I was lucky enough to have docholidayj make a couple of comments on my column about keeping threat as a Warden. He made some great comments! In fact, the other night I began putting War-Cry in my rotation to gain threat, and it worked GREAT! I can’t say thank you enough!

As a community, we’re all going to be a little luckier now, as docholidayj has started up his own Blog to discuss Warden. I know that I’ll be checking it out regularly, and I would recommend that you do the same.

You can find his site at http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/

As many of you have probably heard on the podcast (found through iTunes or the link on the right of the page), my main is a Warden. I’ve gotten him up to the low level 30s now, and am loving the mechanics of the class, as well as playing a tank in instances.  As you can see from some comments in previous posts, Bill and I disagree about the mechanics, as he feels that they need an overhaul to make it easier to remember/know the combinations of attacks needed for Gambits, while I find that they work just fine. To each their own!

Overall in LOTRO, both as a Guardian and a Warden, I’ve found threat generation to be very different in LOTRO than in other games. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but it is nearly impossible for me to have all of the mobs attacking me, while the DPS in the group attacks my target, then we move to the next target, etc. If we do manage to get all of the mobs attacking me, we often have to have our Rune Keeper move to healing, so that both the Minstrel and the Rune Keeper are healing me. Otherwise, I go down quick.

The Warden is a really fun class to play. I enjoy the mechanics involved, as they get me a little more involved in the combat. When I was playing DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) I liked the fact that you had to click your mouse button for every attack. Very Diable-esque. I would often find myself clicking faster than the game could register, especially during tense fight. It really added to the immersion.

Although being a Warden in LOTRO doesn’t mean that you click your mouse button for every attack, the Gambit system is a unique way to get players more involved in the combat. For those of your who don’t know that the gambit system is, here is a quick description: A Gambit is an attack triggered by a combination of attacks that come before it. For example, if you use your Fist attach (gain threat) and your Spear attack (damage), then trigger your Gambit, you perform a Precise Blow, which does Damage, and gives you threat over time.