Overview

Wargs are the stealth melee classes, hit and run are their specialty as well as pouncing freeps and siabling minstrels with interrupts and silences.  The warg also makes an excellent scout with their speed and stealth, use them liberally to watch critical approach corridors to set up ambushes for roaming freep groups.

Skills

Traits

Class Traits

Recommended Corruption Traits

[Chenobyl, Elendilmir]

As a warg, you want to do a great deal of damage from stealth in a short period of time then get out of there before being killed.  As such, slot anything that gives more damage such as Damage for Power, Health for Power, and Damage for Health.  For the last two traits, consider slotting Physical Resistance and Tactical Resistance.  Those two together boost each 5%, handy in resisting loremasters more frequently

[Roktata, Brandywine]

Damage trated is definately a fine way to go. However, wargs tend to become hated pretty quick, and the more reputous ones will become focus fodder pretty in no time. As the known pack leader of Brandywine, I'm on the top of everyone's list. So I have traited myself completely with health, Health for Power ranks one AND two, as well as Damage for Power ranks one and two. Just so my damage wasn't nerfed completely, I then went with damage for power rank 2. I do not reccommend that every warg use this, I have only traited myself as such due to massive amounts of focus fire, and this gives me a better chance to live through it and keep leading my raid.

Tactics

[Vyxe, Elendilmir]

From the raid leader perspective, Wargs are the scouting and melee crowd control class of the creeps.  With the enhanced stealth trait and a full set of maps, they can observe even heavily tracking freep groups and keep tabs on them.  Disperse them freely to find contact points with the enemy but remember to recall them back to the fight as they bring valuable skills to the battle. 

In raid against raid combat, a warg excels in the following

• First Strike:  The shock of an immediate attack right on top of you can make the enemy suddenly turn to run, expecting a larger attack.  This works with smaller groups
• Lockdown:  The Pounce stun + Tendon Shred gives about 8 seconds of stun time, enough time for the raid to catch up and to apply DPS to destroy the target before it can run away or use an escape mechanism (last stand, feign death, desperate flight, etc).  Wargs are also critical in pursuit with their sprints and cripple/pounces to prevent the enemy from running away.  They should cripple/pounce an opponant then try to catch another one, letting the slower raid behind them crush whatever they have slowed.
• Silence:  While minstrels have a skill to remove silence and LM stun immunities cure silence, enough applications by wargs of silence can either very temporarily or for a reasonable duration cripple the minstrel's healing capability. 
• Harrassment:  Their escape skills allow them to operate away from the main raid and in the back of the freeps where their minstrels are often found. 
• Ranger Duty:  Wargs can severely reduce the ability of rangers to operate with stuns and interrupts.  Sometimes it is worth detaching a warg to deal with rangers attacking your healers

[Roktata, Brandywine]

An alternative method of creeping for wargs is the warg pack. As a pack leader, I have found many tricks and tango's that one has to learn. Being part of a mixed raid and a warg pack are two separate concepts, and the difference between is almost like night and day. In order to be a good pack warg there are things you have to learn, how to deal with lack of heals, how to focus and move quickly, and all in all be a much sharper player than usually necessary. The following is my guide on warg packing, this is written from a leader's perspective but gives good insight on how to be a good pack warg.

1. Heals:

Managing without a healer is pretty tricky, as you know at rank 5 wargs get rallying howl, a HoT that heals the whole group and stacks with itself. So having 3-4 howlers in a single group (meaning 3-4 rank 5's) is ideal, but of course not always possible. Once you start getting a steady group of higher ranked wargs, (at least 5 and up) you can start to rely on having a decent amount of howlers to keep you alive. I usually have my howlers use their howl immediately after the first kill, that way you can use it again soon after when the 30s cooldown is up. Since its pretty easy to run out of power, at least for me because I tend to spam my claws, having a mana pot is good for when you've killed something and don't have enough power for the howl. Howl costs about 120 power, the lowest based mana pot is enough to give you this, so no need to blow all your money on higher pots if you don't feel the need to, just have the pot there so you can use it for your howl. That way you aren't wasting your mana pot just to spam claws some more.

2. Targetting Priorities:

Targets are tricky at times, when I'm in a fight I usually try to take down the LM's first. The success of a warg pack is completely based on the amount of LM's are in the opposing group, they throw down that tar, use that AOE stun that incapacitates an entire pack, mass roots, etc. They make wargs hurt, so killing them first is the ideal choice. I've wiped full freep raids because we took down 2 lm's before the freeps even knew wtf was going on, then killed the other 2 before they could do too much damage. After LM's Its typically minnies or hunters. If they don't have a lot of minnies go for the hunters, they are squishy, easy to kill, and if they have no DPS they cant kill you. After that its usually champions, pretty easy to kill, and like hunters its taking out dps. Then you can go for the captains, though they probably will just pop last stand, if they do just switch to a different target and come back to them later. I usually save guards and burglars till the end of the fight. Guards do no damage and take a long time to kill, and burglars have too many escape skills to bother with till the end of the fight. Guardians before burglars, then you can take a whack at em. I'll tell you how we take down burglars later.

3. Taking Keeps:

Taking keeps is something you might wanna hold off on till you get some expierence, and till you can get a bigger pack. Even taking LC or isen takes about 3 groups min (at least if you want to take it without anyone dying). Once you feel confident enough to start taking keeps start with Isen and LC, and eventually work your way up to the bigger keeps. Always, I repeat, ALWAYS, warg pull the CG or kill the first marshals before you fight the CG. If you fight them WITH the CG, you are going to get yourself killed. If you don't know how the warg pull works (not saying you don't just never know) have a warg who has dissapear drop group, unstealth in front of the CG (do not attack it) run away, have another warg hit the CG and the CG only, pull it aside, and have the original warg who was running away dissapear. All the other mobs will reset, but now you will have the CG by himself off to the side where the pack can safely take him down. You are always going to have to have some weak mobs nearby (coldfell hunters, champions, cave claws, etc) that you will have to pull in the middle of the fight and kill to let the howlers get their heals off. Another reason why you will need a decent of howlers if you hope to run an efficient pack.
Once you are fighting a CG, (I do this with Goldi and Gulloval and An as well) you are going to want to get as many bleeds on the target as you can. It does tremendous damage, they stack, and plus its just really cool to see 2-3 bars of bleeds ticking away under a mobs health. Follow these guidelines and LC and Isen are cake, TR and Lug are a bit trickier, trying to get to the top and take down the CG without the freeps noticing is a challenge, but its also a lot of fun. As of yet I've not successfully taken TA with the warg pack, we tried twice the other night, first time a group of freeps came in while we were on the CG, and the second time we would have taken it but a troll came and helped us out. So it didn't really feel like we did it by ourselves.

4. Unity-

Nothing gets under my skin more than a warg who thinks he can do his own thing. This is NOT a normal raid, wargs need to stick together at ALL times unless the pack leader tells someone to go scouting for the pack. Pouncing targets without permission, following the creep raid instead of the warg pack, not staying on target during intense fights, all of these are NOT helping out the warg pack. One pounce, 23 claws out of stealth, dead freep. You only need ONE pounce, as the pack leader I usually designate myself as the pouncer, everyone else can claw out of stealth. Wargs tend to get a little frisky at times and will pounce people and run away, I call these playful pounces, but often times a warg will do this and either A) get killed, or B) the person he was pouncing was the target I wanted to kill and not everyone was in position. Early pounces offers escape for the freep, don't get pounce happy out there folks, the pack needs to work as one, 24 wargs, one mind. (Or how many wargs there are in the pack, :D)

5. Other tips-

A. Killing freeps in general-

Pounce is your best friend. To be most effective, have a single warg pounce, and everyone else after claw out of stealth. As you know, claws out of stealth do more damage, and pounce takes away their ability to block, evade, and parry. I always have the pouncer on crippling bite duty, after the pounce has hit, that warg then puts the crippling bite on the target. If you have the whole pack using pounce out of stealth you will literally stun them into immunity, what with DR and all. Much more efficient to have one pounce and the rest claws. Make sure you make it VERY clear that savage fangs is NOT allowed. Bleeds are fine on NPC's, but there's nothing more frusterating than when someone bleeds a freep and they end up getting away because the crippling bite was taken off. Not to mention crippling bite allows for another pounce when the temporay immunity period is up.

B. Killing burglars -

Burglars are a bit different. I bet many people tell you NOT to pounce burgs whatsoever. This, however, is not as bad a thing to do as it seems. Burglars are almost always going to use their find footing when you pounce them, fair enough, just keep attacking them, but have one warg stay in stealth for when the temp. immunity status is up, and pounce him again. Now they are stunned and their Touch and Go is useless, (remember when I said stun negates any ability to evade parry or block?) this is when the whole pack spams their claws like crazy. Bingo, dead burg. If the burg is already low on health and you know they haven't popped their find footing yet, just claw them down. Better that then having to beat them back down again because of the full heal they get. Some burgs, however, are smart enough to use dissapear as soon as they pop find footing. No need to fret about that, they just popped 2 of their escape skills to get away, whether you got the infamy or not, you won. However, if they are a hobbitt, you can track them. I usually keep about 20 hobbitt trackers on me at a time (the ones that track in stealth). I usually only use them to find a burglar that just hipsed on us, once I see his red dot on the map, I will sprint to him to attack him, otherwise they might just go back into stealth and break your track. If its a man burglar, however, you are out of luck. Another good habit to try and do is to bleed burglars, ONLY freep anyone is allowed to bleed. If they hips, the bleed will knock them out of it after a few seconds.

C. Killing freeps in a big fight -

The previous two notes were primarily notes when ganking a target, but when fighting in a big cluster of freeps its a bit different, because you only have the advantage of surprise at the very beginning when your stealth is yours, but after that you have to work with what you got. For every target you see, crippling bite + pounce for the stun is ideal. I physically call these out, "Lets get a crippling bite on him please, ok now everyone pounce." Once he's down he is not gonna be jumping around like a juiced up frog on a hot bed of coals, making it harder for you to kill them. Tendon shred is also Ideal for this, its quicker than crippling bite + pounce, but not everyone has that, its also on a 5 min cooldown. But out of the 24 that I usually have, at least one has their tendon shred up. Throat rip is ideal on minnies and LM's, especially when you are trying to kill an LM, because this blocks a bunch of their skills that they use to stay alive. Its usually pretty consistant, you get a bunch of wargs on one target and they are gonna run around like a chicken with their head cut off, they want to make it as difficult on you as possible. They will run through tar, blow aoe stuns (if they have them) minnies will feign death, captains will pop last stand, champions will blow sprint. It is very, very important that you keep that crippling bite on them at all times. If a minny feigns death, switch targets. If a captain blows last stand, switch targets. Sometimes you'll just be unlucky, usually if 2-3 targets in a row use an escape skill of some kind forcing you to switch targets, that will be the death of the pack. I usually like to go for a hunter once any target uses one of these, because they are quite easy to kill. Of course they may df, making it even more important to stun them and take them down quickly so you can get your howls up.

D. Captain and Guardian Protection - Captains and guardians will both use their protection skill to save minnies (I once saw a guardian use it to protect another guardian, was kinda funny.) They have two different icons, so you have to pay attention to the buff/debuff bar under their name. If you see the blue shiny shield of captain protection, might as well switch targets, because the captain will just pop last stand just like if you were on the captain himself. If you see the green rock thingy of guardian's shield wall, however, just keep burning through the target, because the guardian is taking all the damage based on the TARGET's ability to block/evade/parry. So if you are hammering on a minny with shield wall on them, that 4k guardian is going to go down like butter. Then you can kill the minny as well.

Last but not least I would like to enforce the importance of listening to the pack leader. There is usually one, and only one, pack leader, and people must realize this. I, myself, usually name a luitenant to help me out, to rally on when I am dead and coming back from the rez, or when I am AFK. But if anyone else starts shouting out orders, I tend to get a little cranky. It is my wish that every warg should experience the excitement of a warg pack, its not for everyone. Some people just don't care for it, nothing wrong with that. I will say this, warg packs do not get as much infamy as the main raid, but almost every warg I've had under me says its much more fun.

[Tchaikovsky, Elendilmir]

Operating Unraided
----------------------

The following guide is written from my experience operating as an unraided warg in numerous situations.  Note that this guide assumes that an out of game voice communication system like Ventrilo is utilized by the solo warg and the general creep population alike.  It may be effective to be outside the raid without such voice communication, but if in-game voice is the only option, some players may find the voice communication difficult to sacrifice in exchange for the benefits of running solo.

First I would like to make the case for unraided wargs with a list of reasons why being unraided is a good idea:

1. The number one spot goes to the fact that you can exit combat and restealth much more often than you can in a raid.  If even one NPC remains alive and attacking the raid you cannot restealth.  If you can't restealth you're almost useless.  You can still cripple, silence, and tendon shred, of course, but you lose the element of surprise which is so important to the warg.  Wargs are not really meant to be played like reavers and when it comes down to it, we need to use our stealth as effectively as possible.

2. Create space in the raid.  Often there are too many wargs in one particular raid and the overall effectiveness of that raid decreases because of that.  Raids specifically designed to be operating as warg packs are of course an exception, and a few wargs in a standard raid are welcome.

3. Now for some selfish reasons.  You get to operate exactly how you want to operate.  You can leave a losing situation as you see fit and search for freeps elsewhere.  You can scout for the main raid and report freep sightings around the map.  You can instantly respond to others' reports without orders from a raid leader.  In otherwords, your mobility and response time become instant because you are not obligated to assist the main raid at all times.

Skills
------

A full list of skills and the rank at which they're obtained are available here: http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Class:Stalker.  The following are my comments on each skill up to rank 8 (in no particular order).

-Stealth

The most important skill for a warg!  Being seen only when we want to is our biggest advantage.  There are times to use stealth more creatively than just going stealth 100% of the time.  The most obvious situation is if you're being tracked by hunters.  If it's not strategically detrimental to be seen, go ahead and remain unstealthed.  Once you need to get into stealth (i.e. freeps start to charge) go ahead and stealth up, you'll have erased any tracking on you and you'll be able to go right into the action, minimizing the time period in which you may be tracked between stealthing and making contact.

-Pounce

A mildly damaging interrupt unstealthed, a five second stun from stealth.  This skill can be used out of stealth to knock down a target that has a Crippling Bite applied (removes the cripple).  If critted from stealth, the target is knocked down and a Warband Maneuver starts if you're grouped.  This skill from stealth is, of course, our primary source of crowd control and probably our most feared attack.

-Claws

Basic melee attack that, like all warg skills, deals more damage from behind and the sides of the target.  It is "spammable", no cooldown.  Also does more damage from stealth.

-Maul

A bleed that does decent initial damage.  Does more damage over time for double the duration (20 seconds) when applied from stealth.  Stealth Maul and normal Maul stack, even when applied by the same warg.

-Crippling Bite

Slows movement speed by 25%.  As of Mines of Moria, Blackarrow's "Hindering Shot" removes this debuff. 

Savage Fangs

-Mostly used after Crippling Bite to apply a bleed to the target.  Multiple wargs can apply a bleed from just one Crippling Bite.  Also debuffs the target's attack duration and block chance.  Savage Fangs does not remove Crippling Bite upon applying the bleed.

-Tendon Shred

Knock-down that starts a Warband Maneuver.  Often used as a five second stun when you're out of stealth and also to "lock down" a freep.

-Disappear

Stealth in combat, undetectable for ten seconds.  Can be used as an escape skill or simply to stealth up and apply another Pounce or Maul.

-Sprint

Great for escaping or chasing down a freep.

-Rend Flesh

I mostly use this debuff on big NPCs like Captain Generals.  Useful in solo fights as well.

-Swipe

Fantastic attack that can't be evaded.  Try to use from behind.

-Scratch & Snip

A nice two-hit attack, deals more damage from behind. 

-Throat Rip

Silence, very useful on Minstrels. 

-Rabid Bite

Even when fully damage traited, this is a rather weak power drain.  I find it most useful to use on a freep who already has low power (a hunter who has recently used Burn Hot, for example) as it almost totally prevents power regeneration in combat.  This has so many counters, though, including conjuctions and power pots.  This skill is usually a lower priority than DoTs, DPS, and stuns.

-Flea Bitten

A decent debuff useful on a number of freeps.  I love to use it solo.  Toss it on a hunter, toss it on a guardian, etc.  Mostly a situational skill, though, as the top priority in most battles will be stunning and DPSing.

-Frenzy

Just use it when you can, gives a significant boost to melee criticals and evade.

-Eye Rake

A good interrupt skill that deals some damage.  The interrupt actually occurs *before* the animation completes, so it is very fast.

-Pack Hunters

Adds 20 damage to any incoming damage on the target.  Great for NPCs, great for freeps, a no-brainer when soloing, just a great skill.

-Rallying Howl

Since Mines of Moria, is a weak initial heal with a very weak heal over time element.  I've unslotted this and replaced it with armor until it's improved significantly.

Guide to my playstyle: Unraided Warg Tactics
---------------------------------------------------

Tactics from my old pre-MoM guide that still work:

1. Whack-a-mole

Whack-a-mole is when you wait patiently in stealth near the front lines waiting for an ambitious freep to overstep their boundaries.  Often this will be a brave champion coming in to blow their horn, or a hunter over-extending himself to get in firing range.  Most often, however, burglars are the ones moving forward.  Whenever you see a good target overextending, you move in for the pounce and alert the raid to what you're doing (Ventrilo is so useful here).  Hopefully the leader will decide to attack your target of opportunity.  Don't be discouraged if your prey gets away, just restealth and wait for the next opportunity.

An alternative to this strategy is to listen for the target of the main raid (again, Ventrilo) and time your pounce to coincide with the main attack.

I've had good success with this since MoM.  If you're fighting Raid v. Raid, I highly recommend to stun and run, as staying to DPS against the crowd control and DPS of the freeps would be difficult to survive.  This is very situational, though and depends highly on your coordination with the main raid, as random stun and runs are pointless.  You have to be reasonably sure the main raid will be focused on the targets you've picked out for pouncing.

2. The Minstrel Cycle

Harassing minstrels is not a bad idea, but as you probably know they are precious to freep raids and attacking them often gets a lot of attention.  You probably won't kill a raided minstrel without assistance, but you can annoy them.  Obviously, a good stun and run at the right moment can mean the diffrence between life and death for whatever freep just missed their heal.  If minstrels are stun-immune, remember to use your silence skill at similarly appropriate times.  Since there's a one minute cooldown on this skill, you have time to do other things, but always remember that you should put your silence skill to use as often as you can, but at the same time not using it just randomly.

Applying the power drain doesn't hurt, especially if the minstrel is already low on power.

3. Retreat!

There are ways wargs can help in retreat situations.  If the creeps are retreating, try to cover them with pounces to help them escape.  Depending on the situation it can be a good idea to pounce LMs, champs, hunters, and burgs.  When in doubt, pounce whatever is close and whatever is doing DPS or CC to the retreating forces.  Use your best judgement to decide whether you can help at all or if it would be more effective to get out fast and deny the freeps the chance to take you *and* the stragglers down.

When the freeps retreat you have a few choices.  For maximum infamy, stick with the raid and pounce/claws whatever target they are on.  For maximum contribution to the overall effort, move past the first couple of obvious targets and pounce/cripple some of the freeps who otherwise might have gotten away.

In both situations, use your sprint and disappear as needed.  Sprint is great to chase down that last freep and disappear is good to get away after helping a straggling creep escape.  Do what you can but don't sacrifice yourself to the freep raid, possibly giving them one extra kill they wouldn't have otherwise.

4. Catch the Straggler

One of my favorite past-times in the moors.  This goes hand-in-hand with scouting, but in this case your ultimate goal is to get a kill.  Often as the freep raid moves around, someone is left well behind the group playing catch-up.  Be patient and wait for the right moment and the right freep.  Often they will not stay and fight once pounced, but will attempt to run towards the freep raid (while probably calling them back to get you).  During this window when their back is to you and the raid is coming to get you, you have to make the kill.

Sometimes you will be very lucky and find a freep who has lazily run into unfriendly NPCs or is so far away from the raid that they probably won't bother coming to help them for a warg who will probably disappear anyway.  These are the real opportunities that you're looking for.

Since MoM our DPS has increased nicely, meaning that any straggling freeps have an even better chance at dying to our hands.  Pick your target carefully, time it just right, and you'll get a kill right under the raid's nose.  This is especially fun and effective if everyone is on horses and you get a squishy near the end of the raid.

Other tactics:

1. Stun lock using Pounce and Tendon Shred

If your pounce does not crit from stealth, the target will merely be stunned.  Wait four seconds (approximately one skill usage after pounce) and use Tendon Shred.  The opponent will be knocked down and stunned for five more seconds.  Getting the perfect timing for the maximum stun lock is the big challenge here.  Even many vets, including myself, don't get the timing right for the full lock down every time.  As a basic starting point you can use one skill between the pounce and the knock-down, so a stun lock may look something like:

Pounce -> Claws -> Tendon Shred -> DPS

2. Stun lock using Pounce and Pounce

This requires some patience and attentiveness.  With MoM we get an extra class trait slot, so most people slot the +20% crit chance from stealth.  With a critted pounce, we get a knock-down.  Use this to your advantage.  When another warg has pounced and not critted, consider pouncing the target again for the 30-ish percent chance to knock them down for five additional seconds.

3. Bleeding the burgs

Use the maul from stealth to your advantage.  Since stunning a burg opens up a skill that heals them and gives +50% evade for 30 seconds, it's a bad idea to pounce them most of the time.  Instead, use Maul from stealth to apply a 20 second bleed.  If the burg sticks around, apply your other bleeds as well.  Since most BAs and spiders usually also react to burgs by applying bleeds, this is a good way to kill them.  Also, don't forget that Swipe can't be evaded, so use that when possible to pile on the DPS.  If the burg still hasn't HIPS'd, is still in range, and you're not in danger of dying, consider applying the Pack Hunters flag to add 20 damage per tick of every DOT on them.

Skill Cycles
-------------

Most efficient overall DPS (great for NPCs):

1) Maul from stealth
2) Crippling Bite -> Savage Fangs
3) Pack Hunters
4) Maul
5) Pounce (to stun)
6) Move behind NPC if stunned -> Scratch & Snip or Swipe
7) Auto-attack and/or Claws until NPC is dead

Biggest burst damage:

1) Pounce
2) Move behind target -> Scratch & Snip -> Swipe

1) (if no stun required) Claws from stealth and behind
2) Scratch & Snip -> Swipe


One v. One Tips
-------------------

One v. ones in MoM are fast and furious.  The first tip is use everything you have!  At rank 8, I begin fights by debuffing my enemy if possible.  This includes using Flea Bitten, Rend, and the Pack Hunters flag.  I also apply all the bleeds I can.  From there it's about using your DPS skills as best you can, stunning when you need to (using offensive Disappear -> Pounce, Tendon Shred, and Crippling Bite -> Pounce), and using pots to heal, break stuns, roots, and fears, etc.

In general you should keep moving, try to fight from behind the target, and time your skills to coincide when you'll be facing your opponent (you don't want to get the "Must face target" error when you're trying to get an imporant skill to fire).

As a last note, there's something to be said about honor.  If you choose a fight, stick around until one of you is dead as long as the fight remains fair or tipped in your favor.  I do not disappear and run from a fight that I picked, but ultimately that is your choice.  On the other hand, if another freep joins the fight I may decide to escape the situation or try to get NPCs involved.  If another creep joins the fight, and it was a fair and obvious 1v1 I will disengage and /tell them about the 1v1.  If it was not an "obvious" 1v1, I'll take all the help I can.  This gets into a grey area that each of us must decide on in each situation.

Conclusion
------------

Well, that does it for my wargie guide, I hope you've taken away something new and valuable from my playing experience and preferred play style.  I do plan to continue updating this guide as I think of new things I want to add and as new Books will inevitably change the mechanics of the Ettenmoors, so check back every now and then.