PTS Update 18 - Feedback Thread for Warden Balance

Zardayne

I'd love to see the damage of swarm greatly increased. Right now this is such a lame ability.

Zardayne

Hutch679 wrote: »

Im just super bitter. Ive put so much time into learning/playing mag warden and zos just dumps on them. Most disappointimg patch notes ive seen in the last few years. Contemplating why i even waste money and time this game....

I'm starting to feel the same way. In 20+ yrs of MMO gaming I've watched this team continually make some of the worst "balance" changes ever. People have been begging for them to look at Mag warden DPS since day 1 and they just totally ignore those who pay their bills.

MLGProPlayer

Zardayne wrote: »

Hutch679 wrote: »

Im just super bitter. Ive put so much time into learning/playing mag warden and zos just dumps on them. Most disappointimg patch notes ive seen in the last few years. Contemplating why i even waste money and time this game....

I'm starting to feel the same way. In 20+ yrs of MMO gaming I've watched this team continually make some of the worst "balance" changes ever. People have been begging for them to look at Mag warden DPS since day 1 and they just totally ignore those who pay their bills.

We've been begging them to look at magdens since even before day 1 (it was evident that they suck from day 1 in beta).

MLGProPlayer

Another often overlooked magicka warden issue:

Magicka warden has a hard time maintaining the 8% damage boost from destro staff. Due to bear being a double bar ability, you can't slot wall of elements on one bar and destro ult on the other. You need to slot a random destro staff ability instead.

But with magelight being double barred as well, you only have 4 ability slots to work with. Unless you're using perfected asylum staff, cliff racer is a better spammable than force pulse. That means you need to slot a random destro skill instead of lotus blossom. I slot ele drain since most PUGs don't carry it, but it's redundant in organised groups and a self heal would be much more useful.

Osubaker33

Not sure why I am even bothering since ZoS wont do anything but here goes anyway

For Magica Warden

Fetcher Infection - give this some kind of secondary effect. I think minor breach/minor fracture would be a great addition to both morphs.

Deep Fissure - leave as it is, unfortunately because of its relative power in PVP there isnt anything that can be added to this for PVE

Winter's Revenge - Increase the damage on this to be in line with Sorc's liquid lightning.

Eternal Guadian - fix its bugs, give it cleave dmg, speed up its standard attck animations

Screaming Cliff Racer - idk here, i hate this skill. Its clunky, looks like crap, and just isnt fun to use in my opinion.

Winter's Embrace - Increase the healing to 20% of health for the tank healing morph and increase the dmg of the dmg morph. Leave the heal for the dmg morph at 10% of health and base the damage equally off of max magica and spell power. A lot of people who would love for a Ice based Warden to be viable.

Crystalized Shield - I am fine with the changes to this. It was over performing in PVP. Maybe change the other morph to send out an ice projectile every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. It can cost the same as shimmering and break on 3 hits.

Frozen Gate - Have one of the morphs create only one portal that if it can't teleport the enemy (bosses) it instead puts a powerful cold dot on them. All morphs should be able to teleport players. This would obviously not put a dot on other players in pvp as they can be teleported.

Seraphayel

Zardayne wrote: »

I'd love to see the damage of swarm greatly increased. Right now this is such a lame ability.

Flies should just be the Magicka equivalent of Bow's Poison Injection.

BrokenGameMechanics

General consensus is Magden is underpowered for all content, Stamden is in a similar situation but with one exception, they are super OP in PVP. I think I even saw some saying something to the effect that Stamden is so overpowered in PVP that it prevents any sort of fixes for Magden. Others that Stamden is a DPS machine in PVP.

Yea, well not so much. I'm not saying they're trash, but they are far, far from being THE OP PVP build.

I think this whole Stamden are overtop OP in PVP is sort of mythic. Everyone keeps saying it, because everyone is saying it.

Currently on the Vivec PVP the leaderboard for All Alliances there are12 Wardens in the top 100 list with the highest ranking at #11. So zero in the top 10. Out of those 12 Wardens, it is reasonable to assume that there is some mixture of Magdens / Stamdens, but even if one assumes worst case 12% of the leader board, at most, are Stamdens. Surely if Stamdens were that OP there would be 2 or 3 or more Wardens in the Top 10.

In the entire Warden class there are exactly 3 skills that are Stamina based and subject to scaling from your Weapon Damage + Stamina. These are 2 offensive Sub Assault, Cliff Racer and one heal Soothing Spoors. Effectively all others skills are ineffective - as Magica based and Stamina build.

For example, depending on CP distribution my Flies tooltip (600 CP toon) is ~6-7k range. Say 7k damage over 10 secs. In Cyrodiil if a Stamden casts Fletcher Infection on a group you'll typically see 80 - 150 pts of damage per tick. Barely low 3 digits of damage. Seriously. Effectively doing nothing, its sort of laughable. Same with entire rest of the Warden skill line for Stamden, since it's all Magica based it's all pretty useless.

Within the Warden skill line, Magica >>> Stamina, as the 3 skills in common are effectively the same and the Magden gets all the rest of skills. So for Wardens and their class skills, the Magden tooltips are the same and often much higher then a Stamdens (for Warden class skills here).

So IF Stamden is that much better than Magden, it is because currently in PVP Stamina does better than Magica in general, but that has nothing to do with "Warden-ness". i.e S&B or DW or 2H is much better than XXX Staff.

Ok so what is different between a Stamden and any non-Warden class? Well it has to be something special for Stamdens that no one else has. But that is a very short list of possibles. Roughly the 3 skills that are unique to Stamdens, Sub, Cliff and Spoors as any StamXXX, XXXden class can slot 2H, DW, S&B, Desto, Resto, Ice, ... skill lines.

In addition the Warden has some nice passives in and around healing and resource recovery. People mention the healing passive advantage the most. Accepting the meme that "Stamdens are soooo OP in PVP", their OP-ness must come from Sub, Cliff, Spoors and healing passives. That's it.

Ok, so Spoors are a really nice self-heal. However, for ANY max stam toon, you are going to get up to a ~15K Vigor tooltip. Many Stamdens prefer Vigor over Spoors, maybe even most of them. Spoors are instant, Vigor is a much higher total heal DOT. So figure Vigor vs Spoors is a wash, or at least is not THE factor as to why Stamdens are being called the most OP in PVP. You slot Vigor, I slot Spoors does not imply that I'm god tier level OP in comparison.

So is it the Birds? Well Magdens got the Birds as well and their Birds get a 15% damage buff over Stamden Birds. So if Birds are what make Stamdens super OP then Magdens, well they just have to be super-duper OP. Right? So let's all say, it's not the Birds. And if it was the Birds, well now they are SUPER slow and you can dodge them all. I can tell you I didn't see that many Wardens slinging Birds pre-nerf and now, mission accomplished, they don't get slotted by Stamdens very often. So Stamdens went from 3 viable class skills to 2! And with the upcoming Shalks nerf it could easily go to zero. i.e. Stamdens without a single Warden skill slotted might be common.

OK so Sub Assault is the only thing left. So Sub Assault is THE singular skill that Stamdens have that makes them the PVP overlords. Please note all you Magdens that Sub Assault has no Stun. Since Stamdens rule PVP and Magdens are so meh, it looks like they are doing you a favor by dropping the stun cause obviously it ain't helping and maybe now you'll be OP too. I joke, but you see my point. I hope.

Sure Sub Assualt is pretty nice, but then again IT IS THE ONLY THING THE Stamden has ... and the upcoming nerf is really harsh. The 10 -> 5 sec change really hurts, because you can no longer get a Sub Assault to hit WITH a previous Sub Assaults debuffs active. So what used to hit with Major Breach in effect, is not any longer. That's a big damage delta, a negative one. Lots of things hit as hard or harder than a Warden's Sub in PVP. Lots. No doubt, without it a Warden is literally nothing.

So what makes the Stamden the One Class To Rule Them All in PVP? The birds, nope. The Spoors, nope. The Sub Assault, really? Magden gets a Stun, Stamden no CC whatsoever.

My personal opinion is that the Stamden CAN be a really tanky fellow. But is a "you can't kill this" Warden build substantially OP over a "you can't kill me" Templar. Don't think so. And how does that make them OP DPS machines in PVP? A Stamden is just like any other Stam build in PVP with a bit of an edge from healing and resource sustain passives. BUT the other Stam classes / builds have their edges as well. Stamden are nothing special.

WHEN we all look at the Vivec leader board and see 5 out of the Top 10 are Stamdens. Or 35-40 out of the Top 100 are Stamdens, Ok, then Stamdens are OP. BUT with only 12 Wardens total in the Top 100 in PVP with almost certainly some of those being Magdens (or they really are hopeless) how can anyone say with a straight face that Stamdens are totally dominating PVP?

So can we please give the Stamdens are ridiculously OP in PVP a rest? They are pretty good with Survive and Sustain with certain tanky builds, and OK for DPS but not THE BURST DPS monster build/class for PVP by any stretch.

LeHarrt91

Having mained a stam warden since morrowind, i can think the reason people say warden is ridiculously OP in PVP is because of its potential to line up alot of burst and its utility.

You can Sub Assualt, Dive, Heavy Attack and DBoS for great burst and add to that Shimmering shield (major Heroism) and the Healing Ulti (if below 50% Major Mending) and Bird of Prey (Expedition and Berserk) plus Heavy armor passives and Seventh Legion (before the cooldown was added) it was very tanky and dealt burst damage.

But i remember Stam DK and Sorc going through a similar FOTM with Werewolf/ Legion and Dawnbreaker/ Dizzy Swing.
I feel like many Stam classes can wear the same gear as Stam Warden and be as effective, its just Warden does it easier.

But the Warden does need pve buffs especially Magicka Warden.

_Ahala_

I think you pointed out the problem with Magden when you stated the only damaging ability it has over stam for pvp is flies... a dot with no significant secondary effects. Why choose mag which is forced to use destro, lightning or fire specifically for a stun, when you have far more gameplay options with Stam which can supplement its lack of damaging abilities with sword and board, two handed, bow, or dual wield and just use class abilities for utility?

And before you ask, yes I’ve played both and enjoy both... pvped with both... that means duels against actual duelers on both, battlegrounds with 25/0 scores on magden and 36/0 on stamden, cyrodil 1vX on both, pved with both completing vDSA, vMA, and vTrials with both. I have over 33 days /played time on warden.

Magden is literally trash compared to stamden... it just doesn’t have the options stam does when it comes to weapon lines. If mag had some one hand and rune line with snare immunity, a burst ult, an execute, and a stun all in one we might be having the opposite argument.

But as it stands magden needs love in pve and pvp dps and stamden is overpowered for pvp because of the health scaling of shimmering shield which allows them to go full offense vs ranged and it’s ability to shalk, dawnbreaker, execute from 100 to 0 in a single gcd through defensive buffs and a damage shield

Edited for clarity and to add paragraphs

_Ahala_

Magdens need pvp and pve buffs at this point, but yeah I agree stamdens do need pve buffs as well

_Ahala_

And shimmering shield should scale off mag because giving stamina a damage shield of that potency that practically refunds its own cost is rediculous

Spurius_Lucilius

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

General consensus is Magden is underpowered for all content, Stamden is in a similar situation but with one exception, they are super OP in PVP. I think I even saw some saying something to the effect that Stamden is so overpowered in PVP that it prevents any sort of fixes for Magden. Others that Stamden is a DPS machine in PVP.

Yea, well not so much. I'm not saying they're trash, but they are far, far from being THE OP PVP build.

I think this whole Stamden are overtop OP in PVP is sort of mythic. Everyone keeps saying it, because everyone is saying it.

Currently on the Vivec PVP the leaderboard for All Alliances there are12 Wardens in the top 100 list with the highest ranking at #11. So zero in the top 10. Out of those 12 Wardens, it is reasonable to assume that there is some mixture of Magdens / Stamdens, but even if one assumes worst case 12% of the leader board, at most, are Stamdens. Surely if Stamdens were that OP there would be 2 or 3 or more Wardens in the Top 10.

In the entire Warden class there are exactly 3 skills that are Stamina based and subject to scaling from your Weapon Damage + Stamina. These are 2 offensive Sub Assault, Cliff Racer and one heal Soothing Spoors. Effectively all others skills are ineffective - as Magica based and Stamina build.

For example, depending on CP distribution my Flies tooltip (600 CP toon) is ~6-7k range. Say 7k damage over 10 secs. In Cyrodiil if a Stamden casts Fletcher Infection on a group you'll typically see 80 - 150 pts of damage per tick. Barely low 3 digits of damage. Seriously. Effectively doing nothing, its sort of laughable. Same with entire rest of the Warden skill line for Stamden, since it's all Magica based it's all pretty useless.

Within the Warden skill line, Magica >>> Stamina, as the 3 skills in common are effectively the same and the Magden gets all the rest of skills. So for Wardens and their class skills, the Magden tooltips are the same and often much higher then a Stamdens (for Warden class skills here).

So IF Stamden is that much better than Magden, it is because currently in PVP Stamina does better than Magica in general, but that has nothing to do with "Warden-ness". i.e S&B or DW or 2H is much better than XXX Staff.

Ok so what is different between a Stamden and any non-Warden class? Well it has to be something special for Stamdens that no one else has. But that is a very short list of possibles. Roughly the 3 skills that are unique to Stamdens, Sub, Cliff and Spoors as any StamXXX, XXXden class can slot 2H, DW, S&B, Desto, Resto, Ice, ... skill lines.

In addition the Warden has some nice passives in and around healing and resource recovery. People mention the healing passive advantage the most. Accepting the meme that "Stamdens are soooo OP in PVP", their OP-ness must come from Sub, Cliff, Spoors and healing passives. That's it.

Ok, so Spoors are a really nice self-heal. However, for ANY max stam toon, you are going to get up to a ~15K Vigor tooltip. Many Stamdens prefer Vigor over Spoors, maybe even most of them. Spoors are instant, Vigor is a much higher total heal DOT. So figure Vigor vs Spoors is a wash, or at least is not THE factor as to why Stamdens are being called the most OP in PVP. You slot Vigor, I slot Spoors does not imply that I'm god tier level OP in comparison.

So is it the Birds? Well Magdens got the Birds as well and their Birds get a 15% damage buff over Stamden Birds. So if Birds are what make Stamdens super OP then Magdens, well they just have to be super-duper OP. Right? So let's all say, it's not the Birds. And if it was the Birds, well now they are SUPER slow and you can dodge them all. I can tell you I didn't see that many Wardens slinging Birds pre-nerf and now, mission accomplished, they don't get slotted by Stamdens very often. So Stamdens went from 3 viable class skills to 2! And with the upcoming Shalks nerf it could easily go to zero. i.e. Stamdens without a single Warden skill slotted might be common.

OK so Sub Assault is the only thing left. So Sub Assault is THE singular skill that Stamdens have that makes them the PVP overlords. Please note all you Magdens that Sub Assault has no Stun. Since Stamdens rule PVP and Magdens are so meh, it looks like they are doing you a favor by dropping the stun cause obviously it ain't helping and maybe now you'll be OP too. I joke, but you see my point. I hope.

Sure Sub Assualt is pretty nice, but then again IT IS THE ONLY THING THE Stamden has ... and the upcoming nerf is really harsh. The 10 -> 5 sec change really hurts, because you can no longer get a Sub Assault to hit WITH a previous Sub Assaults debuffs active. So what used to hit with Major Breach in effect, is not any longer. That's a big damage delta, a negative one. Lots of things hit as hard or harder than a Warden's Sub in PVP. Lots. No doubt, without it a Warden is literally nothing.

So what makes the Stamden the One Class To Rule Them All in PVP? The birds, nope. The Spoors, nope. The Sub Assault, really? Magden gets a Stun, Stamden no CC whatsoever.

My personal opinion is that the Stamden CAN be a really tanky fellow. But is a "you can't kill this" Warden build substantially OP over a "you can't kill me" Templar. Don't think so. And how does that make them OP DPS machines in PVP? A Stamden is just like any other Stam build in PVP with a bit of an edge from healing and resource sustain passives. BUT the other Stam classes / builds have their edges as well. Stamden are nothing special.

WHEN we all look at the Vivec leader board and see 5 out of the Top 10 are Stamdens. Or 35-40 out of the Top 100 are Stamdens, Ok, then Stamdens are OP. BUT with only 12 Wardens total in the Top 100 in PVP with almost certainly some of those being Magdens (or they really are hopeless) how can anyone say with a straight face that Stamdens are totally dominating PVP?

So can we please give the Stamdens are ridiculously OP in PVP a rest? They are pretty good with Survive and Sustain with certain tanky builds, and OK for DPS but not THE BURST DPS monster build/class for PVP by any stretch.

Stamden does everything better than a Magden. It utilizes skills such as Shimmering Shield, Bird of Prey and Ice Fortress. It can use a good healing Ultimate: Healing Thicket. Why did you only mention those skills with stamina morph, and say nothing about those utility skills both Stamden and Magden have. Stamden gets the weapon skills to pair with those nice utility skills. That is why they are strong. Outside of the 3 stamina cost skills, at least 5 class skills are very very effective for Stamden. If you are not using magicka cost utility abilities for buffing, you are playing stamina class wrongly.

BrokenGameMechanics

Stamden does everything better than a Magden. It utilizes skills such as Shimmering Shield, Bird of Prey and Ice Fortress. It can use a good healing Ultimate: Healing Thicket. Why did you only mention those skills with stamina morph, and say nothing about those utility skills both Stamden and Magden have. Stamden gets the weapon skills to pair with those nice utility skills. That is why they are strong. Outside of the 3 stamina cost skills, at least 5 class skills are very very effective for Stamden. If you are not using magicka cost utility abilities for buffing, you are playing stamina class wrongly.

How can it do everything better? The 3 stamina skills are not better then their magica morphs true? Magica birds get 15% damage buff!! Magica Shalks get a Stun, Stamina Shalks give a Major Fracture but big deal because Stamdens have zero offensive spell damage skills to take advantage of it. Mushrooms are a wash. So 2/3 are better for the Magica Warden. I never mentioned _not_ using the buffs. The are same/same for Mag and Stam Wardens except, Stam Warden has a 10K-ish Magica Pool with a much lower Mag Warden. Plus Shimmering Shield restores Magica which is fine. But who benefits more from all that Magica flowing in, Mag or Stam Warden.

I guess there are 2 points here. 1) Everyone claims Stam Warden are god like OP DPS destruction machines of PVP and it is not the case. 2) If you line up every skill in the Warden Skill line, the Magica skill is always either better in comparison or, like for the buff skills, are the same. They are the same in effect, but the Magica Warden has a 10K pool vs a 40K pool with much lower regen. Stamden does 1 Ice Fortress cast and that is 40% of the pool gone vs 10% for Magica Warden. You can keep Bird of Prey and Fortress up and that is about it. And yes, as I said Wardens do have decent survivability in PVP from self heal and Healing Thicket et al. (But they just buffed all the other classes with addition healing.) doesn't make them the Burst/DPS destroyers of PVP that everyone makes them out to be. Cause WHERE ARE THE WARDENS ON THE PVP rankings??? They are not there. Just like they are not on any of the Trials rankings.

So the final point is, since skill for skill Magica Warden are slightly better or equal to Stam Warden if you line them up, then IF Stamdens are truly that superior it is because of the gap generally between Magica vs Stamina in the other skill lines and has NOTHING to do with their inherent Warden-ness nature. e.g. Weapon skills are better then staff skills etc.

Stamdens are ok in PVP because of decent to pretty darn good self healing and ok burst combo (but no executioner). But their bursts are not head and shoulders above a lot of classes burst combos out there. Not even close. But yet, Stamdens are talked about as the "godly DPS Burst mow down machines" of PVP. Oddly enough for being the kings and queens of PVP you'd think everyone would be playing them and Cyrodiil overrun with them. Not happengn. And then they would be dominating the rankings. But like I said, there are 12 Wardens in the Vivic All Alliance rankings. None, zip, zero, nada in the Top 10. Say 2/3 are Stamdens and 1/3 of those Magdens. So 8 Stamdens in the Top 100. So that is not happening either. So hardly, hardly, is Stamden the most OP class in PVP that everyone states as "a fact".

JohnStorm

@ZOS_GinaBruno please shed some light about any upcoming buffs to magwarden.
Every suggestion here has been fair and everyone just wants them to be on par with other magicka dps classes. It's a really fun class class to play but right now, in vet trials at least, there is no reason to play a magwarden because a magsorc or a magblade will just be way better and more useful to the group.

sluice

Warden (especially magicka) are currently PayToLose.

They desperately need to be looked at.

I always thought that is was very funny that the arguably worst PVP class (Magicka Warden) were being nerfed while arguably the strongest one (Stamina Warden) were left untouched. I don't get the logic.

Even with the stun and the undodgeable birds, good Magden were so rare, now I'm afraid they will go extinct.

Now they will feel like a worst version of a sorcerer.
Essentially a sorc with :
-Less burst
-Weaker shield
-No Execute
-No stun

Mihael

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

Stamden does everything better than a Magden. It utilizes skills such as Shimmering Shield, Bird of Prey and Ice Fortress. It can use a good healing Ultimate: Healing Thicket. Why did you only mention those skills with stamina morph, and say nothing about those utility skills both Stamden and Magden have. Stamden gets the weapon skills to pair with those nice utility skills. That is why they are strong. Outside of the 3 stamina cost skills, at least 5 class skills are very very effective for Stamden. If you are not using magicka cost utility abilities for buffing, you are playing stamina class wrongly.

How can it do everything better? The 3 stamina skills are not better then their magica morphs true? Magica birds get 15% damage buff!! Magica Shalks get a Stun, Stamina Shalks give a Major Fracture but big deal because Stamdens have zero offensive spell damage skills to take advantage of it. Mushrooms are a wash. So 2/3 are better for the Magica Warden. I never mentioned _not_ using the buffs. The are same/same for Mag and Stam Wardens except, Stam Warden has a 10K-ish Magica Pool with a much lower Mag Warden. Plus Shimmering Shield restores Magica which is fine. But who benefits more from all that Magica flowing in, Mag or Stam Warden.

I guess there are 2 points here. 1) Everyone claims Stam Warden are god like OP DPS destruction machines of PVP and it is not the case. 2) If you line up every skill in the Warden Skill line, the Magica skill is always either better in comparison or, like for the buff skills, are the same. They are the same in effect, but the Magica Warden has a 10K pool vs a 40K pool with much lower regen. Stamden does 1 Ice Fortress cast and that is 40% of the pool gone vs 10% for Magica Warden. You can keep Bird of Prey and Fortress up and that is about it. And yes, as I said Wardens do have decent survivability in PVP from self heal and Healing Thicket et al. (But they just buffed all the other classes with addition healing.) doesn't make them the Burst/DPS destroyers of PVP that everyone makes them out to be. Cause WHERE ARE THE WARDENS ON THE PVP rankings??? They are not there. Just like they are not on any of the Trials rankings.

So the final point is, since skill for skill Magica Warden are slightly better or equal to Stam Warden if you line them up, then IF Stamdens are truly that superior it is because of the gap generally between Magica vs Stamina in the other skill lines and has NOTHING to do with their inherent Warden-ness nature. e.g. Weapon skills are better then staff skills etc.

Stamdens are ok in PVP because of decent to pretty darn good self healing and ok burst combo (but no executioner). But their bursts are not head and shoulders above a lot of classes burst combos out there. Not even close. But yet, Stamdens are talked about as the "godly DPS Burst mow down machines" of PVP. Oddly enough for being the kings and queens of PVP you'd think everyone would be playing them and Cyrodiil overrun with them. Not happengn. And then they would be dominating the rankings. But like I said, there are 12 Wardens in the Vivic All Alliance rankings. None, zip, zero, nada in the Top 10. Say 2/3 are Stamdens and 1/3 of those Magdens. So 8 Stamdens in the Top 100. So that is not happening either. So hardly, hardly, is Stamden the most OP class in PVP that everyone states as "a fact".

I have a simple solution for you, find a good player on your server first duel then on your stam warden then duel them on your mag warden. Once you see how much easier it is on your stam character come back to help us ask zos for a magden fix.



Bonus:
And while you are at it try dueling them on a stam dk then on a stam warden afterwards come tell me if you see any reason to play stam warden over that class

Lynx7386

_Ahala_ wrote: »

And shimmering shield should scale off mag because giving stamina a damage shield of that potency that practically refunds its own cost is rediculous

It scales off of health already.

Lynx7386

As much as magdens want buffs, keep in mind that you aren't that only build. I've seen too many suggestions here that would negatively impact warden tanks just to throw magicka wardens a bone.

Aside from more healing, no changes are needed for arctic blast. It doesn't need to scale from magicka or be turned into a single target dot - it currently serves an important role in crowd control and debuffing for tanks.

Shimmering shield is also a very important tool for warden tanks that does not need further nerfs or changes. If you want to make one morph better for non tanks, make adjustments to Crystal slab.

The warden trees are pretty clearly outlined: animal companions is meant to be your damage tree, not winters embrace. Start your changes there by focusing on cliff racer, swarm, and shalks. Zos had made it abundantly clear by now that frost is for tanking and defensive utility, not damage

_Ahala_

What I’m saying is the shimmering morph should scale off health differently... to the point where it’s great for defense on a 40k health Tankden but incapable of absolutely shutting down a ranged build in pvp when used by a 20k health Stamden.

Zardayne

Seraphayel wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

I'd love to see the damage of swarm greatly increased. Right now this is such a lame ability.

Flies should just be the Magicka equivalent of Bow's Poison Injection.

I'd agree with that.

_Ahala_

Zardayne wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

I'd love to see the damage of swarm greatly increased. Right now this is such a lame ability.

Flies should just be the Magicka equivalent of Bow's Poison Injection.

I'd agree with that.

Ditto

Hutch679

I don't have high expectations at this point. Wardens need a reason to slot fetched infection and right now, I don't see much of one. 1) cc being removed from deep fissure means it is now a necessity to slot destructive clench/reach; 2) what you give up to slot it; 3) it is can be purged; and 4) it provides no rebuffs or burst. Wardens have to slot skills that give burst because they have no execute.

Changing fetched infection to an execute type ability will fix only some of wardens issues. Reason being it can be purged and you give up too much to slot it because the stun was removed from deep fissure. If deep fissure jeeps it's stun, then you MIGHT be able to slot fetcher infection, however you lose a destroy staff skill which means you lose 8% damage from flame staff passive. I'd give suggestion as to what magden needs but I honestly don't have any good ideas....

Spurius_Lucilius

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

Stamden does everything better than a Magden. It utilizes skills such as Shimmering Shield, Bird of Prey and Ice Fortress. It can use a good healing Ultimate: Healing Thicket. Why did you only mention those skills with stamina morph, and say nothing about those utility skills both Stamden and Magden have. Stamden gets the weapon skills to pair with those nice utility skills. That is why they are strong. Outside of the 3 stamina cost skills, at least 5 class skills are very very effective for Stamden. If you are not using magicka cost utility abilities for buffing, you are playing stamina class wrongly.

How can it do everything better? The 3 stamina skills are not better then their magica morphs true? Magica birds get 15% damage buff!! Magica Shalks get a Stun, Stamina Shalks give a Major Fracture but big deal because Stamdens have zero offensive spell damage skills to take advantage of it. Mushrooms are a wash. So 2/3 are better for the Magica Warden. I never mentioned _not_ using the buffs. The are same/same for Mag and Stam Wardens except, Stam Warden has a 10K-ish Magica Pool with a much lower Mag Warden. Plus Shimmering Shield restores Magica which is fine. But who benefits more from all that Magica flowing in, Mag or Stam Warden.

I guess there are 2 points here. 1) Everyone claims Stam Warden are god like OP DPS destruction machines of PVP and it is not the case. 2) If you line up every skill in the Warden Skill line, the Magica skill is always either better in comparison or, like for the buff skills, are the same. They are the same in effect, but the Magica Warden has a 10K pool vs a 40K pool with much lower regen. Stamden does 1 Ice Fortress cast and that is 40% of the pool gone vs 10% for Magica Warden. You can keep Bird of Prey and Fortress up and that is about it. And yes, as I said Wardens do have decent survivability in PVP from self heal and Healing Thicket et al. (But they just buffed all the other classes with addition healing.) doesn't make them the Burst/DPS destroyers of PVP that everyone makes them out to be. Cause WHERE ARE THE WARDENS ON THE PVP rankings??? They are not there. Just like they are not on any of the Trials rankings.

So the final point is, since skill for skill Magica Warden are slightly better or equal to Stam Warden if you line them up, then IF Stamdens are truly that superior it is because of the gap generally between Magica vs Stamina in the other skill lines and has NOTHING to do with their inherent Warden-ness nature. e.g. Weapon skills are better then staff skills etc.

Stamdens are ok in PVP because of decent to pretty darn good self healing and ok burst combo (but no executioner). But their bursts are not head and shoulders above a lot of classes burst combos out there. Not even close. But yet, Stamdens are talked about as the "godly DPS Burst mow down machines" of PVP. Oddly enough for being the kings and queens of PVP you'd think everyone would be playing them and Cyrodiil overrun with them. Not happengn. And then they would be dominating the rankings. But like I said, there are 12 Wardens in the Vivic All Alliance rankings. None, zip, zero, nada in the Top 10. Say 2/3 are Stamdens and 1/3 of those Magdens. So 8 Stamdens in the Top 100. So that is not happening either. So hardly, hardly, is Stamden the most OP class in PVP that everyone states as "a fact".

Stamden has much better skill in weapon skill line: Bow, 2H, S&B, dual wield. Stamden has execute(2H has one of the most powerful execute), has powerful hot Vigor.
And Stamnina morph cost less.Those weapon skills combine with Warden Class skills: Boom, one of the best Burst Classes in the game. By the way, Alliance Ranking only shows that those players are grinding a lot of AP. It doesn't show the power of classes.

Hutch679

Spurius_Lucilius wrote: »

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

Stamden does everything better than a Magden. It utilizes skills such as Shimmering Shield, Bird of Prey and Ice Fortress. It can use a good healing Ultimate: Healing Thicket. Why did you only mention those skills with stamina morph, and say nothing about those utility skills both Stamden and Magden have. Stamden gets the weapon skills to pair with those nice utility skills. That is why they are strong. Outside of the 3 stamina cost skills, at least 5 class skills are very very effective for Stamden. If you are not using magicka cost utility abilities for buffing, you are playing stamina class wrongly.

How can it do everything better? The 3 stamina skills are not better then their magica morphs true? Magica birds get 15% damage buff!! Magica Shalks get a Stun, Stamina Shalks give a Major Fracture but big deal because Stamdens have zero offensive spell damage skills to take advantage of it. Mushrooms are a wash. So 2/3 are better for the Magica Warden. I never mentioned _not_ using the buffs. The are same/same for Mag and Stam Wardens except, Stam Warden has a 10K-ish Magica Pool with a much lower Mag Warden. Plus Shimmering Shield restores Magica which is fine. But who benefits more from all that Magica flowing in, Mag or Stam Warden.

I guess there are 2 points here. 1) Everyone claims Stam Warden are god like OP DPS destruction machines of PVP and it is not the case. 2) If you line up every skill in the Warden Skill line, the Magica skill is always either better in comparison or, like for the buff skills, are the same. They are the same in effect, but the Magica Warden has a 10K pool vs a 40K pool with much lower regen. Stamden does 1 Ice Fortress cast and that is 40% of the pool gone vs 10% for Magica Warden. You can keep Bird of Prey and Fortress up and that is about it. And yes, as I said Wardens do have decent survivability in PVP from self heal and Healing Thicket et al. (But they just buffed all the other classes with addition healing.) doesn't make them the Burst/DPS destroyers of PVP that everyone makes them out to be. Cause WHERE ARE THE WARDENS ON THE PVP rankings??? They are not there. Just like they are not on any of the Trials rankings.

So the final point is, since skill for skill Magica Warden are slightly better or equal to Stam Warden if you line them up, then IF Stamdens are truly that superior it is because of the gap generally between Magica vs Stamina in the other skill lines and has NOTHING to do with their inherent Warden-ness nature. e.g. Weapon skills are better then staff skills etc.

Stamdens are ok in PVP because of decent to pretty darn good self healing and ok burst combo (but no executioner). But their bursts are not head and shoulders above a lot of classes burst combos out there. Not even close. But yet, Stamdens are talked about as the "godly DPS Burst mow down machines" of PVP. Oddly enough for being the kings and queens of PVP you'd think everyone would be playing them and Cyrodiil overrun with them. Not happengn. And then they would be dominating the rankings. But like I said, there are 12 Wardens in the Vivic All Alliance rankings. None, zip, zero, nada in the Top 10. Say 2/3 are Stamdens and 1/3 of those Magdens. So 8 Stamdens in the Top 100. So that is not happening either. So hardly, hardly, is Stamden the most OP class in PVP that everyone states as "a fact".

Stamden has much better skill in weapon skill line: Bow, 2H, S&B, dual wield. Stamden has execute(2H has the most powerful execute), has powerful hot Vigor.
And Stamnina morph cost less.Those weapon skills combine with Warden Class skills: Boom, one of the best Burst Classes in the game. By the way, Alliance Ranking only shows that those players are grinding a lot of AP. It doesn't show the power of classes.

This. Stamden is powerful because it's class skills (i.e. sub assault, bird of prey, bull netch) synergize perfectly with weapon skills (i.e. dizzy swing, reverse slice/executioner, shrouded dagger, steel tornado) and dawnbreaker.

Revokus

Lynx7386 wrote: »

As much as magdens want buffs, keep in mind that you aren't that only build. I've seen too many suggestions here that would negatively impact warden tanks just to throw magicka wardens a bone.

Aside from more healing, no changes are needed for arctic blast. It doesn't need to scale from magicka or be turned into a single target dot - it currently serves an important role in crowd control and debuffing for tanks.

Shimmering shield is also a very important tool for warden tanks that does not need further nerfs or changes. If you want to make one morph better for non tanks, make adjustments to Crystal slab.

The warden trees are pretty clearly outlined: animal companions is meant to be your damage tree, not winters embrace. Start your changes there by focusing on cliff racer, swarm, and shalks. Zos had made it abundantly clear by now that frost is for tanking and defensive utility, not damage

Not really one of the artic wind morph is completly useless to everyone..I don’t see why they couldn’t make it a dps ability and tanks don’t need 2 morphs.

BrokenGameMechanics

Mihael wrote: »

I have a simple solution for you, find a good player on your server first duel then on your stam warden then duel them on your mag warden. Once you see how much easier it is on your stam character come back to help us ask zos for a magden fix.

Bonus:
And while you are at it try dueling them on a stam dk then on a stam warden afterwards come tell me if you see any reason to play stam warden over that class

That is only going to give a subjective experience of me vs X or you vs X. I still think the most simple and clearest evidence is the Ranking boards which reflect 100s of players over 1000s of hours. The fact is that that for Trial rankings there are very few Wardens of any type. It only takes 3 mins to look at the Vivic rankings. No Wardens in the Top 10 (when I wrote my first post) and only 12 total Wardens in the All Alliance Rankings Top 100. And I doubt all of them are Stamdens, but hey, who knows.

And not saying Stamden is not any better than Magden at all. Cause I do not believe that. Just saying since the Warden skill line as a whole is better for Mag Wardens than the Stamden Warden any advantage must be mostly due to the general advantage of Stam toons vs Magica toons in general from the common skill lines plus some of the nice heal passives.

Forget the Stam Warden vs Magica Warden ... not the issue I was really trying to make a point about. The main point is are Stamden's truly THE OP class of PVP that you see claimed here so often on the boards.


Question: If Stamdens are super powered OP PVP killing machines then where are they in the PVP rankings? I'm open to alternative explanations, "the most OP class in PVP is not reflected in the PVP campaign rankings because ....".

Again not saying they are trash at all. They are pretty solid, but less so then say 6-8 months ago with the nerf tweaks. But they are not OP PVP god toons. I'd agree with that in a second if 3-4 of the Top 10 were Wardens or 35 of the Top 100 or whatever but anyone here can go look at the leader boards and count.

But gotten off topic so I'll let it rest ...

BrokenGameMechanics

[quote="Spurius_Lucilius;c-5079472" By the way, Alliance Ranking only shows that those players are grinding a lot of AP. It doesn't show the power of classes.[/quote]

So if someone is an AP grinder and doing so for a ton of hours and that someone observes this other class was an unkillable, killing machine. Clearly #1 in PVP by a wide margin, why haven't at least some of these god tier grinders switched to Stamden and are not dominating the rankings? They'd get even more AP than now.

I admit the fact that having <10% of Stamdens in the Top 100 and 0% in the Top 10 doesn't prove that Stamdens are NOT the #1 PVP god class out there. But pretty strong circumstantial evidence nonetheless they may not be as OP as everyone thinks.

They are very respectable, solid performing PVP build. No more, no less.

Joy_Division

@BrokenGameMechanics (ironic name)

You are looking at things in isolation, in a vacuum, and doing so is preventing you from seeing how it is a confluence of factors, many of which come from outside Warden mechanics, that make PvP Stam Wardens really strong and PvP Magicka Wardens find it *really* hard to be competitive at anything besides healer-support tank.

My stam Warden doesn't care that Sub Assault has no stun because my cheap burst ultimate Dawnbreaker does just this (as does a strong accessible spammable Dizzying Swing). My magicka Warden does care because my Dawnbreaker will hit like a wet noodle and Flame reach does not nearly hit as hard as Dizzying Swing.

My stam Waden doesn't care that the stam bird skill does less damage than magicka's because my stam Warden doesn't even use that skill (because more versatile skills are offered in the weapon lines, something not available to magicka Wardens).

My stam warden isn't much concerned about not to having a DoT since I can get those from poisons or by using a very strong skill in Rending Slashes. My magicka Warden is very much concerned with only have DPS skills that do damage because I can't get useful secondary effects and debuffs like snare, defile, healing, speed, executes, crit chance, hit dodge rollers, etc., that other classes have access to.

My stam Warden could give diddly squat how many stamina morphs there are because I only need Sub Assualt and I'd rather have buffs drawn from my useless magicka pool.

The warden skillline is not better, not even close, for mag wardens because stam can get all the stuff missing in Warden skill line elsewhere. Magicka can't. So stam wardens have options to be versatile and strong at whatever they do, whereas magicka Wardens have too many holes that get exposed in competitive settings. No execute, no CC, no secondary effects, too few damage skills (all easily avoidable), what exactly are they supposed to do to kill a good player?

Alliance war rankings mostly measure time played, not campaign effectiveness so that's a meaningless measurement.

Vaoh

Lynx7386 wrote: »

As much as magdens want buffs, keep in mind that you aren't that only build. I've seen too many suggestions here that would negatively impact warden tanks just to throw magicka wardens a bone.

Aside from more healing, no changes are needed for arctic blast. It doesn't need to scale from magicka or be turned into a single target dot - it currently serves an important role in crowd control and debuffing for tanks.

Shimmering shield is also a very important tool for warden tanks that does not need further nerfs or changes. If you want to make one morph better for non tanks, make adjustments to Crystal slab.

The warden trees are pretty clearly outlined: animal companions is meant to be your damage tree, not winters embrace. Start your changes there by focusing on cliff racer, swarm, and shalks. Zos had made it abundantly clear by now that frost is for tanking and defensive utility, not damage

Arctic Blast is very weak in damage (even on Max Health builds), and Minor Maim should already be applied to important targets anyway. Warden tanks use the other morph, and regardless it's pointless for there to be two morphs that function this way. Also judging by your reference to a cold-based single target Direct Damage+DoT effect, you're probably referring to my own suggestion. I said for the original Arctic Blast to become part of the base skill, alongside a buff to Polar Wind. It'd be a buff to Warden tank no matter how you look at it.

Shimmering Shield isn't useful to tanks because of the sheer damage mitigation (even though it's nice to have), but rather because of the Ult gen. Plus any PvP or PvE Warden tank should have a lot more Max Magicka than a Stam Warden PvP build. The intention of scaling Shimmering Shield from Max Magicka in a similar way to damage shields like Annulment would be to nerf the effectiveness of it on currently overperforming Stam Wardens, while keeping it relatively the same on Mag Wardens.

The Warden skill trees have been outlined by ZOS to fit one role each, yes. But maybe it was a mistake? Because as of a few days ago here were the PS4 NA trial leaderboards class makeup (all Trials and DSA):
DK: 21.95%
Sorc: 24.35%
NB: 28.64%
Templar: 23.32%
Warden: 1.740%

Full post:

PS4 NA


Here are the percentages of each class representation per trial:

Hel Ra Citadel:
DK: 23.12%
Sorc: 26.30%
NB: 26.01%
Templar: 22.68%
Warden: 1.878%

Aetherian Archive
DK: 18.95%
Sorc: 24.18%
NB: 30.74%
Templar: 24.42%
Warden: 0.895%

Sanctum Ophidia
DK: 3.72%
Sorc: 25.74%
NB: 23.32%
Templar: 24.66%
Warden: 2.560%

Dragonstar Arena
DK: 29.59%
Sorc: 31.39%
NB: 21.07%
Templar: 15.24%
Warden: 2.690%

Maw of Lorkhaj
DK: 24.38%
Sorc: 20.08%
NB: 30.94%
Templar: 31.76%
Warden: 1.024%

Halls of Fabrication
DK: 22.24%
Sorc: 21.56%
NB: 31.65%
Templar: 23.85%
Warden: 0.688%

Asylum Sanctorium
DK: 11.98%
Sorc: 22.71%
NB: 40.06%
Templar: 22.08%
Warden: 3.154%

TOTAL
DK: 21.95%
Sorc: 24.35%
NB: 28.64%
Templar: 23.32%
Warden: 1.740%


Here are the raw numbers, including the total entries per trial.

Using a similar template to what GaelicCat made.

Hel Ra Citadel:
Total entries: 692
DK: 160
Sorc: 182
NB: 180
Templar: 157
Warden: 13

Aetherian Archive
Total entries: 670
DK: 127
Sorc: 162
NB: 206
Templar: 169
Warden: 6 .... fun fact: 3 entries were the same person, 1 was me because I was really bored during and did the weekly .....

Sanctum Ophidia
Total entries: 742
DK: 176
Sorc: 191
NB: 173
Templar: 183
Warden: 19

Dragonstar Arena
Total entries: 223
DK: 66
Sorc: 70
NB: 47
Templar: 34
Warden: 6

Maw of Lorkhaj
Total entries: 488
DK: 119
Sorc: 98
NB: 151
Templar: 115
Warden: 5

Halls of Fabrication
Total entries: 436
DK: 97
Sorc: 94
NB: 138
Templar: 104
Warden: 3

Asylum Sanctorium
Total entries: 317
DK: 38
Sorc: 72
NB: 127
Templar: 70
Warden: 10

TOTAL
Total entries: 3568
DK: 783
Sorc: 869
NB: 1022
Templar: 832
Warden: 62

EDITED to make sure this is all correct.

As of April 21st, 2018 at 2:01am est, this is exactly what the PS4 NA trial leaderboards look like.

Judging by the numbers that players from PC EU and other servers have posted, this is pretty much consistent across all servers.

So whatever they were trying to do with Wardens hasn't worked very well. The other classes aren't built in the same weird way as Warden, so maybe they should actually get to buffing this class and breaking out of this "one skill line per role" mess? Thats the general consensus at least. Also Winter's Revenge, which is the Magicka Warden's class-based AOE DoT originally did not scale off of Maximum Magicka+Spell Damage when the class was being tested before Morriwnd launch. They recognized the issue and changed it, meaning Winter's Embrace is *not* exclusively meant for tanking. They just need to make logical changes and not base balance off of fitting within the arbitrary roles they want each skill line to be used for.

Lynx7386

Vaoh wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

As much as magdens want buffs, keep in mind that you aren't that only build. I've seen too many suggestions here that would negatively impact warden tanks just to throw magicka wardens a bone.

Aside from more healing, no changes are needed for arctic blast. It doesn't need to scale from magicka or be turned into a single target dot - it currently serves an important role in crowd control and debuffing for tanks.

Shimmering shield is also a very important tool for warden tanks that does not need further nerfs or changes. If you want to make one morph better for non tanks, make adjustments to Crystal slab.

The warden trees are pretty clearly outlined: animal companions is meant to be your damage tree, not winters embrace. Start your changes there by focusing on cliff racer, swarm, and shalks. Zos had made it abundantly clear by now that frost is for tanking and defensive utility, not damage

Arctic Blast is very weak in damage (even on Max Health builds), and Minor Maim should already be applied to important targets anyway. Warden tanks use the other morph, and regardless it's pointless for there to be two morphs that function this way. Also judging by your reference to a cold-based single target Direct Damage+DoT effect, you're probably referring to my own suggestion. I said for the original Arctic Blast to become part of the base skill, alongside a buff to Polar Wind. It'd be a buff to Warden tank no matter how you look at it.

Shimmering Shield isn't useful to tanks because of the sheer damage mitigation (even though it's nice to have), but rather because of the Ult gen. Plus any PvP or PvE Warden tank should have a lot more Max Magicka than a Stam Warden PvP build. The intention of scaling Shimmering Shield from Max Magicka in a similar way to damage shields like Annulment would be to nerf the effectiveness of it on currently overperforming Stam Wardens, while keeping it relatively the same on Mag Wardens.

The Warden skill trees have been outlined by ZOS to fit one role each, yes. But maybe it was a mistake? Because as of a few days ago here were the PS4 NA trial leaderboards class makeup (all Trials and DSA):
DK: 21.95%
Sorc: 24.35%
NB: 28.64%
Templar: 23.32%
Warden: 1.740%

Full post:

PS4 NA


Here are the percentages of each class representation per trial:

Hel Ra Citadel:
DK: 23.12%
Sorc: 26.30%
NB: 26.01%
Templar: 22.68%
Warden: 1.878%

Aetherian Archive
DK: 18.95%
Sorc: 24.18%
NB: 30.74%
Templar: 24.42%
Warden: 0.895%

Sanctum Ophidia
DK: 3.72%
Sorc: 25.74%
NB: 23.32%
Templar: 24.66%
Warden: 2.560%

Dragonstar Arena
DK: 29.59%
Sorc: 31.39%
NB: 21.07%
Templar: 15.24%
Warden: 2.690%

Maw of Lorkhaj
DK: 24.38%
Sorc: 20.08%
NB: 30.94%
Templar: 31.76%
Warden: 1.024%

Halls of Fabrication
DK: 22.24%
Sorc: 21.56%
NB: 31.65%
Templar: 23.85%
Warden: 0.688%

Asylum Sanctorium
DK: 11.98%
Sorc: 22.71%
NB: 40.06%
Templar: 22.08%
Warden: 3.154%

TOTAL
DK: 21.95%
Sorc: 24.35%
NB: 28.64%
Templar: 23.32%
Warden: 1.740%


Here are the raw numbers, including the total entries per trial.

Using a similar template to what GaelicCat made.

Hel Ra Citadel:
Total entries: 692
DK: 160
Sorc: 182
NB: 180
Templar: 157
Warden: 13

Aetherian Archive
Total entries: 670
DK: 127
Sorc: 162
NB: 206
Templar: 169
Warden: 6 .... fun fact: 3 entries were the same person, 1 was me because I was really bored during and did the weekly .....

Sanctum Ophidia
Total entries: 742
DK: 176
Sorc: 191
NB: 173
Templar: 183
Warden: 19

Dragonstar Arena
Total entries: 223
DK: 66
Sorc: 70
NB: 47
Templar: 34
Warden: 6

Maw of Lorkhaj
Total entries: 488
DK: 119
Sorc: 98
NB: 151
Templar: 115
Warden: 5

Halls of Fabrication
Total entries: 436
DK: 97
Sorc: 94
NB: 138
Templar: 104
Warden: 3

Asylum Sanctorium
Total entries: 317
DK: 38
Sorc: 72
NB: 127
Templar: 70
Warden: 10

TOTAL
Total entries: 3568
DK: 783
Sorc: 869
NB: 1022
Templar: 832
Warden: 62

EDITED to make sure this is all correct.

As of April 21st, 2018 at 2:01am est, this is exactly what the PS4 NA trial leaderboards look like.

Judging by the numbers that players from PC EU and other servers have posted, this is pretty much consistent across all servers.

So whatever they were trying to do with Wardens hasn't worked very well. The other classes aren't built in the same weird way as Warden, so maybe they should actually get to buffing this class and breaking out of this "one skill line per role" mess? Thats the general consensus at least. Also Winter's Revenge, which is the Magicka Warden's class-based AOE DoT originally did not scale off of Maximum Magicka+Spell Damage when the class was being tested before Morriwnd launch. They recognized the issue and changed it, meaning Winter's Embrace is *not* exclusively meant for tanking. They just need to make logical changes and not base balance off of fitting within the arbitrary roles they want each skill line to be used for.

I'm a warden tank, and I use arctic blast. So you're wrong right off the bat there.

I would much rather have arctic blast's chance to chill nearby enemies every 2 seconds over a minor single target heal with abysmal range. I think most other warden tanks would agree. Without arctic blast (on top of blockade and shards), maintaining near to 100% uptime on chilled (and thus root and minor maim) on mob packs would be significantly harder.

That utility is far more valuable than healing one ally within 5 meters for 4k health.