For Wardens how important is it...

[imweasel]

To take nurture past 45? I assume the cookie cutter spec is:

35 regrow
45 nurt
42 shield
rest in weapon/parry

I've went with blades and only took 6 spec for the taunt to get the lv 37 root.

But I'm wondering if sacrificing shield for more nurt/regrow is worth it?

So, is it?

[93161541]

It always depents on how you want to play your warden and what you define as "worth it".

Your 35r / 45n / 42s spec is quite balanced.
You can heal "ok", have the best chants, resibuffs are "ok" and a good blockchance but a huge lack of melee dmg.

Just ask yourself what you want to achieve with your warden.
Do you want to PvE all the time or do mostly RvR?
Do you want to run solo, duo, smallman, fullgrp and/or in Zerg?

If you want to play in a grp ask yourself what you can bring to the table to increase the grp-efficiency.
For example a battlewarden .even. with high blunt/blade does less melee dmg than a hero/bm/VW/champ so I'd rather use a grpslot and take one of these classes instead of a battlewarden.

I run most of the time in fullgrp and in pilz-zerg.
In my experience a pure healwarden is much more useful in a grp than other warden specs and you save your grp 1 dps-grpslot.
So I dropped my shieldspec down to 15 to play a healwarden with 50r/49n and I never regretted it.
Most inc dmg is cast-dmg and not melee-dmg.
Throwing huge heals saved more lives than 42shield Slam ever could.


I'd recommend you just try different specs to see what suits your prefered playstyles the most.

[imweasel]

It always depents on how you want to play your warden and what you define as "worth it".

Your 35r / 45n / 42s spec is quite balanced.
You can heal "ok", have the best chants, resibuffs are "ok" and a good blockchance but a huge lack of melee dmg.

Just ask yourself what you want to achieve with your warden.
Do you want to PvE all the time or do mostly RvR?
Do you want to run solo, duo, smallman, fullgrp and/or in Zerg?

If you want to play in a grp ask yourself what you can bring to the table to increase the grp-efficiency.
For example a battlewarden .even. with high blunt/blade does less melee dmg than a hero/bm/VW/champ so I'd rather use a grpslot and take one of these classes instead of a battlewarden.

I run most of the time in fullgrp and in pilz-zerg.
In my experience a pure healwarden is much more useful in a grp than other warden specs and you save your grp 1 dps-grpslot.
So I dropped my shieldspec down to 15 to play a healwarden with 50r/49n and I never regretted it.
Most inc dmg is cast-dmg and not melee-dmg.
Throwing huge heals saved more lives than 42shield Slam ever could.


I'd recommend you just try different specs to see what suits your prefered playstyles the most.

Excellent food for thought. I'll have to try quite a few specs. I'll never play a 'battle warden'. I would prefer not to spend any points in a weapon skill.

--edit--
I will only zerg but will be doing pve the majority of the time.

--edit 2--

How important is for a warden to have any weapon spec? Is taunt/detaunt really worth it?

[dylvish11]

As previously stated, it depends on what you want to bring to the table, and what you are doing / your role in the group. Ive tried both Healwarden and Battlewarden, and in that particular regard I disagree with the previous. They both have places. Healwarden has the obvious, Ok heals. But they are not amazing. Since many dont like playing healers, there is always pressure for ANY class that has any type of heal at all to be the healer and not much else. Its important to enjoy your class, and play it the way you want, but you also need to find your way to bring something to the table if you want to be welcome in groups.
I have a Battlewarden with only 25 rejuv, 46 Nurt, 34 blunt, and rest in shield (i think 35? cant remember the exact atm). While he is very correct, I do not do as much dps as other melees, 25% of my hits proc a 130'ish Group Heal, I am able to keep my blocking on one of the softies to help protect, and the back snares and side stuns I have found immensely useful for peeling assassins and light tanks from our groups back line. The celerity of course helps things proc more. This lets our melees be a bit more 'forward' in the engagements, and I still have ok heals, just no insta-rez on a 5 min cooldown.

Both Healwarden and Battlewarden are useful, and can be fun, but it depends on you the player and what you want to do with it. As i said though, if you want to be welcome in groups, be sure to find a way to make your build USEFUL to the group. That is the most important key.

(as a side note, when i am solo or 2 man with that battle warden, I have been amazed at how well i perform against getting jumped by stealthers. They happily engage, expecting like 6 weapon spec, and are quickly surprised. I've won about 80% of my stealther engagements, and even beat 1 zerker solo, although i think i had like 17 health at the end of that one).

Best of luck either way!!

[93161541]

Healwarden has the obvious, Ok heals. But they are not amazing.

What was your spec as "Healwarden" ? I consider a healwarden with 44-50 regrowth.
With my 50 reg the spec-heals are outstanding. The L50 greater Heal hits for +1k without crit and without any master of healing.
Just consider a druid only has 35-36 regrowth because most players take at least 39 in Nurture for the cap dex/qui buff.
In addition to the better heals a "Healwarden" has red bladeturn, red resis, red uninteruptable grp-hot and focus shell to further reduce the incoming damage.
So saying that the heals are not amazing is weird. Usually a healwarden outheals any standard-specced druid.

I have a Battlewarden with only 25 rejuv, 46 Nurt, 34 blunt, and rest in shield (i think 35? cant remember the exact atm). While he is very correct, I do not do as much dps as other melees, 25% of my hits proc a 130'ish Group Heal,

And that's my concern about battlewardens in (full-)groups. They can't heal enough to compensate any bigger incoming damage and at the same time they don't have the dmg output of a Hero/BM/VW/Champ. So it's more like a utility melee supporter.
A battlewarden shines solo or in smallgrp instead.

I am able to keep my blocking on one of the softies to help protect, and the back snares and side stuns I have found immensely useful for peeling assassins and light tanks from our groups back line.

You can get AoE CL Snare with twice the duration (30s) and you don't have to be in melee range for each individual enemy.
You can Snare a bunch of hostile melees at once.
Blocking (60% Cap and 25% reduction by dual wield classes) doesn't help a caster to survive. You better use what I call "shell-healing".
Throw shell on your target, then cast 1-2 spec-heals and use the shell again.
With this method your target has the shell running all the time and you can heal your target up.
(The shell got buffed in a recent patch and has an additional 25% Melee ABS buff that ticks with the 65% dmg reduction focus)
Every enemy melee assist-train will start crying when they do almost no dmg
And when they split up - your red grphot and the red autobubble and the red root also will make them crying

[dylvish11]

Again it goes to the same argument about play. You very obviously enjoy your way of play, and you enjoy playing main healer. The class comes with more than one spec and one way to play, as well as more than one way to be effective.
Just about anything CL can be taken either way, so I am not factoring that in much. I have seen many people say things to people like "if you want to play that, make a warrior", but the same argument can go the other way "if you want to play that, make a bard or a druid" etc.

I stand by my assessment. There is more than one way to play it, and play it effectively. The key is to be useful and bring something with you, which both specs do. Best of luck to you out there in the field, its a game at the end of the day, and a damned fun one to play.

[imweasel]

It looks like I need to try some specs.

Currently using heavy regrow:

47regrow
49nurtue
6blades (for taunt which no one is advising you should have or not)
23shield (for rear peel)
5parry
0 left.

I miss out on last spec heal and proc. I get all red resists. I get taunt and a slam rear peel.

I'm using two CL styles, tenacity and onslaught for attack speed reduction and hi to hit bonus.

I still wonder if I need to spec any weapon at all...

--edit--
I am also thinking to drop regrow to 44 and pumping blades to 9 (points and get detaunt) and parry to 12 with 1 point left. Probably a better spec for regrowth so better overall...

[imweasel]

Well continued trying different specs. Currently on the following:

44 regrow
50 nurture
23 shield
12 blunt
9 parry
1 point left over

My conclusion is regrow for wardens should be 35, 44 or 50. For nurture it's 46, 49 or 50. I think the 46 damage add/haste is a no brainer. Red resists help the entire group as well as six second bubble.

Exceptions are the battle wardens. However, I don't see any need for high weapon spec as CL styles tenacity and onslaught exist. Very high to hit bonus and 21% attack speed reduction. Your mileage may vary.

I spec'ed 12 blunt for the off block two style chain for the bleed. (I want to squeeze every point of damage as possible.) I think it's also important to have taunt and de-taunt. I currently use Azure as I like the procs it provides.

44 regrow gets me the last spec group heal and HoT. I miss out on the spec 50 greater heal, but I can heal very well if necessary.

50 nurture because I like the 125 delve offensive heal proc. High nurture is a must for any style of warden play.

I took 23 shield so I can have a good peel option. Better blocking never hurts.

9 parry is with left over points.

I'm really liking the spec. Solo pve goes well. On average I do 150-175 per swing using CL styles vs oranges, not counting damage add. I rarely miss due to the very high to hit bonus. I swing at cap speed.

This is the spec I will be on for an extended period of time. It fits my playstyle very well. Your mileage may very.

Also, I am not templated yet. I have a hodge podge of stuff for my melee resists (25ish), 25% heal bonus, 22% buff bonus, 10% melee attack speed and damage bonus. I capped out str and con. My dex and qui are inadequate. I only have 200ish in bonus hit points. I do have max shield, weapon skill +. I don't have any + parry.

[dylvish11]

Sounds great, glad you found the build that works for you!! That is the thing I love most about this game. With some exceptions, there isn't an "only this works" with the builds.

Best of luck out there!