As many are probably aware, the Warden and Rune-keeper are receiving some major revisions in Monday’s Update 6 patch. And today we received Developer Diaries covering both classes.
Rune-keeper
The Rune-keeper class has seen its fair share of changes in the past, but somewhere along the line it no longer became the class that everyone wanted to play. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an extremely popular class, but with Isengard the term “glass cannon” didn’t seem to even sum up how frustratingly fragile the class seemed to have become. And as ZC (Zombie Columbus) points out the class seemed to “stand still” while other classes “evolved”. And so it is with this update that ZC seems to have the goals of:
- Give the class more options to increase their survivability.
- Increase their healing and damage dealing while attempting to add more variety and utility.
Granted, he does warn that some of these changes (namely the healing and damage) is that their Power sustainability may suffer some in exchange for the buffs that they receive. So what changes are coming?
- All Writs now have no attunement requirements and Master of Writs will be removed from the game.
- Affinity will be removed from all Rune-stones and using elemental skills will change your affinity even outside of combat.
- Calming Verse has been changed to reduce perceived threat by 25% and can be enhanced by the different trait lines.
- Weapon of X has changed to Rune-sign of X and is now a healing skill that does a small HoT and adds an additional buff.
- The passive bonuses that the Master of X traits gave are all being rolled into the 3 set bonus of their traitline.
- A new skill called “Scribe a New Ending” will remove dread from your party
- The Blade Shall Not Wound and The Fang Shall Not Poison have been combined into a new skill called “Their Weapons Will Not Harm Us”.
I’m going to be honest, these changes are extensive and if you’re a Rune-keeper you’re going to want to read the full notes to see everything that is changing. I like the changes that I’ve been seeing, but I’m also interested in hearing what others think about them as well, so please leave a comment and let us know what you think about them.
Warden
Since January, Orion has had numerous blog posts and subsequent discussions covering his revisions of the Warden class. And as a result, many changes for the Warden are coming:
These changes were expected to fall into a difficulty and scope between Minstrel and Champion and ended up exceeding them both. These are just big, big changes. Testing, so far, has proven that the Warden is now far more survivable in raids and capable as DPS. I am looking forward to all of you getting your hands on the changes.
Those who have been following the changes will already be pretty well up-to-speed on what is coming to the class. But for those who haven’t, I’ll try to summarize some of the bigger changes.
- The Warden will now have 3 distinct stances
- Determination will remain the tanking stance
- Recklessness remains the melee damage stance
- Assailment replaces conservation and becomes a ranged DPS stance.
- Each stance will alter “the majority of gambits” to their distinct play-style.
- The Assailment stance alters the spear gambit to javelin gambits; meaning you will need to train the new javelin gambits at your trainer.
- A new skill called Battle Preparation will allow you to build a gambit and execute them outside of combat.
- Masteries can now be trained at level 20, but can only be used when you are traited.
- Defiant Challenge is no longer a gambit, but now an “Emergency” button.
- Dark Before the Dawn no longer requires the Warden be at 50% morale or lower to use, but it restores only ~50% as much power as well as a power over time.
Again, trust me when I say I am just scratching the surface. I personally am looking forward to seeing what the Warden class holds and frankly with all these changes I’m starting to get excited about leveling one again as well.
March 9, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Update after only readingthe dev diary seems to be good.
But on bullroarer our class lost two major aggro skills! War-cry, and aggression.
I hope that was only a bug (it seems to be a giant cockroach), and nothing abuot that in dev diary…. i dont want try it onl live servers, and wait a next half year to fix the new aggro problems
March 9, 2012 at 4:33 pm
I have to re-learn the warden again? /cry
Fortunately, I let my RK languish at 68 or so– she’ll be re-learned as I progress anyway.
-The Gneech
March 9, 2012 at 4:36 pm
This has me really excited to start leveling up my Warden and RK again.
March 9, 2012 at 4:50 pm
I held off on leveling my runekeeper because I knew changes were coming and I didn’t want to relearn. Hope I can pick up quick as I get her closer to cap!
March 9, 2012 at 4:57 pm
I found the RK changes to be generally positive on Bullroarer with a Level 50 Rune-keeper, but it seems like more swirl especially in the traits than the net benefit. Even at that level, the any-writ-any-time-at-no-extra-cost feels like a big boost to survivability and flexibility. Biggest thing though is I hate the new affinity mechanic; it’s based on the last skill you executed and can’t be changed out of combat. I’d rather they remove affinity altogether than this.
March 9, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Overall, I’m not thrilled with the RK changes. New skill, nice, writs, nice, lots of other stuff is meh or lower.
March 9, 2012 at 5:12 pm
RK is my main and I love how the changes look. We’ll see how it goes ‘off paper’ but I am really excited and think this is a great step forward.
March 9, 2012 at 5:20 pm
I don’t know how the Warden changes are going to go, I don’t play her enough. I only know enough to know I’m already very intimitated. The RK, however, is my next character I’ve been levelling. It will be very different. She’s only at 48 so I’ve not noticed the meh-ness at higher levels other people are reporting on. It looks good, we’ll just see how it goes.
March 9, 2012 at 5:36 pm
If I don’t die 4 times a day while questing then the RK changes sound good to me.
March 9, 2012 at 6:59 pm
I’m not happy about the change to Improved Essay of Fire removing the induction to only 1 skill, but the rest of it sounds promising. Overall I think it’s gonna be a little bit of relearning and coming up with a new skill rotation for heals and damage. If this helps us be more effective in groups as healer or DPS and at least a bit less squishy then I’ll be happy.
March 9, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Overall I’m excited about the variety of changes, although it will take some time to figure out all the new mechanics.
One question: if affinity is eliminated from rune-stones, what happens to those very expensive Legendary weapon recipes I bought from the guild a few weeks ago?
March 9, 2012 at 7:17 pm
I wonder if there will ever be a viable frost line for RKs. Is there really any point to having a frost stone? Back when it gave you Armor of Frost (Winter?) it could be semi-useful, but in general I’ve never felt a need for one.
March 10, 2012 at 1:35 am
Part of the changes is that there no longer will be frost stones or any other specific stone. And if you read even further this change is making frost a lot more viable. Power reduction to frost, damage increase. And if trained right, a good rotation with frost and lightening and you can do some serious damage. Already see how to make epic conclusion a guaranteed crit and that is awesome. Frost will be more important than ever now
March 9, 2012 at 8:09 pm
My main’s a warden, so I’ve been both apprehensive and excited about the changes. It’s nice to finally see what exactly we’ll be able to do.
Pros:
Assailment. I’m stoked to have a new purpose for my warden, outside of just tanking. There’s been no reason in the past to use the fist trait line, so the fellowship support application is a definite plus. I’m not sure how great a magnitude these buffs will be, and whether the fellowship will really notice them, but it’ll be nice to have some new toys.
Battle Preparation: This one is great. I’ve been having difficulties managing my self-buffs and threat generation at the beginning of pulls. Either I go all out on threat, and get myself killed, or I play more conservatively and get the hunters killed. And as amusing as that may be, it’s not good teamwork.
Determination: Not much to say that hasn’t been said already. I like the improvements.
Cons:
First and foremost, mitigations. All of the wardens I know have been crying about mitigation for months, and I was really hoping for more of a fix. Defiant Challenge now buffs mitigations, which would be nice, except then it was changed from a gambit to a skill with a minute cooldown. The force taunt aspect lasts 5 seconds, the Dev Diary didn’t say how long the mitigation buff would last. And there weren’t any other buffs to mitigation, meaning that the main problem wardens have been having wasn’t addressed at all.
So. Many. Gambits. The warden is an advanced class, and it’s one of the reasons I love it. I haven’t had any problems remembering what gambits to use in the past, and I love the flexibility. But now? Gambits will do different things in different situations, effectively tripling the amount of gambits. (Plus a new gambit builder, the javelin. I’m going to have to remap my keyboard). I’m not sure how long it will take to relearn everything, we’ll see.
Way of the Warden: What happened to this stance? Will it disappear? If so, what about the trait for it? I’m a little surprised this stance wasn’t mentioned at all, given how commonly used it is.
Ranged DPS: I’m still not sold on the idea. I get that we’re not supposed to be compared to hunters or RKs, more of limited DPS with buffs to the fellowship’s DPS, but I don’t see how well that will work in practice. We don’t have many ranged skills. And it’ll mean I’ll have to change my javelin legacies around.
But I have no clue what’s going to happen until it actually releases and I get a good amount of playtime in. I am concerned that it will take time for all of us to get used to the new playstyle(s), and until that happens we’ll look even weaker (compared to guardians or even champ tanks). And given the level of mistrust the community (and by community I mean GLFF) has for our tanking abilities already, this might get ugly quickly and it could take a while for wardens as a class to rebuild our reputation.
Or, on the other hand, it might make us into one-man killing machines. I’ll just have to wait and see.
March 10, 2012 at 11:44 pm
“We don’t have many ranged skills. And it’ll mean I’ll have to change my javelin legacies around.”
You will learn Jav skills for the dps,so pretty much you can do almost all the melee dps gambits in range.
March 12, 2012 at 8:15 am
If a dps pulls aggro early into a pull then they are probably equally to blame. different tank classes build threat different ways, dps need to learn how much they can push before the mobs push back. Bad dps blame everyone but themselves for the amount of aggro they put out from their skills.
Tanking in wow I’d be quite bloody minded at times and if any dps pulled aggro and ran away from me I’d let them die (on trash) or at least give them a good scary health level. Took a while but most of my guild learned to drag the mob back to the tank or at least stay in range of taunts.
March 10, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Interesting. I have enjoyed playing my RK way more than my Loremaster (both are just below 40 now) because at least soloing at these lower levels he is MUCH less squishy and actually has some DPS. I look forward to seeing the new stuff, and maybe gaining some bag space from the three different runestones, chisels and rifflers if I read this right?
March 11, 2012 at 8:02 am
Its kind of stupid to make the Fist-Gambits still on aggro but ejects ALLE Thread-Bonuses from the skill-line… I want threat, when I’m into fist and not ranged dps -.-… The 5-capstone is still the same? wohoo……. but the rest (for a tanking warden, who needs threat) suchs a bit..
Which bonus/change get the skill way of the warden?!
March 11, 2012 at 8:02 pm
It’s a shame they’re “evolving” and “buffing” classes that don’t truly need it.
I’ve played RK, have friends that play it, and have observed well played RKs in the Ettenmoors – survivability has never been an issue for the class and buffing it further seems pointless. Other classes could use some love – namely hunters on the survivability front, we’re still glass cannons :/
But… dread removal = plus.
I won’t even mention Wardens, it’ll just turn into a rant
March 12, 2012 at 9:51 am
I think it’s a matter of the class-update rotation. If you look at the line of classes that have gotten overhauls in recent months, it’s been pretty much all of them, with RKs kind of last on the list (IIRC, wardens have been worked on a bit in most of the recent updates, trying to get them in the right space I guess).
Everyone gets their own turn in the line, when not part of an expansion anyway.
March 11, 2012 at 10:02 pm
Damn. I play 2 characters right now (been playing for about 4 months, but I’m an MMO vet from UO). I have a level 26 Warden that I started 2 weeks ago have been loving so far. My “main” is a level 46 RK that I’ve finally started to kick ass with. Yes, soloing is challenging. Which is what I liked about it. I figured the ability to summon my skirmish partner in the field would be enough…. these changes are going to overpower the class completely.
March 12, 2012 at 8:18 am
My mini’s almost 75 so these changes might make me pause them and dust off the 30 something RK.
Not a big fan of skills that morph by stance as you double the stuff to remember about combat stuff.