PTS Update 24 - Feedback Thread for Wardens

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for Wardens. Please read through all the changes in the patch notes and try them out on the PTS before providing feedback in this thread. Thank you!

xWarbrain

Hi....what about Magdens? Speaking for PvP only.

None of the changes that are intended to boost the Stamina morph viability of the skills are kind to Magdens at all. Its all increased cost & reduced damage.

Would you say we were too strong? I don't think anyone would say Magdens were too strong.

I'd try it on the PTS.... but console players don't have access to the server and cannot give our input.

Arctic Blast - What kind of damage are we talking? It better be a lot. This skill was absolutely fine the way it was when used properly. Now I have to hope it lands 3 times in rapid succession instead of once, which was maybe 1/3 of the time I cast it and it wasn't dodged.

SCR - Reduced damage / increased cost. Off-Balance....great. This skill was a great spammable. Now its just weaker. Why did this skill need to do something other than just damage?

Fetcher Infection - Cut in half (FIFTY PERCENT!!!! As in 50%) and increased cost. Thank you, this should go nicely with our strong execute ability. You know, the one we have. Oh...

Minor Vulnerability wasn't necessary as it is already applied efficiently with a Shock Glyph.

The cleanse from Netch now occurs 1/5 of the time it was able to pre-PTS.

We gained nothing, lost considerable damage and have increased skill costs.

TimeDazzler

Crystallized Shield:
Crystallized Slab (morph): This morph now has a 500ms internal cooldown on the damage return and Magicka refund, similar to other abilities such as Dragon Fire Scale or Living Dark.

This morph was already overshadowed by shimmering shield and now will be even more so. This ability is not the same as DK wings or living dark which can reflect damage an unlimited number of times every .5s for 6s. Slab can only reflect a maximum of 3 instances of damage within 6s where the other two abilities have no cap and thus the .500ms makes sense. Now if someone ranged attacks you with a LA weave then ability you lose 2 of your 3 reflect opportunities and only damage for 1 opportunity. The damage already was not that bursty in single target due to the global ability cooldown so why the 500ms?

Remove the 500ms or make the ability animation be 1 shield that cannot be removed from you and lasts 6s reflecting damage from projectiles you absorb every 500ms similar to dragon scales/living dark. If the latter then add a new effect as well like a CC, (if you absorb a projectile send one back stunning similar to old arctic blast or if you do not absorb any projectiles after 6s you will send a projectile to the nearest target stunning them).

One morph for major heroism and absorb 3 projectiles, one morph for a CC and % damage reflect on incoming projectiles but no longer absorbs for the caster. Then finally you could rework arctic wind to something entirely new like nightblade path of darkness or destro wall of elements. % max hp based heal for one morph and % max hp based AoE DoT for the other morph. Idk go wild with that!

LeHarrt91

xWarbrain wrote: »

Hi....what about Magdens? Speaking for PvP only.

None of the changes that are intended to boost the Stamina morph viability of the skills are kind to Magdens at all. Its all increased cost & reduced damage.

Would you say we were too strong? I don't think anyone would say Magdens were too strong.

I'd try it on the PTS.... but console players don't have access to the server and cannot give our input.

Arctic Blast - What kind of damage are we talking? It better be a lot. This skill was absolutely fine the way it was when used properly. Now I have to hope it lands 3 times in rapid succession instead of once, which was maybe 1/3 of the time I cast it and it wasn't dodged.

SCR - Reduced damage / increased cost. Off-Balance....great. This skill was a great spammable. Now its just weaker. Why did this skill need to do something other than just damage?

Fetcher Infection - Cut in half (FIFTY PERCENT!!!! As in 50%) and increased cost. Thank you, this should go nicely with our strong execute ability. You know, the one we have. Oh...

Minor Vulnerability wasn't necessary as it is already applied efficiently with a Shock Glyph.

The cleanse from Netch now occurs 1/5 of the time it was able to pre-PTS.

We gained nothing, lost considerable damage and have increased skill costs.

The previous Arctic could be dodged and blocked and reflected and dealt no damage at all and scaled with health, so it was only good for high max health tanks. This change it nice for MagDen.

SCR sets off balance and there is a CP passive that invoices damage against off balance enemies by 10%

10s of Minor Vulnerability which affects all skills. and a Stam morph DoT.

Netch cleanse we will have to see if we can still spam it to remove an effects. otherwise this is a decent change.

But everyone lost a lot and had cost increases.

haelene

As if sustain wasn't hard enough, it's going to get harder plus I'll do even less damage.

Yay....?

NBrookus

Image is 25k health in PVEland

Staying in 6m range of a non-afk human player for 3 seconds is difficult. The heal in PVP will be very poor on all but max health builds, and the damage isn't good either. For wardens to use this as a stun in PVP, it needs to be more viable.

I recommend a range increase to 7m, which puts it in line with melee skills.

TimeDazzler

Ok now for dive, I agree that this ability needs some extra functionality right now it's pretty stale feeling.

Dive: This ability has received new functionality to help it stand alone as a spammable, but has received some reductions to the base functionality that were in place to make up for the fact that it lacked any gameplay altering effects.

Reduced the damage of these abilities by 10%, and increased their base cost to 2700 from 2430.
If you are at least 12 meters from the target upon dealing damage with these abilities, you now set them Off Balance.

Cutting Dive (morph): This morph no longer reduces the cost of the ability beyond the standard Stamina cost reduction. It now applies a Bleed to the target for 7 seconds if they are Off Balance, which can stack up to 7 times.

Why punish players for using a class-based spammable at melee range when it just so happens that we have no other spammable? Wanna play a melee stamden alright well your cutting dive is still as stale as before and just got slightly nerfed. Forced to play melee magden since our new arctic wind functionality only stuns when u damage an enemy 3 times within 6m? Yea, well congrats because your new dive is just as stale and slightly nerfed.

My suggestions:

Screaming cliff racer -> Increased cost and reduced damage by 10%. No longer deals 15% additional damage based on range. New functionality: Now applies minor magickasteal to your target. The minor magickasteal can only be applied to one target in case you change targets.

Cutting dive -> stamina wardens already got a class-based bleed through growing swarm, no need for another. Increased cost and reduced damage by 10%. No longer gains additional cost reduction. New functionality: applies a new buff called "Overencumbered" to the enemy. After 3 stacks (similar to DK stonefist's stagger which btw should also be reduced to 3 stacks), the next fully charged heavy attack will immobilize the target for 2s. An enemy cannot be applied by a new stack of Overencumbered after one is consumed for 6s.

FrancisCrawford

If we're to put together the obvious class-identity DPS bar for magdens, it has all 5 Animal Companions skills -- or 4 of the 5 if we have a healer running Combat Prayer -- plus Northern Storm.

However, Dive wants us to be 12 meters away from the target or more, while Northern Storm wants us to be 10 meters away or less. That doesn't work. Northern Storm needs its geometry changed.

TheGreatBlackBear

The new cutting dive seems poorly thought out. Strictly from a pve perspective it means that I'm out of Zaan range on my magden and out of bash range so I can't use Maarselok on my stamden. So given that you can't benefit from these added effects in a pve meta set up what exactly is the cost being increased for?

Wayshuba

Why do they create these feedback threads when they don't listen to them?

U23 had plenty of feedback about DoT being too much and they went live with them anyway, only today to say we are creeping back the DoT damage because we overdid it.

If they do read these, then I would suggest a new feedback thread - How Players Feel About Character Meta Changing Every Three Months. You might be surprised at the answers to that one.

ESO_Nightingale

Wayshuba wrote: »

Why do they create these feedback threads when they don't listen to them?

U23 had plenty of feedback about DoT being too much and they went live with them anyway, only today to say we are creeping back the DoT damage because we overdid it.

If they do read these, then I would suggest a new feedback thread - How Players Feel About Character Meta Changing Every Three Months. You might be surprised at the answers to that one.

Dunno man it took them a year to add back arctic blast's old AOE.

MinarasLaure

I dont see how Dive can be used as a spammable really, for both pve and pvp

ESO_Nightingale

MinarasLaure wrote: »

I dont see how Dive can be used as a spammable really, for both pve and pvp

Still too fast to be used as a delayed burst skill and too slow to be used as a spammable. And the range thing sucks for our playstyle.

MLGProPlayer

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

The new cutting dive seems poorly thought out. Strictly from a pve perspective it means that I'm out of Zaan range on my magden and out of bash range so I can't use Maarselok on my stamden. So given that you can't benefit from these added effects in a pve meta set up what exactly is the cost being increased for?

Zaan range is 8 metres, so you definitely can't use the two together.

Almost all fighting in PvE takes place at a range closer than 12 metres, rendering these changes useless in most content.

I agree with the class reps. Make it so that the off-balance procs when you are closer than 12 metres from the target (not further than 12). It's very difficult to maintain a distance of 12 or more metres in PvE.

Gahmerdohn

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Still too fast to be used as a delayed burst skill and too slow to be used as a spammable. And the range thing sucks for our playstyle.

True, and it's understandable that from a mele stam dd this is a problem but part of the reason the warden have been created the way it is is to be able also to fulfill the stamina range playstyle and since this class came out this playstyle has been neglected and looked down to so...

So many people feel sad for not being able to play Bow builds without being asked: "Why are you playing this crap?" and denying them a place in trial groups. Now they have a valuable reason and actually the ONLY reason in the game since launch.

I know it's hard but try to think about these people, they also want to play the way they love...And again the class was made to enable this playstyle to shine even if it's a niche.

Skjaldbjorn

I was...so hopeful when I read the preview. Bringing class identity back to Warden! Yay! Honestly, you missed the mark, but the most frustrating part is you did many of the things we as Stamdens wanted in the worst possible way.

Cutting Dive: Adding functionality to a bland spammable? Awesome! Except you can't use it in melee range to gain off-balance, and the bleed is...pathetic, honestly. The damage is minimal at best. It's barely even worth tracking the off balance. It's tedium for the sake of tedium.

Growing Swarm: I have seen Warden mains, myself included, beg for a Stam version of this skill. We finally got it and....it really doesn't do anything special. Wardens already have tons of AoE through shalks. What we need is reliable damage. How about, since you nerfed the passive that kept Wardens in line vs their peers, remove the minor vuln from the stam morph (retain it for the mag morph), and give the ability an entirely new effect. Check it out. Watch this.

Growing Swarm (morph): This morph has been redesigned into a Stamina-based ability that deals Bleed Damage. The Swarm no longer spreads to nearby enemies upon completion, instead granting other Animal Companion abilities a bonus effect when damaging a target affected by Growing Swarm.

Cutting Dive: Applies a small, stacking bleed effect

Subterranean Assault: Increases the damage vs targets affected by Growing Swarm by 5-10%

Guardian's Savagery: Grants the Warden 5-10% additional crit chance for 5-10 seconds.

Warden should be the class that uses synergy within its own kit. Make the skills work off the others. Nature is all about symbiotic relationships.

These changes are so lazy, it actually just makes me sad at this point. Zero inventiveness, zero imagination, minimal effort and minimal solutions. Warden had a few months as a moderately competitive DPS. Guess that's as good as it's going to get. F.

PS: When I saw the Stam Sorc change to get a pet that functions for them I was excited...until I realized it still had the heal as an active. I just can't even anymore.

mague

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Warden should be the class that uses synergy within its own kit. Make the skills work off the others. Nature is all about symbiotic relationships.

No. It is good that it is a straight forward class ! I like every bit of the changes.

ESO_Nightingale

Here's the Magden painpoints following discussion today.

Changes aren't all sunshine and rainbows but there are some good things.

Dive- works against our close to medium range playstyle that exists because Scorch is our anchor skill for both Magden and Stamden. Needs to not be based on longer distance range whatsoever. We have reported this with nothing said about it! Off balance is nice though.

Swarm- is yet another major/minor buff that increases our raw damage because you guys refuse to make our class synergise with itself and it's damage skills. We wouldn't need minor berserk and minor vulnerability if our skills comboed, were interesting (and truely unique) and had variety. Though this change is nice and a majority of us like it, it shows a larger picture with the issues of our class.

Arctic Blast- several things wrong here:
1: not enough duration for DoT. Makes ability suck to keep up because you need to hit 3 ticks and there's 5 per cast. But also suck to keep up because it's not cheap.
2: not enough radius for DoT/Stun. It's very hard to effectively hit all 3 required ticks. Makes it a worse and slower form of fighter's guild fear circle with a really cool motif (that we want to be expanded upon) and a health based heal attached.

Permafrost- literally everything is wrong with this buff.
1: THE 70% SNARE WAS RE-ADDED? no-one on earth asked for this. It was nerfed and reported upon for a good reason. Because it's oppressive as hell to play against.
2: duration increased? This change is fine on it's own, however with the other changes it makes this absolutely absurd.
3: 100% chilled chance? Zos... come on. Glacial Presence and Impaling shards already increase chilled proc rates. Why did you give an ulti a 100% chance? That completely goes against the passive and skill. This is just silly because chilled still does nothing unique or interesting for our class.

Winter's Revenge- goes for all Ground AoE DoTs but you guys really missed the mark quite severely. Now these skills aren't even worth using. The ones without synergies struggled badly last patch and now they do way less and cost way more than even then.

Netch- i guess that Bull Netch users wanted something on their skill. It seems very helpful. We will keep an eye on it though. It could be really strong especially when you won't have to activate the betty all the time.

Something to add about Arctic Blast 3.0, although we have massive complaints about it, we absolutely love that you finally reworked the skill to do what Old Arctic Blast 1.0 did, even if its not hit the mark. You even added it to base and made it scale off max magicka like we always wanted. For that I personally thank you from the bottom of my heart. There are some things you can do to make the skill useful as a PvP skill. But its not too far off. Thank you again.

master_vanargand

Dive: This ability has received new functionality to help it stand alone as a spammable, but has received some reductions to the base functionality that were in place to make up for the fact that it lacked any gameplay altering effects.
Reduced the damage of these abilities by 10%, and increased their base cost to 2700 from 2430.
If you are at least 12 meters from the target upon dealing damage with these abilities, you now set them Off Balance.
Cutting Dive (morph): This morph no longer reduces the cost of the ability beyond the standard Stamina cost reduction. It now applies a Bleed to the target for 7 seconds if they are Off Balance, which can stack up to 7 times.

Dive can't roll dodge.
But, Dive Is further strengthened.

Seriously?

spammable hi damage, 28m range, can't roll dodge, off balance, bleed.
PvP will become Dive Online.

Sarousse

You know that Dive has been dodgeable for monthes... Don't you ?

ESO_Nightingale

master_vanargand wrote: »

Dive: This ability has received new functionality to help it stand alone as a spammable, but has received some reductions to the base functionality that were in place to make up for the fact that it lacked any gameplay altering effects.
Reduced the damage of these abilities by 10%, and increased their base cost to 2700 from 2430.
If you are at least 12 meters from the target upon dealing damage with these abilities, you now set them Off Balance.
Cutting Dive (morph): This morph no longer reduces the cost of the ability beyond the standard Stamina cost reduction. It now applies a Bleed to the target for 7 seconds if they are Off Balance, which can stack up to 7 times.

Dive can't roll dodge.
But, Dive Is further strengthened.

Seriously?

spammable hi damage, 28m range, can't roll dodge, off balance, bleed.
PvP will become Dive Online.

Can't roll dodge? What do you mean? They made it dodgeable more than a year ago.

Luckylancer

Everyone will RAT and shuffle away from %70 slow because it no longers stuns. Wall of frost spam with the ult can be fun when enemy are noobs.

Netch change seems cute. 1 purge every 5 sec wont save anyones life for sure but the change is cute.

TheGreatBlackBear

Why not revert the nerf to the animal companions passive? Wardens were already struggling damagewise in pve and the straight nerf to their spammable and all their dots makes it even worse. The addition of minor vilnerability is nice but that's only for making solo parses look good and I guess maelstrom but in a trial it's a redundant debuff readily available from infal, and nightblades so it does nothing for warden dps more than likely.

ESO_Nightingale

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

Why not revert the nerf to the animal companions passive? Wardens were already struggling damagewise in pve and the straight nerf to their spammable and all their dots makes it even worse. The addition of minor vilnerability is nice but that's only for making solo parses look good and I guess maelstrom but in a trial it's a redundant debuff readily available from infal, and nightblades so it does nothing for warden dps more than likely.

Because all this class is, is just slotted "increase raw damage". Nah i think it needs to actually have synergy with it's own skills. I hate all of this "increase raw damage" crap. This is completely horrible design and they're not really doing anything to fix that.

TheGreatBlackBear

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

Why not revert the nerf to the animal companions passive? Wardens were already struggling damagewise in pve and the straight nerf to their spammable and all their dots makes it even worse. The addition of minor vilnerability is nice but that's only for making solo parses look good and I guess maelstrom but in a trial it's a redundant debuff readily available from infal, and nightblades so it does nothing for warden dps more than likely.

Because all this class is, is just slotted "increase raw damage". Nah i think it needs to actually have synergy with it's own skills. I hate all of this "increase raw damage" crap. This is completely horrible design and they're not really doing anything to fix that.

I get what you're saying but in all honestly internal class synergy doesn't get you a spot on the raid team. High numbers do. Group utility too to a lesser extent. I'm tired of warden dps offering neither of those things. And I'd much rather see the class get turned into a damage powerhouse than a lame duck buff [snip] (beause reallistally that's what devs like to do to wardens)

[Edit to remove profanity]

MLGProPlayer

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Here's the Magden painpoints following discussion today.

Changes aren't all sunshine and rainbows but there are some good things.

Dive- works against our close to medium range playstyle that exists because Scorch is our anchor skill for both Magden and Stamden. Needs to not be based on longer distance range whatsoever. We have reported this with nothing said about it! Off balance is nice though.

They mentioned it in the live stream. They said to let them know what we prefer in feedback (they are fine with either condition: >12m or <12m).

<12m needs to happen. There are very few scenarios in PvE where you can position yourself at >12m. Shalks? Medium range. Wall of Elements? Medium range. Zaan? Medium range. Almost all abilities are designed for medium or short range use only.

All other classes operate in the short/medium range too, meaning we can't be standing off on our own somewhere, forcing healers to double cast in order to heal us.

It's also hard to gauge what 12m away even is.

It makes sense from a design perspective too. You should get stronger when you put yourself in greater danger (i.e. get closer to your target, not further away).

ESO_Nightingale

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

Why not revert the nerf to the animal companions passive? Wardens were already struggling damagewise in pve and the straight nerf to their spammable and all their dots makes it even worse. The addition of minor vilnerability is nice but that's only for making solo parses look good and I guess maelstrom but in a trial it's a redundant debuff readily available from infal, and nightblades so it does nothing for warden dps more than likely.

Because all this class is, is just slotted "increase raw damage". Nah i think it needs to actually have synergy with it's own skills. I hate all of this "increase raw damage" crap. This is completely horrible design and they're not really doing anything to fix that.

I get what you're saying but in all honestly internal class synergy doesn't get you a spot on the raid team. High numbers do. Group utility too to a lesser extent. I'm tired of warden dps offering neither of those things. And I'd much rather see the class get turned into a damage powerhouse than a lame duck buff [snip] (beause reallistally that's what devs like to do to wardens)

there's another factor at play. fun. to be honest having fun is one of the most important reasons for playing a class. people loved the old "fissure-scr-fp" combo. it's now gone and we don't really have a true combo anymore for high burst damage synergy and fun. we don't even have many interesting skills with deep fissure really carrying that. I think it's important to balance high numbers, group utility AND fun(synergy kinda works into this too). It's called balance. Not "do one and forget about the others". At the moment it's just damage on boring ass skills to throw a bandaid on the issue.

ESO_Nightingale

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Here's the Magden painpoints following discussion today.

Changes aren't all sunshine and rainbows but there are some good things.

Dive- works against our close to medium range playstyle that exists because Scorch is our anchor skill for both Magden and Stamden. Needs to not be based on longer distance range whatsoever. We have reported this with nothing said about it! Off balance is nice though.

They mentioned it in the live stream. They said to let them know what we prefer in feedback (they are fine with either condition: >12m or <12m).

<12m needs to happen. There are very few scenarios in PvE where you can position yourself at >12m. Shalks? Medium range. Wall of Elements? Medium range. Zaan? Medium range. Almost all abilities are designed for medium or short range use only.

All other classes operate in the short/medium range too, meaning we can't be standing off on our own somewhere, forcing healers to double cast in order to heal us.

It's also hard to gauge what 12m away even is.

this is exactly the pain point i reported when the spoiler for dive came out. they didn't listen at all. SCR is still doing damage based at distance which is contradictory to our class.

TheGreatBlackBear

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Here's the Magden painpoints following discussion today.

Changes aren't all sunshine and rainbows but there are some good things.

Dive- works against our close to medium range playstyle that exists because Scorch is our anchor skill for both Magden and Stamden. Needs to not be based on longer distance range whatsoever. We have reported this with nothing said about it! Off balance is nice though.

They mentioned it in the live stream. They said to let them know what we prefer in feedback (they are fine with either condition: >12m or <12m).

<12m needs to happen. There are very few scenarios in PvE where you can position yourself at >12m. Shalks? Medium range? Wall of Elements? Medium range. Zaan? Medium range. Almost all abilities are designed for medium or short range use only.

All other classes operate in the short/medium ranage too, meaning when it's time to stack and burn, we can't be standing >12m away.

It's also hard to gauge what 12m away even is.

But you know what? Something like shouldn't even need feedback. Are the devs so far removed from the game that they don't know know that ideally mag DPS play within 8 metres if their target because oof how zaan works or that stam dps play within range of their dual wield abilities? Why tf does that need saying?

ESO_Nightingale

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Here's the Magden painpoints following discussion today.

Changes aren't all sunshine and rainbows but there are some good things.

Dive- works against our close to medium range playstyle that exists because Scorch is our anchor skill for both Magden and Stamden. Needs to not be based on longer distance range whatsoever. We have reported this with nothing said about it! Off balance is nice though.

They mentioned it in the live stream. They said to let them know what we prefer in feedback (they are fine with either condition: >12m or <12m).

<12m needs to happen. There are very few scenarios in PvE where you can position yourself at >12m. Shalks? Medium range? Wall of Elements? Medium range. Zaan? Medium range. Almost all abilities are designed for medium or short range use only.

All other classes operate in the short/medium ranage too, meaning when it's time to stack and burn, we can't be standing >12m away.

It's also hard to gauge what 12m away even is.

But you know what? Something like shouldn't even need feedback. Are the devs so far removed from the game that they don't know know that ideally mag DPS play within 8 metres if their target because oof how zaan works or that stam dps play within range of their dual wield abilities? Why tf does that need saying?

everything needs feedback. because you can't trust zos to make the right or even a reasonable decision. look at silence incap, arctic blast 2.0, and the recent DoT fiasco. they don't play their game and rarely ever listen to people who do. it took more than a *** year for arctic blast to get it's old AOE back. despite constant nagging from us.

SodanTok

On paper the Dive changes are interesting but they dont actually work for much.

In PVE off balance is well taken care of in any proper group by healers/sorcs, range is also way less common in most trials. Stuff like OP spiders did make builds go range sure, but mere off balance is simply nothing worth going behind healer (or making own ranged stack). So its gonna do little to nothing.

Bosses also have off balance immunity, which means Cutting Dive morph while having flavor (something it lacked past patches) is something totally forgettable. When they are immune (which is like 70% of fight?) the power of off balancing them from base skill is lost, the power of putting bleed on off balanced target is lost. When they do come to off balance state (usually right after immunity ends, something impossible to track reliably without addons) there is no way anyone is gonna be able to hit (or want to) hit them 7 times with cutting dive even if they predict the timing.

Conclusion for stam warden bow/bow or not in pve? After fight is over you will check log and see you got some dps from occasional bleeds. You wont notice or feel a thing. That little bleed dps on the log will be the only proof that you got something out of the damage nerf and cost increase.

In PVP this change could be great. The range is still quite limiting factor, because nerfs to draining shot/clench and past speed buffs to gap closers make sure range happens just first few seconds of a fight, not like warden can kill much in range when shalks are 20m, or when chasing target (with 20 other, so people can complain about it being just zergling tool and get it nerfed). Stacking the bleed is also gonna be difficult, but it can have its uses (dunno, skoria proc).