Thread: War Leaders

I may be the only one experiencing this, and I really could attribute it to burn out, but are any other WLs finding it hard to love their class? I have a fairly balanced play between raiding, small grouping and soloing, and I understand we're not really made for amazing solo experienced. However, lately I have been feeling that my overall class is clunky. Couple of things (please let me know if you've found ways to counter these!).

• Shouts seem to have this whacky delay. I'll hit the key and there seems to be a delay from when it is hit and when it goes off. Now, I am in Australia and latency does attribute to this, but it isn't usually this bad, and over the five years I've been playing, it certainly hasn't been like this.
• Damage is horridly low. I feel like a get quite a few resists, and then what does hit does half of what the tool tip says, if I'm lucky. I realise that with audacity and mits, we do (everyone does) take a hit, but this is really beginning to get tiresome for smaller group/solo fights.
• Healing. Not sure about anyone else, but I feel that the commander's stance needs another heal and should have that lovely heal on the run that brawler's has. I get FF'd all the time, guaranteed switch when I pop into a fight, so it'd be nice to be able to heal kite (like just about every freep class does). And, watching folks die out of group because you only have one thing to burn on them (assuming bubble has been put on someone else) sucks. In raid/group isn't much better. I feel like we need more healers just to keep us alive through the DPS, especially with minstrels outputting full healing in WS.

Please don't take this the wrong way, I don't want to be equal to freeps, and I'm not calling for a nerf, but I really feel some aspects of the WL class needs to be adjusted. Pretty much the only folks playing WLs on E, are the old timers, and the newer guys I've spoken to ditch the class pretty quickly. I don't feel like we're particularly good at anything, the December patch was relatively nice. I could win quite a few fights, but I'd lose just as many. Not really sure, thoughts/opinions? Like I said, I could just be burned out, it has been many years on this class.

Indeed, WL is the worst class in the entire game. Pretty much the only reasons I play it are habit, aesthetics and it's role.

It is in dire need of attention in all areas.

Originally Posted by CandiceAurora

I may be the only one experiencing this, and I really could attribute it to burn out, but are any other WLs finding it hard to love their class? I have a fairly balanced play between raiding, small grouping and soloing, and I understand we're not really made for amazing solo experienced. However, lately I have been feeling that my overall class is clunky. Couple of things (please let me know if you've found ways to counter these!).

• Shouts seem to have this whacky delay. I'll hit the key and there seems to be a delay from when it is hit and when it goes off. Now, I am in Australia and latency does attribute to this, but it isn't usually this bad, and over the five years I've been playing, it certainly hasn't been like this.
• Damage is horridly low. I feel like a get quite a few resists, and then what does hit does half of what the tool tip says, if I'm lucky. I realise that with audacity and mits, we do (everyone does) take a hit, but this is really beginning to get tiresome for smaller group/solo fights.
• Healing. Not sure about anyone else, but I feel that the commander's stance needs another heal and should have that lovely heal on the run that brawler's has. I get FF'd all the time, guaranteed switch when I pop into a fight, so it'd be nice to be able to heal kite (like just about every freep class does). And, watching folks die out of group because you only have one thing to burn on them (assuming bubble has been put on someone else) sucks. In raid/group isn't much better. I feel like we need more healers just to keep us alive through the DPS, especially with minstrels outputting full healing in WS.

Please don't take this the wrong way, I don't want to be equal to freeps, and I'm not calling for a nerf, but I really feel some aspects of the WL class needs to be adjusted. Pretty much the only folks playing WLs on E, are the old timers, and the newer guys I've spoken to ditch the class pretty quickly. I don't feel like we're particularly good at anything, the December patch was relatively nice. I could win quite a few fights, but I'd lose just as many. Not really sure, thoughts/opinions? Like I said, I could just be burned out, it has been many years on this class.

I completely agree with you, i looked at your sig and you are a higher ranks than my rank 11 warleader, but yes i really noticed it after audacity changes hit, i get next to no reward because most of the time im healing/bubbling other classes, and if i do give the odd shout, audacity seems to nullify any of it.

What most frustrates me is that whilst i dont claim to be the best warleader, a completely new to the ettenmoors minstrel can get into a 1v1 fight, i will use everything at my disposal to beat it, one time i even got some pay2win things just to see if there was a difference. The minstrel beat me hands down every fight, the lowest i got it was 2k. Whilst i do not claim to be a badass, i think after five years i have picked up a thing or two!

RE the issues you posted, shouts have a horrible delay, whilst the introduction of that "instant crit" shout is nice, it is rendered useless because it takes about 10 seconds for me to see the benefits of that. Shouts are the warleaders main way of dealing damage, and they are extremely ineffective nowadays given what you said re: damage.

I appreciate that the class we are, we are not meant to deal insane amounts of damage. But logic would say we are meant to have some sort of trade off. We have the largest pool of moral on creepside is the only thing i can think of. I have heard even a warg when traited correctly can have the same mits as a warleader.

It just seems that we do everything very badly, yes the bubble is nice and can help.. but i have found due to the lag issues it is not always as effective, and i have bubbled a creep after the patch to make it instant, and the sheer amount of freep DPS has burned through that, now baring in mind the creep i bubbled was on around 1k moral, i was shocked.

We have the only in combat res on the creep side, which they have added a longer cooldown for granted. But i either use it now to res soloers as there are nobody playing defilers, or as a tactic in a raid situation. Creep out of combat ressing is sevrely lacking.

I log into my warleader and i really try hard to find plusses to the class i have invested so much in, but even after this long i just feel as though it has been worthless. I cannot even get the required audacity as i receive next to zero commendations for the style i play (which is a supporting commanding role). So apart from the 400/500+ moral rank 11 gives me, i am basically less powerful on paper than a rank 1 warleader who has bought all from the store. Which is horrific

You see numerous posts complaining about other classes, unfortunately very few about warleaders, because as you say.. you dont see any new warleaders anymore because they are simple are not played.

I really hope turbine do something to fix us, i do not want to be OP, i just want to find something interesting again about our class.

Judging by the complete lack of response to any posts on this forum by any turbine rep, however constructive they are i really have reservations about the warleader being addressed, not sure we are shouting loud enough. I could be wrong! And i hope i am.

For what it is worth, may be worth sending an email to turbine so they at least have to respond to your issues.

You are right about being burnt out. But what you have posted is completely reasonable and i challenge anyone to say otherwise. Think high ranked warleaders are the most underloved class in the game.

edit: I just remembered actually, we are the only class in the game that can be immune to any damage, cc or powerdrain in certain situations, Warleader raid is only themed raid that has this cannot be killed unless a GM gets involved! For those not in the loop, it is the warleader bug that is been around since dawn of game, one of my warleader buds got 2 day ban for getting the bug!

I have a baby R3 War Leader and all I can say is that lowbie experience is simply dire. Three attacks, two of which do common damage, all on longish cooldowns and all doing damage that can only be described as feeble. When killing Gramsfoot slugs seems interminable then you know that something is wrong. I'm hoping that Brawler's Stance makes soloing quests more tolerable but I'm not holding my breath (and why are the two stances R6 ffs? It's just senseless).

Playing a WL in a group is certainly more fun but the healing options are really limited and in no way can they be compared to anything that a level cap freep fresh to the moors can do. On the other hand at least I can last a few seconds of being focus fired which makes a nice change from my warg.

In short, soloing is for masochists, grouping is ok fun but it does feel like you are just acting as a meat shield for the others. A class revamp is long overdue.

I rolled a Warleader with the hope that it would be something like the Cappy class....it really isn't.

I mean he is only r3 but the complete lack of damaging skills and the low-damage the skills I have do seems a little unfair.

I had a friggin blast on my WL, but this was all before commendations.

Originally Posted by Daec

I had a friggin blast on my WL, but this was all before commendations.

Imo WL's were weak before commendations. But not as weak. Audacity has nullified what little damage dealing capability we had against geared targets.

Only high rank WL's with the ability to gain comms fast are able to benefit fully from the audacity system.

When I used to play on my WL I noticed that sometimes I'd shout, do the animation, get stunned, and no damage would be applied and the skill just stops.

Originally Posted by Stevo6

When I used to play on my WL I noticed that sometimes I'd shout, do the animation, get stunned, and no damage would be applied and the skill just stops.

This has been a problem for a long time. It is due to the delay between the pressing of the button and the registering of the damage.

Originally Posted by Stevo6

When I used to play on my WL I noticed that sometimes I'd shout, do the animation, get stunned, and no damage would be applied and the skill just stops.

I've noticed this too. However, sometimes it actually helps. When I'm using a crit heal from Power of Fear, if I use the heal right before I get stunned, the heal will go off before I get stunned and after the stun wears off, the Power of Fear buff is still up and I can throw the heal again. Probably one of those bugs that Turbine will never quash.

**edit** on the subject of warleaders in general...I think they are in an okay spot. They certainly can absorb a lot of damage and are much more interesting to play in a raid situation than a reaver. I do think that Commander's Stance needs a little buff or we need something else to do during raid fights. When I'm not getting harassed in a raid, I'm mostly standing around waiting for my heals to come off cooldown. Why is it that a minstrel can hit BC or RtS indefinitely but I have to wait several seconds for CtW? Reduce the cd on CtW or give me something else to during a controlled fight. One idea would be a 10-20 second cd skill with a short duration (~10 seconds) that buffs an ally's incoming healing, outgoing/incoming damage, or even run speed. These all would fit in the flavor of the class as well.

Warleaders r fine, whatchoo ppl tlkn bout!?

Warleaders have got some problems. Among all the bugs, inability to deal damage, and inability to heal as effectively as we need to, we also can't see to keep ourselves alive as we are the first target that gets FF'ed or harrased. Commander's stance is not worth it because of harrasment, and brawlers stance doesn't have enough healing power. It gets pretty tough to play some, if not most, of the time.

On the damage its the Audacity is whats killing our dps...I crit for 1,200 on low ranked freeps but higher tiers i dont even crit unless i use Call the shadow..Im also in solo/Duo/small groups.I have noticed with commander stance every heal I do I automaticly get almost every NPC thats on my group so that part of the skill seems broken to me. And for the delay...I dont really see a Delay on shouts and i use Menacing Roar alot.

I love my WL in group play, 6 mans and raids the WL is great, hes not perfect though, we can use another heal and our healing needs to be upped.

Plus some kinda self bubble would be amazing since we are always targetted first by most freep classes, tbh the bubble might not work but even another type of banner that can increase inductions from freeps or something when to close to us, something to help us in Commander Stance, since this is our big heals stance.

I do feel sorry for the young WL's trying to push through.

I still think we need:
- An aoe stun. Like the OP npcs
- Another heal for the standard roatation
- A slight DPS increase. Although not enough to become FOTM

My survivabilty is mostly always better then those around me but it would be nice to be able to use a self bubble Just throwing that out there.

That or a defeat response skill that affects group only and gives some small buff. (because we are meant to be the support class and all..)

If WL actually adhered to it's class description I'd be happy. Strength and fear should shine through in the way it plays. They do not at the moment.

If we got one stun it would be great, maybe a fear just to buy us a second or two for induction heals.

Originally Posted by asearchforreason

I've noticed this too. However, sometimes it actually helps. When I'm using a crit heal from Power of Fear, if I use the heal right before I get stunned, the heal will go off before I get stunned and after the stun wears off, the Power of Fear buff is still up and I can throw the heal again. Probably one of those bugs that Turbine will never quash.

This ^

Getting chain stunned by burgs was never so fun.

I have thrown 4 inductionless Crack the Whips in a row from a single critted shout.

Originally Posted by asearchforreason

I've noticed this too. However, sometimes it actually helps. When I'm using a crit heal from Power of Fear, if I use the heal right before I get stunned, the heal will go off before I get stunned and after the stun wears off, the Power of Fear buff is still up and I can throw the heal again. Probably one of those bugs that Turbine will never quash.

I have noticed this too. Sure, it benefits me, but it is a bug and therefore should be fixed.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...t=#post6100382

Is where I've posted my stuff before so there is no need to repost it.

With regards to the OP there is nothing more fun than looking at your crit hit damage and noticing that its lower than the damage stated on the tooltip for a standard hit. Or trying so hard to heal your team mates but succumbing to cooldowns or that one annoying freep that is able to interrupt your inductions without proper interrupts.

The Warleader is the one class that is still stuck back in Moria. I'd hope for an update with Rohan but I'm expecting more store related stuff first.

EDIT: Commendations have only had a negative impact on PvP regardless of rank.

Warleaders are great in a group. Many, many times, I've seen my whole group wipe *after* I got killed first, especially when there's no other healer the group. Even when there is, the defiler heal-over-times can't seem to compete with my ability to bubble and restore a creep under focus fire quickly, plus the defilers can't resurrect in combat, which is crucial sometimes. (Not that the 30-second cooldown on the defiler resurrect isn't an awesome alternative to burning our six minute cooldown resurrect, but there are some times you really need the in-combat multi-target one.) A smart group will do what they can to keep its Warleader(s) alive.

Out of group, warleaders fail. I've heard something about getting commendations for healing out-of-group, but I've never seen it happen? There aren't any deeds for healing or resurrecting like there are for getting killing blows X number of times. If there are a bunch of ungrouped creeps fighting a freep group, I don't suggest joining in as a warleader. Not likely to get any killing blows or even do enough damage to get that many commendations, and if all you do is heal, you won't get any commendations because you aren't grouped with the people doing the damage. If they don't want to share the infamy and commendations in a group, why bother hanging around to heal and resurrect them? Unless I'm mistaken, Crack the Whip is the only heal you can use on them out of group even if you really want to help for some reason. (Of course, if you and other creeps are PvE questing and get attacked by a freep or freeps, by all means work together, even out of group, but is there really any point in intentionally joining a creep versus freep battle as an out-of-group warleader?) Plus, the freeps won't know you're out of group, except possibly if they actually look and notice your aura isn't on the other creeps, so they're still going to focus fire you just as if you are the healing protective force you could be in a group. At which point, you may as well just do PvE questing, since you'll get commendations and infamy faster that way.

In one versus ones (whether formal challenges, or just solo freeps you ran across while you were soloing)... I suppose once you get brawler's stance, you might be able to win occasionally against some of the weaker freeps, but not often enough to advance at more than a snail's pace.

Speaking of which, am I the only person who finds commander's stance practically useless any time there are freeps around? Any half-coordinated freep group will at least send someone to interrupt my inductions, even if they don't outright focus fire me, and at least brawler's stance lets me get the group heal off without having an induction to interrupt, and if I throw in some shouts I can get a single heal off with power of fear from time to time. The only times commanders stance seems to be useful is in a group PvE situation -- just taking a outpost or keep when there are no freeps around or something like that.

Also, one time when my group asked me to focus on tanking rather than healing for some reason, and a number of people died and needed to be resurrected, when I hit the resurrect, they all woke up at the rez circle for some reason? They asked me if I had jumped when I hit the resurrect, and I hadn't, but I had been knocked into the air. Captain-generals seem to knock you in the air a lot when you tank them. So, if I am in the air (either because I jumped or was knocked), my resurrect will break? Since I can't really do anything about if if the captain-general knocks me in the air at the precise moment I hit the resurrect, does this mean not only can I not tank and heal effectively at the same time, I can't even tank and resurrect reliably at the same time?

If you're in the air or just had died as soon as you hit the rez, they'll go to the rez circle.

And yes, if freeps have half a brain and put one person on you, commander's stance is completely useless. The dev who reworked the WL class obviously doesn't play one or at least doesn't PvP with it.

As far as healing, once you burn Uruk heal and the 15 minute cooldown one, when stuck in brawler stance (which is about the only way to go to get a heal off ... which is to get your shouts on a faster cooldown so you can crit and get power of fear going), WL healing blows. The single target isn't spammable like what every other freep healer has, and both the single and group heals are pretty pathetic. Look at your health, look at what the heal is for, ~1k. You're now on a 3 second cooldown for your single heal and the freeps will blow through that 1k in about 1 second.

I don't like when the 'they're good in groups' excuse is used. For one, we are not as good in groups as any of our freep counterparts. Every class has the right to be able to do something solo, every freep class can and every creep class except WL can (defilers with blight can make a lot of inf).

I'm not saying that the warleader doesn't need improvement to become more competitive with freep healers, just that it's not such a horrible class that no one should bother playing one. Then there would be lots of sad raids with no healers or only with defilers.

I made a warleader because I like grouping, but it's always frustrating without a healer and I wanted to be part of the solution rather than continuing to fail miserably on my reaver. But yeah, it would be nice to not be so useless when soloing anything more than a few NPCs, since you can't always find a decent group to run with.

Aklouie, do you have the class trait that gives you +25% healing slotted? I find that helps a lot. And the more mitigations, avoidances, and audacity you have, the longer 1k of morale will last.

Originally Posted by NettlesB

Aklouie, do you have the class trait that gives you +25% healing slotted? I find that helps a lot. And the more mitigations, avoidances, and audacity you have, the longer 1k of morale will last.

I would assume he is, but he is also running Brawlers. The main WLs that run in his raid have no choice but to run in that stance as if we didn't, we'd never, ever get a heal off. Most E freeps are pretty darn good at getting on the WLs/Defilers and keeping us moving or interupted. -40% healing. Thus, with the +25%, we're still -15% down. I try to stance dance as much as possible when I get a crit, but that is a power sap.

It wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have a healing penalty for self heals, like minstrels, or if the heal on the run was put in the logical, healing stance.

We need a more reliable slow
Some form of CC
Alternate and improved forms of damage output
Increased support utility options and capability

(For that last one, turbine really needs to take a look at how the warleader can help to give thorough support to every creep class, +25% melee damage or +2% mits and 500 health and then having the option between two banners, which aren't that impressive, made them support classes at level 50, not at level 75/85)

In order for the warleader to get what it needs to fulfil its role though, the defiler class would need a thorough reconstruction at the same time as the warleader.

One thing I want to see specifically on the warleader is something that helps them perform at PvP tanking. Some sort of arbitrary cooldown(s?) like all freepside tanks have. Something that further increases their ability to mitigate damage (I originally thought perhaps a new stance with +5% mitigations, +10% BPE that turned bubble into an ability to use on self only at 50%, not sure how cluttered I want stances to become though).

Warleaders are awful. To have to rely on Shout crits to have any hope of getting even a single heal off is wrong. 1 Freep hitting a WL and the WL is largely useless, they'll never get an induction off. The don't function in any role, DPS, heals, tank - they are mediocre at everything.

I mean..it's a healer class...that can't heal. Even if by some miracle of idiocy you aren't being attacked, you don't have enough heals to actually be consistently healing...in comparison, Minnies 2 primary heals can have no cooldown at all (and can be impossible to interrupt). Mins heals actually scale well in comparison to Creep damage. WL heals aren't nearly enough to mitigate Freep damage. It is a joke.

Warleaders aren't supposed to be a healing class. It's their secondary role sure, but it's way overstated as their class purpose.

I run 90% of the time in Brawler's. And I usually play on groups from 2-6 creeps.

I rather playing my Warleader as a frontman and taking all the damage than staying on the back inducting heals.

If the opposing group has good heals, your shouts are worthless. I think you just better switch to healing if you're not freep aggroed.

Regarding Commander's, it's useless if you have melee classes all over you, but it can be really powerful if you're free to induct.

I got rank 9 last night, and I can say we are totally dependant on our 2 big CD heals.

Originally Posted by PhantomPunkk

I mean..it's a healer class...that can't heal. Even if by some miracle of idiocy you aren't being attacked, you don't have enough heals to actually be consistently healing...in comparison, Minnies 2 primary heals can have no cooldown at all (and can be impossible to interrupt). Mins heals actually scale well in comparison to Creep damage. WL heals aren't nearly enough to mitigate Freep damage. It is a joke.

I made a test with a BA and an RK, I sit there just freely inducting heals on the BA and I wanted to see if I could outheal the RK dps. No deal.

Maybe if we could get a lower cooldown on Quit Whining and Fight..

I think that the way to fix WL heals once and for all would be to add an uninducted, moderate heal that could fill the gap between our two standard heals. Also add a group wide buff that reduces incoming damage for a certain amount of time or reduces outgoing freep damage for a certain amount of time

I think that those two changes could completely solve the healing problem.

Unfortunately, fixing the WL's combat capabilities is a more complicated issue. Simply upping our damage is not enough, what we need is the introduction of new skills or a significant overhaul of existing ones. I'd be in favour of an AOE melee attack and a shield bash attack that stuns. BOTH OF THESE ANIMATIONS ALREADY EXIST IN SOA-PERIOD URUK NPC's. It would not take long to implement.

Originally Posted by Squelcher

Indeed, WL is the worst class in the entire game. Pretty much the only reasons I play it are habit, aesthetics and it's role.

It is in dire need of attention in all areas.

Every creep class could succesfully argue this except the warg.

Originally Posted by mager555

Every creep class could succesfully argue this except the warg.

No, they couldn't. While I believe defiler is also a very tedious class, blight helps a lot to alleviate it. BA has no right to claim it is terribly underpowered (though it isn't terribly strong either). Reavers have a tough time, but they can still make a fair bit of inf solo or in groups. Spiders are excellent spawn campers and can do well solo.

We need a dps increase(add a damage type to melee skills) and another heal to fill the hole after the 2 primary heals are used. Preferrably a heal with no induction.

Defeat Response skills would also be nice

Originally Posted by Krazything

We need a dps increase(add a damage type to melee skills) and another heal to fill the hole after the 2 primary heals are used. Preferrably a heal with no induction.

Defeat Response skills would also be nice

"Your reputation has been added to this post"

After playing WL, I think they have it hardest in the Moors. I chose it because it looked cool, but even my Reaver is much easier to play than it.