Guardian

Class Difficulty: Basic

Role: Tank/Damage

Available to races: Dwarf, Elf, High Elf, Hobbit, Man, River Hobbit, Stout-axe

Gameplay: Guardians are the shields of the Free Peoples. They stand at the forefront of the battle in order to win great victories in the name of the Kings of Middle-Earth. Guardians must be focused in the fights they wage, managing to capitalize off of their own parrying and blocking of enemy attacks. As a Tank, Guardians excel in managing large amounts of enemies and surviving without support from their allies from the usage of their strong defensive abilities. With the building of Fortifications from their Shield skills, they can support the Fellowship, but at a cost to their own defence. Guardians can also specialize to deal damage by maintaining a series of devastating bleeds on their foes.

Lore: The Guardians are the stout protectors of the weak, and defenders of those in need. They are loyal companions to the end. True Guardians stand in the forefront of battle, shielding allies from enemy assaults.

This class was inspired by the hobbit Samwise Gamgee, whose loyalty to Frodo Baggins knew no bounds.

A male Dwarf Guardian

Class Navigation Classes Skills Traits Traceries Effects Deeds Guides

Gameplay

Guardians use  Parry Responses and  Block Responses to cycle through their most powerful skills. They are incredibly tanky in both of their specializations, and provide valuable support to their fellowship. They are masters of debuff applications, using  Bastion of Light to spread various debuffs from their target to all nearby enemies.

• Blue-line (Tank): Guardians specialized in the Defender of the Free trait tree cycle through their Shield skills via  Block Responses to maintain strong  Fortifications on themselves, and can cache them out to provide  Break Ranks to the fellowship. They are masters of blocking incoming enemy attacks with cooldowns such  Juggernaut and  Guardian's Pledge. As Tanks, they specialize in tanking large numbers of enemies.
• Red-line (Damage): Guardians specialized in the Keen Blade trait tree cycle through their Blade skills via  Parry Response to keep up a multitude of strong bleed effects, applied by skills such as  Thrust and  Overwhelm. When several bleeds have been built up,  Hammer Down can be used to consume the bleeds to deal big damage and debuff the enemy's incoming damage.

This class is recommended for players who want to experience tanking in LotRO, as the Blue-line specialization is a well-rounded and fairly simple-to-learn tank. However, this class is difficult to play at the higher end, due to its complicated skill set and high reaction time requirement.

Block & Parry Response

Guardians have the ability to generate  Block Response and  Parry Response effects, which are especially important for their general rotation. While these effects can be gained by successfully blocking or parrying respectively, there are some skills that immediately generate response effects, like  Breach and  Force Opening. Guardians work through the Parry and Block chains of skills to deal major damage in Red-line, and provide self protection in Blue-line.

For more information, see Block Response and Parry Response.