Guardian's

Probably the smallest class based developer diary to be released lately. Paragraph 2 pleases me the most. Anyway, grabbed this from Turbine's site (as usual!)

Howdy Guardians! We believe that Guardians are in a good place before Rise of Isengard and will not need any major changes for the expansion. We are currently increasing the additional threat added by Guardian skills and other tanking classes to make sure that they can do their jobs in a Fellowship. While it may be a little more difficult to permanently lock a monster on you, we realize that most Guardians live to tank and we don’t want to take that away.

Our DPS tests in the new Rise of Isengard world also indicated that Guardians DPS is somewhat lacking. While it is intended that Guardian DPS is not earth shattering, especially when tanking, the results have been much lower than we prefer. In response, we are increasing Guardian DPS in a behind-the-scene fashion. Skills like Guardian’s Ward will just do more damage inherently as the Guardian levels up from 65. In addition to inherent DPS increases, Guardians will also gain some additional damage to their shield attacks due to an increase to their Shield Use rating for new Legendary Belts.

Now there has been a lot of concern over the changes to the Champion class, but let it be known that the Guardian class is alive and well in the new Rise of Isengard world. While the Champion changes should allow them to tank competitively, they will be tanking in a manner very different from both Guardians and Wardens. With that said, let’s get into the changes for the Guardian class.

Skill and Trait Improvements

Protection – Now useable on escorted NPC’s

Protection: By the Sword – A new version of Protection available while in Overpower stance. This new toggle skill will increase the target’s melee damage by +2% and transfer any Parry events to the Guardian while nearby.

Shield based stun attacks will now also interrupt any inductions for use on Stun immune monsters.

Ignore the Pain will now grant a Block event when used in addition to removing Wounds.

Fighter of Shadow

Selfless Defence – Will now transfer threat to the Guardian every time the Protected target is hit.

Final Straw – No longer adds a 6th step to Fray the Edge. It will instead double the chance of triggering a Fellowship Manoeuvre at each step.

Threatening Presence – This trait has been moved to the Defender of the Free line.

Defender of the Free

Stoic – Moved to Fighter of Shadow. The increase in Vitality will now increase as the Guardian levels instead of being a flat +15 Vitality.

The Keen Blade

To the Rescue – Adds +5% attack speed previously on Quickness

Quickness – A brand new trait added to the line! This adds +Parry rating (+1500 at level 75) and subtracts Evade rating (-900 at level 75).

Haemorrhage – Adds +15% damage to all Guardian bleeds.


New Skills for levels 66-75

Guardian’s Ward will now also increase the Tactical Mitigation of the Guardian.

Overwhelm will now add a debuff to the target’s BPE ratings.

Whirling Retaliation will now be useable after a Parry event and adds the Retaliation event when used so that the Parry chain can proceed.

Turn the Tables will now not be Blocked by, Parried by, Evaded by or miss an on level target.

Guardian’s Defence will now place a snare effect on anything that attacks the Guardian but does not continue to attack the Guardian.

Challenge will now place an effect on a monster that will snare the monster if it does not continue to attack the Guardian for the next 30 seconds.

Appleblossom is 4 years old now.

She's is the 2nd character I created, and I remember thinking 'wouldn't it be cute to have a girly Hobbit running around fighting the big scary monsters'. Looking back it probably wasn't the best way to plan a character build. I believe Man and Dwarves are supposed to be better Guardians (because of racial traits/boosts), but its too late now i'm sticking with the Hobbit.

Because I've concentrated more on just getting her levelled up than building a really good Guardian (its not a class I really enjoy sadly) theres quite a bit I don't know. Anyone care to share some tips? Maybe it will help me to enjoy playing Appleblossom more.

I like the idea of a girly hobbit tanking the balrog . I love Guards due to their ability to survive, try testing ur limits like seeing if u outlast multiple mobs. One of my favorite ways is doing the LI shard quests. For instance try aggroing all spiders and outlast them, its really fun to see how far u can go. I also dont think hobbits are bad guards, Ive always wanted the feign death ability.

Yeah, but we lack the 2-3k instant health button that men get