PTS Update 24 - Feedback Thread for Wardens

MLGProPlayer

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

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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.

This is just ridiculous if they in fact said that. All ZOS is doing is pitting the Warden Mag/Stam community to decide you to screw over.

Lets look at Dive from the Magdens perspective. We are getting a substantial increased cost for 10% lower damage for an Off Balance effect. The Magden does not receive the CP 10% damage bonus as that tree is Stam related. So big win for Stam, big nerf for Mag. Second, Stam gets a stacking bleed effect in their morph. Mag is retaining their linear 15% damage bonus for range. In other words, the close a Magden get to the target the WEAKER out Bird gets.

So now ZOS is asking the Warden community to decide between themselves who gets screwed. If we go with <12M then Magens who ARE decidedly NOT melee builds now have to reduce their damage to get the effect (which is useless to them anyway, besides once in a blue moon being able to get of a fully charged HA to get a ... wait for it ... a knockdown.) No Magden will survive long standing up close and personal in PVP melee holding a HA attack. i.e. This effect is worthless.

In summary, if it is changed to <12m then the Magden get nothing, nothing but screwed.

• Bird nerfed with 36% increased cost.
• Bird damage reduced 10%.
• Must stand at near max range to receive their full 15% damage morph., but then receives NO Off Balance effect.
• To receive the Off Balance effect they need to move into Melee distance give UP 2/3 of their Bird's Morph effect. So ANOTHER 10% Nerf.

I mean this is just ridiculous to the point of fantasy. The WHOLE POINT of this was to IMPROVE the class with additional effects NOT to further nerf Magdens into the ground. Magdens are already WAY bottom of the barrel in PVP and PVE. PVP Stamden vs Magden is not even close.

So in summary for a Magdens Birds. 36% cost increase. Damage reduced 10% at base. Does not receive the Off Balance CP passive bonus. (Assuming <12M) And then must surrender an additional 10% damage for their 15% damage morph AND must close to melee distance to even get the Off Balance effect. So a total of 20% damage nerf for a Magden to get the effect.

Beyond belief to be honest. Please if you want to buff the Stamden Bird's fine, but why do it with such a huge negative Magden Bird nerf? We get totally screwed with these changes.

<12m is better for magden too. All our other abilities are medium range.

SidraWillowsky

chrightt wrote: »

Wardens are actually feeling pretty darn good for pvp right now on PTS. My only concern is stam cliff racer with its lower cost vs mag cliff racer is actually an incredibly potent spammable if all you’re looking for is straight up DPS spam. Directly spamming the skills gives more damage/cost by far than any other class spammable like necro’s skull (with comparable travel time). Bleed just stacks too many times it’s actually insane. Love the mag version of dice allowing for off balance making off balance more relevant and providing a stun with partial charged heavy. I actually like the direction this is going because it emphasizes an underutilized mechanic while adding more skill and timing required to get a hard CC off your opponent.

Since Netch is a free cast the ability is slightly too powerful imo, one debuff clear per 8 seconds sounds more in line especially because it gives back more resource in a shorter duration now. Really, other classes need some debuff removal as well.

Arctic wind feels great, not OP not weak, just about right for a skilled player to utilize.

Permafrost imho actually got stronger because it is super easy to get the extra 4s duration which gives 4 seconds (50% more) major protection and damage while the snare is buffed.

Swarm feels just about right.

Overall, wardens are definitely top tier next patch in pvp. My concern that doesn’t just apply to wardens is healing is quite potent compared with damage and wardens have a lot of sources of heals. It makes wardens and Templars powerhouses that are almost impossible to 1v1. Actually you can stalemate too easily on PTS duels at the moment. Dmg like dots should probably get scaled up a tiny bit while heals brought down a tiny bit. 10%~ increase in damage in the form of some underused skills getting buffed and 10% nerf to heals in general and you’ll have pvp sitting at a really good spot.

IMO this is a problem and the fact that I feel like this is a problem is a major problem in and of itself.

The PvP crying is going to reach fever pitch pretty much the moment this goes live. Permafrost is simply too strong- ball groups timing it right will potentially make things hell for other players, and it's not like it requires much skill to mindlessly spam a few skills that can snare. IMO there's absolutely zero chance that this iteration of Permafrost won't get nerfed back into the ground in three months.

It's HIGHLY problematic that the fact that our class is "doing well" in U24 terrifies me. "Doing well" should be the baseline across all classes, not the exception that's going to set us absurdly far ahead of other classes simply due to the fact that we weren't nerfed into the ground. They haven't even started yet, but our "glory days" (in quotation marks because if this is the best we're going to get, it's still pathetic) are already numbered. I predict that we get nerfed to the point where we're worse off than we were in Elsweyr.

BrokenGameMechanics

Lughlongarm wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

chrightt wrote: »

Since Netch is a free cast the ability is slightly too powerful imo, one debuff clear per 8 seconds sounds more in line especially because it gives back more resource in a shorter duration now. Really, other classes need some debuff removal as well.

It used to purge on cast. The change to 5s is a nerf.

Really? First purge will occur 5 sec after casting? This is confirmed?

This is a pretty substantial nerf in PVP for the Magden. e.g. I could stand on a siege Ram by keeping up buffs, heals and purging off Oils etc. No can do now. I could purge off 1-by-1 the layered single target dots and bleeds. I could clear a snare to escape ( or try to anyway, Magdens are the road kill of PVP). All of that is now gone.

Back in the day when I used to run a "true" animal Stamden I would often slot Mag morph just for that purge alone. So yet again, we have a modest buff here for a Stamden, solid hit nerf for the Magden.

We have and continue to get nothing.

Daemonai

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Upon review, the off-balance from Dive has to become rangeless (as opposed to long-range only AND also as opposed to short-range only). Most of the reasons have already been discussed, but I have one to add:

Healers will now have a chance to apply offbalance and vulnerability without Wall of Elements, charged lightning staffs and so on. So that's actually a use case for long-range magicka Dive off-balance.

I agree. I hope some sort of compromise can be devised because long-range Magicka and bow users can certainly benefit from the >12 meters.

TheGreatBlackBear

I'm not impressed with the betty netch changes from a Magden pov. At base it's a useless skill. Basically a reskinned igneous weapons. Then you have to spend a skill point to get back the functionality you had at base if you're mag. If you're stam well nothing changes. As For the free purge every 5 seconds why is this a thing? You could just cast blue betty on demand if you want a purge. Good news for bull netch uses I guess. Once gain magden gets d!cked while stamden prospers.

BrokenGameMechanics

chrightt wrote: »

Wardens are actually feeling pretty darn good for pvp right now on PTS. My only concern is stam cliff racer with its lower cost vs mag cliff racer is actually an incredibly potent spammable if all you’re looking for is straight up DPS spam. Directly spamming the skills gives more damage/cost by far than any other class spammable like necro’s skull (with comparable travel time). Bleed just stacks too many times it’s actually insane. Love the mag version of dice allowing for off balance making off balance more relevant and providing a stun with partial charged heavy. I actually like the direction this is going because it emphasizes an underutilized mechanic while adding more skill and timing required to get a hard CC off your opponent.

Since Netch is a free cast the ability is slightly too powerful imo, one debuff clear per 8 seconds sounds more in line especially because it gives back more resource in a shorter duration now. Really, other classes need some debuff removal as well.

Arctic wind feels great, not OP not weak, just about right for a skilled player to utilize.

Permafrost imho actually got stronger because it is super easy to get the extra 4s duration which gives 4 seconds (50% more) major protection and damage while the snare is buffed.

Swarm feels just about right.

Overall, wardens are definitely top tier next patch in pvp. My concern that doesn’t just apply to wardens is healing is quite potent compared with damage and wardens have a lot of sources of heals. It makes wardens and Templars powerhouses that are almost impossible to 1v1. Actually you can stalemate too easily on PTS duels at the moment. Dmg like dots should probably get scaled up a tiny bit while heals brought down a tiny bit. 10%~ increase in damage in the form of some underused skills getting buffed and 10% nerf to heals in general and you’ll have pvp sitting at a really good spot.

Literally every item you mentioned that improves the Stamden is nerfing the Magden across the board. ZOS if you want buff up the Stamden (already pretty PVP OP) so be it. And if for whatever reason you just don't want to offer up any buffs to the Magden side (already weakest PVP class in the game) so be it. But why the across the board nerfs?

Skjaldbjorn

Once again, in-class synergy should be the Warden design. Why not have Magden abilities apply additional effects to targets who are already chilled? The Bird could do additional damage to any target that is Chilled, rather than making it range-based. Go with the "Ice Mage" theme without having to convert literally everything they do to ice damage. This isn't this complex ffs. There's SO MUCH you can do with Warden.

BrokenGameMechanics

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

<12m is better for magden too. All our other abilities are medium range.

This is clearly FALSE. The Magden Bird spammable morph is a linear range 15% bonus to damage. i.e We get the full 15% at MAX range and 0% at 0 range. At 12M we lose 2/3 of that morph bonus, i.e. only 5% losing 10% (on top of the 10% we already lost at base). As you move in closer from 12M the Magden Bird damage continues to drop. Effectively, if a Magden sits at 12M or less then this change forces us to lose out on our Bird Morph. It will do nothing. So Magden loses their morph (effectively) and Stamden get stacking Bleed. Not really fair IMHO.

Who knows maybe net-net Magden is better off a <12m, maybe net-net better at >12M. The real issue here is the Magicka Bird morph effect is 180 degrees out of phase with the skills effect. We have to pick one or the other. Get close, get Off Balance, lose damage bonus from morph. Stand far, receive full morph damage, lose skills Off Balance effect. Its a KISS-CURSE by design for Magdens.

This can't be the best we can do here.

Jaxaxo

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

Lughlongarm wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

chrightt wrote: »

Since Netch is a free cast the ability is slightly too powerful imo, one debuff clear per 8 seconds sounds more in line especially because it gives back more resource in a shorter duration now. Really, other classes need some debuff removal as well.

It used to purge on cast. The change to 5s is a nerf.

Really? First purge will occur 5 sec after casting? This is confirmed?

This is a pretty substantial nerf in PVP for the Magden. e.g. I could stand on a siege Ram by keeping up buffs, heals and purging off Oils etc. No can do now. I could purge off 1-by-1 the layered single target dots and bleeds. I could clear a snare to escape ( or try to anyway, Magdens are the road kill of PVP). All of that is now gone.

Back in the day when I used to run a "true" animal Stamden I would often slot Mag morph just for that purge alone. So yet again, we have a modest buff here for a Stamden, solid hit nerf for the Magden.

We have and continue to get nothing.

I wish ppl would actually do testing first on PTS before crying. Purge on cast is still there, u can spam it to purge. On top of this, u also get autopurge every 5 sec. So pls, stop spreading lies before actually testing things. Thank u.

Lughlongarm

Jaxaxo wrote: »

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

Lughlongarm wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

chrightt wrote: »

Since Netch is a free cast the ability is slightly too powerful imo, one debuff clear per 8 seconds sounds more in line especially because it gives back more resource in a shorter duration now. Really, other classes need some debuff removal as well.

It used to purge on cast. The change to 5s is a nerf.

Really? First purge will occur 5 sec after casting? This is confirmed?

This is a pretty substantial nerf in PVP for the Magden. e.g. I could stand on a siege Ram by keeping up buffs, heals and purging off Oils etc. No can do now. I could purge off 1-by-1 the layered single target dots and bleeds. I could clear a snare to escape ( or try to anyway, Magdens are the road kill of PVP). All of that is now gone.

Back in the day when I used to run a "true" animal Stamden I would often slot Mag morph just for that purge alone. So yet again, we have a modest buff here for a Stamden, solid hit nerf for the Magden.

We have and continue to get nothing.

I wish ppl would actually do testing first on PTS before crying. Purge on cast is still there, u can spam it to purge. On top of this, u also get autopurge every 5 sec. So pls, stop spreading lies before actually testing things. Thank u.

That was my impression as well, thank you for the confirmation.

xWarbrain

Jaxaxo wrote: »

I wish ppl would actually do testing first on PTS before crying. Purge on cast is still there, u can spam it to purge. On top of this, u also get autopurge every 5 sec. So pls, stop spreading lies before actually testing things. Thank u.

I wish console players had access to test this stuff ourselves. Believe me, I'd much rather be able to gather my own data and not have to rely on people I don't know to pass some of the info along with their opinions of the changes.

If this is true then that is good news I guess. The patch notes stated "These abilities now remove 1 negative effect from you every 5 seconds." I don't think its ridiculous for us to assume it meant ONLY once per 5 seconds. There are plenty of things in the game that are limited by a cooldown.

BrokenGameMechanics

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

Yes the CP Off Balance Passive takes 75 into Thaum, but unfortunately i wouldnt doubt zos to just say... the option is still here -_-

I will change up my Magden from a Direct Damage Animal build to a Ice/Frost Indirect DOT/AOE build in pvp for variety. Even under the DOT build I never bump Thaum over 70.

For the Direct (Magden) build few if any points go into Thaum with all CP points concentrated in the Magica Direct Damage Tree.

So in addition to Madgen taking the damage reduction, cost increase, (potential <12M) loss of 15% range bonus morph, we now have to "burn" 75 CP points that could go into Spell Pen, Direct Damage, Magica Damage categories just to get the 10% CP Off Balance passive to light up. While the Stamden gets it for "free" as that is the Tree for Stamina Direct damage.

From my perspective the changes here for Magden are severe and uncalled for.

If ZOS and the Warden community want to go with <12 then please acknowledge that for the Birds magicka morph should not work in opposition to the skill's new effect. Consider inverting the morph so the damage increases with decreasing range to target so the effect and morph work together and not opposition. Or change the Magica Morph to some sort of chill, immobilize effect or something that give the appearance of being cohesive in nature by design.

BrokenGameMechanics

Jaxaxo wrote: »

I wish ppl would actually do testing first on PTS before crying. Purge on cast is still there, u can spam it to purge. On top of this, u also get autopurge every 5 sec. So pls, stop spreading lies before actually testing things. Thank u.

They are not lies. They are conclusions based on "to the best of my knowledge" from the Release Notes. But not all of us have access to PTS. Of course the release notes just summarize and don't give all details. Trust me I'm more then happy to be shown incorrect in this case from testing.

So it is a nice little buff for Stamdens (I think you'll be surprised how often that purge will help out.) For Magdens it is effectively a NOP. Not really a buff or a nerf.

Canned_Apples

I tried making Dive work for PvP on MULTIPLE occasions, but it's just a bad spammable.
It only works if you're spamming it into a large zerg or someone that's not facing you, but not in BGs and 1v1s- it's too easy to dodge and block because of the massive delay.
Dive would make for great class identity IF they would remedy the fact that it is so easily countered compared to generic weapon spammables.

Oakiyo

I feel a little bit disapointed with the change of this class (my main btw).

The new artic wind is kind of good, but doesn't last long and have a very short range. Not very usable in pvp nor pve. I feel it could use something like 10 second duration with the old 2 second tics HoT and being in line with melee range.

As the update is suppose give class more unique purpose, I also feel that the nearly full magique damage kit of the warden should be frost damage. The 6% frost damage increase would be useful, the frost sets would be usable and the chilled passive bonus (with an extention to all warden abilities of course) would be very effective.

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

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.

I absolutly love the idea of synergies between skills. This is something that is really missing in this game.

chrightt

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

It used to purge on cast. The change to 5s is a nerf.

From what I can tell, it still purges on cast (works like a lot of over time skills like templar's solar barrage that ticks once on cast. Good thing is you don't need to continuously slam your netch key every once 5 seconds for a free removal. So, yes it is very much a buff.

@BrokenGameMechanics I think magdens are ok-ish atm. The mag cliffracer now allows warden a very consistent source of stun CC compared with a lot of other classes (stamDKs doing 6 stone fists, sorcerer's with their *** new lightning fart, templars? templars OP stuns can't be helped there). Arctic wind scales off max magicka/spell power so I wouldn't really run it on a stamden. Permafrost is a magic based move so CP scales it better for magdens over stamdens. I can see stamdens got a lot of good deal out of this patch, probably more than magdens, but they lost dizzying swing so I don't think they'll be the instant delete there were before. Bow stamdens would be very interesting now though.

Lughlongarm

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

<12m is better for magden too. All our other abilities are medium range.

This is clearly FALSE. The Magden Bird spammable morph is a linear range 15% bonus to damage. i.e We get the full 15% at MAX range and 0% at 0 range. At 12M we lose 2/3 of that morph bonus, i.e. only 5% losing 10% (on top of the 10% we already lost at base). As you move in closer from 12M the Magden Bird damage continues to drop. Effectively, if a Magden sits at 12M or less then this change forces us to lose out on our Bird Morph. It will do nothing. So Magden loses their morph (effectively) and Stamden get stacking Bleed. Not really fair IMHO.

Who knows maybe net-net Magden is better off a <12m, maybe net-net better at >12M. The real issue here is the Magicka Bird morph effect is 180 degrees out of phase with the skills effect. We have to pick one or the other. Get close, get Off Balance, lose damage bonus from morph. Stand far, receive full morph damage, lose skills Off Balance effect. Its a KISS-CURSE by design for Magdens.

This can't be the best we can do here.

I agree.

I like the off-balance range (>12 M) As it is now. This is giving the warden a pseudo range stun with either Staff or Bow + long range pressure option.

Warden have already many CC options for close/mid range .

Perhaps they can make it > 10 for just tiny bit more flexibility but making it <12 will be just bad. Plz don't do it.

jypcy

Lughlongarm wrote: »

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

<12m is better for magden too. All our other abilities are medium range.

This is clearly FALSE. The Magden Bird spammable morph is a linear range 15% bonus to damage. i.e We get the full 15% at MAX range and 0% at 0 range. At 12M we lose 2/3 of that morph bonus, i.e. only 5% losing 10% (on top of the 10% we already lost at base). As you move in closer from 12M the Magden Bird damage continues to drop. Effectively, if a Magden sits at 12M or less then this change forces us to lose out on our Bird Morph. It will do nothing. So Magden loses their morph (effectively) and Stamden get stacking Bleed. Not really fair IMHO.

Who knows maybe net-net Magden is better off a <12m, maybe net-net better at >12M. The real issue here is the Magicka Bird morph effect is 180 degrees out of phase with the skills effect. We have to pick one or the other. Get close, get Off Balance, lose damage bonus from morph. Stand far, receive full morph damage, lose skills Off Balance effect. Its a KISS-CURSE by design for Magdens.

This can't be the best we can do here.

I agree.

I like the off-balance range (>12 M) As it is now. This is giving the warden a pseudo range stun with either Staff or Bow + long range pressure option.

Warden have already many CC options for close/mid range .

Perhaps they can make it > 10 for just tiny bit more flexibility but making it <12 will be just bad. Plz don't do it.

Another option could potentially be to just remove the conditionality to it. You get hit with a cliff racer while not off balance immune, you get set off balance. Considering most builds have to combo off balance with a heavy attack to get anything out of it, which is something like a 3 second windup for mag iirc, that doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable to me.

They could potentially then add to arctic blast’s aoe damage the effect that you only need to land 1-2 ticks to stun an opponent who’s off balance. If anything, wardens strike me as the combo class (often literally), so it’d be in theme for them. Could certainly lead to some pretty potent combos too if you pre-cast arctic blast and shalks, but I feel like they need some way to get at least something close to an on demand stun and this could fit that bill.

That change wouldn’t do much for pve dps, where magden would still wind up with imo excessive nerfs (reduced spammable damage and reduced dot damage). But at least it’d do something small for their identity.

LeHarrt91

So with Perma applying Chilled 100% can we get Glacial Presence changed.

Arctic blast needs range again and to keep DoT.

RiskyChalice863

Question that I think is fairly relevant: Previously, Growing Swarm could proc the 1260 heal from the animal companions skill multiple times. As in, if you cast it on someone, when it ended, you’d get 1260 healing, but if it spread to 3 others then you’d get another 3780 healing (1260x3=3780) after those effects ended. Does Growing Swarm still potentially give you more than just 1260 healing? In other words, I’d the ability hits 3 people, do you only get 1260 healing when the effect ends or would you get 3780 healing because there are three effects?

LeHarrt91

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

Question that I think is fairly relevant: Previously, Growing Swarm could proc the 1260 heal from the animal companions skill multiple times. As in, if you cast it on someone, when it ended, you’d get 1260 healing, but if it spread to 3 others then you’d get another 3780 healing (1260x3=3780) after those effects ended. Does Growing Swarm still potentially give you more than just 1260 healing? In other words, I’d the ability hits 3 people, do you only get 1260 healing when the effect ends or would you get 3780 healing because there are three effects?

I dont know but would think that since there is only 1 swarm active you would only get 1 heal.

Canned_Apples

@MLGProPlayer @Lughlongarm
Based on the limited testing I was able to do, I can confirm that both morphs purge on cast.

I say limited because none of the 10 people on the pts are actually willing to test things.
They're more interested in optimizing their duel builds so they can face roll everyone when the patch goes live.

titaniumdust

I was pretty excited for a stamina swarm morph when I read the patch notes, but the actual implementation is pretty lackluster. It was showing up as 3% of my dps at best. Not worth casting in execute at all. It's my opinion that all class DOTs should have a higher power budget than generic ones, but I think this is especially true for growing swarm. This is what the stamden got for its stamina class identity ability, but it's the only class that got a DOT just as all DOTs were nerfed into uselessness. As it is, I don't see anyone using this in PVP or PVE. I think this ability needs to either be buffed as a single target DOT, or made into a full AOE ability like soul splitting trap.

MLGProPlayer

Canned_Apples wrote: »

@MLGProPlayer @Lughlongarm
Based on the limited testing I was able to do, I can confirm that both morphs purge on cast.

I say limited because none of the 10 people on the pts are actually willing to test things.
They're more interested in optimizing their duel builds so they can face roll everyone when the patch goes live.

Thanks for clarifying.

I still don't think the purge every 5s makes this OP. People will still cast on demand to clear specific conditions, as they do now.

Muskrap

Id like to be able to have a visual of the pulsating damage from artic blast all the time. Right now theres no good way to match it up and make sure youre able to keep a person in that aoe. Also a buff to the radius would be great considering you need to hit someone with 3 ticks in like 4s of the ability. Group combat is hard to comeby on the pts but so far the ability is far to difficult to land.

Screaming cliffracer is in a worse spot now than it was before. Its damage is the same as ele weapon however it has 1 a slower travel speed that allow for multiple GCD losses when trying to hit someone dodge rolling and 2 the 12m offbalance hit doesnt make up for the damage nor lack of a ranged stun option. As far as damage goes I'm asking to either slow the projectile to its old speed so we can combo with another ability or make it as fast as other spammables to make up for its damage loss.

Final point, please consider allowing deep fissure to stun off balance targets. This would open up more gameplay options to players that miss the old deep fissure stun, give mag wardens a ranged stun that doesnt include throwing someone out of their effective range and that doesnt lose them a GCD to charge a heavy attack to try to stun a target

ESO_Nightingale

Oakiyo wrote: »

I feel a little bit disapointed with the change of this class (my main btw).

The new artic wind is kind of good, but doesn't last long and have a very short range. Not very usable in pvp nor pve. I feel it could use something like 10 second duration with the old 2 second tics HoT and being in line with melee range.

As the update is suppose give class more unique purpose, I also feel that the nearly full magique damage kit of the warden should be frost damage. The 6% frost damage increase would be useful, the frost sets would be usable and the chilled passive bonus (with an extention to all warden abilities of course) would be very effective.

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

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.

I absolutly love the idea of synergies between skills. This is something that is really missing in this game.

I believe this is one of the main issues with warden. The skills don't interact at all. We also want more options, which is why i designed this proc skill idea yesterday to show what we could achieve:

note that this skill would work best if Dive had a reverse proc and if arctic wind gets a duration increase like we want.

if anyone is confused about this idea, it is designed to be a PvP and PvE proc skill. It fires a line travelling line AoE "frost tornado". it will probably be around 5-6m in radius that travels moderately fast. my idea is probably 10 meters per 0.3 seconds. it would probably disappear after 28 meters, dealing damage equivalent to a "spammable" or less, to all who it passes through. It will stun off balance enemies, which obviously, our Cliff Racer creates. As the skill works similarly to how Deep Fissure works it would have synergy with our 2 main burst damage skills.

You may not like the skill idea. which is fine. You could have critiques or things you would change, but this is a possible way to solve multiple pain points:
fulfilling synergy, giving more damage skill options for both PvP and PvE, Giving more frost damage skills and giving a fun, unique and good stun.

Earrindo

I really like that skill concept, I would just prefer a more nature-y theme instead of ice, but gameplay wise it's stellar, would make the rotation really engaging and combo-y and fun

BrokenGameMechanics

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

Question that I think is fairly relevant: Previously, Growing Swarm could proc the 1260 heal from the animal companions skill multiple times. As in, if you cast it on someone, when it ended, you’d get 1260 healing, but if it spread to 3 others then you’d get another 3780 healing (1260x3=3780) after those effects ended. Does Growing Swarm still potentially give you more than just 1260 healing? In other words, I’d the ability hits 3 people, do you only get 1260 healing when the effect ends or would you get 3780 healing because there are three effects?

I had thought of this myself but had not brought it up as there are so many Tier I Sever Nerf Issues to be articulated specific to Magdens and not Stamdens that I haven't even gotten to the Tier II Just Another Nerf yet.

Growing Swarm in my opinion has been a bit underated because you did get this pretty nice implicit heal as well some terrific uptime on Set procing.

What is really, really disheartening here is you might recall that in the previous release they actually had planned to remove the 6 enemy limit on this skill last release which would have made this skill really powerful in high Adds PVE content or PVP ball groups (not powerful ok, but more impactful). I was actually relieved that Magdens had received their FIRST buff in 3 years modest as it was. They pulled it at the last minute, sadly.

Now Magdens get is the loss of this nice morph where just recently it was to be buffed. And now we are stuck with the "every other" horrible game design. DON'T DESIGN SKILLS WHICH ARE RNG(like) BASED. It is really too hard to ask a player in the middle of a 1v1 melee to deal with multisec waits on skill firing, while positioning to get alignment correct, AND internally track counting this every other cast design. Will this attack at bonus or not? If I have to double cast it, do I have resources for it? They really could have done so many more creative things here. This every alternate cast is just lazy design IMHO. They could and should do better here.

The Combat Design for Warden's requires a lot of dealing with constant buffing, timing skills, running around while aligning, counting what "state" a skill is in ... I mean the tried to addess this with making Wing's buff a slot passive. But yet again this came at too high a cost. We lost Minor Berserk on a Bar swap. They should have done it as a passive when slotted but can be cast activated so you can keep it on the swap.

To me the Combat Design Team has struggle more with Warden then any other class, including the initial design, and lacks the inclination to do a radical overhaul.

BrokenGameMechanics

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

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.

The current Arctic Blast is the only hard CC we have. As you might we recall the Combat Team awhile back decided that for whatever reason to drop all hard CC for Wardens. This was brutal for a Magden who could only smile and wave while a Templar ran up to spam Dizzy you all over the map. It took MONTHS (year?) to convince the Combat Design folk hard CCs pretty important and were something that just HAD to be available to every class. (Seriously, why was it so difficult to communicate the necessity of a having a Class stun for Wardens when all other classes had them, some multiple methods.)

After a ton of effort we finally got a Class stun, poor as it was, slow, meh heal at the cost of a pretty decent skill. But this replacement version, which in all fairness is like the old one which many still yearn for, is inadequate from the Magden stand point. It takes 3 hits (seconds) to get the stun with way too small a sub-melee range.

It is actually pretty nice for a Stamden, in fact very nice. It is horrible, just horrible for a Magden.

Magden and a Dizzy spamming Templar (are there even any other types are standing 30 meters apart. Templar runs at Magden winding up the ol' Dizzy. Magden can't run, can't DR as never enough Stam in the old pool. Magden activates his brand new Class stun skill and absolutely nothing happens as the Templar either a) stops outside the range and slap you silly with his Dizzy or b) just runs right into area and slaps you with his Dizzy as it only takes a second.

At least with the current Arctic Blast I can stun the guy at distance AND immediately (not 3 seconds later). With the new skill I guess I'm supposed to start running up to the Templar or start chasing him around trying to stay within 6m ... But for the life of me can't see why the Combat Team thinks this is good design for a Magden.

BrokenGameMechanics

IF there is one skill/morph that is really "open" in the Warden kit it would be the Frozen Retreat Morph of Frozen Gate. The base concept of laying out a series of area "traps" is nice and underutilized in ESO PVP. And it could be reworked in some manner to grant a "keep at distance" or "back off away from me" option for Magdens lack and other classes have.

Could be a Time Stop like stun upon area entry. It could be increasing snare as they try and run through the area culminating in a stun. Could be stun/knockback on entering the area. Lots of things here. Mix in some kind of Frost related motif for damage.

Somehow, someway we can't let the Magden lose their remote stun from Arctic Blast. Having an effective Class Stun is required.