[Class Rep] Warden Feedback Thread

Lughlongarm

gaza_kma wrote: »

Why did you punish solo bow/bow players so badly .
Drain shot may have been not a favorite of group or pvp players , but it was essential to bow/bow solo players .
It gave sustain and interrupt which are both required for bow/bow solo play

Your issue is not a Warden related topic. If anything, Warden got several new toys that can help with bow/bow playstyle.

gaza_kma

Joy_Division wrote: »

@Vaoh

I hear you. I do. For this thread, which is only one means of communicating feedback, we just want to know priorties. By no means am I or any oehr rep going to assume the 2 things you have listed down is all that;s wrong with the Warden. You can give me 1000 things wrong: 1000 things aren't going to be changed for update 19, so the idea here is tell us what the 2 things you deem are most improtant so those things get changed.

Just because this thread is asking for 2, does not mean you cant come into discord and give more, does not me you cant message me or another rep by mail and give me more than 2, or hell, create your own thread where you list 100 issues like I did in my Templar.

I feel I am typing this sentiment over and over and it's a little frustrating that some people seem to think they are restricted in how much or what they can communicate to us or how. With all the feedback, I think it's important to know priorities. I have my opinion of what's most important, but what if my opinion does not match what most of the playebase feels? Then by acting on my own assessment, I fail at the very position that I was given.

That will be changing. A action has been started with the Australian Govt Consumer Affairs dept
The lack of any real or tangible customer support by Bethesda.
Any and all companies selling a product in Australia must provide a reasonable level of customer support , that includes subscription services .
Bethesda's level of response to all forms of customer support , be it ingame , email or on the forums is woeful .
Australian consumer law states that a company must respond in a timely and reasonable fashion to a consumers customer support requests
Zenimax are a registered company operating in Australia and as such are bound by Australian consumer laws

ESO_Nightingale

Here is my compounded feedback for this patch

Dive: change doesn't work with our playstyle and the nerfs to the skill make it less desireable especially since it's too slow/fast to be a spammable or delayed burst skill.

Swarm: it's cool that stamina warden got a unique effect with their new skill. But minor vulnerability is lazy. We don't need more raw damage. We need our skills to combo and be fun! Magicka Wardens were hurt as they lost some of their uniqueness when this skill was given to stamina warden. Magicka wardens need a new burst damage skill that works with deep fissure to help seperate them from just being a blue stamden with less skill options.

Netch: i think it's okay to give a unique effect to stamden's bull netch, but the effect added is the same for both mag and stamden and it can remove stuns. The skill was already amazing before and now I feel like it's only going to get us nerfed when we cant afford that. And magden lost more of it's uniqueness.

Winter's Revenge:
I really appreciate that it is better than how it was during Elsweyr, however instead of actually being "unique" ZOS just threw more raw damage on it because they refuse to adress our actual issues. This is a really common theme that needs to stop.

Arctic Wind:
Finally, our painpoints mostly payed off. Arctic Wind finally got old Arctic Blast's aoe back as we have suggested for a long time. Adding the flavour of the skill to all morphs to make it feel really interesting and fun.

Arctic Blast:
While this ability got the aoe damage as well, it needs the effect to be more powerful. As a stun that needs 3 ticks to be able to stun, 6 meters of radius is just not enough. I believe the damage is calculated at the location of your character, but not on you, as such it lags behind which makes it's radius less than it should realistically be. It needs a radius buff of 2 meters to help increase it's effective range by a huge amount. It's duration is already very short and that makes it extremely hard to keep up as such it's an issue for pvp sustain and not usable in pve for DPS, as such i believe it should have a duration increase of 4-5 seconds. The morph doesn't need a tank heal as that should be the function of polar wind. Winter's Embrace doesn't need more than 1 tank morph for each skill as people will always gravitate to the better tank morph. As seen with frozen retreat.

Crystallized Slab:
There are only 3 potential projectiles that this skill can shoot and when it had no cooldown in scalebreaker, the skill felt great. But now it has a cooldown on it. We reported that force pulse could break all three shields at once and thus shoot all 3 projectiles at once. The issue was that force pulse counted each damage type as a projectile. Not that crys slab was fun.

Piercing Cold: it's more raw damage. Not exactly a fan of all the passive raw damage boosts. I hope this is only temporary as it's a lazy change.

Northern Storm:
I like that it no longer has passive boosts and now needs to be activated for a magicka boost. It's an unpopular opinion but it does reduce magden's extreme amount of passive raw damage our skills have with berserk, advanced species and inner light which i think is a step in the right direction.

Permafrost:
I feel like this morph is still extremely powerful. I wouldn't have given the 70% snare back as that was opressive and rightly removed. As it can effectively give a 45% damage mitigation bonus inside the radius to your entire team for 12 seconds which is just huge. I do really appreciate it's identity of the utility morph and thus it's damage being halved. It can make up for it though with it's duration. Where its damage is essentially the same but spread over the longer duration.

Tivnael

Very good change on Piercing
Cold! I think it will give more class identity

Overall, a good and balanced Patch

scottii

Stam Wardens have no effective CC in PVP due to the Dizzy Swing nerf (which should of just had the damage reduced). Dive's or Dizzy Swing's "Off Balance" works moderately ok for fighting in close combat, but has no use at all against ranged or speed builds that are commonly found in PVP.

The Circle of Protection (Fear morph) has the same application. Sure it works in melee range, but Sorcs, Nightblades, and generally speaking, every player can dodge roll or have traited swift on their jewelry.

Now Mag Wardens have a few CC's such as immobilization, but this is about Stam builds.

Lughlongarm

scottii wrote: »

Stam Wardens have no effective CC in PVP due to the Dizzy Swing nerf (which should of just had the damage reduced). Dive's or Dizzy Swing's "Off Balance" works moderately ok for fighting in close combat, but has no use at all against ranged or speed builds that are commonly found in PVP.

The Circle of Protection (Fear morph) has the same application. Sure it works in melee range, but Sorcs, Nightblades, and generally speaking, every player can dodge roll or have traited swift on their jewelry.

Now Mag Wardens have a few CC's such as immobilization, but this is about Stam builds.

So what you are saying is that Stamdens have no effective CC because they lost a single target CC with 0.5 cast time which is blockable and dodgable , but cannot use the instant AOE CC which is unblockable and undodgable because it's hard to land?

If you have issue landing the turn evil CC, you can pair it with critical rush.
You can also use the shield stuns or bow stun or silver leash .

scottii

Lughlongarm wrote: »

scottii wrote: »

Stam Wardens have no effective CC in PVP due to the Dizzy Swing nerf (which should of just had the damage reduced). Dive's or Dizzy Swing's "Off Balance" works moderately ok for fighting in close combat, but has no use at all against ranged or speed builds that are commonly found in PVP.

The Circle of Protection (Fear morph) has the same application. Sure it works in melee range, but Sorcs, Nightblades, and generally speaking, every player can dodge roll or have traited swift on their jewelry.

Now Mag Wardens have a few CC's such as immobilization, but this is about Stam builds.

So what you are saying is that Stamdens have no effective CC because they lost a single target CC with 0.5 cast time which is blockable and dodgable , but cannot use the instant AOE CC which is unblockable and undodgable because it's hard to land?

If you have issue landing the turn evil CC, you can pair it with critical rush.
You can also use the shield stuns or bow stun or silver leash .

Essentially yes and no. Wardens in general need a stamina CC ability other than "Off Balance" as the Magicka abilities are able to immobilize and/or stun. This isn't necessarily about Dizzy Wing, but there isn't many choices between this class compared to the others. Other classes are able to make little to no effort doing a stun/knockback in their core kit. Stam Wardens in its current state relies on weapon or guild skills to do any form of CC. This may not seem like much, but in the art of pvp, other classes do have the advantage.

For a class that is considered a "purchased type", not apart of the core ESO classes, you would think this classes would have a little more attention. Not to say this should be a pay to win, but basic balancing compared to the other classes.

Yes, I'm going to test Silver Leash among with a few other skills and see how this goes. Just in theory, this is quite tedious to a simple stun or even an immobilize - not including Dawnbringer's stun since that's an ult.

As for the Critical Rush/Turn Evil combo, most players can easily outrun or dodge roll to avoid.

Lughlongarm

scottii wrote: »

Lughlongarm wrote: »

scottii wrote: »

Stam Wardens have no effective CC in PVP due to the Dizzy Swing nerf (which should of just had the damage reduced). Dive's or Dizzy Swing's "Off Balance" works moderately ok for fighting in close combat, but has no use at all against ranged or speed builds that are commonly found in PVP.

The Circle of Protection (Fear morph) has the same application. Sure it works in melee range, but Sorcs, Nightblades, and generally speaking, every player can dodge roll or have traited swift on their jewelry.

Now Mag Wardens have a few CC's such as immobilization, but this is about Stam builds.

So what you are saying is that Stamdens have no effective CC because they lost a single target CC with 0.5 cast time which is blockable and dodgable , but cannot use the instant AOE CC which is unblockable and undodgable because it's hard to land?

If you have issue landing the turn evil CC, you can pair it with critical rush.
You can also use the shield stuns or bow stun or silver leash .

Essentially yes and no. Wardens in general need a stamina CC ability other than "Off Balance" as the Magicka abilities are able to immobilize and/or stun. This isn't necessarily about Dizzy Wing, but there isn't many choices between this class compared to the others. Other classes are able to make little to no effort doing a stun/knockback in their core kit. Stam Wardens in its current state relies on weapon or guild skills to do any form of CC. This may not seem like much, but in the art of pvp, other classes do have the advantage.

For a class that is considered a "purchased type", not apart of the core ESO classes, you would think this classes would have a little more attention. Not to say this should be a pay to win, but basic balancing compared to the other classes.

Yes, I'm going to test Silver Leash among with a few other skills and see how this goes. Just in theory, this is quite tedious to a simple stun or even an immobilize - not including Dawnbringer's stun since that's an ult.

As for the Critical Rush/Turn Evil combo, most players can easily outrun or dodge roll to avoid.

I mainly addressed your point on "turn evil hard to land" Vs Dizzy easy to land. Dizzy was a better skill overall due to its high damage, but Turn Evil is a better CC skill, 100%. .

- Most stamina classes don't have a reliable stamina CC skill(only Templar I think?), Most stamina builds will use CC from weapon/guild skill lines or relay on the pseudo CC mechanic most classes have.

- Critical Rush/Turn Evil combo works like a charm. If you force a dodge roll out of a critical charge, you are winning. Kristofer ESO uses this combo all the time to a great susses(He takes turn evil over Binding Javelin).

-Silver Leas works great on Stemdans to set up the Subterranean Assault burst. Many Wardens uses it, especially in BG.

scottii

Ended up rolling TH and BOW. Magnum Shot with Critical Charge combo. Real talk, you compare Warden to other meta builds like Templar Sorc, their bars are mostly class skills. Stamina is a few class skills and mostly weapon.

So we're talking about a free class compared to a paid-for class that doesnt really show much incentive to want new players to buy this class. In this case, you may as well roll a stamdk (free).

Lughlongarm

2H/Bow , Magnum shot to Criticla rush-->scorch is an effective combo, if You are fast, you can probably add the bird to your combo so all the damage will land together with off-balance. glad is working out for you.

Regarding the amount of class skills for stamina builds. Most builds will use 1-3 offensive skills and 3-5 defensive/support skills. Not so different with Stamden. Stampblade is probably the only class that will use only class offensive skills.

If you want dedicated CC, gap closer and execute, you don't have much space for your class offensive skills. You will use scorch and perhaps one more skill(birds/swarm/wings). You will have like 4 class defensive/support kills(armor/netch/shimmering/1-2 class heal to activate major mending.

It's kinda the same with stamDK.

It is true however that Stamden synergy with the class passives is very limited ATM and lacks identity. It used to preform really well so ZOS didn't feel obligated to add more power, but now I think its well deserved.

I think it should be something to do with the "Piercing Cold " passive - Physical attacks, chilled targets and bleeds.
Like:

Physical attacks on chilled targets have a chance to proc bleeds
Extra penetration for physical attacks on chilled targets
Bleeds on chilled targets will ignore 50% targets of resistances

With the changes to birds and swarm, I suspect Stamden bleed theme will grow in future patches.

scottii

That's a really good idea about the Winter skill line!

Luckylancer

Thx for buffs developers. Wardens are good enough in pvp. Minor vuln is great, 12 sec major protection is strong, bird off balance is unique. Old bird was a stupid damage only skill.

Norther storm's mag buff can be longer to have better up time. It feels like nerf to already below average skill. If blossom lasts 25 srconds, it will be easier to keep it up with netch.
_____________________________
ZoS buff magden pvp, you complain. ZoS makes stamdens evsn stronger in pvp, you complain that they dont have stun. We have nearly every buff in the game. Somethings can be missing in warden class kit and this makes all classes unique.

Imagine being a ZoS combat developer. You buff the class, go to forum to see reactions and they still complain. I would not go there again for weeks.

_Ahala_

Magden pain points from summerset remain after all this time and new ones are added every patch. Raw damage buffs don’t make a class fun. What would make the class fun again would be some internal synergy between class skills (ie. stop forcing a range scaling spammable and a hard to land delayed melee stun on a class with a midrange aimed burst skill) and giving it an unique subclass feel (ie. give magden a complete dps cryomancer toolkit to make it something more than a blue stamden with worse offensive class morphs and worse offensive weapon lines). For those of us who wanted magden to be something fun and unique from stamden with an offensive cryomancy playstyle, those of us who hate how it’s synergistic abilities have been nerfed and replace with boring damage amplifiers, and those of us who have stuck with magden through thick and thin while advocating for the long desired cryomancer archetype, this last year has been too much. Don’t mistake the silence for contentment. Read the silence as people quitting the game. Anyways, I hope those of you, both verteran and newby, can make the best of what this game has become and have fun. Remember to take everything in moderation and enjoy life. Peace.

ESO_Nightingale

_Ahala_ wrote: »

Magden pain points from summerset remain after all this time and new ones are added every patch. Raw damage buffs don’t make a class fun. What would make the class fun again would be some internal synergy between class skills (ie. stop forcing a range scaling spammable and a hard to land delayed melee stun on a class with a midrange aimed burst skill) and giving it an unique subclass feel (ie. give magden a complete dps cryomancer toolkit to make it something more than a blue stamden with worse offensive class morphs and worse offensive weapon lines). For those of us who wanted magden to be something fun and unique from stamden with an offensive cryomancy playstyle, those of us who hate how it’s synergistic abilities have been nerfed and replace with boring damage amplifiers, and those of us who have stuck with magden through thick and thin while advocating for the long desired cryomancer archetype, this last year has been too much. Don’t mistake the silence for contentment. Read the silence as people quitting the game. Anyways, I hope those of you, both verteran and newby, can make the best of what this game has become and have fun. Remember to take everything in moderation and enjoy life. Peace.

Agree with everything here. The lack of balance and help to magicka warden and the poor performance have made me burn out. And i know others are burnt out too. Magicka Warden has always needed to be adressed heavily with our pain points. But it seems like we get maybe 1 or 2 pain points adressed a year. For example, Arctic Blast is a jack of all trades skill that is a delayed stun heals and damages. Thank you for adding the fun AoE back. But why do both morphs have a tank heal still? We need a competent class stun and we've been begging for a new frost damage skill that's unique and powerful to add the identity we now lack since stamden got our flies. We didn't need a tank heal skill because we have an entire line dedicated to healing already. I've already said all of this before many times and I'm tired of continuously saying it. I hope this game improves in all areas. But i feel like that isn't going to happen anymore.

ESO_Nightingale

I've updated AB4.0.
I removed the off balance stunning extra targets and updated the text for the increased duration.

I hope we see something good in harrowstorm. No idea if they've been listening to feedback, but i'd hope they have been.

Hexvaldr

The most recent changes have been helpful to warden tanks and healers imo, as well as good for class identity with the updated relevance of swarm morphs. I see what people are saying about arctic blast and wanting a damage morph and a tank morph. This would help offer more options for playstyles. Overall, I think the class has regained some identity for tanks and healers, and is going in the right direction!

ESO_Nightingale

Azmarul wrote: »

The most recent changes have been helpful to warden tanks and healers imo, as well as good for class identity with the updated relevance of swarm morphs. I see what people are saying about arctic blast and wanting a damage morph and a tank morph. This would help offer more options for playstyles. Overall, I think the class has regained some identity for tanks and healers, and is going in the right direction!

stamden, tanks and healers have identity, while magden has lost some with growing swarm being shifted towards stamina.

ESO_Nightingale

Okay so continuing the discussion from the pts glacial presence post, our stamden suggestions for Dive, Stam Bear, shalks and corrupting pollen are still good? I'd be hoping to refine them a bit if at all possible. I like making tooltips as seen above so I'd be happy to do it for these rework ideas.

ESO_Nightingale

@Skjaldbjorn I had an idea for subterranean assault. The original idea was that it did 15% more damage if a bleed was on a target. Well, if we are introducing several bleed skills it might be a buff that is specifically better in pve if it increased damage of sub assault by 3% per bleed up to a max of 15%. We don't want to effect pvp too much considering how good the class is there.

What's your opinion on that?

Skjaldbjorn

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

@Skjaldbjorn I had an idea for subterranean assault. The original idea was that it did 15% more damage if a bleed was on a target. Well, if we are introducing several bleed skills it might be a buff that is specifically better in pve if it increased damage of sub assault by 3% per bleed up to a max of 15%. We don't want to effect pvp too much considering how good the class is there.

What's your opinion on that?

That route isn't bad, but I think it would be easier to just have it be 5% per bleed. Birds is 5% total for any number of stacks, bugs for 5%, bear bleed for 5%. It could be exclusive to our own bleeds or just cap at 15% but count any bleed. 3% per stack would be kind of irritating unless the bird stacks never drop off.

ESO_Nightingale

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

@Skjaldbjorn I had an idea for subterranean assault. The original idea was that it did 15% more damage if a bleed was on a target. Well, if we are introducing several bleed skills it might be a buff that is specifically better in pve if it increased damage of sub assault by 3% per bleed up to a max of 15%. We don't want to effect pvp too much considering how good the class is there.

What's your opinion on that?

That route isn't bad, but I think it would be easier to just have it be 5% per bleed. Birds is 5% total for any number of stacks, bugs for 5%, bear bleed for 5%. It could be exclusive to our own bleeds or just cap at 15% but count any bleed. 3% per stack would be kind of irritating unless the bird stacks never drop off.

Alright. I'd probably make it your own DoTs just to really nail it down as a pve change. Zergs could make this a real issue if it was a group thing.

ESO_Nightingale

I'm going to start working on the tooltips tomorrow along with an updated list of suggested reworks. Additionally i think I'll list the suggestions as being more important than others. And suggesting what should be implemented first.

Skjaldbjorn

PROPOSED STAMDEN CHANGES:

Goal: To bring Stamden back into viability. Currently, Stamden is the lowest overall DPS by most metrics, often beaten by Magicka DPS and the bottom Stamina DPS. This is highlighted by ESO logs, where leaderboards show a staggering lack of both Magicka and Stamina Wardens. To highlight this, here is the breakdown for the top-1000 parses for Yolnakhrin, the parse boss in vSS.

Top-1000:
15 Wardens
128 Dragonknights
141 Nightblades
161 Sorcerers
164 Templars
391 Necromancers

Similarly, for Lokkestiiz:
Top-1000:
18 Wardens
124 Dragonknights
150 Nightblades
176 Sorcerers
179 Templars
353 Necromancers

While clearly Necromancers are the “cream of the crop” and probably need to be brought in line, the opposing end of the spectrum is Warden. As a Warden main (both tank and stamina DPS) since Morrowind, Warden DPS has never been in a worse place. They are horrendously underperforming. Below I will highlight some options I feel would benefit Warden, particularly Stamina, and how those changes impact Stamden particularly, since that is my wheelhouse.


GROUP UTILITY AND BUFFS:
This is one key place where Warden needs improvement. Currently, there is literally no reason to ever bring a Warden DPS to trials. They offer no meaningful group buffs. The buff from bugs can be easily applied and sustained by a healer or tank. That change did little to remedy the issues currently plaguing Warden DPS in end-game scenarios. To that end, I propose the following changes:

Growing Swarm:
Applies Minor Vulnerability => Applies Morag Tong-styled 8-15% Poison damage debuff (scales with offensive stats ala Engulfing Flames)
Deals Bleed damage -> Deals Poison damage

Logic: This change brings a clear buff for Stamina Wardens, by allowing groups to buff poison damage without using a set. The scale of the buff is obviously workable but converting the damage to poison also makes infinitely more sense. Having Warden be the “bleed” class doesn’t really make sense. Wardens thematically do not fit that concept at all, that ties in more to Nightblades. Wardens should be the premiere “Poison” class, as Shalks already do poison damage and are the central identifying skill in the Warden’s arsenal. By making the buff scale with offensive stats, tanks/healers cannot simply steal the buff and increase their own versatility.

Note: In some way, the same aid needs to be given to Magdens by altering the buff on their flies to also scale similarly. As of now, healers and tanks can simply apply the minor vuln at no real cost/loss and that’s a troubling case of Warden supports gaining even more effective power despite being in an incredibly good place as-is.


Eternal Guardian/Wild Guardian:
Applies Minor Heroism (number of targets affected is variable)

Logic: Here we are adding a small, secondary group buff tied to the bear. When the ultimate is activated, the Warden + _____ nearby allies receive Minor Heroism. It can be short duration to not be game-breaking and still bring a meaningful effect that rewards Wardens for using the bear beyond just flat damage. Double-barred ultimates *should* be incredibly strong.



QUALITY OF LIFE AND DPS IMPROVEMENTS:
Where Stamina Warden needs the most help is QoL and DPS Improvements. This is a tricky place because Shalks is already a hotly debated PVP skill, and many players who PVP often look at Warden buffs as detrimental to the game, so we need to ensure we are focusing on PVE buffs that should have minimal impact in PVP.


Cutting Dive:
Lower Bleed Stacks
Removed Bleed from Off-Balance Connection
Increased Animation Speed (bird travel speed can remain unchanged)

Logic: Cutting Dive went from a decently high-quality spammable to…pretty bad, in the space of two patches. Off-Balance is an extremely unreliable crutch for this skill, often activated at incredibly bad times or even not at all. This skill needs a more reliable method of applying its damage. There are several options here, such as a stacking bleed that simply has a CD, must be re-stacked after expiring, or maintains stacks as long as additional birds land within the timing window ala Stonefist. Additionally, having the bleed increase in damage for each bleed stack on the target would allow it to be a hefty buff in PVE, but less destructive in PVP. The bird is dodgeable and if the duration is short-ish, it should be easy to force the drop of stacks. Additionally, purging the bleeds would be solid counter-play. Increasing the animation speed will make weaving birds less clunky and prevent some of the "animation lock" where quick weaves will skip light attacks and simply cast multiple birds due to the weird animation timing.


Eternal Guardian/Wild Guardian:
Increase Attack Speed slightly
Create more consistency

Logic: The bear should be our core PVE skill, and as it stands, it’s pretty inconsistent. Often times Swipe can vary wildly by several thousand DPS, and that kind of inconsistent result can harm us in the scope of competitive DPS. Speeding up the bear’s attacks a bit and making the damage more dependable and predictable won’t harm PVP at all, but should be a solid gain in PVE for both Mag/Stam variants. I would also look into removing the auto-revive passive for Mag and replacing it with something more meaningful.


Deep Fissure:
Deals Magic Damage -> Deals Frost Damage

Logic: Common sense change. Buffs Magdens without being over the top. Stamina Shalks deals Poison, let this deal Frost. That ties in nicely with the Glacial Presence passive as well.



CONTROVERSIAL SUGGESTIONS:
Here we get to the part where some of the changes are much more controversial or questionable to parts of the community, but I think are the overall best road for Wardens long-term. There are clear opponents to these ideas, but I genuinely believe they are the best course of action for the class to bring them up into viability at least within the short-term until better solutions can be addressed.


Bull/Betty Netch:
Purges every 5 seconds -> Only purges on cast, not passively

Logic: There are a LOT of complaints about this in PVP right now, from what I understand, and I kind of get it. Purging should at the very least cost a global, and not be a “set it and forget it” function. I know this will make PVP Warden mains pretty mad, but I think it’s the best solution to avoid this ability carrying a cost, which would severely harm PVE sustain.


Arctic Blast:
Deals damage based on highest offensive stat
Deals Frost damage/second
Heal -> Removed
Applies Minor Resists
Retains Stun Effect
Short-Range

Logic: This is the change I imagine will receive the most blowback, but I earnestly feel it’s the best road for Warden to go down. In the same vein as Ritual of Retribution and Flames of Oblivion, a class skill that scales independently of the typical stam/mag split would be highly beneficial. It aids Stamden tremendously by giving us an additional short-range AoE, it can keep up a low Chilled uptime for Stamdens to self-apply for the new passive, as well as give Magden a new short-range AoE in fights where they can stay close to the boss while DPSing, which is quite common. Retaining the Stun keeps this skill’s core function in PVP while dropping the often abused heal in favor of a small resistance buff to compensate. The precedent is there in multiple forms, from Ritual and FoO as mentioned, as well as the Hurricane/Lightning Form dynamic. This removes no skills from Magden in PVE, as altering Winter’s Revenge would, and instead brings a skill in for both to utilize, expanding class function. This accomplishes several central goals without harming Warden supports by taking the core tank heal away.


Passives:
Bond with Nature
Advanced Species
Icy Aura

Logic: All of these passives need to be addressed at some point in the semi-near future. Bond with Nature is a relatively useless passive that should carry more tie-ins to Animal Companions et all. Use this passive to implement more synergy and highlight that nature bond. Advanced Species is often viewed as an abuse case and kind of just…underwhelming. I have no idea how to fix it, but a plan needs to be in place to return the lost tooltip raw stats before it is addressed. It’s about the only thing holding Warden DPS together, and the last change to drop 1% negatively impacted Warden DPS tremendously. Icy Aura needs to do something useful for Magdens. Again, not my wheelhouse.

To spitball some ideas of changes for the first two passives that could better fit thematically and possibly prevent some of the abuse cases for Advanced Species.

Bond with Nature:
Heal Remains Unchanged
Increases damage done with Animal Companion abilities only by 1/2% for each AC ability slotted

Advanced Species:
Gain 1/2/3% Weapon/Spell Crit Chance and Weapon Damage/Spell Damage while the Bear is slotted

Both of these changes would be meaningful DPS buffs to Warden in PVE, allowing other areas to be addressed from a flat numbers perspective. AC abilities lose no damage, and the other can be made up for in tooltips and meaningful additional effects. Further, the change to bear brings even more power to our PVE kit while completely leaving PVP alone.


CONCLUSION:
There are a host of other ideas I would love to bring to the table, but I think these are pertinent in the here and now. Warden lacks class identity in a painful amount, and really needs to be worked on over the long-term to achieve a balanced, meaningful class dynamic that evokes that feeling of “Warrior Druid” that the Warden seemingly is designed to represent. Currently, Warden DPS are suffering at the very bottom of the barrel and what few changes that have come down the pipes in recent patches have put us in worse places than where we started. I would be happy to work with others to formulate concrete ideas, but I wanted to put my own perspective out first and foremost as an end-game Warden DPS main. I think it’s vital the only perspectives heard aren’t purely PVP players.

Ishkaral

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

PROPOSED STAMDEN CHANGES:

Cutting Dive:
Lower Bleed Stacks
Removed Bleed from Off-Balance Connection
Increased Animation Speed (bird travel speed can remain unchanged)

Logic: Cutting Dive went from a decently high-quality spammable to…pretty bad, in the space of two patches. Off-Balance is an extremely unreliable crutch for this skill, often activated at incredibly bad times or even not at all. This skill needs a more reliable method of applying its damage. There are several options here, such as a stacking bleed that simply has a CD, must be re-stacked after expiring, or maintains stacks as long as additional birds land within the timing window ala Stonefist. Additionally, having the bleed increase in damage for each bleed stack on the target would allow it to be a hefty buff in PVE, but less destructive in PVP. The bird is dodgeable and if the duration is short-ish, it should be easy to force the drop of stacks. Additionally, purging the bleeds would be solid counter-play. Increasing the animation speed will make weaving birds less clunky and prevent some of the "animation lock" where quick weaves will skip light attacks and simply cast multiple birds due to the weird animation timing.

I really agreed to this one, since the first day I saw the patch changed into lower damage, make off balance when hit farther than 7 meters make enemy get off balance and if hit to off balanced enemy deal extra bleed damage made me really angry and think "why not lower than 7 meters to proc off balance?". The current skill on live might sounds good in paper for devs but when playing irl stamden are totally melee and quite rare to move outside of 7 meters to proc off balance to be able to proc extra bleed [unless you play Bow/Bow build which is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to me] and not every random people you go with in the dungeons have lightning staff and apply off balance by the element wall.
Comparing to the old version that deal more damage and have cost reduction, in live version most of the time it's pay more cost to deal less damage that still function the same way like before skill change. [It feels more like a nerf more than a skill buff like from the devs said in the twitch stream in that time, they only mentioned like "now cliff razor dive bomb you and POOF!! *OFF BALANCED* and also deal extra bleed damage". I was really interesting by it until the patch note is up and yeah up above *need to be 7 meters away or more to work hee hee*]
I'm not a PVP guy so my thought might be broken in PVP whatever but it feels more reasonable than 7 meters away at least for me.

Skjaldbjorn

Ishkaral wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

PROPOSED STAMDEN CHANGES:

Cutting Dive:
Lower Bleed Stacks
Removed Bleed from Off-Balance Connection
Increased Animation Speed (bird travel speed can remain unchanged)

Logic: Cutting Dive went from a decently high-quality spammable to…pretty bad, in the space of two patches. Off-Balance is an extremely unreliable crutch for this skill, often activated at incredibly bad times or even not at all. This skill needs a more reliable method of applying its damage. There are several options here, such as a stacking bleed that simply has a CD, must be re-stacked after expiring, or maintains stacks as long as additional birds land within the timing window ala Stonefist. Additionally, having the bleed increase in damage for each bleed stack on the target would allow it to be a hefty buff in PVE, but less destructive in PVP. The bird is dodgeable and if the duration is short-ish, it should be easy to force the drop of stacks. Additionally, purging the bleeds would be solid counter-play. Increasing the animation speed will make weaving birds less clunky and prevent some of the "animation lock" where quick weaves will skip light attacks and simply cast multiple birds due to the weird animation timing.

I really agreed to this one, since the first day I saw the patch changed into lower damage, make off balance when hit farther than 7 meters make enemy get off balance and if hit to off balanced enemy deal extra bleed damage made me really angry and think "why not lower than 7 meters to proc off balance?". The current skill on live might sounds good in paper for devs but when playing irl stamden are totally melee and quite rare to move outside of 7 meters to proc off balance to be able to proc extra bleed [unless you play Bow/Bow build which is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to me] and not every random people you go with in the dungeons have lightning staff and apply off balance by the element wall.
Comparing to the old version that deal more damage and have cost reduction, in live version most of the time it's pay more cost to deal less damage that still function the same way like before skill change. [It feels more like a nerf more than a skill buff like from the devs said in the twitch stream in that time, they only mentioned like "now cliff razor dive bomb you and POOF!! *OFF BALANCED* and also deal extra bleed damage". I was really interesting by it until the patch note is up and yeah up above *need to be 7 meters away or more to work hee hee*]
I'm not a PVP guy so my thought might be broken in PVP whatever but it feels more reasonable than 7 meters away at least for me.

I think this is the disconnect for the community, because in trials, changing it to within 7m doesn't solve anything, either. If someone else procs off-balance while you're on backbar, your entire rotation timing is done. You have to hope you can reset it later. Tying it to off-balance is fine for PVP, but it is the single most nonsensical, illogical, pointless creative direction I have seen in ESO since I began playing from an end-game trials perspective.

ESO_Nightingale

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

PROPOSED STAMDEN CHANGES:

Goal: To bring Stamden back into viability. Currently, Stamden is the lowest overall DPS by most metrics, often beaten by Magicka DPS and the bottom Stamina DPS. This is highlighted by ESO logs, where leaderboards show a staggering lack of both Magicka and Stamina Wardens. To highlight this, here is the breakdown for the top-1000 parses for Yolnakhrin, the parse boss in vSS.

Top-1000:
15 Wardens
128 Dragonknights
141 Nightblades
161 Sorcerers
164 Templars
391 Necromancers

Similarly, for Lokkestiiz:
Top-1000:
18 Wardens
124 Dragonknights
150 Nightblades
176 Sorcerers
179 Templars
353 Necromancers

While clearly Necromancers are the “cream of the crop” and probably need to be brought in line, the opposing end of the spectrum is Warden. As a Warden main (both tank and stamina DPS) since Morrowind, Warden DPS has never been in a worse place. They are horrendously underperforming. Below I will highlight some options I feel would benefit Warden, particularly Stamina, and how those changes impact Stamden particularly, since that is my wheelhouse.


GROUP UTILITY AND BUFFS:
This is one key place where Warden needs improvement. Currently, there is literally no reason to ever bring a Warden DPS to trials. They offer no meaningful group buffs. The buff from bugs can be easily applied and sustained by a healer or tank. That change did little to remedy the issues currently plaguing Warden DPS in end-game scenarios. To that end, I propose the following changes:

Growing Swarm:
Applies Minor Vulnerability => Applies Morag Tong-styled 8-15% Poison damage debuff (scales with offensive stats ala Engulfing Flames)
Deals Bleed damage -> Deals Poison damage

Logic: This change brings a clear buff for Stamina Wardens, by allowing groups to buff poison damage without using a set. The scale of the buff is obviously workable but converting the damage to poison also makes infinitely more sense. Having Warden be the “bleed” class doesn’t really make sense. Wardens thematically do not fit that concept at all, that ties in more to Nightblades. Wardens should be the premiere “Poison” class, as Shalks already do poison damage and are the central identifying skill in the Warden’s arsenal. By making the buff scale with offensive stats, tanks/healers cannot simply steal the buff and increase their own versatility.

Note: In some way, the same aid needs to be given to Magdens by altering the buff on their flies to also scale similarly. As of now, healers and tanks can simply apply the minor vuln at no real cost/loss and that’s a troubling case of Warden supports gaining even more effective power despite being in an incredibly good place as-is.


Eternal Guardian/Wild Guardian:
Applies Minor Heroism (number of targets affected is variable)

Logic: Here we are adding a small, secondary group buff tied to the bear. When the ultimate is activated, the Warden + _____ nearby allies receive Minor Heroism. It can be short duration to not be game-breaking and still bring a meaningful effect that rewards Wardens for using the bear beyond just flat damage. Double-barred ultimates *should* be incredibly strong.



QUALITY OF LIFE AND DPS IMPROVEMENTS:
Where Stamina Warden needs the most help is QoL and DPS Improvements. This is a tricky place because Shalks is already a hotly debated PVP skill, and many players who PVP often look at Warden buffs as detrimental to the game, so we need to ensure we are focusing on PVE buffs that should have minimal impact in PVP.


Cutting Dive:
Lower Bleed Stacks
Removed Bleed from Off-Balance Connection
Increased Animation Speed (bird travel speed can remain unchanged)

Logic: Cutting Dive went from a decently high-quality spammable to…pretty bad, in the space of two patches. Off-Balance is an extremely unreliable crutch for this skill, often activated at incredibly bad times or even not at all. This skill needs a more reliable method of applying its damage. There are several options here, such as a stacking bleed that simply has a CD, must be re-stacked after expiring, or maintains stacks as long as additional birds land within the timing window ala Stonefist. Additionally, having the bleed increase in damage for each bleed stack on the target would allow it to be a hefty buff in PVE, but less destructive in PVP. The bird is dodgeable and if the duration is short-ish, it should be easy to force the drop of stacks. Additionally, purging the bleeds would be solid counter-play. Increasing the animation speed will make weaving birds less clunky and prevent some of the "animation lock" where quick weaves will skip light attacks and simply cast multiple birds due to the weird animation timing.


Eternal Guardian/Wild Guardian:
Increase Attack Speed slightly
Create more consistency

Logic: The bear should be our core PVE skill, and as it stands, it’s pretty inconsistent. Often times Swipe can vary wildly by several thousand DPS, and that kind of inconsistent result can harm us in the scope of competitive DPS. Speeding up the bear’s attacks a bit and making the damage more dependable and predictable won’t harm PVP at all, but should be a solid gain in PVE for both Mag/Stam variants. I would also look into removing the auto-revive passive for Mag and replacing it with something more meaningful.


Deep Fissure:
Deals Magic Damage -> Deals Frost Damage

Logic: Common sense change. Buffs Magdens without being over the top. Stamina Shalks deals Poison, let this deal Frost. That ties in nicely with the Glacial Presence passive as well.



CONTROVERSIAL SUGGESTIONS:
Here we get to the part where some of the changes are much more controversial or questionable to parts of the community, but I think are the overall best road for Wardens long-term. There are clear opponents to these ideas, but I genuinely believe they are the best course of action for the class to bring them up into viability at least within the short-term until better solutions can be addressed.


Bull/Betty Netch:
Purges every 5 seconds -> Only purges on cast, not passively

Logic: There are a LOT of complaints about this in PVP right now, from what I understand, and I kind of get it. Purging should at the very least cost a global, and not be a “set it and forget it” function. I know this will make PVP Warden mains pretty mad, but I think it’s the best solution to avoid this ability carrying a cost, which would severely harm PVE sustain.


Arctic Blast:
Deals damage based on highest offensive stat
Deals Frost damage/second
Heal -> Removed
Applies Minor Resists
Retains Stun Effect
Short-Range

Logic: This is the change I imagine will receive the most blowback, but I earnestly feel it’s the best road for Warden to go down. In the same vein as Ritual of Retribution and Flames of Oblivion, a class skill that scales independently of the typical stam/mag split would be highly beneficial. It aids Stamden tremendously by giving us an additional short-range AoE, it can keep up a low Chilled uptime for Stamdens to self-apply for the new passive, as well as give Magden a new short-range AoE in fights where they can stay close to the boss while DPSing, which is quite common. Retaining the Stun keeps this skill’s core function in PVP while dropping the often abused heal in favor of a small resistance buff to compensate. The precedent is there in multiple forms, from Ritual and FoO as mentioned, as well as the Hurricane/Lightning Form dynamic. This removes no skills from Magden in PVE, as altering Winter’s Revenge would, and instead brings a skill in for both to utilize, expanding class function. This accomplishes several central goals without harming Warden supports by taking the core tank heal away.


Passives:
Bond with Nature
Advanced Species
Icy Aura

Logic: All of these passives need to be addressed at some point in the semi-near future. Bond with Nature is a relatively useless passive that should carry more tie-ins to Animal Companions et all. Use this passive to implement more synergy and highlight that nature bond. Advanced Species is often viewed as an abuse case and kind of just…underwhelming. I have no idea how to fix it, but a plan needs to be in place to return the lost tooltip raw stats before it is addressed. It’s about the only thing holding Warden DPS together, and the last change to drop 1% negatively impacted Warden DPS tremendously. Icy Aura needs to do something useful for Magdens. Again, not my wheelhouse.

To spitball some ideas of changes for the first two passives that could better fit thematically and possibly prevent some of the abuse cases for Advanced Species.

Bond with Nature:
Heal Remains Unchanged
Increases damage done with Animal Companion abilities only by 1/2% for each AC ability slotted

Advanced Species:
Gain 1/2/3% Weapon/Spell Crit Chance and Weapon Damage/Spell Damage while the Bear is slotted

Both of these changes would be meaningful DPS buffs to Warden in PVE, allowing other areas to be addressed from a flat numbers perspective. AC abilities lose no damage, and the other can be made up for in tooltips and meaningful additional effects. Further, the change to bear brings even more power to our PVE kit while completely leaving PVP alone.


CONCLUSION:
There are a host of other ideas I would love to bring to the table, but I think these are pertinent in the here and now. Warden lacks class identity in a painful amount, and really needs to be worked on over the long-term to achieve a balanced, meaningful class dynamic that evokes that feeling of “Warrior Druid” that the Warden seemingly is designed to represent. Currently, Warden DPS are suffering at the very bottom of the barrel and what few changes that have come down the pipes in recent patches have put us in worse places than where we started. I would be happy to work with others to formulate concrete ideas, but I wanted to put my own perspective out first and foremost as an end-game Warden DPS main. I think it’s vital the only perspectives heard aren’t purely PVP players.

I think you have suggested a way too many changes here while also changing it up too much from what we said. What happened to what we discussed before? I'm still going to make those tooltips from what we discussed.

thadjarvis

Indeed, in trials the dive doesn’t provide OB on the boss. To my knowledge no other PvE DDs has to dynamically modify rotation during an encounter based on an RNG debuff applied by an ally.

Not that feasible or fun on pc and I’d think realistically entirely impossible on console.

DD’s do Sometimes tweak rotation for major force/vuln, their own ultimate, execute etc. Those are easily (pre)known triggers.

Skjaldbjorn

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

I think you have suggested a way too many changes here while also changing it up too much from what we said. What happened to what we discussed before? I'm still going to make those tooltips from what we discussed.

As I said in the thread we were talking in, what we ended up with wasn't my first, second, third or fourth choice. It was just "acceptable". I wanted to make sure the pure perspective of an end-game PVE DPS was taken into consideration as well.

Much as you don't really like the idea of Stamina getting a frost skill, I don't really like Warden becoming the "bleed DPS". It feels completely wrong thematically.

ESO_Nightingale

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

I think you have suggested a way too many changes here while also changing it up too much from what we said. What happened to what we discussed before? I'm still going to make those tooltips from what we discussed.

As I said in the thread we were talking in, what we ended up with wasn't my first, second, third or fourth choice. It was just "acceptable". I wanted to make sure the pure perspective of an end-game PVE DPS was taken into consideration as well.

Much as you don't really like the idea of Stamina getting a frost skill, I don't really like Warden becoming the "bleed DPS". It feels completely wrong thematically.

I don't really think so. i think bleeds aren't already taken by a class as their unique theme. They added bleeds with swarm and Dive, DK is already known for being poison based and that steps on their toes just like your arctic blast suggestion steps on Magden toes.

Skjaldbjorn

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

I think you have suggested a way too many changes here while also changing it up too much from what we said. What happened to what we discussed before? I'm still going to make those tooltips from what we discussed.

As I said in the thread we were talking in, what we ended up with wasn't my first, second, third or fourth choice. It was just "acceptable". I wanted to make sure the pure perspective of an end-game PVE DPS was taken into consideration as well.

Much as you don't really like the idea of Stamina getting a frost skill, I don't really like Warden becoming the "bleed DPS". It feels completely wrong thematically.

I don't really think so. i think bleeds aren't already taken by a class as their unique theme. They added bleeds with swarm and Dive, DK is already known for being poison based and that steps on their toes just like your arctic blast suggestion steps on Magden toes.

Yet our core ability is poison damage. If we were going to be redesigned as the "bleed" class, it would need to come with a wholesale visual makeover to make any sense at all. Bugs don't make you bleed. Shalks would make zero sense as a bleed. Even birds is flimsy at best.

This is why my initial Warden makeover I posted converted Dive to a melee spammable with a similar visual effect to DK's raking talons, and moved bugs to Poison damage, because thematically that ties together.