At some point during each of my last two runs of LOTRO I've found myself wondering if
wardens really are an overpowered cash shop P2W class. Having now
watched 5 on-level mobs beat themselves to death with reflected
damage while my health bar barely moved I think I know the answer to
that question.
A
lot of this is due to Defiant Challenge. This is an ability I chose
early on because I knew I'd be wanting some AoE, especially if I was
soloing group content. It's a fun ability – I like the animation
with all its come-and-have-a-go bravado – but it's insanely
overpowered. The damage I do to additional mobs with my attacks is
nice, but it pales into insignificance next to the reflect damage.
It also has a duration of 30 seconds, against a cooldown of only
20 seconds.
That's
kind of broken. Other god-mode abilities in other games – like
Impossible To Catch in (pre-Mod 16) Neverwinter – are usually
balanced out by a short duration and a long cooldown. Similarly,
making the boost to crowd control powers as a Dominator in City of
Heroes permanent – aka perma-dom – requires the entire build to
be designed around that, and it's not cheap, not easy and not quick
to do so.
Unlike
Defiant Challenge. This skill works like it does straight out of the
box, and combined with the amount of health regeneration I can get
from a fairly simple attack rotation it's made me essentially
invincible in non-group content. In the last 16 hours I've died
exactly once, and that was from falling off a cliff in the
Trollshaws*. In actual combat the only time my health bar has
dropped below 50% was one fight I got into with 5 signature mobs.
This
is a problem. I've given LOTRO more of a pass for lack of challenge
than I have some other MMOs because it's always been balanced out by
the many things I do like about the game, but that can only go so far
and last so long. Most MMOs do get harder at some point, and if they
don't... well, that's one reason why I'm not likely to return to World of Warcraft any time soon.
Sure
I could make things more difficult for myself by equipping inferior
gear, or by simply not using certain abilities, but for all that I'm
not a min-max player I do like to see what level of performance I can
get out of the tools at hand, and dislike the idea of intentionally
passing up on basic gear and skills unless it's part of something
like the Ironman Challenge in WoW.
What's
annoying is that the warden is genuinely my favourite class in this
game, and one I chose to run with not for its power and efficiency,
but because I find it a fun and interesting class with a lot of
character. Only it becomes less fun and less interesting with every
hour that passes in which I don't feel the need to make any effort at
all.
*In
my entire history of playing LOTRO I've died from fall damage twice –
which is I suppose an achievement in itself since LOTRO doesn't HAVE
fall damage. Both times have been in the Trollshaws. I really should look where I'm going.
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