Winter's Embrace Feedback Megapost. Update 11.0.0

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

Due to subclassing, Winter's Embrace has recieved changes that have allowed it to sort of seperate itself from warden as a whole.

As one of the verified "frosty ones out there". i wanted to give my feedback but i decided to do testing before blasting the forums with my initial reaction (which by the way was OH MY GOD THIS IS AMAZING). but i've now actually had time to test and reflect on my feedback since its definitely nowhere near as good as i initally thought it would be.

Passive Changes

Glacial Presence:
Change:

This passive now increases your chances of applying the Chilled status effect by 125/250%, up from 100/200%. Adjusted the scaling of the damage done bonus to 10.55% of the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage, rather than 10% of your Weapon or Spell Damage and 1% of your Max Magicka or Stamina.

I think the changes made to this passive are reasonable, its overall a damage nerf to individual ticks of chilled, however, they will be a little more numerous, i think this is overall a nerf, but that's not the end of the world.

Frozen Armor:
Change:

Increased the Armor granted from this passive to 620/1240 per Winter's Embrace ability slotted, up from 445/990.

This is fine, i dont think many people will notice the difference.

Icy Aura:
Change:

This passive now causes attackers in melee range to receive a stack of Winter's Bite for 1.5/3 seconds, up to 5 stacks max. Attackers at 5 stacks are afflicted with Major Maim for 1.5/3 seconds. This passive no longer reduces the effectiveness of snares against you by 7/15%.

Anything could have been done to this passive skill to make it more useful, i like the direction this is going in, but i think 3 seconds is a bit weak for how many stacks are needed. would be nice if it applied minor brittle too.
Could look like this
"Attackers at 3 stacks are afflicted with major maim and minor brittle for 2/4 seconds."

Additionally, i could not test this passive as it does not appear to work at all right now. i spent about 30 seconds standing still blocking while being attacked by a dog and not once did i see any stacks apply to it or major maim. it does apply. i didn't read that a winter's embrace skill needed to be slotted.

Piercing Cold:
Change:

This passive now increases your Frost Damage by 5/10% and the amount of damage you can block by 4/8% permanently. This changes from the previous effect where whenever you deal Frost Damage you gain Piercing Cold for 6 seconds which increases the amount of damage you can block by 6/12% if your Max Health is above 30,000, or increased your damage done by 4/8% if you did not.

[Developer Comment]
We're simplifying this passive to be less of the if/or case now that subclassing is here, making this less disruptive to use but more specialized to the frosty ones out there.

I've seen a lot of discourse over this change, i think that it is very well intentioned and i really like the direction it's going in. there's a lot of people complaining that "i lose 8% of all of my damage to only gain increased frost damage" and i do understand their worries. On one hand, if you really don't want to use frost damage as much, there's no reason to take the line over something else, but on the other, if you want to play pure warden the line mostly only buffs itself so that feels a bit weird.

Regardless, it feels a bit undertuned in general, that's why i think its necessary to do 1 of a couple of things

increases Area of Effect damage by 5% and Frost Damage by 10%
increases damage done by 5% and Frost Damage by 5%.
increases Frost Damage by 10% and critical chance by 5%

Either way, it's good to see increased frost damage back on winter's embrace but it needs a bit more help.

Active Ability Changes

Northern Storm:
Change:

Reduced the damage per tick of this ultimate by 33.33% (repeating of course). Now grants 2% damage done per stack, rather than 50 Weapon and Spell Damage. Increased the duration of the stacks to 12 seconds per application, up from 5 - resulting in a total duration of 20 seconds, up from 13.
Developer Comment: We're lowering the damage per tick of this Ultimate to reduce how powerful it is in PvP situations, while simultaneously building more potential power into its residual effects, so it remains dangerous and impactful with less burst damage potential from the ability itself.

I'm getting very weird issues from this ultimate on the PTS server, i suspect its the same issue facing a couple of skills like solar barrage, so its hard to test this ultimate properly at all. in general however, i'm still not a big fan of the changes to this ultimate, i think making it less bursty is completely fine, but i reckon it would be much more interesting to have northern storm go in completely the opposite direction and just standardise permafrost to be the pvp morph, being more bursty and providing aoe major protection and a strong snare, while having northern storm instead no longer have major protection, but have significantly increased storm duration and reduced tick damage would go a long way to differentiating between these 2 morphs.

Frozen Gate:
Change:

Frozen Gate: Update this ability and its morphs to be more performant on the server, while also making sure they pull eligible targets more responsively.
Frozen Retreat: This morph’s synergy should no longer remove itself if multiple areas were stacked in the same spot.

Not much to say here, a bug fix is nice, however, this skill is still in a really rough state.

The feel of non-Warden class Frost Damage Abilities

There are a few frost damage abilities that other classes have, i've played with them and i'll tell you my thoughts.

Necromancer:

Glacial Collosus
Boneyard
Ghostly Embrace

Arcanist:

Tentacular Dread
Fulminating Rune

Glacial Collosus:
This ability feels pretty impactful, but like with many of the abilities i was using, having a ton of lag and many failed skill casts really hurt accurate judgement, it think this will be a nice big damage increasing utility ultimate for boss fights which i would be happy to use.

Boneyard:
This by far feels the best to use out of all of the 5 non warden frost damage abilities. it fits very nicely into a frost damage AoE DoT stack, using blighted blastbones instead of subterranean assault provides me with many corpses to consume with it and it visually fits well into my frost aoe stack.

Ghostly Embrace:
This feels fine, but the difference of what each field does is really jarring and feels strange. i think this one needs some work, but it's alright.

Tentacular Dread:
Man, i was expecting this to feel really solid in a build focused around generating crux with chilling soul, but honestly its just not very good at all. this is the one "delayed burst damage" skill that frost damage dealers can use that actually does frost damage, and it really doesn't do much because it's far too slow and restrictive. crux generation is horrible even when slotting runeblades (which is not synergistic with my build) or being an arcanist and using wield soul and crux generation. its also just not very frosty in appearance. it makes for a poor choice of crux spender even when it's being juiced up with increased chilled proc rate and 10% increased frost damage.
After viewing other builds, Tentacular Dread is not bad, but it seems pretty bad on a frost damage magic focused build being used as your "delayed burst damage" skill. it's incredibly strong when being used for it's damage increasing effect via buffed abyssal ink, but it's not fast enough to work as a proper delayed frost based burst damage skill, and otherwise has little synergy with chilled outside of applying it more when boosted via psychic lesion and glacial presence.

Fulminating Rune:
This was fine, but the magic damage DoT detracts a bit from it's frost damage burst, like most arcanist skills, the vibrant neon yellow/green really doesn't suit a frost damage dealer theme.

What do Winter's Embrace damage dealing builds need going forward?

Honestly outside of buffing piercing cold, the most important thing going forward is that we need some kind of delayed burst damage ability comparable with other delayed burst abilities or procs such as scorch, grim focus, blighted blastbones, crystal fragments, daedric curse, bound armaments. This ability should utilise the heavy chilled proc rate winter's embrace has. the best thing i can think of would be a rework to one of the morphs of frozen gate, as there is not even remotely a need to have both of its morphs be a niche tank pull. For example, we all know that frozen retreat has an incredibly low usage rate outside of trolling in pvp.

here's a quick idea i came up with to explain what i mean

MurkyWetWolf198 · April 15

Bro’s cooking. ZOS, take notes, the chef is in the house

ADarklore · April 15

For Boneyard, why would you use Blighted Blastbones instead of Sacrifice? Sacrifice= "increasing your damage done with class abilities and damage over time effects by 15%"

Since subclassed abilities are considered class abilities, seems like this would be a better option- especially for a frost DoT build.

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

ADarklore wrote: »

For Boneyard, why would you use Blighted Blastbones instead of Sacrifice? Sacrifice= "increasing your damage done with class abilities and damage over time effects by 15%"

Since subclassed abilities are considered class abilities, seems like this would be a better option- especially for a frost DoT build.

i tried both and i liked the feel of blighted blastbones much more, especially since it eased up my magicka sustain a lot. it also generates corpses. a lot of them.

ADarklore · April 15

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

i tried both and i liked the feel of blighted blastbones much more, especially since it eased up my magicka sustain a lot. it also generates corpses. a lot of them.

I haven't played Necro in forever, I forgot a lot has changed since I last played it.

madmufffin · April 15

Reading this made me realize I misread the Glacial Presence change too. 0/2 on Winter’s Embrace passives on first read through

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

madmufffin wrote: »

Reading this made me realize I misread the Glacial Presence change too. 0/2 on Winter’s Embrace passives on first read through

yeah it is a slight nerf, but i don't mind the drawback so much. its still very strong and it just got even better at applying chilled. i just hope they buff piercing cold a bit, as is outside of theme builds, being annoying in pvp or tanking, people likely won't care too much to take it.

XimTheBard · April 15

I want to chime in here.
I'm someone who has always loved frost builds. I came from the diablo franchise before moving into skyrim and then here in ESO.

What was my favorite thing to do in Diablo?

Anything frost damage. Starting with blizz/frozen orbs in D2 and then any frost builds I could try between Demonhunter and Wizard in D3

And almost always playing frost abilities in Skyrim when I wasn't stealth archering it up.

Here in ESO I feel like lately there's been more push for Frost oriented DPS, and frost theming, pushing it away from just being defensive. - From the variety of scripts for frost to even the winter skill styling to volley.

Personality, I think these are great, but we are still not quite there yet if we want people to have true frost damage builds.

I was excited by the last change that took away the shackle of feeling that you HAD to use frost damage to get the full potential out of the class, and that was something that was even stated with the change.

So I was very shocked and confused to see that was being rolled back.

increases all damage done by 5% and frost damage done by an additional 5%

I agree with this line of thought.

Another option could make the damage scale defending on amount of warden abilities slotted, if the concern is regards to other classes using it for subclassing

The warden class is great in pvp. PVP is using frost.

Warden DPS was finally having some wiggle room in PVE , it's still not by any means a main stay use in raids, however it felt like we could experiment with other weapons and options finally.

To summarize, I feel this is a step backwards.

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

XimTheBard wrote: »

I want to chime in here.
I'm someone who has always loved frost builds. I came from the diablo franchise before moving into skyrim and then here in ESO.

What was my favorite thing to do in Diablo?

Anything frost damage. Starting with blizz/frozen orbs in D2 and then any frost builds I could try between Demonhunter and Wizard in D3

And almost always playing frost abilities in Skyrim when I wasn't stealth archering it up.

Here in ESO I feel like lately there's been more push for Frost oriented DPS, and frost theming, pushing it away from just being defensive. - From the variety of scripts for frost to even the winter skill styling to volley.

Personality, I think these are great, but we are still not quite there yet if we want people to have true frost damage builds.

I was excited by the last change that took away the shackle of feeling that you HAD to use frost damage to get the full potential out of the class, and that was something that was even stated with the change.

So I was very shocked and confused to see that was being rolled back.

increases all damage done by 5% and frost damage done by an additional 5%

I agree with this line of thought.

Another option could make the damage scale defending on amount of warden abilities slotted, if the concern is regards to other classes using it for subclassing

The warden class is great in pvp. PVP is using frost.

Warden DPS was finally having some wiggle room in PVE , it's still not by any means a main stay use in raids, however it felt like we could experiment with other weapons and options finally.

To summarize, I feel this is a step backwards.

I think that them wanting some lines to be a bit more specialised towards certain playstyles is fine, but i think the hard line some people have is with daedric summoning and winter's embrace. with daedric summoning i feel like i'd be okay with it's passives ignoring non pet sorcs if bound armor and its morphs weren't in that line and were instead swapped with daedric mines to make dark magic more enticing, but with winter's embrace i'm more leaning towards the camp of "if you don't like it, don't use the line" simply because i kinda got what i wanted way back when. i would have thought the people who constantly complained about warden becoming too frost focused were going to be happy as well since they can finally use something other than winter's embrace skills but i'm still seeing them complain about it

so i don't really know at this point other than suggesting a middleground. we've begged for increased frost damage back on winter's embrace for so long at this point and i don't want to see them just revert it because of some players who don't care about frost dps. i know winter's embrace is still a warden line, but really thought this was a proper way to seperate the types of players who play warden so that both of us can have our cake AND eat it too.

madmufffin · April 15

The main thing is that Warden has become reliant on that more damage component to stay functional in endgame pvp. Taking it away forces you full-stop to use only frost skills or throw the whole line away. I play stamden in a tri core and I already have to work harder than arcs just to keep within a respectable range of their dps while having 2x their cpm. Losing 8% more damage and only having it instead buff 20% of my damage by an extra 2% will probably force me to have to switch off using Warden for subclassing entirely. I really like Warden and its design, but I'm also not gonna gimp myself for rp or personal affection.

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

madmufffin wrote: »

The main thing is that Warden has become reliant on that more damage component to stay functional in endgame pvp. Taking it away forces you full-stop to use only frost skills or throw the whole line away. I play stamden in a tri core and I already have to work harder than arcs just to keep within a respectable range of their dps while having 2x their cpm. Losing 8% more damage and only having it instead buff 20% of my damage by an extra 2% will probably force me to have to switch off using Warden for subclassing entirely. I really like Warden and its design, but I'm also not gonna gimp myself for rp or personal affection.

I don't want to sound rude or anything but i feel like I'm thinking about subclassing differently than other people. Based on what you've said i don't really see why in your case, dropping the line is an issue if you do want to do more damage, but on the other side, if you really do like the theme of the line and want to use it, why is the line becoming more specialised within itself bad? We can all agree it's undertuned but I swear I'm going crazy here. People now can be anything they like!

XimTheBard · April 15

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

XimTheBard wrote: »

I want to chime in here.
I'm someone who has always loved frost builds. I came from the diablo franchise before moving into skyrim and then here in ESO.

What was my favorite thing to do in Diablo?

Anything frost damage. Starting with blizz/frozen orbs in D2 and then any frost builds I could try between Demonhunter and Wizard in D3

And almost always playing frost abilities in Skyrim when I wasn't stealth archering it up.

Here in ESO I feel like lately there's been more push for Frost oriented DPS, and frost theming, pushing it away from just being defensive. - From the variety of scripts for frost to even the winter skill styling to volley.

Personality, I think these are great, but we are still not quite there yet if we want people to have true frost damage builds.

I was excited by the last change that took away the shackle of feeling that you HAD to use frost damage to get the full potential out of the class, and that was something that was even stated with the change.

So I was very shocked and confused to see that was being rolled back.

increases all damage done by 5% and frost damage done by an additional 5%

I agree with this line of thought.

Another option could make the damage scale defending on amount of warden abilities slotted, if the concern is regards to other classes using it for subclassing

The warden class is great in pvp. PVP is using frost.

Warden DPS was finally having some wiggle room in PVE , it's still not by any means a main stay use in raids, however it felt like we could experiment with other weapons and options finally.

To summarize, I feel this is a step backwards.

I think that them wanting some lines to be a bit more specialised towards certain playstyles is fine, but i think the hard line some people have is with daedric summoning and winter's embrace. with daedric summoning i feel like i'd be okay with it's passives ignoring non pet sorcs if bound armor and its morphs weren't in that line and were instead swapped with daedric mines to make dark magic more enticing, but with winter's embrace i'm more leaning towards the camp of "if you don't like it, don't use the line" simply because i kinda got what i wanted way back when. i would have thought the people who constantly complained about warden becoming too frost focused were going to be happy as well since they can finally use something other than winter's embrace skills but i'm still seeing them complain about it so i don't really know at this point other than suggesting a middleground. we've begged for increased frost damage back on winter's embrace for so long at this point and i don't want to see them just revert it because of some players who don't care about frost dps. i know winter's embrace is still a warden line, but really thought this was a proper way to seperate the types of players who play warden so that both of us can have our cake AND eat it too.

It's less about being able to use something else and more of pushing a class back into a corner. You can keep the frost damage bonus, that's great but.. the warden doesn't really have enough to utilize to make it viable, along the lines of what madmuffin said. Magden endgame has been master's ice staff for ages. That's it. That's the option to compete in endgame. With the previous iteration you could now deal frost damage and receive a bonus to everything too. It kept the requirement of using frost damage but also allowed for build diversity.

Is this the end of the world for wardens? No. But it eliminates the efforts that were finally making wardens at least a chance of sniffing end game.

So you swap out the skill line?

Then you lose the staples of Arctic wind and Frost cloak.

That's partially why I was agreeing with your suggestion of splitting it to be 5% both ways. You still gain more doing frost, but you still have some logistics to pursue other build paths, or even making it stack based on slotted abilities.

madmufffin · April 15

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

The main thing is that Warden has become reliant on that more damage component to stay functional in endgame pvp. Taking it away forces you full-stop to use only frost skills or throw the whole line away. I play stamden in a tri core and I already have to work harder than arcs just to keep within a respectable range of their dps while having 2x their cpm. Losing 8% more damage and only having it instead buff 20% of my damage by an extra 2% will probably force me to have to switch off using Warden for subclassing entirely. I really like Warden and its design, but I'm also not gonna gimp myself for rp or personal affection.

I don't want to sound rude or anything but i feel like I'm thinking about subclassing differently than other people. Based on what you've said i don't really see why in your case, dropping the line is an issue if you do want to do more damage, but on the other side, if you really do like the theme of the line and want to use it, why is the line becoming more specialised within itself bad? We can all agree it's undertuned but I swear I'm going crazy here. People now can be anything they like!

I really like the class and want to get to play cool components of it (forgive the pun) but also don't want to see it just needlessly get nerfed back to a previous abandoned poor state. I would've happily done animal companions, assassinations, winter's and enjoyed it, but can't now.

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

XimTheBard wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

XimTheBard wrote: »

I want to chime in here.
I'm someone who has always loved frost builds. I came from the diablo franchise before moving into skyrim and then here in ESO.

What was my favorite thing to do in Diablo?

Anything frost damage. Starting with blizz/frozen orbs in D2 and then any frost builds I could try between Demonhunter and Wizard in D3

And almost always playing frost abilities in Skyrim when I wasn't stealth archering it up.

Here in ESO I feel like lately there's been more push for Frost oriented DPS, and frost theming, pushing it away from just being defensive. - From the variety of scripts for frost to even the winter skill styling to volley.

Personality, I think these are great, but we are still not quite there yet if we want people to have true frost damage builds.

I was excited by the last change that took away the shackle of feeling that you HAD to use frost damage to get the full potential out of the class, and that was something that was even stated with the change.

So I was very shocked and confused to see that was being rolled back.

increases all damage done by 5% and frost damage done by an additional 5%

I agree with this line of thought.

Another option could make the damage scale defending on amount of warden abilities slotted, if the concern is regards to other classes using it for subclassing

The warden class is great in pvp. PVP is using frost.

Warden DPS was finally having some wiggle room in PVE , it's still not by any means a main stay use in raids, however it felt like we could experiment with other weapons and options finally.

To summarize, I feel this is a step backwards.

I think that them wanting some lines to be a bit more specialised towards certain playstyles is fine, but i think the hard line some people have is with daedric summoning and winter's embrace. with daedric summoning i feel like i'd be okay with it's passives ignoring non pet sorcs if bound armor and its morphs weren't in that line and were instead swapped with daedric mines to make dark magic more enticing, but with winter's embrace i'm more leaning towards the camp of "if you don't like it, don't use the line" simply because i kinda got what i wanted way back when. i would have thought the people who constantly complained about warden becoming too frost focused were going to be happy as well since they can finally use something other than winter's embrace skills but i'm still seeing them complain about it so i don't really know at this point other than suggesting a middleground. we've begged for increased frost damage back on winter's embrace for so long at this point and i don't want to see them just revert it because of some players who don't care about frost dps. i know winter's embrace is still a warden line, but really thought this was a proper way to seperate the types of players who play warden so that both of us can have our cake AND eat it too.

It's less about being able to use something else and more of pushing a class back into a corner. You can keep the frost damage bonus, that's great but.. the warden doesn't really have enough to utilize to make it viable, along the lines of what madmuffin said. Magden endgame has been master's ice staff for ages. That's it. That's the option to compete in endgame. With the previous iteration you could now deal frost damage and receive a bonus to everything too. It kept the requirement of using frost damage but also allowed for build diversity.

Is this the end of the world for wardens? No. But it eliminates the efforts that were finally making wardens at least a chance of sniffing end game.

So you swap out the skill line?

Then you lose the staples of Arctic wind and Frost cloak.

That's partially why I was agreeing with your suggestion of splitting it to be 5% both ways. You still gain more doing frost, but you still have some logistics to pursue other build paths, or even making it stack based on slotted abilities.

honestly i'm pretty sure i saw parses with lightning staff and shock clench doing more than frost staff wardens since they reworked piercing cold, it wasn't the go-to weapon anymore. while it was still pretty synergistic it was not as good as other weapons. otherwise, i get what youre saying. as long as they buff piercing cold it should be fine. The biggest thing missing from a frost dps's kit at this point in time is a delayed burst damage skill that can compete with other ones. tentacular dread just is not it and the other ones, while cool, have the same issue as subterranean assault, they dont thematically fit or deal frost damage. id love to see a rework of frozen retreat or device turned into something that murders when you have a good chilled proc rate.

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

The main thing is that Warden has become reliant on that more damage component to stay functional in endgame pvp. Taking it away forces you full-stop to use only frost skills or throw the whole line away. I play stamden in a tri core and I already have to work harder than arcs just to keep within a respectable range of their dps while having 2x their cpm. Losing 8% more damage and only having it instead buff 20% of my damage by an extra 2% will probably force me to have to switch off using Warden for subclassing entirely. I really like Warden and its design, but I'm also not gonna gimp myself for rp or personal affection.

I don't want to sound rude or anything but i feel like I'm thinking about subclassing differently than other people. Based on what you've said i don't really see why in your case, dropping the line is an issue if you do want to do more damage, but on the other side, if you really do like the theme of the line and want to use it, why is the line becoming more specialised within itself bad? We can all agree it's undertuned but I swear I'm going crazy here. People now can be anything they like!

I really like the class and want to get to play cool components of it (forgive the pun) but also don't want to see it just needlessly get nerfed back to a previous abandoned poor state. I would've happily done animal companions, assassinations, winter's and enjoyed it, but can't now.

i definitely dont want to see it abandoned, it probably will be if piercing cold remains as is without a buff.

madmufffin · April 15

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

The main thing is that Warden has become reliant on that more damage component to stay functional in endgame pvp. Taking it away forces you full-stop to use only frost skills or throw the whole line away. I play stamden in a tri core and I already have to work harder than arcs just to keep within a respectable range of their dps while having 2x their cpm. Losing 8% more damage and only having it instead buff 20% of my damage by an extra 2% will probably force me to have to switch off using Warden for subclassing entirely. I really like Warden and its design, but I'm also not gonna gimp myself for rp or personal affection.

I don't want to sound rude or anything but i feel like I'm thinking about subclassing differently than other people. Based on what you've said i don't really see why in your case, dropping the line is an issue if you do want to do more damage, but on the other side, if you really do like the theme of the line and want to use it, why is the line becoming more specialised within itself bad? We can all agree it's undertuned but I swear I'm going crazy here. People now can be anything they like!

I really like the class and want to get to play cool components of it (forgive the pun) but also don't want to see it just needlessly get nerfed back to a previous abandoned poor state. I would've happily done animal companions, assassinations, winter's and enjoyed it, but can't now.

i definitely dont want to see it abandoned, it probably will be if piercing cold remains as is without a buff.

I fought for my life to hit this while everyone else in group had to do half as much as is. Magden is almost unplayable with how bad sustain is. I just don't see how the class can compete by being shoehorned when all the other prominent classes either have the kit to support the corner they're being pushed into (DK) or can do literally whatever they want (NB).

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

The main thing is that Warden has become reliant on that more damage component to stay functional in endgame pvp. Taking it away forces you full-stop to use only frost skills or throw the whole line away. I play stamden in a tri core and I already have to work harder than arcs just to keep within a respectable range of their dps while having 2x their cpm. Losing 8% more damage and only having it instead buff 20% of my damage by an extra 2% will probably force me to have to switch off using Warden for subclassing entirely. I really like Warden and its design, but I'm also not gonna gimp myself for rp or personal affection.

I don't want to sound rude or anything but i feel like I'm thinking about subclassing differently than other people. Based on what you've said i don't really see why in your case, dropping the line is an issue if you do want to do more damage, but on the other side, if you really do like the theme of the line and want to use it, why is the line becoming more specialised within itself bad? We can all agree it's undertuned but I swear I'm going crazy here. People now can be anything they like!

I really like the class and want to get to play cool components of it (forgive the pun) but also don't want to see it just needlessly get nerfed back to a previous abandoned poor state. I would've happily done animal companions, assassinations, winter's and enjoyed it, but can't now.

i definitely dont want to see it abandoned, it probably will be if piercing cold remains as is without a buff.

I fought for my life to hit this while everyone else in group had to do half as much as is. Magden is almost unplayable with how bad sustain is. I just don't see how the class can compete by being shoehorned when all the other prominent classes either have the kit to support the corner they're being pushed into (DK) or can do literally whatever they want (NB).

that's some fantastic output and i definitely understand the struggle to reach it. but if i'm being honest, i'm not really thinking too much about the context of pure classes anymore or being pidgeonholed into corners that (after subclassing drops) i don't think are really there anymore, which is not to say the line doesn't need additional buffs, but still.
Regarding warden's sustain, what do you think about the flourish buffs?

madmufffin · April 15

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

The main thing is that Warden has become reliant on that more damage component to stay functional in endgame pvp. Taking it away forces you full-stop to use only frost skills or throw the whole line away. I play stamden in a tri core and I already have to work harder than arcs just to keep within a respectable range of their dps while having 2x their cpm. Losing 8% more damage and only having it instead buff 20% of my damage by an extra 2% will probably force me to have to switch off using Warden for subclassing entirely. I really like Warden and its design, but I'm also not gonna gimp myself for rp or personal affection.

I don't want to sound rude or anything but i feel like I'm thinking about subclassing differently than other people. Based on what you've said i don't really see why in your case, dropping the line is an issue if you do want to do more damage, but on the other side, if you really do like the theme of the line and want to use it, why is the line becoming more specialised within itself bad? We can all agree it's undertuned but I swear I'm going crazy here. People now can be anything they like!

I really like the class and want to get to play cool components of it (forgive the pun) but also don't want to see it just needlessly get nerfed back to a previous abandoned poor state. I would've happily done animal companions, assassinations, winter's and enjoyed it, but can't now.

i definitely dont want to see it abandoned, it probably will be if piercing cold remains as is without a buff.

I fought for my life to hit this while everyone else in group had to do half as much as is. Magden is almost unplayable with how bad sustain is. I just don't see how the class can compete by being shoehorned when all the other prominent classes either have the kit to support the corner they're being pushed into (DK) or can do literally whatever they want (NB).

that's some fantastic output and i definitely understand the struggle to reach it. but if i'm being honest, i'm not really thinking too much about the context of pure classes anymore or being pidgeonholed into corners that (after subclassing drops) i don't think are really there anymore, which is not to say the line doesn't need additional buffs, but still.
Regarding warden's sustain, what do you think about the flourish buffs?

I'm not looking at it purely as a single class, but still want to be able to enjoy multiple parts of a class I really like. As to flourish, I don't know if it'll be enough still for how much you'd have to lean into frost damage with the passive rework, but we'll see.

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

The main thing is that Warden has become reliant on that more damage component to stay functional in endgame pvp. Taking it away forces you full-stop to use only frost skills or throw the whole line away. I play stamden in a tri core and I already have to work harder than arcs just to keep within a respectable range of their dps while having 2x their cpm. Losing 8% more damage and only having it instead buff 20% of my damage by an extra 2% will probably force me to have to switch off using Warden for subclassing entirely. I really like Warden and its design, but I'm also not gonna gimp myself for rp or personal affection.

I don't want to sound rude or anything but i feel like I'm thinking about subclassing differently than other people. Based on what you've said i don't really see why in your case, dropping the line is an issue if you do want to do more damage, but on the other side, if you really do like the theme of the line and want to use it, why is the line becoming more specialised within itself bad? We can all agree it's undertuned but I swear I'm going crazy here. People now can be anything they like!

I really like the class and want to get to play cool components of it (forgive the pun) but also don't want to see it just needlessly get nerfed back to a previous abandoned poor state. I would've happily done animal companions, assassinations, winter's and enjoyed it, but can't now.

i definitely dont want to see it abandoned, it probably will be if piercing cold remains as is without a buff.

I fought for my life to hit this while everyone else in group had to do half as much as is. Magden is almost unplayable with how bad sustain is. I just don't see how the class can compete by being shoehorned when all the other prominent classes either have the kit to support the corner they're being pushed into (DK) or can do literally whatever they want (NB).

that's some fantastic output and i definitely understand the struggle to reach it. but if i'm being honest, i'm not really thinking too much about the context of pure classes anymore or being pidgeonholed into corners that (after subclassing drops) i don't think are really there anymore, which is not to say the line doesn't need additional buffs, but still.
Regarding warden's sustain, what do you think about the flourish buffs?

I'm not looking at it purely as a single class, but still want to be able to enjoy multiple parts of a class I really like. As to flourish, I don't know if it'll be enough still for how much you'd have to lean into frost damage with the passive rework, but we'll see.

i don't think you'd have to lean that much into frost damage to be honest, but its already low enough where it wouldn't be worth bothering with.

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

Just updated the suggestion list of piercing cold to this:

increases Area of Effect damage by 5% and Frost Damage by 10%
increases damage done by 5% and Frost Damage by 5%.
increases Frost Damage by 10% and critical chance by 5%

After mulling it about i really don't think an extra 5% increased frost damage will get us anywhere. So i think leaning towards a general increase will be more helpful.

XimTheBard · April 15

I guess my point is that, you could still make a workable magden with this change, and use a frost staff and probably gain a bit of damage.

But my stamden build that I reached 100k on, and is the only thing I've ever reached 100k on.. because I'm not great at parsing, has now lost 8k damage statistically.

I'm not seeing why this needed to occur when it was stated previously that they were trying to remove the limiting factor of just being frost.

As I said, I'm a fan of frost damage builds, but I'm also a fan of experimenting with multiple build options and this just really promotes one option.

madmufffin · April 15

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

The main thing is that Warden has become reliant on that more damage component to stay functional in endgame pvp. Taking it away forces you full-stop to use only frost skills or throw the whole line away. I play stamden in a tri core and I already have to work harder than arcs just to keep within a respectable range of their dps while having 2x their cpm. Losing 8% more damage and only having it instead buff 20% of my damage by an extra 2% will probably force me to have to switch off using Warden for subclassing entirely. I really like Warden and its design, but I'm also not gonna gimp myself for rp or personal affection.

I don't want to sound rude or anything but i feel like I'm thinking about subclassing differently than other people. Based on what you've said i don't really see why in your case, dropping the line is an issue if you do want to do more damage, but on the other side, if you really do like the theme of the line and want to use it, why is the line becoming more specialised within itself bad? We can all agree it's undertuned but I swear I'm going crazy here. People now can be anything they like!

I really like the class and want to get to play cool components of it (forgive the pun) but also don't want to see it just needlessly get nerfed back to a previous abandoned poor state. I would've happily done animal companions, assassinations, winter's and enjoyed it, but can't now.

i definitely dont want to see it abandoned, it probably will be if piercing cold remains as is without a buff.

I fought for my life to hit this while everyone else in group had to do half as much as is. Magden is almost unplayable with how bad sustain is. I just don't see how the class can compete by being shoehorned when all the other prominent classes either have the kit to support the corner they're being pushed into (DK) or can do literally whatever they want (NB).

that's some fantastic output and i definitely understand the struggle to reach it. but if i'm being honest, i'm not really thinking too much about the context of pure classes anymore or being pidgeonholed into corners that (after subclassing drops) i don't think are really there anymore, which is not to say the line doesn't need additional buffs, but still.
Regarding warden's sustain, what do you think about the flourish buffs?

I'm not looking at it purely as a single class, but still want to be able to enjoy multiple parts of a class I really like. As to flourish, I don't know if it'll be enough still for how much you'd have to lean into frost damage with the passive rework, but we'll see.

i don't think you'd have to lean that much into frost damage to be honest, but its already low enough where it wouldn't be worth bothering with.

As Xim said, if you don't actively use frost damage, you're just outright losing like 5% of overall damage. It just seems so needless to do for what equates to rp.

madmufffin · April 15

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Just updated the suggestion list of piercing cold to this:
increases Area of Effect damage by 5% and Frost Damage by 10%

increases damage done by 5% and Frost Damage by 5%.

increases Frost Damage by 10% and critical chance by 5%

After mulling it about i really don't think an extra 5% increased frost damage will get us anywhere. So i think leaning towards a general increase will be more helpful.

Any of this would be a much better implementation of the passive and the direction they've shown they want to go in the past couple iterations

skinnycheeks · April 15

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Just updated the suggestion list of piercing cold to this:
increases Area of Effect damage by 5% and Frost Damage by 10%

increases damage done by 5% and Frost Damage by 5%.

increases Frost Damage by 10% and critical chance by 5%

After mulling it about i really don't think an extra 5% increased frost damage will get us anywhere. So i think leaning towards a general increase will be more helpful.

These all sound pretty good. I especially like the 3rd. I do agree that only 10% frost damage is not enough damage on the passive.

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Just updated the suggestion list of piercing cold to this:
increases Area of Effect damage by 5% and Frost Damage by 10%

increases damage done by 5% and Frost Damage by 5%.

increases Frost Damage by 10% and critical chance by 5%

After mulling it about i really don't think an extra 5% increased frost damage will get us anywhere. So i think leaning towards a general increase will be more helpful.

Any of this would be a much better implementation of the passive and the direction they've shown they want to go in the past couple iterations

Lets hope they do something like it.

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

skinnycheeks wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Just updated the suggestion list of piercing cold to this:
increases Area of Effect damage by 5% and Frost Damage by 10%

increases damage done by 5% and Frost Damage by 5%.

increases Frost Damage by 10% and critical chance by 5%

After mulling it about i really don't think an extra 5% increased frost damage will get us anywhere. So i think leaning towards a general increase will be more helpful.

These all sound pretty good. I especially like the 3rd. I do agree that only 10% frost damage is not enough damage on the passive.

Thanks skinny.

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

madmufffin wrote: »

Replied to wrong thread

Which thread lol?

madmufffin · April 15

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Replied to wrong thread

Which thread lol?

My response was meant for this one
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/676282/oops-you-did-it-again-warden-nonsense#latest

ESO_Nightingale · April 15

XimTheBard wrote: »

I guess my point is that, you could still make a workable magden with this change, and use a frost staff and probably gain a bit of damage.

But my stamden build that I reached 100k on, and is the only thing I've ever reached 100k on.. because I'm not great at parsing, has now lost 8k damage statistically.

I'm not seeing why this needed to occur when it was stated previously that they were trying to remove the limiting factor of just being frost.

As I said, I'm a fan of frost damage builds, but I'm also a fan of experimenting with multiple build options and this just really promotes one option.

I understand your point. I removed my previous suggestion that only buffs the frost damage aspect of the passive.

LeHarrt91 · April 16

I agree, most of the changes are good but the 10% to frost doesn’t seem like enough as it currently is

ESO_Nightingale · April 16

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

I agree, most of the changes are good but the 10% to frost doesn’t seem like enough as it currently is

yeah 10% even for pure frost dps isn't enough.