Should the Warden be buffed?

Narvuntien

1. Ice staff needs to be usable and useful as a DPS staff

2. The ice skill line needs more than one skill that actually scales.

starkerealm

Narvuntien wrote: »

1. Ice staff needs to be usable and useful as a DPS staff

2. The ice skill line needs more than one skill that actually scales.

If we could move the taunt off the heavy attack, and onto a destructive touch morph... that'd help.

hydrocynus

I think ZoS has a dilemma with the warden. It's part of an expansion so they have to be really careful about making it too powerful.

If it is too powerful and you have to pay extra for it then it is bound to incur the wrath of the "Pay To Win" brigade.

I would like it to be stronger. I Would love a proper ice mage class but ZoS will have to tread lightly to make the Warden that without upsetting their base customers

Sergykid

(if the target is not a player, this ability deals 15% more damage)

hydrocynus

Sergykid wrote: »

(if the target is not a player, this ability deals 15% more damage)

Isn't that Major Slayer?

NoTimeToWait

Imo, people concentrate too much on a solo single target dps. I think AoE Major Defile and Major Fracture compensate for that lack of single target DPS. Though, even with this argument its hard to convince people that 20-25k DPS on stamden is enough for trials

starkerealm

hydrocynus wrote: »

Sergykid wrote: »

(if the target is not a player, this ability deals 15% more damage)

Isn't that Major Slayer?

No, Major Slayer is +15% vs Dungeon Bosses and Monsters. (Might be +20%, I don't remember off hand.)

Cadbury

I personally think mag builds in general need a buff...

Lynx7386

For the love of God buff insect swarm. I keep saying that the growing swarm morph should work like a placed hurricane effect:

growing swarm
A cloud of insects plague the area dealing magic damage every second for 15 seconds. Every (3-5) seconds the swarm grows, gaining increased size and damage.

You place it at a target location like winters revenge or ash cloud, and it grows over time dealing aoe damage. That would be a huge buff to pve wardens without really having any effect on PvP.

The other morph for insect swarm should be made into a stamina morph and deal greater single target damage.



Beyond that:

-polar wind/arctic blast are terrible. Wardens have better heals for every role in the green balance tree. Arctic wind and it's morphs should be made into more powerful damage skills. Imo arctic wind and polar wind should be single target damage and damage over time, while arctic blast should be an aoe centered on the caster so as to be more useful for tanking.

-winters revenge could use a damage boost.

-the bear needs to be buffed, both versions but especially eternal guardian so it doesn't interfere with the owners casting.

ANGEL_BtVS

I'm with the crowd that would like to see ZOS make ice mage DDs a thing. There are probably enough skills to make it feasible, they just need a buff and maybe a little reworking (Northern Storm, Winter' Revenge, Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab plus Ice Comet from the Mage's Guild and destro skills). Remove taunt from the destro passive and make it a morph for one of the skills. As an added bonus I'd like to see one race get a +7% bonus to frost damage as a balance to the Dunmer's +7% flame damage - I'd personally like to see Nords reworked to accommodate this but I know some have issues with making Nords viable mages.

Pawsy

Do I think wardens need a buff?

Some abilities do, some need reworking imo.

I think Cutting dive should have its speed increased and apply minor resistance debuffs, so you have another option than stamplar.
I think Scorch needs a cost decrease and operate like flames of oblivion, so you activate it and it expoades multiple times over its duration.
It would be nice if Growing Swarm got changed into stamina, and increased in damage over time, as the swarm is growing with the more and more flies attacking it.
Netch would be nice to have more resources back.
Falcons swiftness would be nice to have a cost increase, but because of that, id be happy to have minor exp rather than major, as major exp is a sought after buff in pvp.
It would be nice to have in the passives a % chance to do some damage on animal companion damage, like burning light, but more natural, maybe a eagle flying from the sky.
Bear would be nice to have some kind of aoe when you use the ultimate ability, so it isnt just a single target thing, and maybe not be able to be hit by mechanics like world shaper, but still able to die if the boss targets the pet.
This one is just personal preferance, but can the duration of the lotus ability be increased?
Can winters revenge have a buff in damage, might be nice
Can northern storm be a bit more like it was in the trailers, might be slightly more viable as a dps ulti then, might get warden bombers.
And last of all can the piercing cold passive include physical damage as well, this will boost the damage by a lot for stam warden.

Dakmor_Kavu

From the healing side I'd say yes as well. We need more true support capabilities to buff or help the group. We have so many extra abilities that just add to our raw healing, but that's NOT where a warden healer is lacking.

We don't need a smart heal like bol, or a copy of Templar spear, but giving us anything unique that other healers couldn't provide (or provide better) would be great.

Lynx7386

ANGEL_BtVS wrote: »

I'm with the crowd that would like to see ZOS make ice mage DDs a thing. There are probably enough skills to make it feasible, they just need a buff and maybe a little reworking (Northern Storm, Winter' Revenge, Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab plus Ice Comet from the Mage's Guild and destro skills). Remove taunt from the destro passive and make it a morph for one of the skills. As an added bonus I'd like to see one race get a +7% bonus to frost damage as a balance to the Dunmer's +7% flame damage - I'd personally like to see Nords reworked to accommodate this but I know some have issues with making Nords viable mages.

Not sure I would call it a crowd, just a few overly vocal whiners on the forum. Nobody gave two craps about being an ice mage until frost staves were changed.

I'm fine with some of the ice skills being better for damage, but ultimately its a tanking element now and I don't think zos is going to go back on that change.

Vapirko

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

yeah, the problem is finding ways to buff the warden in pve which doesnt make it exploitable in pvp...but i think the bird is dodgeable or blockable now? So maybe it isn't such an issue anymore? But i dont think playing the warden as a DD doesn't make much sense to be honest...works well as Tank and Healer tough.

What would be nice is if for example the bear ultimate was turned into an AOE cleave skill or give him some AOE capabilities...

for example Ultimate deals X damage in a cone area in front of the bear + applies minor fracture to all enemies hit (THE DREAM)

It's actually a junk class in PvP since the cliff racer nerfs. There is literally no excuse anymore to not buff their PvE performance. There never was an excuse since wardens always laked DoT damage, which is mostly useless in PvP (especially on a *** AOE skill like winter's revenge which a human player can just walk out of).

Magdens maybe stam wardens absolutely not junk.

MaxwellC

As long as you're not buffing their heals and increasing cliff racers damage.

Chaos2088

Yeah more ice damage on a magicka warden would be ace.

QuebraRegra

Dakmor_Kavu wrote: »

From the healing side I'd say yes as well. We need more true support capabilities to buff or help the group. We have so many extra abilities that just add to our raw healing, but that's NOT where a warden healer is lacking.

We don't need a smart heal like bol, or a copy of Templar spear, but giving us anything unique that other healers couldn't provide (or provide better) would be great.

something class based to return resources to the group while healing, etc.

WrathOfInnos

Pawsy wrote: »

Do I think wardens need a buff?

Some abilities do, some need reworking imo.

I think Cutting dive should have its speed increased and apply minor resistance debuffs, so you have another option than stamplar.
I think Scorch needs a cost decrease and operate like flames of oblivion, so you activate it and it expoades multiple times over its duration.
It would be nice if Growing Swarm got changed into stamina, and increased in damage over time, as the swarm is growing with the more and more flies attacking it.
Netch would be nice to have more resources back.
Falcons swiftness would be nice to have a cost increase, but because of that, id be happy to have minor exp rather than major, as major exp is a sought after buff in pvp.
It would be nice to have in the passives a % chance to do some damage on animal companion damage, like burning light, but more natural, maybe a eagle flying from the sky.
Bear would be nice to have some kind of aoe when you use the ultimate ability, so it isnt just a single target thing, and maybe not be able to be hit by mechanics like world shaper, but still able to die if the boss targets the pet.
This one is just personal preferance, but can the duration of the lotus ability be increased?
Can winters revenge have a buff in damage, might be nice
Can northern storm be a bit more like it was in the trailers, might be slightly more viable as a dps ulti then, might get warden bombers.
And last of all can the piercing cold passive include physical damage as well, this will boost the damage by a lot for stam warden.

Great ideas, especially for Lotus Duration. It drives me crazy that it is shorter than all the other buffs and debuffs (Ele drain, frost cloak, Netch), an increase to about 25s would be perfect.

Dakmor_Kavu wrote: »

From the healing side I'd say yes as well. We need more true support capabilities to buff or help the group. We have so many extra abilities that just add to our raw healing, but that's NOT where a warden healer is lacking.

We don't need a smart heal like bol, or a copy of Templar spear, but giving us anything unique that other healers couldn't provide (or provide better) would be great.

Good points, Wardens seem to provide more defensive buffs than offensive like Templars (power of the light, shards, ritual of retribution). Warden healer should have some way to increase group DPS. They can provide a minimal 10% resource regen, but any Sorc with empowered Ward already has this covered for mag, and Stamplars and Stamblades already get this buff for stam.

Even the defensive buffs are lackluster. Frost cloak should really be able to apply to 12 targets, randomly picking 6 is not useful.

Seraphayel

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

I recently saw a DPS parse of 50k from a MagWarden. So I don't know if that's the exception or can be achieved when you have the proper gear and skill.

A parse on what? And that's irrelevant since NB or Sorc would hit 10k+ over that. DK and Templar would also hit 5K+.

The warden class is a sick joke that ZOS is playing on its paying customers.

Dummy parse. Isn't 50k for a dummy parse exceptional?

Sky_WK

As a PvEer yes, would be great to see them in endgame content.

As a PvPer who mains a Stam Warden, dear God no.

ANGEL_BtVS

Lynx7386 wrote: »

ANGEL_BtVS wrote: »

I'm with the crowd that would like to see ZOS make ice mage DDs a thing. There are probably enough skills to make it feasible, they just need a buff and maybe a little reworking (Northern Storm, Winter' Revenge, Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab plus Ice Comet from the Mage's Guild and destro skills). Remove taunt from the destro passive and make it a morph for one of the skills. As an added bonus I'd like to see one race get a +7% bonus to frost damage as a balance to the Dunmer's +7% flame damage - I'd personally like to see Nords reworked to accommodate this but I know some have issues with making Nords viable mages.

Not sure I would call it a crowd, just a few overly vocal whiners on the forum. Nobody gave two craps about being an ice mage until frost staves were changed.

I'm fine with some of the ice skills being better for damage, but ultimately its a tanking element now and I don't think zos is going to go back on that change.

There are plenty of people who have been interested in being an ice mage since the beginning, it had nothing to do with the change. You get way too defensive whenever anybody brings up ice mage damage dealers as if someone wants to remove your ability to use an ice staff to tank. Most of us want both to be feasible but you take a "screw you" approach to the subject. The fix that would work IMO is to create a new tanking/support staff with all the current benefits and then some for using ice. Then take the frost damage skills (both active and passive) and frost damage sets (winterborn, ysgramor's birthright) that exist in the game today and make them work around the ice destro staff. Then both parties are happy (at least those of us who enjoy both tanking and damage dealing and actually consider ice their favorite element).

Algraxa

Buff it or do not... Could care less, I hate the animations, mushrooms, pink and baby blue crap. If I wanted to play My Little Pony, the Warden would be my choice. As I detest the animations I will not touch the class.

Lynx7386

ANGEL_BtVS wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

ANGEL_BtVS wrote: »

I'm with the crowd that would like to see ZOS make ice mage DDs a thing. There are probably enough skills to make it feasible, they just need a buff and maybe a little reworking (Northern Storm, Winter' Revenge, Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab plus Ice Comet from the Mage's Guild and destro skills). Remove taunt from the destro passive and make it a morph for one of the skills. As an added bonus I'd like to see one race get a +7% bonus to frost damage as a balance to the Dunmer's +7% flame damage - I'd personally like to see Nords reworked to accommodate this but I know some have issues with making Nords viable mages.

Not sure I would call it a crowd, just a few overly vocal whiners on the forum. Nobody gave two craps about being an ice mage until frost staves were changed.

I'm fine with some of the ice skills being better for damage, but ultimately its a tanking element now and I don't think zos is going to go back on that change.

There are plenty of people who have been interested in being an ice mage since the beginning, it had nothing to do with the change. You get way too defensive whenever anybody brings up ice mage damage dealers as if someone wants to remove your ability to use an ice staff to tank. Most of us want both to be feasible but you take a "screw you" approach to the subject. The fix that would work IMO is to create a new tanking/support staff with all the current benefits and then some for using ice. Then take the frost damage skills (both active and passive) and frost damage sets (winterborn, ygramor's birthright) that exist in the game today and make them work around the ice destro staff. Then both parties are happy (at least those of us who enjoy both tanking and damage dealing and actually consider ice their favorite element).

Because most suggestions to "make frost dps great again" (not that it ever was) involve removing the heavy attack taunt, which I find rather useful. They also tend to suggest making one of the destruction staff abilities the taunt instead, which further clutters tank bar space and now costs resources to do something that was free before. No suggestion for frost DPS has come up that doesnt inadvertently nerf frost tanks.

If you want to dps as frost, fine, dps as frost, just drop trifocus and understand that you'll never meet fire or lightning levels of dps. That's just how it is.

Algraxa wrote: »

Buff it or do not... Could care less, I hate the animations, mushrooms, pink and baby blue crap. If I wanted to play My Little Pony, the Warden would be my choice. As I detest the animations I will not touch the class.

someone's got closet issues.

WrathOfInnos

Lynx7386 wrote: »

ANGEL_BtVS wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

ANGEL_BtVS wrote: »

I'm with the crowd that would like to see ZOS make ice mage DDs a thing. There are probably enough skills to make it feasible, they just need a buff and maybe a little reworking (Northern Storm, Winter' Revenge, Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab plus Ice Comet from the Mage's Guild and destro skills). Remove taunt from the destro passive and make it a morph for one of the skills. As an added bonus I'd like to see one race get a +7% bonus to frost damage as a balance to the Dunmer's +7% flame damage - I'd personally like to see Nords reworked to accommodate this but I know some have issues with making Nords viable mages.

Not sure I would call it a crowd, just a few overly vocal whiners on the forum. Nobody gave two craps about being an ice mage until frost staves were changed.

I'm fine with some of the ice skills being better for damage, but ultimately its a tanking element now and I don't think zos is going to go back on that change.

There are plenty of people who have been interested in being an ice mage since the beginning, it had nothing to do with the change. You get way too defensive whenever anybody brings up ice mage damage dealers as if someone wants to remove your ability to use an ice staff to tank. Most of us want both to be feasible but you take a "screw you" approach to the subject. The fix that would work IMO is to create a new tanking/support staff with all the current benefits and then some for using ice. Then take the frost damage skills (both active and passive) and frost damage sets (winterborn, ygramor's birthright) that exist in the game today and make them work around the ice destro staff. Then both parties are happy (at least those of us who enjoy both tanking and damage dealing and actually consider ice their favorite element).

Because most suggestions to "make frost dps great again" (not that it ever was) involve removing the heavy attack taunt, which I find rather useful. They also tend to suggest making one of the destruction staff abilities the taunt instead, which further clutters tank bar space and now costs resources to do something that was free before. No suggestion for frost DPS has come up that doesnt inadvertently nerf frost tanks.

If you want to dps as frost, fine, dps as frost, just drop trifocus and understand that you'll never meet fire or lightning levels of dps. That's just how it is.

I think that was a great demonstration of "getting way too defensive". If the frost heavy is your only taunt then you are taunting very slowly, doing nothing to debuff enemies, and are unable to taunt while blocking. All the decent tanks I know would much rather have the taunt attached to a skill then a slow-charging heavy attack. And if you are so opposed to having any Destro skills on your bar then why even bother using the staff? You may as well tank with a bow or greatsword if you are going to ignore the entire skill line.

dodgehopper_ESO

I fear Warden will get the Templar treatment and lose all of its tanking glory with requests like these.

Iselin

I said on the PTS way back and I've said it here many times: they're short a + "X"% damage when enemy is under "Y" health execute. That all by itself would make their DPS competitive in vet content.

It should be done as a passive similar to the Sorc's Implosion but with a better chance to proc since they need it much more than the Sorc needs Implosion.

Drakkdjinn

Diddly_D_Potatoes wrote: »

I miss undodgeable bird spam.

Scanning username: checks out.

starkerealm

Lynx7386 wrote: »

ANGEL_BtVS wrote: »

I'm with the crowd that would like to see ZOS make ice mage DDs a thing. There are probably enough skills to make it feasible, they just need a buff and maybe a little reworking (Northern Storm, Winter' Revenge, Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab plus Ice Comet from the Mage's Guild and destro skills). Remove taunt from the destro passive and make it a morph for one of the skills. As an added bonus I'd like to see one race get a +7% bonus to frost damage as a balance to the Dunmer's +7% flame damage - I'd personally like to see Nords reworked to accommodate this but I know some have issues with making Nords viable mages.

Not sure I would call it a crowd, just a few overly vocal whiners on the forum. Nobody gave two craps about being an ice mage until frost staves were changed.

I'm fine with some of the ice skills being better for damage, but ultimately its a tanking element now and I don't think zos is going to go back on that change.

That's not, really true. There were always a few players trying to find a way to make the frost staff viable for outgoing damage. Before the changes it was even almost viable in very narrow situations. I mean, there's only six distinct weapons in the game, of those, one element was basically abandoned at launch by the devs, you had to know SOMEONE wanted to use it. Especially with enemies throwing ice at us all the time.

Thogard

Buff wardens.

Anyone in the warden ice ult should also be defiled and take 20% more dmg, just like incap.

MLGProPlayer

Seraphayel wrote: »

I recently saw a DPS parse of 50k from a MagWarden. So I don't know if that's the exception or can be achieved when you have the proper gear and skill.

A parse on what? And that's irrelevant since NB or Sorc would hit 10k+ over that. DK and Templar would also hit 5K+.

The warden class is a sick joke that ZOS is playing on its paying customers.

Seraphayel wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

I recently saw a DPS parse of 50k from a MagWarden. So I don't know if that's the exception or can be achieved when you have the proper gear and skill.

A parse on what? And that's irrelevant since NB or Sorc would hit 10k+ over that. DK and Templar would also hit 5K+.

The warden class is a sick joke that ZOS is playing on its paying customers.

Dummy parse. Isn't 50k for a dummy parse exceptional?

Noobody has ever gotten 50k from magwarden on a dummy. That would make them the strongest DPS class in the game.

This is the highest magden parse ever recorded (39k):

https://youtu.be/egWpIV6aFjA

Alcast gets similar numbers on his parses.

The parse you saw was from a trial boss.