Melee or Caster?

[SabakuNoTaira]

I'm a little bit confused after reading some posts around the forums. I saw a couple posts saying to go Fury if you wanted to cast for DPS and go Warden if you want to melee for DPS. I'm still very new to this game, but I want to make sure I'm making the right choice with my character. I'm only level 10-13 on both my Fury and Warden, but neither of them have gotten anything, aside from Tiger Form, that make melee seem like the way to go. As of now, I'm leaning towards my Warden because I like the feel better, and if the Warden really can do well as a primarily melee DPS character I think I would enjoy it more. So, my main questions here are: Is it true that Furies are more caster type and Wardens are more melee type? Would a Warden do more overall DPS as a caster or melee type? What kind of weapons and stats would a melee Warden want? Which AA lines would be wise for a melee Warden to go down? Which AA lines would be wise for a caster Warden to go down? Any answer to any of these questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in Advance, Taira

[Dragonreal]

If you look at the two classes withuot taking AAs into account, than they're bth casters (though fury gets a couple melee buffs versus the warden's single melee buff). The difference cmes in when you look at their class specific AAs (eof tree). Wardens get a line there that gives them melee attack versions of all their nukes and the end-line is 75% melee crits; furies, otoh, get shorter cast/recast times on their nukes and a short-duration buff that increases all their spell damage by 50% and reduces their heals by 50% and increases the power costs by 50%. Those are pretty much the reasons why people say to go fury for nuking and warden for meleeing; either class really can use either method, but there's more AA support if you set them up as warden = meleer and fury = nuker. If you do go with the warden and want to melee: 1) Get to rank 3 on all the eof combat art AAs - fire strike, cold strike, whirl of frost (you can skip cold slice, but it can be beneficial pre-23 and if you can't get its spell counterpart beyond like ad1) 2) Max out enough of the CA tree to get tot he final ability so you have your crits 3) Pick up either the enhance: sow AA (can branch right off of cold strike for this) or start working on the str line in the kos tree. You'll need at least 448 in the str line to get full advantage of the melee spec; it's recommended to take at least 4488 so you can proc group heals while meleeing, though. 4) do whatever else you want with your remaining points; the renewal tree in the eof AAs and the sta or agi lines in the kos AAs are your best bets for your second lines, imo. That's how I would do it if I were making a new warden; if you like to run fast (like over 60% fast as a perma-buff), you can take the wis line and enhance: sow and when you get jboots at 42, you should be able to hit at least 65% if not faster depending on your race.

[SabakuNoTaira]

Thank you very much for all of that info. I'm gonna try that and go with the melee warden. Should I still be getting wisdom as my main stat? How should the stats rank in terms of importance for melee and what kind of weapon should i be using?

[Dragonreal]

get the best dps weapon you can; look for gear with wis/str on it (not going to be very many pieces with that combination of stats but try to just balance it as best as you can). You can probably skimp a little on wis since we buff that stat so well, but if you start having power problems boost it up. Also, try to get a str-imbued crafted ring; it procs a lot and is a nice str + dps buff. Other than wis and str, there's not really much else you'll need if you're melee-specced; int will have extremely little to no effect on you, the returns on agi are very small and not worth it imo. Sta would be good if you're soloing a lot, but I would rank that third after wis/str. Also, while you're levelling, cast snare as much as you can afford to, even if it's not needed. That way you can get subjugation skill-ups just in case you ever need to root something.

[IA~CHAOS]

From the looks of it you are all about the DPS.  If thats true, not sure, but if it is then you're playing the wrong class. Nothing wrong with maximizing dps as a warden, God knows anything in the Grp/Solo part of the game doesnt require max healage.  But ultimately we are priests and our focus is healing.  A  good balance is a way to go or maximizing healing isnt bad if you are intending to raid.