Warden Defensive Capabilities....

[old.Jerioth]

Survived quite long in a fight last night against 2 lvl 50 Albs

Might have even killed 1 of them if my Thornweed field was ready

Anyway check out the defense!

 

[old.Tzeentch]

Yeah, wardens are quite good in defense, Evin always tells me how people always get parried, blocked or miss etc

 

[Kobold]

Wardens =

 

[fade-]

on gorre the day b4 the patch every1 was doing 1on1s in emain and I lost very few fights with my warden. 1st 1 was a caster who kept trying to mez me but cus of my high spirit I resisted most, 2nd was a tank type I tryed with bubble down useing dmg add and end reg, lost that. Next I tryed with bubble up and won even though I go him to almost 0 and he used ignore pain to full health but I got him all the way back down again Killed a few more tanks and a stealther type, lost to 1 that insta mezed me when I'd almost got them they backed off fully healed them self then nuked me from range Lost to a healer type who I beat down once then they used a insta heal to full health, beat them down again, they used another insta heal but it was still close.

seems the only time wardens get badly beaten is when more than 1 is attacking u or PBT is down and when the new patch comes and we get insta PBT chant we will never be caught with our pants down

 

[Ensceptifica]

Originally posted by fade-
on gorre the day b4 the patch every1 was doing 1on1s in emain and I lost very few fights with my warden. 1st 1 was a caster who kept trying to mez me but cus of my high spirit I resisted most

Unfortunately resists don't help against mezzes on Excalibur atm ) : The only thing that makes a warden more than an average tank and an average healer is the bubble, and it's exactly that bubble that gets cancelled with every mez : / So I'm very anxious to see the next patch ( ;

As for bubble becoming insta, that's a very nice bonus, but tbh I'll be satisfied with my resists securing my bubble like they are supposed to.

 

[fade-]

with the self haste buff we have a very fast hit if not the fastest hit in hib

 

[old.Verata]

1 vs 1 Wardens are awesome. In those duels on Gorre before the patch, I went through pretty much undefeated (Nicolas beat me thanks to Radghast's nukes and Cronn beat me because I forgot to put bubble up). I made sure I picked on every different class I could find and they all struggled. I'd also bought Aug Dex 2 and MoParry2 for my RA's which added to my defence a lot.

More or less summation:

Polearmsman: They just swing too slow. I beat one or two without them hitting me once.

2H Warrior/Thane/Pally: Even though they swing a bit faster, they still hit bubble regularly and shield+high parry accounted for most of the shots that got through. Thane DD and Pally chants just don't do enough damage to outweigh the slow swings in combat.

Shield spec Warrior/Armsman: These were long, hard fights every time. Once the initial damage is done and endurance is depleted, it turns into a block/parry fest. Bubble, however, pretty much outweighs the shild spec. Even managed to beat Jawz after he used IP

Zerk/Merc: Tough fights to win. Fortunately bubble tends to take care of the main hand, so you mostly get hit with offhand damage. When DF gets through, it hurts like hell tho. Dirty tricks is a killer as well - I've never been so frustrated in my life. Nothing like trying to chain a style off a fumble and fumbling that as well.

Skalds/Minstrels: The damage they do with DDs just doesn't make up for low defence and low-ish damage output, especially with bubble running. Plus, if you resist the initial mez, it's tickets for them. The insistence of Skalds on using 2H weapons also helps

Friars: These are 50/50 fights almost every time. Their self haste buff makes them swing at a hell of a rate and that staff HURTS every time it gets past bubble. You basically have to hope for the odd block/parry and a few procs/crits.

Clerics: Takes a while because of instas, but is never really a close fight. After their initial DD's, their lack of styles means you parry and block them almost constantly.

Casters: Well, it all comes down resisting whatever root/stun/mez they throw at you. If you can get past it, you should be fine. With our self haste, we get in enough swings to ensure a very good rate of interrupting, even on QC.

Unfortunately, as soon as we come up against multiple opponents, we don't last very long. We're on the Naturalist table, so we shouldn't be able to hold our own for long.

All in all, I think Warden is one of, if not the, best duelling class in the game. It's also made me decide to respec to a full battle spec in 1.52. I really hope we get to test our chars in a PvP environment on Gorre in a future patch cause I'm dying to take on Lewstherin/Nova/Wuren

 

[old.NorME]

I agree, warden is getting way better!!

But, have you tried to do all the blade styles?
It's like Dancing blade can be done if your attacker blocks one of ur kinetic blade attacks, which can be done if u block an attack.

Anyone have a good setup on the quickbar for these styles? I can never seem to use any of them, and i miss a "you Parry" style..

I have aug dex 2, MoParry 3 , McL and Tireless 1 and those helps alot on the defensive side, plan to take Tireless 2 next then save up for MoParry 4.


And i Hate when the average Minstrel comes running and i stop to cast my bubble as fast as i can, Bam i am mezzed and cant cast bubble so i draw my weapons and do damage add instead when i can, just to get killed badly in a few blows.. I just cant get it .. But with insta bub i can prolly survive abit longer and have some fun with that minstrel

edit: And those resist buffs doesnt seem to help at all, 46% spirit resist havent helped me once So I am not going more in Nurture than 46 as i am on now. Going Parry and blades.

Go patch, go patch!

 

[Ensceptifica]

Originally posted by old.NorME
edit: And those resist buffs doesnt seem to help at all, 46% spirit resist havent helped me once So I am not going more in Nurture than 46 as i am on now. Going Parry and blades.

I'm glad I took nurture to 47; gives the strongest dmg add. And the resist buffs should work properly in the next patch

Seeing I hardly ever do duels anyway, I'm thinking of dropping parry and maybe some blades to go for more regrowth when respec comes, but not sure about that yet. 99% of the battles I fight I get killed by DD/AoE spells, so I'm not using parry that much anyway. If I DO go into a duel, I use bubble to take the first few styles, then switch and alternate between dmg add and end song depending on how I'm doing. Very effective ( ;

As for RA: serenity is so much better than MCL for a warden running 6-sec bubble.. I tried both (respecced RA twice), and mcl doesn't come close to the usefulness of serenity. Plus serenity is passive, so I can play like I always did without an extra quickbar item (using 5 quickbars in RvR already).

 

[Elric IA]

With 1.50 you can store a style as a back up. I have a 3 chain style originating off a parry. In 1v1 (mob or invader) after the first hit i press the 'you parry' style button then selct a back up style. If the parry does not happen or they miss/hit then the back up style comes in. If I parry though, then the parry style hits in then i can continue on the chain. It now means that I don't have to react as fast to a parry and I find it much easier now to get the parry chain (and the first attack which is high damage) off.

Basically hit the reactive style button first then your back up style. A lot easier now in 1.50 than before.

Of course with LW the weapon is slower so a bit easier to react to styles etc. I also find that my attack speed debuff means that sometimes I can get the same two reactive styles off in a row against a mob because they have not had time to hit back.

Additionally the LW style opening off being paried seems to ignore you being hit and still hits in if you press within a reasonable time. Always to Shift-I on the styles as sometimes there are openings there that are not always apparent unless you see the full information.

BTW MoParrying is worth the same %age wise as 6 parry skill points so my parry is probably (with realm rank and items) equivalent to 44. I actually parried both blades of a dual wielder in one attack last night which is quite a rare event. For anyone thinking to increase parry skill but worrying about not having base skill increases in other areas it might be worth considering using the levelling skill points in other areas and using the RA MoP skill to increase your parrying.

Parrying atm does not seem to work well in RvR probably because of the use of styles but I know Mythic have been looking at it.

And after last night's DF fun where we died to the Grand Chancellor, I want that bloke's parry skill!

 

[old.NorME]

More in Regrowth than 26 is a waist i think, I dont heal that much that 277 hp heal aint good enough tho.

My template atm is:

Nurture: 46 +6
Regrowth: 26 (+1 ?)
Blades: 30 +6
Parry: 16 + 8

And now i got 83 points to use after dinging lvl 49. They ALL go into Parry. =)

edit: fixed spec

 

[old.Verata]

My spec atm is fairly balanced with the usual 16 in regrowth for the second rez. I've found, tho, that I don't use that rez very much because of mana limitations caused by bubble and the heals at that level are the same as the current base heals. Come respec, I'm going full fighting spec.

At this stage it'll look like this:

Nurture 47
Regrowth 5
Blade 39
Parry 24

I'm stil ltrying to get a straight answer out of the other Wardens and TL's on VNBoards tho regarding the difference in damage output between a 39 spec in a weapon and a 21 spec in a weapon. If it turns out to be minimal, and considering the upcoming fixes to block/parry, I'm contemplating something totally new:

Nurture 47
Regrowth 3
Blade 21
Parry 41

I think I may end up having to test on Gorre first, tho, when the respec patch goes live. Still:

41 base parry
+3 from RR
+6 from current items (easy to get to 10)
+ MoParry3

That adds a hell of a lot to a Warden's already very good defensive ability...

 

[old.NorME]

When my blade skill was on 2x ,I missed ALOT . But now on 30 that have changed abit, I rarely miss now. This is also due to that i use Taunt alot, which has a bonus to hit. I am wondering about not speccing anymore than I have in blades. 30 (+5) is ok and my buffs does the rest.

 

[elerand]

Originally posted by old.Verata

Zerk/Merc: Tough fights to win. Fortunately bubble tends to take care of the main hand, so you mostly get hit with offhand damage. When DF gets through, it hurts like hell tho. Dirty tricks is a killer as well - I've never been so frustrated in my life. Nothing like trying to chain a style off a fumble and fumbling that as well.

Well from a blademaster point of view, I would use 2 very fast weapons, with high quick and a haste buff I'm swinging with a spd of around 1.5, fast enough to get main hand hits in and with tri-wield I'll be hurting you a lot for 30 secs, add in dodger and master of pain too, extra ouch, like to see it in PvP ;-)

Just realised my BM has 29% slash resist (not inc the rf absorb of 19%, which slash weapons are weak against btw), hope you aren't blade specced!

 

[SingerOfSoul]

cant be 1.5

2.0 is the cap sry to say

 

[Ensceptifica]

Originally posted by old.Verata
I'm contemplating something totally new:

Nurture 47
Regrowth 3
Blade 21
Parry 41

I think I may end up having to test on Gorre first, tho, when the respec patch goes live. Still:

41 base parry
+3 from RR
+6 from current items (easy to get to 10)
+ MoParry3

That adds a hell of a lot to a Warden's already very good defensive ability...

Yes, but what use is being able to defend yourself solo in melee when your dmg output is crap? At blades 39(+6) I don't do a hell of a lot of dmg on yellow cons (<100 usually), at blades 21 it can only be worse. So you'll be a weak healer, a weak dmg dealer, and an ok defender (but not much better than a shield tank). I prefer better dmg output and better heals (at regrowth 20, baseline heals are weaker and cost more mana afaik).

I'm never primary target in groups anyway.... and as for soloing purposes... how often do you encounter a single enemy in RvR that will duel you for over 10 minutes and wait for your poor warden dmg to put him down?

 

[old.Verata]

Soul: weapon speed cap is 1.5

Enscep: Warden damage output is always gonna be crap. Tests done on Pendragon have show that the damage difference between 39 Blade and 21 Blade is around 10 per swing. The only thing they haven't tested yet is hit/miss ratio.

 

[Ensceptifica]

Originally posted by old.Verata
Tests done on Pendragon have show that the damage difference between 39 Blade and 21 Blade is around 10 per swing.

That's about 20-25% of the total dmg per swing. It makes quite a big relative difference.

 

[old.Thanatlos]

Indeed, warden dmg output is always gonna be crap due to naturalist to-hit ratio and naturalist damage table..

They can give us all the buffs we want but due to the fact that we're naturalists we'll never outdamage a 1h shield hero (I for one think Neill, our TL, has forgotten about the to-hit ratio when saying we do equal damage to 1h shield hero)

if we want to we can however be defensively equal or almost better than shield heroes though. With high parry we can parry most hits that come through bladeturn, some are even blocked by our leet shield. The hits that do come through get healed by our leet self only health regen. (well, part of it due to the time it takes to fight a critter)

Ah well, I just want my BT on insta so I can have 1 tick of end regen/damage add + bubble every 14 seconds