Is mag warden trash or is it just me?

frattastic

In PvE, it lags behind all other classes and has serious sustain issues, even with netch, which is really saying something. Mag shalks are awful, giving you a bonus your tank is giving anyway. All the other bonuses mag warden gets were already given by other abilities in game, such as netch giving major sorcery, also granted by structured entropy, or lotus flowers giving crit, which was given by inner light already. Mag warden brings absolutely nothing new to the table. Also cliff racer is just the worst spammable in game...it just 'feels' bad.

In PvP, you almost never see a mag warden unless its healing. No RELIABLE class stun, no class or weapon execute, no blink or charge to enemies, no unique flavor of abilities like nightblades or sorcerers have. Doesnt have healing like a templar does, and all of the warden ults are useless. Trees are okay, I guess, but bear is trash and northern storm is weak as ice is just weak in general. Cliff racer is easily dodged, and magwarden cant stack absurd amounts of magicka like Dk's or sorcs can.

I understand that a lot of this can be offset, especially by using hybrid abilities, but magwarden never really reaches the potential of just about any other class. you have to try way harder just to do what others classes do without effort.

Dexter411

10% increased magic and ice damage, brittleden goes brrrr. It does not lack behind it lacks good and logical magicka morphs

One of the bear morphs is useless, since wardens gain passive boost to magicka damage and will always out damage the physical morph which is LOL horrible overlook

WrathOfInnos

You need to use Subterranean Assault instead of Deep Fissure. This helps magicka sustain and increases your damage by casting an extra skill every 6s. Magden isn't as good as DK in PVE, but it can be a pretty solid choice. I do think it has a learning curve, since positioning and angling Shalks is very important, and the skill timers are all over the place demanding a full dynamic rotation.

Screaming Cliff racer could use a buff, it is inferior to Cutting Dive, but I'm resisting swapping because it is basically stamden with Winter's Revenge at that point.

If you want to play magden in group content the brittle build is always an option. Lower personal DPS than dual daggers, but most groups welcome the buff. My only complaint with brittle is that the skill timers end up even more awkward, with 4s effective Frost Reach, 6s Sub Assault, 10s Orb and Fetcher, 12s Winter and either 15s Stampede or 10s Wall.

ESO_Nightingale

in pve it's pretty good, but it's identity is really weird since you're forced to use stam shalks and there's STILL only 1 viable winters embrace skill for damage dealing if you want to make a frost build. In pvp it's absolutely awful compared to literally anything else, you just gain so much by going into stamina instead since they can use deep fissure now anyway. stamden is mostly just a better magden in nearly every way. sub assault is a pve skill and deep fissure is a pvp skill.

El_Borracho

I gave up on trying to make my mag warden a fun DD in PVE. It is a great tank though.

AcadianPaladin

I like my PvE mostly solo magwarden. Her survivability, sustain and damage match my magplar main and exceed my magsorc and magblade.

Gargath

frattastic wrote: »

Cliff racer is easily dodged, and magwarden cant stack absurd amounts of magicka like Dk's or sorcs can. (...)

I understand that a lot of this can be offset, especially by using hybrid abilities, but magwarden never really reaches the potential of just about any other class. you have to try way harder just to do what others classes do without effort.

What amount of magicka do you think is absurd? With Necropotence it can have over 50k magicka pool and mag warden is a fun class for dealing frost damage. I like my frost mage much more than my DK or sorcerers. Every cast of Winter's Revenge with Blockade of Frost chilles and immobilizes all standard mobs for a few seconds. A lot of fun seeing them unable to move while the frost slowly sucks off their lifepoints. I had never any issues with lack of magicka or survivability during fights.


PS. the stats are probably from before last patches, so would have to check if 55k magicka is still possible with Necropotence and Netch.

ixthUA

I soloed (no companion) every base game world boss on my magden. Stamina morphs of shalks and swarm are needed. Double ice staves for nice bonuses.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

You need to use Subterranean Assault instead of Deep Fissure. This helps magicka sustain and increases your damage by casting an extra skill every 6s. Magden isn't as good as DK in PVE, but it can be a pretty solid choice. I do think it has a learning curve, since positioning and angling Shalks is very important, and the skill timers are all over the place demanding a full dynamic rotation.

Screaming Cliff racer could use a buff, it is inferior to Cutting Dive, but I'm resisting swapping because it is basically stamden with Winter's Revenge at that point.

If you want to play magden in group content the brittle build is always an option. Lower personal DPS than dual daggers, but most groups welcome the buff. My only complaint with brittle is that the skill timers end up even more awkward, with 4s effective Frost Reach, 6s Sub Assault, 10s Orb and Fetcher, 12s Winter and either 15s Stampede or 10s Wall.

This seems to be a trend with both of the what I call the "3 second" classes (necro and warden). For necro, the stam morph of blastbones is basically garbage in PVE, and with warden, its the opposite. The magic morph is garbage. For necro, you really dont care about defile and want fire damage in a raid when possible, for Warden, you dont care about major breach in any PVE group.

I have not gone that deep into warden in a long time, but on necro, it seems to be best to go hybrid. Stack into stamina, but because you cast Blastbones so frequently and it costs magic, you want your potions to give magic recovery, so you end up also stacking into spell power. Little strange, but works very well. Not sure if something similar is needed on warden or not. Sub assault ends up being a 6 second skill, so my guess is that its fairly easy to sustain spec'd all into magic, but you almost certainly need to pay extra attention to your stamina in case you need to dodge or break free.

I remember Liko was doing really good magden DPS in raids a year or two, but you definitely dont see them in most raids as a DPS.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

ixthUA wrote: »

I soloed (no companion) every base game world boss on my magden. Stamina morphs of shalks and swarm are needed. Double ice staves for nice bonuses.

Not exactly a high bar if I am being honest. When doing stickerbook, I did everyone on basically a very glassy trial mageblade (seemed to be the fastest). Most are like 1.5 mil heatlh trial dummies, at most, you need to dodge or break free a time or two. Very few do much if you kill fast enough. Magden is pretty good solo though. Made for a very easy FC in VMA. Not the fastest, but they have a good all around toolkit for that sort of thing. Just not sure they are breaking any DPS records lately. Reality is, magden is better for support than a DPS, and I am okay with that. Not every class needs to be best at everything.

Kahnak

It's just you.

How well you do in this game has far more to do with skill than it does the class you are playing. I'm pretty sure that NB is still at the very bottom in terms of dummy DPS and NB's are top DPS in several record setting trial groups.

Runefang

Magden is like most classes in PvE. Perfectly viable to complete any content, even trifectas. But you make it harder on yourself and your group by running it. Plenty of other classes are in this same situation: magplar, magblade, almost all stam versions.

The question will always be, why run it over a magDK or Cro (or insert top dps for current patch)? There's no reason to unless you really enjoy the class.

Personally I love the class and am glad that at least Stamden is in a great spot.

frattastic

ixthUA wrote: »

I soloed (no companion) every base game world boss on my magden. Stamina morphs of shalks and swarm are needed. Double ice staves for nice bonuses.

this is not hard tho.

frattastic

Gargath wrote: »

frattastic wrote: »

Cliff racer is easily dodged, and magwarden cant stack absurd amounts of magicka like Dk's or sorcs can. (...)

I understand that a lot of this can be offset, especially by using hybrid abilities, but magwarden never really reaches the potential of just about any other class. you have to try way harder just to do what others classes do without effort.

What amount of magicka do you think is absurd? With Necropotence it can have over 50k magicka pool and mag warden is a fun class for dealing frost damage. I like my frost mage much more than my DK or sorcerers. Every cast of Winter's Revenge with Blockade of Frost chilles and immobilizes all standard mobs for a few seconds. A lot of fun seeing them unable to move while the frost slowly sucks off their lifepoints. I had never any issues with lack of magicka or survivability during fights.


PS. the stats are probably from before last patches, so would have to check if 55k magicka is still possible with Necropotence and Netch.

getting 50k max mag by using a 5 pc set when other classes can get it just using their skills is not a great trade.

ixthUA

frattastic wrote: »

ixthUA wrote: »

I soloed (no companion) every base game world boss on my magden. Stamina morphs of shalks and swarm are needed. Double ice staves for nice bonuses.

this is not hard tho.

A lot of people have troubles soloing craglorn.
Wardens can also do 130k dps on a dummy: https://i.imgur.com/6v7t4ka.png

Kahnak

frattastic wrote: »

Gargath wrote: »

frattastic wrote: »

Cliff racer is easily dodged, and magwarden cant stack absurd amounts of magicka like Dk's or sorcs can. (...)

I understand that a lot of this can be offset, especially by using hybrid abilities, but magwarden never really reaches the potential of just about any other class. you have to try way harder just to do what others classes do without effort.

What amount of magicka do you think is absurd? With Necropotence it can have over 50k magicka pool and mag warden is a fun class for dealing frost damage. I like my frost mage much more than my DK or sorcerers. Every cast of Winter's Revenge with Blockade of Frost chilles and immobilizes all standard mobs for a few seconds. A lot of fun seeing them unable to move while the frost slowly sucks off their lifepoints. I had never any issues with lack of magicka or survivability during fights.


PS. the stats are probably from before last patches, so would have to check if 55k magicka is still possible with Necropotence and Netch.

getting 50k max mag by using a 5 pc set when other classes can get it just using their skills is not a great trade.

No class getting 50k Max Magicka without a 5 piece.

dmnqwk

ixthUA wrote: »

frattastic wrote: »

ixthUA wrote: »

I soloed (no companion) every base game world boss on my magden. Stamina morphs of shalks and swarm are needed. Double ice staves for nice bonuses.

this is not hard tho.

A lot of people have troubles soloing craglorn.
Wardens can also do 130k dps on a dummy: https://i.imgur.com/6v7t4ka.png

That's a stamden, not a magden, by all accounts.

Marolf

frattastic wrote: »

Gargath wrote: »

frattastic wrote: »

Cliff racer is easily dodged, and magwarden cant stack absurd amounts of magicka like Dk's or sorcs can. (...)

I understand that a lot of this can be offset, especially by using hybrid abilities, but magwarden never really reaches the potential of just about any other class. you have to try way harder just to do what others classes do without effort.

What amount of magicka do you think is absurd? With Necropotence it can have over 50k magicka pool and mag warden is a fun class for dealing frost damage. I like my frost mage much more than my DK or sorcerers. Every cast of Winter's Revenge with Blockade of Frost chilles and immobilizes all standard mobs for a few seconds. A lot of fun seeing them unable to move while the frost slowly sucks off their lifepoints. I had never any issues with lack of magicka or survivability during fights.


PS. the stats are probably from before last patches, so would have to check if 55k magicka is still possible with Necropotence and Netch.

getting 50k max mag by using a 5 pc set when other classes can get it just using their skills is not a great trade.

Please, point me to these classes.

Vaoh

Warden is not up to par with the other classes overall as a Damage Dealer.

All classes can put out huge single target damage. What matters more is how some classes are more ranged, some more melee, some more tanky, some give better off-healing, some have great AoE/cleave.... etc.

In group play where you have excessive buffs/energies/healing Warden is mostly fine. But for stuff like dungeons? You will be way stronger on a DK or Templar DPS... more damage, better sustain, and tons of free healing.

Molydeus

I think it's good that not every class is best at the same things. Every class brings something different to the table, and I can't stand homogenization. For example, Wardens are better healers than Nightblades, but Nightblades are better dps. That's fine imo.

Fizzyapple

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

You need to use Subterranean Assault instead of Deep Fissure. This helps magicka sustain and increases your damage by casting an extra skill every 6s. Magden isn't as good as DK in PVE, but it can be a pretty solid choice. I do think it has a learning curve, since positioning and angling Shalks is very important, and the skill timers are all over the place demanding a full dynamic rotation.

If you want to play magden in group content the brittle build is always an option. Lower personal DPS than dual daggers, but most groups welcome the buff. My only complaint with brittle is that the skill timers end up even more awkward, with 4s effective Frost Reach, 6s Sub Assault, 10s Orb and Fetcher, 12s Winter and either 15s Stampede or 10s Wall.

lol I agree with you and great suggestions it's just not often I come across players who understand Wardens this well. Add in bows so that you have to juggle range and there you go.

ixthUA

dmnqwk wrote: »

That's a stamden, not a magden, by all accounts.

It does not matter if you stack mag or stam, since abilities scale from the higher pool.

ESO_Nightingale

ixthUA wrote: »

dmnqwk wrote: »

That's a stamden, not a magden, by all accounts.

It does not matter if you stack mag or stam, since abilities scale from the higher pool.

It does when your spammable is involved. Because you use it so much it dictates your max stat via your sustain potential. Cutting dive is a stamina spammable.

ixthUA

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

It does when your spammable is involved. Because you use it so much it dictates your max stat via your sustain potential. Cutting dive is a stamina spammable.

Sustain is based on recovery, not max stat.
Recovery potions (from login rewards) recover both mag and stam. Stone-talkers oath recovers both mag and stam. Enlivening Overflow CP recovers both mag and stam. Rejuvenation CP recovers both mag and stam. Then there is bloody renewal and siphoning spells cp of choice, can use both probably.
The parse i linked uses both mag and stam skills, and both scale from whatever stat is higher. If one resource is used more than the other, there is jelly skill which can have mag/stam morphs.

Mr_Stach

I think you misunderstood, Your Spammable dictates if you go all in on Mag or Stam. If you go all in on Mag, using cutting dive will eat up your Stam too fast no matter how much recovery you have, it will probably also dictate your front bar weapon for light sustain. Otherwise you just shoot yourself in the foot.

ixthUA

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think you misunderstood, Your Spammable dictates if you go all in on Mag or Stam. If you go all in on Mag, using cutting dive will eat up your Stam too fast no matter how much recovery you have, it will probably also dictate your front bar weapon for light sustain. Otherwise you just shoot yourself in the foot.

With full stam build i have 28k stamina, with full mag build i have 23k stamina, difference is not that big.