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The Fighter of Shadow |
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Staying power is the main focus of The Fighter of Shadow. Ultimately you'll get a ton of damage mitigation, though there is a little bit of taunting and damage bonuses to be found here. Some people say that this is the "Boss-tanking" trait set, and while it certainly seems to fit that role aptly, I wouldn't say that it is limited to that role either. Often the trick with single-mob boss fights isn't holding aggro but just staying alive. All the damage mitigation helps a lot with those heavy hitting bosses and traits like "Selfless Defence" and the bonus to "Shield Wall" helps keep your fellowship members alive in those intense fights. For tanking lesser mobs, you certainly aren't penalized in any way, but you won't be able to manage that kind of aggro as well as The Defender of the Free trait set can.
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| Equipped |
Bonuses |
| 2 |
- +75% Power Restoration from Reactionary Events and Skills
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| 3 |
- +10% Shield Damage
- Improved Critical Defence
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| 4 |
- Shield Wall now provides an armour bonus
- Improved Devastating Critical Defence
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| 5 |
- Can equip "Heart of Fire" legendary trait.
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Guardian's Ward |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Guardian's Ward" 1200 times
- Effect: This trait does two things. First it moderately raises the block and parry buff provided by the skill of the same name. Also, by additionally providing a moderate bonus to your armour for the duration of the buff as well, your damage mitigation increases to. Lastly, while the buff is active your armour wear will slow down some. This is a good all-around solid skill, and you can't go wrong with it.
But beware, as you reach top level, you may find your self close to Damage Mitigation, Block, and Parry caps, in which case this skill would be less usefull.
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Selfless Defence |
- Acquire: Use "Protection" 200 times
- Effect: This trait makes causes "Protection" to also reduce the aggro generation of whomever you give this buff. Great trait if you have trouble hold aggro.
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Defensive Expertise |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Shield-Blow" 1500 times
- Effect: This trait boosts your block rating by a pretty significant number, as well as boosts you armour nicely. This won't make or break a Guardian, but its a good trait.
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Deflected Blows |
- Acquire: Complete level 15 Guardian quest
- Effect: This trait gives a little power every time you block; though it doesn't seem to be very much at all. It certainly helps, but its not incredible. Also your "Guardian's Defence" stance will also have an addditional 2.5% partial block mitigation. Very good but not great.
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Controlled Breathing |
- Acquire: Use "Catch a Breath" 250 times.
- Effect: This trait makes causes "Catch a Breath" to grant more health in addition to giving you some power now. A really solid skill for additional staying power. Though if you group with a lot of healers, you may not need this trait at all.
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Brave Heart |
- Acquire: Use "Warriors Heart" 150 times
- Effect: This trait reduces the cooldown of "Warriors Heart" by a small but helpful amount. It also opens up all your reactive skills, which is something that happens all the time, anyway. Honestly, this trait is a bit underwhelming, especially when considering that "Warriors Heart" is not exceptional either.
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Threating Presence |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Bash" 500 times
- Effect: This trait improves the threat generation of your shield-attack taunting skills, such as "Shield-swipe" and "Bash". There is absolutely nothing wrong with this trait; nothing exceptionally good either, but it is a very solid trait to have and you can't go wrong with it. Especially if you're grouping with a Hunter or Rune-keeper, and you really need that extra aggro.
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Final Straw |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Fray the Edge" 1000 times
- Effect: This trait allows you to use "Fray the Edge" 6 times and get your conjunction chance up to 30%, as opposed to the default 5 times for 25%. Not really worth a whole trait slot, especially if you group with a Burglar regularly.
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Heart of Fire
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete Epic series "Volume II: The Mines of Moria, Books 1-6"
- Access: Equip 5 skills from this set.
- Effect: Essentially this trait halves the cooldown, and reduces the morale cost of "Take to Heart". This trait takes some consideration. "Take to Heart" is a decent Guardian skill, but does it really deserve a legendary trait? You see, power is not often a Guardian problem, and while "Take to Heart" further strengthens that status, I think that a legendary trait that improves it might be overkill. If you got rid of the +1 to Critical and Devastate defence that this trait also provides, this would make a great normal class trait.
But considering that this line is mostly about damage mitigation, the legendary trait should represent that. Perhaps a trait that improves "Guardian's Pledge" so that the buff it provides--or a slightly lesser one--that would be applied to the whole fellowship as well. Something like that would be more appropriate. Ultimately, this trait is not useless, but it does seem a bit disappointing.
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| The Defender of the Free |
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No one can hold aggro like The Defender of the Free. More than anything else you'll get bonuses to threat generation in this trait set, though there is a little bit in the way of staying power to keeping your self going during the assaults you provoke. This is generally considered the "General Group-tanking" trait line. More often then not, the most difficult thing to do in large groups is to keep control of all the aggro on the multitude of mobs you're likely to be fighting in groups. This trait set helps out immeasurably with that department. Depending on you group set-up, The Defender of the Free is also applicable to some boss-encounters, ones that mainly deal with hordes of adds. Be wary though, even though you're not penalized in any way with this trait set, your damage mitigation is still somewhat lacking when compared to The Fighter of Shadow; for this very reason, grouping with a healer of some kind complements this trait set nicely. Otherwise, this is very solid line to focus on for the casual grouping Guardian.
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| Equipped |
Bonuses |
| 2 |
- Increased Threat generation from Shield Skills
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| 3 |
- "Whirling Retaliation" applies a bleed upon Critical
- +2 "Shield-taunt" targets
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| 4 |
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| 5 |
- Can equip "Litany Master" legendary trait.
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Grim Challenge |
- Acquire: Use "Challenge" 300 times
- Effect: With this trait, your "Challenge" skill's cooldown is reduced by 15 seconds. Simple direct effect, and yet an extraordinarily useful trait.
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Harraser |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Vexing Blow" 800 times
- Effect: With this trait, your "Vexing Blow" will now be a small AoE cone that hits 3 enemies. An absolutely wonderful ability for improving you aggro management, as it allows you to taunt-attack several enemies at once.
It also is good for boosting your DPS since you'll be hitting 3 enemies at once.
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Reactive Block |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Shield-Swipe" 400 times
- Effect: You reflect a little damage to an attacker any time you block their attack. The real purpose of this effect is that, enemies that attack you, stay aggroed on you. They attack you and take damage from this trait--which generates aggro--and attack you again. It is a never ending loop, though the damage isn't significant enough to make it absolute. Also your "Guardian's Defence" stance will also have an addditional 2.5% partial block mitigation. Overall a good trait, but it may or may not work for you.
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Stoic |
- Acquire: Use "Guardian's Pledge" 200 times
- Effect: This trait essentially boosts your all around toughness by a little bit. Your Vitality goes up a little. Your Fire, Frost, Shadow, Lightning, and Acid resistance also all go up--none of them by a remarkable amount, but the overall boost can certainly help with specific encounters that focus on a certain damage type.
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Heat of Battle |
- Acquire: Use "Thrill of Danger" 125 times
- Effect: This trait lowers the cool down time of "Thrill of Danger" by a couple minutes. It also opens up all your reactive skills, which is something that happens all the time anyway. This is one trait that really belongs in The Keen Blade trait line. Only in "Overpower" stance do Guardains have any real power problems. If fact it should be switched with "Deep Breath" honestly.
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Litany of Challenge |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Challenge" 350 times
- Effect: Not to be confused with the skill "Litany of Defiance", this trait causes the forced attack effect of "Challenge" to last a few extra seconds. It also adds 2 to the maximum amount of targets for "Challenge". Last but not least, it causes "Challenge" to generate additional threat. A overall exceptionally good trait.
Get it--if you're tanking that is.
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Shield of Fire |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Shield-taunt" 350 times
- Effect: This trait enables "Shield-taunt" to generate 15% more aggro. Even better, it adds 1 to the maximum targets of "Shield-taunt." You really can't go wrong with this trait.
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Quick of Foot |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Stamp" 300 times
- Effect: This reduces the cooldown of "Stamp" by 15s, which really is not a lot at all. Unless you find yourself desperately needing to interrupt an enemy often, don't bother with this trait.
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Litany Master
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete level 58 Guardian quest.
- Effect: This trait enables "Shield Smash" "Sweeping Cut" and "Vexing Blow" to trigger the effect of "Litany of Defiance" on critical hits. Awesome, no? What is even better is that the effect is stackable! Think of all that aggro. This is the ultimate in Guardian threat generation.
Period.
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| The Keen Blade |
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This is simply the solo Guardain trait set. If you plan to solo most of your career, or if you need to grind out some traits by yourself, then this is the trait set for you. The Keen Blade is essentially an extension of the Guardian stance "Overpower". In fact, it focuses almost entirely on the use of that skill. So in order to get the best results, I would strongly recommend using a two-handed weapon when slotted for the The Keen Blade, since "Overpower" cancels out your ability to block anyway. To reiterate, this is a build that was made with the soloing Guardian in mind. Your damage is rather nicely improved, but your damage mitigation and taunting ability pale in comparison to The Fighter of Shadow and The Defender of the Free, respectively. There are no direct penalties associated with this trait set, but using "Overpower" causes you to forgo your ability to block, making you noticebly more vulnerable, as well as significantly increasing your power cost. This trait line helps with a soloing Guardians' biggest problem: DPS. With The Keen Blade's boost to DPS you can kill mobs quicker, and you won't need to worry about aggro, since you'll be by yourself. Your inherent Guardian toughness should be enough to get you by. Just keep an eye your power bar you'll do just fine.
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| Equipped |
Bonuses |
| 2 |
- -5% "Overpower" Power cost
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| 3 |
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| 4 |
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| 5 |
- Can equip "Hemorrhage" legendary trait.
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Hit Where It Hurts |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Hit Where it hurts" 1000 times
- Effect: This is a decent trait that improves your chance to crit chance with "Stagger" quite substantially. Since "Stagger" crits pretty darn hard, this can be a good thing. Also, it allows you to apply the snare effect of "Stagger" on crit. If you really like "Stagger", take this trait.
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Raw Power |
- Acquire: Use "Overpower" 100 times
- Effect: Definately a must have trait for this trait-set. Equiping this trait improves your "Overpower" damage bonus by 5%. Nice, but it also increases the power cost of all your skills
- by 3%--only while in "Overpower" stance of course. The trade-off is completely worth it, though.
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Parried Blows |
- Acquire: Complete level 30 Guardian quest
- Effect: This trait gives a little power every time you parry; though it doesn't seem to be very much at all. It certainly helps, but its not incredible. And if you spend alot time in "Overpower" stance, you may want to consider this skill.
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Stinging Blow |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Sting" 750 times
- Effect: With this trait, your "Sting" skill's cooldown is reduced and does a nice 10% more damage.
There is nothing wrong with this trait, other than the fact that "Sting" is apretty mediocre skill. This trait is still worth considering.
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Blocking Force |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Force Opening" 750 times
- Effect: I have mixed feelings about this skill. Essentially, it grants you a Block event--allowing you to use your Block Reactives--when "Force Opening" crits. The biggest thing to consider is that "Force Opening" requires "Overpower" and more likely than not, you'll not have a shield equipped. Even though you have a Block event, you'll be able to use "Catch a Breath" or "Litany of Defiance", since they are the only block reactives that don't require a shield. "Catch a Breath" is honestly nothing to balk at when you're soloing, and would probably be the biggest reason to take this trait, as "Litany of Defiance" is useless while soloing. This is not a bad trait, but it may or may not work for you.
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Strong Lungs |
- Acquire: Use "Deep Breath" 100 times
- Effect: This trait decreases the cooldown of "Deep Breath" by about half, effectively letting you use your long cooldown abilities more often. Honestly this trait belongs in one of the other two trait sets if you ask me. In any case, it's a really useful trait to slot, regardless of what trait line your focusing in.
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Tip: Great if you find your self needing "Guardian's Pledge," "Challenge the Darkness" and "Thrill of Danger" often.
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Quickness |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Sting" 1500 times
- Effect: This trait decreases your attack duration by 5%, essentially enabling you to attack more often, which is mostly a good thing. Also your "Guardian's Parry" stance will also have an addditional 2.5% partial parry mitigation.
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Tip: Be wary of anything that decreases attack duration as the more attacks you do, the power you consume. And in "Overpower" stance you do need to be concerned about your power.
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To the Rescue |
- Acquire: Evade 1000 enemy attacks
- Effect: This move increases your run speed by a slight amount. While this is hardly noticeable when by your self, running next to others you will find yourself quickly out-pacing them. This useful if you solo a lot, but can cause problems with a group. You'll always want to stay near them, and this skill will you run ahead only to have to wait for your group to catch up.
Also, the speed boost doesn't stack with horse speed, so once you have a horse, this skill is pointless for overland travel.
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Tip: That's right, 1000 evades. Since Evading is a guardian's worst defensive stat, don't expect to get this any time soon.
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Hemorrhage
Legendary |
- Acquire: Buy "A Keen Blade" from Iron Garrison Guards after gaining Kindred faction
- Access: Equip 5 skills from this set.
- Effect: Slotting this trait enables "Brutal Assault" to proc a stackable bleed 50% of the time. This is a great trait for improving your DPS. Fully slotted into this line, and with this trait, you'll be quite a force to be reckoned with. Like this, you can dish out the DPS, and still take it. You won't hit like a Champion, but you could certainly smack some mobs around, and you still won't be as fragile a Champion.
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| Shadows of Angmar Legendary Traits |
Shield Smash
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete The Best Defence book
- Effect: This trait gives you a skill that is essentially a bigger better "Bash" in every aspect. It does significantly more damage, and the threat it generates is also greater. The skill opens up after "Bash" or "Shield-taunt". A exceptional legendary trait, and you can't go wrong with it unless you spend all your time in "Overpower" stance.
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Tip: The legendary trait "Litany Master" enables this skill to proc the effect "Litany of Defiance" on critical hits. Awesome, no? What is even better is that the effect is stackable!
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Guardian's Threat
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete A Shield-maiden's Song book
- Effect: This trait gives you a stance skill that, when toggled on, you have a passive 20% bonus to all threat you generate. Great! Except for the fact that you can't have any of your other stances up during this, which almost defeats the purpose. It would be nice if they change this skill to a completely passive bonus, with no stance involved. It also boosts your parry and block chance by just a mostly negligible amount. As it is, it's still quite usefull, and worth slotting. But with the bonus you get from 4 traits in the Defender of the Free line, this skill allows you taunt like crazy. With this, you will be able to taunt off a Hunter in Strength stance, which any Guardian will tell, is a pretty incredble feat.
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Challenge the Darkness
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete The Final Word book
- Effect: This legendary trait gives you a excellent taunting skill. This is the taunt. It is a PBAoE that generate insane amount of aggro, while also casting the exact effect of your "Guardian's Ward" skill. This affects up to 10 targets, and the taunt is instant and Forced. The enemies will turn and attack you. In addition to all that taunty goodness, the skill also has the effect of instantly putting you at the top of the threat list for every enemy it hits. As in, you could die, and lose all aggro in the process, be rezzed, and this fire off this skill, and you'll be right back at the top of the threat list, instantly. Incredible
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Tip: When I say the "exact effect of your 'Guardian's Ward' skill" I mean. Any modifications you make to "Guardian's Ward" skill, such as the trait by the same name or Legacies on Legendary Items, is reflected here.
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To the King
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete level 50 Guardian quest.
- Effect: This trait gives you an exceptional skill. It's a bit like a super "Overwhelm", though the damage it does makes it one of your best DPS skills. The skill also gives you moderate movement speed bonus for 10 seconds, though you may never find yourself needing it. The skill opens up after "Overwhelm" and "Thrust". The best part of this skill is the chance that it can start conjunctions on crits. A very nice trait over-all.
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