Thank you for killing my favorite class in the game (Warden).

Gendizer

You've ruined the last decent Warden skill—Arctic Blast—that made it stand out from other classes. Now this class is useless. Thanks, ZOS, for that. Play your game yourselves.

kookie

Yeah had to drop in pve for just a straight heal

Dragonnord

Useless? Unkillable class in PvP if you know how to use it, one of the best PvE/PvP healers in the game, one of the top solo classes in Infinite Archive.

Yeah, useless, sure.
 

Kisakee

Dragonnord wrote: »

Useless? Unkillable class in PvP if you know how to use it, one of the best PvE/PvP healers in the game, one of the top solo classes in Infinite Archive.

Yeah, useless, sure.
 

And because of PvP something got nerfed affecting PvE too. Again. I'm so tired of it.

xDeusEJRx

Dragonnord wrote: »

Useless? Unkillable class in PvP if you know how to use it, one of the best PvE/PvP healers in the game, one of the top solo classes in Infinite Archive.

Yeah, useless, sure.
 

But that has nothing to do with original post. It's talking about arctic blast being nerfed. The reason Warden is hard to kill has nothing to do with that skill in question. It's hardly even op or even majorly used in pvp and especially not on a warden healer like you mentioned

Ironically because of arctic nerf you will see more people become unkillable high health polar wind Wardens because they have to give up using the offensive morph due to it being repeatedly gutted. So congrats to zos

Galeriano2

Kisakee wrote: »

Dragonnord wrote: »

Useless? Unkillable class in PvP if you know how to use it, one of the best PvE/PvP healers in the game, one of the top solo classes in Infinite Archive.

Yeah, useless, sure.
 

And because of PvP something got nerfed affecting PvE too. Again. I'm so tired of it.

How is it PvP related nerf? If anything I would say it have more to do with PvE than PvP because in certain PvE areas wardens were benefiting from arctic blast a bit too much while in PvP the morph that was and still is causing most issues is polar wind.

Already mentioned Infinite Archive is example of the place where wardens were straight abusing arctic blast.

BlueRaven

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Kisakee wrote: »

Dragonnord wrote: »

Useless? Unkillable class in PvP if you know how to use it, one of the best PvE/PvP healers in the game, one of the top solo classes in Infinite Archive.

Yeah, useless, sure.
 

And because of PvP something got nerfed affecting PvE too. Again. I'm so tired of it.

How is it PvP related nerf? If anything I would say it have more to do with PvE than PvP because in certain PvE areas wardens were benefiting from arctic blast a bit too much while in PvP the morph that was and still is causing most issues is polar wind.

Already mentioned Infinite Archive is example of the place where wardens were straight abusing arctic blast.

“In this pass, we're tweaking how this ability functions to reduce some of its raw power to do damage, crowd control, and heal all at once. Now, the ability can be used to deal the same total damage over its duration, with more damage focused on an up-front hit - granting the Warden a class-based area effect spammable that it previously lacked. Additionally, we're changing the healing to be a conditional requirement rather than a guarantee, so the ability can act as a heal when you back away from the fight, rather than outright removing it.It is our hope that these changes still help the Warden class have access to powerful tools from their kit, without the overwhelming power they enabled in PvP situations.“

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/664131/pc-mac-patch-notes-v10-1-5-update-43#latest

Pevey

Once again, lots of feedback was given on this in the PTS cycle, and once again, it was ignored. It was easy to see that this would fix nothing and be very unpopular.

YandereGirlfriend

While I think that this nerf was misguided are people not aware that Warden has a bunch of other healing options (including the other morph, Polar Wind)?

Dragonnord

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Dragonnord wrote: »

Useless? Unkillable class in PvP if you know how to use it, one of the best PvE/PvP healers in the game, one of the top solo classes in Infinite Archive.

Yeah, useless, sure.
 

But that has nothing to do with original post. It's talking about arctic blast being nerfed. The reason Warden is hard to kill has nothing to do with that skill in question. It's hardly even op or even majorly used in pvp and especially not on a warden healer like you mentioned

Ironically because of arctic nerf you will see more people become unkillable high health polar wind Wardens because they have to give up using the offensive morph due to it being repeatedly gutted. So congrats to zos

OP went further and said "Useless class", so I responded why the class is not useless.

If the class doesn't fit what the OP wants that doesn't make it uselss.
 

DenverRalphy

Players screamed bloody murder when Arcanist's Pragmatic Fatecarver got similar treatment. It was nerfed to cut down on the crazy solo capabiliity. Everybody started saying "Goodbye to Arcanists in Trials!". Look how that turned out.

Pevey

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Players screamed bloody murder when Arcanist's Pragmatic Fatecarver got similar treatment. It was nerfed to cut down on the crazy solo capabiliity. Everybody started saying "Goodbye to Arcanists in Trials!". Look how that turned out.

Are we comparing warden dps trial utility to arcanist? Seriously? Because the starting positions are very far apart. Apples vs oranges doesn't do it justice. More like one is not even fruit.

DenverRalphy

Pevey wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Players screamed bloody murder when Arcanist's Pragmatic Fatecarver got similar treatment. It was nerfed to cut down on the crazy solo capabiliity. Everybody started saying "Goodbye to Arcanists in Trials!". Look how that turned out.

Are we comparing warden dps trial utility to arcanist? Seriously? Because the starting positions are very far apart. Apples vs oranges doesn't do it justice. More like one is not even fruit.

No, we're comparing instances of when players scream about a favored class becoming useless, when the truth is much less sensational.

It's somewhat telling how in this thread, there is zero mention exactly how the change to Arctic Blast is so devastating. Because I'm not really seeing a big deal in it.

Pevey

Wardens have very limited space and flexibility with their bars, making slotting an additional self-heal a non-starter. They have to run netch just to get us back to half-way decent sustain and damage. You could argue that the damage and sustain netch provides should just be added back to the base and netch done away with so that the skill doesn't take up space on the bar and rotation... but then you also have the issue that the warden bar has to be stacked with animal companion skills to make use of that passive to get damage up to par. Wardens also have to squeeze in winter's revenge and arctic blast just to proc chilled and ice line passive, because without that you might as well give up. So warden is in a terrible place. Can parse well enough by speccing stam and running rapid strikes/stampede and highland sentinel like any other class, but sucks in content. Partly because no more space for self-heal. No flex spots.

I haven't brought my warden to a trial as dps since I can't even remember. It used to be okay for archive and solo arenas, but this is a big blow.

DenverRalphy

Pevey wrote: »

Wardens have very limited space and flexibility with their bars, making slotting an additional self-heal a non-starter. <snip>

Am I hearing this correctly? You're worried about not being able to slot an additional self heal? Every other class' DPS builds typically only have ONE. And even then they only slot one in situational circumstances (pugs). Wardens heal passively with their animal companion skills, so they're less in need of a self heal. A warden DPS is better served allowing the Healer in the group to do their job.

Pevey

The whole point of this thread is that arctic blast, which used to be the single self-heal, is no longer reliable as a heal.

Pevey

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Wardens heal passively with their animal companion skills, so they're less in need of a self heal.

The healing from this is negligible and only happens on despawn. This is like saying redguards or high elves can get their sustain passively from their racial skills, just because there is something in there that provides a small amount of sustain. It doesn't seem like you've even actually played a warden and are just arguing for fun.

DenverRalphy

Pevey wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Wardens heal passively with their animal companion skills, so they're less in need of a self heal.

The healing from this is negligible and only happens on despawn.

Whut.. your main spammable you healing every time you use it is negligible? You can also have multiple instances of Swam/Fetcher-Infection running at the same time. On top of ALL of your other animal skills constantly refreshing while a halfway decent Warden keeps them in a constant juggle with no additional effort than their normal dps rotation?

All that self healing isn't good enough for you?

IncultaWolf

Another ability in the grave, like stalking blastbones. 🪦💀 Templar jabs also give their regards.

Pevey

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Wardens heal passively with their animal companion skills, so they're less in need of a self heal.

The healing from this is negligible and only happens on despawn.

Whut.. your main spammable you healing every time you use it is negligible? You can also have multiple instances of Swam/Fetcher-Infection running at the same time. On top of ALL of your other animal skills constantly refreshing while a halfway decent Warden keeps them in a constant juggle with no additional effort than their normal dps rotation?

All that self healing isn't good enough for you?

If you think the bird is a warden's main spammable, there is no point in trying to explain this issue to you.

DenverRalphy

Pevey wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Wardens heal passively with their animal companion skills, so they're less in need of a self heal.

The healing from this is negligible and only happens on despawn.

Whut.. your main spammable you healing every time you use it is negligible? You can also have multiple instances of Swam/Fetcher-Infection running at the same time. On top of ALL of your other animal skills constantly refreshing while a halfway decent Warden keeps them in a constant juggle with no additional effort than their normal dps rotation?

All that self healing isn't good enough for you?

If you think the bird is a warden's main spammable, there is no point in trying to explain this issue to you.

If you're in a competent group that knows what they're doing, obviously not. But then too, if you're in a competent group, you don't actually need an additional self heal now do you? Not to mention pretty much every warden build has one of the Dive morphs in it, so it's there to serve in a pinch when needed.

Arctic Wind served as a Burst Heal, and it was nice to have. But that burst heal isn't really mandatory. And not having it doesn't suddenly make the Warden class useless. Wardens just have to pay attention to what they're doing and not SiS.

Just like when Pragmatic Fatecarver got nerfed and all the Arcanists screamed bloody murder. Yet Arcanists are doing just fine, because they learned to not SiS. And it'Zos like the nerf never really mattered.

Think of it more as ZoS taking away an un-needed crutch.

Pevey

Burst or Hot is not the point. The point is whether the heal is reliable, which arctic no longer is.

The competence of the group has nothing to do with it. Almost every trial has some portal or bridge or other solo mechanic where the dps needs to have a reliable self-heal. Most warden builds use the bird as a Dot, not a spammable. That would kill sustain. Despite that, spamming a skill for 1260 health per second is also not a reliable self-heal. And if you resort to that to handle the expected, normal damage that any other class could heal through, you are not going to be doing enough dps to do your job and clear the mechanic. The animal companion passive is a seriously thin straw to be grasping at to defend changing a skill to make it "heal sometimes but not all the time-- and especially not when you need it." That is terrible and unfun design. But you need the skill on your bar for the reasons I explained above... getting warden's damage on par with other classes absolutely relies on the ice line passive.

FlopsyPrince

I have not been impressed with my Frost Warden build for a long time.

It certainly was not overpowered for me.

CP5

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Wardens heal passively with their animal companion skills, so they're less in need of a self heal.

The healing from this is negligible and only happens on despawn.

Whut.. your main spammable you healing every time you use it is negligible? You can also have multiple instances of Swam/Fetcher-Infection running at the same time. On top of ALL of your other animal skills constantly refreshing while a halfway decent Warden keeps them in a constant juggle with no additional effort than their normal dps rotation?

All that self healing isn't good enough for you?

If you think the bird is a warden's main spammable, there is no point in trying to explain this issue to you.

If you're in a competent group that knows what they're doing, obviously not. But then too, if you're in a competent group, you don't actually need an additional self heal now do you? Not to mention pretty much every warden build has one of the Dive morphs in it, so it's there to serve in a pinch when needed.

Arctic Wind served as a Burst Heal, and it was nice to have. But that burst heal isn't really mandatory. And not having it doesn't suddenly make the Warden class useless. Wardens just have to pay attention to what they're doing and not SiS.

Just like when Pragmatic Fatecarver got nerfed and all the Arcanists screamed bloody murder. Yet Arcanists are doing just fine, because they learned to not SiS. And it'Zos like the nerf never really mattered.

Think of it more as ZoS taking away an un-needed crutch.

First, in what situation was the pre-nerf Arctic Wind a crutch? In what way did Arctic Wind enable wardens to be overpowered? Prior to this change, the ability was an aoe dot centered on the caster that provided an upfront heal. Spamming it for the heal was a choice, and it came at the cost of wasting a previous cast magicka cost by refreshing the dot early, thus not getting all the damage out of the skill you otherwise would have.

Now, since ZOS decided to front load the damage, the heal has been made unreliable. Name a single skill in the game that refuses to heal you if you hit a target. All abilities that heal and are impacted by hitting enemies either heal you for more based on number of enemies hit, or only heal you if you hit an enemy, encouraging aggression, but denying you any healing if you hit anything is impossible to rely on in any serious combat situation, meaning the skill might as well not have the heal at all.

Comparing this to Fatecarver is a poor comparison for two reasons. First, Fatecarvers shield is still amazing, I used it before the nerf, I used it after the nerf, and little changed. Second, Fatecarver doesn't suddenly provide you with no shield if you hit something, requiring you to intentionally avoid hitting targets to get the shield. That is what you should realize, a part of an ability players depended on is now a gamble, when in actual combat you need guarantees, and since no one wants a skill that may or may not actually heal you, no one will use the skill for that purpose anymore. On top of this, not only does Fatecarver always give you a shield, the same power shield regardless of crux consumed, but it is also a very powerful ability that does great single target and aoe damage, causing most trial groups to be filled with Arcanist. Were wardens in a similar dominating position prior to this nerf?

So, the ability was a burst heal with an aoe dot tied to it, and ZOS changed it to be an aoe spammable, with the dot glued to it, and made the burst heal unreliable. Can you see how wardens, particularly pve frost based wardens, who have never been in an all powerful spot, might be disappointed about this change?

BananaBender

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Wardens heal passively with their animal companion skills, so they're less in need of a self heal.

The healing from this is negligible and only happens on despawn.

Whut.. your main spammable you healing every time you use it is negligible? You can also have multiple instances of Swam/Fetcher-Infection running at the same time. On top of ALL of your other animal skills constantly refreshing while a halfway decent Warden keeps them in a constant juggle with no additional effort than their normal dps rotation?

All that self healing isn't good enough for you?

If you think the bird is a warden's main spammable, there is no point in trying to explain this issue to you.

If you're in a competent group that knows what they're doing, obviously not. But then too, if you're in a competent group, you don't actually need an additional self heal now do you? Not to mention pretty much every warden build has one of the Dive morphs in it, so it's there to serve in a pinch when needed.

Arctic Wind served as a Burst Heal, and it was nice to have. But that burst heal isn't really mandatory. And not having it doesn't suddenly make the Warden class useless. Wardens just have to pay attention to what they're doing and not SiS.

Just like when Pragmatic Fatecarver got nerfed and all the Arcanists screamed bloody murder. Yet Arcanists are doing just fine, because they learned to not SiS. And it'Zos like the nerf never really mattered.

Think of it more as ZoS taking away an un-needed crutch.

I agree with you on the fact that Warden isn't dead. The frost mage fantasy kinda is, but that's not a subject for another thread...

People will always complain about nerfs that much is obvious, and on that note...

What makes the Arctic Blast change stupid is that they removed the heal from it without removing the heal and compensating for it. What I'm saying with that is in situations where you need a heal, you need to bring another heal other than Arctic Blast, because having a heal that sometimes doesn't heal you is the same as not having one at all. If they really thought that the skill had too much in it they should have removed effects from it and compensated by improving the other parts, now it's just a really expensive DoT that sometimes (rarely) heals you. Arctic Blast was one of the few good things going for Warden as a DD. They had a reliable burst heal that wasn't a dps loss to slot.

It just feels like another half thought out change. They could have just removed the healing and buffed the damage, removed the stun or lower the damage and improved the healing if they really thought the skill offered too much, but this just feels that they wanted to please everyone and left this skill worse off for everyone without actually solving a single problem.

What did this change actually achieve? I just don't see the problem they tried to fix with this change. It's not like warden was the most versatile and flexible class out there, far from it. It just created another hurdle for a class that itself is a one big hurdle.

Jierdanit

Kisakee wrote: »

Dragonnord wrote: »

Useless? Unkillable class in PvP if you know how to use it, one of the best PvE/PvP healers in the game, one of the top solo classes in Infinite Archive.

Yeah, useless, sure.
 

And because of PvP something got nerfed affecting PvE too. Again. I'm so tired of it.

Arctic got nerfed because the Devs have no clue what is going on in their own game.

Arctic was not an issue in PvP at all, Polar Wind is a much bigger problem and wasn't touched at all.

flizomica

This change sucks because my frost Warden lost their convenient heal + DPS skill. It's really nice having a skill that doubles as a burst heal and a DPS skill (e.g. burning embers, ceph flail, matriarch, etc) so that I don't need to waste additional bar space.

If they were going to change it, they should have just removed the stun and put it on something else. A skill that does a self-targeted AoE DoT, a burst heal, and a stun is a weird and overloaded combination. Not to mention that arctic blast isn't even the problematic morph for PvP, nor is Warden a particularly strong DPS pick in general.

I tried doing one IA run with no changes to my build with the plan to dodge roll away from bosses before casting it so that I still got the heal. I died to the first Marauder I encountered because I couldn't get myself away from all the little adds fast enough to get the heal off. I've now swapped out a DoT for healing soul since the heal from arctic blast is now completely unreliable. A burst heal that can't be relied upon to burst heal you is worthless.

Major_Toughness

Kisakee wrote: »

Dragonnord wrote: »

Useless? Unkillable class in PvP if you know how to use it, one of the best PvE/PvP healers in the game, one of the top solo classes in Infinite Archive.

Yeah, useless, sure.
 

And because of PvP something got nerfed affecting PvE too. Again. I'm so tired of it.

For like the first time in years. When Arctic wasn't even a problem in PvP. No one wanted or asked for this. Polar Wind needs nerfing.

Bucky_13

Kisakee wrote: »

Dragonnord wrote: »

Useless? Unkillable class in PvP if you know how to use it, one of the best PvE/PvP healers in the game, one of the top solo classes in Infinite Archive.

Yeah, useless, sure.
 

And because of PvP something got nerfed affecting PvE too. Again. I'm so tired of it.

Welcome to the world of nightblades, we've had this issue for years. Let's hope ZOS will start to make skills work differently in PvE and PvP so we have less of these problems.

Tsilara

Near as I can tell it was one of the few triple effect skills in the game and a very fun and useful one, even after its first couple of nerfs over the past few years since the class was introduced.

Scribing allows creation of triple effect skills and costs money via Gold Road expansion.

Is there some potential monetization co-relation to these two things?

YandereGirlfriend

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

Wardens have very limited space and flexibility with their bars, making slotting an additional self-heal a non-starter. <snip>

Am I hearing this correctly? You're worried about not being able to slot an additional self heal? Every other class' DPS builds typically only have ONE. And even then they only slot one in situational circumstances (pugs). Wardens heal passively with their animal companion skills, so they're less in need of a self heal. A warden DPS is better served allowing the Healer in the group to do their job.

Yeah, I share your confusion.

If you're in an organized group... this is literally what your healer is for. If the healer can't get the job done... it's time to find a new healer (or just slot an additional heal because if your healer is truly that sub-par you're not like competitive with the score anyway).

And things like arenas have so much bar space flexibility... it is an impossibility that it all simply falls apart for having to slot Green Vigor or Shrooms or whatever else.