PTS Update 20 - Feedback Thread for Wardens

SilverIce58

Destary wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Destary wrote: »

@ZOS_MikaS

Change Ice Fortress apparence plz, it's so ugly !

Buffs and skills of warden are so much invasive, really

I like the appearance of the ice fortress skill. Makes me feel like an Ice King.

Sure, the crown is really good, but legs and arms aren't at all, so much invasive i think

What would you change it to? Ice spikes coming out of the back like the DK's spiker armor?

_Ahala_

Magden needs to be able to use the winters embrace tree to deal damage... It’s the only mag class that plays nearly identical to its stamina counterpart and that’s because it’s the only mag class that doesn’t have a second class tree for dps... this circumstance causes Magden to function poorly in PvP and as PvE dps as their is only one dps weapon (2 variants) for mag and three dps weapons (8 variants) for stam... Magicka warden just doesn’t have enough options for damage dealing so I would appreciate it if our Healthden brothers would be willing to share the love and allow us to gain reworks for one morph of each winters embrace ability for dps purposes... northern storm, winters revenge, expansive frost cloak, arctic blast, frozen slab, and frozen retreat could become dps tools as stated way too many times in the forums, warden discord, and letters to zos... that still leaves you tanks with permafrost, gripping shards, ice fortress, polar wind, shimmering shield and frozen device which are arguably the better tank morphs anyways... I mean you can’t use both morphs at the same time anyways... disclaimer: I believe that polar wind needs aoe health scaling ice damage added like arctic blast used to have so tanks can easily access the glacial presence passive again... share the ice, give us our cryomancers

Destary

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Destary wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Destary wrote: »

@ZOS_MikaS

Change Ice Fortress apparence plz, it's so ugly !

Buffs and skills of warden are so much invasive, really

I like the appearance of the ice fortress skill. Makes me feel like an Ice King.

Sure, the crown is really good, but legs and arms aren't at all, so much invasive i think

What would you change it to? Ice spikes coming out of the back like the DK's spiker armor?

That a good possibility, Dk's spike amor in ice + crown of ice fortress that can he really beautifull

Drygon

Great, week two patch we have nothing to test on warden...sooooo....... Magden got ignored . Give us our Cryomancer!!! Just read the forum lots of great ideas.

LiquidPony

What are you guys hitting on magwarden parses so far on Murkmire PTS?

BennyButton

LiquidPony wrote: »

What are you guys hitting on magwarden parses so far on Murkmire PTS?

My highest prior to today's patch was ~42.5k, that was with max cp and all gold gear, including perfected siroria.

BennyButton

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Honestly, we've never been on the same level as the others, and that's not even mentioning the fact we have to double bar the bear taking any possibility of using other ultimates away from us. It really makes it hard to diversify roles and using the warden in end game trials, which I assume is what you want for us since you're putting a lot of effort into making these trials.

We don't have anywhere near the dps output magblades have, so increasing our sustain to compensate is appreciated, however this patch you took that down, without making any other changes to our abilities dps output. This is basically a full nerf without making anything better for us, which is awful because right now minor toughness or whatever that unique ability is to bring wardens along, isn't enough.

Instead of nerfing magicka wardens because your previous sustain increase buffed stamina wardens more than you liked, maybe nerf the stamina netch morph exclusively to compensate for the fact that absorb stamina helps with their sustain.

My biggest concern is that our only execute ability was nerfed, which already forces us to build 75 ultimate to even use, whereas all other magicka executes use magicka as their resource, and can be used much more often.

The only real way that I see wardens being viable at all in end game activities would be to give us back the netch resources, and a proper execute (Fetcher infestation is an idea, or even better, an ice ability can be changed to include an execute, which is a good step towards an ice mage build, as the only dps ability right now is winter's revenge).

weedgenius

First week on PTS:

• Betty netch: Increased the resources restored by this ability and its morphs by approximately 60%.

Second week on PTS:

• Betty Netch: Reduced the resources restored by this ability and its morphs by approximately 20% from current PTS values.

The magwarden buff has been....nerfed? Rofl. Still a buff, great, but also.... rofl. Did I miss some huge uproar demanding this value be adjusted in the past week?

Dev comment says "This change was to account for the free cost of these abilities." Uhh.... why did they not realize this skill was free and adjust accordingly BEFORE the first round of PTS? It's almost like they literally do not even think about magwardens....

MLGProPlayer

LOL more nerfs to magden today. ZOS has to be trolling us. That's the only explanation.

Badger_Dan_Man

BennyButton wrote: »

Honestly, we've never been on the same level as the others, and that's not even mentioning the fact we have to double bar the bear taking any possibility of using other ultimates away from us. It really makes it hard to diversify roles and using the warden in end game trials, which I assume is what you want for us since you're putting a lot of effort into making these trials.

We don't have anywhere near the dps output magblades have, so increasing our sustain to compensate is appreciated, however this patch you took that down, without making any other changes to our abilities dps output. This is basically a full nerf without making anything better for us, which is awful because right now minor toughness or whatever that unique ability is to bring wardens along, isn't enough.

Exactly - there never has been and still no reason to bring a Magicka Warden DPS into a trial over other classes. I could care less about the artwork and frivolities of how the skills look on the screen for a character that never gets any serious gameplay. Fix the class and then work on the graphics.

BennyButton

So here's a summary of what should be discussed the next time you discuss class balances for PTS week 3:

• Increase sustain again
• Make a non-ultimate bound execute available to magicka users
• At that point, maybe take the time to rework winter's embrace to give a passive 8% magicka increase since that's locked for users who need their bear for executing
• Maybe also make deep fissure a DOT as opposed to what it is currently

Tryxus

weedgenius wrote: »

First week on PTS:

• Betty netch: Increased the resources restored by this ability and its morphs by approximately 60%.

Second week on PTS:

• Betty Netch: Reduced the resources restored by this ability and its morphs by approximately 20% from current PTS values.

The magwarden buff has been....nerfed? Rofl. Still a buff, great, but also.... rofl. Did I miss some huge uproar demanding this value be adjusted in the past week?

Dev comment says "This change was to account for the free cost of these abilities." Uhh.... why did they not realize this skill was free and adjust accordingly BEFORE the first round of PTS? It's almost like they literally do not even think about magwardens....

Well sustain isn't really an issue anymore on MagDen. With no Orbs and Shalk thrown in the rotation, it's still easy to score 42k-ish DPS (6 mil dummy) without having to worry about running out of Magicka. Sustain was a bit too good last patch, hence the buff's nerf

If they ever do give the Netch a cost, I really hope they increase the amount of negative effects removed to compensate for it...

BennyButton

Tryxus wrote: »

weedgenius wrote: »

First week on PTS:

• Betty netch: Increased the resources restored by this ability and its morphs by approximately 60%.

Second week on PTS:

• Betty Netch: Reduced the resources restored by this ability and its morphs by approximately 20% from current PTS values.

The magwarden buff has been....nerfed? Rofl. Still a buff, great, but also.... rofl. Did I miss some huge uproar demanding this value be adjusted in the past week?

Dev comment says "This change was to account for the free cost of these abilities." Uhh.... why did they not realize this skill was free and adjust accordingly BEFORE the first round of PTS? It's almost like they literally do not even think about magwardens....

Well sustain isn't really an issue anymore on MagDen. With no Orbs and Shalk thrown in the rotation, it's still easy to score 42k-ish DPS (6 mil dummy) without having to worry about running out of Magicka. Sustain was a bit too good last patch, hence the buff's nerf

If they ever do give the Netch a cost, I really hope they increase the amount of negative effects removed to compensate for it...

That's the thing though, if you hit 42kish without running out of magicka, that's basically the ceiling of your dps un-buffed which is at LEAST 10k less than the other classes (other than sorc)

Tryxus

BennyButton wrote: »

Tryxus wrote: »

weedgenius wrote: »

First week on PTS:

• Betty netch: Increased the resources restored by this ability and its morphs by approximately 60%.

Second week on PTS:

• Betty Netch: Reduced the resources restored by this ability and its morphs by approximately 20% from current PTS values.

The magwarden buff has been....nerfed? Rofl. Still a buff, great, but also.... rofl. Did I miss some huge uproar demanding this value be adjusted in the past week?

Dev comment says "This change was to account for the free cost of these abilities." Uhh.... why did they not realize this skill was free and adjust accordingly BEFORE the first round of PTS? It's almost like they literally do not even think about magwardens....

Well sustain isn't really an issue anymore on MagDen. With no Orbs and Shalk thrown in the rotation, it's still easy to score 42k-ish DPS (6 mil dummy) without having to worry about running out of Magicka. Sustain was a bit too good last patch, hence the buff's nerf

If they ever do give the Netch a cost, I really hope they increase the amount of negative effects removed to compensate for it...

That's the thing though, if you hit 42kish without running out of magicka, that's basically the ceiling of your dps un-buffed which is at LEAST 10k less than the other classes (other than sorc)

Indeed

They went a bit overboard with the sustain buffs for Warden, so now they dialed it back a bit. Was expected though, just Ele Drain was enough to keep the Magicka drain to a minimum

Next up (I hope) would be to increase Warden DPS: Bear buff, Fetcher Infection double cast rework, Winter's Revenge damage increase and moving the 8% Max Magicka increase from Northern Storm to a passive (would also be beneficial for tanks)

Basically, anything that would help bring the class in line with the others DPS-wise

BennyButton

They should honestly make fetcher infection work like Zaan's where it ramps up 50% or whatever, that would probably make up for a lack of non-ultimate execute.

_Ahala_

BennyButton wrote: »

So here's a summary of what should be discussed the next time you discuss class balances for PTS week 3:

• Increase sustain again
• Make a non-ultimate bound execute available to magicka users
• At that point, maybe take the time to rework winter's embrace to give a passive 8% magicka increase since that's locked for users who need their bear for executing
• Maybe also make deep fissure a DOT as opposed to what it is currently

I agree... except for that last point... do you have any idea how badly a fissure dot rework would hurt the last few remaining Magden PvPers? If the gave us some powerful offensive morphs in the winters embrace tree for Magden dps then sure they could make Deep Fissure and Sub Assault into dots... I couldn’t care care less then... but with the current state of Magden in PvP this change would kill it completely

ccmedaddy

Hell no @ making Deep Fissure a DoT. Awful idea.

titaniumdust

I don't think the Warden needed a buff/nerf combination. It seems the goal of the pts changes was to keep warden damage about the same without relying on the bear so much. But why not just give warden's a straight buff? They're pretty low in DPS rankings, and the general perception of them is awful. Wardens are fighting a losing public opinion battle. Can't they get some impressive numbers for once? People like the ice/nature theme, but feel disappointed that they can't compete with better classes, and these forums often discourage people from playing wardens. Also, there are so many warden abilities that sound cool, but were implemented in an awkward way. Let's look at a couple:

Fetcher Infection: So the gimmick of this ability is that every other cast does more damage, and it's completely meaningless in PVE. I'm going to cast this on cooldown until the fight is over anyway. I don't have magicka or GCDs to waste by recasting it to get the damage bonus all the time. And then this patch increases the cost of this morph, further reducing the incentive to use this "tactically". Also I'm pretty sure no one in PVP double casts this because the swarm is so slow it only hits people who are immobilized and stunned and afk. This skill needs a secondary effect that actually does something useful. Maybe give it an execute, or make it debuff enemies against your other animal companion abilities.

Guardian: Please just make this and sorc pets immune to PVE damage and CC. These abilities are effectively locked out of many trials, and we don't have enough control over pets to keep them safe from mechanics. And while we're on the subject of pet deaths, please make eternal guardian do something useful. When my bear dies I get locked into the animation to summon it, and I could have summoned it for free again anyway. At least make it so that when the bear would have died, it gets healed to full or something. Or just get rid of pet damage entirely and make the morph do something else. Also having the class execute tied to a pet that can die is awful. On live the bear activated ultimate crits for 90k in execute, and I can use it twice on a 6mil dummy below 25%. Meanwhile a nightblade impale hits for 50k, and you can just spam it. All of the bear's damage should be increased below 25%. This won't effect PVP because no one uses the bear in PVP, because the only class stun is tied to an ultimate that you can't use at the same time as the bear... I also don't see why the damage on this had to be nerfed. Again, it's not like wardens are overperforming.

Deep Fissure: On live, using this is not really worth it because it's unsustainable. I think ZoS kind of gets this which I thought was the reason behind the sustain improvements for wardens. Having better sustain lets us use an interesting dynamic rotation based around the shalks. Nerfing the netch indirectly nerfs this skill. I guess ZoS panicked when they saw that stam wardens were reaching NB DPS levels, but so what? The stamden subterranean assault rotation is dynamic and engaging. It's no more overpowered than nightblades. This skill needs to stay sustainable for both magic and stamina wardens because it's kind of the only interesting thing they have.

All of these abilities have a catch or a gimmick about them. Why? They aren't the strongest in the game. Warden DPS (magicka especially) is all about sacrifices and hard choices. You slot your bear, so you lose your norther storm magkica bonus. You need a destro ability on your front bar because you slotted the bear, so you have to slot a filler ability. You don't have the bar space for shalks and even if you did you have to watch your magicka constantly to know if you can even afford to cast it. Your main heal over time ability lasts 10 seconds, might accidentally target someone else, and does not give you resource return from the health steal. Setting up the action bars on a warden is an actual puzzle based on limitations and figuring out how not to lose what other classes have. So maybe wardens could be the sustain class? Maybe they could just get buffs with no strings attached.

A couple other thoughts on wardens and DPS in general. Giving the minor toughness buff to wardens will not increase the amount of DPS wardens in trials because wardens would have to go out of their way to do healing in addition to DPS. It may make having one warden healer mandatory, but that's not good for diversity either. Overall nothing will bring more DPS diversity to trials except an equalization of DPS across classes and the adjustment of content so that pets can be used in all trials. All class buffs can be relegated to support roles, and the highest DPS class will still be brought in.

cwp303b14_ESO

Put the damage AoE of Arctic Blast on Polar Wind so that the Warden tanks and the magdens are happy

LeHarrt91

BennyButton wrote: »

They should honestly make fetcher infection work like Zaan's where it ramps up 50% or whatever, that would probably make up for a lack of non-ultimate execute.

This^^^^^^^^

its what ive been saying all along. This skill feels weird because your are not benefiting from every cast of it, only every second cast.

max_only

Correct me if I’m wrong but if you want Warden tanks or off tanks to give Minor Toughness we need to be able to heal with Artic Blast no? Or I guess it will happen when I use Leeching Vines. But doesn’t the toughness only apply to the one who received the heal whereas Warhorn give toughness to everyone?

Please don’t take away from a standard skill to give to Wardens, it makes people more resentful of us that they already are from Morrowind when you took from others to give to us.

LeHarrt91

max_only wrote: »

Correct me if I’m wrong but if you want Warden tanks or off tanks to give Minor Toughness we need to be able to heal with Artic Blast no? Or I guess it will happen when I use Leeching Vines. But doesn’t the toughness only apply to the one who received the heal whereas Warhorn give toughness to everyone?

Please don’t take away from a standard skill to give to Wardens, it makes people more resentful of us that they already are from Morrowind when you took from others to give to us.

Polar Wind is the ally heal morph, Blast only affects the caster. But yes a tank warden needs to use Polar, Leeching, Vigor, Heal Ulti, and heal someone to apply toughness (you can now grant toughness to those who are max health tho, it no longer requires you to actively heal them) but warhorn didnt have that requirement.

And i agree Warhorn should keep toughness.

Tryxus

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

Correct me if I’m wrong but if you want Warden tanks or off tanks to give Minor Toughness we need to be able to heal with Artic Blast no? Or I guess it will happen when I use Leeching Vines. But doesn’t the toughness only apply to the one who received the heal whereas Warhorn give toughness to everyone?

Please don’t take away from a standard skill to give to Wardens, it makes people more resentful of us that they already are from Morrowind when you took from others to give to us.

Polar Wind is the ally heal morph, Blast only affects the caster. But yes a tank warden needs to use Polar, Leeching, Vigor, Heal Ulti, and heal someone to apply toughness (you can now grant toughness to those who are max health tho, it no longer requires you to actively heal them) but warhorn didnt have that requirement.

And i agree Warhorn should keep toughness.

Warden tanks can also use Enchanted Growth for the regen buffs and to apply Toughness, or Budding Seeds for a synergy for the Alkosh tank. Plus there's the Forest, Polar Wind and Leeching Vines like you said.

Warden healers may have it easier to keep up Minor Toughness, but Warden tanks can do it easily as well

Thraben

BennyButton wrote: »

So here's a summary of what should be discussed the next time you discuss class balances for PTS week 3:

• Increase sustain again
• Make a non-ultimate bound execute available to magicka users
• At that point, maybe take the time to rework winter's embrace to give a passive 8% magicka increase since that's locked for users who need their bear for executing
• Maybe also make deep fissure a DOT as opposed to what it is currently

Not mentioning the double bar bear question is like surrendering to a failed class design.

It should be mentioned out of spite even if one knows that they won´t change it.

Besides, a suggestion to substitute Deep Fissure with a DoT is rather PvE centric, to say it politely.

SilverIce58

I kind of wish that the vines, both leeching and the other moprh(forgot the name) cast on 2 people instead of one. When you're a tank, and you use it, youre using it for yourself, so you dont want others to take your vines. And when you're a healer, it gives you just that much more self-healing while healing others.

MinarasLaure

titaniumdust wrote: »

I don't think the Warden needed a buff/nerf combination. It seems the goal of the pts changes was to keep warden damage about the same without relying on the bear so much. But why not just give warden's a straight buff? They're pretty low in DPS rankings, and the general perception of them is awful. Wardens are fighting a losing public opinion battle. Can't they get some impressive numbers for once? People like the ice/nature theme, but feel disappointed that they can't compete with better classes, and these forums often discourage people from playing wardens. Also, there are so many warden abilities that sound cool, but were implemented in an awkward way. Let's look at a couple:

Fetcher Infection: So the gimmick of this ability is that every other cast does more damage, and it's completely meaningless in PVE. I'm going to cast this on cooldown until the fight is over anyway. I don't have magicka or GCDs to waste by recasting it to get the damage bonus all the time. And then this patch increases the cost of this morph, further reducing the incentive to use this "tactically". Also I'm pretty sure no one in PVP double casts this because the swarm is so slow it only hits people who are immobilized and stunned and afk. This skill needs a secondary effect that actually does something useful. Maybe give it an execute, or make it debuff enemies against your other animal companion abilities.

Guardian: Please just make this and sorc pets immune to PVE damage and CC. These abilities are effectively locked out of many trials, and we don't have enough control over pets to keep them safe from mechanics. And while we're on the subject of pet deaths, please make eternal guardian do something useful. When my bear dies I get locked into the animation to summon it, and I could have summoned it for free again anyway. At least make it so that when the bear would have died, it gets healed to full or something. Or just get rid of pet damage entirely and make the morph do something else. Also having the class execute tied to a pet that can die is awful. On live the bear activated ultimate crits for 90k in execute, and I can use it twice on a 6mil dummy below 25%. Meanwhile a nightblade impale hits for 50k, and you can just spam it. All of the bear's damage should be increased below 25%. This won't effect PVP because no one uses the bear in PVP, because the only class stun is tied to an ultimate that you can't use at the same time as the bear... I also don't see why the damage on this had to be nerfed. Again, it's not like wardens are overperforming.

Deep Fissure: On live, using this is not really worth it because it's unsustainable. I think ZoS kind of gets this which I thought was the reason behind the sustain improvements for wardens. Having better sustain lets us use an interesting dynamic rotation based around the shalks. Nerfing the netch indirectly nerfs this skill.

Betty ketch hadn't been nerfed actually.
It still gives +40% rss
The nerf it's if you're comparing the skill to last week pts

As for the rest, as a magden who plays healer in Pve I'm pretty happy with how things were already, but I get the stress of magden dps.
I play dps in pvp but due to the pvp nature I don't really need to reach any number, just find the right balance between gear and skills to slot.
The Arctic blast change....i dont know, I've never had it in my bar until a couple of weeks ago and I'm liking it the way it is, but it's also true that having a native stun means I can get rid of shock clench.
I'd probably be happier if they would keep the dot AND the stun and instead remove the hot or even completely.

MLGProPlayer

Wardens are parsing like 15% behind all the other magicka classes on the PTS and I read this gem in the class rep meeting notes:

In terms of damage output, at least when it comes to a target dummy parse, we did acknowledge the classes are relatively close to each other

Is this supposed to be some kind of sick joke?

TiZzA93

@MLGProPlayer Exactly the bear being nerfed to shoehorn wardens to not rely on it was pointless as even tho the bear gave highest Warden dummy parse no-one will use it anyway. Also stamwarden is fine but magwarden REALLY needs at least something as they are always behind even with passive dmg buff that just made stam OP.

MLGProPlayer

TiZzA93 wrote: »

@MLGProPlayer Exactly the bear being nerfed to shoehorn wardens to not rely on it was pointless as even tho the bear gave highest Warden dummy parse no-one will use it anyway. Also stamwarden is fine but magwarden REALLY needs at least something as they are always behind even with passive dmg buff that just made stam OP.

It's very likely that wardens would STILL have the lowest DPS in the game even without the bear nerfs. What on earth was ZOS thinking with that massive 30% nerf? I'm going to guess they weren't thinking, as usual.

fierackas

Problem is that with all the screaming about the shield nerfs this is being overlooked and wasn't even mentioned in the meeting notes.