So Ive been asking in /b, what would it take for Wardens to be fun?

I have no egotistical stake in this beyone having a warden which i use as a slave. In rvr, he is a piece of shit. His damage sucks, his heals suck. His bubble is...eh soso. In pve he is a slave, but not a very expedient guy.

Are there any thoughts on how it could have a more engaging role in endgame with the custom classes in mind? So far, /b inquiries yield the chirping of crickets.

My personal modus operandi in rvr is simply to run away when the warden is in a 1v1, or to /stick it and play the other account while occasionally irritating people who dislike his name. I also kill lowbies with him, which i suspect is the upper threshhold of his pvp prowess. Are there other Wardens who are better played that feel both competent in rvr and rewarded by the class OR could the influx of custom classes maybe yield a boost in healing, crowd control, or damage dealing for this relatively innocuous guy?

Now, before you go batshit crazy about the idea of making wardens better, bear in mind that I strongly believe in very small increment adjustments in class balance and am not suggesting broad sweeping imbalance infusions. I personally never cared for the class, and still care very little for my current Warden beyond his capacity to bubble and haste me and irritate you in /b. I think, however, that more rounded rvr might occur if the class became more interesting.

To beat a dead horse even deader, class specific items that are unique and of high utility might be interesting (if made accessible without pveing for 6 weeks, Fuuin...), but Admin and the rest of you are free to consider and add your two cents. Just keep in mind that the nice thing about item balancing a class is that nerfs dont make the players go apeshit when their sword doesnt proc as much, unlike logging in the next day to find their toon has 1700 less hitpoints and cant spec a weapon any more. It's subtle trickery, this item balancing.

Anyways, try to keep the flames to a minimum in this thread, cause it took me 10 minutes to write AND you are better served flaming me regarding the NS which I am actually emotionally invested in.

Regards,

~Buddy Carde

I remember on I60 to make them viable in rvr they gave them LW and maybe a heal style. it helped

Without actually playing a Warden, I could agree to some point that they are weak. Solely on my experience in coming across Cardens (That is not a flame). He has no chance to outheal incoming DPS, his bubble at a max of six seconds is laughable, buffs are inferior, and as far as I can see his DPS output is right about where Carden says it is.

With all of this said, If you are going to add to any aspect of the warden it should be deep enough in the tree that a "buffbot" cannot turn around and start kicking ass. This is already a problem with the friar buffbots of summoners.

I could invision an all around overhaul, again if it is deep in the trees, so one cannot get everything.. Upped buffs, upped DPS (maybe some utility styles [heal ect]), lower duration or even short short duration self PBT, and increased heals at very high levels.

If you take into account the amount of points a warden can get or any class for that matter and strategically place overpowering abilities to make them miss out on others balancing would be alot easier. So one would have to choose, DPS, Heals, Buffs, or Utility. Not all four.

Non stop farming for marathon sessions has given me some time to consider what a Warden might find useful and fitting to the Warden them of damage mitigation and moderate utility heals and tertiary dps. Consider adding 360 degree evade 1 or 2 for more modern damage mitigation, or regular evade 1 or 2 if the scripting presents issues. Additionally, add an AOE damage snare proc based on the Essence resist that does low damage to a low radius, like 150 units (roughly one horse length in DAOC measuring terms). I would put the damage snare in Nurture, extremely high Nurture, to preclude players from taking advantage of the proc while ramping up higher weapons spec or shield spec or parry. Make it cost more than 6 second PBT spec costs to spec for.

This accomplishes an addition to damage, increased solo damage mitigation with gimp evade one/two (which has already been sort of implemented via Dragon Agility procs on gear, and is very cool) and an essence aoe snare contributes to group play, where wardens are intended to be in the back of the action trying to slow things down and keep the grp out of trouble. This also ensures that the class stay out of the spotlight, where these minor boosts provide enough to make them fun and interesting and very group worthy-desirable, without them turning into unbalanced unkillable monsters. The Warden should never be a big dps, big healing, big defense monster trifecta, but it needs just a little touch of love to find its groove on Antebellum.

I do not think that giving the buffbot line an instant escape would be very good, this could pose a few problems. First off some people prefer when encountering a duo of main/bot to remove the bot from the situation. Giving them a damage snare, allowing them to run, then alt tab over to the fully buffed main I don't feel is a good answer for the wardens. I feel any changes to the warden should merit those playing the class as a main, and not make it a hard to kill bot.

offensive proc buffs in the top end of the nurture line (100dd or astral elemental proc). a high delve bleed on the mid to upper styles. maybe add a castable dd/snare (interuptable 1500 range maybe 130 delve 3 sec cast time) or a focus dd/snare like the heretic. i think a couple of those could make the class competitive.

skymung