Wardens grabbing all the attention

In my previous posts I’ve mainly covered the leveling curve and what to do at the end game, all the while skirting around the main role of Wardens, and that is tanking.  I’ll start off with some differences between Wardens and other tanks, and then move on to some basics strategies, slight changes for tanking multiple mobs, and sprinkle in some general group dynamics.  Also check out a couple of similar posts I’ve made on my blog regarding the changes with Mirkwood and tanking specific gambits.

One thing to point out up front is that with the introduction of Skirmishes, there’s now an opportunity to learn how to tank in various situations.  Certainly your soldier and the NPCs won’t pull nearly as much agro as other players but it is a better learning experience then just soloing through content.  If you can’t keep things off those guys, you’ll be in serious trouble in a group!  Skirmishes also are a good practice ground for handling lots of mobs as that can get a little crazy.

Probably the biggest difference between a Warden and other tanks is that they naturally build up threat over time as the majority of our taunts not only have an initial burst component but have a portion that ticks every 4 seconds for 16 seconds.  This allows us to not only build crazy amounts of total threat, but also keep threat up while doing other things like corruptions, defenses, self healing, etc.  The other commonly mentioned difference is that Wardens don’t have the same kinds of snap agro skills as other classes.  The only forced taunt Wardens have is our legendary trait Defiant Challenge which is a length 5 gambit and has a few issues.  First off it does take a while to build, but more troubling is the incredibly long animation (sometimes referred to as the disco challenge) which eats up almost the entire force taunt duration of 10 seconds.  I haven’t used this skill all that much, but I think there are cases where it can be handy and with effective use of the masteries you can build it pretty quickly.

So what do these two differences mean for the Warden and the rest of the group?  Your group does need to give the Warden a bit of a chance to establish agro (you should be doing that for any tank) as it just makes the fight that much easier but you also need to be a bit more careful in pulling agro if you’re a squishy, as the Warden can’t snap it back as easily.  However, the good news is that once the Warden has a good handle on the agro, they shouldn’t lose it as not only can we continue to stack it up but can leach agro from the group as well.  On another positive side, Wardens can heal themselves (and the group) for substantial amounts of Morale which not only generates more threat, but allows the healers to focus on other tasks and not just heal the tank.

Now with all that being said, a well played tank regardless of what class it is will be able to tank any content in the game.  I’ve tanked most things on my Warden and know that every boss in the game has been tanked by a Warden at some point.  However, there are cases where both tanks excel.  Guardians are usually better when the boss has large amounts of spike damage, simply because the have an extra 10% mitigation due to the heavy armor.  And as you’ll see below, I actually think Wardens make better tanks when you have lots of mobs.

I normally like to pull when I’m tanking, but that assumes 2 things – first that you aren’t trying to do any sort of crowd control while pulling, and second that you know the content well enough to pull the right things.  The reason behind the tank pulling is that not only does the initial hit do more threat but it will also give you threat on any linked mobs as well.  This isn’t mandatory but it just makes the fight much easier.  If you don’t pull, just make sure you get a couple of javelins in while the mobs are heading towards you and get a precise blow () off immediately.

I’ll first cover single mob pulls (like bosses) and then discuss the differences between single and multiple mob pulls. 

For single mob pulls, I usually like to start with an ambush for a few reasons – it is a nice damage attack, especially coupled with Critical Strike and Wages of Fear from behind, it allows everyone a few seconds to get situated properly, and it allows you to start the fight in the location you want to which can make a huge difference in certain fights.  However, be careful with this method as sometimes approaching a mob might bring unwanted mobs that makes the fight more challenging.  After the initial pull, I will usually use a couple of Precise Blows before getting Shield Mastery () up.  At this time it usually depends on how much I’m getting hit as to whether I start in on the fist line DoT attacks or if I start in on the self healing.  After about the 5th gambit or so is when I’ll start to sprinkle in Conviction () as this will not only transfer threat from the fellowship onto me but also help out on the group healing.  You’ll need to wait a bit such that the group can actually build up threat to steal so don’t use Conviction too early.  From then on, I’ll sprinkle in Precise Blows with the Fist Line DoTs, Power Attack line DoTs, and Conviction while I self heal as needed.  I tend to prefer the Fist line DoTs over the Power attack line as they have threat components in addition to the damage.

Now the main difference between single mob pulling and multiple mobs is up front on the pull and how I cycle through on healing.  I usually don’t do multiple mob pulls with Ambush, but just a normal javelin pull such that I can bring everyone to me as opposed to potentially running past a mob.  As they approach, I’ll use Javelin of Deadly Force () to try and tag as many as possible while they’re out of taunt range.  Exultation of Battle (EoB) () and War-cry () are the next two gambits I’ll use such that I can get agro on everything and get some self heals in as well.  Use your masteries here such that you can not only build these quickly but without having to be in melee range.  At this point, things should be pretty well locked onto you but a Precise blow will grab any stragglers.  I’ll then use Fierce Resolve (FR) () as another AoE taunt with some more healing going, with Resolution () thrown in to help out on the self healing if I’m in trouble early.  I’ll still use Conviction as it is always a helpful tanking gambit but for the most part I use the AoE life-taps as my self heals instead of the shield line gambits.  As long as you have 3 or more mobs, your fist line heals will be more beneficial then the shield line so unless you’re getting crushed, stick with the life-taps.  Shield mastery is really helpful when tanking lots of mobs as it will greatly reduce your incoming damage. 

Once you get through these few gambits, I’ll make sure I’m targeting the Main Assist’s target and cycle through these gambits as well as an occasional Precise Blow.  Assuming everyone’s on the correct target, this rotation should keep things stuck to you but a quick Precise blow should grab anything back the slips away.  Also remember if something’s running away from you, that’s a good time to use Wages of Fear for the added rear positional damage will usually create enough threat to bring the mob back.  One of the main reasons Wardens are usually considered the best AoE tanks is that not only to we have lots of AoE taunts, but our self healing scales with the number of mobs hitting us such that we can actually survive tanking all those mobs without requiring spam healing.  With 10 targets around you (which you can get in some instances) WoB and FR will heal you for around 1000 morale per tick and Resolution will kick in for over 1500, without considering any legacies or crits.  There have been quite a few fights where I have out-healed the main healer because of stacking these heals.  It is quite fun to be completely surrounded, getting wailed on, and watch as your morale bar doesn’t drop due to all the green numbers filling your screen :)  I can’t stress how much this will make group content smoother as it just takes so much pressure off the healer and allows everyone to ease up a tad.

Now a couple other generic things before I wrap up this article.  As I’m sure you’ve found out by now, Wardens are very power hungry and since you can’t tank if you’re out of power you need to actively manage your power.  You can definitely help this with your equipment, food, and potions but you’ll also at times need to modify your play style a bit for longer fights.  Since we have so many threat over time effects you can still build threat without using power so don’t be afraid to just use Precise Blow for a bit to regenerate some power.  Also, when you’re getting low make sure to use your masteries as those are much more power conservative then the builders.  You’ll also notice that I don’t mention a whole lot of gambits in this post, that’s mainly because the ones I mention are your best bang for the buck and the others will just suck more power.  When conserving power, simplicity is best so try to keep it to a minimum and don’t re-apply new effects until the previous one has worn off.  The only exception to this is our ToTs as they always stack.

As always, feel free to contact me here or on my blog if you have questions or suggestions for additional topics.  My next post (which hopefully won’t be as delayed) will focus on building up your warden with equipment and virtues.