Why the Warden Ultimate Bear Falls Short

forum_gpt · September 27

I’ve been playing Warden for a while now, and while it’s a class with some great abilities, I have to say that the ultimate bear is just... not it. Here’s why:

Unreliable AI: Let’s be real, the bear AI can be infuriating. It gets stuck, fails to attack, and sometimes just stares into the void while enemies beat on you. Having an ultimate that relies on an AI companion can be a gamble, and unfortunately, the bear rolls poorly most of the time.

Damage Output: For an ultimate, the bear’s damage is underwhelming, especially in PvP. It may look menacing, but it hits like a wet noodle. Other ultimates can nuke opponents or dramatically shift a fight, but the bear just adds a bit of extra damage that usually isn't enough to justify the cost.

Ultimate Slot Waste: In competitive play, you need an ultimate that can turn the tide of battle. The bear doesn’t offer that. It's better to go with a high-impact AoE or something more reliable, especially when considering synergy with other skills. The bear? It’s just taking up a precious ultimate slot for what is essentially a glorified pet.

Targeting Issues: The bear tends to attack whatever it wants, not necessarily the most important target. This is especially frustrating when trying to focus down healers or glass cannons, and your bear decides to munch on a tank instead.

Control and Responsiveness: While the bear does have a command to focus on a specific target, the response time can be slow. By the time it actually switches, the moment may have passed. In fast-paced PvP encounters, this kind of lag can be the difference between winning and losing.

I love the idea of having a bear pet, but in its current state, it feels more like a burden than a boon. If ZOS really wants this to be a viable ultimate, it needs better AI, more damage, and improved responsiveness. Until then, it’s benched.

Thoughts? Anyone actually making it work in high-level play?

Twohothardware · September 27

Bear definitely needs a buff. Any ult that requires being double barred and is single target and has delayed and wonky attacks should do more.

It needs to do like AOE damage for the same single target it’s doing now.

MincMincMinc · September 27

The bear should have just been a simple 50 ult to spawn. Then a 150 ult activate special ability. That special could have done something like have the bear charge at the target to knockdown and damage them.

Personally the ai chase and targeting for pets is garbage, and if it cant be done right, dont do it. Id rather a dummy pet model that follows me for RP reasons with a simple aoe around me or conal damage swipe around me for combat reasons.

MashmalloMan · September 27

Personally, in the interest of hybridization, improving class diversity, and addressing players concerns about being forced to use pets, I think it would be a no brainer to introduce some pet vs no pet idenity to Warden like Sorc. I'm not saying Sorc does it well right now, but it's getting there over time. Warden doesn't even have the option.

Esentially the Bleed (Animal) side would be a bit more pet focussed, the Frost side a bit more no pet focussed. Doesn't mean you can't use pets as frostden or no pets as bleeden, it's just where the bonuses would naturally fall.

Growing Swarm: Add +20% damage done with pets to your target. This ability already forces 1 cast like Daedric Prey.
Feral Guardian (all morphs): Passive damage is reduced to 40% only requiring 1 bar, damage increases by 3x to 120% if double barred.
Update an Animal Companion passive like "Bond With Nature" to increase HP with pets, max mag/stam without pets..... OR something else that isn't a direct copy of Sorc's, but you get the idea.

Obviously don't get hung up on the numbers, the point of it is the general idea. Now you have multiple ways to play Warden for the playstyle you want.

Traditional Pet = Growing Swarm + 2x Bear... more HP, better passive damage scaling for Bear that was lost with nerfs.
Hybrid = 1x Bear + Any Ult + Growing Swarm or Fetcher Infection... more HP, keeps some passive damage from Bear with the option for a low cost execute ultimate on cast, but still allows the user to run any ult they want like Northern Storm.
No Pet = No Bear + Any Ult + Fetcher Infection... more Mag/Stam, better st dot, any ult.

Could improve no pet warden as well with an idea I hope they implement for Sorc where Haunting Curse increases damage done to monsters by 10%, maybe Fetcher Infection could do a similar thing if it was still too far behind the pet side, without effecting PVP.

Thumbless_Bot · September 27

Twohothardware wrote: »

Bear definitely needs a buff. Any ult that requires being double barred and is single target and has delayed and wonky attacks should do more.

It needs to do like AOE damage for the same single target it’s doing now.

I would say, "any until that requires being double barred" is enough to call it dog water.

ESO_Nightingale · September 28

Bear is so strong in pve there's no other option that doesn't lose you a significant amount of dps. The only buff I'd want to give it is making the eternal guardian morph deal frost damage so that frost wardens don't feel bad having a bear shoved down our throats.

forum_gpt · September 28

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Bear is so strong in pve there's no other option that doesn't lose you a significant amount of dps. The only buff I'd want to give it is making the eternal guardian morph deal frost damage so that frost wardens don't feel bad having a bear shoved down our throats.

the warden bear is only used for parses and the slottable passive.

ESO_Nightingale · September 28

forum_gpt wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Bear is so strong in pve there's no other option that doesn't lose you a significant amount of dps. The only buff I'd want to give it is making the eternal guardian morph deal frost damage so that frost wardens don't feel bad having a bear shoved down our throats.

the warden bear is only used for parses and the slottable passive.

You have clearly never played warden in organised group pve content

forum_gpt · September 28

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

forum_gpt wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Bear is so strong in pve there's no other option that doesn't lose you a significant amount of dps. The only buff I'd want to give it is making the eternal guardian morph deal frost damage so that frost wardens don't feel bad having a bear shoved down our throats.

the warden bear is only used for parses and the slottable passive.

You have clearly never played warden in organised group pve content

go ahead and link me some runs since youre the PVE master

ESO_Nightingale · September 29

forum_gpt wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

forum_gpt wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Bear is so strong in pve there's no other option that doesn't lose you a significant amount of dps. The only buff I'd want to give it is making the eternal guardian morph deal frost damage so that frost wardens don't feel bad having a bear shoved down our throats.

the warden bear is only used for parses and the slottable passive.

You have clearly never played warden in organised group pve content

go ahead and link me some runs since youre the PVE master

Just checked ESO logs,

most of the top runs i'm seeing are with wild guardian on stam and magwardens. checked sanity's edge, lucent citadel and dreadsail reef. some aren't using it but most are. stop lying.https://www.esologs.com/zone/rankings/17

forum_gpt · September 29

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

forum_gpt wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

forum_gpt wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Bear is so strong in pve there's no other option that doesn't lose you a significant amount of dps. The only buff I'd want to give it is making the eternal guardian morph deal frost damage so that frost wardens don't feel bad having a bear shoved down our throats.

the warden bear is only used for parses and the slottable passive.

You have clearly never played warden in organised group pve content

go ahead and link me some runs since youre the PVE master

Just checked ESO logs,

most of the top runs i'm seeing are with wild guardian on stam and magwardens. checked sanity's edge, lucent citadel and dreadsail reef. some aren't using it but most are. stop lying.https://www.esologs.com/zone/rankings/17

lying about what exactly? also its funny how what you linked doesn't prove anything

I also never mentioned PVE you were the one that brought it up. idk why youre so salty. youre also NOT obligated to comment on every thread fyi.

ESO_Nightingale · September 29

forum_gpt wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

forum_gpt wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

forum_gpt wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Bear is so strong in pve there's no other option that doesn't lose you a significant amount of dps. The only buff I'd want to give it is making the eternal guardian morph deal frost damage so that frost wardens don't feel bad having a bear shoved down our throats.

the warden bear is only used for parses and the slottable passive.

You have clearly never played warden in organised group pve content

go ahead and link me some runs since youre the PVE master

Just checked ESO logs,

most of the top runs i'm seeing are with wild guardian on stam and magwardens. checked sanity's edge, lucent citadel and dreadsail reef. some aren't using it but most are. stop lying.https://www.esologs.com/zone/rankings/17

lying about what exactly? also its funny how what you linked doesn't prove anything

I also never mentioned PVE you were the one that brought it up. idk why youre so salty. youre also NOT obligated to comment on every thread fyi.

i appologise that i misinterpreted your meaning. if you meant pvp, i think thats more reasonable, though bear is often banned in dueling tourneys due to its incredibly strong single target presence. but duels are very strongly controlled environments, you're right that bear is bad in most pvp arenas and in cyrodiil though.

buffs that directly target the bear's ai intellegence or adding a teleport after using the claw ultimate would strongly help the usecase for it. but the bear is often cced to death.

BananaBender · September 29

I agree, the bear could use some love to put the active portion of it more in line with other ultimates to feel more impactful, because right now most of its value comes from the sustained damage it does. It's good, but it's just a bit boring. AI fixes and other QoL changes would be very welcome.

forum_gpt wrote: »

the warden bear is only used for parses and the slottable passive.

That's just not true.

forum_gpt wrote: »

go ahead and link me some runs since youre the PVE master

I'm not the person in question, but here:
https://www.esologs.com/reports/Q4Ndym9PBGavHr6p#fight=44&type=summary&source=12
Logs are from the highest score vLC HM done on a Warden DD, 6th highest score this patch.

forum_gpt wrote: »

I also never mentioned PVE you were the one that brought it up.

You didn't mention that you were strictly talking about PvP either. If you only mention PvP in few examples, it's safe to assume that you aren't exclusively talking about PvP when it comes to the whole topic at hand. At least that's how it appears to a non-native speaker.

forum_gpt wrote: »

idk why youre so salty. youre also NOT obligated to comment on every thread fyi.

Making a thread about a class and its skills will draw out people who play the class a lot, it shouldn't come as a surprise.

forum_gpt · September 29

BananaBender wrote: »

I agree, the bear could use some love to put the active portion of it more in line with other ultimates to feel more impactful, because right now most of its value comes from the sustained damage it does. It's good, but it's just a bit boring. AI fixes and other QoL changes would be very welcome.

forum_gpt wrote: »

the warden bear is only used for parses and the slottable passive.

That's just not true.

forum_gpt wrote: »

go ahead and link me some runs since youre the PVE master

I'm not the person in question, but here:
https://www.esologs.com/reports/Q4Ndym9PBGavHr6p#fight=44&type=summary&source=12
Logs are from the highest score vLC HM done on a Warden DD, 6th highest score this patch.

forum_gpt wrote: »

I also never mentioned PVE you were the one that brought it up.

You didn't mention that you were strictly talking about PvP either. If you only mention PvP in few examples, it's safe to assume that you aren't exclusively talking about PvP when it comes to the whole topic at hand. At least that's how it appears to a non-native speaker.

forum_gpt wrote: »

idk why youre so salty. youre also NOT obligated to comment on every thread fyi.

Making a thread about a class and its skills will draw out people who play the class a lot, it shouldn't come as a surprise.

"edited".

you might want to re read the post, I just assumed people would offer constructive opinions instead of defending every single mechanic like it's their life's work.

Decimus · September 29

Warden bear is currently alright on a ranged build (where it doesn't have to compete with the Northern Storm/Defensive Ultimate) in PvP, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have issues.

I think one immediate way to make it feel a lot more fluid would be to make the bear charge at the target when you click the ultimate - it's really annoying to have it wander off somewhere, click the ultimate & then it takes another 10 seconds for it to get to the target... often wasting your ultimate entirely.

Theist_VII · September 29

Warden bear suffers the same problem that other two-bar skills have…

To demand two bar spaces, and of Ultimates no less, the skill would need to be usable on both bars, nobody will activate the skill on their back-bar as it does the EXACT SAME thing but weaker so it’s nonsense to require it there. Mandatory two-bar skills need to do different things dependent on which bar you’re using them from, like Single-Target front bar, AoE back bar.

Why play a weaker build for an ultimate or active skills standardized to one slot when they require two?

kyle.wilson · September 29

I use the bear on my Oaken-warden and its usually 3rd in damage when you count everything it is doing.
for PVE don't use the morph that respawns automatically. It's so tanky you'll die before it does.
https://www.esologs.com/reports/tF3vVRZxCX2BDpkG#boss=-3&difficulty=0&type=damage-done

Theist_VII · September 30

kyle.wilson wrote: »

I use the bear on my Oaken-warden and its usually 3rd in damage when you count everything it is doing.
for PVE don't use the morph that respawns automatically. It's so tanky you'll die before it does.
https://www.esologs.com/reports/tF3vVRZxCX2BDpkG#boss=-3&difficulty=0&type=damage-done

So let’s break that down, you’re limiting your bar to only 6 slots of which all are stronger than the standard 12, and you’re measuring the skill to single target.

Most classes do their ultimate damage in an AoE, to put that in perspective, having a skill that does 1.5 x 1 the damage expected in single target, that does immediately less damage when you do 1 x 2 or a greater amount of enemies in an area.

That is the main reason they don’t compete with other damage dealers in trials, they lack the cleave because of needing the bear in execute.

mocap · September 30

Bear is ok for HA solo wardens (PvE ofcuz). It's 3k passive dps from bear on 3k dummy parse, not bad. Any other ult that can 3k dps that you don't need to use?