LoTRO: So You Want To Be A Warden

As I have played through The Lord of The Rings Online as a Warden, I have noticed that the Warden as a class is largely misunderstood by Wardens and non-Wardens both. The excellent site LoTRO Info does not have any post-Moria class guides (the two classes added in the Mines of Moria expansion were the Rune-Keeper and the Warden, for those not aware), so I am writing this guide with the intent of disseminating some information about the class.

The Warden's primary role is as a tank, the party member who stands on the front line of combat and takes the hits (and the repair bill) so that the squishies don't have to. The Warden has secondary roles in corruption removal (corruptions are buffs that monsters in Moria apply to themselves, and Wardens are the best class in the game at removing them); interrupting monsters' skill inductions (Wardens are not quite as good at this as Champions are with their Clobber skill, but it's a near thing); and off-off-OFF-healing with the late-game Conviction gambit, which provides a small but useful bit of extra healing for the group.

Pluses of the Warden class:

• Nigh-invulnerability, thanks to good armor value and very high evade/block/parry ratings, combined with extensive self-healing abilities.
• The best solo class in the game (see previous point)
• Excellent tank class, capable of being a party's primary tank in any situation.
  

Minuses:

• The lowest DPS of any class in LoTRO, making soloing a slow process.
• Class requires memorization and thought to play well (this may be a minus for some people, heh)
• Because of our need to build threat-generating gambits, Wardens cannot generate instant threat on a target the way that Guardians can (Warden threat is fast, but not instantaneous).

Wardens are unique in LoTRO (and to the best of my knowledge, unique among MMOs) in having "gambits" instead of skills. Wardens do not get the dozens of skills that other classes get. Instead, Wardens get a small set of skills to build gambits, as well as several stances and a couple of cooldown skills, and that is all their skills. Wardens use their three main skills to add icons to the "Gambit Panel," then a fourth skill to "release" or "trigger" the gambit that the icons add up to. Wardens eventually learn 35 individual gambits which range from two icons up to five icons in length.

The gambit system and the necessity of memorizing a large number of icon combinations means that playing a Warden is less like playing an MMO and more like playing a fighting game. I have found that playing a Warden requires a much higher degree of attentiveness to combat than other classes. When playing a Champion or a Hunter, for example, it's easy to "phone in" the combat, just cycling through a handful of skills in a preset order. When playing a Warden, that is nearly impossible, as well as highly impractical. Because gambits are not built instantly, a Warden must be constantly paying attention to the flow of combat, predicting what gambit will be needed next, and what gambit will be needed after that, while watching the Gambit Panel to make sure that the gambits are being built correctly (a bit of lag can really wreck a gambit if you're not paying attention), and on top of all that, the tanking Warden needs to be paying attention to the group to make sure that any adds are being handled, that the healer isn't taking aggro, and all the other various and sundry duties of a tank.

Unlike the Champion's Fervor, the Hunter's Focus, or the Rune-Keeper's Attunement, Wardens have no mechanical limitations on what gambits they can throw at what time--the choice of which gambit to build is purely tactical. This gives Wardens a tremendous degree of flexibility and the ability to "change gears" very quickly to respond to changing combat conditions.

How Gambits Work

Wardens learn four gambit skills:

• Gambit Default, the gambit "trigger" skill, which changes its name and effect to the gambit you have built.
• Quick Thrust, a basic melee attack, which adds a Spear icon to the Gambit Panel.
• Shield Bash, a melee attack which deals a flat amount of Common damage, has a small chance to apply a short-lived block rating buff, and adds a Shield icon to the Gambit Panel.
• Warden's Taunt, which deals a small amount of Light damage and a small Light DoT, has increased threat, and adds a Fist icon to the Gambit Panel.

With those four skills, Wardens build and then release all their gambits. A bit of terminology: gambits which start with a Spear icon are called "spear gambits" (I know, whodathunkit) and are the damage-oriented gambits. Gambits which start with a Shield icon are "shield gambits," and have to do with healing or buffing. Finally, "fist gambits" are threat-generating gambits.

In spite of all the earlier talk about memorizing a mess of gambits, most of the gambits are organized quite logically and tend to build on each other in a reasonable way. For example, the two-icon gambit The Boot (Spear, Shield) interrupts inductions and has a chance to daze the target for a few seconds. Add another Spear icon to The Boot, and it becomes Onslaught (Spear, Shield, Spear), which still interrupts inductions but trades the daze chance for three attacks (which deal a percentage of your weapon damage). Now add another Shield Icon to Onslaught, and you get Wall of Steel (Spear, Shield, Spear, Shield), which still interrupts inductions with its three full-weapon-damage attacks, and gains a hefty but short-lived parry rating buff. You see patterns throughout the gambit list: the healing gambits are representative, with (Shield, Spear) being a small heal and working up to (Shield, Spear, Shield, Spear, Shield) for the biggest heal.

There are a handful of oddballs which do require memorization, but much of the list can be derived from patterns rather than memorization.

The Short List Of Gambits To Remember

DPS: Despite the big numbers on the tooltip for late-game damage gambits such as Warden's Triumph, the best choice for reliable damage output is Wall of Steel. WoS is quick to build, being a four-icon gambit with no Fist icons (Warden's Taunt, the Fist icon skill, has a long animation associated with it, so Fist icons cost a disproportionate amount of time to add to a gambit), and because WoS has three attacks, you have three separate chances to hit the target, rather than the all-or-nothing of Warden's Triumph's single large attack. Additionally, the parry buff from WoS is virtually always useful: remember, Wardens survive by not being hit.

Threat: The Warden's main tool for reliable threat generation is the two-icon gambit Precise Blow (Fist, Spear), which has "increased threat" and "increased threat over time." Being a two-icon gambit, it is eminently spammable and costs relatively little power. Using nothing but this gambit, I have held aggro off Hunters in Strength Stance and off of Guardians (in other words, Precise Blow pumps out some serious threat). It is your best friend when it comes to single-target threat generation.

When it comes to multi-target threat generation, you have two useful tools: War Cry and Exultation of Battle. War Cry (Fist, Shield) is another gambit which generates threat over time, and has a large range of effect and affects up to ten targets. However, it is mostly useless unless you are wielding a Legendary Weapon which has a War Cry Threat Up legacy on it, because the threat generation of the unaugmented War Cry is nothing to write home about.

Exultation of Battle (Fist, Spear, Shield, Fist, Shield) is the Warden's best friend in situations where you are engaging many enemies at once. EoB generates threat over time as well as having a morale drain effect: every four seconds, the enemies affected by EoB lose a small chunk of health and the Warden gains all the health the enemies lose. Obviously, when you are surrounded by many enemies, that morale drain effect can be a significant heal. Like War Cry, Exultation of Battle requires a Threat Up legacy on a Legendary Weapon in order to generate a useful amount of threat.

Wardens have several gambits which transfer threat from other party members to the Warden. Two of those in particular are useful: Dance of War (Shield, Fist, Shield, Fist), which transfers a significant amount of threat from each member of the party to the Warden and also applies a hefty buff to the Warden's evade rating. Add one more Shield to Dance of War and you get the far more useful Conviction (Shield, Fist, Shield, Fist, Shield), which transfers the same significant amount of threat, but trades the evade buff for a smallish heal over time for the entire party, including the Warden. Note that Conviction is the only non-selfish thing that Wardens can do (generally speaking, we're a bunch of selfish jerks).

Buffs: As previously mentioned, Wall of Steel (Spear, Shield, Spear, Shield) has a very nice parry rating buff attached to it. When you're a bit over your head and need to add to your defensive ratings, Shield Mastery (Shield, Spear, Fist, Spear) applies a buff with a duration of one minute which provides a hefty bonus to your evade, block, and ranged block ratings. Combine Wall of Steel and Shield Mastery, and a high-level Warden can max out his defensive ratings across the board.

Healing: Start with Persevere (Shield, Spear) and just keep alternating Shield and Spear. The longer the gambit, the bigger the heal, so just build as long a gambit as you can afford to (before whatever is making you require healing gets around to making you dead, I mean), then throw that gambit and start building another, different, one. The heal over time buffs from each of the healing gambits stack with each other, so a Warden who is concentrating solely on healing can keep multiple HoTs ticking away at all times. When fighting multiple targets, the morale drain gambits Fierce Resolve (Fist, Spear, Shield), Resolution (Fist, Spear, Shield, Fist), and Exultation of Battle (Fist, Spear, Shield, Fist, Shield) can be thrown into the mix and stacked with each other to keep the Warden healthy while dealing a bit of damage to the enemies.

Corruption Removal: There's only one gambit for this. Reversal (Spear, Fist, Shield) hits the target for a smallish amount of damage and also removes one random corruption from the target.

Power Restore: Again, only one gambit does this. The Dark Before Dawn (Spear, Shield, Spear, Fist, Spear) can only be used when the Warden is below half health. It deals two moderate weapon attacks and restores a goodly chunk of power. Because gambits do not have cooldowns, Dark Before Dawn can be spammed as long as your health is below 50% to keep restoring power. This gambit is often essential in long fights when you do not have a Lore-Master in your group to pass you power, because Wardens can burn through their power reserves at a staggering rate.

Stances: These aren't actually gambits, but as long as I'm talking tactics, I feel it's appropriate to mention them. Wardens learn three stances (and an optional fourth stance gained by slotting a Legendary Trait):

• Determination: This stance does only one thing, but it does it well. When in Determination stance, the Warden's in-combat morale regeneration (ICMR) is increased tremendously, well above what any other class can achieve.
• Conservation: This stance does for in-combat power regeneration (ICPR) what Determination does for ICMR, and it also provides small bonuses to the Warden's evade and block ratings. This is the most common stance for Wardens to be in, because Wardens often have power issues.
• Recklessness: This stance is the odd man out, because it is focused on DPS. In Recklessness, the Warden's attack speed and melee damage is increased, but his evade and block ratings are reduced. This stance is very rare for Wardens to use, because Warden DPS is laughably bad (so the stance's buffs aren't exactly working miracles) and there are few occasions when a Warden is in a party and is not tanking.
• Way of the Warden is the stance which is earned by slotting a legendary trait of the same name. Unlike the other stances, this one has a cooldown (15 minutes), and can only be turned on during combat, and only lasts until combat ends. It is excellent for long and/or hard fights, because its effects are taken from all of the other stances. When in the Way of the Warden stance, the Warden gains enhanced ICMR and ICPR and an increase in attack speed and an increase in melee damage.

Traits, or Being All The Warden You Can Be

All classes in LoTRO have three trait lines, which are different for each class. In the case of the Warden, the three lines are Way of the Fist, Way of the Spear, and Way of the Shield. As you can probably guess, the traits within each line affect Fist gambits, Spear gambits, and Shield gambits, respectively.

As I've mentioned previously, Warden DPS is a grand joke, so traiting for extra DPS by slotting the Spear line is a pointless endeavor (with that said, slotting the Spear line during the low levels is not an unreasonable choice, because even the weak offensive ability of a Warden can make short work of the weak monsters which populate the early game).

At level 60, with all seven of the class trait slots available, a common trait setup among skilled Wardens is five Shield traits and two Fist traits; another common build is five Shield traits, one particular Fist trait and one particular Spear trait. I'll discuss what those "particular traits" are in a moment. First, why five Shield traits? Because the Shield line's set bonus is the most desirable of the three trait lines. The Shield line's set bonus is as follows:

• 2 equipped: adds a level-dependent bonus to the Warden's block rating.
• 3 equipped: adds a level-dependent bonus to the Warden's evade rating.
• 4 equipped: all heal over time skills heal 10% more per pulse.
• 5 equipped: the legendary trait Way of the Shield can be equipped.

The legendary trait Way of the Shield has the following effects:

• All heal over time effects last for two additional pulses (for most Warden HoTs, that is a 50% increase).
• All HoT effects heal 10% more per pulse.
• The Conviction gambit (that's the threat-transfer-and-party-heal one) heals 30% more.

As you can see, going five deep in Way of the Shield and slotting the legendary Way of the Shield trait significantly increases the Warden's healing ability. Wringing the most out of your self-heals can be critical to success in many situations, because Wardens are less tough than Guardians--pound for pound, we take more damage each time we are hit than a comparable Guardian. With a good healer at your back, that extra damage makes no difference. With a less-than-good healer at your back, or if things are simply getting out of hand and the healer cannot attend to you immediately, the ability to recover your own morale with robust self-heals is invaluable. Thanks to their healing ability, Wardens can also tank many things acceptably well even without a dedicated healer in the party.

Now, about those two "particular traits" I mentioned. There is a trio of incredibly useful traits called Master of the Shield, Master of the Spear, and Master of the Fist. When any of those traits is slotted, the Warden gains two new in-combat skills which instantly add two gambit icons to the Gambit Panel, without requiring an attack. For example, slotting Master of the Shield adds the skills "Shield and Spear" and "Shield and Fist." As you can probably deduce, using the "Shield and Spear" skill adds a Shield icon and a Spear icon to the Gambit Panel, in that order. Likewise, slotting Master of the Spear grants the skills "Spear and Shield" and "Spear and Fist." These combo skills have a cooldown of fifteen seconds, and they do not share their cooldowns. This means that a skilled Warden can build gambits nearly instantly by combining these two-icon skills in the correct order, which gives an amazing ability to respond rapidly to changing battlefield conditions.

Let me provide some examples by way of illustration. The gambit Exultation of Battle (Fist, Spear, Shield, Fist, Shield) takes some time to build, thanks to its two Fist icons. As I mentioned previously, the long animation of Warden's Taunt (the skill which adds a Fist icon) means that gambits with Fist icons are slower to build than gambits without. The two-icon combo skills have no animation associated with them. When you trigger one of the combo skills, its two icons simply appear in the Gambit Panel with no muss and no fuss. So, a Warden who has slotted some of the two-icon traits could build Exultation of Battle by using the following skills: "Fist and Spear" followed by "Shield and Fist" followed by "Shield Bash" (the Shield icon skill). Rather than executing five attack skills--including two of the slow Warden's Taunts--this Warden has built the Exultation of Battle gambit with only three skills, no Warden's Taunts, and only one attack skill.

Another example: The Boot (Spear, Shield) is the shortest gambit which interrupts inductions. Many monsters in the game can use healing skills on themselves or other monsters, and some of those heals are truly staggering in how much health they restore. Therefore, interrupting those inductions can often be the difference between an easy victory and a long, costly battle. When a monster begins a healing induction, the Warden must finish whatever he is doing at the moment (such as being in the middle of an attack animation), then clear his Gambit Panel and build The Boot, then trigger The Boot. For some monsters which have short inductions, that could easily be too long, and allow them to complete their heal. Now consider a Warden who has the trait "Master of the Spear" slotted, giving him the skill "Spear and Shield." In other words, that Warden can build The Boot with the push of a single button and without waiting for even one attack animation. The usefulness of that cannot be overstated.

Slotting five-deep in the Way of the Shield trait line (including Master of the Shield), then slotting Master of the Spear and Master of the Fist is a build which gives you all six two-icon skills for maximum flexibility. The tradeoff is that you lose the set bonus for having two Fist line traits slotted, which is that all aggro-generating gambits produce 10% more threat. In the big picture, 10% more threat is not a necessarily a dealbreaker, as Wardens can produce a staggering amount of threat even without that bonus. Either choice of trait build is perfectly viable.

Summary

Wardens are a very interesting and engaging class to play, but the style of play that they require is not for everyone. In the hands of a player who enjoys the Warden's playstyle and is willing to take the time to become fluent at it, the Warden is the most versatile tank in the game.

Other Resources

Warden: Tanking Guide from the LoTRO Lorebook. An in-depth look at what makes Warden threat tick and various tanking techniques.
Doc Holiday's Warden-centric blog. A good source for useful tidbits of information about the class.
The Warden section of the LoTRO Forums. Rife with drama and whining, but also excellent information and knowledgeable people. Think of it as offline glff. ;D
A ridiculously awesome chart of every gambit.

The Lord of the Rings Online: Through a Captain's Eyes

The bottom line: Although the Captain does not do any one thing exceptionally well, his ability to simultaneously fill multiple, much-needed support roles makes him a consistently welcome addition to any fellowship.

Discounting my brief stint in LotRO's open beta years ago, the Captain is the first class in the game that I played, and the first class with which I reached any challenging content. On the surface, the class doesn't seem to have much going for it: as a Captain, you're not going to be dealing out nearly as much damage as a Hunter or a Rune-keeper; you're not going to be able to take hits like a Guardian, despite your heavy armor; and your self-healing is very limited. On top of that, you have no crowd control, debuffs, or area-of-effect abilities worth mentioning. Basically, soloing isn't your thing (you'll do all right, especially later on, but other classes will far surpass you in this area).

So what does the Captain have going for him? The game itself defines the Captain's role as "Buffer/Pets," which, when taken as a very broad overview, is true. Most of the Captain's buffs are applied to the entire fellowship, and the ones that aren't can be applied to each member individually. The pets themselves are sentient buffs -- the Captain summons a standard-bearing herald that gives everyone nearby a healthy boost to either offensive ability, maximum morale and in-combat morale regeneration, or maximum power and in-combat power regeneration. The heralds participate in melee combat, but their attacks are pathetically weak. They can take a surprising beating, though, so they're worth having out for solo use. Later on, most Captains will -- in group play, at least -- opt to replace their heralds with a plantable standard that gives the whole fellowship the same buffs as a herald while bestowing additional melee damage and morale to the Captain.

There's a lot that can be said regarding heralds versus standards, and, naturally, there are a lot of severely mentally crippled people on either side of the argument. Since the argument is about as boring as each side's proponents are retarded, I'll share my own views only very briefly. From my own experimentation, I've found that, during solo play, a herald is great for fighting multiple mobs at once. For group play, stick with a standard. You need to focus too much on the rest of your party to be worrying about one more body. If your herald dies in combat, his buffs are lost to the group until combat's over; a standard cannot die and can be replanted in-combat an indefinite number of times.

Despite the Captain's being a melee class, when I'm playing, I find myself on the outskirts of combat just as often as I find myself on the front lines. Selflessness is what separates the good Captains from the bad. And it's easy to be selfless -- you'll score some big hits swinging away with your two-handed weapon, and a lot of Captains fall into a pattern of spamming melee skills while becoming oblivious to the status of the group. A good Captain will break away from melee to pull mobs off of the healer, remove fear debuffs, and do some off-healing. In times of need, a Captain can quickly take a group from "oh, shit!" to "oh, hey, we're fine!" with an incredible duo of skills that allows him to direct half of the group's incoming damage to himself while he renders himself immune to death for (if traited properly) a full twenty-five seconds. This takes immense pressure off of the healer and allows the rest of the group to recover.

Extended group combat (let's say against a single boss mob) as a Captain is going to go something like this:

• Buff the fellowship and select a Shield-brother (a single group member to whom the Captain can bestow extra damage output and healing)
• Plant your standard
• Engage the mob, but attack lightly, allowing the tank time to establish aggro
• Focus on melee combat for a bit -- if you get the opportunity to use your fellowship attack speed buff, do so
• Check the status of your fellowship -- remove fear debuffs, and do a bit of healing, if needed
• Be the first to engage adds (if there is no Champion or Warden)
• If the healer or tank dies, resurrect him as quickly as possible and get him buffed back up
• Return to melee if things are going swimmingly
• Listen closely to voice chat for a violent outburst containing either the word "shit" or "fuck" -- it's probably time to start absorbing damage and using your death immunity

Obviously, you'll have to improvise some on this order, but the typical rule of thumb of combat is that things rarely get better over time -- "from bad to worse" will be your experience during most rough fights.

By now, the Captain's role should be pretty clear, and deciding whether or not to play a Captain is a simple process. If you answer "no" to either of the following two questions, don't bother playing a Captain:

• Do you prefer to play in a group?
• Do you enjoy constantly checking the status of your fellowship to know when to offer support?

If you answered "no" to either of those, you'd be better off with a more selfish class that's geared toward soloing -- a Hunter, Champion, Rune-keeper, or Warden would be perfect for you.

At the bottom of it all, the Captain, while boring to play solo and failing to truly excel in any area, is immensely important to the well-being of a group and is essential to almost any group build.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Fallout with a Russian accent

Pros: Brilliant despite its flaws.
Cons: Very, very flawed.

Let's get it out of the way right up front -- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is, mechanically speaking, a bad game. It is bug-ridden, the engine is poorly-optimized, the AI has a tendency to break at random intervals, and all that and more add up to the opposite of a good game.

And yet... and yet, it has a certain something that lets me overlook its many (many) flaws. The post-apocalyptic, radiation-soaked setting is teeming with ambience (if ambience can be said to teem). The little atmospheric touches are wonderfully realized: the howls of strange and threatening beasts in the distance, the gleam of a bandit's flashlight through the tall grass, the sudden, howling gusts of wind that batter themselves against the crumbling remains of blasted and abandoned buildings... it adds up to a world I am willing to suspend my disbelief for, even when I enter a settlement and the guard who warily greets me resumes his patrol by walking straight into a wall, or when the group of bandits who ambush me spend most of the fight running in and out of the same door, trying to figure out how to path to me.

I believe I mentioned the flaws.

I have played almost to the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. several times, and each time the bugginess has finally outweighed the world, and I have quit. But I find myself going back, months later, when I remember the gaping mouth of a charging, mutated boar as my flashlight beam finds it in the pitch blackness, or the feeling of being one man against the world as I leave the light and warmth of a trading camp deep within the Zone and step once again into the creature-infested wasteland. At times like those, I load the game back up and allow myself to be immersed one more time.

It is not a game I would recommend that anyone buy at full price. However, if you find it in a discount bin, or can catch it during a sale on Steam, it easily contains ten or fifteen dollars worth of enjoyment.

As there are for Oblivion, there are many mods available for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., several of which fix scripting and other bugs, and some which add more depth to the game by tweaking the enemies and world. If you do pick S.T.A.L.K.E.R. up, I highly recommend searching out the mod sites for it.

Left 4 Dead: Rawr, Brains

Pros: Zombies + shotguns = fun!
Cons: Only four campaigns.

When I first learned about Left 4 Dead in a preview article in Game Informer magazine, I was giddy as a schoolgirl. Four-player co-op? Zombies? The ability to play as the zombies? Glee! My enthusiasm remained undimmed through the intervening months, and as soon as the pre-order option became available on Steam, I plunked down my money and set myself to wait.

According to Steam's stats, I have logged 422 hours in L4D since that time, so I consider myself qualified to talk about the game.

For those unfamiliar with the story of Left 4 Dead, let me bring you up to speed: HOLY CRAP THERE ARE ZOMBIES OUT THERE WHERE IS MY SHOTGUN!

Valve isn't really one to tell an overt story. Some of the backstory of the zombie plague is filled in by way of graffiti scrawled by other survivors in the "safe rooms" at the start and end of each level, but how our four plucky survivors gathered together? What they were doing when the apocalypse hit? How they survived on their own before they met each other? As far as all that, we get nothing. Not that it really matters. After all, there are zombies to kill.

The cooperative experience of L4D is top-notch, one of the finest co-op games I've ever played. Up to four players, with reasonably smart bots filling in for missing players, play through one of four campaigns of five levels each, culminating in a dramatic rescue which whisks you away from the teeming zombie hordes. Four campaigns may not sound like much (and let's be honest, it's not), but the game has that certain something which keeps it fresh and new even after dozens of times running through the same campaign. Part of that something is the AI Director, Valve's very spiffy system which monitors the players' progress and stress level and dynamically adjusts the difficulty by spawning in more or fewer enemies and more or less health and items.

Versus mode is where the game really shines, and is what has kept me playing L4D for hundreds of hours. Two teams of four players alternate playing through each level in a campaign, once as the Survivors, and once as the Special Infected. The Special Infected are the "elite" Infected types which appear in waves throughout the co-op campaigns, and are different than the Common Infected, which are the run-of-the-mill zombie hordes.

The specials come in four playable flavors: the Hunter, a fast-moving aerial attacker who leaps on and pins his victims to the ground before tearing them to bloody shreds with his claws; the Smoker, whose grossly elongated tongue lets him grab and drag the survivors over long distances, strangling them all the while; the Boomer, a hugely obese walking bomb whose projectile vomit attracts dozens of common infected to attack the hapless survivors who are coated by it; and the Tank, a wall of meat and muscle who can punch a car over a building. There's a fifth special, the Witch, who is not playable and appears (usually) no more than once per level to harass the survivors.

Because versus takes place in the same levels each time, and the survivors follow the same path through the levels each time, it takes only a matter of days to memorize the levels. What happens after that is what separates the good from the bad, because each level is complex enough, and there are enough variables in the game, that both teams are forced to make rapid decisions dozens of times during each level. The infected team is striving to combine their forces effectively to catch the survivor team off guard and deal significant damage, while the survivors are striving to not be caught off guard and make it to the end of the level as quickly and safely as possible. The subtle variations in tactics and execution of those tactics from game to game keeps versus fresh for me even after almost a thousand games.

Recently, Left 4 Dead was updated to allow custom campaigns to be created and played, and the number of those campaigns is steadily increasing, although from what I hear, most of the campaigns which are available at present are best described as "bad." Hopefully the wheat will fall away from the chaff sooner rather than later, because four campaigns really isn't enough.

Lord of the Rings Online, First Impressions

Pros: World design, Warden Gambits
Cons: Broken crafting system

I've now been playing Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) for a bit over a month. My main character is a level 57 Warden, while my other six character slots languish in Lowbieville. I have a while yet to go on my Warden before I hit the level cap of 60, because leveling is slow in LOTRO compared to many MMOs, specifically WoW.

I have tasted the endgame, and it seems satisfying. Indeed, to my surprise, I am even looking forward to the endgame, which has never been the case in any MMO I've played. I think that the reason for this is the exquisite world Turbine has put together for my enjoyment. Yes, the game has its share of bugs and interface issues, and I have some major complaints about the crafting system... but the world, oh, the world. Damn near everyplace I've been in LOTRO has been enthralling, interesting, beautiful, rich in ambience, and on and on. From the mountain crags of Evendim to the desert wasteland of the Lone-Lands to the bucolic homeliness of The Shire to the towering Dwarf stonework of the Mines of Moria, every environment has its own flavor, and each one is crafted with a level of care that I've never seen in another MMO.

In short, world design, check.

The quests are, on the whole, engaging and well-written. They mostly do a good job of maintaining the illusion that there's a reason you're killing the mob du jour other than the quest reward. Some of the writing is downright funny, especially in Forochel and parts of the Mines of Moria, which I suspect were written by the same person. Aside from the writing, there's nothing to differentiate the quests in this game from the quests in any other MMO. Go somewhere, kill X of Y, come back. Go somewhere else, gather X number of body parts from Y, come back. As I said before, it's the world that holds it together, because each new quest hub feels fresh, like a new game unto itself.

The many instanced quests I've done and the handful of instanced content that I've run have been uniformly excellent. The LOTRO dev team has made stellar use of instanced content to tell stories with a level of quality that no other MMO I've played can touch. The endgame instances I've run have been only small three-man instances, designed to be bite-size content, and they have been highly enjoyable, tightly-crafted little areas with just the right amount of challenge. If the instances which are designed for larger groups are up to the same standard, this may well be the first MMO I continue to play past the level cap.

The classes are very satisfying to play as and play with. Because there is no PvP in LOTRO apart from sparring, the classes benefit from being balanced exclusively for PvE, which means, for example, that Hunters, the archer class, can be actual, honest-to-God archers, because there isn't a melee class standing on the other end of the arrows pissing and moaning about how OP Hunters are. Each class has its own role to play, and each class is very good at its role. There is a bit of trouble in Paradise, however. I did not play the game before the Mines of Moria expansion, so I only have hearsay that the two MoM classes, the Warden and the Rune-Keeper, unbalanced the class structure. I believe it, though.

Wardens are a light tank class, unique in my MMO experience. Rather than surviving by damage mitigation and massive health and armor numbers, Wardens survive through Evade/Block/Parry and a robust ability to self-heal and to drain health from their attackers. Wardens also have something else unique in my experience, the Gambit system, which I'll go into in more detail in a bit. Wardens stole some of the tanking glory from the Guardians, although Wardens and Guardians are different enough that each can still find work in the endgame.

The problem child of the Mines of Moria expansion is the Rune-Keeper, who took the "primary DPS class" title from the Hunters, and also can heal well enough to give the primary healing class, the Minstrel, a run for their money. The only thing that keeps Rune-Keepers from being the ultimate class is that they cannot DPS and heal at the same time, due to the clever "attunement" system. In a nutshell, every time an RK casts an offensive spell, he becomes more attuned to the damage side of the scale, unlocking more powerful abilities and giving boosts to his damage output. The opposite is true for healing spells, which attune the RK to the healing side. Most of the RK's most powerful abilities require a certain level of attunement on one side or the other, which means that an RK cannot change gears instantly. Instead, he must use some of his pool of attunement-neutral skills to reduce his attunement level to a point where he can begin using the other set of skills. In spite of the attunement system, Rune-Keepers are pretty much the uberclass, meaning that there are far too many of them in the game, to the detriment of class balance.

Now, on to a subject close to my heart: the Warden's Gambit System. Now this? This is cool. Playing a Warden is a lot like playing Massively Multiplayer Fighting Game Online, which keeps me from getting bored during the grind. Wardens don't have "skills" like a normal MMO class. Instead, they have gambits. Wardens are equipped with a trio of skills which perform basic attacks and also add an icon to the Gambit Panel, a line of five empty boxes which fill with gambit icons as you use your basic skills. Gambits are composed of at least two icons and up to five icons, in particular combinations. When a valid combination of icons is present in the Panel, the name of the readied gambit is displayed on the Panel, and the Warden can use his special trigger skill to unleash the gambit in question. Gambits come in three flavors: Spear gambits deal damage and/or give offensive buffs, Shield gambits heal and/or give defensive buffs, and Fist gambits generate threat and/or drain health and/or deal damage over time.

There's quite a bit of variation within each of the three types of gambits, however. By way of example, take Dance of War, a length-four Shield gambit (shield, fist, shield, fist). Dance of War applies a hefty bonus to Evade for 20 seconds, and also transfers threat from every member of the group to the Warden. Compare that to Surety of Death, a length-four Fist gambit (fist, shield, fist, shield), which deals direct damage initially followed by damage over time, and generates increased threat. The ins and outs of the Gambit System make the Warden a very engaging class to play, and the wide variety of tricks they have up their sleeve makes them one of the best solo classes in the game.

The one major problem I have with the game is the crafting system. LOTRO uses the WoW-style crafting system, wherein you gather your materials and click "make." That's boring but acceptable. The problem is that the crafting system was clearly designed before the Mines of Moria expansion added Legendary Items, a special class of endgame item which have potentially powerful class-specific bonuses and which gain experience points and level up to become more powerful. Legendary Items are a really cool idea. Unfortunately, they rendered large swaths of the crafting system moot in the endgame, because you can't craft anything that can compete with a Legendary. Sadly, the crafting system in LOTRO is useful for outfitting your alts, and very little else.

LOTRO has a ten-day free trial and doesn't require purchase of the game on disk. If you're an MMO player, it's worth your time to try it.

Resources:
LOTROInfo, the single best source of advanced info I've found.
The LOTRO Wiki

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