一、2023年指环王OL前瞻

欢迎阅读2023年的第一封对玩家公开信。对于那些对我尚不熟悉的人简要介绍，我是Allan Maki（即Orion），指环王OL系统主设计师。Severlin和Cordovan亲切地邀请我写封信谈谈我们十六周年里的这些重要更新和规划！

Welcome to the first Letter to the Players for 2023. For those that may not know me, I am Allan “Orion” Maki, the Lead Systems Designer on The Lord of the Rings: Online. Severlin and Cordovan graciously allowed me to put pen to paper for this important update and roadmap for our 16th year!

在我们谈论2023年的变更之前，我首先想简要地回顾一下过去的一年。2022年对指环王OL来说是重要的一年。我们庆祝了游戏成立15周年，并发布了带来新的新手村、挖掘系统、新六人本、对战等内容的《暗影之前》资料片。我们见证了新玩家和回归玩家持续地扩充我们鲜活的中州大陆。

Before we dive into the changes for 2023, I wanted to take a brief moment and look at the year that was. 2022 was a great year for The Lord of the Rings Online. We celebrated 15 years of development, released the Before the Shadowmini-expansion, which introduced a new starter area to the game, the delving system, a new 6-player dungeon, skirmish, and much more. We saw new players and returning players and continued to expand on our living Middle-earth.

但诚实地说——这些都是你不想读的关于去年的旧闻，你一定是想看看关于2023年的。

But let’s be honest – that’s old news and you don’t want to read about last year. You want to read about 2023.

雄心勃勃——这是一个我想用以概括2023年指环王OL目标的简单词语。我们对于游戏开发所处的当前阶段进行反思，意识到了游戏中有一些地区、系统和体验需要得到关注和优化，我们还明白玩家们有一些对于满级内容和新内容的需求。我们在2023年会着重关注带来一些与时俱进的游戏体验，并扩展游戏世界、故事，指引我们共同朝着下一个15周年前进。

Ambitious. This is the single word that I would use to describe the goals for The Lord of the Rings: Online in 2023. Reflecting on where we are in the development of the game, we recognize that there are some areas, systems, and experiences that need attention and sprucing up. We also understand that there is a need for level cap content and new things for you to do. Our focus in 2023 is bringing some of those experiences up to more modern expectations and the expansion of the game world, story, and direction as we begin the next 15 years of our journey together.

你会看到我们在2023年全年的更新计划，逐步朝着年底的新资料片发布前进。

You can see that we are planning on four content patches throughout 2023, each building toward our next major expansion release by the end of the year:

【冬季（Q1）：新副本包（2个三人、1个六人、1个团本）、挖掘系统扩展、部分职业更新、能量重做、工匠重做启动、对战节回归、兽兽活动、Reward Track第五季、春日节。

春季（Q2）：16周年庆、野外更新、继续职业更新、继续工匠更新、继续兽兽更新、Reward Track第六季、仲夏节。

夏季（Q3）：Further Adventures系列、职业更新、工匠更新、挖掘系统更新、继续兽兽更新、农夫节、Reward Track第七季、盗宝地精回归。

秋季（Q4）：等级上限提升、新职业、新副本新团本、故事扩展、工匠更新提升等级、新种族、Reward Track第八季、秋日节、冬日节。】

我们2023年的脚步从重回熟悉的安格玛地区开始，具体而言，是中州北方毒水中的铁城——卡恩督姆。在那里宏伟堡垒的阴影下，权力的缺失吸引了散居的邪恶居民的目光，他们在寻找新的领导和指引。新的敌人急于夺取权力，而防止这座饱经沧桑的城市被统一的重任则落在自由人民的肩上。

Our journey through 2023 begins with a visit to the distant and familiar land of Angmar. More specifically, the iron city in the poisonous wastes of northern Middle-earth, Carn Dûm. There, in the shadow of a great citadel, a power vacuum draws from the diaspora of evil denizens looking for any semblance of leadership and guidance. New enemies scrabble to seize power, and it falls to the Free People to stop the rise of a single leader in the ravaged city.

《重回卡恩督姆》以游戏末期的副本为主，包括2个三人本、1个6人本和1个新团本，以及所有你期望在新区域找到的战斗和奖励。此外，我们将挖掘系统扩展到图书馆和书院两个副本，并微调了奖励系统使重复奖励更具吸引力。我们还对挖掘系统进行了一些更多的平衡调整，力求使玩家在挑战更高等级的过程中难度增加更加平滑。

The Return to Carn Dûm features a new end game instance cluster with two 3-player instances, a 6-player instance, a new raid, and all of the spoils and rewards that you expect to find in a new space. Additionally, we are expanding the Delving system into the Library and School at Tham Mírdain and revising the reward system slightly to make the repeatable nature and rewards of the Delving system more appealing. We are also making some more balance tweaks to the Delving system in an effort to smooth the difficulty transitions as you progress toward the higher tiers.

我们还将在新的一年里第一次更新中更多地关注针对职业的调整，首次更新旗手和守望者。对于一些通用系统，我们将重新审视能量：它是如何被消耗、如何恢复、作为一个主要指标有多重要。相关的影响在随地图升级方面不会太大，更多地会影响副本和团本中玩家对其的管理。

We will also be focusing on more targeted changes for classes in the first release of the New Year, with Captain and Warden getting their first updates. On a more general systems note, we are revisiting Power; how it is used, how it is recovered, and its importance as a main statistic. The impact here will be less on the moment-to-moment experience on the landscape and more on the management of this resource in dungeons and raids.

我们还计划开始在全年内持续修订工匠系统。我们的最终目标包括打破工匠职业的壁垒、让玩家选择自己想要学习的职业，使工匠系统能够制作一些毕业装备或同装等的装备，在当前被忽略已久的工匠系统（说的就是你，精华）基础上进行扩展并为未来做好准备。

We are also planning to begin a revision to the crafting system that will continue throughout the year. Our expressed end goal includes breaking apart vocations to allow players to choose which profession they want to learn, providing crafters with the ability to make some best in slot or equally competitive items through their professions, expanding upon existing crafting systems that may have been overlooked for a long time (I’m looking at you, essences) and expanding the system for the future.

另一个关注点是继续强化节日和活动。除了Ill Omens对战节的回归，我们还将扩展春日节的奖励、带来新的战场PvMP活动、朝着一套围绕不同工匠职业的周期性活动努力。

Another focus will be on the continued importance of festivals and events. Along with the return of Ill Omens, we will expand the rewards for the Spring festival, introduce new direct Player versus Monster Player events inside of the Ettenmoors, and work toward providing a new set of cyclical events that revolve around the different crafting professions.

来到春季和夏季，我们将目光转向下一次主资料片将要发布的来自新敌人日益增长的威胁。刚铎，虽然现在相对和平，但在重建方面需要帮助，同时一些异常也需要关注。我们将带来一个新版本的刚铎，不再是暗无天日被敌人包围，当然徘徊在暗处的威胁也必须得到应对。游戏系统方面，我们将继续进行特定职业调整、工匠系统更新、怪物扮演更新，以及一些战斗数据方面的进一步调整、新的仲夏节奖励等等。

As we move into the spring and summer months, our focus will shift to the growing threat posed by the enemies soon to be unleashed in our next major expansion. Gondor, now experiencing relative peace, needs assistance in rebuilding and assessing strange goings on. We will be introducing a new version of Gondor, no longer dawnless and harried by enemies on all sides. Yet still, threats linger that must be opposed. From a game systems side, we will continue to work on targeted class updates, crafting changes, monster play updates, and further adjustments to combat statistics as we move forward to the expansion, new festival rewards for Midsummer, and much more.

春夏之交，暂命名为“注意翅膀”的Further Adventures系列将占用你们的游戏时间，还有农夫节、盗宝地精活动的新奖励，挖掘系统也将迎来更难的等级。我们还将对《重回卡恩督姆》的三人本进行扩展，随着我们迎来年底的资料片也将继续进行工匠调整和兽兽增强。

As spring turns to summer, the tentatively-titled “Watching the Wing” will fill your days with Further Adventures, new festival rewards for the Farmer’s Faire, new rewards with the Treasure Bugan event, and an expansion of the Delving system to higher difficulty tiers. We will also make additions to the 3-player Instances added with “The Return to Carn Dûm“. Crafting changes will continue and more enhancements to Monster Play will take place as we drive toward the expansion in the last quarter of the year.

就像我开头说的，雄心勃勃！

As I said, ambitious!

现在我们来到了这封2023年对玩家公开信的末尾，我们想透露一点点对于年底资料片的计划，虽然还没有做好发布更多细节的准备，但我们还是想要提前告诉大家一点关于即将到来的预告。

Now, we are reaching the end of this inaugural Letter to the Players of 2023, and we want to tease a little bit about the expansion that we have planned for the latter part of the year. We are not fully prepared to release many details, but we do want to provide you with a little tease of what is to come.

当我们结束《暗影之前》，并开始展望未来时，我们自问想要故事和游戏朝哪里发展，然后得到了一致的意见，继续向南前往那些人迹罕至的海岸，穿过咸苦的海水，越过贝尔法拉斯湾，到达海盗之王的海岸，乌姆巴尔。而那里，亲爱的玩家们，将是另一个的故事。

As we wrapped Before the Shadow, and began looking toward the future, we asked ourselves where we wanted to take the story and the game next. There was an overwhelming consensus that we wanted to head south to less traveled shores. Across the salty sea, beyond the Bay of Belfalas to the shore of the Corsair Kings, Umbar. And that, dear readers, is a tale for another day.

在下次见面之前，记得我是Orion。

Until next time, I remain Orion.

二、开发者日记 – 旗手更新

简介 – Intro

大家好！我是OnnMacMahal，由我来向大家开讲即将到来的旗手职业改动。

Hello everyone! I’m OnnMacMahal, and I’m here to start talking about the upcoming Captain class changes.

旗手是一个特别的职业：旗手们是灵活的近战战士和治疗者，专注于辅助同伴而非最大化自身输出。尽管每种特性树都符合其主要角色（治疗、输出或拉仇恨承伤），但旗手更应偏重于辅助同伴而非自我满足。我们不希望失去这一核心元素，即使在混战中旗手们也应以身作则，让出焦点以使他们的同伴闪耀光芒。旗手是团队玩家，一如既往。

The captain is a unique class: captains are flexible melee warriors and healers focused on supporting allies rather than maximizing personal output. While each trait specialization should be able to competently fulfill its primary role (healing, dealing damage, or holding threat and mitigating damage) they should each retain a focus on supporting allies rather than being entirely self-sufficient. We don’t want to lose sight of this core element. Even when wading straight into a melee, captains embody the sacrifices of leading by example while staying out of the spotlight in order to make their allies shine. Captains are team players, through and through.

现状概览 – Current State Overview

你问为什么要对旗手动刀？“旗手是很棒的坦克，我总是在求组频道看到红旗的需求。”

Why make any changes to the captain, you ask? “Captains make great tanks, and I always see requests for ‘rCap’ in LFF.”

专精Hands of Healing（蓝特）的旗手是很好的团队副奶，提供大量被动增益、群奶，但在面对单体治疗和突发高额伤害时无法与其他主治疗相比。此外，一些该特性的核心机制，例如Inspiriting Presence和Valour更偏向于被动，使旗手玩家难以主动计划，导致在真正需要他们的时候显得不是那么可靠和有用。

Captains specializing in Hands of Healing (blue) make great raid-group support healers, providing lots of passive, AoE healing, but fail to keep up with other main healers when it comes to single-target healing and responding to large damage spikes. Additionally, some of the specialization’s core mechanics like Inspiriting Presence and Valour are semi-passive, making them hard to account for or plan around, and ultimately making them feel unreliable and unhelpful in moments where you really need them.

专精Lead the Charge（红特）的旗手是超棒的团队输出辅助，前提是你们的主力输出是物理输出。不幸的是红特旗手对法系输出的增益并不如意，且在队伍规模减小时红旗的价值迅速下降。一个旗手自己，即使穿着全套输出装，在做地图任务、做挖掘任务或单挑兽兽时也会力不从心，甚至比不上一些职业的非输出特性。

Captains specializing in Lead the Charge (red) make fantastic raid-group DPS supporters, provided your primary DPS players are physical-damage dealers. Red-line captain support unfortunately doesn’t extend as well to tactical-damage classes, and the value of a red captain drops precipitously as your group size decreases. A solo captain, even fully-equipped in offensive gear, who is questing, delving, or fighting monster players on their own will struggle to produce meaningful damage, even when compared to non-DPS specializations of some other classes.

专精Leader of Men（黄特）的旗手是多人队伍的理想坦克，无论游戏内容或队伍规模这一特性都是旗手目前最流行的选择。但是，玩黄旗的时候很大的问题是缺少另一个开启Battle-Readied状态的技能，且与其他坦克相比相对缺少防御机制。黄旗给队伍提供的很多价值来源于Motivate（与战斗机制无关的被动加成）、战复（对于3人队伍来说相当于全队满血）和一些常驻的技能效果的收益，例如On Guard、Inspire、Revealing Mark和Battle-Hardened减伤。

Captains specializing in Leader of Men (yellow) make wonderful tanks for multiple group sizes. This specialization is by far the most broadly useful of all current captain specializations, without regard for content type or group size. However, gameplay for the yellow-line captain still suffers from the lack of a second skill to open the Battle-Readied state, as well as a relative dearth of defensive mechanics, compared to other tank specializations. Much of the value a yellow captain brings the group comes from Motivate (a passive buff that’s not an interactive combat mechanic) their in-combat rez (which can act as a full reset for 3-person groups) and the benefits from always-on skills and effects like On Guard, Inspire, Revealing Mark, and Battle-Hardened damage reduction.

目标 – Goals

旗手需要一次相当强度的伤害提升，无论哪种特性下，你都应该感觉到你确实拿了把武器在战斗。

Captains need a moderate damage increase across the board. Regardless of trait specialization, you should feel like you’re wielding a weapon of war.

尽管召唤伙伴是这个职业一直以来的特色，玩家们不应该过度依赖宝宝。尤其是自己一个人的时候，你的宝宝应该是在增强你、辅助你，而不是身上绑了一半的技能然后卡在角落里、只留下毫无用处的你自己。

Though the ability to summon a herald is a longstanding aspect of the class, players shouldn’t feel overreliant on their herald. Especially when solo, your herald should feel like they’re augmenting you and supporting you, not tying up half your skills and leaving you completely useless every time they decide to wander off or get stuck in a corner.

对于蓝旗，我们希望增加你的能力以胜任主治疗的角色，这意味着增加你对于盾友的治疗、增加应对短期内高额伤害的能力，同时减少一些被动常驻的群体治疗。你值得真正地像一名勇猛的近战领袖那样参与战斗。

For Hands of Healing captains, we want to improve your capacity to fulfill a main-healer role. That means increasing your healing to your shield-brother, improving your ability to react to large amounts of damage in a short window, and reducing some of your passive, always-on AoE healing. You should also be rewarded for playing like the aggressive front-line melee leader you are.

对于红旗，我们计划增加一个“单体”姿态，以牺牲团队辅助能力为代价极大地增加你的单体输出。只有自己一个人时，你从团队增益或绑定技能中获得的收益几乎为零甚至没有，因此只有自己一个人时把它们换成个体伤害基本毫无损失。在团队中时我们仍希望团队辅助强于这个姿态，但在3人队伍中你还是应该自己作为一个输出抛开队伍辅助能力（在没有输出特性同伴的场景下）。

For Lead the Charge captains, we plan to add a “solo” stance that dramatically improves your personal damage output at the cost of group-wide support. When running on your own, you gain little to no benefit from group- or ally-oriented skills, so replacing those with personal damage comes at no cost when you’re alone. When you’re in a group, we still want the group support to outweigh the benefits of this stance, but in cases like 3-person groups, you still ought to be able to fill a damage role yourself by foregoing group support (since you might well have no DPS-specialized allies in that scenario).

对于黄旗，作为一个坦克方面我们目前没有发现什么大的问题，因此改动将围绕一些小的游戏体验进行调整。我们想让你更主动地激活战斗准备状态，以及核心技能与常用技能对你的职责功能更有帮助，让它们看起来不再像无关紧要的过渡技能。

For Leader of Men captains, there are no major concerns we have about your current ability to fulfill the role of tank, so changes will be focused around smaller QoL adjustments and changes. We want you to be able to more actively rotate through battle-states, and for your core/frequent skills to have a greater impact on your role efficacy, so they don’t end up feeling like inconsequential filler.

总结 – Summary

旗手有太多让人喜爱的东西了，所以别期望有什么根本上的改动。我们想让你在三种特性、各个场合都发挥出自己的作用！话说回来，我们期待着分享更多关于即将到来的信息，不过暂时——感谢阅读！

Captains have a lot to love, so don’t expect things to change too drastically. We want you to be able to shine in all three specializations, in all sorts of content! That said, we’re looking forward to sharing a more detailed look at what’s coming soon. For now, thanks for reading!

三、开发者日记 – 守望者更新

前言 – Intro

大家好！我是OnnMacMahal，仍由我来讲讲守望者职业的变化。

Hello everyone! I’m OnnMacMahal, and I’m here to start talking about the upcoming Warden class changes.

守望者是一个具有挑战性但值得一玩的职业，其基础是围绕几乎无冷却的组合技，游戏过程中注重最大化利用大师技，辅以一些标准化技能。这些技能使你可以很快的组合并打出很多组合技，同时应对游戏环境的不断变化。我们想要保持守望者对于游戏的操作感和组合技系统，但我们还想让这个职业相比其他坦克和输出职业在效率方面更具竞争性。我们目前的计划是将黄特转为非专精技能树，具体情况将在后面进行介绍。

The warden is a challenging but rewarding class to play. Fundamentally structured around gambit skills which have almost no cooldown, gameplay is focused on maximizing the usage of Masteries, supported by a small number of standard skills. These allow you to rapidly build and execute a range of gambits, while adapting as proactively as possible to changing gameplay circumstances. We want to maintain the warden’s focus on proactive gameplay and the gambit system, but we also want to make sure that the class is able to compete in effectiveness with others in tanking and damage-dealing roles. We’re also presently planning on making the Assailment trait tree a non-specialization tree, but we’ll cover that in more detail below.

现状概览 – Current State Overview

所以守望者现在面对的困境是什么？

So what headwinds are wardens currently facing?

可以说蓝特守望者最大的问题是缺乏保命大招。Never Surrender很棒，但无法常用。For the Free Peoples效果很强，但它需要叠很长一段时间、需要你使用大量基础技，而这正是你平时尽力避免的（替代大师技）。

Arguably the biggest issue facing wardens is a lack of defensive cooldown abilities for Determination wardens. Never Surrender is great, but only available infrequently. For the Free Peoples has a strong effect, but it has a lengthy ramp-up period, requiring you to use a lot of gambit builders which you otherwise want to avoid (in lieu of Mastery skills) as much as possible.

组合技能链没有得到充分利用。由于基础技几乎无冷却时间，这个职业设计之初有多个机制促使玩家打出更多样化的组合技，而非无限刷最强的技能。组合技能链是这些机制之一，理论上也可以促使玩家使用更多的短组合技（2或3长度）。但组合技能链目前仅影响了个别的组合技顺序，其中3个还都是持续流血伤害技能，它们本就常被使用。由于单个组合技的持续伤害只能对一个目标施加一次，通常你已经会在旧组合技效果结束之前去尽可能地使用各种不同的流血组合技。我们将在后文讨论更多相关内容，简而言之是尽量让组合技能链在你的技能释放顺序中变得更通用、更灵活且更有意义。

Gambit chains are an underutilized tool. Since gambits have essentially no cooldown, the class has multiple features designed to promote the use of many gambits, rather than leaning on your strongest gambit(s) indefinitely. Gambit chains are one of these mechanisms, and in theory they are especially helpful at promoting the use of short (2-length and 3-length) gambits. But the gambit chains which currently exist only affect a few specific gambit sequences, and three of those sequences are DoT-based gambits, which already promote multi-skill usage. Since a single gambit’s DoT can only be applied on a target once, you’re already likely to use as many different DoT-applying gambits as you can before the oldest ones start to expire. We’ll cover them in more detail below, but we want to make gambit chains a little more general, flexible, and meaningful in affecting your gambit sequences.

对于输出向的守望者来说，Seize the Moment相对于其他职业机制来说过于重要了，且（和破双防一起）让高等级偏辅助破防向的黄特守望者能打出比红特输出向的守望者更高的伤害。虽然我们喜欢Seize the Moment加速了守望者的游戏操作，但大师技的设计初衷是一种受限于冷却时间的资源。即使不把Seize the Moment限制在黄特中，它也会移除守望者职业的太多限制，使玩家感受到过度分化的两极体验。基于以上理由，我们计划移除Seize the Moment效果，其精神内核将转移到新技能“Rapid Techniques”和特性“Strong Foundations”，它们可以使你的基础技减少其关联的大师技的冷却时间。

For damage-oriented wardens, Seize the Moment looms too large over all other class mechanics, and (along with stronger Marked and Diminished debuffs) makes the moderately debuff-oriented Assailment Specialization capable of dealing more raw DPS than the Recklessness specialization at high levels. While we appreciate that Seize the Moment speeds up warden gameplay, part of the inherent design of Mastery skills is that they are a resource limited by their cooldown times. Even without being locked behind Assailment, Seize the Moment removes so much of what limits a warden that it makes the class feel much more ‘feast or famine’ than it ought to. For these reasons, we intend to remove the Seize the Moment effect. Its spirit will be retained in the new skill ‘Rapid Techniques,’ as well as the trait ‘Strong Foundations’ which will make your gambit builders reduce the active cooldowns of their related Mastery skills.

输出守望者还明显缺少爆发伤害，尽管守望者们可以在单体目标上叠加许多持续伤害效果，但在面对低血量小怪的情况时往往并没那么多时间去叠流血。

Damage-dealing wardens also have a distinct lack of instant damage. While wardens are capable of applying many DoT effects to a single target, they suffer greatly in any situations with lower average mob health that don’t give you much time to stack multiple DoT effects.

虽然并非守望者面对的主要问题，这个职业存在可观的效果混乱情况，我们将在即将进行的更新中尽可能改善。基础技等技能并不需要小额叠加持续伤害，而类似于专精加成（10%几率施加次级buff和debuff）等效果的唯一作用往往是填满血条下的状态栏。其中一些效果将加强成为更少但更强力的加成，而另一些将被直接移除。

While it isn’t a major issue facing wardens, the class also has a considerable amount of effect clutter. As much as possible, we’ll be trimming this down in the forthcoming changes. Skills like gambit builders don’t need small, stacking DoTs, and effects like the specialization bonuses (which give a 10% proc chance to apply minor buffs and debuffs) mostly end up cluttering the space below your vitals. Some of these effects will be consolidated into fewer, stronger buffs, while others will be removed outright.

黄特非专精化 – Non-specialization Assailment

刚才说黄特会变成非专精特性树？

You said Assailment is becoming a non-specialization trait tree?

是的。就像前不久的诗人大改一样，守望者的黄色特性树将变成一个被动的、不可专精的特性树。这意味着你无法再选择黄特作为主特性，但同时你将从黄特中获得许多远程伤害、减益效果和通用能力等加成。

Yes. Like the recent change undergone by the minstrel, the warden’s Assailment trait tree will become a passive, non-specialization trait tree. This means you won’t be able to choose Assailment as a primary specialization, but you’ll still be able to get plenty of bonus ranged damage, debuff effects, and utility out of the Assailment traits.

为什么移除了黄特专精呢？因为黄特并不能使你的游戏方式和专精红特相比有什么变化，同时“远程守望者”的身份并不需要一整个特性树的支持，直接切换姿态即可。当前黄特吸引玩家的主要原因就是提供了一些减益和效果，它们如果不是被锁在黄特里其实能对专精红特的玩家起到更好的效果。

Why remove the ability to specialize in Assailment? The Assailment specialization doesn’t meaningfully impact your playstyle relative to specializing in the Recklessness tree, and the ‘warden at range’ identity doesn’t require a full specialization, since any warden can toggle the Assailment stance on. Most of what makes Assailment appealing right now are a few debuffs and effects which would actually benefit the Recklessness tree more if only they weren’t locked up in the Assailment specialization.

对于倾向于玩远程输出类职业的守望者玩家来说，仍然可以这么做。你只需要选择红特专精，然后点出黄特中的远程伤害特性即可。

For those of you who prefer playing your warden as a ranged-damage class, you’ll still be able to do so. You’ll just choose Recklessness as your specialization, then prioritize ranged damage traits in the Recklessness tree.

目标 – Goals

专精蓝特的守望者应该和盾卫者、旗手、拳师以及其他主坦克自信站在一起。除了防御组合技之外，你还应该具备几个基于冷却时间而非组合技、但又与组合技互动的普通坦克技能，这将帮助你和其他坦克一样应对突发高额伤害，同时又不从根本上改变你的技能循环。

Wardens specializing in Determination should be able to stand side by side with Guardians, Captains, Brawlers, and other main tanks with confidence. In addition to your defensive gambits, you should have a few normal tanking skills, bound by cooldowns rather than being gambits, which still interact with the gambit system. This should help you deal with brief moments of significant spike damage like other meta tanks do, but without fundamentally altering your skill flow.

专精红特的守望者也应该是一个多功能的输出，有大量可以应对各种情况的组合技。关键时刻，输出守望者在战斗中可以打出一串技能和组合技制造可观的直接伤害。尽管持续伤害效果仍将是你最可靠的伤害来源，我们并不想让守望者们在强调应对大量较低血量小怪的战斗中被拒之门外。

Wardens specializing in Recklessness should still be versatile damage dealers with a wide range of gambits for dealing with different situations. In a pinch, offensive wardens should be able to line up some skills and gambits to deal meaningful instant damage during encounters. While damage-over-time effects should still be your most reliable and consistent damage, we don’t want wardens to feel completely shut out in encounters with a greater emphasis on groups of mobs that have smaller morale pools.

组合技效果需要被重新梳理。更多的详细信息会在之后放出，主要的原则就是既然有大量的组合技，那么单个组合技就没有必要带有过多的效果。这延伸到组合技顺序，以及以各基础技开头的组合技效果关联。虽然有一些例外（说的就是你，The Dark Before Dawn[12131]），玩家们应该可以推断组合技开头的基础技及最终效果之间的关系：例如矛系组合技造成直接伤害，盾系组合技带来防御加成，拳系组合技造成持续伤害。

Gambit effects should be cleaned up a little bit across the board. This will be covered in greater detail later on, but the general principle is that there are a lot of different gambits, so no individual gambit needs to have more than one or two effects. This extends to gambit sequences as well as the heuristics of which gambit builders lead to which effects. While there will still be some outliers (looking at you, Dark Before the Dawn) players should be able to reasonably infer associations between gambit builder sequences and their outputs: like Spear gambits and instant damage, Shield gambits and defensive bonuses, or Fist gambits and dealing damage over time.

最后首次对守望者的升级做一下说明，我们计划重置练级流程，将组合技中基础技的顺序和效果关联起来，最初可以打出2长度的组合技，逐步解锁3长度、4长度和5长度的组合技。这不会对已超过50级的守望者造成影响，但希望能帮助对这个职业或组合技不熟悉的新玩家快速入门。

Finally, a note about wardens leveling up for the first time. We’re planning to reinstate the leveling paradigm infer associations between gambit builder sequences and their outputs for wardens in which you start off with access to only 2-length gambits, later unlocking 3-length, then 4-length, then 5-length gambits. This will have no impact on any warden already over level 50, but will hopefully help make learning the class a little more manageable for those stepping into it with little prior knowledge of the class or specific gambits.

组合技能链和新机制Advanced Technique – Gambit Chains and Advanced Technique

组合技能链 – Gambit Chains

组合技能链将会保留，但会变得更加灵活。完成整个组合技能链需要按顺序打3个组合技：一个2长度组合技，接一个3长度组合技，再以一个4长度或5长度的组合技收尾。在以第一个2长度组合技开启技能链后，后续的组合技将在伤害、治疗和加成持续时间方面得到增强。

Gambit Chains will be staying with the class, but they will become a little more flexible. Completing a gambit chain will require using a three-gambit sequence: a 2-length gambit, followed by a 3-length gambit, and then completed by subsequently using a 4- or 5-length gambit. After beginning a gambit chain with a 2-length gambit, the following gambits in the chain will gain improved damage, healing, and buff durations.

这些组合技可以是你能使用的任意组合技，而不再限于某一个特定的组合技顺序组合。这意味着你可以用Persevere[21]、接Maddening Strike[232]、再接Spear of Virtue[3131]，抑或是用War-Cry[32]、接Combination Strike[131]、再接Warden’s Triumph[13213]。在后面的这个例子里，Comination Strike和Warden’s Triumph都将作为技能链的一部分受益加成，且Warden’s Triumph还将计入你完成了1次Advanced Technique。

These gambits could be any of the gambits available to you, and they will no longer need to be part of a specific gambit sequence. That means you could use Persevere, followed by Maddening Strike, followed by Spear of Virtue. Or you could use War Cry, followed by Combination Strike, followed by Warden’s Triumph. In this last case, both Combination Strike and Warden’s Triumph would benefit from the bonuses of being part of a gambit chain, and Warden’s Triumph would also grant you one count of Advanced Technique.

唯一的特例是potency组合技（Deft Strike[11]、Defensive Strike[22]和Goad[33]），它们不会被计作技能链的起始。

The only exception to this rule will be potency gambits (Deft Strike, Defensive Strike, and Goad) which will not count as beginning a gambit chain.

新机制 – Advanced Technique

一些守望者的新技能将是基于冷却时间而非需要组合打出的“普通”技能，这些技能将具备短而强的效果和中等的冷却时间。但是这些技能并不是无限提供最强效果，而是受限于Advanced Technique机制。每个技能都需要至少1次Advanced Techinque层数，会在使用时消耗所有层数，同时基于消耗的层数提供额外的效果。

Several new Warden skills will be ‘normal’ skills bound by cooldowns, rather than gambit skills requiring builders. These skills will have short, strong effects and moderate cooldown times. However, rather than being freely available at full strength, their potency will be driven by Advanced Technique. Each skill will require at least one Advanced Technique, consume all of your Advanced Technique when used, and will become stronger with each additional Advanced Technique consumed when the skill fires.

那么怎样获得Advanced Technique层数呢？你在每完成一个技能链后就会积累1层，最高3层，层数除非被技能消耗或脱战不会自行消失。

And how will you earn Advanced Technique? You’ll receive one count every time you complete a gambit chain, up to three maximum, until they are either consumed by a skill or you leave combat.

总结 – Summary

我们希望这是一篇对玩家有所帮助的、关于一些我们对守望者更改的计划和目标的初稿。一些核心机制将会改变，增强固有能力和组合技系统灵活性。我们很高兴后续与你分享更多信息，包括更详细的特定变更内容和实际游戏体验。

We hope this has been a helpful primer on some of our plans and goals for the upcoming warden changes. A few core mechanics will change, augmenting the inherent power and flexibility of the gambit system.We’re excited to share more information with you soon, including a closer look at specific changes and some actual gameplay.

感谢阅读！

Thanks for reading!