Artic Blast rework is absurd trash

Medicate

I really disliked the idea on PTS and hoped you'd rethink that skill design.
now playing it on live, it's a lot worse than i imagined. it's a useless skill now.

not only you need to read that skill three times to understand it now, it's just so multi layered, that it surprises me, you even understand it.

an Aoe Blast... that does deal damage... OR heals you if no one was hit? WHAT THE ***? that skill is now neither. not a heal nor a aoe
the Dot every 2 seconds... starts after 2 seconds... BRUH
the Stun after 3 Seconds... [snip], did you smoke something weird?

[snip]
[edited for bashing & profanity bypass]

CameraBeardThePirate

It's a bad change for both. Not even sure why they mentioned PvP in the patch note comments about this change, since it takes all of 30 minutes in PvP to know that 90% of Wardens already used Polar Wind in the first place. I can count on one hand the amount of Wardens I've met in PvP the last year using Arctic Blast.

I genuinely want to know where they got the idea that Arctic was an issue in PvP. Where are they getting this data? Who was complaining about it? Polar Wind is one of the strongest heals in the game, and is used by nearly every Warden in PvP.

Soarora

I’m not mad about the instant damage with the DoT starting later to be honest, it’s nice having an AoE spammable without slotting pulsar. But the heal choice is terrible. I gotta run away if I wanna heal when arctic blast healing was a non-issue. The problem everyone has is with polar wind.
(Edit: also, I feel like the stun is even more useless now because I gotta think about like 4 things when I use the skill. I slowly forgot that the skill even stuns, after it was removed from stunning immediately.)

BasP

I wish ZOS would have left Arctic Blast alone. Having to sprint or roll dodge out of an enemy's reach just to get the heal is annoying enough by itself, but then you also miss out on the instant damage portion of the skill and you're just left with a DOT that does less damage and has less chance to proc Chilled than before. Great.

Hopefully, these changes will be undone in U44... though I don't see it happening.

StarOfElyon

The only reason I'm not more upset is that I don't enjoy my warden much. But I did finally have my warden in a decent spot. I'll have to switch to polar wind on now. Maybe I'll drop pariah for plague doctor. But that means I no longer have a stun on my bar.

LittlePinkDot

StarOfElyon wrote: »

The only reason I'm not more upset is that I don't enjoy my warden much. But I did finally have my warden in a decent spot. I'll have to switch to polar wind on now. Maybe I'll drop pariah for plague doctor. But that means I no longer have a stun on my bar.

You can use Dazing soul for a stun

StarOfElyon

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

StarOfElyon wrote: »

The only reason I'm not more upset is that I don't enjoy my warden much. But I did finally have my warden in a decent spot. I'll have to switch to polar wind on now. Maybe I'll drop pariah for plague doctor. But that means I no longer have a stun on my bar.

You can use Dazing soul for a stun

I guess if I dropped the fetcher flies but then I lose a DOT. 🤔

LittlePinkDot

StarOfElyon wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

StarOfElyon wrote: »

The only reason I'm not more upset is that I don't enjoy my warden much. But I did finally have my warden in a decent spot. I'll have to switch to polar wind on now. Maybe I'll drop pariah for plague doctor. But that means I no longer have a stun on my bar.

You can use Dazing soul for a stun

I guess if I dropped the fetcher flies but then I lose a DOT. 🤔

Oh yeah... And the class mastery signature script for warden has a charm. It looks awesome. I'm going to try it out when I finish getting the class scraps.

"Create an 8 meter area for 2 seconds under your target once every 8 seconds that snares enemies by 70%, and charms them for 3 seconds when it expires. If no enemies are charmed, you restore 1000 Magicka and Stamina."

Ren_TheRedFox

@CameraBeardThePirate it is the strongest burst heal in game if u stack up your hp given the fact that it's a HoT, burst and AoE heal ... get's buffed by all 3 cp points in cyro

ESO_Nightingale

They completely ignored our feedback on why this change was bad and so they shipped it in this abysmal state. Honestly im sick of this kind of stuff happening.

StarOfElyon

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

StarOfElyon wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

StarOfElyon wrote: »

The only reason I'm not more upset is that I don't enjoy my warden much. But I did finally have my warden in a decent spot. I'll have to switch to polar wind on now. Maybe I'll drop pariah for plague doctor. But that means I no longer have a stun on my bar.

You can use Dazing soul for a stun

I guess if I dropped the fetcher flies but then I lose a DOT. 🤔

Oh yeah... And the class mastery signature script for warden has a charm. It looks awesome. I'm going to try it out when I finish getting the class scraps.

"Create an 8 meter area for 2 seconds under your target once every 8 seconds that snares enemies by 70%, and charms them for 3 seconds when it expires. If no enemies are charmed, you restore 1000 Magicka and Stamina."

Oh that's why I was losing control of my character earlier in pvp. I thought it was weird because I didn't see an Arcanist around.

moderatelyfatman

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It's a bad change for both. Not even sure why they mentioned PvP in the patch note comments about this change, since it takes all of 30 minutes in PvP to know that 90% of Wardens already used Polar Wind in the first place. I can count on one hand the amount of Wardens I've met in PvP the last year using Arctic Blast.

I genuinely want to know where they got the idea that Arctic was an issue in PvP. Where are they getting this data? Who was complaining about it? Polar Wind is one of the strongest heals in the game, and is used by nearly every Warden in PvP.

I use Arctic Blast on PvP since my warden is not a tank. It used to be a very good skill because I could time off my stun and get a heal whilst in melee ranged. Now that build is trash and the only way to PvP on a magden is as a brick.

moderatelyfatman

Medicate wrote: »

I really disliked the idea on PTS and hoped you'd rethink that skill design.
now playing it on live, it's a lot worse than i imagined. it's a useless skill now.

not only you need to read that skill three times to understand it now, it's just so multi layered, that it surprises me, you even understand it.

an Aoe Blast... that does deal damage... OR heals you if no one was hit? WHAT THE ***? that skill is now neither. not a heal nor a aoe
the Dot every 2 seconds... starts after 2 seconds... BRUH
the Stun after 3 Seconds... [snip], did you smoke something weird?

[snip]
[edited for bashing & profanity bypass]

The heal from Arctic Blast is literally useless in all forms of the game:
Overland/Solo - you need to heal when there is a mob on you.
PvE - you need to self-heal by stopping dps, rolling out of the way while hoping that the tank has pulled 100% of the trash.
PvP - you need to message your opponent to stop hitting you with dizzy swings while you heal up.

The only time when it can work reliably is in a 1v1 fight against a parsing dummy.

LittlePinkDot

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It's a bad change for both. Not even sure why they mentioned PvP in the patch note comments about this change, since it takes all of 30 minutes in PvP to know that 90% of Wardens already used Polar Wind in the first place. I can count on one hand the amount of Wardens I've met in PvP the last year using Arctic Blast.

I genuinely want to know where they got the idea that Arctic was an issue in PvP. Where are they getting this data? Who was complaining about it? Polar Wind is one of the strongest heals in the game, and is used by nearly every Warden in PvP.

I use Arctic Blast on PvP since my warden is not a tank. It used to be a very good skill because I could time off my stun and get a heal whilst in melee ranged. Now that build is trash and the only way to PvP on a magden is as a brick.

You're going to have to drop Arctic blast for a scribed skill. Dazing soul/healing soul with sages remedy/warden class mastery
Or healing soul burst with warden class mastery.

Medicate

Soarora wrote: »

I’m not mad about the instant damage with the DoT starting later to be honest, it’s nice having an AoE spammable without slotting pulsar. But the heal choice is terrible. I gotta run away if I wanna heal when arctic blast healing was a non-issue. The problem everyone has is with polar wind.
(Edit: also, I feel like the stun is even more useless now because I gotta think about like 4 things when I use the skill. I slowly forgot that the skill even stuns, after it was removed from stunning immediately.)

yea, thats an issue too. i don't get the aoe burst when we got scribing anyways.
but i might as well settle for polar wind, as the missing heal is just to big of an issue for my IA build.

even when ZOS redacted how i voiced my opinion about them not splitting the sandbox, i still wish they would do it.
And i stand by my argument that ZOS changes Warden every patch without a clear vision of how the class should be and that makes me sad

MATH_COW

Something I don't get is that burst damage change to be honest.

I don't know why they wanted to make it become a aoe spam option, mostly in the way to kill the selfheal option it was.
This skill would really just need to be a burst self heal that after 2 seconds pulse every 2 seconds as a DoT on you (with still the stun of course that then happen on the first pulse) no really need of the initial pulse to burst at all.

And I mostly don't understand why they decided that this skill should be reworked into an aoe spam when there is Frozen Gate that is totally the most pointless skill Warden got (there is way better option as grab skill mostly now with scribing and even before as the skill don't taunt when you grab something with it), which could totally be reworked as an offensive spam aoe. It's just a gimmick skill to troll at Alessia's Bridge in Cyrodiil or to unstuck some people with the morph that give a synergy lol

MATH_COW

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It's a bad change for both. Not even sure why they mentioned PvP in the patch note comments about this change, since it takes all of 30 minutes in PvP to know that 90% of Wardens already used Polar Wind in the first place. I can count on one hand the amount of Wardens I've met in PvP the last year using Arctic Blast.

I'm tired of reading that, no Polar Wind is not the most used morph in PvP.
People who say that really seem to not play warden in PvP and don't realise how much Artic Blast can be more useful in most case and how Polar Wind cannot be that more powerfull burst than Artic Blast when we got enough damage.
Yeah Polar Wind can save your mate but you'll need to burn your magicka and that's not always a good idea, most of the time it's pointless and just delay the death of your stupid mate that go too far or the opponent just wait you to have no more magicka.

And for the "it takes all of 30minutes in PvP to know" I don't think they need. That's their game they certainly got database and can know the % of use of skills and for their mention of PvP for the balance of warden this patch it was mostly about Piercing Cold, not Artic Blast which just got a lost bullet out of nowhere.

xylena_lazarow

Overengineered nonsense when a standard AoE stun with standard AoE dot would do the job perfectly.

CameraBeardThePirate

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It's a bad change for both. Not even sure why they mentioned PvP in the patch note comments about this change, since it takes all of 30 minutes in PvP to know that 90% of Wardens already used Polar Wind in the first place. I can count on one hand the amount of Wardens I've met in PvP the last year using Arctic Blast.

I genuinely want to know where they got the idea that Arctic was an issue in PvP. Where are they getting this data? Who was complaining about it? Polar Wind is one of the strongest heals in the game, and is used by nearly every Warden in PvP.

I use Arctic Blast on PvP since my warden is not a tank. It used to be a very good skill because I could time off my stun and get a heal whilst in melee ranged. Now that build is trash and the only way to PvP on a magden is as a brick.

I'm not saying no one used it, but ZOS seemed to insinuate in their developer comment in the patch notes that Arctic Blast was a pain point in PvP, when it simply wasn't even remotely close. The fact stands that the majority of Wardens in PvP stack health and use Polar Winds instead, especially now that they can get a fantastic (re: broken) stun from Scribing.

CameraBeardThePirate

MATH_COW wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It's a bad change for both. Not even sure why they mentioned PvP in the patch note comments about this change, since it takes all of 30 minutes in PvP to know that 90% of Wardens already used Polar Wind in the first place. I can count on one hand the amount of Wardens I've met in PvP the last year using Arctic Blast.

I'm tired of reading that, no Polar Wind is not the most used morph in PvP.
People who say that really seem to not play warden in PvP and don't realise how much Artic Blast can be more useful in most case and how Polar Wind cannot be that more powerfull burst than Artic Blast when we got enough damage.
Yeah Polar Wind can save your mate but you'll need to burn your magicka and that's not always a good idea, most of the time it's pointless and just delay the death of your stupid mate that go too far or the opponent just wait you to have no more magicka.

And for the "it takes all of 30minutes in PvP to know" I don't think they need. That's their game they certainly got database and can know the % of use of skills and for their mention of PvP for the balance of warden this patch it was mostly about Piercing Cold, not Artic Blast which just got a lost bullet out of nowhere.

It is though? Polar Wind is absolutely used more in PvP, especially now that you can get your stun from Scribing.

Joy_Division

MATH_COW wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It's a bad change for both. Not even sure why they mentioned PvP in the patch note comments about this change, since it takes all of 30 minutes in PvP to know that 90% of Wardens already used Polar Wind in the first place. I can count on one hand the amount of Wardens I've met in PvP the last year using Arctic Blast.

I'm tired of reading that, no Polar Wind is not the most used morph in PvP.
People who say that really seem to not play warden in PvP and don't realise how much Artic Blast can be more useful in most case and how Polar Wind cannot be that more powerfull burst than Artic Blast when we got enough damage.
Yeah Polar Wind can save your mate but you'll need to burn your magicka and that's not always a good idea, most of the time it's pointless and just delay the death of your stupid mate that go too far or the opponent just wait you to have no more magicka.

And for the "it takes all of 30minutes in PvP to know" I don't think they need. That's their game they certainly got database and can know the % of use of skills and for their mention of PvP for the balance of warden this patch it was mostly about Piercing Cold, not Artic Blast which just got a lost bullet out of nowhere.

When people say things like "Everyone uses Polar" or "Polar is meta" or "Polar is the PvP morph" or something like that, it's not meant to be taken literally (as is often the case in communication). It's meant to highlight the much higher frequency of its usage on what are perceived to be high performing players and builds. If 90% of the sorcerers in game actually used the Regenerative Ward morph, it would not change the reality that those players who do use the Hardened Ward morph are attaining a ridiculous amount of efficiency beyond anything but a well speced and well played Nightblade could accomplish or that it is the Hardened Ward morph that comprises nearly 100% of the community commentary, feedback, and complaints about the skill.

If I am fighting against a Warden in PvP, I 100% of the time want them to be using the Arctic Blast moprh especially if another enemy just happens to be in the area (read very often in an AvAvA setting). You're writing as if your mate is just some PuG scrub who doesn't matter live or die, but when there is a small scale group of 4 highly experienced players, that is when the power of Polar Morph goes from being a really good single target heal to an oppressive ability.

For disclosure, I actually personally do use the Arctic Blast morph, primarily because in the past I found the skill much more useful for the Infinite Archive. I absolutely hate the changes because now the skill is unpredictable and unreliable. Somewhere along the lines of communication, ZOS somehow got the idea that it was in fact the Arctic Blast that was the problem in PvP. It isn;t. It's just a nice skill. Not enough people were telling ZOS about Polar's strength in PvP

MATH_COW

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It is though? Polar Wind is absolutely used more in PvP, especially now that you can get your stun from Scribing.

Well of course now Polar Wind become the most used morph everywhere as Artic Blast is destroyed lol

But not for sure used by every warden now as Wield Soul can be a better option for people who were using Artic Blast like you can get the class mastery charm and scale on damage.
Mostly with Piercing Cold requiring less than 30k HP where Polar Wind is not that powerful at that level.

MATH_COW

Joy_Division wrote: »

If I am fighting against a Warden in PvP, I 100% of the time want them to be using the Arctic Blast moprh especially if another enemy just happens to be in the area (read very often in an AvAvA setting). You're writing as if your mate is just some PuG scrub who doesn't matter live or die, but when there is a small scale group of 4 highly experienced players, that is when the power of Polar Morph goes from being a really good single target heal to an oppressive ability.

You are saying that like everybody were playing with group 100% of their time which not, most of the time you gonna have "PuG scrub" or at least people that are not knowing you are trying to heal them or cannot have a focus on your position (as Polar Wind got a short range). And I'm not saying they doesn't matter to live or die but they got their selfheal and most of the time will not wait to be healed by someone else.
For highly experienced group believe it or not but no matter what build they play they are always gonne be experienced and manage to make shine things no matter if there is a warden using Polar Wind or not, that's the point of being in a organised group.
And Polar Wind shine indeed in little group but that's only there that it shine a lot, in larger group or just against larger group the skill will not shine that much. I can assure you as a Polar Wind healer in Battleground that when the 8 others players decide to focus us or just being between those two team (happen often in Deathmatch) Polar Wind itself cannot save everybody.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Not enough people were telling ZOS about Polar's strength in PvP

For what I see there is a lot of people complaining about Polar Wind and that's why I'm tired of it.
I don't want this skill to be nerfed just because it shine in few builds of PvP and then destroy it potential in PvE.
This is not like Hardened Ward you mentionned above that just require to invest a lot in magicka and magicka regen to make it insane and spammable in a magsorc build.
Polar Wind require to invest in Health, magicka and/or magicka regen to be able to be good with it and be able to spam it.
If you are a stamden that will be hard, if you are a magden it will be easier but you gonna stop doing damage during that or if you burn your magicka. If you are a tank or a healer that's your purpose so you are build for it so it's normal.

Aggrovious

MATH_COW wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

If I am fighting against a Warden in PvP, I 100% of the time want them to be using the Arctic Blast moprh especially if another enemy just happens to be in the area (read very often in an AvAvA setting). You're writing as if your mate is just some PuG scrub who doesn't matter live or die, but when there is a small scale group of 4 highly experienced players, that is when the power of Polar Morph goes from being a really good single target heal to an oppressive ability.

You are saying that like everybody were playing with group 100% of their time which not, most of the time you gonna have "PuG scrub" or at least people that are not knowing you are trying to heal them or cannot have a focus on your position (as Polar Wind got a short range). And I'm not saying they doesn't matter to live or die but they got their selfheal and most of the time will not wait to be healed by someone else.
For highly experienced group believe it or not but no matter what build they play they are always gonne be experienced and manage to make shine things no matter if there is a warden using Polar Wind or not, that's the point of being in a organised group.
And Polar Wind shine indeed in little group but that's only there that it shine a lot, in larger group or just against larger group the skill will not shine that much. I can assure you as a Polar Wind healer in Battleground that when the 8 others players decide to focus us or just being between those two team (happen often in Deathmatch) Polar Wind itself cannot save everybody.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Not enough people were telling ZOS about Polar's strength in PvP

For what I see there is a lot of people complaining about Polar Wind and that's why I'm tired of it.
I don't want this skill to be nerfed just because it shine in few builds of PvP and then destroy it potential in PvE.
This is not like Hardened Ward you mentionned above that just require to invest a lot in magicka and magicka regen to make it insane and spammable in a magsorc build.
Polar Wind require to invest in Health, magicka and/or magicka regen to be able to be good with it and be able to spam it.
If you are a stamden that will be hard, if you are a magden it will be easier but you gonna stop doing damage during that or if you burn your magicka. If you are a tank or a healer that's your purpose so you are build for it so it's normal.

People just want their ice builds to stop being messed with. I personally switched back to Arctic Blast because it actually does something for my ice warden. At least my character identify stays intact...sort of.

gamma71

Very first thing I did today after patch was switch to polar wind. What a brain dead change to artic blast I don't want a ability that may or may not do what I want damage or heal.

Stafford197

I’ve never seen an ability which was so unsynergistic with itself….
- An AoE spammable with both higher cost and less instant effects compared to other options
- As AoE DoT with pitiful damage AND it begins 2 seconds after activation, meaning you negate your own DoT by using this ability like a spammable as mentioned above
- The stun takes longer and lines up with no other effects of the ability
- Sometimes it’ll either heal or deal damage, meaning it can’t truly be relied on for either

Just make it a pure Frost DPS ability already. Why do things always have to be so out of touch with everything Frost Damage in this game?

ChaoticWings3

Stafford197 wrote: »

I’ve never seen an ability which was so unsynergistic with itself….
- An AoE spammable with both higher cost and less instant effects compared to other options
- As AoE DoT with pitiful damage AND it begins 2 seconds after activation, meaning you negate your own DoT by using this ability like a spammable as mentioned above
- The stun takes longer and lines up with no other effects of the ability
- Sometimes it’ll either heal or deal damage, meaning it can’t truly be relied on for either

Just make it a pure Frost DPS ability already. Why do things always have to be so out of touch with everything Frost Damage in this game?

I would prefer a higher dmg dot that didn't heal as a mag warden dps option as well. Honestly would work pretty well. At this stage no one is really going to use it. Its wordy, complicated, and hard to fit into builds reliably. I would prefer they worked on skills almost no one uses like natures grasp and frozen gate. Those skills need a rework because in all groups with a warden (including myself) I haven't seen anyone really use those skills.

MarioMario

21th August I opened a thread in PvP about this.

My thoughs

"Envelop yourself in winter winds, instantly dealing 1799 Frost Damage to nearby enemies. If no enemies are hit, you heal for 2323 Health. The winds persist for 20 seconds and chill your foes to the bone, dealing 298 Frost Damage every 2 seconds, after 2 seconds. The damage has a higher chance to apply the Chilled status effect. Stuns enemies after the delay for 3 seconds."

If you want to play a full offensive PvP build, artic blast has always been the only burst heal for warden.
Stun has never been reliable, delayed stuns are not great in PvP, and they are certainly not needed for trash mobs in PvE.
But now the heal part is unusable, both in PvP and PvE, so what's the point of keeping it?

Dear combat team, in what situation do you think the heal/stun part of this skill could be useful?

Just remove the heal/stun part, change Polar Wind so that it scales on offensive stats, and you will also solve the 50k health warden problem.
Piercing cold change is interesting, but in PvP a warden that stays below 30k health does not have an efficient class burst heal now. And don't tell me to use a scribe skill, because I still need a reliable istant stun.

LittlePinkDot

MarioMario wrote: »

21th August I opened a thread in PvP about this.

My thoughs

"Envelop yourself in winter winds, instantly dealing 1799 Frost Damage to nearby enemies. If no enemies are hit, you heal for 2323 Health. The winds persist for 20 seconds and chill your foes to the bone, dealing 298 Frost Damage every 2 seconds, after 2 seconds. The damage has a higher chance to apply the Chilled status effect. Stuns enemies after the delay for 3 seconds."

If you want to play a full offensive PvP build, artic blast has always been the only burst heal for warden.
Stun has never been reliable, delayed stuns are not great in PvP, and they are certainly not needed for trash mobs in PvE.
But now the heal part is unusable, both in PvP and PvE, so what's the point of keeping it?

Dear combat team, in what situation do you think the heal/stun part of this skill could be useful?

Just remove the heal/stun part, change Polar Wind so that it scales on offensive stats, and you will also solve the 50k health warden problem.
Piercing cold change is interesting, but in PvP a warden that stays below 30k health does not have an efficient class burst heal now. And don't tell me to use a scribe skill, because I still need a reliable istant stun.

Polar wind is for PVE tanking, it needs to scale with health.

MindOfTheSwarm

Should be changed to this.

Arctic Blast:

Envelop yourself in winter winds that persist for 20 seconds and chill your foes to the bone, dealing X Frost Damage every second that increases by 2% every second. The damage has increased chance to apply Chilled. Hitting Chilled enemies heals you for X health.

What would this achieve:

It would turn it into a powerful AoE DoT that applies real pressure.

It would remove any and all desire to spam it as it would be counterintuitive to do so.

Heal would be a sustained heal rather than a burst heal. But strong enough that it would be effective when hitting multiple enemies or players.

Removes the stun completely and instead assign it to another skill.

Where would the stun go?

Frozen Slab:

Instantly launch a slab of ice at a target enemy dealing X Frost Damage and freezing them, stunning them for 6 seconds. The stun is increased to 8 seconds vs Chilled targets.

Then put the original morph of projectiles reflection mechanic on the other morph. It might make the other morph a little overloaded, but it’s rarely seen anyway and it would be hard to pass up on an instant stun.

gamma71

Hardened ward is fine but artic blast was op, do these guys even attempt to play there own game or do they just spin the wheel of nerf/buff and let RNG govern there desecions.