Updated Warden Developer Note (Update 42)

ESO_Nightingale

In order to help the Warden's damage production without rocking the boat too much in PvP (where they already are plenty strong), we're adding a conditional bonus that will mainly activate in PvE. We are also trying to add more sources of damage to their damage focused skill line, Animal Companions, so we can slowly look at shifting passive damage, such as Piercing Cold and the density of Glacial Presence, out of their tanking focused skill line. To clear up some of the confusion and concern we saw during PTS testing, we are NOT looking to remove morph diversity that helps frost mage DPS shine, like Arctic Blast or Winter’s Revenge. Our main concerns are on how much passive damage frost Wardens rely on to do reliable damage, and how it is allowing tankier Wardens to often out-damage others in PvP with little to no draw backs.


This is fantastic to see further clarification on, as many of us frost wardens were deeply concerned with the original note. still a few issues though. the reason arctic blast and winters revenge are any good at all is due to chilled's damage output. by looking for ways to nerf this, you will VERY likely destroy frost warden dps builds as they're propped up by chilled proc rates and damage. these are the most viable warden pve damage builds at the current moment, a fan favourite, and not performing well in pve content.

Chilled is one of, if not our most powerful damage source by far:

Doing anything to nerf its uptime and/or damage as well as piercing cold will absolutely tank frost warden's performance to a point where no-one will run it over some generic dual wield or inferno/lightning staff build. something drastic would need to be done to keep the playstyle alive. Using Frost damage is the main point of frost warden. As is, we have to go out of our way to use many sources to really get a lot out of the build as there are not that many sources within our class outside of the 2 AoE DoT skills winter's revenge and arctic blast. Northern Storm is a fun option but only a realistic option in pvp content.

If you go about this the wrong way, there will be an incredibly large community outcry. So, i think it's appropriate to suggest a direction to go in to help meet players halfway. The most popular and effective solutions i can think of would be to standardise damage types, with frost damage on the magicka scaling animal companions skills (Feral/Eternal Guardian, Dive/Screaming Cliff Racer, Scorch/Deep Fissure, Swarm/Fetcher Infection) This has many times been suggested before. this would allow more sources of frost damage skills within the class and therefore allowing the reduction of passives deemed too powerful within the winter's embrace line and easier ability to build around pure frost damage builds. currently the class's skill lines feel disjointed with catering to 2 different audiences. winters embrace power fantasy caters to frost mages while animal companions is for players wishing to play with a hunter/druid type power fantasy. For us frost mages, they mostly act as filler as the skills are too strong to not take. by making them deal frost damage, and with minor visual and sound effect changes, they can easily cater towards both audiences of players. this should realistically make it much easier to design for as now, both groups would be united. Everyone wants a polar bear that deals frost damage afterall.
With respects to lore regarding why the animals could/should do frost magic is simply because warden storytelling magic isn't actually summoning a real animal as the shalks would normally deal flame damage, and the bear would deal physical or bleed damage for example, they could therefore easily be imbued with frost magic, warden's native element. Necromancer can summon flaming skeletons and a frozen collosus, and Sorcerer can summon shock imbued daedric minions. is this really so far fetched?

I will also mention that piercing cold's bonus for increasing ice staff usage for dps players is not necessarily a bad thing, however it's roughly implemented in its current state, so if there are plans to remove this and to nerf chilled at the same time, this will greatly upset us as we enjoy using an ice staff, even if the power granted from it is currently limiting build choice. How you choose to go about this needs to be cautious. I suggest changing the ice staff bonus to only increase frost damage while equipped, so that it's not just a stat stick, but a specific bonus for frost oriented dps builds.

yadibroz

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

In order to help the Warden's damage production without rocking the boat too much in PvP (where they already are plenty strong), we're adding a conditional bonus that will mainly activate in PvE. We are also trying to add more sources of damage to their damage focused skill line, Animal Companions, so we can slowly look at shifting passive damage, such as Piercing Cold and the density of Glacial Presence, out of their tanking focused skill line. To clear up some of the confusion and concern we saw during PTS testing, we are NOT looking to remove morph diversity that helps frost mage DPS shine, like Arctic Blast or Winter’s Revenge. Our main concerns are on how much passive damage frost Wardens rely on to do reliable damage, and how it is allowing tankier Wardens to often out-damage others in PvP with little to no draw backs.


This is fantastic to see further clarification on, as many of us frost wardens were deeply concerned with the original note. still a few issues though. the reason arctic blast and winters revenge are any good at all is due to chilled's damage output. by looking for ways to nerf this, you will VERY likely destroy frost warden dps builds as they're propped up by chilled proc rates and damage. these are the most viable warden pve damage builds at the current moment, a fan favourite, and not performing well in pve content.

Chilled is one of, if not our most powerful damage source by far:

Doing anything to nerf its uptime and/or damage will absolutely tank frost warden's performance to a point where no-one will run it over some generic dual wield or inferno/lightning staff build. something drastic would need to be done to keep the playstyle alive. Using Frost damage is the main point of frost warden. As is, we have to go out of our way to use many sources to really get a lot out of the build as there are not that many sources within our class outside of the 2 AoE DoT skills winter's revenge and arctic blast. Northern Storm is a fun option but only a realistic option in pvp content.

If you go about this the wrong way, there will be an incredibly large community outcry. So, i think it's appropriate to suggest a direction to go in to help meet players halfway. The most popular and effective solutions i can think of would be to standardise damage types, with frost damage on the magicka scaling animal companions skills (Feral/Eternal Guardian, Dive/Screaming Cliff Racer, Scorch/Deep Fissure, Swarm/Fetcher Infection) This has many times been suggested before. this would allow more sources of frost damage skills within the class and therefore allowing the reduction of passives deemed too powerful within the winter's embrace line and easier ability to build around pure frost damage builds. currently the class's skill lines feel disjointed with catering to 2 different audiences. winters embrace power fantasy caters to frost mages while animal companions is for players wishing to play with a hunter/druid type power fantasy. For us frost mages, they mostly act as filler as the skills are too strong to not take. by making them deal frost damage, and with minor visual and sound effect changes, they can easily cater towards both audiences of players. this should realistically make it much easier to design for as now, both groups would be united. Everyone wants a polar bear that deals frost damage afterall.
With respects to lore regarding why the animals could/should do frost magic is simply because warden storytelling magic isn't actually summoning a real animal as the shalks would normally deal flame damage, and the bear would deal physical or bleed damage for example, they could therefore easily be imbued with frost magic, warden's native element. Necromancer can summon flaming skeletons and a frozen collosus, and Sorcerer can summon shock imbued daedric minions. is this really so far fetched?

I will also mention that piercing cold's bonus for increasing ice staff usage for dps players is not necessarily a bad thing, however it's roughly implemented in its current state, so if there are plans to remove this and to nerf chilled at the same time, this will greatly upset us as we enjoy using an ice staff, even if the power granted from it is currently limiting build choice. How you choose to go about this needs to be cautious. I suggest changing the ice staff bonus to only increase frost damage while equipped, so that it's not just a stat stick, but a specific bonus for frost oriented dps builds.

So is this a nerf for ice right

ESO_Nightingale

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

In order to help the Warden's damage production without rocking the boat too much in PvP (where they already are plenty strong), we're adding a conditional bonus that will mainly activate in PvE. We are also trying to add more sources of damage to their damage focused skill line, Animal Companions, so we can slowly look at shifting passive damage, such as Piercing Cold and the density of Glacial Presence, out of their tanking focused skill line. To clear up some of the confusion and concern we saw during PTS testing, we are NOT looking to remove morph diversity that helps frost mage DPS shine, like Arctic Blast or Winter’s Revenge. Our main concerns are on how much passive damage frost Wardens rely on to do reliable damage, and how it is allowing tankier Wardens to often out-damage others in PvP with little to no draw backs.


This is fantastic to see further clarification on, as many of us frost wardens were deeply concerned with the original note. still a few issues though. the reason arctic blast and winters revenge are any good at all is due to chilled's damage output. by looking for ways to nerf this, you will VERY likely destroy frost warden dps builds as they're propped up by chilled proc rates and damage. these are the most viable warden pve damage builds at the current moment, a fan favourite, and not performing well in pve content.

Chilled is one of, if not our most powerful damage source by far:

Doing anything to nerf its uptime and/or damage will absolutely tank frost warden's performance to a point where no-one will run it over some generic dual wield or inferno/lightning staff build. something drastic would need to be done to keep the playstyle alive. Using Frost damage is the main point of frost warden. As is, we have to go out of our way to use many sources to really get a lot out of the build as there are not that many sources within our class outside of the 2 AoE DoT skills winter's revenge and arctic blast. Northern Storm is a fun option but only a realistic option in pvp content.

If you go about this the wrong way, there will be an incredibly large community outcry. So, i think it's appropriate to suggest a direction to go in to help meet players halfway. The most popular and effective solutions i can think of would be to standardise damage types, with frost damage on the magicka scaling animal companions skills (Feral/Eternal Guardian, Dive/Screaming Cliff Racer, Scorch/Deep Fissure, Swarm/Fetcher Infection) This has many times been suggested before. this would allow more sources of frost damage skills within the class and therefore allowing the reduction of passives deemed too powerful within the winter's embrace line and easier ability to build around pure frost damage builds. currently the class's skill lines feel disjointed with catering to 2 different audiences. winters embrace power fantasy caters to frost mages while animal companions is for players wishing to play with a hunter/druid type power fantasy. For us frost mages, they mostly act as filler as the skills are too strong to not take. by making them deal frost damage, and with minor visual and sound effect changes, they can easily cater towards both audiences of players. this should realistically make it much easier to design for as now, both groups would be united. Everyone wants a polar bear that deals frost damage afterall.
With respects to lore regarding why the animals could/should do frost magic is simply because warden storytelling magic isn't actually summoning a real animal as the shalks would normally deal flame damage, and the bear would deal physical or bleed damage for example, they could therefore easily be imbued with frost magic, warden's native element. Necromancer can summon flaming skeletons and a frozen collosus, and Sorcerer can summon shock imbued daedric minions. is this really so far fetched?

I will also mention that piercing cold's bonus for increasing ice staff usage for dps players is not necessarily a bad thing, however it's roughly implemented in its current state, so if there are plans to remove this and to nerf chilled at the same time, this will greatly upset us as we enjoy using an ice staff, even if the power granted from it is currently limiting build choice. How you choose to go about this needs to be cautious. I suggest changing the ice staff bonus to only increase frost damage while equipped, so that it's not just a stat stick, but a specific bonus for frost oriented dps builds.

So is this a nerf for ice right

We don't know until they make changes, but it's extremely likely to be without reasonable compensation to frost dps elements of warden/the ice staff.

yadibroz

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

In order to help the Warden's damage production without rocking the boat too much in PvP (where they already are plenty strong), we're adding a conditional bonus that will mainly activate in PvE. We are also trying to add more sources of damage to their damage focused skill line, Animal Companions, so we can slowly look at shifting passive damage, such as Piercing Cold and the density of Glacial Presence, out of their tanking focused skill line. To clear up some of the confusion and concern we saw during PTS testing, we are NOT looking to remove morph diversity that helps frost mage DPS shine, like Arctic Blast or Winter’s Revenge. Our main concerns are on how much passive damage frost Wardens rely on to do reliable damage, and how it is allowing tankier Wardens to often out-damage others in PvP with little to no draw backs.


This is fantastic to see further clarification on, as many of us frost wardens were deeply concerned with the original note. still a few issues though. the reason arctic blast and winters revenge are any good at all is due to chilled's damage output. by looking for ways to nerf this, you will VERY likely destroy frost warden dps builds as they're propped up by chilled proc rates and damage. these are the most viable warden pve damage builds at the current moment, a fan favourite, and not performing well in pve content.

Chilled is one of, if not our most powerful damage source by far:

Doing anything to nerf its uptime and/or damage will absolutely tank frost warden's performance to a point where no-one will run it over some generic dual wield or inferno/lightning staff build. something drastic would need to be done to keep the playstyle alive. Using Frost damage is the main point of frost warden. As is, we have to go out of our way to use many sources to really get a lot out of the build as there are not that many sources within our class outside of the 2 AoE DoT skills winter's revenge and arctic blast. Northern Storm is a fun option but only a realistic option in pvp content.

If you go about this the wrong way, there will be an incredibly large community outcry. So, i think it's appropriate to suggest a direction to go in to help meet players halfway. The most popular and effective solutions i can think of would be to standardise damage types, with frost damage on the magicka scaling animal companions skills (Feral/Eternal Guardian, Dive/Screaming Cliff Racer, Scorch/Deep Fissure, Swarm/Fetcher Infection) This has many times been suggested before. this would allow more sources of frost damage skills within the class and therefore allowing the reduction of passives deemed too powerful within the winter's embrace line and easier ability to build around pure frost damage builds. currently the class's skill lines feel disjointed with catering to 2 different audiences. winters embrace power fantasy caters to frost mages while animal companions is for players wishing to play with a hunter/druid type power fantasy. For us frost mages, they mostly act as filler as the skills are too strong to not take. by making them deal frost damage, and with minor visual and sound effect changes, they can easily cater towards both audiences of players. this should realistically make it much easier to design for as now, both groups would be united. Everyone wants a polar bear that deals frost damage afterall.
With respects to lore regarding why the animals could/should do frost magic is simply because warden storytelling magic isn't actually summoning a real animal as the shalks would normally deal flame damage, and the bear would deal physical or bleed damage for example, they could therefore easily be imbued with frost magic, warden's native element. Necromancer can summon flaming skeletons and a frozen collosus, and Sorcerer can summon shock imbued daedric minions. is this really so far fetched?

I will also mention that piercing cold's bonus for increasing ice staff usage for dps players is not necessarily a bad thing, however it's roughly implemented in its current state, so if there are plans to remove this and to nerf chilled at the same time, this will greatly upset us as we enjoy using an ice staff, even if the power granted from it is currently limiting build choice. How you choose to go about this needs to be cautious. I suggest changing the ice staff bonus to only increase frost damage while equipped, so that it's not just a stat stick, but a specific bonus for frost oriented dps builds.

So is this a nerf for ice right

We don't know until they make changes, but it's extremely likely to be without reasonable compensation to frost dps elements of warden/the ice staff.

Warden fit more as ice than anything else so I wish they add more ice option than anything else like sorceress and dk.

BasP

It's good to read that the morphs they mentioned won't be adjusted. I still wonder what changes ZOS will end up making, though.

It would indeed be great if more DPS skills would deal Frost damage. But if Piercing Cold and Glacial Presence are significantly nerfed (or even replaced by passives that are more related to tanking), that still seems like a damage loss to me. Unless Advanced Species would be changed to "Increases your Critical Damage by 4% and your Damage Done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted" or something.

ESO_Nightingale

BasP wrote: »

It's good to read that the morphs they mentioned won't be adjusted. I still wonder what changes ZOS will end up making, though.

It would indeed be great if more DPS skills would deal Frost damage. But if Piercing Cold and Glacial Presence are significantly nerfed (or even replaced by passives that are more related to tanking), that still seems like a damage loss to me. Unless Advanced Species would be changed to "Increases your Critical Damage by 4% and your Damage Done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted" or something.

My guess would be nerfing the chilled proc rate and damage as well as redesigning piercing cold. I'd be fine with a piercing cold rework if glacial presence was going to remain untouched but that seems highly unlikely given the wording. I highly doubt whatever change they'll make is going to do anything other than return us to dual wield/inferno/shock staff meta. A good way to help mitigate this problem would be to finally commit to changing animal companions skills to frost damage, not because that would inherently increase our damage, but because it would eliminate the conflicting nature of the frost mage aspect and the druid aspect and would allow the skill line to be solidly designed to just be good without needing to capitulate to 2 different playstyles.

yadibroz

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

It's good to read that the morphs they mentioned won't be adjusted. I still wonder what changes ZOS will end up making, though.

It would indeed be great if more DPS skills would deal Frost damage. But if Piercing Cold and Glacial Presence are significantly nerfed (or even replaced by passives that are more related to tanking), that still seems like a damage loss to me. Unless Advanced Species would be changed to "Increases your Critical Damage by 4% and your Damage Done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted" or something.

My guess would be nerfing the chilled proc rate and damage as well as redesigning piercing cold. I'd be fine with a piercing cold rework if glacial presence was going to remain untouched but that seems highly unlikely given the wording. I highly doubt whatever change they'll make is going to do anything other than return us to dual wield/inferno/shock staff meta. A good way to help mitigate this problem would be to finally commit to changing animal companions skills to frost damage, not because that would inherently increase our damage, but because it would eliminate the conflicting nature of the frost mage aspect and the druid aspect and would allow the skill line to be solidly designed to just be good without needing to capitulate to 2 different playstyles.

Only rework I want for ice is more abilities and change the minor resolve for something else like snare or vulnerability

ESO_Nightingale

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

It's good to read that the morphs they mentioned won't be adjusted. I still wonder what changes ZOS will end up making, though.

It would indeed be great if more DPS skills would deal Frost damage. But if Piercing Cold and Glacial Presence are significantly nerfed (or even replaced by passives that are more related to tanking), that still seems like a damage loss to me. Unless Advanced Species would be changed to "Increases your Critical Damage by 4% and your Damage Done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted" or something.

My guess would be nerfing the chilled proc rate and damage as well as redesigning piercing cold. I'd be fine with a piercing cold rework if glacial presence was going to remain untouched but that seems highly unlikely given the wording. I highly doubt whatever change they'll make is going to do anything other than return us to dual wield/inferno/shock staff meta. A good way to help mitigate this problem would be to finally commit to changing animal companions skills to frost damage, not because that would inherently increase our damage, but because it would eliminate the conflicting nature of the frost mage aspect and the druid aspect and would allow the skill line to be solidly designed to just be good without needing to capitulate to 2 different playstyles.

Only rework I want for ice is more abilities and change the minor resolve for something else like snare or vulnerability

What do you mean minor resolve? We have class major resolve on frost cloak. We also already have minor vulnerability on fetcher infection.

_Ahala_

When it comes to priorities and future changes, maybe we should focus on improving the class functionally. It really suffers from abilities that are functionally confusing, a bit gimmicky, or uhh flat out unfun.

Confusing: arctic blast straight up anti-synergizes with cliff racer (<6m pbaoe range for the stun on arctic blast vs >7m off balance and increased weapon/spell damage range for cliff racer), best healing abilities (arctic blast and polar wind) are in the frost line for some reason while some of the green balance abilities are really weak (why does polar wind feel so much stronger practically than secluded grove and morphs?), living trellis (feels really bad compared to launch for some reason, must have missed the nerf), fungal growth and morphs (why do they feel so much worse than combat prayer and why are they overshadowed by polar wind?). TLDR: arctic blast does not work with cliff racer, some green balance abilities have been over-nerfed

Gimmicky: frozen retreat (slow and gimmicky), natures embrace (slow and way way too weak), natures grasp (too weak given how selfless it is). TLDR: frozen retreat and natures embrace need improvement

Unfun mechanics: Cliff racer is too slow compared to force pulse or elemental weapon, fissure is a shell of its former glory with much of its damage deferred to the second burst (9s wait after the initial cast feels really bad in combat ), fetcher infection is just boring with its every other cast mechanic, arctic blast stun delay short 6m (less than melee range standard lol) pbaoe targetting and high cost make it clunky to use, class lacks an execute (bear doesnt count since it cant be spammed) and reliable on demand stun which makes it overly reliant on outside skills, class passives punish players for using anything other than a frost staff which feels bad for build diversity and theory crafting. TLDR: many core abilities too slow and clunky and it feels bad to be forced into using an ice staff

On the bright side: northern storm feels amazing now, blue betty is great, bird of prey feels fun and synergizes well with the positional nature of shalk’s offense, and the addition of more viable damage skills in winters revenge makes the class feel a bit more interesting.

Yes, making some magic damage skills do frost damage could help the class maybe synergize better with itself and some specific armor sets, but different colored abilities and damage numbers aren't really going to do much in the long run regarding how fun the class is to play. That has more to do with having abilities that are fast enough to work in actual gameplay situations and synergize well with eachother.

In all of these problems lies some great opportunities to make the class really fun and interactive for new and veteran players alike. I have some suggestions having played this class for far too long but I’ve learned over time that ZOS really just prefers to come up with their own solutions so I will leave it at that.

yadibroz

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

It's good to read that the morphs they mentioned won't be adjusted. I still wonder what changes ZOS will end up making, though.

It would indeed be great if more DPS skills would deal Frost damage. But if Piercing Cold and Glacial Presence are significantly nerfed (or even replaced by passives that are more related to tanking), that still seems like a damage loss to me. Unless Advanced Species would be changed to "Increases your Critical Damage by 4% and your Damage Done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted" or something.

My guess would be nerfing the chilled proc rate and damage as well as redesigning piercing cold. I'd be fine with a piercing cold rework if glacial presence was going to remain untouched but that seems highly unlikely given the wording. I highly doubt whatever change they'll make is going to do anything other than return us to dual wield/inferno/shock staff meta. A good way to help mitigate this problem would be to finally commit to changing animal companions skills to frost damage, not because that would inherently increase our damage, but because it would eliminate the conflicting nature of the frost mage aspect and the druid aspect and would allow the skill line to be solidly designed to just be good without needing to capitulate to 2 different playstyles.

Only rework I want for ice is more abilities and change the minor resolve for something else like snare or vulnerability

What do you mean minor resolve? We have class major resolve on frost cloak. We also already have minor vulnerability on fetcher infection.

On the frost staff abilities contain resolve, I wish it replace for something else, that what I mean.

ESO_Nightingale

_Ahala_ wrote: »

When it comes to priorities and future changes, maybe we should focus on improving the class functionally. It really suffers from abilities that are functionally confusing, a bit gimmicky, or uhh flat out unfun.

Confusing: arctic blast straight up anti-synergizes with cliff racer (<6m pbaoe range for the stun on arctic blast vs >7m off balance and increased weapon/spell damage range for cliff racer), best healing abilities (arctic blast and polar wind) are in the frost line for some reason while some of the green balance abilities are really weak (why does polar wind feel so much stronger practically than secluded grove and morphs?), living trellis (feels really bad compared to launch for some reason, must have missed the nerf), fungal growth and morphs (why do they feel so much worse than combat prayer and why are they overshadowed by polar wind?). TLDR: arctic blast does not work with cliff racer, some green balance abilities have been over-nerfed

Gimmicky: frozen retreat (slow and gimmicky), natures embrace (slow and way way too weak), natures grasp (too weak given how selfless it is). TLDR: frozen retreat and natures embrace need improvement

Unfun mechanics: Cliff racer is too slow compared to force pulse or elemental weapon, fissure is a shell of its former glory with much of its damage deferred to the second burst (9s wait after the initial cast feels really bad in combat ), fetcher infection is just boring with its every other cast mechanic, arctic blast stun delay short 6m (less than melee range standard lol) pbaoe targetting and high cost make it clunky to use, class lacks an execute (bear doesnt count since it cant be spammed) and reliable on demand stun which makes it overly reliant on outside skills, class passives punish players for using anything other than a frost staff which feels bad for build diversity and theory crafting. TLDR: many core abilities too slow and clunky and it feels bad to be forced into using an ice staff

On the bright side: northern storm feels amazing now, blue betty is great, bird of prey feels fun and synergizes well with the positional nature of shalk’s offense, and the addition of more viable damage skills in winters revenge makes the class feel a bit more interesting.

Yes, making some magic damage skills do frost damage could help the class maybe synergize better with itself and some specific armor sets, but different colored abilities and damage numbers aren't really going to do much in the long run regarding how fun the class is to play. That has more to do with having abilities that are fast enough to work in actual gameplay situations and synergize well with eachother.

In all of these problems lies some great opportunities to make the class really fun and interactive for new and veteran players alike. I have some suggestions having played this class for far too long but I’ve learned over time that ZOS really just prefers to come up with their own solutions so I will leave it at that.

i think many of these problems should be fixed, however getting frost damage on animal companions allows ZOS to get warden playerbase divsion out of the way first so that we're not arguing amongst ourselves and allows them to just design things for warden dps in the future rather than specifically for frost warden or non-frost wardens

ESO_Nightingale

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

It's good to read that the morphs they mentioned won't be adjusted. I still wonder what changes ZOS will end up making, though.

It would indeed be great if more DPS skills would deal Frost damage. But if Piercing Cold and Glacial Presence are significantly nerfed (or even replaced by passives that are more related to tanking), that still seems like a damage loss to me. Unless Advanced Species would be changed to "Increases your Critical Damage by 4% and your Damage Done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted" or something.

My guess would be nerfing the chilled proc rate and damage as well as redesigning piercing cold. I'd be fine with a piercing cold rework if glacial presence was going to remain untouched but that seems highly unlikely given the wording. I highly doubt whatever change they'll make is going to do anything other than return us to dual wield/inferno/shock staff meta. A good way to help mitigate this problem would be to finally commit to changing animal companions skills to frost damage, not because that would inherently increase our damage, but because it would eliminate the conflicting nature of the frost mage aspect and the druid aspect and would allow the skill line to be solidly designed to just be good without needing to capitulate to 2 different playstyles.

Only rework I want for ice is more abilities and change the minor resolve for something else like snare or vulnerability

What do you mean minor resolve? We have class major resolve on frost cloak. We also already have minor vulnerability on fetcher infection.

On the frost staff abilities contain resolve, I wish it replace for something else, that what I mean.

I cant remember any of the frost staff skills having resolve. The closest thing is minor protection on impulse.

LeHarrt91

Yes i am glad that they clarified a bit more, and as i assumed its the passives they intend to change. I hope they do not nerf the Glacial Presence passive to much as i do quite like it, reduce it and maybe give us more Frost damage options to proc it and then if they intend to change piercing cold they need to buff our damage elsewhere and remove the Frost staff requirement as there are times that i would like to use different weapons in pve. But also making the Frost staff less of a tank weapon would help elevate the tankiness of wardens in pvp.

There are definitely a lot of passives that need to be updated as they are outdated and not good enough in the current state of the game. Bond with Natures sub 2k heal when a animal skill ends is not good unless you are spamming Cliff Racer, the 12% recovery was good when we stacked recovery but now its not enough, whether they increase it or make it a flat return amount, it just needs to be updated. It would also be nice to use different ultimates in pve and not having to double bar bear.

As a dps we do not bring anything special to the group, that another class cant do better so the class definitely needs changes.

yadibroz

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

It's good to read that the morphs they mentioned won't be adjusted. I still wonder what changes ZOS will end up making, though.

It would indeed be great if more DPS skills would deal Frost damage. But if Piercing Cold and Glacial Presence are significantly nerfed (or even replaced by passives that are more related to tanking), that still seems like a damage loss to me. Unless Advanced Species would be changed to "Increases your Critical Damage by 4% and your Damage Done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted" or something.

My guess would be nerfing the chilled proc rate and damage as well as redesigning piercing cold. I'd be fine with a piercing cold rework if glacial presence was going to remain untouched but that seems highly unlikely given the wording. I highly doubt whatever change they'll make is going to do anything other than return us to dual wield/inferno/shock staff meta. A good way to help mitigate this problem would be to finally commit to changing animal companions skills to frost damage, not because that would inherently increase our damage, but because it would eliminate the conflicting nature of the frost mage aspect and the druid aspect and would allow the skill line to be solidly designed to just be good without needing to capitulate to 2 different playstyles.

Only rework I want for ice is more abilities and change the minor resolve for something else like snare or vulnerability

What do you mean minor resolve? We have class major resolve on frost cloak. We also already have minor vulnerability on fetcher infection.

On the frost staff abilities contain resolve, I wish it replace for something else, that what I mean.

I cant remember any of the frost staff skills having resolve. The closest thing is minor protection on impulse.

Or my mistake maybe was that but still it should be replace to something better

Zodiarkslayer

yadibroz wrote: »

Or my mistake maybe was that but still it should be replace to something better

😂

ESO_Nightingale

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

It's good to read that the morphs they mentioned won't be adjusted. I still wonder what changes ZOS will end up making, though.

It would indeed be great if more DPS skills would deal Frost damage. But if Piercing Cold and Glacial Presence are significantly nerfed (or even replaced by passives that are more related to tanking), that still seems like a damage loss to me. Unless Advanced Species would be changed to "Increases your Critical Damage by 4% and your Damage Done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted" or something.

My guess would be nerfing the chilled proc rate and damage as well as redesigning piercing cold. I'd be fine with a piercing cold rework if glacial presence was going to remain untouched but that seems highly unlikely given the wording. I highly doubt whatever change they'll make is going to do anything other than return us to dual wield/inferno/shock staff meta. A good way to help mitigate this problem would be to finally commit to changing animal companions skills to frost damage, not because that would inherently increase our damage, but because it would eliminate the conflicting nature of the frost mage aspect and the druid aspect and would allow the skill line to be solidly designed to just be good without needing to capitulate to 2 different playstyles.

Only rework I want for ice is more abilities and change the minor resolve for something else like snare or vulnerability

What do you mean minor resolve? We have class major resolve on frost cloak. We also already have minor vulnerability on fetcher infection.

On the frost staff abilities contain resolve, I wish it replace for something else, that what I mean.

I cant remember any of the frost staff skills having resolve. The closest thing is minor protection on impulse.

Or my mistake maybe was that but still it should be replace to something better

I reckon frost impulse should deal more damage to enemies affected by crowd control. (Snares, Immobilisation and hard cc like Stuns, Charms and Fears)

SandandStars

from a pvp perspective, i like that a perfected frost staff has been a viable option to the generic dual wield build

i have a feeling changes to glacial presence will make this build fall back to C tier, as most of its damage comes from frost reach and northern storm

warden (i still consider mine a magden) is able to compete decently with nbs & dks now, a significant nerf to glacial will gut its damage

it’s not like deep fissure is op at all, (does 200 more dmg than concealed weapon, at a 9 sec interval)

and cliff racers have always been useles in pvp

yadibroz

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

It's good to read that the morphs they mentioned won't be adjusted. I still wonder what changes ZOS will end up making, though.

It would indeed be great if more DPS skills would deal Frost damage. But if Piercing Cold and Glacial Presence are significantly nerfed (or even replaced by passives that are more related to tanking), that still seems like a damage loss to me. Unless Advanced Species would be changed to "Increases your Critical Damage by 4% and your Damage Done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted" or something.

My guess would be nerfing the chilled proc rate and damage as well as redesigning piercing cold. I'd be fine with a piercing cold rework if glacial presence was going to remain untouched but that seems highly unlikely given the wording. I highly doubt whatever change they'll make is going to do anything other than return us to dual wield/inferno/shock staff meta. A good way to help mitigate this problem would be to finally commit to changing animal companions skills to frost damage, not because that would inherently increase our damage, but because it would eliminate the conflicting nature of the frost mage aspect and the druid aspect and would allow the skill line to be solidly designed to just be good without needing to capitulate to 2 different playstyles.

Only rework I want for ice is more abilities and change the minor resolve for something else like snare or vulnerability

What do you mean minor resolve? We have class major resolve on frost cloak. We also already have minor vulnerability on fetcher infection.

On the frost staff abilities contain resolve, I wish it replace for something else, that what I mean.

I cant remember any of the frost staff skills having resolve. The closest thing is minor protection on impulse.

Or my mistake maybe was that but still it should be replace to something better

I reckon frost impulse should deal more damage to enemies affected by crowd control. (Snares, Immobilisation and hard cc like Stuns, Charms and Fears)

It should but won't happen because they hate ice

ESO_Nightingale

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

It's good to read that the morphs they mentioned won't be adjusted. I still wonder what changes ZOS will end up making, though.

It would indeed be great if more DPS skills would deal Frost damage. But if Piercing Cold and Glacial Presence are significantly nerfed (or even replaced by passives that are more related to tanking), that still seems like a damage loss to me. Unless Advanced Species would be changed to "Increases your Critical Damage by 4% and your Damage Done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted" or something.

My guess would be nerfing the chilled proc rate and damage as well as redesigning piercing cold. I'd be fine with a piercing cold rework if glacial presence was going to remain untouched but that seems highly unlikely given the wording. I highly doubt whatever change they'll make is going to do anything other than return us to dual wield/inferno/shock staff meta. A good way to help mitigate this problem would be to finally commit to changing animal companions skills to frost damage, not because that would inherently increase our damage, but because it would eliminate the conflicting nature of the frost mage aspect and the druid aspect and would allow the skill line to be solidly designed to just be good without needing to capitulate to 2 different playstyles.

Only rework I want for ice is more abilities and change the minor resolve for something else like snare or vulnerability

What do you mean minor resolve? We have class major resolve on frost cloak. We also already have minor vulnerability on fetcher infection.

On the frost staff abilities contain resolve, I wish it replace for something else, that what I mean.

I cant remember any of the frost staff skills having resolve. The closest thing is minor protection on impulse.

Or my mistake maybe was that but still it should be replace to something better

I reckon frost impulse should deal more damage to enemies affected by crowd control. (Snares, Immobilisation and hard cc like Stuns, Charms and Fears)

It should but won't happen because they hate ice

Hate is a strong word. They just don't make many balance changes a year.

Akatron

If they change something they can give warden a meele spamable.

Maybe the stamina morph of cliff racer change to a meele attack.

ESO_Nightingale

Akatron wrote: »

If they change something they can give warden a meele spamable.

Maybe the stamina morph of cliff racer change to a meele attack.

I'd say that dive in general should update to be an instant melee spammable when in melee range, granting it 10% more damage. But maintaining itself as a ranged spammable at 7+ meters

MEBengalsFan2001

With scribing in play the devs should update the ice staff passives so it’s buffs ice damage.

sleepy_worm

This just feels like game design musical chairs. What's the long-term picture here?

ESO_Nightingale

sleepy_worm wrote: »

This just feels like game design musical chairs. What's the long-term picture here?

for us or zos?