Suggestions for Improving Magicka Warden DPS (Mainly the Bear)
WuffyCerulei
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I've taken a bit of time thinking of ways to improve magicka warden dps, with them being the lowest dps at the moment. Here's what I have so far:
Build:
Current Gear: 2 Ilambris (1 infused light 1 divines heavy) 5 Julianos (2 staves (1 one each bar) 4 light divines) 4 Moondancer (3 gold jewels with spell damage enchants 1 light divines)
Skill bars:
Front bar (infused gold Julianos fire staff) : Deep fissure, Screaming Cliffracer, Dampen Magicka, Fletcher Infection, Inner Light, Eternal Guardian
Back Bar (infused gold Julianos lightning staff): Winter’s Revenge, Blockade of Storms, Bird of Prey, Blue Betty Netch, Inner light, Eternal Guardian
Race: Argonian (no damage bonuses to alter skills)
Attributes: 64 magicka
Mundus: Thief
Champion Points (660):
Mage:
Apprentice: 35 Elfborn, 40 Elemental Expert, 20 Spell Erosion
Atronach: 50 Master-at-Arms
Ritual: 75 Thaumaturge
Warrior:
Steed: 30 Ironclad
Lady: 30 Thick Skinned, 65 Hardy, 65 Elemental Defender
Lord: 30 Bastion
Thief:
Lover: 75 Arcanist, 45 Tenacity
Shadow: 50 Tumbling, 50 Shadow Ward
Spell cost reduction with 6 light armor pieces: 12%
Suggested Changes:
Animal Companions
Wild Guardian (Bear ultimate): Bear does a good chunk of dps for both magicka and stamina wardens. The bear's special ability is a little more powerful than other execute abilities, but requires a big chunk of ultimate for an execute. In vet trial situations, execute phases on final bosses can be short due to many of the DPS having cheap and powerful execute abilities. The bear’s ability doesn’t always hit too if the boss moves out of the way. Building 75 ultimate to fire off an execute in a phase that can last a very short time is too much of a hassle. I have tested how long it would take to build 75 ultimate with the regular 3 ulti per second when light/heavy attacking, dodging, or blocking and the 4 ultimate every 8 seconds when activating an Animal companion ability. It took 20 seconds to build the required ultimate. Now, a skeleton dummy with elemental drain, while having Major Sorcery and Minor berserk on myself, at 23% health was hit a 58k crit from the bear execute. The same damage was done at 10% health. Many execute abilities can crit up to 35k or more (buffed by player, not by other players and can cast the same amount of damage the bear execute does in 2 seconds rather than every 20 seconds. In many trials, it’s imperative that dps pour out as much damage with their executes, if they use one, so the boss doesn’t reach enraged phase and kill the entire group.
Another downside to the bear is that it takes up both ultimates slots for wardens. It keeps the possibility of using stronger ulitmates such as Elemental Rage or Meteor. The bear’s own dps is similar to that of a single sorc pet, but it does not outshine them with the slot they take. In order to make the bear a more powerful ultimate AND execute ability, its base damage may be increased or hit at a slightly faster speed. For the execute to be more on par with the others, the ultimate required needs to be reduced by at least 40%. The warden’s ultimate generation is pretty strong and does not need to be altered.
These buffs are mainly for pve. In pvp, warden bears die rather fast. Unlike sorcerer pets, warden bears do no inherit shields from the warden and roughly have the same amount of health as the Clannfear pet, therefore are much harder to maintain than sorc pets.
Dive and morphs: Weaving can be difficult with the long animation for these skills. Light attacks with staves do not always go off with Dive. With Force Pulse, they almost always go off. This skill and its morphs need a shorter animation in order make weaving easier.
Deep Fissure (Scorch morph): The warden’s version of the sorcerer’s Daedric curse. The damage done is on par with a sorc’s and hits several targets, but the cost is higher compared to curse. With 12% cost reduction, fissure costs 2852 magicka every 3 seconds if it’s got complete uptime. Keeping it up costs a major amount of magicka, and thus Deep Fissure requires a decent cost reduction.
Bird of Prey (Falcon’s Swiftness morph): In non-optimal pve settings with the healer not keeping Combat Prayer up, Minor Berserk from Bird of Prey is extremely helpful in keeping dps higher. Bird of prey is a warden’s way of getting the buff, but for magicka wardens, it can be hard to keep up as the cost of the skill is pretty high and duration very short. A suggested change is to increase the ability’s duration to 20 seconds and reduce the cost. In exchange for the buff, Major Endurance can be changed to Minor Endurance while keeping Major Expedition, as several other magicka builds have sources of the buff and this skill and its other forms are a magicka warden’s only way of getting Major Expedition. Major Endurance, for stamina builds, can easily be achieved form potions, both bought/dropped and crafted.
Advanced Species (Passive): At rank 2, each Animal Companion skill slotted could increase damage done by 3% rather than 2%.
Green Balance
Nature’s Gift (passive): Wardens have some crappy sustain even with the Betty Netches due to expensive abilities. To encourage Warden dps to slot a Green Balance skill, this passive, at rank 2, could restore 250 magicka or stamina to whichever resource is highest instead of lowest. This would also help with warden healer as well, as some of the healing skills are quite expensive.
Winter’s Embrace
Northern Storm (Sleet Storm morph): In pvp, the other morph that stuns is much more popular. For pve’s sake, the damage of this morph could be increased somewhat. Or, to be more supportive in tight spots, the duration could be increased.
Winter’s Revenge (Impaling Shards morph): Damage needs to be increased by at least 20%. This skill has also been bugged with which crit rate it scales off since wardens were released. It crits based off of weapon critical instead of spell critical.
Glacial Presence (Passive): In addition to increasing the Chilled chances, this passive could increase critical damage by 10%, much like the Templar and Nightblade passives that both increase critical damage and do something else.
Note: These suggestions are based off what I've experienced with magicka warden dps in pve. Your experiences may differ.
Build:
Current Gear: 2 Ilambris (1 infused light 1 divines heavy) 5 Julianos (2 staves (1 one each bar) 4 light divines) 4 Moondancer (3 gold jewels with spell damage enchants 1 light divines)
Skill bars:
Front bar (infused gold Julianos fire staff) : Deep fissure, Screaming Cliffracer, Dampen Magicka, Fletcher Infection, Inner Light, Eternal Guardian
Back Bar (infused gold Julianos lightning staff): Winter’s Revenge, Blockade of Storms, Bird of Prey, Blue Betty Netch, Inner light, Eternal Guardian
Race: Argonian (no damage bonuses to alter skills)
Attributes: 64 magicka
Mundus: Thief
Champion Points (660):
Mage:
Apprentice: 35 Elfborn, 40 Elemental Expert, 20 Spell Erosion
Atronach: 50 Master-at-Arms
Ritual: 75 Thaumaturge
Warrior:
Steed: 30 Ironclad
Lady: 30 Thick Skinned, 65 Hardy, 65 Elemental Defender
Lord: 30 Bastion
Thief:
Lover: 75 Arcanist, 45 Tenacity
Shadow: 50 Tumbling, 50 Shadow Ward
Spell cost reduction with 6 light armor pieces: 12%
Suggested Changes:
Animal Companions
Wild Guardian (Bear ultimate): Bear does a good chunk of dps for both magicka and stamina wardens. The bear's special ability is a little more powerful than other execute abilities, but requires a big chunk of ultimate for an execute. In vet trial situations, execute phases on final bosses can be short due to many of the DPS having cheap and powerful execute abilities. The bear’s ability doesn’t always hit too if the boss moves out of the way. Building 75 ultimate to fire off an execute in a phase that can last a very short time is too much of a hassle. I have tested how long it would take to build 75 ultimate with the regular 3 ulti per second when light/heavy attacking, dodging, or blocking and the 4 ultimate every 8 seconds when activating an Animal companion ability. It took 20 seconds to build the required ultimate. Now, a skeleton dummy with elemental drain, while having Major Sorcery and Minor berserk on myself, at 23% health was hit a 58k crit from the bear execute. The same damage was done at 10% health. Many execute abilities can crit up to 35k or more (buffed by player, not by other players and can cast the same amount of damage the bear execute does in 2 seconds rather than every 20 seconds. In many trials, it’s imperative that dps pour out as much damage with their executes, if they use one, so the boss doesn’t reach enraged phase and kill the entire group.
Another downside to the bear is that it takes up both ultimates slots for wardens. It keeps the possibility of using stronger ulitmates such as Elemental Rage or Meteor. The bear’s own dps is similar to that of a single sorc pet, but it does not outshine them with the slot they take. In order to make the bear a more powerful ultimate AND execute ability, its base damage may be increased or hit at a slightly faster speed. For the execute to be more on par with the others, the ultimate required needs to be reduced by at least 40%. The warden’s ultimate generation is pretty strong and does not need to be altered.
These buffs are mainly for pve. In pvp, warden bears die rather fast. Unlike sorcerer pets, warden bears do no inherit shields from the warden and roughly have the same amount of health as the Clannfear pet, therefore are much harder to maintain than sorc pets.
Dive and morphs: Weaving can be difficult with the long animation for these skills. Light attacks with staves do not always go off with Dive. With Force Pulse, they almost always go off. This skill and its morphs need a shorter animation in order make weaving easier.
Deep Fissure (Scorch morph): The warden’s version of the sorcerer’s Daedric curse. The damage done is on par with a sorc’s and hits several targets, but the cost is higher compared to curse. With 12% cost reduction, fissure costs 2852 magicka every 3 seconds if it’s got complete uptime. Keeping it up costs a major amount of magicka, and thus Deep Fissure requires a decent cost reduction.
Bird of Prey (Falcon’s Swiftness morph): In non-optimal pve settings with the healer not keeping Combat Prayer up, Minor Berserk from Bird of Prey is extremely helpful in keeping dps higher. Bird of prey is a warden’s way of getting the buff, but for magicka wardens, it can be hard to keep up as the cost of the skill is pretty high and duration very short. A suggested change is to increase the ability’s duration to 20 seconds and reduce the cost. In exchange for the buff, Major Endurance can be changed to Minor Endurance while keeping Major Expedition, as several other magicka builds have sources of the buff and this skill and its other forms are a magicka warden’s only way of getting Major Expedition. Major Endurance, for stamina builds, can easily be achieved form potions, both bought/dropped and crafted.
Advanced Species (Passive): At rank 2, each Animal Companion skill slotted could increase damage done by 3% rather than 2%.
Green Balance
Nature’s Gift (passive): Wardens have some crappy sustain even with the Betty Netches due to expensive abilities. To encourage Warden dps to slot a Green Balance skill, this passive, at rank 2, could restore 250 magicka or stamina to whichever resource is highest instead of lowest. This would also help with warden healer as well, as some of the healing skills are quite expensive.
Winter’s Embrace
Northern Storm (Sleet Storm morph): In pvp, the other morph that stuns is much more popular. For pve’s sake, the damage of this morph could be increased somewhat. Or, to be more supportive in tight spots, the duration could be increased.
Winter’s Revenge (Impaling Shards morph): Damage needs to be increased by at least 20%. This skill has also been bugged with which crit rate it scales off since wardens were released. It crits based off of weapon critical instead of spell critical.
Glacial Presence (Passive): In addition to increasing the Chilled chances, this passive could increase critical damage by 10%, much like the Templar and Nightblade passives that both increase critical damage and do something else.
Note: These suggestions are based off what I've experienced with magicka warden dps in pve. Your experiences may differ.
For the love of Kyne, buff sorc. PC NACP 2100+Star-Sïnger - Khajiit Magicka Sorc - EP Grand Overlord - Flawless Conqueror vMA/vBRP/vDSA no death/vHel Ra HM/vAA HM/vSO HM/vMoL HM/vHoF HM/vAS +2/vCR+3/vSS HMs/vKA HMs/vVH/vRG Oax HM/vDSR
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