Defiant Challenge / No Challenge


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.
 

Comments