Iskiab

Hey,

So I quit over a year ago during T7. Anything new and exciting for Wardens since then?

When I left here was the state of the class:
- Sandstorm sucked - the defense did shit and the stun was ineffective with the stun changes. I parsed it out and was shocked at the ineffectiveness of it... I always assumed it did at least something.
- Our defensive buffs sucked. We are basicly furies without dps or dps buffs.
- Our AAs sucked. Group knockback and anti-stun was broken. The only thing worthwhile was the run speed buff. The melee line actually dropped your dps, and it was impossible to get your strength high enough to do decent damage.
- The one good AA line for us got nurfed to high hell... the resists/mit buffs from the cure line. They nurfed the effect of mitigation and then changed it to only effecting 3 hits... which means they nurfed it to uselessness.

I was happy with Warden healing though. Potential to heal more that's not realized unless the shit hits the fan, and in exchange for the potential to heal more we have problems with spike damage.

Anything changed since then? Same old shit?

Aerofae

Pretty much same old shit although our epic is god damn great.

Sandstorm don't got stifle, but still got root which is crap and got
really limited use (for swarm adds fight maybe and that's about it).

Purity now in gu45 got nice update and it's actually good buff now.

Instinct got nice update but you need 6 pieces of vp set which is crap.

And well we are gods of not losing power now

__________________
Meshuggahx- 80 Shadowknight of Butcherblock

Aerofae - 80 Warden of Butcherblock

Headbang - 80 Troubadour of Butcherblock

Iskiab

Oh yea, so they changed tranquility/purity. That's a good change. I hated having to have a healer spam cure for the invalidate... or debilitate... or whatever the 6k mit debuff was. That was one of the dumbest mechanics I've ever seen. Something to pre-cure could be handy.

I also read about the fairy. I don't know about that... it sounds ghey to me. In opportunity costs what comes to my mind is it might not be worth casting. I mean sure, if you do cast it ... it will have some effect, but if you use that same time to heal instead would you be better off? I've read some conflicting information on it. Does it heal more then spores? Spores must rock now that it's been upgraded.

So there are epics now? I've been pretty out of it for a while and haven't been keeping up.

So they changed the +slash/pierce/crush to do something? I remember unbuffed people were still hitting about 85% of the time, and then if you fought an orange your % of hits would plummet to about 50%. People said it was good vs orange cons.... even then I don't know how true that is.

The colour con system when they implemented it is an aritifical penalty so to speak. The level difference itself isn't the problem, it's just when something went 'orange' they threw a shit load of penalties at you, and if it was red it was ridiculous. It was to stop powerlevelers from killing red cons for xp (it used to be good xp to trio giants in permafrost under 50). I also think there were problems with the old system because I remember grouping with a troub and with duststorm and his defense buffs melee mobs couldn't hit him.

So why are we so great at power? Moreso now then before with our huge power pools? Do you mean the upgrade of spirit of the bat? I usually cast that on the tank anyways back in the day since I'd hit the regen cap with a coercer and dirge in G1.

Woodlore

The Fairy is somewhat useful; although it has a power cost, power means nothing to an Epic Warden. As well as being quite nice in it's own right, the epic has a few nice effects. Firstly, it has a clickable 3-hit Stoneskin called 'Infuriating Thorns' (castable on anyone in group/raid except yourself) with a big DS component when the target is hit. This lasts for 3 hits or 12 seconds, whichever comes first. The far more interested effect is called 'Nature's Replenishment'. This effect gives you a 50% chance, on a critical heal, to get 300-500ish power back. Bear in mind that a raid warden will have 75% or more heal crit, and that a group heal counts as 6 individual heals.. And you're looking at frequently getting 1k-2k power for casting a group heal that maybe costs you 300 power or so. A Warden with epic and decent heal crit will simple not be able to go OOP. There are some fights in RoK where you want to keep your power between x and y percent, I actually have to de-equip my mythical epic for this fight becuase I can quite frequently recover 15-20% of my power pool from one heal. The third effect is 'Splash of Nature' which increases the ticks of HoTs over time. It's pretty nice. A crit on Photo M1 with Mythical, AGI line and decent +heals (around 900-1k) will look something like: 2.1k, 1k, 1.1k, 1.2k, 1.3k, 1.4k. This effect also affects the HoT component of our direct heals, so your single/group directs get a little boost too.

Our buffs still suck. Bad. Almost zero offensive buffs, and the defensive ones are still almost useless. Instinct does get a slight boost from the VP set armour, it gains double attack (7% I think?) and 10% accuracy (boost to hit rates). Beyond that we're still secondary healers, albeit extremely potent ones (especially on AE heavy fights). There are plenty of fights where I'm top of the parse or close to it, but no-where near as consistent as the MT Defiler.

A lot of people will tell you Fury is better than Warden in ever respect. They could well be right. I've stuck with Warden becuase I enjoy the class and there's a place for me in my guild. I don't feel as secure healing on a Fury as I do on a Warden, I honestly believe Wardens are still one of the best pure healers in the game. Our abject lack of utility or DPS is a hindrance though.

Hope that's a little insight.


--Woody

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metacell

I think Fairy Ally is quite useful. It only takes 3 seconds to cast and lasts one minte. In many fights it accounts for 10% - 20% of my healing. That's not bad for 3 seconds of casting, especially as you can cast it before the fight, or during a calm portion of the fight when you don't need to cast anything else.

I was one of the few Wardens that used Hierophantic Genesis. It was good for long fights where you ran out of power. But in RoK it's been rendered completely useless. Our epic weapon gives us all the power we need, and the RoK mobs hit so hard, Hierophantic Genesis doesn't cut it. You need to chaincast your single heals in most situations.

The biggest difference you'll notice in RoK is probably the abundance of gear with effects. Most gear that drops, even tresaured, will have procs like self heal on attack, group heal on attack, refill power to target of healing spell, power transfer to your target on beneficial spell, etc.

Oh, and you only need the Fabled version of your Epic weapon to get rid of (almost) all your power problems. You can get that through single/group quests.

Aerofae

You are probably speaking about Ventil Sathir.. yeah that's the only fight that if you'll use your epic you will wipe the raid

The fairy is useful too imo.. i got it on master version and it's lasting for 1.36 mins and not dying alot from aoe now

__________________
Meshuggahx- 80 Shadowknight of Butcherblock

Aerofae - 80 Warden of Butcherblock

Headbang - 80 Troubadour of Butcherblock

metacell

Huh, you're right, I checked in game. But EQ2i says Fairy Ally lasts one minute (cached here). Is that for the App IV?

Aerofae

Must be then.. ad1 is around 1.12 min or so, ad3 is 1.24 (i think) and m1 is 1.36

__________________
Meshuggahx- 80 Shadowknight of Butcherblock

Aerofae - 80 Warden of Butcherblock

Headbang - 80 Troubadour of Butcherblock

Eminaria

You must'v not understood how that spell works... it doesnt give you power, it gives the target power! (so you could give yourself power if you use it on yourself ofc, but that'd be silly) It still has its uses, for example if you dont have enough power regen in the group you can use it to feed power to a tank while also healing, and if you cast your HoT's, Purity and your Epic Clicky before using it the tank wont be going anywhere while his power goes slowly up.

Iskiab

Wow, the warden epic sounds really nice. 3 hit stoneskin is nice. That and you can use it when the shit hits the fan to save a wipe.

The VP armor set bonus sounds good. So instinct will give a 7% double attack and 10% extra accuracy?

Yea, btw, HG is a power feed, not something that gives us extra power. I used to use it as well, on fights like the crab or what have you. Our Guardian used to drain his power faster then ... well fast, so sometimes I'd feed him or he'd cry when he'd lose aggro. Pretty much it's good for all the power drain mobs.

You know... I think it's actually worth putting a warden in G1 now. We're actually better then another class with the changes you've mentioned... of course this doesn't take into account the changes everyone else has.

We get lots of power - coercer can split the power of the group so it's like we're a power battery for long fights. With that armor the tank can hold aggro. We get spores. Group healing is our speciality.

So looking at the big picture... have things gotten better? I've been out since level 70.... and I'm playing AoC atm, which is good.