Northern Storm change and warden ultimates

ESO_Nightingale · January 30

Hi everyone, short post this patch but i'll get straight to the point.

I had a look at the Northern Storm changes to see if i could figure out if they were any good to make Northern Storm a better ultimate for non-bear pve warden dps players, however the results i found were to be expected.

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PTS Parse

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Unfortunately, the changes implemented only have an impact for burst, which i have a feeling was the intention here which helps northern storm in trash situations in pve. Wild Guardian is unsurprisingly still just too powerful to pass up by a large order of magnitude.

My first control test using my live settup from the PTS offers a good insight to the staggering difference between ultimates:
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I still hold the belief that bear holds way too much of warden's power budget in pve and I expect that these changes were intended for and will hold a lot more weight in pvp than in pve. for the time being, bear is now even more required than it was before as my normal live parses (not crit farmed) normally return about 118k overall dps and that has now gone up to around 120k, likely mostly due to the increased value from hemo

flizomica · January 30

Thanks for testing that! It looks like there wasn't a major DPS difference in chill procs from live vs. PTS either, which is something I was worried about given the changes to status effects.

I dunno, at least Warden actually appeared in the patch notes this time around lol.

Pixiepumpkin · January 30

I love my warden for his looks and the idea of what he could be.

Sadly he is shelved.

Darkstorne · January 30

flizomica wrote: »

Thanks for testing that! It looks like there wasn't a major DPS difference in chill procs from live vs. PTS either, which is something I was worried about given the changes to status effects.

I dunno, at least Warden actually appeared in the patch notes this time around lol.

This is what I really want to see tested. I'm very confused by their status effect changes at the moment.

"We want status effects to feel more powerful, especially the instant damage ones like chilled, so we upped their damage!"

Scrolls down to Warden changes...

"Due to status effects like chilled becoming more powerful, we're making sure they proc less often, so damage dealt should be roughly the same."

I don't even... What was the point of all that then?

GusTheWizard · January 30

Darkstorne wrote: »

"Due to status effects like chilled becoming more powerful, we're making sure they proc less often, so damage dealt should be roughly the same."

They didn’t touch the glacial presence status effect chance of 200% only the damage portion of this passive

Darkstorne · January 30

GusTheWizard wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

"Due to status effects like chilled becoming more powerful, we're making sure they proc less often, so damage dealt should be roughly the same."

They didn’t touch the glacial presence status effect chance of 200% only the damage portion of this passive

Okay, but they did reduce the potency of Charged traits so they'd proc less, and they're still reducing the unique damage bonus Wardens get here because... they wanted to make chilled do more damage, but also want to make sure it mostly doesn't do much more damage than it already does?

Really, I don't get it. And I think I need to see some parse breakdowns on chilled procs to figure out what's happening here. The patch notes really do read like "Here's a buff so chilled is more powerful, but also, here are some nerfs so chilled isn't more powerful." And I don't understand what the goal is 😂

ItsNotLiving · January 30

Does Northern Storm have to out parse the bear? I mean in PvE if you can reach good numbers with it then I guess it’s a fun alternative and if you’re score pushing you can run the bear, all in all nice change in my opinion. More options are always welcome.

ESO_Nightingale · January 30

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

Does Northern Storm have to out parse the bear? I mean in PvE if you can reach good numbers with it then I guess it’s a fun alternative and if you’re score pushing you can run the bear, all in all nice change in my opinion. More options are always welcome.

No. However the gap between them is far too extreme. Bear simply consists of so much of our damage in pve that there is no reason to ever swap off of it unless in extreme aoe situations such as trash. Pvp also does not facilitate the ai very well except for controlled environments like duels.

Galeriano · January 30

Darkstorne wrote: »

GusTheWizard wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

"Due to status effects like chilled becoming more powerful, we're making sure they proc less often, so damage dealt should be roughly the same."

They didn’t touch the glacial presence status effect chance of 200% only the damage portion of this passive

Okay, but they did reduce the potency of Charged traits so they'd proc less, and they're still reducing the unique damage bonus Wardens get here because... they wanted to make chilled do more damage, but also want to make sure it mostly doesn't do much more damage than it already does?

Really, I don't get it. And I think I need to see some parse breakdowns on chilled procs to figure out what's happening here. The patch notes really do read like "Here's a buff so chilled is more powerful, but also, here are some nerfs so chilled isn't more powerful." And I don't understand what the goal is 😂

I guess the goal is to make chilled universally powerfull for everyone without making it substantially more powerfull for warden. In the end other classes will be doing more dmg with chilled but warden will still be doing the most with it but the difference will be smaller.

Darkstorne · January 30

Galeriano wrote: »

I guess the goal is to make chilled universally powerfull for everyone without making it substantially more powerfull for warden. In the end other classes will be doing more dmg with chilled but warden will still be doing the most with it but the difference will be smaller.

Ahh, yes, I hadn't considered that angle. Though I'm still a little confused by the charged trait getting a nerf in this case, and a little disappointed they aren't correcting some of the issues we frequently raise with Warden while paring back one of their strengths.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

No. However the gap between them is far too extreme. Bear simply consists of so much of our damage in pve that there is no reason to ever swap off of it unless in extreme aoe situations such as trash. Pvp also does not facilitate the ai very well except for controlled environments like duels.

I love that they felt the need to reduce the damage of Permafrost in case that morph ever showed up on our radars 😂

ESO_Nightingale · January 31

Darkstorne wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

I guess the goal is to make chilled universally powerfull for everyone without making it substantially more powerfull for warden. In the end other classes will be doing more dmg with chilled but warden will still be doing the most with it but the difference will be smaller.

Ahh, yes, I hadn't considered that angle. Though I'm still a little confused by the charged trait getting a nerf in this case, and a little disappointed they aren't correcting some of the issues we frequently raise with Warden while paring back one of their strengths.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

No. However the gap between them is far too extreme. Bear simply consists of so much of our damage in pve that there is no reason to ever swap off of it unless in extreme aoe situations such as trash. Pvp also does not facilitate the ai very well except for controlled environments like duels.

I love that they felt the need to reduce the damage of Permafrost in case that morph ever showed up on our radars 😂

Yeah seeing permafrost be nerfed over and over again is really funny to me. Meanwhile bear over here is doing 15% of our dps in pve

Galeriano · January 31

Darkstorne wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

I guess the goal is to make chilled universally powerfull for everyone without making it substantially more powerfull for warden. In the end other classes will be doing more dmg with chilled but warden will still be doing the most with it but the difference will be smaller.

Ahh, yes, I hadn't considered that angle. Though I'm still a little confused by the charged trait getting a nerf in this case, and a little disappointed they aren't correcting some of the issues we frequently raise with Warden while paring back one of their strengths.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

No. However the gap between them is far too extreme. Bear simply consists of so much of our damage in pve that there is no reason to ever swap off of it unless in extreme aoe situations such as trash. Pvp also does not facilitate the ai very well except for controlled environments like duels.

I love that they felt the need to reduce the damage of Permafrost in case that morph ever showed up on our radars 😂

I would assume charged is being nerfed because even class like warden which have noticable buffs to chilled status effect is still proccing other status effects some of which got buffed significantly. Warden for example can keep up a 100% uptime on hemmorhaging status effect and that means up to 25% DPS increase for hemmorhaging compared to current live server values.

Darkstorne · January 31

Galeriano wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

I guess the goal is to make chilled universally powerfull for everyone without making it substantially more powerfull for warden. In the end other classes will be doing more dmg with chilled but warden will still be doing the most with it but the difference will be smaller.

Ahh, yes, I hadn't considered that angle. Though I'm still a little confused by the charged trait getting a nerf in this case, and a little disappointed they aren't correcting some of the issues we frequently raise with Warden while paring back one of their strengths.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

No. However the gap between them is far too extreme. Bear simply consists of so much of our damage in pve that there is no reason to ever swap off of it unless in extreme aoe situations such as trash. Pvp also does not facilitate the ai very well except for controlled environments like duels.

I love that they felt the need to reduce the damage of Permafrost in case that morph ever showed up on our radars 😂

I would assume charged is being nerfed because even class like warden which have noticable buffs to chilled status effect is still proccing other status effects some of which got buffed significantly. Warden for example can keep up a 100% uptime on hemmorhaging status effect and that means up to 25% DPS increase for hemmorhaging compared to current live server values.

Yeah, but I mean... if these effects received a buff to make them more powerful, it then seems a little confusing to me to say "now that we've made them more powerful, we need to make them proc less so damage somewhat balances out."

But then maybe I just interpreted the design wrong. Maybe they don't want status effects to be more powerful than they are right now, just less frequent and more impactful when they do proc. Which... okay, I guess. Nothing gained nothing lost.

Now if they could do something about Winter's Revenge being weak when not used with a staff, that would be great. Because again, the insistence on not giving chilled more unique effects because it already has some when using a frost staff, is doubling down even more on the idea that frost Wardens really only work when using a frost staff, and my 2H frost Warden build continues to feel sad...

ramdrop · February 1

I wonder if we’ll see any damage buffs to our beloved shalks after the year of nerfs….

MashmalloMan · February 1

Darkstorne wrote: »

GusTheWizard wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

"Due to status effects like chilled becoming more powerful, we're making sure they proc less often, so damage dealt should be roughly the same."

They didn’t touch the glacial presence status effect chance of 200% only the damage portion of this passive

Okay, but they did reduce the potency of Charged traits so they'd proc less, and they're still reducing the unique damage bonus Wardens get here because... they wanted to make chilled do more damage, but also want to make sure it mostly doesn't do much more damage than it already does?

Really, I don't get it. And I think I need to see some parse breakdowns on chilled procs to figure out what's happening here. The patch notes really do read like "Here's a buff so chilled is more powerful, but also, here are some nerfs so chilled isn't more powerful." And I don't understand what the goal is 😂

They very clearly stated their goal in the patch notes. The changes weren't meant to buff or nerf Wardens because they were happy with the way they utilized it. Chilled was only decent for Wardens, every other class didn't get nearly as much value from it. The status effects are now on a more even playing field rather than Burning, and to a lesser degree, Poisoned, being top dog in 99% of builds due to the DPS they brought.

They also said, this is a prelude to help Scribing. If you have status effects like Burning be clear winners, then you run into a situation where most people copy/paste the same fire skills because it gives too much of an advantage. Now that all status effects are closer in power, Scribing can really thrive in terms of build diversity.

The status effect proc chance was reduced on charged slightly so that the buffs to status effect damage didn't unnecessarily cause power creep where it wasn't necessary. Burning was used as a standard to which all status effects were brought closer up to. If you had burning/poisoned before, you'll probably see about the same dps. If you want to try out Chilled, Concussed, Sunder, etc, you're not going to lose a large % of DPS to do so anymore. Especially if it's beneficial for your build to get Minor Vulnerability, Minor Breach, etc.

MashmalloMan · February 1

Darkstorne wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

I guess the goal is to make chilled universally powerfull for everyone without making it substantially more powerfull for warden. In the end other classes will be doing more dmg with chilled but warden will still be doing the most with it but the difference will be smaller.

Ahh, yes, I hadn't considered that angle. Though I'm still a little confused by the charged trait getting a nerf in this case, and a little disappointed they aren't correcting some of the issues we frequently raise with Warden while paring back one of their strengths.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

No. However the gap between them is far too extreme. Bear simply consists of so much of our damage in pve that there is no reason to ever swap off of it unless in extreme aoe situations such as trash. Pvp also does not facilitate the ai very well except for controlled environments like duels.

I love that they felt the need to reduce the damage of Permafrost in case that morph ever showed up on our radars 😂

I would assume charged is being nerfed because even class like warden which have noticable buffs to chilled status effect is still proccing other status effects some of which got buffed significantly. Warden for example can keep up a 100% uptime on hemmorhaging status effect and that means up to 25% DPS increase for hemmorhaging compared to current live server values.

Yeah, but I mean... if these effects received a buff to make them more powerful, it then seems a little confusing to me to say "now that we've made them more powerful, we need to make them proc less so damage somewhat balances out."

But then maybe I just interpreted the design wrong. Maybe they don't want status effects to be more powerful than they are right now, just less frequent and more impactful when they do proc. Which... okay, I guess. Nothing gained nothing lost.

Now if they could do something about Winter's Revenge being weak when not used with a staff, that would be great. Because again, the insistence on not giving chilled more unique effects because it already has some when using a frost staff, is doubling down even more on the idea that frost Wardens really only work when using a frost staff, and my 2H frost Warden build continues to feel sad...

Here would be a simplified rating scale based mostly on damage dealt to illustrate why they changed the damage values and introduced new mechanics:

Live:

10 = Burning is strong over 4s.
8 = Poisoned is above average over 6s.
6 = Hemorrhaging is average over 4s, but minor mangle.
1 = Chilled is low, but minor maim.. amazing with Warden/Ice Staff.
1 = Concussed is low, but minor vulnerability.
1 = Sundered is low, but minor breach.
1 = Overcharged is low, but minor magicka steal.
1 = Diseased is low, but minor defile.

PTS:

8 = Burning is strong over 4s, no minigame. Reliable.
5-10 = Poisoned is average, but excels in execute over 4s.
5-9 = Hemorrhaging is average, but excels when stacked 3x over 4s.
5 = Chilled is average, but excels with Warden/Ice Staves.
5-6 = Concussed is average, but excels when procced frequently.
5-6 = Sundered is average, but excels by buffing your overall damage.
5 = Overcharged is average, but excels by buffing your mag sustain.
4 = Diseased is below average, but excels in aoe.

Basically, the gap between the elements is a lot more narrow. The status effects that are mid, give minor buffs, debuffs, or added effects that this scale doesn't account for that could very well give you the value of a 10.

If you still just want solid DPS, you're best to go with Burning/Poisoned, but if you want some aoe dps, Diseased. Buff all your other abilities, Sundered. Lots of lightning and proc chance, Concussed. Lots of bleeds, Hemorrhaging.

Once we get Scribing, these changes will make a lot more sense. Really happy they did this personally, last thing I want is to see 1000s of skill combinations in pvp boiled down to "Fire + DOT + Power".

MashmalloMan · February 1

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

Does Northern Storm have to out parse the bear? I mean in PvE if you can reach good numbers with it then I guess it’s a fun alternative and if you’re score pushing you can run the bear, all in all nice change in my opinion. More options are always welcome.

It is kind of a problem because it's important to consider how a class obtains its DPS ceiling. Pets is by far the worst crutch for high DPS because we all know they only work in Trials and Dungeons where they can't be killed. Even when they do work, the AI can be pretty terrible.

When you remove those same pets for solo content, arenas, overland, pvp, etc. You're giving up a large chunk of your damage potential that you don't have another way to make up for.

A DK for example can transfer their DPS skills from pve to pvp pretty seamlessly, so they feel pretty powerful in both pieces of content. It makes balancing them fairly easy.

A Warden, not so much, youu literally lose 15% of your DPS. It's almost like the Bear is purposely over powered to keep Warden's PVE DPS at a certain threshold without touching their PVP performance because they know it would get insta killed in that content. Since ZOS doesn't support balancing PVE and PVP separately, this is kinda feels like a roundabout way of doing it.

This same idea feels present on Sorc, pet Sorc is pretty much the only viable DPS option, no pet Sorc feels way farther behind, it's been years since that was meta. Not a single good PVPer would actually rely on those pets to kill anyone. Luckily, Haunting Curse, Mages Fury, Bound Armaments, Crystal Weapon, Frags, Streak, are all fantastic PVP tools that make up for the low dps, because they have fantastic burst you can line up to kill people with. Over a sustained fight like a dummy, that dps is pretty bad.

ESO_Nightingale · February 3

MashmalloMan wrote: »

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

Does Northern Storm have to out parse the bear? I mean in PvE if you can reach good numbers with it then I guess it’s a fun alternative and if you’re score pushing you can run the bear, all in all nice change in my opinion. More options are always welcome.

It is kind of a problem because it's important to consider how a class obtains its DPS ceiling. Pets is by far the worst crutch for high DPS because we all know they only work in Trials and Dungeons where they can't be killed. Even when they do work, the AI can be pretty terrible.

When you remove those same pets for solo content, arenas, overland, pvp, etc. You're giving up a large chunk of your damage potential that you don't have another way to make up for.

A DK for example can transfer their DPS skills from pve to pvp pretty seamlessly, so they feel pretty powerful in both pieces of content. It makes balancing them fairly easy.

A Warden, not so much, youu literally lose 15% of your DPS. It's almost like the Bear is purposely over powered to keep Warden's PVE DPS at a certain threshold without touching their PVP performance because they know it would get insta killed in that content. Since ZOS doesn't support balancing PVE and PVP separately, this is kinda feels like a roundabout way of doing it.

This same idea feels present on Sorc, pet Sorc is pretty much the only viable DPS option, no pet Sorc feels way farther behind, it's been years since that was meta. Not a single good PVPer would actually rely on those pets to kill anyone. Luckily, Haunting Curse, Mages Fury, Bound Armaments, Crystal Weapon, Frags, Streak, are all fantastic PVP tools that make up for the low dps, because they have fantastic burst you can line up to kill people with. Over a sustained fight like a dummy, that dps is pretty bad.

Non pet warden feeling like it could be a real option would be awesome. But bear is too strong as is.

ESO_Nightingale · February 6

Week 2 pts. Nerf to trap brought us back down a little bit. Hemo uptime definitely affected.

MashmalloMan · February 6

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Week 2 pts. Nerf to trap brought us back down a little bit. Hemo uptime definitely affected.

Stam Wardens should be shown some love with a Hemorrhaging bonus, like increased chance to proc to counter the Chilled damage passive.

Not that Hemorrhaging is exclusive to stam, but idk, throw them some flavour. I'm sure mag warden would benefit from it, but a stam build should benefit more, similarly to the mechanic presented with chilled in the class.

ESO_Nightingale · February 6

MashmalloMan wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Week 2 pts. Nerf to trap brought us back down a little bit. Hemo uptime definitely affected.

Stam Wardens should be shown some love with a Hemorrhaging bonus, like increased chance to proc to counter the Chilled damage passive.

Not that Hemorrhaging is exclusive to stam, but idk, throw them some flavour. I'm sure mag warden would benefit from it, but a stam build should benefit more, similarly to the mechanic presented with chilled in the class.

I think hemo proc should be taken from wild guardian, and given to growing swarm and/or cutting dive. Savage beast could easily be updated to have something to do with hemo proc.

MashmalloMan · February 6

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Week 2 pts. Nerf to trap brought us back down a little bit. Hemo uptime definitely affected.

Stam Wardens should be shown some love with a Hemorrhaging bonus, like increased chance to proc to counter the Chilled damage passive.

Not that Hemorrhaging is exclusive to stam, but idk, throw them some flavour. I'm sure mag warden would benefit from it, but a stam build should benefit more, similarly to the mechanic presented with chilled in the class.

I think hemo proc should be taken from wild guardian, and given to growing swarm and/or cutting dive. Savage beast could easily be updated to have something to do with hemo proc.

Something like deal x more damage per Hemorrhaging stack your target has for the passive and active portion of the ult. It would discourage mag wardens that can't keep up the Hemo stacks from using it.

They also need to remove the auto res functionality from the mag morph and just put it on the base. It's an ult, that shouldn't be a morph option. Gives more room for mag bear to do something cool and makes stam bear more reliable outside of 4/12 person pve content. Maybe it deals more damage to chilled targets.

No one is going to use it in pvp still, so it basically just buffs solo arenas and overworld by switching that over.