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Contents |
Introduction
Preface and Outline
I have tried to write the text as objectively and comprehensibly as possible, but due to the topic complexity and the use of high-level gambits such as Conviction in addition to the masteries, this guide isn't suited for wardens below level 60.
I assume that at this point everybody here knows how to handle his warden on his own. So what can I contribute to your knowledge to be worth the reading time?
With this analysis, I am trying to cover the following questions:
- When should I prefer block/parry/evade [aka. BPE] defense buffs over Hots?
- How many and which Hots should I use?
- At which mob quantity should I switch between AoE leeches and single heals?
The values for the calculation sheets are based on my own poor warden toon, who typically equips 5 blue + 1 yellow + 1 red traits.
Since everyone has his/her own unique equipment and preferences, it is quite certain that your values differ from mine.
With the goal of keeping it as simple as possible, I didn't include outgoing/incoming heal rates or resistances. Keep that in mind when you come across some healing numbers, which may look a little off.
Basic Gambit Sheets
Lets get started by reaching a common information level from which we can continue to discuss.
Following sheet shows the gambits that a warden uses to protect himself.
The total power cost is a sum of the costs of each builder plus the trigger gambit itself.
For example:
Allowing a consistent comparison of the power consumption, the use of masteries is mentioned, but not included in the calculations, if not told otherwise.
Practical Use
As you already know, the warden is not limited by skill cooldowns but by time and power constraints. This concerns the defensive and heal aspects as well, because the given buffs only last for a couple of seconds and thus need to be refreshed periodically.
Characteristically the heal gambits last up to 18 seconds, morale leeches 16 seconds and the smaller parry/evasion buffs 20 seconds until they vanish. These are typical time intervals in which a warden works his magic and configures his rotation according to the situational needs.
Of course the mobs with their nasty disarming / silence effect or simple movement don't do us a favor and neither does the fellowship or raid in most cases. And so practical experience shows that each 16-20 seconds of a fight can not be played the same as the last. Nevertheless it is still possible to form some imperatives that can improve our survivability chances.
BPE vs Hots
BPE Gambits Part 1
The third gambit sheet shows a wide range of Gambits which benefit our BPE values in some way or another.
Wardens are limited by the 15,0% cap. A BPE value above this mark only increases the partial mitigations, which is undoubtedly still usefull in most cases.
One of this gambits distinguishes itself from the rest by being superior in length and gain in BE-value: Shield Mastery.
As a matter of fact, Shield Mastery is so potent, that I forcefully build and sustain it in every mob encounter worth mentioning, as long as the mob doesn't deal tactital damage.
However there are other gambits, which we should take a look at.
Another sheet point out their (marginal) contribution to our BPE ratings:
The data represents my warden in raid gear, but in unbuffed condition.
Additional buffs like middleearth + parry (Captain) or protection (Guard) push our BPE amount up to an already appreciable level and you might consider to shift your priority a little off the defensive buffs towards to the drainer and healer gambits.
But more on that subject later.
As you can see above, a way of the shield traited warden achieves decent 15% block and evasion cap, simply by using Shield Mastery and the partials aren't that low either.
Parry remains as an improvement issue. Wall of Steel closes this gap as our only given choice. Unfortunately Wall of Steel lasts only for 20 seconds, requires 4 gambit symbols and - aside form the damage output - doesn't build a lot of threat.
Bottom line is, that you sacrifice time, which you could use to gain extra threat or spend in a healing worth of 945 morale (Celebration of Skill, without inc/out healing).
Wall of Steel vs. Celebration of Skill
How can you compare an healing amount with a mitigation increase?
A major coefficient to help us to come to a solution is the incoming damage.
The basic idea is to sum up the whole damage you suffer over a time frame of 20 seconds, then multiply the amount by the percent of gained mitigation and compare the result with the heal amount of Celebration of Skill.
[total dmg in 20 sec.] * [parry bonus through Wall of Steel] = [statisticaly avoided dmg]
If the statistically avoided damage is higher than 945 morale, you should spend the given time by building the Wall of Steel and vice versa.
for example: 35.000 * 2,8% = 980 > 945 -> WoS
This equation is of course very vague at best and you can involve further variable like partial parry mitigation, inc/out/crit healing, legendary traits, (un)avoidable stun phasing and so on, to state the actual fight behavior more precisely. But due to the lack of time to spend on mathematical excursion in the middle of a fight I am satisfied by the simple equation at hand.
BPE Gambits part 2
The advantage of Shield Mastery and Wall of Steel has been clarified. Let us focus our attention on Dance of War.
The graphic above shows that DoW in combination with Shield Mastery and thus evasion at 15% cap only merely improves the partial evasion mitigation.
For this very reason I primarily use DoW to transfer threat from the group without toe-to-toe contact with the enemy, if conviction is already running that is.
From this it follows that Dance of War is an outstanding choice, when it comes down to combining threat with defense.
That leaves us with the two ramaining def-gambits.
Shield Up = waste of time, because it has the same effect as Shield Mastery, but lasts just half as long and doesn't stack with it.
Defensive Strike = I am biased on this one. If you think that you need the additional partial block, then this is your way to achieve it.
I hardly use this in its current state. A situation in which I am close to the Durchest tankswitch comes to mind, but that is about it. Since Orion proposed his potency idea, I guess I have to acquire taste for this gambit in particular.
Pros and Cons
The more damage an opponent is able to push through which could have been avoided, the more important it gets to rather maintain a high BPE rate, instead of a high heal cycle.
Being just a percent chance to trigger, BPE has still its own uncertainty factor and pales in comparison to the 100% chance of self-heals. On the one hand, it is possible that you won't parry for the next 20 seconds which you could have used to heal more than 945 morale. On the other hand you might get lucky and parry hits which easily could have been some devestating critical hits and 945ish morale would be nothing more than a drop in a bucket.
Also, in cooperation with dedicated heal classes you have to keep in mind that the time your hots are ticking, while you are at 100% morale, is wasted time. You should consider this, if it comes down to a decision point.
That is everything I can tell you about the defensive gambits.
One chapter finished, two more to go!
Heal Management
How many and which Hots should I use?
In my opinion this is an underestimated question, which many wardens tend to solve on a gut level without being concerned about possible improvements.
As a matter of fact heal management hits the core of our issues as much as any other gambit aspect.
On the one hand in some situations, it is very crucial to quickly build and sustain a huge amount of self-heal. On the other hand the power pool doesn't allow us to keep this behaviour up forever. The following chapter discusses ways, on how you can find a compromise to satisfy both sides as much as possible.
Sorting out
A short glance at the given heal gambits reveal another issue:
There are way to many gambits to keep all of them in a 18-20 seconds window alive at once.
So in case of a doubt, which gambits should I leave untouched?
The morale per power rate suggests, that two gambits are out of the ordinary: Impressive Flourish and War-Cry.
While Impressive Flourish never found its spot in my personal gambit rotation, War-Cry is a entirely different story.
Warcry doesn't shine with a lot of healing, but like Dance of War, with a combination of two achieved goals: AoE threat + heal.
Five heal gambits remains, which can be sustained in a 18 second interval, if you deem it to be necessary:
Persevere; Safeguard; Celebration of Skill; Restoration; Conviction
Counting all the involved gambit builiders + trigger, you have to push 24 keys in 18 seconds in order to adhere to the cycle.
The players behind the keyboard most likely can manage to do so, but the warden toon on the screen is slowed down, because executed animation time take its toll.
We can still accomplish the cycle nevertheless by using masteries.
Thanks to Conviction we have not two [1+2] [2+1] but four [2+3] [3+2] masteries at our disposal.
Furthermore the use of masteries has a positive impact on the power consumption.
Power Management
I would like to draw your attention back to the main question of this chapter that still remains unanswered.
The already mentioned morale per power rate indicates, that we can divide the healgambits into 3 power groups.
Persevere distinguish itself from the rest with a remarkable ratio of 5,02 morale/power. It is followed by the center span containing Restoration 3,93 m/k; Celebration of Skill 3,86 m/k and Safeguard with 3,84 m/k.
Conviction is - although +15% skilled - with 3,53 m/k the bottom of the table when it comes down to simple self-heals. But as you already know there is a huge additional benefit in group healing and threat transfer that amortize the increased power cost of Conviction.
In theory, you can reach an optimum in power consumption by using as few power-saving gambits as for the given situation required.
The practical application is far more stressful and theory can't be applied that easy.
Quick Morale Recovery
Sudden or unexpected moraledrops, for instance, put us wardens in zugzwang to push our maxheal rate out as fast as humanly possible, ignoring the proposed power savings in favor of survivability.
This opens the question on how you can accelerate your heal gambits from 0 to the desired amount? Lets stay with the rather extreme case that all 5 heals are needed.
The invested work needed to gain maxheal stays the same and thus doesn't change regardless of the different possible sequences of gambit roations.
Furthermore once the targeted heal lifecycle is running and successfully maintained (which is in case of 5 hots quite a workload), the heal magnitude stays the same also.
Bottom line is that I am just talking about the very first 18 seconds, which look insignificant at first sight granted, but still offers a point of improvement nontheless.
Another illustration points out, how important the right gambit order can be:
Before you run off, let me explain this choice of graphic in a few sentences.
Because of the fact that I didn't include the masteries yet, the x-axis serves as the only indicator of time, since you still theoretically need to push 24 keys in 18 seconds.
I am aware that this maneuver isn't possible without the mastery shortcuts.
As the y-axis states already, it represents the average amount of morale gain for every 3 seconds.
This step function graphic seems to be flawed, so why do I dare to punish you with it?
The whole heal subject from this point on gets a little messy und partially hard to follow. The german warden forum discussed the heal order elaborately, without coming to a final conclusion, but handpicked approximations through comparison.
My approach is now to go step by step from the function graph above to more detailed one.
That being said, lets get back to the illustration and to the information that it offers.
Both step functions discribe different ways to hit the heal amount of total 646 morale every 3 second.
The blue function represents the idea to push the short gambits at the early stage and postpone the large ones to a later point of time. The red function represents the opposite approach.
blue = Persevere -> Safeguard -> Celebration of Skill -> Restoration -> Conviction
red = Conviction -> Restoration -> Celebration of Skill -> Safeguard -> Persevere
So what does this graph tell you in the end?
Without the help of masteries, the best way to hit maxheal is to start with the short gambits first, like the blue function demonstrates.
The significant advantage can be seen in the first 7 keystrokes:
While red wearisomly tries to get off with the first higher gambit, blue had already finished Persevere und builded up Safeguard close to trigger point in addition to the second Persevere pulse, which should be on its way.
On that note please keep in mind that the hots don't actually pulse synchronously to each other in a perfect 3 second wave, like the diagram may falsely suggest, but each one on its own.
The difference between one late bigger hot versus 2-3 smaller ones may already be the reason, why a warden still stands or bites the dust.
Use of Masteries
Now the time has come to finally introduce masteries into the equation:
As you can see I am now able to add a time scale to the graph, presuming the need of 18 seconds to sustain 5 hots at the same time.
If you come to think of it, it is rather better to work in a 19-20 seconds window, because the last heal impulse triggers on the 18th second and the first one in the moment you refresh your gambit.
This task can be done quite well with the assistance of plugins such as Pengoros BuffBars.
Now what about the content of the graph...
The pink function displays my former ordinary healing rotation.
- Conviction [2 Masteries]
- Persevere
- Safeguard [1 Mastery]
- Celebration of Skill [1 Mastery]
- Restoration
Although this order is easy to memorize and plays conveniently(at least for me it does), it turned out not to be the best way to achieve a fast moralregeneration.
Assuming the timeless effort to build up masteries (instant, no animation worth mentioning) the time the pink function hits maxheal is a useable reference, on when the 18 seconds are over and the gambit routine starts all over again.
As a approximate comparison, take a look at the two grey step functions below. These functions shows, how far you can relatively to the time go, without the help of masteries.
(24 keystrokes = 2*4 keys by masteries + 16 manual keys)
I guess the difference is self-explanatory.
Placing Masteries
So whats up with the right acceleration order and masteries?
The good news is, that the first step is mandatory and always the same as long as the specific masteries are not occupied by other gambits:
Build up Conviction with both masteries and fire away.
In a single target environment there is no better solution, than to start off on the right foot, with one of the best given warden heals and threat manager in a blink of an eye and work from there on.
Positioning the four other hots and the masteries is the tricky part.
The red/blue step functions taught us, that speed is of the essence here and in that conclusion, including the remaining two masteries in the very first one or two gambits, seems like a wise decision.
Everything else from here on is pure personal preference.
Every combination solution, we worked out, had its own pros and cons. Some gambit rotations worked quite well as starters but suffered greatly in speed from the 8th second until the 18th. Others seemed to suffocate at the beginning, but paned out at middle to late stages just fine.
A possible way to come up with a personal solution, is to take a look at how you traited you javelin. If you traited Restoration up to 15%, you should consider working with a
Conviction [2 Masteries] -> Restoration [1 or 2 Masteries?] -> ... ->
rotation. Or even set Restoration at the first place, if you think about spending two Masteries in it.
Our german warden community came up with a lot of potential ideas, like building an overall index by summing the heal values for every second up. On that note I would like to thank the former german community for the lovely discussions we had.
But I failed to put the conditions in an appropriate function to solve the problem once and for all.
And thus I am sincerely sorry that I couldn't close this mathematical gap until this very day, leaving you to the task of finding the best routine for yourself.
Well this is it about the self-healing topic. Come to think of it, it is quite a load of text for simply telling you to heal adequately to the situation and use masteries early ^^.
Nevertheless I hope, that I could provide new insight into this particular complex subject and animate you to take a closer look at your heal rotation.
AoE-Drain vs Hots
Every warden survived through countless situations, where he/she was surrounded by a countless mass of foes, that no other class could have survived to tell a tale about it.
As you may already guessed, this is possible due to our AoE morale draining gambits.
Fierce Resolve, Resolution and Exultation of Battle are at our disposal and two of them are the main gambits, which I would like to cover in this topic in detail.
Being the solely available burst heal, Resolution needs a special treatment.
Resolution is a neat adjustment gambit, if you are in need of giving your morale pool an extra boost and lets leave it simply at that.
In every battle against multiple mobs you might find yourself in the situation, that counterintuitively your morale keeps droping with the decreasing amount of mobs around you.
And at some yet undefined turning point AoE-leeches lose their effectivenes and a shield traited warded has to swtich from leeches back to single self-heals.
But where is this turning point exactly?
Core content of this topic deals with this question in particular. This means that I will try to compare both Fierce Resolve and Exultation of Battle with their self-heal counterparts.
Comparison Criteria
The first intuition would be to compare the gambits with the equal gambit length. In this case
Fierce Resolve (3 symbols + 1 trigger) with Safeguard (3 + 1)
and
Exultation of Battle (5 + 1) with either Restoration (5 + 1) or Conviction (5 + 1)
But taking a closer look at the behaviour of the gambits reveals an issue, that prevents this equation from being this trivial.
AoE leecher merely last for 16 seconds and tick only 5 times. Analog to it, self-heals last for 18 seconds and offer up to 7 hots-impulses in their life cycle.
Does the equal build length justify the equation or should I give the duration and/or impulse a more major loading.
On the one hand, shorter Gambit life cycle implies a higher effort to maintain the morale-drainer. After all two additional rotation seconds are not ignored lightly.
On the other hand, lengthened rotation by two seconds means, that the calculated overall heal rate is reached two seconds later.
So how does someone outweigh the discrepancy?
I for one couldn't answer the open priority questens for myself clearly and went back to my initial gut feeling.
It is crucial to remember this relation conflict and the pros and cons of each side, while we continue to tread through this subject lightly.
Speaking of which I still have to burden you with further information, before it comes down to the actual comparison.
The coming up sheet values are picked from the skill descriptions.
I can't stress out enough, that outgoing and incoming healrates are still not accounted for.
In combat circumstances the impact of consequence is significant:
With the aid of gear, legendary javelin traits and buffs, the overall HoT healing income is way higher, than described in the sheets.
You might think, that this applies to morale-leech aswell, but in my experience, the leech value is inferior to the sheet numbers, because the transfered morale is in direct correlation with the light damage dealt to the drained mob and their resistance to it.
Keyword resistance leads to another downside:
Leech skills can be withstanded by each individual foe and thus possibly don't transfer morale for the time being.
This means, that even if you were surrounded by five foes and played a leech gambit, it wouldn't automatically imply, that you transfer morale from every one of them.
Alas it is only logical, that dead foes don't transfer morale anylonger.
Self-heals on the other hand are not bound to the enemy. Resistance doesn't matter, aswell as actually dealing damage, while activating the heal gambit.
In the special case of Conviction, you are not even forced to stand near an enemy. Combat status and masteries is all you need.
Needless to say is the independence of enemy life. If he drops to the ground, you will still keep your hots, until they finish their 18 second cycle.
Morale Drain Sheets
Bottom line is, that all things considered, self-heals seem to be a much more solid way to heal oneself. And yet leech gambits have their well earned benefits, besides the obious AoE-threat as the following sheets show:
A glance at the "morale per power" column reveals, that despite of the higher power consumption, the leech gambits pan out at a certain quantity of foes.
In relation to the typical self-heal power consumption data, a value around 3,50 m/p starts to be attractive.
This lower limit is reached by Fierce Resolve with 5 and Exultation of Battle with 4 foes more than adequately.
The wide spectrum of available masteries decrease the power cost furthermore. Solely Exultation of Battle involves 4 possible Mastery-uses that you can adjust to the combat situation and thus improve your flexiblity.
Exultation of Battle
Lets get finally down to the comparison business.
With the already mentioned complex of problems regarding the direct comparison at hand, it is still safe to say, that Exultation of Battle overwhelms Conviction aswell as Restoration, if at least four active leech targets are available.
Neither the out/inc heal or the mob-resistance can close the gap.
This counts for the gained morale,
1530 in 16 sec (EoB) > 1127 in 18 sec (Conv) > 1092 in 18 sec (Resto)
aswell as for the power proportions,
4,46 (EoB) > 3,93 (Resto) > 3,53 (Conv)
But as you can see, all the EoB advantages diminish, as soon as you leech off 3 targets. Both totally gained moral (1147,5) and morale/power (3,35) lose their attractiveness.
Fierce Resolve
It is considerably more complicated to distinguish the turning point, where - from pure healing perspecive - the use of Fierce Resolve doesn't make sense anylonger.
The transition between the leech amount of 4 to 6 targets is somewhat more fluid and requires a closer look.
It is likely, that the changeover from Fierce Resolve to Safeguard have to be around 4 or 5 leech targets.
Another stepfunction illustrates the gained moral rate in relation to time:
Once more I feel the urge to clarify, that these values doesn't represent the final ones in an actual battle.
Neither bonus or handicaps are included.
The red function, representing a 5 target leech, seems to dominate everything from start till end of the life cycle.
The relation between the 4 target leech and Safeguard is highly ambiguous. Both functions exchange places frequently as they go through the time frame.
Even considering all pros and cons of self-heals versus leeches the answer stays contentsensitive.
Without any additional threat component and close to equal healvalue, Fierce Resolve can only score through the minor damage difference.
Now here we are at last. I hope, I did manage to write down a direct equation, describing in detail the efficiency and difference aspects. And also could help you verify or realign your current priority ranking concerning the heal and leech management.
All is left to mention is, that you know best for yourself, what style of play suites you to fulfill your task.
Although I confronted leech gambits with direct heals to find out where the given time is spend right, it is still very reasonable to combine both particular gambits together. Be it as of threat, masteries cooldown or other reasons.
The combination of Conviction and Exultation of Battle is a prime example - I leave both gambits active, if it comes down to dealing with multiple foes.
Conclusion
Congratulation and thank you for reading through all the nerdy analysis.
The gathered knowledge is based on two years of playing a warden.
It is really not that easy to collect all bits of information from the past time, not to mention of writing it down in english, even if it is reduced to the heal and defense management.
I hope, that I could pass my point of view along and that you could find something new worth knowing.
I am aware of the fact, that you don't need such a rather mathematical biased approach to be a formidable warden.
Especially Warden beginners shouldn't feel discouraged, but be open-minded of what they can - but don't have to - expect of dealing with at the endgame.
In this spirit, I would like to wish the warden community best of luck and success in refining and perfect your skills.
There is always a way to improve oneself!
