PvE Buffs MagWardens need in trials

Draqone

These proposed changes are designed in such a way that magWardens don't get a buff in PvP scenarios but perform better in static controlled fights that we see in veteran dungeons and trials.

1) Winter's Revenge
Critical chance is bugged, consistently 10 to 12% lower than all other mag skills. It's crit needs to be fixed and it's base damage needs to be buffed by 20% to be comparable to Liquid Lightning.

2) Arctic Wind (and morphs)
This skill has a very small radius so it's cost needs to be reduced.
--Polar Wind
The healing would be fine if the cost was lower.
--Arctic Blast
The instant heal should be removed.
Damage should be increased and should scale like ultimates, with the highest resource. Currently it deals 20% of casters health over 10 seconds which, even with 70000 health is <1k DPS if accounting for resistances.
This skill should scale as follows:
6% highest resource + 60% highest SD/WD every 2 seconds for 10 seconds = total 30% highest resource + 300% of highest SD/WD over 10 seconds

3) Swarm (and morphs)
This skill is very uninspired and should provide a unique effect:
Afflicted enemies take 15% more cold damage. Coupled with the above changes to Winter's Embrace skills it should help warden cold damage DPS in trials.

4) Falcon's Swiftness (and morphs)
This skills very high cost/duration makes it useless in PvE and it's buffs are questionable. The dodge chance is not useful in trial scenarios where the majority of incoming damage is AoE. The Damage bonus is provided by healers Combat Prayer. The stamina regen does not stack with potions.
This skill is both overloaded and useless, and I do not see a way to balance it for both PvE and PvP.
All I ask is for ZoS to allow us to cast this skill without putting us in combat and dismounting, similar to Rapid Maneuver.


And since I know balance is always a heated topic and people will want to argue with me a short FAQ:

What server do you play on?
PC/EU
Do you even Warden?
Yes, i have 2 max level wardens, 1 is a stamina PvE tank/PvPDPS, the other is a magWarden DPS.
Do you have any experience in trials?
I am the trial leader for my guild. One of the only 3 wardens on vDSA leaderboards and one of the highest magWarden DPS on vet trial leaderboards. I did not complete vMoL or vHoF.
What build do you run on your magWarden?
After much testing: Julianos frontbear, Master Architect backbear. I spam the bear ult on cooldown from backbear, nearly 50% uptime on Major Slayer. 2x Lightning staff, fire enchant on frontbear. Grothdar/ilambris depending on situation.
Did you just...
Yes, I called them frontbear and backbear.
But pvp ....
I have no idea about magWarden PvP. Some small adjustments might be needed after those buffs.

Regards,
Draqone

Jitterbug

Good post and cool solutions. I support.

DeHei

Yeah supported too

seedubsrun

Great suggestions. I'd love to see these changes be added. I'd like to see a morph of swarm act like an execute since the class doesn't have one. Maybe it would last for the current duration but ramp up it's damage for each percentage of health lost on a target below 20 or 25%.

The passives need to be retuned. There's too many useless or underperforming ones when compared to other classes.

I don't think there's enough damage abilities. Even just one or 2 more would be great. Your suggestions for arctic blast sound great. I would also be into the AOE frost damage being added to Frost Cloak so it can be used like Boundless Storm and have arctic blast be totally reworked to become the classes execute. Maybe launches an ice spike or something.

Draqone

seedubsrun wrote: »

Great suggestions. I'd love to see these changes be added. I'd like to see a morph of swarm act like an execute since the class doesn't have one. Maybe it would last for the current duration but ramp up it's damage for each percentage of health lost on a target below 20 or 25%.

The bear is a weak execute, but it's there. I don't think that every class needs an execute, magDKs don't have one and it's good for class diversity.

RoyJade

All are good suggestions, even if I don't like the idea of adding raw damage to winter's revenge : it has more range and greater duration than liquid lightning, thus should not have as much damage.
I'ld have some other ideas :
- warden has a passive who increase the chance of chilling enemies. Make it so that warden also does X% more frost damage to chilled enemies, and this uniqueness would become far more interesting.
- warden's damage are spitted between magicka and ice, and ZOS removed the last frost passive from stamina in order to give a few more damage to animals abilities. Why animal companion does not deals frost damage ? It would be far more interesting, with even more synergy with the chilled effect. The "blue" theme would also fit this change.
- growing swarm is a interesting skill which is poorly designed. Why not adding 5% damage to the skill for each 2 second the enemy is afflicted by the swarm ? With the +50% maximum increase, it would require a 20 second applied dot in order to reach it's full strength, which would promote good rotation and early refreshing.

SanTii.92

5) bear ulti and it's morphs

SanTii.92 wrote: »

I think the first priority got to be to let the bear be single barred it. It's functionality is too straight forward to occupy both ult slots, and can't really compete with the utility that brings a second ult for pvp nor the aoe for pve, even when it's single target dmge is fine. Not to mention the pathing issues it still probably has.

Increase proc cost to 85, move some dmge from the basic attacks to the proc, so you got to choose aoe/utility or single dmge, split the dmge into 2 hits, so it's not too oppresive for pvp, and allow us to single bar it.

MLGProPlayer

- Needs better DPS passives

- Give the bear an AOE attack and more resistance (this would give warden a useful spammable ult that synergizes with Master Architect).

Anhedonie

Draqone wrote: »

seedubsrun wrote: »

Great suggestions. I'd love to see these changes be added. I'd like to see a morph of swarm act like an execute since the class doesn't have one. Maybe it would last for the current duration but ramp up it's damage for each percentage of health lost on a target below 20 or 25%.

The bear is a weak execute, but it's there. I don't think that every class needs an execute, magDKs don't have one and it's good for class diversity.

Not having legs and using a wheelchair must be also cool for diversity. Hell, this might be an awesome feature even.
I mean it's not like it's a disability or anything.

Draqone

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

- Needs better DPS passives

- Give the bear an AOE attack and more resistance (this would give warden a useful spammable ult that synergizes with Master Architect).

The bear has an AoE attack.

The bear dies in some boss fights but is fine in 90% of the encounters.
The fight where the bear is least useful is vMoL twins where the bear gets stuck in negates and dies stupidly after prayers. I never tried vHoF.

Solariken

Suggestions 1 & 2 have my vote.

They could also add X% bonus to all damage versus targets affected by Chilled (maybe add to the Icy Aura passive?)

MLGProPlayer

Draqone wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

- Needs better DPS passives

- Give the bear an AOE attack and more resistance (this would give warden a useful spammable ult that synergizes with Master Architect).

The bear has an AoE attack.

The bear dies in some boss fights but is fine in 90% of the encounters.
The fight where the bear is least useful is vMoL twins where the bear gets stuck in negates and dies stupidly after prayers. I never tried vHoF.

I mean give it an AOE that can actually help clear adds. That's the main reason why you can't use the bear in trials. But unslotting it results in a huge DPS loss.

SanTii.92

Draqone wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

- Needs better DPS passives

- Give the bear an AOE attack and more resistance (this would give warden a useful spammable ult that synergizes with Master Architect).

The bear has an AoE attack.

The bear dies in some boss fights but is fine in 90% of the encounters.
The fight where the bear is least useful is vMoL twins where the bear gets stuck in negates and dies stupidly after prayers. I never tried vHoF.

The worst is the serpant where it just dies on every world shapper unless you do some super annoyin micro management.

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Draqone wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

- Needs better DPS passives

- Give the bear an AOE attack and more resistance (this would give warden a useful spammable ult that synergizes with Master Architect).

The bear has an AoE attack.

The bear dies in some boss fights but is fine in 90% of the encounters.
The fight where the bear is least useful is vMoL twins where the bear gets stuck in negates and dies stupidly after prayers. I never tried vHoF.

I mean give it an AOE that can actually help clear adds. That's the main reason why you can't use the bear in trials. But unslotting it results in a huge DPS loss.

Allow us to single bar it.

MLGProPlayer

SanTii.92 wrote: »

Allow us to single bar it.

I've suggested this before but people said it isn't possible with how the game is coded.

SanTii.92

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

SanTii.92 wrote: »

Allow us to single bar it.

I've suggested this before but people said it isn't possible with how the game is coded.

Who's people? Not Zos for sure, they said it was a balance decision.

Dymence

Winters revenge damage will never be put on par with liquid lightning, simply because it has a much bigger radius and a snare on top of that.

MLGProPlayer

Dymence wrote: »

Winters revenge damage will never be put on par with liquid lightning, simply because it has a much bigger radius and a snare on top of that.

But at the very least, the crit bug needs to be fixed. It should not be critting >10% below your spell crit%.

NyassaV

Honestly the Warden is a buff class, it has access to so many buffs! All it needs is a slight damage increase

Draqone

Dymence wrote: »

Winters revenge damage will never be put on par with liquid lightning, simply because it has a much bigger radius and a snare on top of that.

The radius and the snare do nothing in trials and most importantly you have to look at the whole class kit.

magWarden has 4 non-ultimate damage abilities! He has to make the maximum use out of them.
For a magSorc, LL is one of 8 non-ultimate damage abilities. Magsorc also has passives that boost damage from Destro staves, Warden does not.

LL has a 31% Mag/ 3.3% SD scaling, Winter's has a 26% Mag/2.7% SD scaling.

LL, on top of dealing 20% more DPS, has a powerful synergy that essentially brings it's damage to around 40% scaling.

But OK... consider fetcher infection - a single target DoT.

Without the 50% damage increase it has a scaling of 20% Mag/2.1% SD.
With the 50% damage increase it has at best a scaling of 29% mag/3% SD (because of how multipliers work in this game).

Fetcher Infection, even buffed by it's 50% damage increase deals less single target damage that Liquid Lightning, does not provide a synergy and does not proc status effects.

MLGProPlayer

Hollery wrote: »

Honestly the Warden is a buff class, it has access to so many buffs! All it needs is a slight damage increase

The warden is not a "buff class", whatever that is. Other classes have far more self buffs than warden.

If you are building for DPS, you don't have room in your rotation for support skills. Buffs come from your passives and as secondary effects on your damage skills. The warden has none of those (they have the most useless passives of any class). This is largely why their damage is so awful.

If you replace some damage skills with support skills to buff yourself, you won't even crack 20k DPS.

People need to understand that DPS is a highly specialized role. Just because a class is a good tank or healer doesn't mean it benefits from any of those strengths when specced for DPS (since DPS cannot afford to slot any support skills in their rotations).

Dymence

Draqone wrote: »

Dymence wrote: »

Winters revenge damage will never be put on par with liquid lightning, simply because it has a much bigger radius and a snare on top of that.

The radius and the snare do nothing in trials and most importantly you have to look at the whole class kit.

magWarden has 4 non-ultimate damage abilities! He has to make the maximum use out of them.
For a magSorc, LL is one of 8 non-ultimate damage abilities. Magsorc also has passives that boost damage from Destro staves, Warden does not.

LL has a 31% Mag/ 3.3% SD scaling, Winter's has a 26% Mag/2.7% SD scaling.

LL, on top of dealing 20% more DPS, has a powerful synergy that essentially brings it's damage to around 40% scaling.

But OK... consider fetcher infection - a single target DoT.

Without the 50% damage increase it has a scaling of 20% Mag/2.1% SD.
With the 50% damage increase it has at best a scaling of 29% mag/3% SD (because of how multipliers work in this game).

Fetcher Infection, even buffed by it's 50% damage increase deals less single target damage that Liquid Lightning, does not provide a synergy and does not proc status effects.

Snares come into play in PVP though.

I know it's not the answer you wanted, but you can't compare a pure DPS ability to something that brings secondary effects and has a larger radius. That's the whole problem with warden though, and why it's not up to par with other classes when it comes to PVE dps. Too many secondary effects and support slapped onto abilities.

RoyJade

That's why I'm saying winter's revenge is fine (except the crit bug, of course).
But as said, fletcher is not fine, nor are the passives and the synergy between them.

Ghost-Shot

I know magdens are underwhelming in PvE but biffing them worries me, in PvP they are so overpowered right now.

TheHsN

no....not

MLGProPlayer

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

I know magdens are underwhelming in PvE but biffing them worries me, in PvP they are so overpowered right now.

It's a matter of buffing the right things. DOTs are useless in PvP, so that's one area they can buff (current DOTs that warden has suck).

Vercingetorix

Magicka Wardens are borderline overpowered in PvP - that's why ZoS can't touch them. Any buffs Wardens receive would push them into a position in Cyrodiil where they would have to nerfed. Unfortunately, the Warden has strong burst for PvP but that damage doesn't translate into PvE viability... Healing and Tanking is what Wardens excel at in PvE. If you want to be a damage dealer, you have to go to Cyrodiil to see any value.

RoyJade

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Magicka Wardens are borderline overpowered in PvP - that's why ZoS can't touch them. Any buffs Wardens receive would push them into a position in Cyrodiil where they would have to nerfed. Unfortunately, the Warden has strong burst for PvP but that damage doesn't translate into PvE viability... Healing and Tanking is what Wardens excel at in PvE. If you want to be a damage dealer, you have to go to Cyrodiil to see any value.

Amplifying ice damage 'especially ice dot) against chilled target won't add so much in pvp, since this is not a burst ability.
Giving more damage to fletcher won't break pvp, because fletcher even with doubled damage won't give enough burst.
And there are more examples.

We can improve a pve dps without influencing a pvp one. Some skills (especially dots, and even more ground based aoe dot) are nearly useless in pve. Look at the strength of a magsorc in pve : most of his damage come from liquid lightning and lightning wall, when both are weak in pvp. It's nearly the same for nearly every classes.