Another group of three Devel­oper Diaries have appeared on the offi­cial LotRO Web site. This time around, they cover the Guardian, Cap­tain and War­den’s advance­ment beyond Level 50. As with the other classes, each diary dis­cusses equip­ment options, skill adjust­ments, new skills and three new Trait Sets.

Guardian

Guardians will have access to three trait sets: The Fighter of Shadow, which focuses on keep­ing boss-level mon­sters in their sights; Defender of the Free, which focuses on giv­ing the Guardian bet­ter threat gen­er­a­tion; and The Keen Blade, which focuses on increas­ing your dam­age output.

Guardians will also see improve­ments to Sting, which removes Cor­rup­tion effects. The arti­cle makes it sound as though the Guardians abil­ity to do this will be espe­cially effec­tive. In addi­tion, Shield Block will see a large increase in dam­age that will bring it nearly in line with Bash.

Sev­eral other Guardian traits and skills will be see­ing some changes. As I don’t play a Guardian, most of these are for­eign to me. Be sure to read the full arti­cle if this is your class.

Cap­tain

Cap­tains will see three new trait sets: Lead the Charge, which focuses on gen­er­at­ing threat and dam­age as an off-tank; Hands of Heal­ing, which focuses on (sur­pris­ingly) heal­ing abil­i­ties; and Leader of Men, which focuses on pet usage and util­ity skills.

Cap­tains will see an improve­ment to Defen­sive Strike (which restores Power when­ever an oppo­nent is attacked while under this affect) and Blade of Elendil, which can now dis­pel Cor­rup­tion buffs in Moria.

In addi­tion to Leg­endary Weapons, Cap­tains will also have access to Emblems spe­cific to their class. As usual, these are equipped in the new Class Item Slot. Emblems give bonuses that might increase the length of buffs, decrease skill costs and so forth.

War­den

If you’ve been pay­ing atten­tion you’ll know what’s next. The War­den also has three Trait Sets you can try: Way of the Spear, which focuses on spear and javelin skills; Way of the Shield, which focuses on shield gam­bits and healing-over-time effects; and Way of the Fist, which focuses on threat gen­er­a­tion and damage-over-time effects.

War­dens won’t see skill improve­ments, but they will see two new gam­bits. One removes Cor­rup­tions and the other speeds up attack time.

War­dens likely won’t have any­thing to use in the new Class Item slot at launch. This delay will allow Turbine’s devel­op­ers to come up with Class Items that ben­e­fit how play­ers use the class. Down the road, the expec­ta­tion is that their Class Items would add bonuses to power usage or threat generation.

Addi­tion­ally, as most of has have not played a War­den before, you might want to check out the orig­i­nal diary that cov­ers the basics of the class.

As usual, I haven’t cov­ered every­thing, so be sure to read the orig­i­nal arti­cles. Trait Sets are more com­pli­cated than the lit­tle blurbs I have here and allow access to new skills and other abil­i­ties.

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