Wardicator

ozoa

So... looking over builds, it used to be a pretty strong combination to pair Warden with Vindicator. Is that still the case, or is there a reason it's fallen out of favor?

Here is the combination that I'm referring too. It usually gave a good DPS boost and some decent mitigation as well. Is that not the case anymore?

jojenmaihem

Still strong combination bu everything is a matter of choices for builds.

The Loop is mostly used for sturdy toon like OT (Offtanks) and Tanks using these two always people change things like not getting Modified Gear for Mass Destruction or Precise Strike to get mote % Critical on attacks (AoE or Single) because here Tank is no the typical one that only get aggro and forget... here the Tanks needs to do damage to keep aggro and the only ways is Damage+Cri/Crti. Sev things this combo gives (better Defense, better Offensive looped by Defense, Severity and Critical on attacks)

For DPS there is better specs, but ofc, they make you a Glass Cannon.

flowcyto

It just depends on the build itself and its priorities. Ward/Guardicator are still strong universal options for boosting personal performance (general crit and offense + defense boosts- and nearly all builds have some significant crit-scaling factor(s) in them). You'd usually seek out other specs if you want to be more specialized, and/or more support oriented (since Ward/Guardicator are more tuned to improving your own stats).

ozoa

Ah okay. That makes sense. For a while, every build I saw (about a year or so ago when I was last playing consistently) that seemed to be the near universal choice on spec trees for recommended builds.

My latest project has been TK blades and while I see a lot of other specs, with Dex/Ego/Rec as SS, she's very squishy. So instead of trying to spec damage, I tried this (using ID mastery as the passive). So far it's okay, I face plant a lot less. Just was curious if the trends have changed, or people have gotten better a building.

Love reading your advice and posts, thank you both for the replies!

vonqball

Brawler just does more damage for melee. The shift to big team cosmic fights has changed build priorities, making people want to specialize more heavily into their hero's role.

Not sure how much more damage a ranged toon with endgame gear gets from Avenger vs Guardian.

morigosa

I'd advise taking a very wary look at the Modified Gear spec. It can be decent once you've got over a hundred offense from gear, but that basically doesn't happen until you're looking at endgame level 40 stuff. For most wardicator characters I make, I skip it entirely, only picking it up for the rare characters that have (or are going to get) a full Justice set, or that Distinguished primary offense piece that has around a hundred offense on its own.

I can also attest that a dex primary + wardicator build works pretty well; with dex mastery, you've got crit chance and crit severity well into diminishing returns, and can just gear for raw offense to feed the loop. (As opposed to non-dex dps builds, which benefit greatly from spending offense gear slots on crit chance & severity mods, and thus tend to only get large amounts of offense-from-gear if they go for a full Justice gear set.)

spinnytop

Wardicator came to prominence several years ago when the game didn't really need roles and "middle-of-the-road" characters that mixed good damage with good defense were the meta since all content was essentially "dive in and aoe it down". Now that we have content that requires tanks and healers and strong dpsers, these "middle-of-the-road" characters are no longer able to be the norm across the board. They're not even really the best tank build anymore as tanks are discovering that other spec combinations yield better benefits for both the main and off tank roles.

There's also the fact that the devs said that they are soon going to fix the infinite loops, meaning that the numbers will go down a bit and as a result the "middle-of-the-road" status of the spec combination will be cemented even further as they get both less defense and less offense.

Wardicator is essentially an old meta that has taken a while to adjust to the new reality of the game, primarily because it's been propped up by a bug.

morigosa

spinnytop wrote: »

They're not even really the best tank build anymore as tanks are discovering that other spec combinations yield better benefits for both the main and off tank roles.

Such as?

pantagruel01

morigosa wrote: »

spinnytop wrote: »

They're not even really the best tank build anymore as tanks are discovering that other spec combinations yield better benefits for both the main and off tank roles.

Such as?

It really depends on what you're trying to do. If you switch from warden-vindicator to warden-protector your offense and damage resistance will go down, but your total effective hit points go up and the defense debuff is actually pretty handy for team dps even if it doesn't help you much personally. For off-tanking it's hard to beat sentinel-protector.

I still use wardicator on some tanks, but there are certainly alternatives.

flowcyto

spinnytop wrote: »

Wardicator came to prominence several years ago when the game didn't really need roles and "middle-of-the-road" characters that mixed good damage with good defense were the meta since all content was essentially "dive in and aoe it down". Now that we have content that requires tanks and healers and strong dpsers, these "middle-of-the-road" characters are no longer able to be the norm across the board. They're not even really the best tank build anymore as tanks are discovering that other spec combinations yield better benefits for both the main and off tank roles.

There's also the fact that the devs said that they are soon going to fix the infinite loops, meaning that the numbers will go down a bit and as a result the "middle-of-the-road" status of the spec combination will be cemented even further as they get both less defense and less offense.

Wardicator is essentially an old meta that has taken a while to adjust to the new reality of the game, primarily because it's been propped up by a bug.

They set a pretty high bar for 'middle-of-the-road', if that's the case (I don't really buy that- they're more 'versatile but selfish' than 'middle-of-the-road' imo).

jojenmaihem

pantagruel01 wrote: »

For off-tanking it's hard to beat sentinel-protector.

Come again? Do yo mean Sentry or Brawler?

vonqball

Sentinel mastery provides a lot of self-sustain. That's nice for an off-tank, since the support will be focusing on keeping up the main tank.

chaosdrgnz43

Wardicator is good if you want to be a sturdy dps. However, brawler spec tree can boost your dmg significantly better thanks to Flanking and Finishing Blow/Setup.

Wardicator is fun to use for tank/dps dual builds. Better make the most of it until devs will actually "fix" the loop.

pantagruel01

jojenmaihem wrote: »

pantagruel01 wrote: »

For off-tanking it's hard to beat sentinel-protector.

Come again? Do yo mean Sentry?

No, I mean sentinel (you're mostly getting it for sentinel mastery, but the rest of the set isn't bad for offtanking either).

jaazaniah1

Curious about the Protector-Sentinel OT build. What specs in those trees work best for the OT role?

vonqball

Vexx posted a Protinel build a while back. The specs look pretty sensible to me. https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline#/discussion/comment/12756305

jojenmaihem

Protinel could lead to better uses in TK/Infernal/Beast Tanks... interesting, the more you know.

pantagruel01

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

Curious about the Protector-Sentinel OT build. What specs in those trees work best for the OT role?

Well, the most common variant on that is the CC/tank, which you'll see in the CCers thread.

markhawkman

Isn't Sentinel Aura the one that makes you an Aggro lightning rod? It's a passive AoE heal that ticks every second and thus generates aggro every second. And healing aggro applies to all enemies even if you didn't even see them.

pantagruel01

markhawkman wrote: »

Isn't Sentinel Aura the one that makes you an Aggro lightning rod?

No more so than any other healing, and only one player's aura applies so you can't really rely on it, but yes.

jojenmaihem

I was thinking...

Could work as block better Ebon Void (Block and heals even if the block have less % damage reduced like others good blocks) with the Prosentinel setup?

gentlegiantvexx

I've never liked Wardicator/Guardicator while being con based on the sheer fact that it always felt lazy to build and gear for without a real reward unfortunately.
So, I've tanked endgame with every other variant of tank, Sentinel/Protector/Warden/guardian/Sentry, and all are able to perform any role in the endgame and solo QWZ. You just have to really be smart on the building.

For sure, if you are curious as to what you should build for your character to solo and be good at what you would like to do, please don't hesistate to ask questions around here or in the CO Discord.

riverocean

Those Protector + Sentinel tanking builds have been around for awhile. The healing and + HP buffs are pretty awesome on a tank build. My guess is we'll also see a spike in the Avenger (Brawler) + Vindicator builds for DPS as well. I actually think this will be a good thing for the game.

vonqball

I think brawler vindicator is already the most common choice for endgame melee dps. That is purely an anecdotal observation (based on what folks advise me to use) tho.

jojenmaihem

Brawler+Vindicator, Brawler+Warden and Brawler+Arbiter are good choices for Melee DPS, everyone offers something for every style of playing.

As already said in the game chat, is time to re-learn or discover new specs, and if you have lots of experience can do something interesting. You can make your char be specialized in X or go beyond that.

spinnytop

riverocean wrote: »

Those Protector + Sentinel tanking builds have been around for awhile.

Yeah, for a long time it's been known as one of the easiest spec combinations. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot of wardicators switch to this once they realize how strong and even more ezmode it is. Really not sure why people looking for an easy setup went with wardicator over this one.

aesica

spinnytop wrote: »

Really not sure why people looking for an easy setup went with wardicator over this one.

It deals more damage than Protector/Sentinel, and that makes non-group content less painful. That's my guess anyway.

spinnytop

So go Avenger or Brawler with Sentinal. Do good damage and be unkillable. Seriously, anyone who was depending on Wardicator for survivability should go Sentinal now. Let's fill the game with unkillable self healing Sentinal builds \o/ I converted my ranged off tank to Avenger/Sentinal a week ago and it's awesome.

chaosdrgnz43

It's appalling how little people cared about Sentinel Spec/Mastery. But if everyone has SM on their builds, it will be a nightmare for CCs to CC Orbs on Eido. We all know how often the majority spam CC powers.

jaazaniah1

Query. How many Sentinel Auras/Masteries can affect a player? E.g. if 30 players were at a cosmic and they all had these 2 (and some stun type of attack) could you have 30 auras and masteries affecting you more-or-less at the same time?

gentlegiantvexx

chaosdrgnz43 wrote: »

It's appalling how little people cared about Sentinel Spec/Mastery. But if everyone has SM on their builds, it will be a nightmare for CCs to CC Orbs on Eido. We all know how often the majority spam CC powers.

I swear to beyond the galaxies if this happens. . .

chaosdrgnz43

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

Query. How many Sentinel Auras/Masteries can affect a player? E.g. if 30 players were at a cosmic and they all had these 2 (and some stun type of attack) could you have 30 auras and masteries affecting you more-or-less at the same time?

we're deviating from the main topic but whatevs. I think those with SM only refreshes the duration. It's unlikely that SM will stack, but I haven't really paid attention to that disorganized debuff ui.

As for Sentinel Aura, I think the devs changed it so that the stronger aura overwrites the weaker aura. I think SA used to stack before and caused some resource hog.

servantrules

spinnytop wrote: »

Really not sure why people looking for an easy setup went with wardicator over this one.

I can only speak for my own experience, but the Guard/Wardicator options helped make taking two different passives (usually Offensive and Defensive like Way of the Warrior+Invulnerability, for instance) and be able to swap, depending on necessity, while still performing well when switching roles (i.e. Melee to tank, ranged to tank). It's still viable, but I can see how big the performance difference is now that it's live.

aesica

spinnytop wrote: »

So go Avenger or Brawler with Sentinal. Do good damage and be unkillable. Seriously, anyone who was depending on Wardicator for survivability should go Sentinal now. Let's fill the game with unkillable self healing Sentinal builds \o/ I converted my ranged off tank to Avenger/Sentinal a week ago and it's awesome.

While that (among several other things) is certainly an option, it lacks the effective HP of wardicator, and that's largely why I never really bothered with sentinel-mastery-based characters. Having a high EHP value is what I'm going to miss about it. Still, it might be nice to explore other combinations--except for maybe anything + Brawler. **** Brawler.

criswolf09

I've been looking around the forum these last two days and found rambles, discussions, threats, etc. To not start a new thread to be filled with ramblings my main question is... What really happened or changed with yesterday's patch regarding Warden/Guardian + Vindicator specs that upsetted so many people to be so angry? I'd like to know the answer from a neutral, simple and coherent answer, please.

flowcyto

I assume you know that they got rid of the TBD/AS loop and changed those specs to instead scale w/ mostly gear-based bonuses. It meant an offense and defense reduction to the most commonly-used specs, but it wasn't so drastic that it killed their viability.

I'd expect outrage if we didn't get free retcon tokens, but afaik we have, so its prob just some peeps overreacting.

spinnytop

servantrules wrote: »

I can only speak for my own experience, but the Guard/Wardicator options helped make taking two different passives (usually Offensive and Defensive like Way of the Warrior+Invulnerability, for instance) and be able to swap, depending on necessity, while still performing well when switching roles (i.e. Melee to tank, ranged to tank). It's still viable, but I can see how big the performance difference is now that it's live.

Well those weren't people looking for an easy setup, those were players making dual spec toons who are generally high-performers.

aesica wrote: »

While that (among several other things) is certainly an option, it lacks the effective HP of wardicator, and that's largely why I never really bothered with sentinel-mastery-based characters. Having a high EHP value is what I'm going to miss about it. Still, it might be nice to explore other combinations--except for maybe anything + Brawler. **** Brawler.

You don't need high EHP if your health is constantly refilling \o/

pantagruel01

spinnytop wrote: »

You don't need high EHP if your health is constantly refilling \o/

Healing doesn't help against being oneshotted. Sentinel mastery is great for offtanks, but it's not particularly good for main tanks.

spinnytop

pantagruel01 wrote: »

Healing doesn't help against being oneshotted. Sentinel mastery is great for offtanks, but it's not particularly good for main tanks.

There's more to the game than Cosmics ( I seem to have to remind you of this a lot, lol ). I don't think I've ever seen Aesica at one. Certainly not tanking one. Everything in the rest of the game that could one shot you can be blocked by any amount of EHP.

pantagruel01

spinnytop wrote: »

There's more to the game than Cosmics

True, there are other things out there that can also oneshot you, though they're less common. Presumably if Aesica is interesting in eHP, it's because of stuff where eHP matters, and that's spike damage.

spinnytop

pantagruel01 wrote: »

spinnytop wrote: »

There's more to the game than Cosmics

True, there are other things out there that can also oneshot you, though they're less common. Presumably if Aesica is interesting in eHP, it's because of stuff where eHP matters, and that's spike damage.

I'm sure Aesica knows where the block button is.

aesica

Thing is, eHP is valuable for more than just surviving spike damage. High eHP through high mitigation increases the value of any incoming healing, be it your own or from others. High eHP is also useful in content where things relentlessly wear you down, such as, oh, save the earth's constant respawns. A bigger health pool is a bigger health pool, and that's really useful in just about any situation.

pantagruel01

aesica wrote: »

Thing is, eHP is valuable for more than just surviving spike damage. High eHP through high mitigation increases the value of any incoming healing, be it your own or from others.

Urr... you mean high mitigation here, not high eHP. 10k hp with +150% damage resistance and 20k hp with +25% damage resistance both have the same eHP (25k), but healing is twice as effective on the first.

aesica wrote: »

High eHP is also useful in content where things relentlessly wear you down, such as, oh, save the earth's constant respawns.

This tends to be rapidly overwhelmed by heal per second.