Wardens: The Most Pointless Class? | League of Legends

back when i made the poke champions video i was mulling over the thought of talking about smaller subclasses in more detail there is another group with comparably low roster size and league of legends i know i talked about them quite a bit since i made a wide normal plays on like more than half of them and then of course the tank studio but there's some more things i want to talk about so today we're going to be going back into the tank class and touch on wardens in league of legends aside from a few exceptions like shen leona and nunu the tank class is seen better days they're probably ranked as the lowest collective pick rate second only to specialists which isn't saying much considering specialists are almost all pocket picks but between vanguards and wardens wardens see drastically less play on top of being less than half the size of vanguards just a quick refresher since it's been a while tanks are divided into two subclasses vanguards and wardens vanguards are offensive tanks while wardens are defensive tanks more specifically rather than hard engaging on the enemy team wardens prioritize disruption disengage and ally protection and that can come in more ways than just crowd control almost everyone knows what engage and lockdown are engage is when a player or team commits to initiating action and interaction with their enemies such as when nautilus tosses dredgeline to catch someone out lockdown is a champion's ability to keep their targets in a favorable position through the usage of hard crowd controls such as stuns and roots disengage and disruption are a bit different disengage also known as peel is when you and or your team is able to easily force enemies and their pressure off of you as quickly as possible it's a bit more ambiguous because engage can also be seen as disengaged if listen dashed in for an insect kicking the enemy caitlyn towards your team that counts as engaged but when running away and the enemy rammus is trying to run into your face but lee sin kicks him away from your team that's disengaged though it doesn't always have to be crowd control kendra's lens respite counts as disengaged it prevents anyone standing within the circle from dying so any pressure that would befall your team is neutralized at least temporarily disruption is when a champion is able to stop the opponent from doing something in a manner of speaking it's a subcategory of lockdown since lockdown has the same basic principle the key difference is that disruption is either quick or short thresh display is the best example it's a very tiny displacement but even a short one is enough to catch enemies mid dash stop channels or even keep people from running away or push them away from you when in doubt a way to distinguish wardens is if they have abilities designed to be used reactively as opposed to proactively so since the list is so small i suppose we can go through each warden at a time and explain what's in each of their kit that designates them as such braum is arguably the epitome of a warden considering his weapon of choice is a big ass shield he has three abilities that can assist his allies in battle the first being his passive which stuns a target after being hit with a combination of four attacks and or winter spike to my knowledge braum is the only champion in the entire game who can give his teammates a stun as in all he has to do is land a single attack and he can walk away the champion will get stunned by someone else the other two abilities are stand behind me which can only be used on ally units and unbreakable which intercepts projectiles in a certain direction even point-and-click ones that are meant to target someone behind him galio has only one ability but that's all he needs hero's entrance is the semi-global ultimate that targets an ally champion giving every teammate in the area the magic damage shield from his w before crashing down with the giant area-wide knock-up really solid ultimate to use both for follow-up engage and counter-engage poppy has one guaranteed warden type ability and another one that's kind of warden knee if that's even a word steadfast presence is our primary interception she creates an aura around herself that interrupts any enemy that dashes within it or into it and grounds them for 2 seconds essentially forcing them to walk in or out of the fight the full channel keeper's verdict is technically classified as a defensive ability since it always knocks enemies a far distance towards the enemy team's fountain no matter where you are on the map i've never seen poppy use the full power knockback in an aggressive way so it's safe to make the conclusion that she has two defensive abilities shen also has two spirits refuge creates what can only be appropriately described as a public jax counter-strike zone which blocks all incoming hostile basic attacks and whatever effects they come with for a short duration so not only does it block damage from like a renekton w but it also negates the stun of course we know his legendary ultimate stand united very similar in function to galio's except instead of a wide knock knock-up it's a massive shield once again a very effective tool for either follow-up engage or counter-engage tom kench is in a weird spot in fact i might call him a specialist or more of a juggernaut instead of a warden because of the rework he had two ally affecting abilities in the form of devour and abyssal voyage now that those two abilities are swapped he technically only has one and i feel like people exclusively use his new devourer aggressively since you can only use it once every two minutes as opposed to every 20 seconds like before i don't think it's all that great of a defensive ability anymore but out of respect for his original design he's still awarded last but not least mr fabulous himself tariq is a hybrid between enchanter and warden and is the only one of the sticks who can heal his teammates pretty much all of his abilities count as boredom things because they all affect allies even dazzle since it extends out of whoever he tethers to heels shields and aoe invincibility doesn't get much better than that so as you can see here wardens don't necessarily need to have direct ally support as in they don't need to have abilities that grant shields nor do their effects have to benefit strictly allies most of the time poppy galio brom tomcatch tarik and shen will likely be charging headfirst into the enemy team instead of hanging next to their line exactly the same way as vanguards but their way of applying pressure comes in the form of interceptor guard type abilities not locked on although they have a little bit of lockdown too being tanks and all they're cut from the same cloth in regards to the subclass as a whole i'd say the most pressing concern is why there are so many more vanguards than wardens i talked about this before i don't remember if it was the brawn video or tarik one but i didn't go as in depth on it as i wanted to try to think about it like this as a class what do marksman provide range dps 80 carries bring more than enough damage for your team to defeat the enemy team what do mages provide magic damage what do controllers provide utility and control tanks supply the highest amount of crowd control per individual champion out of any class by far three of alistar's abilities supplies lockdown nautilus also has three sources of lockdown leona has three as well rel has four so on and so forth wardens are able to pull off a lot of fancy tricks to assure victory for their team that much is undeniable but if the ultimate goal in league is to wipe out the enemy team in order to secure objectives and then blow up the enemy nexus it doesn't really matter how that's done as long as you do it you as brawn might block a crazy amount of damage through your unbreakable you might pull off an insane five-man cosmic radiance as taric to win the fight you might clutch out a win by casting stan united on your 80 carry right before they get bursted all of those plays are cool but they're not the only way to go about it instead of blocking an entire misfortune ultimate as braum couldn't you also have picked nautilus and pressed r on her then q and otto to chain stun her for 30 years before she even could attack instead of getting a 5 man invincibility wouldn't it just be easier to play a big bulky tank like alistar and knock everyone up so they can't attack pragmatically speaking why go through the trouble of waiting for them to make a move when you can strike first and never have to deal with that in the first place therein lies the problem whatever wardens do vanguards can sort of do better there's rarely a situation in which the unique abilities provided by those six wardens overshadow normal hard crowd control now i understand those intercepts and disengages aren't the only thing they provide terry can heal his team braum gives the stun poppy has some insane lockdown of her own etc but the end goal is still the same your team needs a tank who can soak up a lot of damage doesn't matter how it's done as long as it's done generally speaking wardens are vanguards but with an extra step and that reduces the overall practicality of those champions braum's shield only works on projectiles not melee attacks a big-ass malphite ultimate works on everything that's how broken crowd control is in league of legends when a champion is stunned they can neither attack nor defend they can't move or use abilities they can't use items or do anything so if you have a champion with a bunch of stuns and knock-ups why is defensive utility necessary just kill them before they kill you sadly that's the mentality present in not just the majority of players in the league community but even the champion design team the reason they're producing more vanguards than wardens is because vanguards are not only more practical but more fun and exciting i'm sure we've all had those games where the malphite or amumu or zak got a 5 man ultimate and solo won the game off that play you don't really have the same kind of poger's moment on wardens like braum tom cancer or galio sure they have explosive abilities themselves but on average no one really freaks out when they see a channel to mid the way they see a five man relate you know what i mean and in light of the extra steps you have to take wardens are generally much harder to play vanguards don't really have to care about how things are going for their allies all they gotta do is cc as many people and soak up as much damage as possible and that's pretty much a good job aside from landing skill shots it's pretty hard to mess up on a vanguard not the same for wardens braum has to figure out which i like to dash to where to direct a shield tarik has to decide who to tether to how to aim the stuns when to use his ultimate poppy has only a two second window to deter enemy dashes and she has to be careful with keeper's verdict so as not to accidentally knock away the wrong targets a lot more can go wrong when playing a warden and even if you do fully master the champion a vanguard can achieve the same outcome through a less convoluted way stun the enemy team then you don't have to worry about when to block damage because there is no damage to make matters even worse the enchanter subclass excels in defensive utility which at that point it beggars belief if wardens bring anything of value to the table that isn't supplied by other classes for much less work when it comes to similarities in function for other classes anyway there's a big enough divide in the nuances of those jobs for example vanguards and divers share an identical purpose of being the primary engage for their team where they differ is of course how that engage takes place divers don't possess anywhere near as much lockdown as vanguards but they do have the damage forcing the enemy team to be extremely wary of the incoming threat and focus on that first before anything else vanguards don't have the kill power to explode anyone on the enemy team so instead of worrying about them the enemy team has to be careful about where their teammates are to prepare for the incoming follow-up as a diver you are public enemy number one in a fight as a vanguard the people behind you are the main threat mind you i'm not implying wardens have nothing special going for them in fact i consider braun shangyalio and poppy some of the most creatively designed tanks in the game and i think there's definitely something to this defensive tank category that can be tapped into the question is what and more importantly how it's been made clear there's potential for interesting champion design and perhaps a way for tanks to see a resurgence in popularity after having slowly declined over the latter half of the game's first decade but with how all-purpose and valuable hard crowd control is it's not going to be easy to give them a sense of individuality through conventional means probably wouldn't make all too much sense to give wardens more damage seeing how their defensive tanks kind of counter-intuitive but wardens have one thing going for them that might be able to set them apart from vanguards and enchanters territorial protection tarik galio poppy and shen have abilities in their kits that create areas of safety tarik's cosmic radiance gallius heroic entrance poppy's steadfast presence and shen's spirit refuge essentially communicate to the teammates stand within this area you will be safe if you stand in taric's ultimate you become invincible if you stand in shen's w you'll be safe from basic attacks standing poppies double you and no one can dash towards you stand in galio's ultimate and you'll get a shield how this differs from the area manipulation the controller subclass exerts is the same difference between vanguards and divers catchers like thresh zyra and morgana can render huge areas of a fight dangerous for the enemy team to go through but they don't exactly do anything beneficial for your team aside from stopping the enemy team wardens can potentially do just that be able to create supportive feels to the team that provide valuable boosts or utility you can think of it almost like sona who has aura effects that augment a teammates simply by being around her i know there used to be a lot of items that had aura effects in the past but they were removed on account of over-inflating stats a little too much and not having meaningful effects but what if we were to attach those to wardens instead after all the warden class bears a striking resemblance to the paladin class cinema rpgs paladins were basically a hybrid between healers and tanks rather than just purely soak up damage this class would be able to offer buffs and supportive utility for their party not as much as the likes of the priest or cleric but you know a respectable amount hypothetically we could design a warden with an ultimate that would create a force field that only allies could enter and it would have all incoming damage from the outside not unlike kindred's ultimate in terms of stalling for time creating a safe zone where squishies can run into when they're under heavy fire and give them a moment's reprieve would probably be very popular considering how burst heavy the game has been over the years we could also have wardens who do terrain manipulation for example azir's emperor's divide prevents enemies from walking through it while allies can freely do so if there was a champion who could build walls or pillars and move them around to block off enemies i think that'd be pretty cool alternatively we could design a warden who could create an energy field where all ally projectiles that fly through it gain bonus range speed and damage like how jason's acceleration gate empowers shock blast of course take these ideas with a grain of salt i just came up with them on the fly but who knows maybe you guys might have some interesting champion concepts for wardens i think there's definitely a lot of wasted potential with the subclass the one thing i don't like about vanguards is how they all start to feel the same after a while like there's not much of a difference in experience between the support vanguards leona nautilus alistar and rel they sort of start to feel monotonous same with the jungle vanguards like amumu zak sejuani and rammus but there is a huge difference in play style between poppy tarik and braum for instance could be something to look into anyway that's gonna be it for today if you enjoyed the video i'd appreciate a thumbs up subscribe to the channel if you want to see more content like this don't forget to follow me on my socials and join my discord server if you haven't yet also check out my other videos after this one i have a ton of discussion topics that might interest you but for now thank you so much for watching and i'll see you again soon for the next one take care [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Vars

Views: 222,683

Keywords: league of legends, league of legends pro guides, tft, league of legends 11.17 changes, league of legends video, lol tank, lol warden, lol vanguard, lol class, lol discussion, why no one plays tanks, why no one plays wardens, shen, braum, taric, tahm kench, galio, poppy, wardens league of legends, lol wardens, vars league of legends, varsverum, enemy, msi, arcane, tyler1, kda

Id: DBjq75AJKso

Length: 14min 40sec (880 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021