What do Wardens need to perform better?

NuclearPath

Wardens, since being added, have overall under-performed as a DPS class in comparison to all the others in TESO. Does anyone here have any suggestions they might make which they believe could aid the Warden in performing at its best in DPS?

Ragnarock41

Its just that ice magic sucks compared to everything else imo.

Araxyte

Buff fetcher flies and winter's revenge. That would balance them nicely.

Mureel

They need to be Magblades.

Turelus

Change the passive back so it doesn't only effect a single style of play.
There shouldn't ever be a class passive I can ignore entirely because I choose stamina or magicka as a play style.

Otherwise they just need some help getting their numbers up in PvE whilst toning down a bit in PvP. How to best achieve that I will leave up to the number crunchers.

Jarryzzt

Step 1 - figure out what "better" means in terms of performance baselines.

Meaning.

Ultimately, ZOS has some benchmark they want a class to hit before they declare that it is balanced. This benchmark may be any number of different things, such as:

- Absolutely top-line best case DPS comparable to other classes.
- Specific DPS ranges under specific conditions (the "dummy test" approach).
- Actual server-average DPS comparable to other classes (possibly broken down by player brackets).
- Something else.

No amount of forum noise should ever cause a major gaming company to move off its benchmark assessment methodology, though there have been cases were a metric megaton of forum noise has caused developers to make some compensating adjustments (i.e. the "methodology" was not completely adequate to the specific balancing situation).

My point is that when people on these forums complain about how Wardens need to be "better" they are looking at things extremely one-dimensionally - top DPS hits in trials, let's say. "All the top guilds only run builds A/B/C in vet Whatever-Whatsit," - ergo all other classes and builds must suck unless they are brought to the absolute DPS level of A/B/C.

I somehow doubt this is how ZOS is looking at things. In particular as one can clear pretty much any non-trial content with 20k-25k and any trials with...shall we say 35k or so? Far below what the top parsers are putting out in screenshots and videos, in other words.

TLDR - yes, just change every class to be identical to Magblades but with different skill names and icons. Munchkins FTW.

JackSmirkingRevenge

A stam warden is arguably the top class spec in pvp atm.

A stam or magwarden can pull 25-30k plus dps and can complete 95 percent of the content in eso. You may not want a magwarden on a score run, but outside of that they are fine in my opinion.

JobooAGS

Jeffdkc wrote: »

A stam warden is arguably the top class spec in pvp atm.

A stam or magwarden can pull 25-30k plus dps and can complete 95 percent of the content in eso. You may not want a magwarden on a score run, but outside of that they are fine in my opinion.

By defination, if they arent being used for leaderboard runs, let alone not being able to clear all content they are not fine

Lynx7386

IMO, four simple changes would do a lot to help bring wardens in line (both stam and mag):

1. Change Piercing Cold (Winter's embrace) back to boosting Frost and Physical damage. When it was changed to frost and magic damage, it pretty much became useless for wardens overall. It should be an 8% increase to frost and physical damage, as it was during PTS/morrowind beta.

2. Increase the base damage of all swarm morphs (swarm, fetcher infection, and growing swarm), probably by near 50%. Wardens dont have tons of damage over time effects to stack like dragonknights do for pve dps, and damage over time effects have less impact on pvp balance than burst damage does, so it's a safer change. Additionally, the fetcher infection morph should be made a stamina/poison morph, rather than having both morphs deal magic damage and cost magicka.

3. Increase the duration of bird of prey back to 14 seconds, like it's alternative morph deceptive predator. Actually I think both morphs should be 20 seconds, considering that nightblades and sorcs have similar abilities that last longer. Having to recast bird of prey less often would benefit both magicka and stamina dps wardens in lower end content, though the effect on trials will be less noticeable due to the prevalence of combat prayer.

4. Remove the recast animation from eternal guardian - it should revive automatically without interfering with a mag warden's ability rotation (this is lethal in pvp and a huge hassle in trials).


in addition to those changes, I'd like to see cutting dive and wild guardian (the stamina morphs for cliff racer and feral guardian) gain additional effects rather than just being swapped from one resource/damage type to another. The magicka versions of these abilities are inherently better because they have additional effects beyond the base ability. I would suggest cutting dive do something like apply minor fracture or 'mark' the target for a short period and cause it to take increased damage from attacks. Wild guardian should get a charge effect added to it's activated ability so it can close distance on enemies.

Tasear

Move frost staff taunt into shield and board.

Probably new gear for warden dps would be nice.

Narvuntien

Ice staffs need to not taunt on heavy attack (yeah I know you can just not select the passive) and instead provide some other utlitiy for that passive. e.g removing armor or reducing damage (more consistently)

The Ice magic skill line only has exactly one skill that scales with magicka and spell damage. If you want them to do damage you need to change that whole skill line to actually deal damage. Even dks don't have a whole skill line that doesn't scale like that. Even if the skills are defensive in nature you can still have them deal some scaling damage so a MagWarden can bring ultility and damage.

I'd expect them to have less dps than a NB and Sorc but they need to be on the Magplars level.

Tryxus

A rework of the Cliff Racer and moving the 8% Max Magicka increase from Northern Storm to a passive would be a nice start

Runefang

Wardens need a passive that lets them do more physical and ice damage to enemies afflicted with minor maim (comes from Chilled effect).

Then remove the ice staff heavy attack taunt as suggested. Not putting points into the destro passive is a terrible work around because chances are you want either a lightning or fire staff on your other bar.

Lynx7386

3 simple changes:

1.

Tasear wrote: »

Move frost staff taunt into shield and board.

Probably new gear for warden dps would be nice.

That makes absolutely no sense.

Lynx7386

Also all the people wanting to change frost staff to buff warden damage: again, makes no sense. You don't see people asking for 1h/shield to be changed so they can do stam dps.

Warden was built with a healing tree, tanking tree, and damage tree. That's purportedly the direction zos wants to go with all classes.

Frost staff has absolutely nothing to do with warden dps issues. Use a flame or lightning staff like everyone else does, and get over the fact that your class skills don't revolve around your weapon type. Regardless of weapon, mag dps wardens should only ever be using one skill from the winters embrace tree anyways.

RGvolterra

Ice skill tree needs a overhaul... we should be able to play our characters the way we fancy so we need the ice abilities to be DPS abilities or give us morphs where we can go for a DPS prospect.

RGvolterra

I fully disagree with the perception and insight of anyone who insists in saying that the frozen abilities were meant to be used to tank ... sword and shield did .... cold abilities should be able to cause a decent damage and kill enemies not only snare or slow down them. We want intensity , we want to be able to play our characters freely so give us an option to pick out which feature we like the most ( frozen to tank or to kill , easy as that !!!!! ) .
We support the idea of having a serious overhaul towards the frozen ability otherwise ZOS should then introduce a class able to manipulate only the frozen abilities.

Lynx7386

RGvolterra wrote: »

I fully disagree with the perception and insight of anyone who insists in saying that the frozen abilities were meant to be used to tank ... sword and shield did .... cold abilities should be able to cause a decent damage and kill enemies not only snare or slow down them. We want intensity , we want to be able to play our characters freely so give us an option to pick out which feature we like the most ( frozen to tank or to kill , easy as that !!!!! ) .
We support the idea of having a serious overhaul towards the frozen ability otherwise ZOS should then introduce a class able to manipulate only the frozen abilities.

sorry but ZOS has chosen a different path. Frost staves are no more a DPS weapon now than sword and board is.

You can use northern storm and winter's revenge as dps abilities if you wish, they scale with max magicka and spell damage, but the rest of your damage should be coming from animal companions skills and non-class skills.

you dont see dragon knight damage dealers complaining that talons, hardened armor, magma shell, reflective scales, deep breath, etc. arent good damage abilities. Not every ability in this game, nor every skill line, is going to be focused on dealing damage. Get over yourself.

Ron_Burgundy_79

Lynx7386 wrote: »

IMO, four simple changes would do a lot to help bring wardens in line (both stam and mag):

1. Change Piercing Cold (Winter's embrace) back to boosting Frost and Physical damage. When it was changed to frost and magic damage, it pretty much became useless for wardens overall. It should be an 8% increase to frost and physical damage, as it was during PTS/morrowind beta.

2. Increase the base damage of all swarm morphs (swarm, fetcher infection, and growing swarm), probably by near 50%. Wardens dont have tons of damage over time effects to stack like dragonknights do for pve dps, and damage over time effects have less impact on pvp balance than burst damage does, so it's a safer change. Additionally, the fetcher infection morph should be made a stamina/poison morph, rather than having both morphs deal magic damage and cost magicka.

3. Increase the duration of bird of prey back to 14 seconds, like it's alternative morph deceptive predator. Actually I think both morphs should be 20 seconds, considering that nightblades and sorcs have similar abilities that last longer. Having to recast bird of prey less often would benefit both magicka and stamina dps wardens in lower end content, though the effect on trials will be less noticeable due to the prevalence of combat prayer.

4. Remove the recast animation from eternal guardian - it should revive automatically without interfering with a mag warden's ability rotation (this is lethal in pvp and a huge hassle in trials).


in addition to those changes, I'd like to see cutting dive and wild guardian (the stamina morphs for cliff racer and feral guardian) gain additional effects rather than just being swapped from one resource/damage type to another. The magicka versions of these abilities are inherently better because they have additional effects beyond the base ability. I would suggest cutting dive do something like apply minor fracture or 'mark' the target for a short period and cause it to take increased damage from attacks. Wild guardian should get a charge effect added to it's activated ability so it can close distance on enemies.

1. Magwardens lose out on 8% magic damage with that change. That would be a massive DPS loss for a class that's already behind in that category. I don't agree with that change.

2. I'd like to see some sort of tweak to fetcher infection or the other morph that doesn't seem to be as common.

3. Agreed.

4. Agreed. Please let me use nature's grasp (and morphs) on my bear.

hedna123b14_ESO

JobooAGS wrote: »

Jeffdkc wrote: »

A stam warden is arguably the top class spec in pvp atm.

A stam or magwarden can pull 25-30k plus dps and can complete 95 percent of the content in eso. You may not want a magwarden on a score run, but outside of that they are fine in my opinion.

By defination, if they arent being used for leaderboard runs, let alone not being able to clear all content they are not fine

That's because people don't know how to play them OR underestimate their potential.
1. My first ever parse on a stam warden in vMoL - https://imgur.com/gallery/Hvnuv .....and I messed up a ton..
2. Not my parse, but same build...as you can see my point is they are viable if people know how to play them...- https://imgur.com/gallery/cnJSX

QuebraRegra

I'd love a way for my STAMWARDEN healer to return resources to the group though a class skill or passive (aside from undaunted orbs). Like an alternate morph of the netch, etc.

Kanar

I'd like my warden to be able to do decent dps without using the bear.

s7732425ub17_ESO

Magicka Wardens are pulling the same DPS as MagSorcs currently, and they give the group really nice buffs with Master Architect gear. There's nothing really wrong with them at the moment. Everyone thinks they still suck, but they don't.

I would say Templar is a weaker DPS class right now. No one is playing them currently.

NuclearPath

I can definitely agree with s77

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Magicka Wardens are pulling the same DPS as MagSorcs currently, and they give the group really nice buffs with Master Architect gear. There's nothing really wrong with them at the moment. Everyone thinks they still suck, but they don't.

I would say Templar is a weaker DPS class right now. No one is playing them currently.

I started to play a mag warden recently and leveled her up, she performs beautifully despite what I had been told about wardens, and I actually think she might be my new favorite toon atm

Lifemocker

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Magicka Wardens are pulling the same DPS as MagSorcs currently, and they give the group really nice buffs with Master Architect gear. There's nothing really wrong with them at the moment. Everyone thinks they still suck, but they don't.

I would say Templar is a weaker DPS class right now. No one is playing them currently.

Warden doesn't suck, but it's not as good as the other classes. I know magplars who do 42k, I don't think magwardens can do more than that.

Maura_Neysa

Thats simple. 2 ideas
- A strong DoT. - Warden's already have big burst. So can NOT make any of those skills stronger.
- Unique buffs - Wardens already have all the DPS buffs, normally obtained via potions. IF instead of Savagery/Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Berserk though, if any of those, were a unique buff so that Weapon/Spell Power Pots where not wasted on Wardens, that might just even it up.

Ideas
• Replace Minor Berserk with Minor Force - Would buff Magden more then StamDen, the weaker of the two. Still get Berserk from Combat Prayer
• Replace any one of Lotus/Netch/Falcon's named buffs with a flat amount

I think the DoT is the better idea, because the Buffs idea would also buff Scorch and Dive, neither of which needs buffed. But at least replacing Falcons Berserk with a flat amount would mean buff only in a group setting.

Lynx7386

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Thats simple. 2 ideas
- A strong DoT. - Warden's already have big burst. So can NOT make any of those skills stronger.
- Unique buffs - Wardens already have all the DPS buffs, normally obtained via potions. IF instead of Savagery/Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Berserk though, if any of those, were a unique buff so that Weapon/Spell Power Pots where not wasted on Wardens, that might just even it up.

Ideas
• Replace Minor Berserk with Minor Force - Would buff Magden more then StamDen, the weaker of the two. Still get Berserk from Combat Prayer
• Replace any one of Lotus/Netch/Falcon's named buffs with a flat amount

I think the DoT is the better idea, because the Buffs idea would also buff Scorch and Dive, neither of which needs buffed. But at least replacing Falcons Berserk with a flat amount would mean buff only in a group setting.

Personally I rather like not being forced to run potions all the time. There's nothing wrong with having minor berserk - nightblades have it too, and nobody is complaining there. In any situation with a half competent healer, that buff is meaningless anyways because combat prayer will be available 100% of the time.

Arbit

Make the morph of bear to be able to slot it like a regular skill rather than wasting ultimate space, so we can have some cake and eat it too. This would help out a lot in dungeons, not in trials tho cause bear can't be used in trials. Just help us to get some numbers like magsorcs and shiz. IDK why I keep hearing people say that magwardens pull decent numbers, I pull maybe 20k on average in dungeons, that's with weaving and shiz, but I don't use bear cause as a magic user I actually need to have elemental rage sloted, nothing fantastic not like the 30k I see from magsorc pet builds.

FakeFox

For healing they really need their skills to be more reliable and less clunky. The insane waste of GCDs really breaks warden as a PvE healer.

Warden has actually great skills, however the animations are clunky, targeting is a nightmare, durations are short and you sometimes need multiple casts.

Maura_Neysa

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Thats simple. 2 ideas
- A strong DoT. - Warden's already have big burst. So can NOT make any of those skills stronger.
- Unique buffs - Wardens already have all the DPS buffs, normally obtained via potions. IF instead of Savagery/Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Berserk though, if any of those, were a unique buff so that Weapon/Spell Power Pots where not wasted on Wardens, that might just even it up.

Ideas
• Replace Minor Berserk with Minor Force - Would buff Magden more then StamDen, the weaker of the two. Still get Berserk from Combat Prayer
• Replace any one of Lotus/Netch/Falcon's named buffs with a flat amount

I think the DoT is the better idea, because the Buffs idea would also buff Scorch and Dive, neither of which needs buffed. But at least replacing Falcons Berserk with a flat amount would mean buff only in a group setting.

Personally I rather like not being forced to run potions all the time. There's nothing wrong with having minor berserk - nightblades have it too, and nobody is complaining there. In any situation with a half competent healer, that buff is meaningless anyways because combat prayer will be available 100% of the time.

l agree, thats why I would prefer the DoT idea. I also don't think Stamdens need buffed that badly either (topic I was avoiding) and a buff to either Winters Revenge or Fletcher Flies would be a Magden buff. The best buff would actually be to the Piercing Cold passive, buffing Forst Damage making an Ice Mage a little closer to reach but also just making Winters Revenge stronger if you aren't going for anything so non-meta.

stileanima

Lifemocker wrote: »

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Magicka Wardens are pulling the same DPS as MagSorcs currently, and they give the group really nice buffs with Master Architect gear. There's nothing really wrong with them at the moment. Everyone thinks they still suck, but they don't.

I would say Templar is a weaker DPS class right now. No one is playing them currently.

Warden doesn't suck, but it's not as good as the other classes. I know magplars who do 42k, I don't think magwardens can do more than that.

Wardens can absolutely pull more than 42k.

https://youtu.be/WE5VCDTH75U

If you're talking solo buffed on a dummy, not using a Perfect Asylum staff, personally I pull 38k on a 3 mil.



On a 6mil, I'd need some orbs, as you can see from taking a look at my drain in that screenshot.

That being said, I definitely do feel they need some TLC in order to make them more desirable to take on competitive runs in trials, though not necessarily just "buffing their dps." Some unique utility, a dps synergy... just something that makes me say, "I want a Mag Warden as a part of this group comp because X."