Gameplay: Rune-keepers must choose during each battle to focus on damaging skills or healing skills. Either choice shifts their Attunement, unlocking more potent skills, but the choice also restricts access to other skills. In addition, they have support skills that may always be used. In Fellowships, a Rune-keeper keeps allies healed, or deals significant damage to foes.
Lore: Rune-keepers are gifted linguists and masters of true names. With this knowledge, a Rune-keeper crafts powerful rune-words that help the Free Peoples. Through unparalleled mastery of Angerthas and Tengwar runes, a Rune-keeper evokes much more than a normal scribe. Dagor runes deal with battle, Nestad with healing, and Thalas with support.
The class is inspired by the master Elf-smith Celebrimbor, whose skill with runes of power was unparalleled.
Below, you can find more information about the class under the different headers. These pages can also be viewed independently through the table above.
Gameplay
Rune-keepers use Attunement in their gameplay, with healing and damage gaining increased potency at higher Attunement. They have several powerful skills that consume all attunement. They use the elemental powers of Fire, Frost, and Lightning to inflict their will. They can summon rune-stones to boost their attunement and provide passive bonuses.
Red-line (Fire-type Damage): Rune-keepers specialized in the Cleansing Flame trait tree use the element of fire to deal damage over time to their enemies. While lacking mobility and having induction skills, they have incredible potential for damage, with their gameplay revolving around attunement-consuming skills like Smouldering Wrath and Combustion. Red-line Rune-keepers also dabble with Lightning to gain damage-boosting buffs.
Yellow-line (Lightning-type Damage): Rune-keepers specialized in the Solitary Thunder trait tree use the element of lightning to deal burst damage to their enemies. They build up attunement using Ceaseless Argument, and cash-out with Epic Conclusion, dealing a huge amount of damage. Yellow-line Rune-keepers are extremely mobile and survivable, making up for their lesser damage output compared to Red-line.
This class is recommended for newer players wanting to play a magic-wielder class. The attunement system is straight-forward to learn, and each specialization offers a unique style of play. Red-line can be challenging to master, but it's rewarding in both its performance in dungeons and gameplay.
Attunement is used by Rune-keepers in a way that improves their ability to either do damage or heal at the expense of the other. The more battle-attuned the Rune-keeper is, the more damage their attacks will do, but the less healing they will be able to do. The more healing-attuned the Rune-keeper is, the more healing they will output, but the less damage they will be able to do.
Attunement Panel of the Rune-keeper (neutral)
Attunement is measured on a scale of 0-20, 0 being fully battle-attuned and 20 fully healing-attuned. An attunement of 10 is neutral (neither battle- nor healing-attuned). When Rune-keepers use skills, their attunement dynamically adjusts from neutral to a maximum of nine battle-attunement (which appears as red marks on the left of the attunement panel), or to a maximum of nine healing-attunement (which appears as green marks on the right of the attunement panel).
Some skills will battle-attune the Rune-keeper, moving attunement towards the left on the panel, while others will healing-attune the Rune-keeper, moving attunement towards the right on the panel. Other skills will neutral-attune by moving attunement towards the center of the panel. Finally some skills will return to neutral attunement, automatically moving attunement all the way to the middle regardless of current attunement.
It's important for Rune-keeper's to carefully monitor their attunement. Some encounters will warrant a Rune-keeper to go either fully battle-attuned or healing-attuned, but other fights may warrant the Rune-keeper to stay closer to neutral in order to either do damage or heal on short notice.
Rune-keepers have access to three different types of tactical damage: Frost, Fire, and Lightning. Frost skills are sometimes referred to as Chill of Winter skills; fire skills are sometimes referred to as Wrath of Flame skills; lightning skills are sometimes referred to as Fury of Storm skills. Each set of elemental skills benefit from certain traits and traceries.
Lightning Skills are most commonly used by Yellow-line Rune-keepers. These skills deal mainly burst single-target damage. These skills have lower range than other elemental skills, but can be used on the move. Some skills grant certain benefits, such as inflicting Dazed or Stunned to enemies. These skills are also commonly used by Red-line Rune-keepers to deal damage in-between fire skills.
Fire Skills are most commonly used by Red-line Rune-keepers. These skills deal mainly damage over time to multiple targets. These skills have a longer range than other elemental skills, but most have an induction component, requiring the Rune-keeper to stand still. Essay of Fire helps solve this issue; the next fire skill used has no induction.
Frost Skills are used across all Rune-keeper specializations. These skills inflict different debuffs to their targets, of which some are more niche than others. For instance, Flurry of Words inflicts a powerful debuff, but Lore-masters can apply the same debuff. Other frost skills are commonly used in PvMP, due to their debuffs.
These skills are granted automatically as you gain levels. Some skills have an improved version that can be obtained by leveling further or by equipping certain traits, traceries, or armour sets.
These skills are acquired by spending trait points in the Benediction of Peace (blue) trait tree. You can only obtain the set skills if you specialize in this tree.
These skills are acquired by spending trait points in the Cleansing Flame (red) trait tree. You can only obtain the set skills if you specialize in this tree.
These skills are acquired by spending trait points in the Solitary Thunder (yellow) trait tree. You can only obtain the set skills if you specialize in this tree.
Class deeds will involve 3 types; Quest-based; Any time for deeds based on skills which are usable outside of combat; and Offensive, which requires attacking a hostile target. With respect to trivial (grey) mobs, offensive skills used against them, do not advance class skill deeds.
Class deeds require the character to have completed the player introduction quests.
Individual Deeds are not visible in the Deed Log until the appropriate skills trigger the Deed
Individual Meta Deed Tiers are not visible in the Deed Log until at least one of the 3 individual deeds are completed
All Individual and Meta Deeds are logged in the Deed Log under "Class/Race/Epic" on the "Class" tab and are called "Class Deeds - tier N"
Completion of Class Quests (levels 15 and 30) does not grant LOTRO Points or show up in the Deed Log, but can trigger the appropriate Meta Deed Tier to show up in the log
Wardens are mobile melee combatants who use Javelins for initiating combat and against ranged foes. Their unique Warden Shield and a variety of defensive skills allow them to stay in the fight longer than most. Basic Warden skills build up their Gambit chain, which can be spent to unleash special Gambit skills. In Fellowships, a Warden forces enemies to attack themself, so their more fragile allies will not be harmed by the foes.
Most of the Warden's skills for both roles are Gambits, advanced skills built from special sequences of basic attacks.
On the one hand, they can deal a high amount of sustained damage, by relying on a big number of bleeds or DoTs ("damage over time" effects). Most of them deal Light damage, while some of them deal physical damage.
On the other hand, they can draw the attention of enemies and use Gambits which apply temporary buffs to their defences or HoTs ("heal over time" effects).
Gameplay
The Warden is mechanically the most unique class in Lotro. Most of their skills are Gambits: skills that need to be built from special sequences of basic attacks or Gambit Builders. These Builders apply a buff to the Warden and add a Spear, Shield, Fist or Javelin icon at the end of the sequence in the Gambit Panel on the player's screen. Later on, Wardens can make use of Mastery skills to build Gambit sequences faster. These are special skills that immediately grant two Gambit icons, without using the basic Builder attacks and gaining their buffs.
Gambit panel with no Gambit Icons.Gambit panel with the Power Attack Gambit.
Suppose you want to build the Power Attack Gambit with sequence , shown in the image on the right. There are several ways to do this.
Instead, you could follow up Quick Thrust by the Mastery skill Shield and Fist, which immediately adds a Shield and Fist icon.
Finally, you could start with Spear and Shield and end with Warden's Taunt.
Making effecive use of these Mastery skills and their cooldowns is essential to become a good Warden.
While the Warden mostly uses attacks in their melee stance In the Fray - Stance, they can also change to their ranged stance Assailment - Stance and use their javelin weapon to attack from afar. All Builder and Mastery skills that add one or more Spear icons will add Javelin icons instead in this stance.
Further in this section, I will be discussing the most useful skills when DPS'ing or playing as a Tank. This guide is not meant to be strictly followed: at all times you have to keep an eye on what is happening around you, if a new group of enemies appears, your Morale is getting low or specific instance mechanics require using less used skills. Cooperating with your fellows is the key to defeating a difficult boss.
Determination (blue): A tanking build which boosts defences while healing, able to survive attacks from many foes at once.
Recklessness (red): A powerful damaging build that stacks single-target bleeds with the potential for sweeping AoE blows.
Assailment (yellow): A ranged support line that debuffs enemies while dealing significant damage from afar, useful when fighting either alone or in a Fellowship.
DPS
Wardens can compete with most other common classes for DPS roles. They can output reasonable single target damage as well as area of effect (AoE) damage. However, their strength does not lie in burst damage in contrast to Hunters and Champions, but in damage over a longer time period. Moreover, their DoT effects only stack once, making a second DPS Warden in a group suboptimal.
Two trait trees can be used to improve your damage:
The Recklessness (red) trait tree is generally the preferred choice. It has a lot of traits that improve initial damage and damage over time. The capstone skill Recklessness greatly increases your damage for a short time.
The Assailment (yellow) trait tree focuses mostly on improving the damage and debuffs of javelin skills. However, the capstone trait Seize the Moment gives a chance for these skills to remove the cooldown on your Mastery skills. This lets you quickly build several 5 icon Gambits in a short time. By switching to In the Fray - Stance stance after this proc, this allows for big damage bursts.
Both lines mostly use the same skills and bleeds, but I will focus on the mechanics of the red line.
You possess several Gambits that apply strong DoTs to one or more targets. Since they minimally last for 24 seconds (and longer with certain bonuses), a number of them can be kept up at all times and result in a lot of damage over time. Below, the most important skills are listed. However, depending on the mechanics of the fight, you might consider using other Gambits.
Ranged Resounding Challenge: AoE attack which applies a strong Light DoT to up to 6 targets. Note that this is the version of Resounding Challenge in your ranged stance: the melee version does not apply a DoT.
Ranged Unerring Strike: single target attack which applies a bleed with damage type equal to your weapon. This skill is only usable in your ranged stance.
In addition to the bleeds of these skills, there are also a few bleeds that are applied in other ways.
As the only Medium Armour class tank in the game, the Warden's Physical and Tactical Mitigations cap at 50% instead of 60%. At baseline, they receive higher amounts of incoming damage than other tank classes. However, they can raise their mitigations above this cap when in the Determination specialization. They receive a passive 5% mitigation and can build another 10% by using self-buffs. Incoming physical damage is further reduced by blocking, parrying and evading attacks. Finally, Wardens can sustain themselves quite well with HoTs and Morale-taps.
Compared to other tank classes, they can output reasonable damage while tanking by using their Light DoTs. However, they provide little support to fellowship members in contrast to other tank classes. And most importantly, they only have a single emergency skill with a long cooldown, which makes tanking as a Warden less forgiving.
Below, an overview is given of the most important skills when tanking. Depending on the mechanics of the fight, you may want to prioritize keeping up different self-buffs or HoTs. A plugin like BuffBars or BuffMonitor can aid in tracking the durations of your buffs.
Taunts
Warning Shot: single target taunt with a short cooldown
Never Surrender: big self heal which triggers when you fall below 15% of your Morale
For the Free Peoples: lets your builder skills tier up a fellowship-wide incoming damage reduction buff for a short time
At the start of a fight, you want to make sure enemies stay focused on you by building Threat. Dealing damage to an enemy or healing someone who is attacking an enemy generates threat. Enemies will always attack the character that is generating the most threat. Therefore, as a tank, you want to generate lots of threat to keep your lightly armoured fellows from getting attacked. When traited blue, your threat from damage is build with a ratio of 3:1 instead of the normal 1:1. A Taunts can be used when someone else is generating more threat than you and thus the enemy is turning to him/her: you then copy that character's threat with a small bump of additional threat (so the enemy is focused on you once more) and force the enemy to attack you for a short period (ignoring threat).
Using a strong Light DoT which affects a lot of enemies is ideal to build threat at the start of a fight: e.g. Ranged Resounding Challenge or Brink of Victory. By using these skills, you don't need to rely on Defiant Challenge and you can use the skill to keep the mitigation buff up. When the needed buffs are active, you can also consider using a Light DoT to help your group with killing the enemies.
Equipment
The Warden is a Medium Armour class and can use almost all weapons and a Javelin (see Passive Skills). At level 30, they gain "Master Training" traits for all usable weapon types: this increases their damage slightly, but more importantly improves the small bonuses each weapon type has. It is also the only class that can wear Warden's Shields, which are a bit tougher than normal Shields. From level 20 onwards, they can carry Warden Carvings. From then on, they can also use Shield-spikes and Oils, though these items provide little benefit to Wardens. See Warden Items Index for an overview of all items.
Important Stats
Depending on whether you're playing as a DPS or Tank, you want to pay attention to other stats.
When you're playing as a DPS, you mostly want maximize your damage output by increasing the following stats:
Critical Defence (reduces the incoming damage from critical hits)
Choosing crafting professions
The crafted items that are most useful to a Warden come from the following professions.
Tailor: being able to craft medium armour you can wear, makes this one of your best choices.
Jeweller: rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings make up a lot of your equipment slots, so this is a good option too. Furthermore, Hope Tokens are consumables used at all levels.
Cook: Food can be consumed by all characters, which makes the cook a fine choice for you as well.
Woodworker: Javelins, Warden Carvings and Battle Hymns are crafted by woodworkers. At higher levels, you can start using Legendary Weapons and so this profession becomes less interesting.
Scholar: Scrolls of Battle and Warding Lore are consumables used at all levels. Moreover, you can craft Oils, which change the damage type of some of your Javelin skills, as well as class-specific consumables for other classes.
Weaponsmith: here you are able to make metal weapons and shield-spikes. Just like the woodworker profession, this option becomes less interesting at higher levels.
Notice that these are all production professions, but the components used in their recipes can only be obtained by appropriate gathering professions:
Prospectors gather and refine metal ore for weaponsmiths and jewellers.
Rune-sign of Winter and 
Essay of Exaltation. They are masters at healing over time through 
Writ of Health, and have powerful fellowship-wide cooldowns like 
Our Fates Entwined.
Smouldering Wrath and 
Combustion. Red-line Rune-keepers also dabble with Lightning to gain damage-boosting buffs.
Ceaseless Argument, and cash-out with 
Epic Conclusion, dealing a huge amount of damage. Yellow-line Rune-keepers are extremely mobile and survivable, making up for their lesser damage output compared to Red-line.
Battle
Steady
Heal
Essay of Fire helps solve this issue; the next fire skill used has no induction.
Flurry of Words inflicts a powerful debuff, but Lore-masters can apply the same debuff. Other frost skills are commonly used in PvMP, due to their debuffs.
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