Hi. I just started my warden last night and enjoying him alot but confused on where to put my AA points. I enjoy a versitle character who can survive alone as I solo alot. I get the feeling this character is like a druid in this game as compared to many games where the warden is a fairly good fighter. So far I am enjoying the ability to root multiple mobs and blow them away with spells. I would like to know if the warden can survive and dps as well using swords or are they more of a caster class than a melee class? Please advise...I noticed the latest posts on wardens is from 2011 hmmm.
Warden and Fury are both druids. Back in 'the day', both nuked for damage. If you look at your Warden AA tab, you'll see you have the option to pick melee skills. These mirror your nukes, don't cost you anything (except points) to upgrade and level with you - so lots of Wardens prefer this option. Fury doesn't get the melee option, just Warden (of the druids). I'd suggest you start with putting your points in those if you like soloing, then move to the Druid tree if you want to support them. The far left column in the druid tree supports melee, the far right one supports nukes and the ones in the middle support surviveability and healing skills. Many of the items in the Warden tree support abilities you don't have yet, so choose carefully so you don't waste points. You sort of have to choose between being a rooter/nuker and melee Warden because, although you can root and melee, it just doesn't make any sense to. Most end-game raiding Wardens prefer to be melee spec (using a sword) to nuking. Nuking uses way more power than melee, and even though end game Wardens never run out of power, they still take the option that will do more DPS. If you are enjoying the game solo, then spec any way you like and have fun with it. eq2flames.com has a very good AA spec thread that maximizes what you can do. If you are learning to play the class, though, I suggest you just tweak your points till you like what you have. If you decide to play end-game content, you might want to take some of the advice there, vs. reinventing an 8 year old wheel. Remember to upgrade your heals as you go, and make sure you upgrade your armor too. Druids here are nowhere near as powerful as druids in 'the other game', so don't come with those expectations (/grin), and you won't be disappointed. That said, this class is a very powerful solo-er and group healer who can do some pretty decent DPS on top of it. You will not be asked to groups to DPS, however, even if melee spec'd. You'll be asked to be a healer. Hope this helps, and welcome to The Pack Also, lots of older Wardens are around...we are just TIRED. Get off our Lawn!
Thanks so much for the info. I have it printed out and will go thru all of my points. I think I made an error in one of my class skills choosing more mana because I have been having serious mana issues so far but that's only because he's doing so much damage on spell attacks and I wasn't sure if melee attacks were coming. Thanks so much!
If you do decide to go the melee route as Arielle suggests (Which will be an excellent decision ), while still at a low adventure level you can unlock Whirl of Permafrost, the melee version of our group damage spell before actually being high enough level to have the spell version. The melee version also has the added bonus of being a true PBAoE and will hit up to the max targets rather than the spell version which will only hit all the targets in the grouped encounter you have targeted
Oh cool...I will look for that as well. I'm really enjoy my warden already up to level 16 and not even close to dying even when I get ganked by 3 mobs...But...I'm kinda saying Enough healing spells already when I raise and that's all I get. I hope there are more damage spells hehe...Granted the cooldowns are not so bad that I have to wait between attacks more than a second or 2. Thanks for the tips!
At level 20 you get the Warden of the Forest buff...that used to be the class defining one because it turns us into a wolf (Fury turns into a tiger? lion? something...). That's a self-mitigation buff. I suggest you Grandmaster that spell in your Training choices every chance you get while you are leveling. If you think you don't die now, get that at Grandmaster quality and see what you think. I was a pvp warden for a few years, and at the beginning of pvp servers when people would say "ha! a Leather healer! They will die fast.." I'd just smile...and kill them. Don't confuse that buff with the Shapechange buffs you get with your first point in the Druid tree (Winter Wolf, Tiger and Treant). When you hit 20 and get Warden of the Forest, you use both buffs. So creature-wise you can be a dwarf, disguised as a wolf, disguised as a tiger...lol. (type /hide if you just want to look like yourself). They buff in different ways for different things. The 3 shapechanging buffs were borderline fun spells- since they don't really buff damage, healing or crit all that much. A WoW druid's shapechanges mean something. Here they are basically an appearance form for a buff. Also, when you go to the Achievement counselor to respec for the first time they will offer you 2 cards that have respecs for class and subclass (druid and warden) AA points. You get 5 each for free so you can play around with point allocation without spending any gold. As you level with melee - also - don't forget to now and then upgrade your nukes. If nothing else they are ranged for pulling mobs, and you might find yourself in a situation where you'd prefer to root and nuke. It's nice to have the choice. Your melee skills you can max out with AA points, then they scale with you - so you don't have to worry about upgrading those. I was healing the mage group in a raid where that group needed to be at max range. I was glad I had my nukes mastered so I could contribute some damage without leaving my group out of heal range. It's nice to be versatile.
Wow, I wasn't spending my AA yet only choosing my level buffs...I chose GM in my icestorm I think that one that looks like ice spikes. I had heard it's good to go down the druid tree, but that I think was for healing which really isn't something I care so much about besides some self healing since I usually solo...And they give you a boatload of heal so far and I think 1 or 2 healing spells is fine haha...But I'm also used to a warden being a fighter class. I played a druid in Wow and didn't like her much. But I was strictly a caster druid (balance) and she did mucho less damage than my melee characters...Every game is different though...I still loved the Lord of the Rings warden the best because of the combo attacks you had serious control over you self heals and melee damage and dots...Thus far this character is still feeling like a caster druid to me. I am happy you told me I can respect my points. I wasn't sure about that and it's why I have hesitated to spend them on most of my characters (besides a few tradeskill aa's)...I will just go crazy with some points tonight and play around with them. I am fast to create alts because I can tell within the first 20 levels if I am going to enjoy a character and thus far my warden is my fave followed by my Shadow Night...(guardian and conjurer i am tepid on thus far) But sorry for the ramble...thanks so much for all the tips and help. I do not pvp btw but I LOL'd on that because I have been ganked on leather wearers to generally bad results haha. **Also, I had my level 40 tailor make some gear that will take me to 30. I put 2 hex dolls on him that add to wisdom and stamina I think. I think wisdom is the way to go on a Warden right?
Wisdom is your power pool, and it's also how much damage you can do - so it's basically your main stat till you get to higher level. When you get to where you can start working on your Mythical weapon (called Bite of the Wolf), you will never have power issues again. There is a fabled version and raid/mythical version, but it procs power with every heal. Stamina is also one to consider and get as much as you can - cause that's your health pool. Your armor sounds spot on, and hex dolls are really great. I haven't had any for awhile, but they used to have a clickie use that had a proc - some have a slow..? take a look and see. Just drag the icon from equipped and put it on your hotbar, and you can use that if they still do it. They were very slow casting so I remembered them being good for pulling. For your AA's...I'd suggest putting points wherever you have to to get the combat arts, then start down the left hand column of the Druid tree. Those abilities support melee, and in some cases help you proc heals every time you hit, ie: Passively healing when you melee - which is really great for a soloer. I'd respec your Grandmaster Ice Spikes and take Warden of the Forest. See if you can find the ice nuke in Master if you like it that well - but if you were to compare Master and Adept 3, it doesn't do enough more damage to NOT take the self-mitigation buff that WoF provides. That should also be the first buff you rebuff if you are in a hurry to buff. If you are solo, the extra mitigation is awesome. If you are healing a group - if you are dead, you can't heal very much and all your GM ice nukes are not going to help you much! GL with your little Warden - it's my favorite class, and I'm grumpy that I have to play a Defiler to raid
OP, you mentioned that your warden still feels like a caster....and it will until you spend all your AAs that enhance melee skills. Make certain when you spend your points in the Warden tree on the melee AAs that you actually look in your spell book under combat arts and physically replace your nukes with those combat arts, it's not done automatically and if you are spending the AAs to convert spells to CA's, and not swapping em in from spell book, then you are still using the spells. The CAs scale to your level so if you max each CA (5 AA), then you will see the damage increase, and you will find that you do more damage with the CAs than with the spells... If you ever grandmaster an offensive spell, I would suggest the encounter AE because it is situationally useful even once you go full melee. Whenever you have an option though, grandmaster the abilities that give you survivability. Warden of the Forest would be first option of course, like Arielle said. Also something that was not previously mentioned by Arielle....You mentioned having to pause 2-3s between attacks. Good. Make absolutely certain you get a nice weapon (preferably a big 2h hammer). Without haste your big hammers will have an awefully long delay, and until you get some haste a quicker weapon might be better. With new toons, I always start with shorter delays and as I get haste, I increase the delay to reach an optimal number based on my toons stats. Always hit with autoattack. Never skip it. If you are chain casting you are preventing your autoattack to fire off, and for any melee class that results in a huge loss of dps.
