Orion has changed Wardens enormously with the latest update. The three stances of Conservation, Determination, and Recklessness have morphed into Assailment, Determination and Recklessness and have become very distinct play styles. Today, I’ll focus on Recklessness.
The first thing to know is that many of your gambits now have stance specific effects. For Recklessness, these effects fall into one of some general categories.
- Bleeds and Bonus Damage
- Lifetaps
- Damage Reflection
- Physical Mastery
- Bleed Duration
Bleeds and Bonus Damage
The old trio of Power Attack, Mighty Blow, and Unerring Strike work the same as they did pre-U6 in recklessness. Basically, Power Attack gives a low bleed, Mighty Blow gives a Medium Bleed, and Unerring Strike gives a Big Bleed.
In other stances, only Unerring Strike gives a bleed. Mighty Blow will give bonus damage if a low bleed is present, Unerring strike will do the same for medium bleeds. So its in your best interest to apply bleeds low, medium, big.
All the HoT gambits have morphed into bleed gambits. So Persevere, Safeguard, and Celebration of Skill now all grant bleeds as well. However, you’ll only get the bonus damage from Mighty Blow and Unerring Strike.
Some of the 2 length gambits also produce Light DoTs, both of T1 variety and of the Goad type. The distinction here is important because bleeds and DoTs of the same type do not stack, they overwrite. Impressive Flourish provides a T1 and Goad DoT. The Boot provides just a Goad DoT.
Lifetaps
Single Target lifetaps are a new theme for Recklessness. We’re used to the AoE leeches in Fierce Resolve, Resolution and Exultation of Battle. Those remain unchanged in Recklessness (although no more threat component in EoB) but a number of fist-oriented gambits will now grant a lifetap on a critical hit. That puts a DoT on the mob, and a HoT on you. Once again, these fall into three tiers that do not stack. This is different from the new Exultation of Battle and Fierce Resolve have their own unique lifetap tiers that do stack with each other and themselves.
Damage Reflection
Instead of buffs to avoidances, the Recklessness guardian has damage reflection shields. In the original design, there was to be two tiers of shields and a third tier unlocked when they were stacked. What shipped is simply two tiers of shields, a T1 version from Shields Up and a T2 version from Shield Mastery. The higher tier version lasts longer and reflects more damage. Wall of Steel will now grant a T1 reflect shield as well, and gives a power return on damage buff as well, which could be useful if you are having power problems.
Physical Mastery
The Recklessness warden doesn’t have many buffs, but he does have some Physical Mastery buffs. There are two of these. The first is a nice freebie attached to Defensive Strike. At level 75, it works out to +300 physical mastery. Not a big bonus, but a nice way to proc potency. Conviction gives a much bigger bonus of +3000 physical mastery. However, the current implementation only gives this bonus to fellowship members, not the warden!
Bleed Duration
Big DPS takes a long time to ramp up for a warden. The up front damage of each skill is middling compared to other DPS classes. However, with proper traiting, the bleeds can last up to 32s. That means a single skill can rack up something like 3-5k damage -before- applying any crits. The bleed duration also applies to the Power over Time effect of Dark before Dawn. Dark before Dawn no longer requires a morale level, and it puts out a good amount of damage, so you should be using this gambit often for long fights.
Recklessness Charts
I’ve prepared 3 “trees” of gambits that map out what gambits do what. Click on any of the maps to see larger versions.
DPS Rotations
I will end this article with a rotation that should put up all your bleeds for maximum DPS. Its a fairly long rotation, so pay attention to what masteries are used where!
| Builder | Gambit | Note |
| Sp[FiSh][SpFi] | Warden’s Triumph | +melee damage |
| [ShSp] | Persevere | Low Bleed |
| [ShSh] | Defensive Strike | +300 Physical Mastery Proc Potency |
| Sp[ShFi]Sp | Mighty Blow | Medium Bleed Bonus Damage for Low Bleed |
| [SpSp] | Deft Strike | Procs Potency |
| Battle Memory | Mighty Blow | Medium Bleed Bonus Damage for Low Bleed |
| [SpSh][FiSp]Sh | Unerring Strike | Big Bleed Bonus Damage for Medium Bleed |
| Battle Memory | Unerring Strike | Big Bleed Bonus Damage for Medium Bleed |
| [FiSh]Fi | Brink of Victory | T2 Light DoT |
| FiShFiSh | Surety of Death | T3 Light DoT Manually built to get +crit buffs up (and better chance for lifetaps) |
| Fi[ShFi]ShFi | Desolation | T4 DoT, substitute impressive flourish if you don’t want to deal with the fear |
| [SpSh]Sp[FiSp] | Dark before Dawn | Power return |
April 20, 2012 at 8:15 am
Very interesting. Turbine has definitely increased the power of the Warden, however at the same time they decreased the difficulty and the importance of all the other non-power-strike skills in recklessness stance. I am a Warden, and am in recklessness stance 95% of the time. The damage bonuses for working up the power strike line are so large that there is no reason to use any other skills.
Before these changes Warden was an artform. It was an ever changing musical instrument that could do many different things based on the situation and was only limited by the user’s ability to flow masteries into the gambit on demand and where needed.
Now, it’s just a DPS rotation requiring very little thought.
Honestly I wish they would just change it all back and fix the scaling on it like they should have in the first place.
April 20, 2012 at 8:21 am
“(although no more threat component in EoB”
*twitch, twitch*
Wardens are TANKS, dangit! They need to generate threat!
/cry
April 20, 2012 at 8:38 am
Wardens should use the TANKING stance then, shouldn’t they?
April 20, 2012 at 9:35 am
Determination is for Tanking, Recklessness is for laying the smack down. Versatility is good.
On another note, “Instead of buffs to avoidances, the Recklessness ?guardian? has damage reflection shields.” How dare you Madam!
-Wyn
April 23, 2012 at 7:28 am
EOB has no threat in the recklessness stance but it does still have threat in the determination stance, which is what you should be using when tanking anyway.
April 20, 2012 at 8:53 am
Way to go, Harp!
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve flip-flopped on shelving my Warden, but this has inspired me enough to try it one last time.
April 20, 2012 at 12:10 pm
You should. I came back to Lotro and picked up my warden. It was like a kid in a candy store. I haven’t tanked anything yet, but for leveling, it hasn’t been better. Stacking EoB, stacking fierce resolve. Resolution hits 3-4 times harder than I ever remembered. For single target, bleeds galore, so your DPS is pretty good with a ramp up. Dark before dawn at any time, so no more morale surfing.
And then the stances are nice. Just stance dance for a bit if you need heals in single target. Stack some bleeds, swap to determination and heal up.
April 20, 2012 at 9:50 am
Does look like Lotro borrowed heavily from Rift in this case making use of deflection which was one mechanic which increased the toughness of Rogues in the game allowing them (with other bufs to health) to be transformed from a damage dealer into a tanking role.
Bit of context is in order in Rift 3 of the 4 classes are widely deemed capable of tanking everything and anything, each in their own different ways.
Wouldve been nice if theyd got there on their own though after all these years of them not really knowing what to do about the warden, hopefully now it’s a useful class that can have a place of its own in raids.
Won’t be creating a new one myself though.
April 20, 2012 at 10:25 am
I’ve got yet another chart on warden recklessness and some even more efficient DPS rotations located in this google doc:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Arky_0GX-JUBdGxOYXNNQW1lV1FCNFQ0bkhJY2F2NVE
April 20, 2012 at 11:15 am
Thanks Harperella! You have spent a lot of time on this and it is much appreciated. I have been trying to relearn my Warden and this is very helpful.
April 20, 2012 at 11:19 am
The Bloody Branch… Branch of Leeches… Branch of Thorns… The Bleeding Branch… It sounds awful, haha!
It’s a great write-up though. Recklessness still has me scratching my head, so I’ll have to log in my Warden and try some of this out.
April 20, 2012 at 1:12 pm
Thanks for the great information, Harperella! And thanks to CSTM for making it available. The changes are very complicated, and this presentation helps sort it out. The difficulty has been compounded by a lot of bugs and poor tool tips that make the new behaviors obscure and counterintuitive.
April 20, 2012 at 2:26 pm
The main thing I’m curious about now is whether or not people feel the changes as they stand as of 6.1 are all good. Have they improved the class?
I’ve not played my Warden since I capped out at 65 with her quite some time ago… And honestly this just seems incredibly overwhelming. I’m hesitant to dive back into it not knowing if all of this is “good” enough to stick around or if everything will just be changed again.
April 20, 2012 at 4:23 pm
As a *very* casual warden player (only solo questing, no group content), I haven’t noticed a big difference beyond a new rotation and having to switch to determination sometimes for some heals. Overall the class feels a bit clearer, or at least more structured. Once I made myself familiar with the biggest changes and got used to them I was quite happy with my warden. I would be interested in the opinions of some more experienced wardens though.
April 20, 2012 at 4:27 pm
I haven’t played since the bug fixes in 6.1, but the “new” warden as of update 6 was just crazy. The survivability in Determination is incredible. Killing trash in Recklessness is easily sustained and much quicker.
I don’t know if all the changes are good, but the class’s fun has been greatly improved in my opinion. I would like to see some “polish” on the class, by fixing all bugs, honing tool tips, and making all of the skills work consistently and intuitively in a given stance.
The complexity is high, but to me, that just makes it more fun. You can be effective just by picking the right stance, but there’s plenty of depth left for true mastery.
April 20, 2012 at 5:14 pm
This is much appreciated. My Warden is at 74, and I rarely play him. This is exactly what I need to inspire me. Looking forward to that Determination write-up (joking).
April 20, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Its on the way… There’s a lot to cover!
April 21, 2012 at 4:36 am
Mighty Harperella, will there be a list of melee gambits along with the rest of the Assailment post? think they’re mostly shield with a couple of fist. don’t think there are any ‘javelin’ ones (well javelin DOES imply ranged)
great post, can’t wait for the others
April 21, 2012 at 10:20 pm
Really like the gambit trees, best way I’ve seen of laying out the various ones
April 22, 2012 at 5:18 am
something I noticed about masteries, I can go [Sp-Fi] [Sp-Sp] instead of
[Sp-Fi] Sp similar things can be done with [Sh-Sh] and [Fi-Fi]
possible to go [Sp-Fi] [Sp-Sp] [Recovery] [continue]
(recovery meaning a 1-builder recovery)
hope this is understandable…
April 22, 2012 at 7:31 pm
My crazy warden likes to switch between Fecklessness and Annoyment. Sometimes he’ll chose Constipation stance, and, well.. it puts the “forced” in forced march if ya know what I’m sayin
April 23, 2012 at 3:34 am
Great writeup on this, this makes understanding the new Recklessness stance easier for me with those trees. My warden is shield traited and am used to sticking with Determination stance for soloing and grouping. I’ve been slowly learning the other two stances as I went along and that writeup you did will make that process simpler for me.
My biggest mystery is Assailment stance atm. I can’t wait for the article on that one. Only time I used that stance was fighting the cauldron in North Cotton Farms.
May 1, 2012 at 11:52 am
I’ve picked my Warden back up from the old level cap at 65. He is now 68, but the bad thing is that as I level in Dunland, all the medium armor I find is agility/fate oriented. No Might to be found. I guess my armor/jewlery will just be a big mix/mash until the cap when I can actually get some Warden appropriate gear.
December 16, 2012 at 5:39 pm
In the dps rotation, shouldn’t Persevere be Power attack to get the bonus from Mighty blow or do you get the bonus for any low bleed?
Also do you get the bonus if you do the Mighty Blow (or Unerring Strike) twice in a row using Battle Memory or do you need to repeat the whole sequence?
March 5, 2013 at 7:33 pm
At the time of writing, Persevere allowed mighty blow to get the bonus damage. Now, you’ll need to stack using the Power Attack line for the bonus damage. Its a pity, since it requires the warden to use less masteries. This would be the sequence:
Sp[ShFi] Power Attack
SpSh[FiSp] Mighty Blow
SpShFi[SpSh] Unerring strike
Also, you no longer get the damage bonus multiple times if you use battle memory (or even build manually.) There is a buff that is consumed exactly once.