Warden's bear needs some kind of a buff.

Zach2322

I've been messing with a mag warden with bear ulti for the past few days and have come up with a few issues that would need to be fixed for the poor bear. I can't really speak for the pve side of the bear but for pvp it needs some kind of buff. You may be asking", why are you using the bear for pvp in the first place?" 2 reasons its got a stun that hits hard when it lands and it has an execute that murders anything it touches in that 25% range. Im talking 8k on those zerg surviving tanks and all the way up to 31k on light armor users. The 25% movement speed is a good step in the right direction. But it needs more to be considered for an ulti slot when you have an aoe cc that give all allies major protection and a cheap healing ulti.

Here are a few pain points
-Solo play, you might as well not even slot an ulti and you'll get the same experience with the bear with how often it spends cc'ed.

-The A.I. in general of all the pets need some kind of overhaul on console because they are incredibly hard to control. The bear specifically in pvp seems to do what ever it wants. You heavy attack a target to get it to attack said target and suddenly to starts attacking a random keep guard that looked at it.
-the bear can't seem to actually hit accurately. It could just be the rate at which it attacks but it seems like the bear just runs up to a player and stares at it intensely. The stun it does takes 3 seconds to fully cast itself and doesn't seem to hit often when the person is standing still(no damage number either). The ulti part of it that hits like a truck and is the execute will eat the ulti and not actually go off. It could be from the bear not doing the attack or the person getting out of its range. Personally I think it's both as I've seen the bear hit a guy who went to roll away for 22k mid roll.

-the bear will sometimes just disappear and reappear mid combat. It disapeared when I was sieging a keep somehow found it's way into the keep and was attacking people up top counter sieging.

- edit point I forgot about. The eternal guardian doesn't even throw you in the animation to recast when I dies in pvp it's a lifesaver but it's basicly a useless morph in both pve and pvp since I know it locks you into the cast animation if it does in one.

While I know combat pets in general need some kind of rework, the bear needs alot of help if it's going to be an ulti that takes up both bars. Changing the speed of the stun and it's cone of attack would make a big difference in pvp without over buffing it for pve. Something just needs to be done to that poor bear.

Zach2322

The lack of responses really shows how nobody plays warden. Probably should have made the post about sorcs being "op" or cosmetics being P2W...

alext89

I agree with u bud. I Would love to use Bear in pvp. Just cant control it. On pc u have pet command. But its rather hard using it. I would love some rework on that aswell. Make lt easier to choose target. And let the Bear stay on that target.

Soleya

There have been other threads complaining about the bear (PVE). The AI is really bad, in Maelstrom it attacks pillars that are broken instead of mobs. It pulls bosses so it's not welcome in trials. It dies in PVE really easily. It often switches targets over and over not doing any damage. And sometimes when you recast the ultimate it wastes it because it misses completely.

On a side note, last night in PVP I did see a bear that was pretty much unkillable. Every time it got low health it's health reset.

Vercingetorix

My fix for The Bear:

- The bear now has a flat 50% damage reduction to all incoming NPC damage.
- The bear is now immune to all NPC CC and AoE damage.
- The bear's bite attack can now "Smart Taunt" an enemy, allowing it to only taunt if a player isn't taunting that enemy. Should a player taunt it, the bear's taunt falls off and the bear resumes its normal rule of not interfering with player-controlled taunts while damaging the enemy.

The bear has enough damage - it just needs survivability buffs so it can live long enough to deal that damage!

Zach2322

Soleya wrote: »

On a side note, last night in PVP I did see a bear that was pretty much unkillable. Every time it got low health it's health reset.

I'm pretty sure that's a bug that happens to all pets in pvp. It has something to do with getting too far from the pet so it attempts to teleport to you but can't since it's under attack, thus resulting in the pet regaining health. I do know any healing you receive, the pet receives as well making it a tanky target for a zerg to try to focus down with a healer healing you and the pet at the same time.

ecru

Combat pets are weird in ESO. ZOS thinks they should die over and over again to raid/dungeon mechanics while still being a core component of a class (Warden), which is a very bizarre design decision and really out of step with other MMOs with pet classes. In just about every other game, if you're a pet class, your pets won't get instagibbed by boss mechanics and will instead usually be immune, since without that pet, you're much, much weaker than other classes. You can't really control where your pet stands, so allowing them to ignore most/all mechanics has always made sense.

A step in the right direction would just be to make the warden bear pet immune to basically all attacks in pve that aren't direct damage attacks from mobs or bosses. This might make people actually want to bring a Warden to a raid.

Soleya

Zach2322 wrote: »

Soleya wrote: »

On a side note, last night in PVP I did see a bear that was pretty much unkillable. Every time it got low health it's health reset.

I'm pretty sure that's a bug that happens to all pets in pvp. It has something to do with getting too far from the pet so it attempts to teleport to you but can't since it's under attack, thus resulting in the pet regaining health. I do know any healing you receive, the pet receives as well making it a tanky target for a zerg to try to focus down with a healer healing you and the pet at the same time.

Was probably they were too far away, didn't see any players left nearby cause killed them all. Just this bear standing there.

RexyCat

Could also be problems with how pets are related to ground surface. Stones and other objects might prevent pets from moving which create wired behaviour - walking back and forth doing no real damage to enemies.

max_only

My Warden is only lvl 40 and I’m not having a problem with him...yet. Then again I don’t use him in Battlegrounds or dungeons because I’m a tank and there are more important ultis to slot.

He’s great for when I’m solo, I love him to bits. I’m on pc so I have a pet command button, I send him in first. I wish he could sit or lie down like bears do when I’m idle.

Soleya

Example of bad bear AI. Keeps running to pillar to the right that's broken instead of the enemies or the actual pillar that needs to be destroyed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-fej4oJuPo

Tryxus

I've played with the Bear for a long time, even made a build based around it. The Warden's Bear can be considered THE skill of the class since it was heavily promoted during the cinematic trailer, the Warden's symbol is a Bear claw, etc, ... The Bear is fun and I like to use it, but I also get annoyed by it at times.

Now what I don't understand is: pets in this game have to be doublebarred, otherwise they disappear. Why would such a skill be made an ultimate? Why do we as Wardens have to sacrifice our 2nd Ultimate, which we instead could have used to slot an Ultimate like Elemental Rage, Northern Storm, Light's Champion, etc, ...

The 2nd issue, and this is something that became painfully aware to me during duels, is that we can't really protect the Bear if needed. If the Warden could receive the means to shield and more efficiently heal the Bear, that would be great.

Other than that, the AI of all combat pets needs to be improved, and the game itself needs to become more pet-friendly (one-shots, AoE damage,... )

Cerbolt

I've totally given up running the bear on my stam warden in pve. Half the the time it's dead and the other half it's attacking something it shouldn't be

Tyrobag

Vercingetorix wrote: »

My fix for The Bear:

- The bear now has a flat 50% damage reduction to all incoming NPC damage.
- The bear is now immune to all NPC CC and AoE damage.
- The bear's bite attack can now "Smart Taunt" an enemy, allowing it to only taunt if a player isn't taunting that enemy. Should a player taunt it, the bear's taunt falls off and the bear resumes its normal rule of not interfering with player-controlled taunts while damaging the enemy.

The bear has enough damage - it just needs survivability buffs so it can live long enough to deal that damage!

The only one of these that is really important is AoE resist. CC is a mechanic that should be expected in a fight, its meant to reduce the damage you're putting out, and it serves that function by stunning pets. Single target damage isn't really an issue, its the crazy AoEs in trials that kill the bear constantly. The bear isn't intended to be a tank, so no reason for a taunt. The problem with the bear is that its always dead in trials when you need it, so you have to waste time resummoning it(and the mag bear's "auto" resummon is just dumb since it still forces you to play the animation most of the time). Adding a resistance to Npc damage, or simply AoE damage would fix the bear's primary issue. Another small change that would help significantly would be to remove the cast time on the summon so it doesn't pull us out of the fight for so damn long when we have to resummon it.

Cladius30

The bear sucks imo

You can't control it at all, it can't taunt so forget solo with a bear tank ranger build, it attacks random crap all the time. Your not invited in to trials or any serious content with it and the other ultimates aren't very good for DPs.