadow challenges. With these new boosts, Wardens will be having an even higher advantage in those fights.

First of all, 6 Warden's doing Foundry does not make them OP. I'm willing to believe 6 cappies could easilly do it on Live and probably a couple other classes. Does that make them OP? Warden's ability to solo stuff is irrelevant to their role in raiding. Does it really matter if they can solo something that in 5 times the amount of time that a full group could do it in? Warden's don't solo things because its more effective, they do it because its a fun challenge.

Also, giving them +10% mitigation still puts Guards ahead and have them taking a good deal less damage through mitigation alone. Yes BPE's will help mitigate damage in the long run, but they do nothing for mobs that can hit medium armor capped wardens for 18-20k+.

To you last point, several of the Warden's superior threat skills have been nerfed on BR right now (mainly Aggression and Precise Blow). I haven't personally gotta a lot of testing on my warden for holding aggro yet, but just inferring from the tooltips it would seem to be fairly significant.

We got double crit immunity for 7 seconds after a crit (with no cd apparently), much higher self HoT's (seem to be around double what is on live), higher partial bpe values that can now overcap, more crit defense (not much more mind you) and better legacies.

This should make things better in raids, as of yet no one has even attempted it.

However there is no doubt that there is still an issue with very large crits/devastates that could simply be solved by adding a -6% incoming crit/dev magnitude (stacks up to 5 times) to our shield builders (probably tied to traitline). So those hits for close to 10000 could be reduced to only 7000 etc. With the crit immunity, higher partial bpe bigger self heals and the above suggestion it makes those crits happen less often, never back to back, healed faster and less deadly.

Our threat has been reduced however I have not seen anyone talk about the difference the fi-sp gambits threat up will make to things like the nerfed PB.

This stuff really must be tested. I wish I had the time.

What really bothers me is the fact that warden dps is horrible without fixes and WT being nerfed by new capstone is very noticable.

The dots are just not enough and we need more direct damage obviously ; if you were intimate when claimed that wardens will have secondary role as dps.Well we dont want to race with other dps classes but heck! they can even do our primary role tanking as their secondary role already.

This is yet so dissappointing but we still have time.We need dps parses for burst and group content to be able to speak more objectively then people will realise how awfull the situation it is if nothing changes.

I'll share my parses tonight hopefully need to get some more might stuff first.

for tanking ? well agro management is being nerfed and mitigations stay the same.So you ll be still praying for not being critted while trying to keep your defenses and hots going and meanwhile managing agro.

Well or you can just role a guard and chimp push some buttons with one hand.other busy with pizza and TV remote control.

Tank Warden compared to Guard is like playing a burglar as dps class with achieving every trick and gamble out there vs a hunter hitting 123 peww peww.Well it is even harder than that to compare atm.. Sad ..

Originally Posted by Balagast

First of all, 6 Warden's doing Foundry does not make them OP. I'm willing to believe 6 cappies could easilly do it on Live and probably a couple other classes. Does that make them OP? Warden's ability to solo stuff is irrelevant to their role in raiding. Does it really matter if they can solo something that in 5 times the amount of time that a full group could do it in? Warden's don't solo things because its more effective, they do it because its a fun challenge.

Also, giving them +10% mitigation still puts Guards ahead and have them taking a good deal less damage through mitigation alone. Yes BPE's will help mitigate damage in the long run, but they do nothing for mobs that can hit medium armor capped wardens for 18-20k+.

To you last point, several of the Warden's superior threat skills have been nerfed on BR right now (mainly Aggression and Precise Blow). I haven't personally gotta a lot of testing on my warden for holding aggro yet, but just inferring from the tooltips it would seem to be fairly significant.

One thing is being able to do it, but they did it rather easily and with one warden either dead or AFK through most of the instance. That does make a class OP.

I have yet to see any mob hit a capped Warden for 18-20k (except distributed hits and bubbled Wargs), feel free to post screenie.

If they really have nerfed the aggro moves that's a completely new problem. Guess we'll have to see how that goes.

Skilled blue + appropiate armour & legacies on the LI + Determination: very nice, solo and in group.
spiders in limlight: Easy way. Self-heals feels like a level 75 Warden.

Skilled red + appropiate armour & legacies on the LI + Recklessness:
- solo: it's okay on on-level normal mob. tested in galtrev solo inctances.
at over-level mob like the giant spiders in limlight. *LOL*. 3/4 of the time self heals 1/4 of time damage. dieing at every try.
- group: well ... its okay but nothing i wold say: it is god. it means: not god enough. feels like the pre-roi damage warden but withouth beeing level 75.

Skilled yellow + appropiate armour & legacies on the LI + Recklessness/Determination:
Recklessness: no chance. Just die.
Determination:
- solo: hm... not really god, hard fights with 4-5 on-level mobs. very hard fight at over-level mob like giant spider in limlight.
- group: not really tested yet. maybe ok, but not really see the use. not god for tanking & not god enough for damage.

At the same time: i saw an LM to kill the spiders (even the 114K one) in half of the time then I needed for it.

Assailment: a joke. a bad one.
- solo: on a single mob, okay. but as soon as the warden is in the mob range: a change of stance is a must. at the first time i was very surprised, that i can't do anything else then auto attac.
- group: don't now. See no real need for it. hunters do the ranged job much better. maybe to pull out a mob from a group if the fellowship will not go closer, but hmm....
Assailment seems to me, it is only a PvP stance.

CA

We know from frist dev diary that wardens will have less mitigation, and lot more B/P/E than other tanks.

But now (as they heav armour goes to be much heavyer, and medium remains the same) we need aome rewamp....

So we will not get greater mitigation cap than current.
Then we need 3 things to be fixed.
1-wee need more maximum morale than heavies. Heavies morale counts more, coz they more mitigation they take less damage from same source, so they cant one-shootted. It canbe solved if a warden got 8points of maxmorale from every point of Vitality.. so we can have more morale... at an raid geared warden with 2K vitality this can give 6k(=(8-5*)2000) more morale than now, so this can solve that ~*1,6 more incoming damage. This can solve that damage spik problem.

2-We arent surviving the tactical damage (not damage type, tactical source). We cant reduce our incoming damage with B/P/E when facing a tactical damag user. So this problem can be solved in more ways: Enable for wardens to Block and Evade tactical attacks OR rise our resist cap,so we can have more resistance , passive (not too warden like feeling...) OR give to some gambits a new effect wich rises the resist rating with +% (!not rating, most wardens have alredy capped resist ratings!)
these effects can be added to those gambits what now on bullroarer add crit defense (so replace their bonus mitigation what is useless) like maddening strike, dance of war, ... etc.

3-If a tank with active defenseget cc-ed (stunned/dazed/knocked out) he loses most of his defense. We cant have always a loremaster in our pocketes (especiall in 3 man instances - like dragnakh... :S) so we need a skill with long (minimum 1 min duration) or stance that prevents stun/daze/knockout effects (not root, fear, knockBACK what does not affect our defenses)
This can be the shield tactic gambit with 1 min long defense (that 10 sec in every min is unusable - less than nothing) or just give the immunity effect to the determination stance.

and ofc can finesse reduce mitigations also <evil face> so other classes can also feel our problems...

Originally Posted by Leri927

and ofc can finesse reduce mitigations also <evil face> so other classes can also feel our problems...

So you can have boss's eat our BPE AND mitigation? No thanks, it's bad enough as is.

Originally Posted by horus418

So you can have boss's eat our BPE AND mitigation? No thanks, it's bad enough as is.

Lol i think you didnt read thefull post

dont be angry from a bad joke...

Originally Posted by danno8

We got double crit immunity for 7 seconds after a crit (with no cd apparently), much higher self HoT's (seem to be around double what is on live), higher partial bpe values that can now overcap, more crit defense (not much more mind you) and better legacies.

This should make things better in raids, as of yet no one has even attempted it.

However there is no doubt that there is still an issue with very large crits/devastates that could simply be solved by adding a -6% incoming crit/dev magnitude (stacks up to 5 times) to our shield builders (probably tied to traitline). So those hits for close to 10000 could be reduced to only 7000 etc. With the crit immunity, higher partial bpe bigger self heals and the above suggestion it makes those crits happen less often, never back to back, healed faster and less deadly.

Our threat has been reduced however I have not seen anyone talk about the difference the fi-sp gambits threat up will make to things like the nerfed PB.

This stuff really must be tested. I wish I had the time.

I was fighting the Nemesis Troll (Ghamp) in Limelight really early this morning, and got critted for approx. 12K, followed instantly by another big hit (non-crit) from his Onslaught attack (Ghamp appears to be a troll warden, as the kill shots were the 2nd and 3rd strikes from his Onslaught attack), and he dropped me from almost full health to my knees in under 2 seconds. I had him down under 1K morale, at the time, so one more critted WT and he was done for. That was beyond disappointing for a "######" random mechanic like that to come into play, near the end of a long, tedious fight. My morale bar was swinging wildly between 50-100% throughout the whole fight and there was no way to predict when to use NS (in hindsight, I should have popped it when he crossed under 10K morale just as an insurance policy, like I did with the nemesis spider earlier. It never engaged on her so I didn't repeat that on the troll).

Note: I had already beaten the Nemesis tree and spider without seeing any big "devastates" like that, so I was surprised when Ghamp gob-smacked me for such a huge shot (the spider's black widow babies make that an interesting fight, as I managed to HoT and lifetap myself back to full health several times from under 1K morale, using no pots. The "new" DBtD is the bomb for long fights now).

Originally Posted by Bonomir

I was fighting the Nemesis Troll (Ghamp) in Limelight really early this morning, and got critted for approx. 12K, followed instantly by another big hit (non-crit) from his Onslaught attack (Ghamp appears to be a troll warden, as the kill shots were the 2nd and 3rd strikes from his Onslaught attack), and he dropped me from almost full health to my knees in under 2 seconds. I had him down under 1K morale, at the time, so one more critted WT and he was done for. That was beyond disappointing for a "######" random mechanic like that to come into play, near the end of a long, tedious fight. My morale bar was swinging wildly between 50-100% throughout the whole fight and there was no way to predict when to use NS (in hindsight, I should have popped it when he crossed under 10K morale just as an insurance policy, like I did with the nemesis spider earlier. It never engaged on her so I didn't repeat that on the troll).

Note: I had already beaten the Nemesis tree and spider without seeing any big "devastates" like that, so I was surprised when Ghamp gob-smacked me for such a huge shot (the spider's black widow babies make that an interesting fight, as I managed to HoT and lifetap myself back to full health several times from under 1K morale, using no pots. The "new" DBtD is the bomb for long fights now).

That sucks man. I saw someone else post something very similar to this somewhere, they had them at a few 1000 health then got hit with 11000 crit. I wonder if that is scripted or not?

Intersesting about the spider. The baby spiders made virtually no difference to me. I was still no lower than 9000 during the whole fight.

I've been looking for the damn troll for days now and never seem to find him. Oh well...

Originally Posted by danno8

That sucks man. I saw someone else post something very similar to this somewhere, they had them at a few 1000 health then got hit with 11000 crit. I wonder if that is scripted or not?

Intersesting about the spider. The baby spiders made virtually no difference to me. I was still no lower than 9000 during the whole fight.

I've been looking for the damn troll for days now and never seem to find him. Oh well...

The reason my morale flexes so wildly is I'm experimenting with hybrid builds to try to have some survivability+some offense. Pure DPS (spear-traited, spear-geared) on a warden now is almost instant death in a "tough" fight (well, it is for me, but things like Defense of Galtrev are a cakewalk in heavy spear mode, even with 6-7K morale. So, we're talkin 'bout cruisin in the Limelight here). And pure Shield+vitality is one long, arduous fight (I did this day before yesterday as there is a spot over by the Fallen Tower (and slightly west toward the sawmill) where you can fight EM+ trees nonstop for as long as you like. I stopped after killing 12 of them nonstop, with as many as 3 at a time. No pots (or manheal) either, just DBtD + HoTs + lifetaps. Gotta admit, that was impressive to manage both power and morale like that); but overall, it makes me feel like I'm boring the mobs to death. LOL.

So, I'm looking for a "happy point" in between the two extremes (looking for: 15K+ morale, 9K+ to both mitigations, 18K+ in physical mastery, and 700+ agility. Am I smoking something? Heck, yeah, LOL (this is a game, and with the increased costs lately, my expectations get to soar along with them. MY rules). Then, the main rotation would be a heavy spear attack (sadly missing the old WT buff/umbrella) + a sweet HoT/DBtD tail stacked onto it, before the rinse-repeat cycle. Haven't found that setup yet though, so my plan (delusion) of a 4/3 shield/spear build (both ways, too) has not materialized yet). Makes these kind of fights "exhilirating" again, though, testing in the grey areas of the limits imposed by the available gear on BR (which seem to push us one way or the other, without much consideration in between).

SPOILER on Ghamp's location For Ghamp the Troll, he is easier to find at night, as he is sitting (does not path) on a high hilltop by a big bonfire (like those you light in the Amon Sul skirmish, but bigger). The fire can be seen from the area in front of the momma spider site, heading toward the Fallen Tower (in that sloping V crease oriented north-south from the nemesis spider (with the pathing trolls in it), and heading back toward the main road). Ghamp, himself, is sitting inside a set of tall rocks forming a wall around his camp. At night, though, the bonfire is easy to see. /End SPOILER (spoiler text in black)

It's like a signal that says; "Come and get me, Danno". LOL. Hope this helps find him, as he hits pretty hard "normally" and puts up a decent fight (though, it's still just a morale race until the "cheese" surfaces near the end).

If you find he is scripted to insta-kill anybody who successfully solos him, please report back here with your findings, as that would be a pure "cheese" mechanic, and something not worth wasting anymore time on. (tomorrow, I'll try to go into assailment/kiting mode on the last 3K or so of his morale and zip him from a distance (using traditional jav skills + conviction); and see if that gets past this suspected cheesecake "script" with the insta-kill conclusion (or, maybe, he is like the Library boss in Eregion, where he gets that massive damage buff near the end. Just back off and let it drop. Then, finish his business for him. LOL. It's possible, but on an open landscape mob? Unexpected, for sure. (note: before it happened, he turned his back on me like he had been feared (I didn't pop Desolation, so it was a "what the.." kind of moment), ran 3 steps away, before turning, charging at me, and doing this Onslaught attack. Of course, I hit him with WoF when he showed me his back. LOL. And then, I was dead. So maybe the key is; when he turns away, RUN away, and kite him. LOL)

But to be honest, I'm still not that focused on the mobs like I should be, as I'm studying all these gambit changes (buffs). Holy cow, I'm even keeping Impressive Flourish running for the Crit Defense buff now. LOL. And that has never been useful for anything but an open acknowledgment, telling everybody I screwed up a gambit build. LOL).