The Guardian class in the Lord of the Rings Online has many different
mechanics and skills that may make it seem daunting for beginners.With the
Guardian entry of the LOTRO Basics quick tips guide series, we will break
down the class to help improve your Guardian experience!
In this guide, I will have 7 tips for the Guardian class, covering gameplay,
traits, builds, equipment, etc.
The goal of the LOTRO Basics 7 Class Tips series of guides is
to help newer or returning players better understand their class and get
started with them. For other guides in the 7 Class Tips series, they can be found at this page: https://www.lotrobasics.com/p/class-guides-and-resources.html
This guide is up to date with U32, in March 2022.
The 7 Guardian Tips:
- Fillers and Weaving
- Aggro, Threat, and Force Taunts Miniguide
- Animation Cancelling (With Stamp)
- Flexibility in Class Trait Builds
- Specs, Class Traits, and Leveling
- Deeding While Leveling (With a Shield)
- You Don't Have to Tank!
Tip #1 - Fillers and Weaving (Gameplay)
Guardians have many important skills and skill chains that need to be
prioritized in combat, and this is true for each spec:
- Blue - block chain, force taunts, and defensive buffs take priority
- Red - parry chain and bleeds take priority
- Yellow - AoEs, debuffs, parry chain (and block chain if you are using a shield), and force taunts take priority
With how fast paced combat is, you have time in between all the priority
skills to quickly weave in your "filler" abilities - skills that are used
when nothing of higher priority is available or needed. Guardians have
both single target and area-of-effect fillers, but the strongest fillers
(highest DPS, essentially damage divided by animation time) change based
on level and eventually Legendary Items.
In general, Sting and Vexing Blow are your strongest
fillers to weave into your gameplay. Sting has a very quick
animations and at low-mid levels does a lot of ST damage. Vexing Blow
has a longer animation, is AoE, and by mid-high levels does a lot of damage.
Oher than Sweeping Cut, it is the only basic AoE skill.
While you may be too busy to fit in more fillers,
Guardian's Ward, Stagger, and Sweeping Cut are other possible options depending on your spec and traits. Keep in mind fillers are just that - you should still focus on priority
skills!
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| Sting and Vexing Blow |
Tip #2 - Aggro, Threat, and Force Taunts (Miniguide) - What They Are and How They Work
Force taunts (commonly referred to as just "taunts") are a
valuable asset to any class, especially a heavy-armoured one that often
tanks. Understanding how your force taunts work is key to beginning
tanking as a Guardian!
The ultimate effect of a taunt is that it forces the enemy (or enemies)
to attack you for a short duration. The method by which they do this is
more complicated. Force taunts have three main steps:
-
Force enemies to attack you - 5 second base duration for Guardians
-
Copy the threat of the player with the most threat on the taunted enemies - allowing you to swiftly reach the top of the threat list for the taunted enemies
-
Multiply the copied threat - causing you to now have the highest threat on the taunted enemies and allowing you to maintain aggro even after the force taunt duration ends
Threat is used to describe how likely a mob is to attack
you versus somebody else - the one with the highest threat will be the
target of the enemy. The person the mob is attacking is considered to
have aggro of the mob. As a tanking Guardian, you want to
maintain the highest threat on enemies so they attack you instead of
others in your group (and as a DPS Guardian, you want to avoid having
aggro). As a bonus, every tank spec in the game (blue and yellow for the Guard) get a passive threat boost, allowing them to maintain aggro even if they're damage is lower.
In Practice: The use of a force taunt is to ensure that mobs are attacking you.
Sometimes a DPS or healer could pull aggro in group content and by
using a taunt, you force them to attack you instead. An advanced
technique is waiting a short amount of time before you taunt enemies
so you can copy and multiply large amounts of threat to better
maintain aggro throughout a fight. Additionally, even as a DPS
Guardian, taunting enemies off of healers or "squishy" DPS can be a
good move and save them from defeat!
Guardians have a lot of force taunts, which is one of the many
reasons they are such valuable tanks! At baseline (no traits), they
have a large AoE taunt in Challenge, a ranged ST taunt that can
start Fellowship Maneuvers with Fray the Edge, and finally a
melee taunt that slows enemies with Engage.
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Guardian force taunt skills
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Tip #3 - Animation Cancelling (With Stamp)
In LOTRO, animation cancelling is a game mechanic in which you use an
"immediate" skill to interrupt a skill that is the middle
of its animation, allowing you to use your abilities faster and
increase DPS. For more information on the mechanic, check this guide
out: https://www.lotrobasics.com/2020/05/animation-cancelling.html.
On the Guardian, you have three immediate skills, all of which
can be used to animation cancel, however they all have
other important uses to watch out for. Additionally, when thinking
about animation cancelling, you have to consider how long the
animation of the immediate skill is to decide if it is
even worth using that just to animation cancel.
-
Catch a Breath requires a block or parry response, has a long cooldown, and restores morale and power. It also has a long animation, so likely not worth using just to animation cancel.
-
Ignore the Pain removes debuffs on a short cooldown, and has a medium-time animation. If no debuffs are needed to be removed and your active skill has a longer animation this may be worth using to occasionally animation cancel.
-
Stamp is a short cooldown damaging interrupt with a very short animation. This is the top choice skill for animation cancelling as long as you don't need to save the interrupt!
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| Immediate Skills |
Stamp is the most efficient skill to animation cancel
with. In regular combat, I highly recommend using it in combination
with any long animation skill such as
Sweeping Cut, Brutal Assault, To the King, and
Shield Swipe, just to name a few.
Animation cancelling also allows you to fit in more fillers, pointed
out in Tip #1! Advanced techniques with animation cancelling may
involve lining up your important immediate skills with a longer
animation skill to gain the effect of animation cancelling while also
filling your need for the important immediate skill.
Tip #4 - Flexibility in Class Traits and Builds
The Guardian offers a lot of flexibility in how you build your
class traits, no matter what specialization you choose. At higher
levels, there are also a few hybrid builds you can choose from
depending on your needs and while leveling, it is good to keep in
mind the flexibility of your traits and specs as you build your
character. The next tip will focusing on building and traits while
leveling.
The Guardian's three specialization lines:
-
Blue - Sturdy tank
-
Red - DPS
-
Yellow - DPS oriented tank
Possible building options and flexibility:
Blue will often only dip into
yellow
as it provides both defensive options and strong abilities for
AoE, aggro, and utility.
Red can choose between increasing offensive prowess by
focusing on the
yellow line
after finishing out the red line or may bolster defenses by
going into the
blue line
for some survival traits and utility, creating a tanky DPS.
Yellow offers some of the most flexibility, no only being an
option for red line and blue line Guardians to dip into, but
also by allowing you to dip into blue and/or red as a yellow
Guard.
Dipping into blue allows you to bolster your defenses, somewhat aiding in your weak spot of not being as sturdy of a tank.
Dipping into red allows you to maximize damage, gaining strong bleeds and parry reaction skills from the red line. This build is the closest to Warden tanks for highest DPS as a tank.
Opting to go into both red and blue allows you to get strong defensive abilities while also giving a moderate increase to damaging capabilities.
For sample builds, Olebenny provides some great options in his
Level 130 Guardian Guide. Here are some potential builds to look out for, from Olebenny:
- Sturdy dedicated tank (blue)
- Max DPS (red)
- Tanky DPS (red)
- DPS Tank (yellow)
For a bonus tip, you also have a lot of flexibility in
virtues you equip, especially while leveling and for casual group
content! Some common focuses include tactical/physical mitigation,
max morale, finesse, critical rating, and physical mastery.
Tip #5 - Specs, Class Traits, and Leveling
Continuing with building, I want to share a tip on building as you
level! Guardian leveling has a few sections where certain specs
are strongest that we will go through.
The overlap in levels is where transitions in power occur.
Low Level (1 to ~40)
The Guardian is a great class for lower levels with their strong
physical damage. When you unlock your trait trees, yellow will be
the strongest spec due to the
Flash of Light passive that goes along with your
Telling Mark skill, which does a lot of AoE damage,
especially at low levels! Because of this, I recommend yellow line
for all of your low level needs - it works for soloing, questing,
group content, and tanking! While yellow was the fastest for
leveling, in single target fights or long fights, red line still
dealt more damage, and could be a consideration depending on your
leveling situation. At low level, there differences are small
enough, that
I recommend whatever spec you have most fun with.
Medium Level (~30 to 70)
Moving up in the levels, in the 30s, the red line starts to become
a lot stronger, and it eventually begins to compete with yellow
line in terms of damage output. In the 30s, I switched back and
forth between yellow and red a lot on my Guardian depending on the
situation. By about 40+, red line was consistently doing more
damage than yellow except for in AoE situations. At that point,
red line was a great option for fast leveling!
This is also the level where blue line starts to show that it is a
sturdier tank spec - you will take less damage than yellow line
but will also deal less damage. If you are interested in
sword-and-board dedicated heavy tanking, I recommend beginning to
practice with the blue line around then!
Moving on up, as this range progresses towards the end of Mirkwood
and middle of Isengard (65-70), you will continue to get new
skills, important traits, legendary items, and each spec will
slowly progress towards their final form.
High Level (~65+)
This is around when the specs will feel much more fleshed out and each
will feel like they are fully playing towards their role. Your
character will still build up and gain new traits and things, but it
will be at a slower rate and your gameplay experience is fairly set in
by now..
Tip #6 - Deeding While Leveling (With a Shield)
Class deeds background:
Class deeds may be an annoyance for players, especially solo
players, as they don't often use the skills needed to progress the
deeds. Additionally, many class deeds are based on outdated
balance and mechanics and some rarely used skills need to be used
hundreds of times. The Guardian is an unfortunate victim of this
system, but due to the character power gained from class trait
points gained from completing class deeds, I recommend powering
through this and focusing on your class deeds while leveling!
Shield use:
A typical leveling Guardian probably won't use a shield much as a
2-handed weapon provides maximum kill speed in landscape and is a
good choice for low level instances. However, some class deeds
require many uses of skills that require a shield. If you tank or
plan to tank a lot with a shield, this isn't the biggest barrier,
but for a player such as myself, I have to force myself to use a
shield for these deeds.
My strategy is to spec into the yellow line and use a shield while
leveling to get these deeds out of the way and get my class trait
points earlier! Other than heavy tanking in the blue line, the
yellow line is a great spec to go sword-and-board with a shield. A
large portion of your damage comes from
Flash of Light, where weapon damage does not matter as much
compared to regular skills. Additionally, using a shield with
yellow will help bolster your defenses and make life easier on
healers in group content.
Guardian class deeds to focus on while leveling:
-
Controlled Breathing - Use Catch a Breath 250 times
-
Grim Challenge - Use Challenge, Fray the Edge, or Engage 300 times
-
Guardian's Ward - Use Guardian's Ward 1200 times
-
Hit Where It Hurts* - Use Stagger 1000 times
-
Phantom Pain - Use Ignore the Pain 300 times
-
Quickness - Use Sting 1500 times
-
Reactive Blocks - Use Catch a Breath 250 times
-
Retaliatory Strikes - Use Retaliation 800 times (note: Whirling Retaliation does not work)
-
Stoic* - Use Guardians Pledge, Protection, or Protection by Sword 200 times
-
Shield Expertise - Use Shield-blow 1500 times
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Never Bashful - Use Bash 500 times
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Finals Straw - Use Hammer Down, Juggernaut, or Cataclysmic Shout 1000 times
* these deeds require skills that are rarely used, no matter what
spec. Although a little outdated, the LOTRO Wiki has a complete list
of class deeds, broken down by level: https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Guardian_Deeds
Bonus tip: Class quests are also a part of the class deed meta deeds to gain
class trait points. So, be sure to do the level 15, 30, and 45
class quests even if you don't need the gear rewards!
Tip #7 - You Don't Have to Tank!
I personally find the Guardian's red line to be one of the funnest
melee DPS specs in LOTRO. So, for the last tip, I want to share that
being a DPS Guardian is okay!
Background story: Back in the day, the traditional role of the Guardian class in
its entirety was to be
the tank,
similar to the Minstrel being
the healer.
After many changes to the class system, traits, and balance
passes, all DPS specs - including Guardian's red line - was bumped
up to respectable levels, where all these DPS specs were now going
to be viable. As always, end game meta changes swiftly for the top
tier of DPS specs and classes, but for casual content - any spec
on any class is now enough to fill its role. Another problem,
quite rare with LOTRO, is with the community, especially older
players and how they still saw Guardians as "just a tank" and
nothing else (even in a brief period when Guardian DPS had to be
nerfed because it was too high). The bottom line of this story is that a DPS
Guardian is an acceptable role for casual content.
However, it should be pointed out that at high levels (especially
100+), Guardians are not the best DPS. Like many other
DPS specs, red Guardians will not be taken for the most difficult
endgame content since there are better options, but that is
the nature of the endgame meta in LOTRO. In contrast, at low-mid
levels Guardians have high DPS output and are strong contenders
for the damage role. As mentioned in the previous two tips, red
line Guardian is a great option for fast leveling!
This is a longer tip that doesn't have much else to say besides
bringing awareness to non-tanking Guardians, but I just wanted to
share my great experience filling the DPS role on a class
traditionally known to only tank.
That is it for the Guardian entry in the LOTRO Basics 7 Class
Tips series! Some of the tips were a bit longer than the Warden
entry, but we covered more mechanics of the Guardian, where more
explaining hopefully helped! Please comment if you have
feedback or a class/guide request!
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