My Warden is currently level 25 with 19 AA's. I basically used root/nuke up until level 23 and then decided to give the melee route a try. I put 1 point in Druid, 2 points in SoW and the rest in CA's and Warden of the Forest (4 each). So far I am finding it very frustrating - since I only have the three melee skills and they have very long reuse times I seem to spend most of my time waiting for them to become available. Also, since I miss quite often most of my HO's time out before another skill becomes available. So my question is, should I have waited until I had 50 or so AA's before trying melee spec? Do you get additional melee skills or do the timers get shorter? Other than maxing the slashing/crushing combat skills is there anything we can do to improve the hit rate? Almost everything I see here in the forums suggests that melee warden is the only real option due to the predominance of CA related AA's but so far I am not finding it as much fun as casting. How gimped would I be, if at all, if I spec'd back to a nuker build and stayed there? Is there a big difference or just a matter of preference? Thanks! Sorry if these issues have been hashed out before. I did search the forums first but could not find the answers.
Well it's rough when you have so few AAs to work with in the first place but I think you probably specced them wrong anyway. One in the druid tree is good to unlock the illusions but I think you should skip sow and warden of the forest entirely for now. Just spread them as thin as you can to get all of the CAs + Force of Nature. And pick up a MC 2 hander or something so you can hit like a truck.
Simeon wrote: I disagree with Melee Warden being the only real option. I'm nuke spec'd - have been for most of the game. I tried melee spec on both my PvE and PvP Wardens (both 70 at the time) and wasn't happy with it. When I am not raiding, out of heal stance and nuking in a group I can do respectable DPS. I don't do 4 and 5K like some melee Wardens, but that's ok..I'd rather focus on healing and nuke when I can. My speciality is keeping the folks that can do 10 and 12K DPS ..alive. I'm happier with that than doing that much myself. There are not really a predominance of Combat Arts - the entire INT line in the druid tree supports nuking. They were saying that the combat arts are nice because A) they are free with AA vs. having to pay for nuke spell upgrades and B) they scale with you vs..having to pay for nuke spell upgrades. Plus, it's a playstyle preference for most people that do it. I would have put my first 19 AAs exactly the way you've done it..with the exception that the points you've put into the combat arts would go into the INT tree in the Druid section. I'd have my white wolf illusion cast all the time on top of my enhanced Warden of the Forest wolf..where I would have put the AA you put there as well. I'd switch to the Tree illusion (still with the Warden of the Forest wolf on too) if I was healing a group. I'd also max SoW like you've done. The next points I get, I'd start putting into roots..since the rooting/nuking philosophy of Wardening is one I like a lot. I'd say you'd want some more AA before you'd see the results that everyone is raving about when they swear by the Melee spec. For one thing, your gear really needs to support the STR stat, and you really need to support the CAs with the STR line in the druid section. Although there are some nice bits of gear at level 25, you don't start really seeing the stuff that would make you a melee beast until a little later...and..you need more AA The last and final deciding factor is what do YOU like to do? I prefer to be standing back, healing, nuking, rooting, maybe a little slower dps than my melee counterparts, but if I wanted to be in the fray beating the snot out of something, I'd roll a brigand. StaticLex said you spec'd your AA wrong. He is wrong - you didn't. You put the points you had in good choices for what you were trying to do. But without a very large STR pool though, and with no haste - stuff that comes later - you are not going to see optimal melee abilities. You miss a lot at that level cause of weapons skills and gear. Hope this helps a little. I'd advise continuing with the nuking route till you can have the STR line close to maxed and the combat arts the same. You'll be amazed at the difference.
Arielle Nightshade wrote: Uhm, no. Sow is WORTHLESS. It's out of combat runspeed and does absolutely nothing for your ability to kill mobs. Warden of the Forest is mediocre at best. If you can't keep yourself alive AS a healer versus solo content, then you have serious problems. The guy complained specifically about not packing the punch to kill mobs in a timely fashion. AA wasted in non offensive buffs is going to do jack to correct that. I'm sorry if ariel or whatever is too dense to recognize that, but that's the fact of the matter. I mean geezus, you've got someone nuke speced as a warden trying to give a newbie suggestions of how to play.. lol
At level 25.... I luv'd the root/nuke and built as I went along. And yes, I used SoW and still use it today at lvl 80 for various situations. So I basically hit the STA and INT with STR in the first tree, then in EOF went accordingly. By the time I got to EoF, I decided to go with animal charm with 8 pts and had a blast! I could get through those mobs in half the time. (Wardens are notoriously known as torture killers!!). I did not spec T-shell cause I wasn't raiding and didn't need it for the content I was doing att. And I when I began spec for T-shell it was for raids in RoK - and still do use it today on certain pulls at lvl 80-TSO raid zones. Experiment along the way as you decide what style of playing you want to do; be it a pure healer only for groups/raids; hybrid of sorts with emphasis on root/nuke or melee; or pure melee with heals. You will prolly re-spec a few times as you experiment with things. My spec today is two fold - I'm hybrid but mostly healer on raids, so I can add a bit of dps on trash mobs (never on the bosses) and heal/cure to save peep's butts. And I have a melee spec I will utilize along with specialized armor/jewelry when I go solo, so I can cut through those mobs without spending 5 min killing them - each! Also makes it easier to kill a grp of mobs. I don't use animal charm anymore, so I respec'd that down to the nominal 4pts to get to T-shell. So my advice to you is experiment with each type as you level up and figure out the type of warden you want to be - and don't forget to learn cures - some are necessary to cure immediately - others you can heal though with no problem. good adventures to you celestina, toltec healer blowing up chem labs
StaticLex wrote: Warden of the Forest is certainly not mediocre, it's almost 1k mit at master w/ 5 ranks. More mit means you're taking less damage means you can spend more time attacking and less time healing. With that said, it wouldn't be my first choice when it comes to picking out AAs, it's something nice to fill in a little bit later. I prefer the melee warden spec now, but I think it does take a decent amount of AAs to build up, probably more than 19. It's worthless without the CAs and the 75% crit AA, you need to be critting almost every hit (and lower-level druid gear offers little in the way of melee crit). Being the 'nuking' or 'root/rot' warden may be somewhat easier at low levels / low AA. But once you get up there with more AA it does not stand up to the dps output you can get from melee. The nice thing about it is at 80 you can be doing ~2k with autoattack alone in a decent group with decent gear, you don't have to give that up in order to heal (and the autoattack timer makes timing your heals with your autoattacks trivially easy). So unless the mob gives you a reason to be back farther away (ie an AE) you can be right up there meleeing while still healing.
Barx@Antonia Bayle wrote: Err, we're talking about newb here with 19 AA? There's no way he's getting 5 ranks of it and 1 K mitigation. Anyway, at the point in the game that he's at, it's a mediocre AA choice.
Going melee is like an all or nothing type of deal. If you dont have the AA to max out your Force of Nature line then you dont want to spec melee at all. Also, the issues with missing become much less of a problem once you get your first version of Instinct. In the earliest stages of the game the root / nuke approach will be most affective and you are best off putting your first few AA into the Movement line. Naturewalk is awesome for soloing because most every solo mob in game can pin you and enhanced SOW is sweet for questing and all the running around you have to do in the earlier levels.
StaticLex wrote: It is medicore at that point yes, but my point was it is by no means mediocre later in the game. Like larry just said, melee is best when you can go full into it, or at least with enough AA for the 'basics' you need for it. (Force of Nature)
In just 1 more level (26) you will see a big change when you get the buff to increase (significantly) your slashing/crushing skills.
RollerDog wrote: That will be a very important buff for meleeing. It will be a big difference. I was nukes specced through KoS. You can have some real fun root nuking named and with 2 roots and the emergancy, you can even handle an add or two if you have some ability to regen power like mana stone and potions. Of course I was max lvl when the EoF AA's came out so didnt have a choice but to root nuke. If you want the most optimum switch over, i would wait until I had enough point to get the 75 percent melee crit and as much as the str line you think will help you like the extra str, the haste giveing attack, the heal proc (free heals are always nice when fighting and proc heals dont get interupted), and the double attack aa also. The endline is just an extra attack but you can do without it. I personally prefer the nuke version of the debuff so that if it gets resisted, it can be recast after teh resist time is up where as the CA, if parryed or missed, has the full timer in effect.
Personally....I wouldn't spec melee until I had the aa to support getting that melee crit at the end of the EOF tree. Until then, our nukes do about comparable damage to the melee skills. The only plus to the melee skills without the stats to back it up is they take less time to cast...so is easier to heal + attack in between autoattacks. Until I got around 25-30 aa, I nuke specced and played it like a fury. Make sure if you go melee spec you have the correct gear for it...treat your warden like a brawler for gear with maybe a couple pieces of caster jewelry to get your power pool up, get a slow, heavy hitting 2-hander and, if you can afford it, thorns adorns and any proc damage on incoming attack/sucessful attack will help. I also burned through power at that level meleeing, so I spent the money on a vampiric pith up til I got my fabled (and now mythical) weapon. Note: my warden was also my longest active trip to 80 of all my toons, so I didn't mind spending the extra expense. Especially since I'm on pvp, and **** gear = death usually on pvp. As far as AA....for a melee spec go down the warden tree first to pick up all your CAs and the crit, as well as the Defender of the Forest augmentation if you have the aa as it will cut down on incoming damage...then usually I'll pick up STR line for the DA, and eventually the endline if I have the points to splurge for another attack (though not necessary, its still a guaranteed hit attack and is better than just having the 5 CAs...). You also want the tiger form most of the time for soloing, as any added damage is your friend and really at your level it shouldn't matter if your heals are critting 3.9% of the time.
Desna -- your response was slightly contradictory but in general I agree with you: I would go Warden just enough to get all 4 CA's (3-3-1-1) for 8 aa's. Mainly because two of those CA's you don't get the corresponding spell for quite a while so it really helps to do this (specially aoe CA). Then I would go STR until you have 21 total AA's -- this will give you another CA and some DA for a while then at 21 respec and go all warden to get 75% MC then start back down STR -- 40% DA + 32% auto healing are great for solo. I would spend a point in last ability just to get another CA. After that I am thinking infusion -- would that be good for melee soloing?
RollerDog wrote: I think Infusion is a crappy choice for wardens in the first place but it's especially bad when you don't even have a group to trigger the nuke on.
I don't see the contradictions...but it's my own post, so heh... I specced infusion for all of three days and dumped it, because I couldn't justify the wasted aa for the little amount of damage I was getting from it...and being on a pvp server, I'm shackled to Serenity until the end of time.
