Classes/Warden
From GaherisWiki
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Contents |
Description
Wardens are fighters with a druidic background. They are charged with the defense of nature, and are focussed on buffing and fighting. They are one of three classes to get Pulsing Bladeturn. They also get Shortbows earlier than other Hibernian classes do. Wardens are the Chanting class of Hibernia, with the changes to power regen in 1.87 and other changes to make the recast times more uniform for the Warden chants it has become noticeably easier to twist them, however it still costs a lot of power and can drain a Warden's power very fast.
Character Creation
What stats matter the most will depend quite a bit on how the Warden is specced. Since a Warden rarely will run out of Conc before getting to 20 buffs, and has no damage spells, to a more fighting oriented-warden Empathy is of little use.
Both Blades and Blunt are pure strength, however Dexterity can effect the Warden's Parry Rate and Block Rate. Wardens don't gain any Dexterity while leveling up so for most Wardens now it is advantagous to put at least some of the point into Dexterity at creation, particularly if you're planning on being a shield tank.
Overall for a fighting Warden they best bet would be to put points in Strength, Constitution and Dexterity. A healing Warden might consider doing the same, as Wardens do not get any Dexterity increases in level, Empathy, Constitution and Dexterity would also be a good choice for a healing focussed Warden.
Overall a Celt will cast a little faster and block and parry better, a Firbolg will hit a little harder, and a Sylvan is somewhere inbetween the two. While race selection is more imporant then it used to be because of Dexterity, picking one particular race won't completely gimp you so its best to pick whichever race you want to play the most.
| Race | STR | CON | DEX | QUI | CHA | EMP | INT | PIE |
| Celt | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Firbolg | 90 | 60 | 40 | 40 | 60 | 70 | 60 | 60 |
| Sylvan | 70 | 60 | 55 | 45 | 60 | 60 | 70 | 60 |
Specializations
Nurture is the Warden's buffing line, and is largely the spec line that defines the class. Pulsing Bladeturn, Run Speed, Celerity and Damage Add chants, a self-only Endurance Reduction buff and a self-only Haste buff, those are the best Haste Buff and Endurance Reduction buff in the game.
Regrowth evens out the heal variance of the baseline heals and gives access to more power efficient major heals. There is also a self-only Health Regen buff, Active Group Heal Proc, and castable-in-combat Group Heal Over Time spell in this line.
Blades weapon spec provides access to a couple useful styles, notably [39] Spectrum Blade that chains off of the anytime [18] Fire Blade, and will slow the attack speed of the target, resulting in more hits being negated by Bladeturn.
Blunt is typically regarded as causing more damage then Blades, noting that less mobs are Crush resistant. The side positional style [10] Side Bash has slow effect to it that can be useful when grouping, however there is usually little opportunity to get a side positional off while soloing. [39] Stunning Blow also has a slow effect, but is a parry reactional. It is possible to get it off while soloing, but if you are going to spec 39 weapon anyways, Blades is the better choice for the slow anytime chain.
Shield was given to Wardens in 1.83, along with 1.8x spec points. There's a number of shield based stun styles that can be useful for getting positional chains off if you're willing to hop around a bit and it increases your hardiness too.
Parry has no styles, and simply adds an extra 0.5% chance to parry with each level. Wardens being a point starved class often put a minimal amount into Parry.
Tanking Ability
The Warden is a Healer-Tank hybrid, unfortunately these two abilities are not mutually exclusive, that being, that you can not heal and tank at the same time, it also means that the Warden is incapable of healing as well as a Roles/Primary Healer or tanking as well as a Pure Tank. To make matters worse, Wardens are on the Healer damage table, meaning that no amount of weapon spec can possibly result in a Warden being able to inflict as much damage as a Pure Tank.
However Wardens get some abilities that let them compensate, and in some cases excel, compared to other tanks. Obviously Pulsing Bladeturn, but also their massive self haste buff, and their Endo Reduction buff. The result of this ends up being that a Warden is capable of spamming taunts really fast, and typically are able to take agg from Heavy Tanks. However unfortunately they don't tend to be very good at peeling from casters.
As of the 1.83 version, wardens can spec in two different OFFENSIVE heal procs (meaning that they are tied to the warden hitting the mobs). The heal proc in the Nurture spec line is a PBAE heal proc while the heal proc from the Regrowth line is a group heal proc. Thus it is possible to do something to keep your group, or those around you, healed while still being in combat. Note that these heal procs add to the power drain considerably. Even with Serenity III, a warden running the 6 second PBT and chanting the heal proc every time it drops will run out of power.
Wardens can now spec into Shield and guard fellow players. Their ability to block is affected by Attributes/Dexterity, their total skill in Shield and +blockchance Items. They also can spec in Parry, but Parry doesn't have any extra styles and parry rates drop noticably with extra attackers.
As a result Wardens can rely on their Shield and their PBT for defense. While PBT works great against single monsters that aren't too high above the Warden's level (typically less then 15 levels above the Warden), its effectiveness drops dramatically against deep purple monsters. It also has the obvious problem that it does not work well against multiple attackers, or a single attacker that can hit multiple times in a round, or hit really fast.
A Warden is a great addition to any group, they can even moonlight as a Heavy Tank with their Shield Spec and PBT. Now that Wardens get Large Shields they are able to block three monsters on themselves and the cap on block rates is noticably better. A properly outfitted Warden can make a respectable Shield Tank.
Champion Abilites
Wardens stand to benefit more then most other classes from the champion abilities given to them. The access to extra anytime styles gives more flexiblity, including a anytime chain consisting of Tenacity, Onslaught which has a bleed effect and Vengeance which has a slow effect. However as champion abilites can not be gained until after level 50 they can not be taken as a factor leveling.
Bubble Drain
All of the PBT spells take a significant amount of power to maintain, the highest level Pulsing Bladeturn (commonly called 'PBT') spell costs 7 power a pulse and pulses every 6 seconds. This causes a slow, but steady and noticable drain on power. A warden with no Realm Abilities running 6 second PBT will eventually run out of power given a long enough time, not sitting down. Lower level PBT spells tend to seriously reduce the Warden's ability to regenerate power with the chant running.
The obvious solution to this problem is to turn off PBT while the group is not in combat. Other ways around this problem typically make use of Serenity to increase natural power regeneration and Mysic Crystal Lore to provide boosts in power. Artifacts like Eerie Darkness Lighting Stone can also be used.
With the changes in 1.87 Bubble Drain is a much less noticeable problem, especially when the Warden in question has multiple levels of Serenity. There are other chants now like Celerity that drain power even faster.
Realm Abilities
Which Realm Abilities to get tends to depend on what role the Warden plans on playing.
All Wardens are recommended to get at least MCL II and Serenity II to help combat Bubble Drain and make sure they have power if they need to heal in a pinch. Also Aug Dex can increase parry rates, evade rates and cast speed.
A healing Warden, especially one with 26 or less Regrowth spec should look into getting Mastery of Healing. Even a higher Regrowth specced Warden will benefit in having their group heal go up in potency. Ethereal Bond is also a good idea to increase the size of the Warden's power pool, and conversely how much power they can get per tick from a Power Font. Aug Acuity can also increase the Warden's Power Pool and Concentration Pool, however a Warden will never run out of concentration unless Rez Sick before hitting the 20 buff limit, and Ethereal Bond is a more efficient way of increasing the Power Pool.
A tanking Warden will want to look at getting Toughness to increase their Hit Points and Mastery of Blocking 5 is a must have for any shield tank now. Similarly Aug Dex is important for increase the Warden's Block Rates as Dexterity does not rise with level. Aug Str can slightly increase the Warden's weapon damage, and increase his encumberance. Aug Con wil also increase the Warden's Hit Points, although not as efficiently as Toughness.
Suggested Specializations
Wardens have gotten more changes that seriously effect how the class is played and specced then any other class in the game. As such this list can often feel a little out of date.
45 Nurture, 42 Shield, 35 Regrowth, 13 Blades, rest Parry this spec gets you nearly all of the Warden's playtoys at the expense of weapon spec. You'll have a better heal then many of the healers on Gaheris, instant cast rez and the second tier castable-in-combat Group HoT. With enough gear giving +Shield, +Block % and +Dex bonuses this spec can make a decent shield tank too.
47 Nurture, 42 Shield, 25 Blades, 22 Regrowth, 10 Parry This spec gets you shield slam, decent guarding skill, the 6 second PBT, red self-haste, yellow PBAE heal proc, 25% endurance reduction, middling weaponskill, and heal spells that are better than nothing in an emergency. This was popular before 1.87.
