Wardens: The Most Pointless Class? | League of Legends 

Say what you want about Braum, he’s the ultimate giga chad

"Wardens being defensive tanks" and I am looking at Tahm Kench diving my top laner for the 5th time with full hp.

Being both a Braum and Shen main it makes me sad how unpopular they are in Solo Q, since they have to be extremely selfless and must trust their own team, and we all know how unlikely you are to find people that are worth giving everything you got for them. In the end, you are more likely to succeed playing something selfish which will either solo carry, or solo int.

Personally, I see Stand United less as a "save an ally in need" and more of a "join the fight at any moment while I split push"

"Wardens are vanguard with extra steps" but the extra steps makes the game more fun -sincerely shen main

Shen and braum most selfless champs, even tahm with those beautiful teammate ults, all of these guys can be so warming to see in the hell of soloq

Don't you play with my emotions like this man, I love playing Braum even if I could just play brand and do everything myself. There's just a personal satisfaction to shrugging off that Morgana bind intended to one shot the ADC, or to tank a blitz hook and just jump back. Would playing Leona be more consistent? Probably. But Braum just feels great to play with either low skill teammates who need a guardian angel of sorts to pull them out of bad situations or with great teams who can really make the most of having me there.

"Wardens don't have much damage since they mainly focus on protection." Shen, Galio, Taric, Tahm Kench, and Poppy: 🙂🔪 (I edited this so no one would say about "what about Champion?")

Something I recently noticed about wardens is that they seem to be the only class able to effectively stop 1v9 death machines. This may not be a huge perk at high levels, but in scenarios where one person is singe-handedly carrying the enemy team and _"just kill them before they kill you"_ is simply not an option, wardens can give your team enough time to breathe and retaliate without suffering major casualties. Even if the (literal) enemy carry decides to focus them, they can resist for long enough for your carries to take them down, favourably trading your shield for their nuke

-knockup -ranged poke -gap closer -self sustain -an ult that disengages enemies and allows allies to be inside and block all damage from the outside =xin zhao, the best warden in the game

me who mains all of them: im something of a pointless player myself

Hey Vars. Vex was originally going to extend projectile ranges but it would've cost too much money in terms of VFX since they'll have create new or alter projectile animations.

I personally think that Thresh is hybrid between Warden and Catcher.

I played Shen once. I got flamed for not ulting the jungler, when i was level 5. I mean it's my bad for not putting points into Stand United pre 6 but it was still rude.

who knew that selfless champions aren't doing well on a game with one of, if not the most toxic community?

are you going to do a "why no one plays: rell" video? I know she has 90% presence in proplay, but she has only like 2% pick rate in soloQ and around 0.8% ban rate. I often feel like i am the only rell player in soloQ

Yes to all but Braum. Purely because Braum is literally the best champion in the game ever and no one can challenge me on that.

I don't get why Thresh doesn't count? He's fantastic at disengage and his Lantern, E and R are very effective for that purpose, and he has an ally shield. He's also called "the chain warden", but that's more of an arbitrary reason.

Don’t you dare target my boy Shen. I protect bot lane like nobody ever will

Every loves a shen and a braum until the enemy assassin is so fed no amout of shield's gonna save the adc. RIP. srsly though wardens are much more consistent than vanguards cuz they dont run the risk of being killed over and over again.

I'm actually curious how many videos you're working on at a time, and how long each video takes to make. Love your content!

Uh hello? The most epic class? That keeps the adc and everyone else alive? Seriously tho, who doesn’t like playing with a Warden.

Thresh, the Chain Warden is not a warden... False advertising

As a shen main,once I was flamed by a Tryndamere when he is killed by a top Vayne.He said that he is waiting me to r him although he have his Ult that can let him unkillable. And after that,I quit League.

Funnily enough, the idea at 13:00 was considered to be used with Vex, in the sense that she could create portals that could displace ally projectiles, but they didn't use it since it would have required to model and kinda recreate each a every single projectile in the game or something like that, it's mentioned in Vex's champion insight

As a support Galio player, nothing is more disheartening than ult slamming their entire team, taunting them all and watching your team unable to get a single kill off it

Shen is a hyper carry change my mind

2:40 That Braum is the only champ with that ability isn't entirely true, since Sejuanis E passive does same, though it only counts for melee attacks. If I'm not mistaken she doesn't actually have to AA the enemy first, simply being near allies is enough, but it has a per target CD on champions.

Wardens/Paladins are always my favorite class and agree they are underdeveloped and supported by Riot. Would love to see them lean into the class a little more. Really focus on the zones of protection aspect and also they are the only tanks allowed to have global ults (which makes sense).

Rell somewhat bridges the gap between a Vanguard and Warden.

Taric is my main Support Galio is my one of my main midlaners And Poppy is my main Jungler I love each of them and kinda feel surprised theres not more champions like them.

Simple, they are tanks that don’t have cc and aren’t good at protecting. Why need a warden when you can have Lulu or Yuumi as a sup and top or jg tanks instead? CC is just better right now. Plain and simple

What about a shaman type character that places totems with aoe's for allies and enemies. Their ult could be a protective field or boost totem effectiveness. Like one totem could be a speed boost while slowing enemies.

For terrain manipulation, could be cool to have a bee champ. Create honeycomb pillars, areas of honey for healing allies/slowing enemies, AoE DoT of just BEES! Not wholy original, but could be neat.

Everyday I play league with people who get me killed every game is against mastery 7 million diamond players and every champ I play against counters yorick apparently but Braum. I like Braum

I'd really like to see a warden which has a knight's vow effect, taking damage on themselfes their allies take, maybe in an area. That would kind of imitate taking aggro, as you take damage away from the others.

I want a vanguard that rides on a motorcycle with a side sidecar, that lets you get an ally inside, kinds of like yumi, the ally would still be targetable and could attack and be attacked. The ally can not move by itself, instead the vanguard moves while carrying the adc, basically allowing the adc to focus on damage with out the need to kite while being carried. You can work with that idea to add some type of shield/buff/etc or limitation to either the vanguard, the adc, or both during the carry time

I remember Maokai’s and Galio’s ult used to provide damage reduction for the whole team in an area around them but that ended up being too strong and got removed.

The entire video should have an Asterisk about Shen other than the mention at the beginning of the video. *Shen kind of breaks this mold since a lot of people play him.

I think it's more of a problem of bloat of damage in LoL. Being a defensive tank, you devote your life to defending your ADC. You are ready to strike at whoever that comes close to the ADC, ready to disrupt enemy combo to save your friend. You and your ADC walks into combat, they misstep in front of you for 0.2s, you run at them to defend and Oah they're dead in 0.21seconds because that Rengar R jumped at them. What are you supposed to do. On the contrary "Warden" are 100% picked in any DOTA 2 pro match, it's always either Oracle, Abaddon, Venge, Winter Wyrvern, etc. There is always one hero like that who gets picked in each team, because defensive power is insane. It's just not insane in League where people die too fast to react. In DOTA 2 a whole team needs to combo CC upon CC to kill someone, often taking 3 to 30 seconds, the "Warden" can then do something about it. As a Lulu player I can't expect to be able to react to enemy attacks to shield + R to save my ADC. I have to be able to FEEL like something is going to happen to react in time. It's just bad design all around, kinda sad that they keep on putting more and more burst damage in LoL. If the game gets more tactical, warden will be more popular.

As a Warden main, you have described EXACTLY why i LOVE playing these champs

Braum and Ashe is one of my favorite combos bottom though. Past level 6 the enemy doesn't get to move unless you say so.

Don't come for shen like that

I like this specificity about wardens being "territorial" tanks. It lets you look at some other champions in a different light. Consider for example that Singed is a tank that's very much about area control because of his gas, he just lacks incentives/tools to truly act as a warden.

Vars' "on the fly" ideas are way better than anything I've seen from Riot in a long time

I didn't quite get what's the way for Taric's Bravado to be a warden thing, as it just reduces his Q cooldown and increses his attack speed. While Braum's Q and R, Shen's E (and kinda Q) being CC abilities don't count towards warden tools even though they can be used as ally protection more, than his passive. Braum's Q is sometimes and his R is usually used reactively, which makes them considerable as "Warden things", while Taric's Passive literally only affects himself and not his allies (contrary to what was stated in the video). My thoughts are kind of messy right now, apologies if I didn't get my point across clearly.

When LoL gives you losing streak, be patient. You get very good victory

Please talk about the dying class of "Mage Assassins" since the removal of mana/mana regen items, they're pretty much forced to decide between having mana with Ludens or always running out with Dark Harvester but having more bursts. AD assassins and hybrid picks will almost always be the more optimal choice because even with abilities on cooldown their auto attacks will still hurt and most AD assassins don't use mana so they have more build paths they can decide to take without having to worry about running out.

Braum will always be one of my favorite champions for one reason, his W. You see that full damage built 6 item Kog'Maw? Well thanks to Braum he takes 15% less damage via Knight's Vow, and has 150+ of both resists because Braum has Locket and his W resist steroids.

I think it would be cool to have a digger type character in which, everywhere they go they leave a trail which gives allies movement speed while on the trail but grounds enemies (without slowing them because that would be insane)

I kind of think a warden champion that resembles the idea of knights vow would be pretty cool. Say you are able to take a set (or partial amount) of debuffs for an ally but in return you gain a different stat based on what debuff you acquired, so like say your teammate got slowed, therefore you get slowed instead, but you gain a slight armor boost. An ult for this champ would be like a team wide effect where they tank a portion of damage and debuffs (not necessarily all of it) for their team for a short while, but at the end kind of spreads that to the enemy team in a fraction amount. Some form of trade off between a teammate or the whole team would be cool, say the team damage heals this champ or the better they do their job the more value you gain for your team, so its not just a 1v5 tank link old mundo or high stack cho, but more of a defensive play maker.

Shen is so fun when playing with friends 😸

12:00 I think that's the problem with vanguards in most sense. They are mostly underpowered, BECAUSE they feel like aura items. Remember that, Riot stated that Taric is understated, because of funnel YI. Same goes for Braum in metas when he dominated as wall vs anything. And Shen/Poppy/Galio were the most anoying top laner because of their Utility and damage they could provide.

Completely different game, but in Paladins(the knockoff of Overwatch) there is a VERY interesting and powerful tank that completely epitomizes what a warden tank should be: the only reason I ever picked the game up was purely for Inara, who in my opinion is the greatest tank that I have ever played in any MMO, RPG, MOBA, or class based shooter. Inara's kit revolves around standing on an objective and making sure no one can get her off, coming with insane amounts of CC and self-peel. Most of it revolves around terrain-building, with a rock spike she can make that slows enemies and gives her damage resistance as well as a big wall that blocks chokepoints. Inara is ridiculously tough to kill if you time her cooldowns right and have a healer at your back, but her kit would fit perfectly into a warden for league: a terrain-making poke ability, an AoE slow and buff field made by a seperate HP item, a personal shield, and a charged stun ultimate. A warden with abilities like that could be incredible at zone control and also be able to make a, "You can't get out" area with a wall and zone field combo. Seeing as league is getting to be much more fast-paced and movement heavy, both aspects of modern class shooters, maybe this could be a new generation of Warden tank?

Wardens are probably the class with the greatest difference in play-rate between competitive and solo-queue. It feels much better to play something like Braum, when you have an insane team-fight adc on your team like lwx, teddy or upset. In Solo-Queue, there is no guarantee that the ally you chose to protect will actually will you the fight. Also: Wardens usually have pretty bad laning phases, and struggle to snowball, both qualities much appreciated in soloQ.

I’d consider TK a vanguard now with his rework. His ult can be used offensively and defensively.

Maybe a champion that can repair towers? Or one that had an ultimate like karthus/soraka except it temporarily flips the type of damage teammates do. So for 5 second AD champs do AP damage and vice versa This would make them pretty hard to build against and you could see more all AP or AD team comps. Just a thought.

As a Galio player who literally carries games by spamming R ganks, I beg to differ.

playing braum in solo queue is miserable. people dont take advantage of what you do, and then because they dont understand how to play with braum, they yell at you, and eventually you get a nice fistful of reports, just because your team doesn't play aggro when you w them, or auto attack the people you q. And on top of that, just to slap braum in the face, locket on any vanguard does exactly what his kit does but without the e and much more power. it pisses me off how miserable braum is.

Nah man when I see a fucking lit shen ult I go crazy. It’s sick how shen players can have eyes on the entire map.

Poppy ult can be used offensively during laning phase to push an enemy from under their tower,denying them a big wave while you pressure them or you can go behind their tower, press r, pop your flash and you can get a guaranteed e in the wall to stun and land your full combo,its rare but there are opportunities to use poppy r offensively

It’s funny because Shen and tahm kench are early game lane bullies. And are the few tanks that can 1 v 1 bruisers

Ull be the one to tell tahm kench braum or shen theire useless....ill be over there....50 feet away from their unbridled muscular sweaty fury

Still mad they messed with my Tahm Kench, really wished his deep throat was a normal skill as having 1 skill to save 1 team at once isn't that good when other supports can save your whole team cause hahaha dmg go brrrr

"Wardens don't have much damage since they mainly focus on protection." Shen and Poppy: 

That "accelerating ally projectiles like Jayce's gate" idea was the original concept for Vex, but it was scrapped due to it being impossible to implement without making Vandiril rich (again).

At the end of video you was taking about potencial new Wardens and I have one! (I just randomly few years ago started to create concepts for champions) This Warden was supposed to be oldest sister of Qiyana, one that lost movement in legs because of fight between them. She later saw that Ixtal nation is strong not because they are powerful mages but because they stand united (in contrast to Qiyana) and then she becomes Priestess of Mist. The idea of this champ was to create range support tank (somewhat similar to Thresh but Full Warden). Her main gimmick was almost same like one of Singed, but with a twist. After every ability, she would for few seconds leave a wide trace of mist that would increase Regeneration of Health and Mana and also give small damage reduction for allies that stand in mist. Q was medium range skillshot with delayed knockup after second, W was old Volibear's E (antidash disruption) with small shield for allies, E was long range dash that stack twice (without any damage or cc) that creates passive mist on the way. And then the Ultimate. I decided that I want something spicy on so utility focused champ that would offer great areal denial for enemy team. After short delay (with loud and visual indication) she would deal big chunk of damage on area similar to Nasus's E and then creates zone that last for 2-3 sec and cause Disarm and Silence on enemies (without any other CC). Furthermore zone would give movement speed to ALL Champions (even enemies).

Wardens also have a problem with being way better in Proplay than Solo queue. Braum, Tham Kench, Shen, Galio, and Poppy have been staples even when they struggle in Solo Queue.

Hey it’s that song I hear when I step on a billion land mines while getting pox’d by mimics.

"We can design a warden that has a oneway wall or barrier" - Poppy deep dogging a support and adc in the background. "Yes, wardens are fairly useful at protecting allies."

3:40 just the other day i used poppy ult to launch an enemy that tried to get himself executed in our base to our jungler

Just buff Poppy damage scaling so she becomes a juggernaut ^^

I wish there was a warden with a skill like knights vow, which can be toggled. Like, you will absorb 50% damage your allies receive within 400 units around you. Then the ultimate can be, heal all damage you receive for 3 seconds, including execute. If you have 500hp left, if a pyke ult will exec u, instead it heals you 500 hp. Or if a veigar Q will damage u for 267, it heals you that amount.

Dude, I love wardens and I would really want to see more kinds of them

As an aspiring game developer and designer, I watch these videos mostly for the game design aspect than the gameplay and meta aspect. And I especially have a soft-spot for underrated character designs and class and as an avid Poppy and Braum enjoyer I would say it would be absolutely fun to design a Warden champ for LoL. I actually got an idea that is similar to how Blaze work in HotS where you summon a bunker where people can occupy it and attack from inside (melee champs would get a ranged attack with a fixed range while ranged attackers would retain their default) and while inside they are protected from damage and cc, that is until the enemy destroys the bunker or when it expires.

I have mained braum and taric for these exact reasons u listed at the end, "safe zones". Being able to win objective fights becomes so much easier if you are one of these champions who isnt majorly behind. Playing the macro game becomes so fun for this reason, to force the enemy into a situation where they have to challenge you vs having to challenge them is so stupid powerful in anything under diamond. With poke being really non existent now, its one of the best ways to achieve this I feel.... Or at least a really rewarding and fun one!

Vars, a full power Poppy hammer can be used for 1 or 2 things. Sometimes it just to finish a kill on an enemy that's running away, but I use it to kick half the enemy team away from objectives, effectively singling out the jg.

I feel like it’s less so that wardens are worthless, and that you have to really invest in them in a draft. Braum can be an amazing counter pick, as can the other champions on this list. But why would you want to invest a counter pick for a support over a mid laner or a top laner? Your support player has to be worth doing that for and most players aren’t

Not my favorite Support class...say it ain't so...

That idea with enhancing allies' projectiles has been thought and it was an idea for Vex, but, as they said, it would take way too much efford to accomplish. Theoretically it is, of course, possible, but it is not a realistic feature for a future champion.

Riot considered the "area that buffs ally projectiles" in designing Vex but they said it would take years worth of VFX work to make every projectile work with it so they scrapped that idea. You can read that in the Vex champion insights.

Man, there's this player called Felipoppy, he uses Poppy's ult in a aggressive way, like an insec.

One time, i were playing RedemShen (Xpetu's Shen build with support Item) and then i see Rengar was about to kill the ADC in just a second. Boom, a massive sheld came from nowhere to mr Aphelios and the Rengar was pissed off so so much that he started to flame his entire team Xd. i love playing this Warden, man :D !

The fact that braum only blocks one projectile then takes 30-40% reduced damage is sad

You dont really need much to make Wardens better IMO. A big problem of Taric's Ult, Poppy's W, Shen's W and Braum's E is that your teammate has to be skilled enough to use it properly (AKA stand BEHIND the big ass shield, stand IN the dodge zone and so on), so the easiest fix would be to make those abilities easier for the Warden's teammate to take advantage off. Make Shen's dodge zone bigger and last longer (so a clueless ADC can walk into it, rather than try to follow the Shen around), make Braum's Shield bigger, make Poppy's W last longer. But some of those buffs may break the champ in some scenario (a 4 seconds lager Spirit's Refuge would make Shen impossible to trade against in lane, and Poppy making a No Dash zone for 5 seconds would be a fucking nightmare in laning phase) so make those abilities scale either with skill points or with allies nearby. TL DR: Shen's Spirits Refuge goes from 1.75 seconds duration to 4 seconds if 2 or more allies are nearby and goes from 350 effect radius to 350/400/450/500/550 effect radius based on ability level. Poppy's Steadfast Presence goes from 2 seconds duration at all ranks to 2/3/4/5 at levels 1/6/11/16 These are pretty high numbers all things considered, but this is the way i think warden should be pushed towards. Oh and make more Wardens with heals and buffs Taric Style.

Hey, thank you for the video. I am waiting for terrain manipulation for a long time. Qiyana's E Terrashape gave me hope for that little bit with elemental magic. I wish they would follow up this idea to the endpoint. Like Braum not only carrying shield but also raise ice walls similar to Anivia to close off choke point for his allies.

Wardens > Vanguards. In fairness

This one time on Tac's stream I saw him combo his R into E in the enemy jungle, that seems super niche though

I really don't think Rell is a Vanguard. Just because she CAN engage doesn't mean it's her primary role. As a Rell main I can gaurantee she is BEST used as a counter-engage or follow-up. You also gotta remember her E stun and heal, which 100% are best used reactively, to be then followed by her combo. But then again, I stand by my thought Rell is a good middle ground for tank supports. She's can do both roles, but doesn't excel in neighter. I'll agree with your veredict, since really, a Tank's job is to provide CC. But it really is VERY situational. A Vanguard needs to engage to also desingage, a Warden does not.

The first thing that came to my mind to decrease the gap between wardens and vanguards is making wardens stronger to compensate for the lower risk and skill ceiling of vanguards

Ehhh, i mean it also comes down to the fact that one of the best items for them the frostborne gauntlet got nerfed over and over since season 5 until it eventually dissapeared, (no, the current frost gauntlet with bami cinder it's not nearly as good as the sheen gauntlet with 100 armor CDR mana and slow), when I started playing league in S4 I'd love to go Braum/blitz with gauntlet, to just turbo stomp as a offensive warden, kinda like when you build protobelt + tank on galio (though in soloq I've found way more success playing full AP galio, with protobelt + zonya, to that point you usually clap games, only a fed %dmg ad champ can stop ap galio

“Stay behind me”can be use in yourself too

This all ties to how much damage creep is in the game, when the fight lasts 1,5 second The point click Nautilus CCs will always be more valuable than Braums slow stun wind up through passive and the Shield of his, if however the fights lasted 10 seconds, Braum could be able to provide multiple stuns, mitigate a lot more damage, while nautilus would blow his CDs on one target and then just auto-snare the rest TLDR: Wardens have windups to their impact, but fights last 1,5s which means the quicker CC/pressure is always better

my pool is almost only wardens galio & taric main here

*sweats in poppy/shen/galio main* i will say though, i do love playing braum and taric, but i can never pick them unless i'm duo.. they're too adc-reliant

12:54 Somewhere in Shurima Talya silently cries to herself. I agree that Wardens feel redundant to the point of useless. With skirmishers and assassins running amuck, and teamfights lasting maybe 10 seconds at the best of times nothing is going to be more valuable than the hard crowd control of a vanguard. The only real way to make them viable again would be for Riot to do something completely crazy and outrageous like, actually balance their damage champs.

I love wardens, they were some of my favorite champs to play. I also play a lot of anti carries and enchanters.

Really loving your videos. So much information and analysis. Good job sir. Keep it up

1:52 omg. Why do Viego players just have to steal every single soul?? He literally dies for no reason and I have seen this so often.

3:47 I guess a full charge isn't used but her ult can be used to knock away a champ hugging tower towards the middle of the lane