Thread: Any Helpful Tips For a New Warden?

Hello all,
I've been playing LotRO since around 2010, but have recently unlocked the Rune-Keeper, and Warden. I've already played RK for a bit, and love it, but I'm a bit nervous about playing the Warden, with remembering the gambits, and whatnot. My memory isn't BAD, as such but remembering like 5 moves in a row seems a little intimidating, that aside I'm just looking for basic info on the class, and any tips advanced Warden's would care to offer, such as: best race, best weapon, best traits. Things like that. Any, and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Originally Posted by ShadowNinja3000

Hello all,
I've been playing LotRO since around 2010, but have recently unlocked the Rune-Keeper, and Warden. I've already played RK for a bit, and love it, but I'm a bit nervous about playing the Warden, with remembering the gambits, and whatnot. My memory isn't BAD, as such but remembering like 5 moves in a row seems a little intimidating, that aside I'm just looking for basic info on the class, and any tips advanced Warden's would care to offer, such as: best race, best weapon, best traits. Things like that. Any, and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Gambits are not nearly as tough to remember as most people think. In fact most who stick with the Warden past the first 20 levels or so begin to realize that the gambits follow a simple recognizable pattern that is easy to remember, such as:

2-1 heal
2-1-2 bigger heal
2-1-2-1 Even bigger heal
2-1-2-1-2 biggest heal.

and

1-2-3 small bleed
1-2-3-1 bigger bleed
1-2-3-1-2 biggest bleed

Now some other lines like the 3-1 line are a little more variable but don't worry, the gambits are introduced slowly and over the course of 75 levels you'll get it.

Best race: Arguably man for the man-heal and incoming healing bonus

Best weapon: Arguably spear for the extra bleeds, although sword for reduced miss chance is good too. Ultimitely spear looks cooler so it wins in my book.

Best traits:For tanking just go with 5 blue, and either 2 yellow or 1 red 1 yellow (take terrible visage for sure), for dps, pick whatever looks good, for ranged-good luck.

Basic advice when tanking is keep busy at all times. Always work in aggro gambits first, then healing/defense gambits second. Tanking early on the Warden is hard, but gets much easier at higher levels (70+) when you get some truly powerful aggro gambits like Exultation of Battle.

Some good plugins are buffbars and buffmonitor. Also tonic bars for some extra room for your muster skills.

My last piece of advice is to try out new gambits and take the tooltip descriptions with a grain of salt. Some tooltips do not accurately reflect what the skills do, such as the 3-1-2 line that does not mention the life leech the skills apply on the tooltips.

Hope some of this you find useful.

edit: Here is a really good lorebook entry for gambits and their effects. http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Gambit_effects

Work on class deeds , this may not be the fastest way to kill , but you will be grateful in the long term , practice , practice and more practice , there are some gambit charts out on the interweb , find one you like and print it off, I found this was very helpful when I started out.

after level 20 when Masteries now become available , decide are you a mouse clicker or a keyboard junkie - I am a keyboard junkie , find and set up key mapping that works for you, Masteries did not unlock for me until in 50's (pre U5) so I had a complete gambit relearn after I thought ' I know how this works' , it took me several attempts and several weeks of frustration to get a key mapping that worked for me. This is the make or break for a great warden being able to fire off gambits / change gambit quickly etc , if you are not comfortable or have to think where is that skill, you should maybe think about trying a different combo / key map.

The other thing to keep in mind as a Warden is that you are deemed a tank in groups and not DPS. This wouldn't be so bad except that most don't know how to play with a tank Warden... we need a few seconds of "alone time" with the MOB to lock aggro. For tanking skills, you'll be working mostly gambits starting with Fist to get aggro and Shield to self-heal. For DPS, you start with a Spear. (One interesting note is that no Spear gambit is AOE.)

I actually bound my gambit builders to my numeric keypad so that I can build without using the shift/ctrl/alt keys. I never had any use for the camera angle controls anyway.

a very useful Gambit Wheel

Originally Posted by Hjki

a very useful Gambit Wheel

Three even more useful (and updated) Gambit Wheels

I wanted to thank everyone so far, for all the help. This should help me extensively. The highest level character I've ever had on this game was a level 43, Man Guardian. So I really don't know how extensive, or difficult to adjust it would be to play a Warden. As for now we'll see how the path of the game takes me, again I wanted to thank everyone for their helpful replies.

Warden is easy to play. Most gambits just become muscle memory eventually. It is when you get masteries and start using them that things get interesting.

I'd say stick with the guardian. It has a better chance of coming out on the other side of RoR in a state that is playable

I guess it doesn't really matter what class you play since end-game is going to be a solo endeavor, so play the class you like the style of the most. The gambit system isn't difficult to learn but takes some practice, especially when masteries are introduced. The fact that there isn't another mechanic like it for another class in this game, or any other game for that matter speaks volumes on it in my opinion. Use some of the charts found in this sub-forum to help, but I'd suggest playing a different class.

Best tip......Don't play any alts while playing a warden.

Originally Posted by Kombatant

Best tip......Don't play any alts while playing a warden.

It's hard to anyway. Other classes feel really slow in comparison, and their skill bars are SO CLUTTERED. I'm always afraid there are good skills I never use on other classes because I've somehow forgotten to make room for it on the skill bars.

Originally Posted by Nydorewyth

It's hard to anyway. Other classes feel really slow in comparison, and their skill bars are SO CLUTTERED. I'm always afraid there are good skills I never use on other classes because I've somehow forgotten to make room for it on the skill bars.

Yeah both my Mini and Champ's skill bars are full , tho mini's are nicely color coded - green = heal , red = dps - use green

Originally Posted by Kira_kun

Warden is easy to play. Most gambits just become muscle memory eventually. It is when you get masteries and start using them that things get interesting.

hehe - I finally thought it was about time to finish levelling my Champ - ran into a group of shadow wargs in endewaith - right hand went straight to NumPad and did the following - <Enter> 6 8 2 <Enter> + Strangely nothing happened except I started to get the **** kicked out of me ( btw Goad, EoB, BM execute EoB)

Important piece of information that I found out the hard way. None of your gambits actually apply Hot's unless you are in Determination Stance. Any other Stance, or Stance-less and the HoT's DO NOT HEAL YOU!!!

I went with an Elf for race and sword for reduced miss chance and elf sword bonus traited. + Elf One-handed Sword Damage Bonus (+2% One-handed Sword Damage)

I agree however, with danno8's rotations.

I trait 5 blue and two yellow.

Yellow:
* Terrible Visage (All damage over time effects from Fist Gambits inflict increased damage.
+[Level x 44] Target Warden's Taunt Resist Rating
Increases threat generated by skills in Determination Stance
Increases Warden DoT Damage by 5% in Assailment and Recklessness Stances)
* Strong Voice (Reduces the chance that your Fist Gambits will be resisted.
+[Level x 20] Target Fist Gambits Resist Rating)

Legendary:
* Way of the Shield (+2 Pulse Heal Over Time Skills
Increase the morale healed by Warden Heal over Time effects by 10%
+30% Heal bonus for Conviction )
* Grand Master Weapons Training (+5% Melee Damage
The inherent bleed damage from Spears happens more often
The inherent attack speed debuff from Clubs happens more often
+1% inherent Sword to hit bonus modifier (add to Elf +2)
Damage from intrinsic spear bleeds is greatly increased(~double),
* Defiant Challenge (Forced Attack Duration: 5s
On any Common, Fire, Shadow Damage: Reflect ... damage Duration: 30s
+40% Physical Mitigation
+40% Tactical Mitigation)

(Resolution), Exultation of Battle is one of your best friends. The HoT's are tremdous when tanking large groups ... more enemies = more heal.
The Boot and any spear=shield gambits are useful for interrupts. Everything in that gambit line can interrupt.

Solo I rotate between the interrupts to prevent stuns (You eventually get a piddly gambit that stops stuns but it lasts for a very short time and has a CD where you can't use it again for a short time), EoB for self HoT heal and Dark Before Dawn for power restoration (fairly decent DPS). Don't forget the bleeds mentioned earlier. I have found that they work better in order. 1+2+3, 1+2+3+1, 1+2+3+1+2. Against mobs I tend to spam EoB though and use Battle memory to drop it twice for a nice HoT.

On a team, I often play main tank except for some raids but mostly because I am still gearing up.
I tend to use fist agro gambits and Defiant Challenge to grab threat.
(If you use Battle Prep you can switch to ranged and use conviction ... it will reduce your teams threat generation for a brief time. Quickly switch back to Determination and dive in using all of your threat gen while they are still at reduced threat. This helps tremendously if they know to give you a lead.)
If you decide to tank, be warned that there are a LOT of players who assume you work like a Guard. Inform your team that you need a few moments to establish agro or they will end up pulling them from you before you're set. There's nothing more annoying than having to chase targets while trying to re-establish your agro gambits. Some teams get it, others will say snarky things because they don't understand that the problem is not you ... it's their understanding of how your agro works. So don't take it personally and try not to let them bug you if you do happen across *that* group. Good and seasoned players know what a Warden has to do and how well they can hold agro given the chance.
Also, Don't forget Conviction. You can heal your fellowship with a small HoT ... and it ups your threat because on top of fist gambits you're also grabbing heal agro.
Try to find a regular team, if possible. LoTRO has a really good community and once teams are established and people know what to expect from you, it becomes a lot easier to be a viable tank.

Best of luck.