My opinion on the Warden Class

subtlezeroub17_ESO

I really do enjoy this class a whole, but there's a lot of messy spells in our repertoire which either aren't useful or are outclassed by another spell in our same class. There's also the issue of almost every passive Wardens have are boring and uninspiring. Then there's a few questionable nuances that really make me curious.

I'll start with our Green Balance tree. All in all, I think the majority of the tree is solid but it still has a few things that need to be looked at.


Grievance #1: Corrupting Pollen

I cannot imagine any kind of situation where you'd want to use this over the other morph. Honestly, I don't even think a PvP'er would bother with this spell (correct me if I'm wrong please) . The whole premise of the spell needs to be scrapped. I have ALWAYS imagined this being a Stamina Damage morph spell that creates a field of Poisonous fungi and perhaps creates a synergy with Allies that allows them to use a close ranged poison AoE that instead inflicts Major Defile on affected targets. Anything would be better than this spell.

Not only would a poison spore field give Stamina DPS'ers a good stamina type spell, but it would also improve Bow/Bow dps by a mile. Plus, Stamina DPS'ers have been begging for a DoT.

Grievance #2 : Lotus Blossom

I wish Lotus blossom granted Minor Prophecy (+8% spell crit) or Major /Minor force (+15/10% crit damage respectively) or even Empower for a couple spells (+20% damage on next hit).

The Major prophecy is wasted because most magicka DPS'ers already have Major Prophecy double slotted anyway from Inner light and the whole original idea behind that spell was to "give you an awesome damage buff". This is not living up to the original intent of our so-called "awesome damage buff".

Currently, I rarely see magicka DPS wardens bothering with this spell simply because you're required to keep it up for 20 sec, it does not interact with Med-weaves and lastly the Leeching Vines spell thrown on a tank will provide A LOT more group utility than this spell ever will via Minor leeching along with the tank getting a free 10% -> 100% heal (from a DPS no less) on trash mobs.

Grievance #3: Emerald Moss passive

The passives for the class in general are kinda boring compared to other classes. I am a Magicka player but y'know what ? Stamina needs love too. Why not include not only the healing increase, but also give Stamina DPS'ers a poison damage boost?

"Increase Healing done and all class poison damage by 1/2% per each green balance ability slotted"

This would also be an interesting playstyle that encourages Stamina support type play through (Soothing Spores, Fungal growth ** (my imagined poison field), Green Lotus) That's already an easy 6% damage boost.


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Animal companions needs a bit of love too. More than Green Balance but less than Winters Embrace (oh, I have words for that tree).

Grievance #1: Cutting Dive

I understand you really wanted to Give stamina Wardens a stamina ability, but this was really lazily done imo. It simply does damage? Is that it? Why not give it a bit of AoE damage or perhaps Minor breach ? It needs something to make it attractive and just because it is ranged, does not mean it alone will make Bow/Bow builds competitive. Stamina Desperately needs something to change its' meta from the DW/Bow meta.

Grievance #2: Screaming Cliff Racer

Why such a boring addition? Honestly, the damage boost is rarely ever applicable in anything above normal dungeons. Why? For the most part you're gonna be kind of close to the boss even as magicka, that way you'll in range of the healers heals. For the most part, the 15% damage boost is negligible.


Grievance #3: Falcon's swiftness

This buff, while fun, is hardly useful in even a normal dungeon environment. Do you realize how much of a DPS loss it is to keep up this spell for what? An 8% damage boost or 5% evasion boost ? One of which is regularly provided by the healer and 8% damage boosts aren't worth it for casual content since you could heavy attack things to death and still be fine. So with that said, it's only used for the speed increase/ Stam regen. It's not worth it.


Grievance #4: Feral Guardian

On face value, the bear provides a 2-3k DPS boost...on a target dummy. It's single targeted and must be double barred. Why? Why should any magicka or stamina build sacrifice two ult slots for a single target bear that bugs out and doesn't provide anything above a decent 75 ult execute and the occasional stun that can be walked out of ? Not to mention , the bear can be kited. Easily. It needs a charge skill and AoE damage.

I recently thought of giving each morph its' own type of charge and AoE damage:

Eternal Guardian could get a blink strike that executes below 25% HP and a "magical roar" heavy damage AoE attack that happens every couple melee hits and is instant.

Wild Guardian could get a swift charge attack that executes below 25% HP and either a cone bleed DoT that it does every couple melee hits or just make every attack it does a conal damage attack.


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Then there's Winters Embrace. Oh, where do I even begin..?

Grievance #1: Arctic Wind, both morphs.

This was apparently meant for tanks however, why would a tank slot this when there's better self heals to be had? Polar Wind while useful in theory , is just over heal and not inspiring at all. Any DPS that is within range for the tanks spill over heal , is in range for the healers heals as well. Then there's arctic blast. HP based DPS is "not" useful by any means. I feel like you wanted to give tanks a damage option but by the end of the day, there's no reason why a tank would slot this for damage that is abysmal rather than another attack based off their chosen Stam or Magicka preference.

Arctic Blast, imo should have been an alternative ranged magicka DPS attack. Why don't wardens even have access to a direct frost damage ability anyway? No class in the game has access to any direct damage Frost ability and most surprisingly of all, not even your Wardens do. That bugs me and it shouldn't. For example, DK's have plenty of access to Fire damage through whip/flame breath/etc, Sorc have tons of access to shock damage and yet Wardens, the supposed Frost class only have access to Ice through one AoE, two weak morphs no one would bother using and an Ult that shouldn't even be a better choice than the premier Warden DPS ult.

Grievance #2: Crystallized Slab

Why would any tank/dps/healer/pet/mount/Vivec use this morph over shimmering shield? The frost damage return isn't even that great. There's nothing redeeming about this boring morph other than something created so Crystallized shield has a second morph.

Grievance #3: Frozen Device

I feel like in theory, this spell was supposed to give Wardens an alternative to chains but it failed really bad. Why? Because it has to be aimed and only does one mob at a time. If you're gonna make it so frustrating to use for tanks, why not make it AoE ? PvP ? Then make it so player targets have immunity to it for 6 seconds or something.

Grievance #4: Icy Aura passive.

I feel like this passive is just weak. Sure, snares are bad mmm'kay ? But it's a boring passive that's just boring boring boring ! Why not give Wardens something fun to play with? Perhaps an Ice based proc effect ? Anything ? Why are the passives for all three just so....plain?

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DeadlyRecluse

A lot of the skills you are bagging on are pretty useful in PvP (Corrupting Pollen, Falcon's Swiftness, Frozen Gate, Lotus Blossom, anti-snare passive).

But agreed that cliff diver morphs are lazy, Arctic wind is trash, Bear ult is really underwhelming.

s7732425ub17_ESO

I disagree with about half of your grievances. And I somewhat agree with the other half.

Vizier

sounds like you pretty much PvE. I'm playing a magward and...

Like Corrupting Pollen. It's a nice group heal with a great synergy heal. And the healing de-buff is great. It really puts all but the best healing tanks backs to the wall. I've thrown this down on some of those guys that 1vX and watched them just melt. Remember you can spec CP into that debuff too. (it's flipping nice.)

Cliff Racer..I dig it

Bird of Prey...works for my style of play. I primarily use it for the speed. I like like the extra magicka damage and while the stam recovery is meh for me It doesn't hurt.

Natures grasp is not very well conceived IMO.

Lotus flower seem OK but have found better use for the space it takes on the bar...for now.

Living Trellis is useful

Arctic blast seems a waste... I agree with you. It is a lack luster spell at best.

Warden has been EZ mode for PVE and harsh for solo PvP, but despite the above issues has a great synergy with group PvP.



So far I'm enjoying the Warden. It has some problems and I hope ZoS will tweak them to increase performance. It needs more dps and the delayed burst on heals and damage should be quicker. All that said I recognize that Not all skills are fully leveled and or morphed and I feel like the learning curve has not been navigated yet so it may be my opinion changes as I play and learn more.

Gan Xing

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

I disagree with about half of your grievances. And I somewhat agree with the other half.

same... there are some issues with this class. But I use some of those abilities with my unusual build, and it works quite nicely

subtlezeroub17_ESO

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

A lot of the skills you are bagging on are pretty useful in PvP (Corrupting Pollen, Falcon's Swiftness, Frozen Gate, Lotus Blossom, anti-snare passive).

But agreed that cliff diver morphs are lazy, Arctic wind is trash, Bear ult is really underwhelming.

Remember, I mentioned specific morphs unless I actually mentioned the root spell.

DeadlyRecluse

subtlezeroub17_ESO wrote: »

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

A lot of the skills you are bagging on are pretty useful in PvP (Corrupting Pollen, Falcon's Swiftness, Frozen Gate, Lotus Blossom, anti-snare passive).

But agreed that cliff diver morphs are lazy, Arctic wind is trash, Bear ult is really underwhelming.

Remember, I mentioned specific morphs unless I actually mentioned the root spell.

I know, and I agree with you that dive morphs are boring (though not "bad" per se), Arctic wind is trash, Crystalized slab is meh.

The other ones you mention (both base skills and morphs) have uses, even if some are niche.

Dakmor_Kavu

Some thoughts from a magwarden healer (both in PvP and PvE).

subtlezeroub17_ESO wrote: »

Grievance #1: Corrupting Pollen

I cannot imagine any kind of situation where you'd want to use this over the other morph. Honestly, I don't even think a PvP'er would bother with this spell (correct me if I'm wrong please) . The whole premise of the spell needs to be scrapped. I have ALWAYS imagined this being a Stamina Damage morph spell that creates a field of Poisonous fungi and perhaps creates a synergy with Allies that allows them to use a close ranged poison AoE that instead inflicts Major Defile on affected targets. Anything would be better than this spell.

Not only would a poison spore field give Stamina DPS'ers a good stamina type spell, but it would also improve Bow/Bow dps by a mile. Plus, Stamina DPS'ers have been begging for a DoT.

Absolutely this has use in PvP. To me it is clearly intended basically FOR that exact use, as pve it would see very little use. Its a great pvp morph that helps your guys, and hurts them. Especially when another HOT isnt what saves you from a number of the bursts in PvP, but making someone else heal for less may well be what helps take them down. It also lets you "claim" an area and make others consider not entering because of the debuff it applies. In this way, its great for area control/positioning.

subtlezeroub17_ESO wrote: »

Grievance #2 : Lotus Blossom

I wish Lotus blossom granted Minor Prophecy (+8% spell crit) or Major /Minor force (+15/10% crit damage respectively) or even Empower for a couple spells (+20% damage on next hit).

The Major prophecy is wasted because most magicka DPS'ers already have Major Prophecy double slotted anyway from Inner light and the whole original idea behind that spell was to "give you an awesome damage buff". This is not living up to the original intent of our so-called "awesome damage buff".

Currently, I rarely see magicka DPS wardens bothering with this spell simply because you're required to keep it up for 20 sec, it does not interact with Med-weaves and lastly the Leeching Vines spell thrown on a tank will provide A LOT more group utility than this spell ever will via Minor leeching along with the tank getting a free 10% -> 100% heal (from a DPS no less) on trash mobs.

1: it does what inner light does AND more, so how is that not a better alternative?
2: It is a nice little perk for healers who are going to be potentially heavy attacking to restore stats anyway
3: Its a 20 second buff, one of the longer duration buffs and easy as pie to keep up.

Yes itd be nice with med weaves, but it still is a viable source of major prophecy with additional perks that work with both light and heavy attacks which DPS, tanks and healers alike all use these days.




All in all I think the green balance tree abilities are VERY well done, but would like to see some interest in the passives beyond "more abilities = more buffs" type ones.

subtlezeroub17_ESO wrote: »

Grievance #3: Falcon's swiftness

This buff, while fun, is hardly useful in even a normal dungeon environment. Do you realize how much of a DPS loss it is to keep up this spell for what? An 8% damage boost or 5% evasion boost ? One of which is regularly provided by the healer and 8% damage boosts aren't worth it for casual content since you could heavy attack things to death and still be fine. So with that said, it's only used for the speed increase/ Stam regen. It's not worth it.

Yeah, I got nothing. This one is pure trash. Really needs some improvements.

subtlezeroub17_ESO wrote: »

Grievance #4: Feral Guardian

On face value, the bear provides a 2-3k DPS boost...on a target dummy. It's single targeted and must be double barred. Why? Why should any magicka or stamina build sacrifice two ult slots for a single target bear that bugs out and doesn't provide anything above a decent 75 ult execute and the occasional stun that can be walked out of ? Not to mention , the bear can be kited. Easily. It needs a charge skill and AoE damage.

In its current iteration it is beyond clunky, and taking up 2 bars is a joke. It gets lost, is slow to respond, and is only a boost "in theory" as you correctly stated. Most folks seem to mirror these thoughts in being totally under-whelmed by the bear, myself included.



Being a healer main the DPS side of things arent much used by me (i use the dive/swarms when healing dungeons to pull my weight, but never in trials or pvp) but from some time early on experimenting with them the timing of many of these are "clunky" feeling, and the bear...the bear needs some serious work. The netch is HANDS DOWN the best thing in the tree, and that speaks volumes about the "dps" tree.

subtlezeroub17_ESO wrote: »

Grievance #1: Arctic Wind, both morphs.

This was apparently meant for tanks however, why would a tank slot this when there's better self heals to be had? Polar Wind while useful in theory , is just over heal and not inspiring at all. Any DPS that is within range for the tanks spill over heal , is in range for the healers heals as well. Then there's arctic blast. HP based DPS is "not" useful by any means. I feel like you wanted to give tanks a damage option but by the end of the day, there's no reason why a tank would slot this for damage that is abysmal rather than another attack based off their chosen Stam or Magicka preference.

In this we agree, the heal as it stands is not great. I do respect it scaling off the HP (this is the "tank" tree after all) but 13%, even on 50k hp (as health stacking seems to be the new tank meta) is still only a 6.5k heal, with 1k per second every 2 seconds for a total of 5k more, for a grand total of 11.5k over essentially 10 seconds....

Fungal growth will hit around 8.5-9k on its own, and thats INSTANT and gives a buff, so most tanks would be better off just hitting that! IMO the way to reconcile this is to give the spell a slight damage resistance as well. This would have the added benefit of giving it a use to NON tanks as well, since with an average of 18-23k health, DPS/Healers sure wouldnt be using it for the heal, but COULD benefit from the damage reduction.

subtlezeroub17_ESO wrote: »

Grievance #3: Frozen Device

I feel like in theory, this spell was supposed to give Wardens an alternative to chains but it failed really bad. Why? Because it has to be aimed and only does one mob at a time. If you're gonna make it so frustrating to use for tanks, why not make it AoE ? PvP ? Then make it so player targets have immunity to it for 6 seconds or something.

For PvP I really like the gates (both morphs). Theyre GREAT for snagging people trying to kite around rocks/trees, and to pull them back into the open. Additionally the friendly morph is a nice escape for allies. It CAN be a bit finicky in regards to the player/target being at different heights/levels, but it certainly does work and I always have it slotted in PvP. Drop this at a known choke point/entrance and its very tough to beat. It does require forethought in placing it more like a trap than an active snare (placing it to catch a moving target is tough) so its best place in anticipation and where you expect someone to move in the next few seconds.



As a healer the winter tree is very interesting. I regularly slot cloak for both pvp and pve, and always have the gate slotted for pvp. The ice shards may see some use, and are a wonderful CC, but the frozen shield is a joke, and the arctic winds just need a little extra "umph" added to them and I think it could really shine for tanks and non-tanks alike. The shields...yeah no idea what that would need to be better, but right now its nothing to bother using IMO.

subtlezeroub17_ESO

@Dakmor_Kavu

The problem with Lotus blossom is that no, it is not an alternative to Inner light. Inner light increases magicka by 2+2% and in regards to pvp, it provides stealth detection.

As for the duration, as far as pve is concerned, dps Wardens have enough timed effects in the first place. Adding this on for the sake of heals over say..leeching vines is a dps loss. Healers have too much to slot for a non consistent heal that may or may not heal their intended target.


And as for frozen device (not the friendly portal) , for tanks it's just not worth it. Most end game warden builds won't bother with it because it's too much trouble to first aim it then wait for it to arm. I can see clever uses for the skill in pvp I suppose but once again, it's all niche. (Which is a big issue for most of the Wardens skills, too niche !)

Skullstachio

One cannot truly judge a skill for what it is without first testing it in various if not all areas, leave no stone unturned & you may get surprising results, All skills have a place in the elder scrolls, no matter how underwhelming they may look, but need I not tell that it is the little things that can make a difference when combined with the right set pieces, passives, skills, Champion skills/passives & many more, only by finding the right combination can you bring out each skills true potential.

you want something to experiment with, try this build out for kicks. you might uncover a few secrets when used on the field.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/351953/experimental-warden-build-for-beginner-advanced-players

Praeficere

Compared to Chains, Frozen Gate:

• Can be placed outside of Chains range for a mob to walk into (28m vs 22m)
• If a mob is CC immune, you can still place it under them and they'll come to you as soon as they're free. With Chains you'd need to until after the immunity has gone to attempt to bring them in
• It doesn't bug of which Chains does often

I prefer the portal in DSA however it is slower in say a dungeon where rapid chaining would be nice. It still works fine, I tend to LOS multiple mob packs to group them up faster which is easier to do on a Warden with Falcon's Swiftness.