In this guide we will be talking about mostly everything that concerns a Warden, from PvP tactics to PvE and stat builds.
You you are too lazy to read the whole guide, then use the CTRL+F search function and copy-paste the content list namings to browse down to the sections you are mostly interested in.
CONTENT:
1. Author's Opinion
2. Introduction
3. About what will the guide be about.
4. Stats
5. Abilities
6. Builds
7. PvE
8. PvP
9. Afterword, or why you shouldn't play a Melee-Warden
1. Author's opinion
At first i would like adress that this guide is targeted for the audithory of people that already have a level 40 Warden character on their hands and want to sqeeze out maximum out of the class's potential, that are giving priority to being melee. For those who are only starting out or planning to start out a character, should first read into more basic guides on leveling and get a gasp of the class mechanics at first before reading the material that will be provided in this guide.
2. Introduction
What is a Warden? What do we eat him with? Well when creating a character we'll read the basic information on the class about how their pet masters, control nature, are a great assist to comrades and additional blah like that.
But lets get to a bit more detailed information about the class now: If were going to talk about a wardens place between other classes, we would classify him primarily as a hybrid thats able to either concentrate on Melee , Magic , Pet Assisting styles or even a mix of both.
The aspects of being a melee warden are mainly his huge amount of dissabling abilities knocking a opponent down, silencing them, slowing them down, ect. Also because of the low cooldown on his main abilities, he is able to non-stop spam his spells , in PvP is most effective against cloth type characters but can shine also when paired against heavier equiped classes aswell.
In PvP the class a decent damage dealer and a great debuffer and as will be said lower, a great healer aswell.
Also one of the secondary aspects why a Warden is welcome in any party is because of his strong HoT (Heal over time) spell wich is called Renew, a spell that has a very long duration and heals the whole party over time, its stronger outside combat and weaker in combat but either way works like a charm.
3. About what will the guide be about.
in this guide we'll talk about the priority of stats and how do they work, talents and their DPS priority, about wich talents are necessary , optional or useless and a more indepth description to them all.
And ofcourse about talent builds.
About the wardens role in PvE, PvP 1v1 , 1v2 and Mass PvP.
This guide was created from the experience of a lv40 warden and onward playing at lv40.
4. Stats
Every character in Allods has a certain amount of stats, lets review them all and each's usefulness for a Melee-Warden.
Strength - represents the modification of damage in close range, applies to damage from normal attacks aswell as physical spell attacks, useless for a Warden as because of a passive ability - its replaced by Intelligence.
Finesse - represents the resist modificator that a enemy will have against your physical attacks. Useless for a Warden since because of a passive ability - its replaced by Wisdom.
Expertise - this stat affects the accuracy of your physical attacks, useless for a warder because of a passive ability that replaces it with perception.
Agility - a stat that affects the chance of you dodging a enemy physical attack, a important stat for the warden as for both PvE and PvP.
Luck - a stat that affects how often will you deal critical or glancing blows. Very important for Wardens.
Endurance - a status that determines the chance with wich you will receive a critical or glancing blow, it has a mediocre significance both in PvE and PvE.
Stamina - a status that determines your maximum health points, very important for wardens.
Intelligence - a stat that affects a characters Magical attack, a extremly important stat for both a Magic and melee warden wich determines their dmg cause of their passive abilities.
Perception - stat determines the amount of resistance your enemy will have against your magical spells, a important stat for both magic and melee wardens against cause of their passive ability that makes it work for both physical attacks and magic spells.
Conviction - a stat that affects the success of your control abilities such as dissorients, stuns, slows, ect. Mediocre usefulness in PvP and generally not a very important stat to look out for.
It will be rised a bit anyways out of the random gear you'll be wearing since some of it is bound to have a bit of it on it.
Willpower - the counterpart of Conviction, a stat that affects the success of you being affected by control abilities. Mediocre in PvP and useless in PvE, not a stat thats worth worrying about, same as the one above.
Rage - a stat that determines the seriousness of wounds that you will deal to a target , mediocre usefulness in both PvP and PvE, not a stat worth worrying about, will come itself ingame with gear.
Faith - a stat that determines the effectivness of your heal spells on wounded targets, its a stat thats quite felt in 1v2 fight scenarios and heavy PvE fights, but its not as much worth as heavily investing into it, neither tho is it recommended to disscard it, tho don't worry about it too much, most gear with INT/Perception also comes with a bit of Faith to keep it up.
Wisdom - the counterpart stat of Stamina, it affects your maximum Mana points and their recovery rate, for a Melee Warden it has more significance since it also affects their success rate on landing physical blows.
Lets get onto gathering these stats now shall we?
For a PvE melee type the most important stats would be those that affect damage dirrectly dealt to the target, starting from most important to less important ones we'll start with:
Intelligence, Luck, Wisdom, Perception, Stamina, Faith.
In PvP to this list you might add Agility and Endurance.
If your going to ask why is Stamina important for a Warden in PvE then thats a very easy to answer question, you will meet most bosses that will just wipe you out in a couple of AoE hits if you won't have enough health and a dead Warned doesn't deal damage ^^
Plus it saves a healer the stress of pulling you back to life from almost the other worlds gasp after each of the bosses's AoE.
Now lets get back to the main stats.
Lower we'll see some graphics that give a aproximative understanding of how stats work in a rising order after being affected by the increase in the appropriate stat.
The general damage modificator is dirrectly infulenced by Intelligence at a square rate so you can increase Intelligence as much as you want and the stat won't lose in its effectiveness.
Luck affects two abilities, your critical hits and your glancing blows. As we see in the graph after luck reaches 237, it turns from a linear to a square rate characteristic such as intelligence but the chance of dealing a glancing blow works a bit differently and isn't linear until luck reaches 355. So we can make a conclusion that the round number that we should be aiming for would be from 280 to 350, while balancing the other stats respectively.
Perception, the effectiveness of perception as we see also isn't linear so and in the 230-270 range we see a high effectiveness growth of the stat and after 270 the effectivness slowly starts deteriorating. So the optimal number for this stat would be aroun in the range of 300~350.
The linearity of Faith seems to be quite similar to the one from Perception so the optimal numbers as we see that you would want to go for would be 300~350. Drop of effeciency after 270, same as the chart with Perception.
Endurance affects both the chance of you receiving a glancing or a critical blow, as we see the chance of you receiving a critical hit after the stat reaches 135 isn't linear and decreases drastically down till the stat reaches 273 after wich it just focuses on being at minimal chance. And as we see the chance of you receiving a glancing blow is linear up to the point of 186, then it slowly starts being more effective.
With that said, you shouldn't really concentrate on increasing the stat much after it went over 230~280 since thats the optimal value you would prefer for it not to influence your other characteristics.
The upper stat graphs were the result of long and hard work of the guide creator by ingame personal experience while experimenting with equipment and increasing each stat adequatly.
As for the other atributes, the author wasn't able to get enough gear with those stats to make a graph with so they might still be to come in the future.
So what conclusion do we reach here after seing all these graphs?
Intelligence is possible and should be increased infinitely because of the linear and stable increase in overall damage both for Melee and Magic Wardens.
Wisdom should be increased until a certain point. By means of testing it came above that the optimal stat value for it would be 300~350 but only if that doesn't hurt the other stats , in the second case it should be left at as much as its possible to get that it won't hurt the other more important attributes.
Perception should be at around the number of 300~350 and should be kept at that number since any higher and its effectiveness will drop noticeable and the points are better off in another attribute.
Luck should be kept at around the number of 280~350 but if you have the option of having more luck without sacrificing other stats then by all means you should get more, but don't get too fanatic about it.
Faith should be kept at the number of around 300~350.
As for all the other stats, they should be kept at minimal level.
As of that the ideal stat build up would look something like :
Naturally the higher the stats - the better but lets keep in mind that certain stats start to lose their effectiveness after they reach a certain point and further points should not be wasted into them but rather allocated somewhere else.
Next we will be covering the abilities of the Warden class and their usefulness for a Melee type.
5. Abilities
The abilities of a Warden are devided into three parts, wich are Talent abilities, Wrold Mysterie abilities and Ruby abilities, we'll get down to each in a list and see wich are worth bothering and wich aren't for a Melee Warden.
Talent Abilities:
Bear's Blow - the basic physical damage skill with a melee range, you get it automatically at level 1 , its used in leveling at different level intervals, useless at Level 40 and doesn't stand up for the points pent into it, so no adding to it.
Call Lightning - ranged instant cast, deals magic lightning damage and knocks down the target from its feet with a 20/25/33% chance. Its learned automatically at level 2, its useful in PvP, PvE , investing points into it is high recommended, useful at level 40 in its fullbloom form. (Fullbloom means rank3)
Get'em - pet attack command, makes your pet rush at the target to attack it, also puts a 4 second buff on the target that will increase pet dmg dealt to it one time by a certain amount, but if the pet doesn't reach the target within 4 seconds, the buff will expire. Investing points isn't worth it.
Useful at level 40 in its Raw Form (Raw form means at rank1)
Boar's Blow - basic physical damage skill thats melee ranged and knocks the target down for a few seconds, its a very useful all the way by mean of control, useful in PvP and semiuseful in PvE.
At level 40 useful in its Raw Form.
Great Hunt - a buff that increases the pets damage (In some ruby builds increases also the Wardens damage) for a short period and also generates a chance that the pet will deal a DoT effect on the target. At higher rank it increases the effects provided and increases the duration.
Useful at level 40 in its FullBloom form.
Renew - the spell why Wardens are welcome in parties, it creates a long duration (Healing over time) spell for the whole party and your pet, wich heals less in combat and x3 times more outside combat. Is influenced by some ruby builds.
Useful at level 40 in FullBloom
Warning: Spell was changed in the new patches, it now heals twice weaker and the same amount outside combat as in combat, thus 6 times less. To be a successful Renew Warden now you will have to concentrate all of your stats into Intelligence and Faith.
Vortex - ranged instant cast spell, deals magic lightning damage to one target and silences it for 5/10/15 seconds, 20 seconds cooldown and is influenced by some ruby builds.
Useful both in PvP and PvE, in PvP especially against caster classes, investing points is optional and depends on your play style. At level 40 is useful under any form, from r1 to r3.
Razor Claw - another pet attack commant, the pet rushes to the target and deals some damage and silences it for 3/4/5 seconds. Very useful both in PvP and PvE as means of control against casters and melee classes. Point investment is optional and depends on your playing style, also influenced by some ruby builds.
Wolf's Claw - physical damage in close combat range skill, deals damage and absorbs a certain amount of the enemy's mana or energy (Wich is influenced by your Intelligence and spell rank), also can absorb that mana and transfer it to the warden, have increased success rate and effectivness upgraded from different ruby builds.
Useful in both PvP and PvE on the length of the whole gaming experience as on of the chain DPS skills.
Useful at lv40 in fullbloom form.
Storm - ranged magic spell that creates a AoE effect over a certain area, wich deals damage for a certain period of time 10/12/14 seconds. Has a cast time of 4 seconds and a cooldown of 60 seconds, can be precasted.
This is the only precastable spell that a melee-warden has,
Creates bright special effects that are annoying and slow down old PC's xD
Useful both in PvP and PvE, point investment is optional. At level 40 its useful in any form and is also affected by some ruby's.
Call of the Wind - very useful zerg ability that summons 1/2/3 clones of your pet to attack the target for 20 seconds. (Only flaw of this spell is that after you summon the Three Happy Friends, it takes them 3-4 seconds to run to the target from different directions , so the actual effect time is 16-17 seconds) Its useful both in PvP and PvE when you want to zerg someone or tear that cloth type mage appart. Its also affected by Hunter Call for maximum output. Useful at level 40 in fullboom.
Maul - basic physical damage skill that does damage to all targets within a 5yard range area, useless at level 40.
Aqua Vitae Potion - the Warden conjures a potion out of special reagents gotten around the world that he can either cast into his inventory or the inventory of the target, you can only keep one potion at a time inside your inventory and its castable only outside combat. Recovers a very considerable amount of both HP/MP and Energy.
Very useful both in PvP and PvE. At level 40 its useful anywhere, also affected by some Ruby's.
Lethargy Potion - A warden conjures a potion out of special reagents that can slow down a targets attack speed by a certain value, is times more effective if the target is under the "Open Wound" debuff while it was casted on, with spell rank increases effectiveness. At the moment two Wardens can debuff the target with this spell, once each while one is unde Open wounds effect and the other is without it.
You can keep as many as you like of these inside your inventory, each cell can stack up to 20 potions in it.
Mediocre usefulness both in PvP and PvE, not recommended to waste points into it. Is affected by some ruby's.
Aqua Morte Potion - A warden conjures a debuff potion into his inventory, you can conjure as many as you like and each cell can stack up to 20 potions in it.
When used on a enemy it dissables him from being able to receive any healing, if the target was under "Open Wounds" debuff then instead of just dissabling healing effects - they instead receive damage when healed.
The healing it can block/damage is limited to a certain number and that number is influenced by intelligence.
A very useful spell in Mass PvP. At level 40 is useful in its Raw form.
Thats it for Talent spells, lets move on to World Mysterie spells shall we?
World Mysteries :
Refreshing Potion - Warden conjures a potion into his inventory, can conjure unlimited amount of these and each stack can be of 20 potions.
The potion when used removes any slowing effects from the Warden and increases moving speed by 25% for 15 seconds. Very useful anywhere.
Tenese's Gift - You can ressurect a target out of combat once every 20 hours.
Nature Balance -This spell works the following way, it takes a certain maximum amount of health of your current group and throws on a aditional 5% to it (decreased cooldown to 2 minutes if you have ruby's), then mixes it up and divides the maximum health amount around the group members equially. Pet HP is also accounted.
Warning:This spell also got nefred in the recent patches and cooldown was increased from 20 seconds to 3 minutes. And instead of healing effectiveness ruby's, they replaced those for cooldown decreasing ruby's.
Thus the effectiveness really went down.
Ruby's:
Tiger's Blow - deals physical damage in melee range, leaving the "Open Wounds" debuff on the target with a 25% success rate. One of the basic Melee DPS chain spells.
A must for a Melee Warden, at lv40 useful in its fullbloom.
Bite'em - a upgraded version of Get'em, deals more damage but consumes more energy when used.
Snake's Blow - physical damage skill in melee range that slows the target when hit by 50%(60%) for 10(15) seconds. Useful in PvP at level 40 in its raw form as a dissabling move and slowdown against kitters.
Bee Swarm - very useful control mean, dissorients the enemy for 12 seconds making him run around chaotically back and forth while also dealing DoT damage to him (Damage over Time), useful both for PvE and PvP in its raw form.
Oak Bark - buffs the warden for 12 seconds with a defense buff, decreasing physical damage received by 50% while increases fire damage received by 100%.
Useful buff in PvP at level 40 in its raw form.
With this we conclude the spell section, next we'll go into builds in a little while.
6. Builds
Before we start strolling trough the builds and methodics to assembling a build - i'd like to clear up that you don't have to fit yourself under a already constructed build but rather assemble a build up to your play preferences and game style! And thank god that the current Ruby arrangement allows us to do just that.
Lets begin then, at best at level 40 we would own the next amount of points - 45 Talent points and 38 ruby points, but seeing it from a realistic point of view, we'll have to decrease the amount of ruby points down to 37 (Since the Judge title ruby is very difficult to get at the moment)
At first lets see the variation of talent point building:
On the talent builds above is shown the minimum that any melee builded warden should have taken in his Talent tree, the skills invested up to rank 3 are the basic of each build. These are the main sources of damage for a Warden. Renew is also leveled to rank 3 to maximize survivability.
As of the rest of the points left wich are 7, are allocated depending on your play style and ruby build.
Lets now look up a few possible variations of final talent builds available for PvP:
The presented upper build variations are more inclined to PvP, thus why the points left to spend are limited to only a couple of spells, thus why we invested Aqua Vita potion to rank 3 for a higher survivability since in PvP you'll be taking alot of damage. And the rest of the points are distributed between Vortex, Razor Claw, Storm and Aqua Morte. The last 4 points invested in these four spells don't really have a impact on the general playstyle of the build in PvP. In case we invest points into Vortex or Razor Claw, we increase the time we could dissable a target with silence.
The increase in rank to Storm will slightly give a advantage in PvE on packs of monsters or in PvP when its a large scale war, Mass PvP.
If we level Aqua Morte then we'll have more chances against healing classes in PvP, ect
Thus all in all, its up to you where do you prefer your last couple of points distributed.
If i were to incline my character under a strict PvP build, then i'd prefer the talent tree #3. Why is that? Well in Mass PvP gently said, Melee-Wardens aren't quite strong, their limitation is solo-PvP. Thus Storm is left out, Aqua Morte only makes it easier against healing classes, but Vortex and Razor Claw are effective basically against all of the caster types classes, so i decided to place my bet on them.
PvE talent tree builds should be of a maximum effectiveness for yourself as a group member or a raid member, as thus there are only two variations for a PvE build wich are:
In the first build variation were able to slow down a boss up to a point of 80% in cooldowns and speed, if your going to ask how? Well the answer is simple, as to the current version allows us to throw two Lethargy debuffs on the monster, one under the stats of "Open Wounds" and another is without that status, so it adds up to over 80%.
In the second build variation you get to max out Storm to rank 3 for a better AoE DPS and lower cooldowns, but since currently warriors and paladins don't have much means of AoE holding aggro, this build is highly doubtful for dungeon runs as if you'll recklessly use it then you'll end up being zerged by several monsters.
As for my own preference i'd prefer the following mix of PvP, PvE build.
Ruby Trees
Now after we've gone trough different talent builds, lets move on to Ruby trees and talk about them a bit. I won't go trough PvP ruby trees since primarily i was trying to make myself a PvE-Oriented build, i'll provide lower the trees with minimal points required into them for a Melee-Warden.
Lets talk about the Ruby talks a bit more in depth now.
The Bear's Blow ruby grid:
Enchanced Reflexes - a ruby that increases your dodge rate by 50%, a step up requirement for the other ruby's.
Bestial Dextry - a ability that has a 5% success rate to activate when the warden is using physical attacks wich will increase Expertise and Agility by 5% per ruby invested, this is also a step up requirement.
Sharp Claws - ruby ability that increases your damage with Claw type weapons by 5%, required to generally increase your damage with weapons. You will take all three ranks of this. (Total of 15%)
Razor Claws - ruby that increases critical strike damage by 15% when Fist Weapons are equipped , you will need all three ranks of this to further increase your damage (Total of 45%)
Enlightement - a ruby talent required that works along with Wolfs Blow wich enables you to receive a certain amount of mana wich you burn from your enemy when using wolfs blow, you will need to get rank 3 of this ruby to efficiently regenerate mana in combat, the amount recovered is determined by your intelligence and rank of your wolfs blow.
Experienced Hunter - this increases the duration of your Great Hunt spell by 15%, you will want this ruby to increase efficiency of that spell and your damage dealing ability, rank 3 required. (Total of 45%)
Born Hunter - ruby ability thats also tied with Great Hunt, it increases damage by another additional 5% and with each hit it increases its duration. Another mean of hightenin your total efficiency when dealing damage, rank 3 required. (Total of 15%)
Tiger First - Rank 2 of tiger Fist are required for you DPS chain.
Snake Fist - rank 1 should be plenty since it doesn't go into your DPS chain but its a nice way of control and slowing down targets.
The Get'em ruby grid:
Empty Ruby's - you will have to spend a few points into empty ruby cells so we won't need to take huge detours to get our needed spells.
Enchanced Reflexes - a ruby that increases your dodge rate by 50%, a step up requirement for the other ruby's.
Bite'em - currently isn't working correctly so should be taken as only a step up for the other ruby's.
Reveal Vulnerability - gives your pet a 25% chance to debuff the opponent with a certain debuff that increases the next hit damage dealt by 50% for each rank, required to further increase your damage output. (Total of 150%)
Nature's Healing Touch - a ruby that increases the effectiveness of your Renew spell by 15% with each rank and increases total HP of party members by 15/25/35% when Nature Balance is used (Total of 45% for Renew and 40% for Nature Balance)
The upper Ruby build is the most basic one for a PvE builded Melee-Warden , it maximizes your damage potential and also increases your healing abilities making you most useful in a party.
Now lets deal some attention to the other possible ruby's that could be aquired with the remaining points, each should decide depending on their play style and build.
Primal Inspiration - increases the amount of Wisdom by 5% for each rank. If considering the current situation with gathering equipment at level 40 and trying to reach the suggested numbers, this ruby can greatly help you on reaching your goal.
Nature's Favor - with a 25% chance when the warden attacks, the pet gets a buff that increases its luck by 5% each rank of the ruby and stacks up to one/two times.
This ruby is doubtful since currently we have no idea what is the number of the pets luck and if its influenced by the wardens luck, so its strongly not recommended in taking this ruby. But it might be useful for Full Pet oriented wardens.
Nature Protection - with each ruby in this ability it increases the defense of the warden and pet by 10% (Total of 30%) Optional, not really recommended since it doesn't help you be more efficient in DPSing.
The upper suggested abilities don't really affect your PvE build much but can be useful in PvP alot, often people tend to get Bee Swarm and Oak Bark for additional protection when getting ganked in open World PvP, but investing into them or not is totally optional and depends on your play style and preferences.
As an example i'll bring up my own Ruby build , as of since i didn't get the Judge title ruby and one of the last World Mystery ruby's i ended up with only 36 Ruby points used up, and with that kept in mind my current builds looks like:
And this is how i see it when i'll have the chance to get all the ruby's.
With that we finished the builds section and generally the build shouldn't be rashly builded up on a whim, i'd suggest you first actually throw points in a order type of necessity first picking up the ruby's you essentially need and build it up step by step, then test it out in open combat for effectiveness and then patch it up with the last available ruby's in the aspects you think your lacking.
Next paragraphs will come shortly and their about PvE and PvP tactics and ofcourse the last part will be about the cons of being a melee warden.
7. PvE
Lets talk a bit about PvE with a Melee-Warden
The role of a Melee-Warden in a party, or whats expected from us in a party:
Lets first note that the cause of a warden being wanted in a party is because of his Renew spell, no matter how well wouldn't you DPS, some classes can outdps you without even working up much of a sweat. At current being a top DPS'er while playing a melee warden is quite difficult, almost impossible. As to why your Renew should be at a considerable level, also do not in any case keep your Faith at a minimal level, it doesn't only affect you but it affects the whole party.
The second thing that can aquire us a slot in a party is the Lethargy potion. A totally debuffed boss will have slower attack speed, thus lowering DPS on the tank, thus making it easier on the healers about keeping him alive, also having to heal the tank less will let the healers concentrate on the other members of the party aswell and thus you will probably end up as one of them to take note of, on bosses with a melee range aoe, it can be to your advantage and keep you alive longer thus enabling you to dps too.
The thirds aspect of why you would be wanted is because of the ability to drain the energy or mana from bosses and trash mobs. Some bosses will require you to spam Wolf Blow so you won't give them the chance to use a ability that uses energy, as to that you will be helping the entire group survive longer. If you will be able to drain energy from bosses, don't exoect you to also be able to drain mana from them, their regeneration rate is on a whole different level from trash mobs thus they will overgenerate mana even while your spamming wolf on them.
Fourth aspect would be the ability of micro-control against packs of trash monsters. Here you will mainly be using snake blow, kicks, silence and bee swarm. A well used snake will be able to slow mobs that the tank lost until hes able to regain control of them until they reach your healers and DD classes. Kicks and silence are able to stop some nasty spells the monsters might start casting or stop them from healing each other. Bee Swarm can dissable one enemy from the fight for wich the party didn't have enough control means or save a party member that accidently got aggroed by a monster and the tank doesn't have time to deal with it.
The Fifth and last aspect as to why you would be wanted in a party is the DPS itself that a melee-warden can deal to a boss in a fight. Should note that some of the bosses have melee ranged AoEs and it makes it more difficult for a melee warden to DPs on them. In some cases you could run away when you see the boss preparing to cast a aoe, but in some cases where its instant and you can't predict when it'll fly out, its better to equip yourself with more Stamina gear and use some enchancers for HP. But with that said, no being extreme and sacrificing your most important stats that affect your DPS for the additional HP. Don't be afraid to interrup your DPS in case of a aoe and get out of range - a dead warden doesn't DPS. While getting out of range and avoiding a AoE it saves your healer the trouble and you won't be really useless out of range anyways, its a good time at that moment to renew your lethargy potion or throw a lightning or two into the boss.
Either way, the most important aspect in PvE is to DPS correctly, so as to not overtake aggro and not die by your mistakes or foolishness. And how to DPS correctly we're going to talk a bit lower, but that'll be tomorrow ^^
PvE DPS Cycles.
Before talking about the DPS cycles, lets first see the list of abilities that will be used in these cycles.
The main means of DPS dealing will be our Tiger's Blow, the range of the damage dealt can be quite random (Ranging from 300 to 20,000 in my case), has a very vast range betwen minimum and maximum damage, but still the damage adds up quite significally for it be considered the main mean of DPS.
The second mean of DPS is Call Lightning, it has a long range and a mediocre cooldown to it , also the damage is alot more stable than in the case of Tiger Blow, thus it being another effective mean of dps'ing. For a melee warden the chance that you will not miss a enemy is determined by Perception so its well understood that perception should be one of the main stats thus very high and that also leads to the Call lightning spell being rarely resisted because Perception is primarily a stat to reduce Magic resistance from the enemy aswell, so it works wonders.
The third DPS mean that you will be using is Wolf's Blow, in most cases wolf blow is needed to recover your own mana but in some cases it will be needed so when fightning a boss, you could control his Energy spawn and keep it as low as possible to prevent spell usage. In other cases Wolfs blow will be just another mean of damage while your Tigers Blow and Lightning are on cooldown.
In long duration fights (Longer than one minute) wasting the pets energy aimlessly is a bad idea, especially when you aren't the target of combat with and you don't receive crits so the pet could regenerate some energy. Recalling the pet into Astral so he could regenerate his energy will also affect your DPS ability so thats a bad idea, best option would be to just make the pet charge the target and leave him be, attacking it - just having him autoattack the target he will generate a considerable higher amount of DPS rather than always calling him back to regenerate his energy after using it all up.
In case a boss has a strong aoe in melee range, then its recommended on spamming the pet abilities since its most likely that after a few blows the pet will automatically enter Astral form to regenerate its lost HP, thus it will automatically also regenerate its energy.
Now then since we covered the question about abilities used in a DPS cycle, we can start talking about how to properly use them.
The priority to the abilities i've accounted by doing some maths with the damage dealt, mana consumed and general usefuless of the spells.
As of so, the priority list would look like: Tiger>Lightning>Wolf
Based on this priority we could make two DPS cycles wich are:
If your Intelligence is considerably lower than Wisdom then you should spam tiger and wolf together, if you would add Lightning to this cycle, then you will eventually end up burning up your mana since Wolf Blow doesn't recover much of a considerable amount to keep up the pool, well actually you can hardly even call this a Cycle..just dumbly mashing two buttons the whole fight >.>
The lower effeciency is cause Wolf will activate Reveal Vulnerability half of the time and the Reveal Vulnerability activated by wolf is times weaker than the Reveal Vulnerability activated by Tiger blow, thus why its less effective.
But if everything is aaaaight with your Intelligence and wolf is able to regenerate enough mana so you can add Lightning to the cycle then by all means do so and by doing that the next cycle would a little something like!:
In this case all the cooldowns are strictly following up each other so we can produce a much better DPS compared to the previous cycle while were using Lightning instead of half the Wolf Blows, thus resulting in about 70% of the Reveal Vulnerability being activated by Tiger.
The last cycle is alot better DPS and effectiveness wise than the first one and plus its less boring just mashing two buttons >.<
But these are only the basic DPS cycles a Warden can use, besides them in a party you will have alot of other needs to look out for aswell, as for example always Renewing your Lethargy Potion, using Great Hunt and Call of the Wind when the cooldowns are off, ect.
Also on bosses where you can see or predict when hes going to do a Strong AoE you could recall your pet back into the Astral while hes finish off his AoE, but for that you need to carefully use your pets energy so you won't end up in a situation where your pet ends up being in the Astral for too long to recover his whole energy bar wich will hurt your DPS quite a bit. Either way even tho these actions will break your DPS cycle, you can just start it anew anyways, and you always have to start it with the Tiger Blow.
Well with that we could probably conclude the PvE aspects of the game as a Melee Warden and go on to the next section ^^
8. PvP
Yes finally here we are, the long awaited PvP section as a Warden, your all probably craving to know how does this class act against different classes in PvP, well then i won't dissapoint you, this will be a very long and detailed post about PvP experiences as a Melee Warden and whats to expect of your character ^^
Lets begging now - in this section we will talk about the main aspects of a warden in PvP. We will talk about PvP against a single target, against two targets in a duo and about Mass PvP ofcourse.
As of first lets talk about what a Melee Warden represents of himself in PvP.
Unlike the other classes, a melee warden can continuously use his abilities in combat without a difficulty for cooldown to deal damage but with that said, his overall damage isn't as high.
Renew gives him the ability to always passively recover HP in the midst of battle wich enables him to last longer considerably compared to other classes.
Wolf blow will quickly deplete the opponents Energy or Mana and the other countless control abilities will significantly lower the chance of a opponent being able to cause any damage to you. Exactly because of these abilities, you can call a melee warden a anti-caster class.
The general statics of 1v1 fights show that there are mostly only two types tactics in combat when fightning against one opponent wich are either Zerg tactics or a Exhaustion tactics.
Zerg Fighting tactics are when you enable the use of your most damaging abilities against an opponent trying to finish the fight as fast as possible. Usually fights this way start from having your Pet charge at the opponent (usually with the Razor Claw ability) and trying to get into range with the target immedietly yourself. While you are getting into range with the target, you should usually activate Call of the Wind and try to knock down your opponent by using Call Lightning or throwing Vortex at him to silence him. After finally getting into close range with the target, use Snake Blow to slow the target and use Boars Blow on him to knock him down, either vice-versa boar then snake. You do that so the target won't be able to run away. After that you start spamming Tiger and Lightning on their cooldowns and keep renewing your Snake as the effect fades away. Or when trying to get to the target you could use Bee Swarm so you would most deffinetly catch up with it, but its preffered to save Bee Swarm for the case if the opponent does manage to somehow run away from you or if someone comes to his aid. As common, the average caster class that was caught off guard with the ZergTactics, will usually drop in around 15-20 seconds.
Against Melee Classes (Especially against Warriors and Paladins), and also against some especially fast casters, the Zerg tactics will be useless and so you will have to chance your tactic to the Exhaustion type. The way this tactic works is the following:
The Melee-Warden tries to carefully use his cooldowns and control his opponent, not giving him a chance to strike back.
In case you get burnt on your HP, you should retreat and kite them a bit until Renew fills your HP up again.
Against Mana using classes you should try to burn trough their mana with Wolf Blow and keep burning it with Wolf blow and Tiger blow , not giving him the chance to recover any, whilst also keeping him under Snake Blow so he can't run away.
Against a Energy using class, it might be useful to spam just Wolf on him to keep his energy at a minimal level and also recast Snake when it wears off to keep him from running away.
No energy or mana = no damage.
With this tactic, the enemy will slowly yet steadily lose his HP and end up going for a date with the Purgatory keeper.
Next there will be examples of tactics against respective classes that were personally experienced by the Author.
Mage
Currently, after the nerf of (Elemental Harmony) , the mage class is the most easy kill for a warden.
The main tactic is to as fast as possible take down his shields with your Call of the Wind, pet and a series of fast hits with Wolf Blow.
You should start combat by ordering your pet to attack the mage with Razor Claw, sadly the knockdown from Razor Claw won't work because of the mage's shields, after that you can use the command Get'Em on the mage aswell. You should make your pet and clones of your pet charge the mage while your going for him as you move so you don't lose time and don't let him notice you or get away. If you successfully reached the mage and the shields are still up, then start spamming Wolf Blow , after the shields are down, throw Boar's Blow at him to knock him down, after that Snake and Vortex, after wich you keep spamming wolf and renew your snake as it fades off. Spamming Wolf is required so you can burn trough his mana as fast as possible , no mana = no damage, no mana = no control against you, no mana = no Flash. If by the time as the mage run outs of mana he is still alive - wich is doubtful, then start adding tiger into the wolf-snake spam combo and keep doing that till he kisses the ground.
Naturally don't forget to use Vortex, Boar and Razor when their cooldowns are off, so you won't give him much time to cast his spells at you.
Also you should keep in mind a few things about their Icy Grave spell, if it lands on your pet then throw him into the Astral, thus that will cancel the effect of the spell or if you are a Shaman (Orc) then use your racial ability that enables you to share the damage betwen you and your pet thus that will make the Icy Grave fade off. But generally for Orcs, your better off using your racial ability as soon as you start fighting, to prevent things like if the mage had Icy Grave[/b on precast.
[b]Necromancer/Summoner
The second relatively easy kill for a Melee-Warden, generally the fight tactic is similar to the tactic that was used against the Mage. Same as previous we start the fight with Razor and Wind Call and on cooldowns we use knockdowns and silence , and similarly we try to burn their mana as fast as possible. Paying attention to their pet is a waste of time so ignore them, concentrate solely on the Necromancer.
The only difference from a Mage that the Necromancer has is his addition of healing spells, the stronger his heals, the longer the fight will prolongue , but still the Warden has a ultimate Ace against heals of any kind, its his Morte potion! By personal experience it shows that the most powerful heal is saved for when the target has 30-40% HP left, and thats a good time for when you should use the Morte potion on him, if you pick the time up correctly, then chances are that the Necromancer will kill himself from his own Heal spell, but if that fails - well then just continue what you were doing up until now. Just remember on Golden Rule , no mana = you win.
Healer
Both Healer types i've encountered are quite dreadful pickups against a Melee Warden. A healer rised up to be a damage dealer, has quite scary crit numbers but lower healing power, while a healer rised up to be a healer, will deal almost no damage to you but will be able to negate all the damage you've dealt to him up until now in a matter of one-two heals. But lets talk about each in order:
Damage Dealer Healer - with this comrade you should use the Zerg tactic, the faster you force your opponent into the Bubble (Their ability in form of a ball that prevents damage), the better.
No crafty tricks or tactics needed, just keep bitting him and periodically using knockdowns and silence on him until his HP reaches 30-40%, then throw a Morte on him and if successful, you send him on a date with the Purgatory servant, if failed and your Morte is on cooldown, the keep burning trough his mana and try again when the cooldown is up.
Heal-Healer type - brace yourself that these guys will be also using the Exhaustion tactic and will keep distance from you while also throwing in punches at you. The way to kill them is basically the same, you have to burn down their mana and pick a good moment to use Morte on them, generally nothing supernatural, use snake on them so they won't run away, keep silencing them and knocking them down on cooldowns and keep using Wolf on the to burn their mana, after they use bubble, keep repeating the same tactic until you win.
Stalkers/Scouts
High damage, long stunlocks meanwhile under wich you can easily kick the bucket , - this class is quite unpleasant, if they attack you first.
I won't go into much detail when you get to land a blow first, its quite basic, nothing much different from what you've done up until now.
But when the stalker gets a first hit on you, now thats a whole different story. If by the time your out of his stucklock you still aren't dead, then promptly use Nature's Call or Aqua Vita potion to restore the lost Health points.
After that make your pet go after him, summon your pet clones and run with all your might to the stalker, might aswell use Refreshing potion while your at it.
If the stalker isn't dumb, he'll throw marbles under your feet - remember this ONCE AND FOR ALL, if your standing on marbles then do not move! better wait till the marbles go away rather than fall over and over again trying to move forward.
While your standing still you can still:
1. Command your pet
2. Use Lightning on him
3. Use Lethargy on him
4. Throw Bee Swarm on him
When you get to the stalker, start spamming tiger, lightning and snake, if everything went okay then he'll fly to the purgatory.
Nuances:
If he blinded you, either stay and wait, either try and guess into wich dirrected he ran, either way when you'll get flashed, you won't be able to attack him so the only options you have is to either wait it off or throw a storm on the location he was last seen in, but that won't help much probably.
If the stalker went into Stealth, then throw storm on the area that you saw him go into stealth and get him out of it immediatly! This way you will prevent him from fleeing the battleground.
Well either way, a skillful stalker is a very unpleasant opponent but nothing out of the natural, can still be killed.
Paladins
There are two variations of Paladins, we'll call them the Shield and Two-Hand type.
Two-Hander paladin - high damage, powerful crits, healing aura and a dirrect heal, isn't bounded to his Mana, and a set of stuns and silences aswell, this makes a Paladin a very unpleasant opponent to deal with.
While fighting one of these, you better keep to one rule , when your low on Health - better run away and start kitting rather than die heroically. If you have such a possibility, then try to burn the paladins energy and keep him from using it, try to keep yourself behind him all the time - a paladin can't shoot out of his behind, no energy - no damage. As with other heal classes, a well timed Morte can end the fight quickly, generally if you try to minimize the damage dealt to you, keep draining his mana and dissable him as often as possible - then a Two-Hander paladin is quite killable!
Paladin with a Shield - if you ever get to meet such a opponent then here is my suggestion..go around him, avoid him and DON'T TOUCH HIM >.>
Killing one of these is almost impossible, you deal misserable, laughable damage to him and the only chance to ever kill him is to catch him on a Morte when he has low HP, but lets be realistic...him..low hp?
But on the other hand, he also can't kill him since hes a pretty crapy damage dealer himself.
Once the Author of this guide had the chance to fight against one of these, and the results were - neither he could kill me, neither i could kill him for half a hour.
So if you eve meet one of these, save yourself from stress and time.
Warriors
The situation here is quite similar to the one with Paladins (Same two-handers and shields), same tactics also but there are some differences.
A warrior with a Two-Hander can't heal himself but has more control abilities and is more dynamic, thus our chances of being sent on a date with the purgatory angel, are slightly higher than with a paladin.
A warrior with a shield does more damage than his other paladin half but he can't heal so he is quite killable if you control him properly and kite him when your low on health but same as in the case with a Paladin with a shield, when you see a Warrior with a shield, first ask yourself...do you really need these hemorrhoids?
Warden
Atlast we've reached our own class,
While fighting a fellow Warden you should remember that his survival capabilities are around the same as yours so usually the winner is the one who gets to deplete the others Mana first. If against caster type Wardens it'll be a bit easier, then against Melee-Wardens it'll come down to how skilled you are at controling your opponent. Also you should keep a watch out for your debuffs, the opponent also has a Morte potion and will probably use it.
Against pet focused Wardens i can't say anything since i haven't met any yet.
Psioncists
I don't have much information about these guys since its a quite rare class on the server where i've been playing.
But basically it shouldn't be much different from fighting a mage since this class is also a cloth mana user.
Burn down the opponents mana and its a win/win situation.
Lower we'll be talking about when your forced to face off two enemies at once and the lower examples are real situations that i got to face ingame.
Mage + Summoner combo
Ignore the Summoner and concentrate on the Mage at first, either leave the Necromancer be or throw Bee Swarm on him to dissable him temporarily, after that keep pounding on the Mage until you hit his HP to the line of 30-40% then use a Morte on him, there will be a good chance that after the Necromancer will get out of control he will try to Heal the Mage and will finish him off.
After the Mage drops, switch to the Necromancer and follow the 1v1 tactic against Mana using healing classes classes.
Necromancer + Healer combo
First zerg the Necromancer, same as the tactic above, ignore the priest and kill the necro first, after that change to the Healer and the main issue here is to kill the Healer fast enough, before the angry Necromancer comes back from the Purgatory >.<
There was once a time when it took so long to kill the Healer that the Necromancer came back three times, and went to the purgatory again three times also..
Stalker/Scout + Necromancer
Zerg the scout, leave the necromancer for later, the tactic is similar to the Mage + Necrom tactics.
Stalker + Stalker
Forget it, your not getting out of stunlock alive.
Paladin + Necromancer
If the Paladin is with a Two-Handed weapon, chances are that you will most likely be sent to the purgatory, if the Paladin is a shield type tho, zerg the Necromancer, after a long, exhausting fight if your lucky, you'll maybe kill the necromancer, if your aren't lucky, then not.
If you managed to finally Kill the Necromancer, then -wave- the Pally goodbye and get outta there.
Paladin + Healer
In this situation rather avoid it and flee away, you won't have the chance to Zerg neither, also they will be both healing each other while fighting you, if your lucky you might get to kill one with Morte, but i wouldn't count on it.
Paladin + Warden
A combo thats very similar to the previous one, if the Warden is a caster type then you might be able to drop him but if hes also a Melee-type...well then you won't even be able to get away yourself.
Warrior + Any healing class
Forget it, if you won't be able to kill the warrior with a morte, then nothing good's coming your way against this combo, rather run away.
Mage + Necromancer + Shield Paladin (Yes, yes, even encoutered these once)
Tactic is the same as with a Mage and Necromancer but ontop of that you get to deal with extra healing from the pally and controls from him also.
Now a bit about Mass PvP
I'll be honest, in Mass PvP a melee warden is a punching bag, don't try to even get into the crowd, you'll be sent to the purgatory even before you know it and neither Vita nor Nature Balance won't help.
The things you could do if you did end up having to deal with Mass PvP:
1. Don't forget your Morte, a well used Morte can instantly send a player to the purgatory, in Mass PvP theres a lot of healing going on and chances are high that some healer will space out and throw a huge heal into a target with Morte on.
2. Cast Call Lightning on cooldown, damage is damage even if once every 5 seconds.
3. Don't forget about your pet, pets usually aren't bothered with even in Mass PvP
4. Try to always cast Storm into the main battle scene, AoE is a godsblessing in Mass PvP, not only does it cause FPS lags for everyone but also deals a good chunk of damage.
5. On cooldown try to always use Vortex on caster classes, the less they deal damage or heal, the better.
6. Throw Bee Swarm on the players that like to get out of the crowd but usually these Heroes get instantly killed since they can't get back into the crowd and shake the targets off.
7. Try not to stick out too much , if you will chances are you'll get stunlocked by a stalker and get ready to go say hi the Tenesse's Servant in the Purgatory.
8. If you caught the necromancers Fever, then get away from your fraction members so you don't infect them also.
And with that, we've finishe talking about PvP as a Melee-Warden, hope you liked it and it'll be insightful and useful for you guys in the future.
Now time for the last chapter of the guide.
9. Afterword, or why you shouldn't play a Melee-Warden
Well the guide is coming to a end and i'd like to note everyone that wants to make a Melee Warden about the hardships you might encounter as one.
1. Leveling will be hard, very hard. You won't be able to ever oneshot anything as a Melee-Warden and you will need alot of micro-control, you will be killing your monsters in a duo with your pet, slowly but steadily.
2. You will always have equipment problems, both in PvE and at level 40. Because you will always be bounded to only using Fist Weapons, wich aren't available at any Reputation vendor, you will have trouble getting worthwhile ones for yourself, the only real ways to get a decent pair is by doing Party Boss Quests, forget about getting a good pair in the auction, you won't stumble upon any there even while walking in broad daylight with a torch.
3. You will have to gather more stats overall than other classes and we aren't talking about numbers but the actual number of types you will need, outside the 4 basic stats that are required for your class, you will also have to keep additional stats high like Faith, endurance and agility.
4. You will always be short on bag space, 4 types of potions and 4 types of reagets for each.
5. Encountered Warriors or stalkers will most likely ask of you to Shine on them with your goodblessing and cast Renew on them, at first its amusing, later it gets annoying.
6. Wisdom and Perception you'll have to gather up solely on sensation, i can't give you any rough numbers on how much you will need to survive around.
Generally a Melee-Warden class is for the amateur. A Melee-Warden doesn't have a anti-class if played right, but if played wrong any class could become a anti-class.
Getting around to learn how to properly play a Melee-Warden is difficult, if you aren't confident in your abilities then try another class.
Thats it, thank you for reading the guide that i took time to translate and i hope this will help you guys get a better gasp of understanding what a Melee-Warden represents of himself and fun or powerful it can become if played right.
Yours truly, ~Lawful.
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