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[2021] We are losing Wardens!


Original Post — Direct link

We had three Wardens: Braum, Taric and Tahm Kench. As we all know Tahm Kench got mini reworked and is now primarily being played as a toplane tank (11.5x more picked top than supp). That means we are currently left with two wardens.

Why are wardens important?

  • unique playstyle
  • most effective disengagers
  • counter-engage masters
  • insane peel for carrys
  • meat shields
  • you die for your carry even if it was their mistake, because that is what you do.

I don't want to be a tank. I don't want to be an engaging support. I certainly don't want to be an enchanter. I want to be a warden. I want to throw myself against the enemy so that my carries can live. I want to be the protector. I want to be able to safe my team by disengaging. I want to create opportunities by counter-engaging while disengaging. I want to die for my carries. I WANT TO BE A WARDEN.

We have only 2 wardens left. I know its probably the least popular class, but there are people who love them. I fear the class gets more and more forgotten.

A Warden Main

EDIT: Many ppl consider Poppy, Galio and Shen as Wardens as well. I don't want to argue with that. In my post I was trying to list the Support Wardens, which I should have mentioned in the title. And we lost a Support Warden after the TK mini rework.

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over 3 years ago - /u/RiotAxes - Direct link

Originally posted by Xenton

The labels like "Warden" and so on are tenuous and arbitrary at best and deciding who fits where is splitting hairs.

I've noticed you've had people give examples like Thresh or Rell in the comments, only to have you say "They're not Wardens, they're XYZ", which I think misses the point.

As much as anything else, Warden is a playstyle, not a defining characteristic of a champion, beyond a kit that says "This champ can be played as a warden".

Leona, Maokai, Galio, Rell, Thresh, Poppy, Shen, etc.

Yes, some of these champs can "Engage", but all of them punish aggresive plays made against them. You dive a poppy or a leona and you suffer for it, you ignore a shen and you suffer for it. All of these champs can be played effectively in a defensive style, so too can the examples you've given be played aggressively (Taric ulting yi to initiate a teamfight, for example).

If there's something you think the game is missing, don't use buzz words; describe what it is that you think the game needs.

Like explain to me how a champ like Galio with a massive AoE magic damage shield, AoE knockback, AoE taunt and a stun is not able to "Counter engage".

I want to piggyback off this a little.

We don't make that many 'pure' class members (ADCs being probably the biggest exception?) - that's not really what our classes are for. The classes give us a starting point for strengths and weaknesses that we know works for League of Legends. For actual champion projects, the trick is finding what's going to be special for them - which generally means what they do that's different from the most similar champions, and thus is often a non-class strength - and then figuring out what that means they have to give up, and figuring out how to strike the right balance from a feels perspective.

Darius and Mordekaiser are about as pure Juggernaut as you can get, but when we went to make Sett ("Grappler" as a prototype), it was always clear that he was going to be somewhere between Juggernaut and one of the tank subclasses. If you want to play the Juggernaut, pick Darius. If you want a different experience or need a different output and like Juggernauts, there's Garen, there's Sett, there's Aatrox, there's Olaf... and yeah, you're going to say that at some point the champion in question isn't even a juggernaut anymore, but that's kind of the point - the classes grade into each other.

So when we assess the Warden roster, yeah, we're looking at the fairly pure champions like Braum, Tahm Kench, Taric, Shen, Poppy, Galio, but we're also looking at more hybrid champions like Rell, Alistar, Thresh, etc. Proportionally to the size of the audience, the Warden roster is pretty deep, imo.

over 3 years ago - /u/RiotAxes - Direct link

Originally posted by _Hiram

Thank you for your contribution. I can understand that you don't want to strictly put a champion into one class, because in many cases only one class doesn't fit.

What I was trying say is, that imo Tahm Kench went from a pure support warden to a solo lane vanguard (Just look at pro play, he went from support to toplane almost exclusively). We have 6 champions (Tahm included) that are primarily classified Warden, while we have 14 Vanguards. I see that many Vanguards have Warden attributes, but it works the same the other way around (Poppy E, Galio E, even Braum can Flash R), but that doesn't make them Vanguard. Your examples are primarily Vanguards that excell in engaging, but can also peel with hard CC.

Of course it is possible to use your hard CC reactively and thus guarding your carry, but if you do that, you possibly lose a better opportunity like locking down an enemy carry.

I just like champions that are better defending than they are at engaging (Wardens), and we don't have many of them. With the loss of Tahm Kench we have a 3x more Vanguards than Wardens. I play this game for 10 years now and I can say that these two classes have totally different playstyles. Vanguards are more comparable to Catchers IMO.

I hear you on the pain point there. I think Kench was always going to have to change more than Kench enthusiasts wanted, but losing a support is painful and he's definitely less Warden than he was before.

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