Honest Classes: Warden Edition

GrumpyDuckling

In-Game Description: “Wardens are defenders of the Green, master storytellers whose nature tales become magical reality. They wield frost spells against enemies and summon animals to aid them.”

Honest Description: “Get ready to enjoy the class that can summon animals! Well, not all animals... basically just animals that are thematically tethered to a single region because the class released during the Morrowind expansion. So, have fun playing as a Warden Wood Elf who summons Cliff Racers and Netches in Valenwood…
There’s a Bear, though, a loyal companion who eats up both of your ultimate slots and goes after enemies like a drunken Nord who sees double and swings violently at the air during a tavern brawl (the bear has a tendency to whiff against mobile targets). You can also summon a Netch, which obviously ranks very highly on every player’s list of preferred animal summons because who wants to summon something fun when you can conjure a floating jellyfish to accompany you on your adventures? Fret not, the Animal Companion skill line totally redeems itself by giving you the temporary wings of a Falcon, which is a skill that is so special it spurns the homogenization rules and tacks a whole 2 extra seconds onto your major expedition movement buff! [Slow clap].

If summoning narrowly-themed animals isn’t really your thing, you can always connect with nature by getting your psychedelic heal on. Between seeing mushrooms and spectral trees, your allies will be tripping like a Khajiit on a skooma-bender while you top off their health bars. Minus the sometimes frustrating conal targeting restrictions of the Fungal Growth skill, the Green Balance skill line is actually one of the most all-around nicely constructed skill lines in Elder Scrolls Online. Y’ffre would be proud.

Don’t forget that the Warden class lets you play as an ice mage! Sorta… There’s, like, one legit damaging ice skill, two if you count the ultimate. But, you could always grab an ice staff to boost your arsenal... just don’t heavy attack with the tri-focus passive active unless you hate your tank and want your allies to complain about you for a game design decision that is in no way unintuitive…
Anyway, the design for Winter’s Embrace suggests ice is for defense, so go ahead and surround yourself in icy cloaks, chilling winds, and just submit to the cold hard truth that you are better off tanking with this skill line. Your one (kinda) guaranteed class stun exists in this skill line in the form of the morphed skill Arctic Blast. Completely ignore that this skill is thematically named after weather conditions inspired by a region on planet Earth (the Arctic) while you adventure in the continent of Tamriel on a planet called Nirn, and go ahead and cozy up to enemies within 6 meters of you to attempt to utilize a somewhat unpredictable stun that requires the skill to connect with the enemy three times during a five second duration.”

Warden Class: The Elder Scrolls Online
“Play the way you want.”

oXI_Viper_IXo

https://youtu.be/pWdd6_ZxX8c

Acrolas

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Completely ignore that this skill is thematically named after weather conditions inspired by a region on planet Earth (the Arctic)

Completely ignore that "Arctic" comes from the Greek arktikós, which means "of the bear".

GrumpyDuckling

Acrolas wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Completely ignore that this skill is thematically named after weather conditions inspired by a region on planet Earth (the Arctic)

Completely ignore that "Arctic" comes from the Greek arktikós, which means "of the bear".

That's the origin of how Arctic got its name. Today, arctic can be used as an adjective to describe cold winter conditions based on the weather conditions seen in the Arctic.

Tryxus

Noxavian

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

https://youtu.be/pWdd6_ZxX8c

I mean, no, not really.

That literally is how the class is LOL.

AcadianPaladin

I play two wardens (bow/bow and a mage). While I quite enjoy how they play, I agree entirely on a couple points:

The theme is a disjointed mess. Ice, neon mushrooms, non-furry pets of Morrowind (NOT forest conventional forest creatures like the bear). I would have much preferred the theme to be more classic forest creatures - hawk, tiger, wolf, fox, etc instead of the ones chosen. I would also much preferred, instead of ice to have vines and other protective and offensive plants - what you would expect of a forest warden/ranger.

The other point is that the neon cartoonish creatures, mushrooms and ice look totally inconsistent with a natural forest theme.

TLDR: Warden = fun to play but hurts the eyes and has a disjointed theme.

Kolzki

Acrolas wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Completely ignore that this skill is thematically named after weather conditions inspired by a region on planet Earth (the Arctic)

Completely ignore that "Arctic" comes from the Greek arktikós, which means "of the bear".

Which is a reference to the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the greater and lesser bears, both visible from Earth in the northern skies but not visible from Nirn.

VaranisArano

I'm chuckling over the Ice Staff Trifocus passive part, because yeah...its amazing how often that trips up newer players in random dungeons when I'm tanking.

Thankfully most of them are gracious about it when the taunt effect is pointed out, since it was usually an accident or they just didn't know.

Nord_Raseri

These are fantastically funny and true, OP. Please keep them coming.

azjuwelz

So true! I like the mushrooms, but the cliff racer really should be a hawk or something. PERFECT description of the bear.

The netch . . . I'm just trying to think of an option that wouldn't look totally strange sending a beam of energy to you.

Prrasha

Kolzki wrote: »

Acrolas wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Completely ignore that this skill is thematically named after weather conditions inspired by a region on planet Earth (the Arctic)

Completely ignore that "Arctic" comes from the Greek arktikós, which means "of the bear".

Which is a reference to the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the greater and lesser bears, both visible from Earth in the northern skies but not visible from Nirn.

Well, apparently Nirn-ese has the same sort of word-that-means-"of-the-frozen-north" that Greek-sourced-English does, and just like every other word in the game, it's translated to its closest English equivalent for your convenience. (Or into French, or whatever language your UI is set for.)

MasterSpatula

I'm really enjoying competing pedantic takes on the word Arctic. Fun stuff!

Sylvermynx

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I'm really enjoying competing pedantic takes on the word Arctic. Fun stuff!

Yup....

Ratzkifal

Nice! Now do the others. I'm waiting...

SilverIce58

Can't wait to see the Sorcerer Edition.

Zardayne

This was awesome..thank you!

I also wish they would have went with something other than shalks. I know it's the "animal" line but damn I'd much rather have grasping or poisonous vines.

MornaBaine

*slow clap* This...was effing beautiful. The disjointed ridiculous excuse for a "theme" is why I only have one Warden and have only now finally bothered to level them with the holiday event despite having pre-ordered Morrowind.

Aznarb

I'll disagree with how good is the "plant line".

Forest ult is nice but the area is very tiny, I end-up to remove it for barrier.
Shroom is a good heal for raid, pretty useless in 4man DG where people have to split and he's mostly used as a tiny regen buff.
Seed are good for pvp debufff but useless in PvE where the only use is synergy since the animation is slow and buggy when you need to spam it.
Vine is sometime used by tank, but altar is better to proc the 10% hp passif and the little heal isn't really useful (since the ice healing skill was buff)
Lotus, decent skill if you heavy atk a lot I guess.
Nature Embrace (or other morph), fun skill, but totally unusable is serious situation cuz it can put you in trouble or can be to slow to aim in a pack of player.

So, mushroom and ult are decent heal skill, that all.
I've really tried to love this class for heal, but it's just badly designed, and outside of raid (Ive clean all vTrial with it) you don't want fit your bar with load of buff who wont really help the team.
In DG my bar was filled with most of the healing staff skill, way more useful in 4man content.

That maybe just me I don't know, but that how I feel about it.

Fun read anyway @OP !

Valykc

Omg, you did it again, I’m dying 😂

blkjag

Can’t wait to see necro

Valykc

blkjag wrote: »

Can’t wait to see necro

Omg so true 😂

MusCanus

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

TLDR: Warden = fun to play but hurts the eyes and has a disjointed theme.

Yeah, have never played a warden myself, so can't say anything about the fun part, but a lot of warden skills are awfully designed visually. I remember when i first saw a netch summon from afar when I had just started playing. I was like "wtf, is that some kind of drone or what, can I have my own laser sword and a plasma gun already then".

Aznarb

MusCanus wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

TLDR: Warden = fun to play but hurts the eyes and has a disjointed theme.

Yeah, have never played a warden myself, so can't say anything about the fun part, but a lot of warden skills are awfully designed visually. I remember when i first saw a netch summon from afar when I had just started playing. I was like "wtf, is that some kind of drone or what, can I have my own laser sword and a plasma gun already then".

I love the little netch, but I agree on this, the beam is weird, we don't need that.

January1171

I absolutely adore my warden and this is so spot on

Unseelie

I only use the bear in one ultimate slot for the record, I use werewolf transformation in the other.

haelene

As a warden main, I love this. All we need now is someone to read it in a dramatically sarcastic tone.

Nanfoodle

I'm new, 7 months into ESO and I'm not sure the Ice Staff has many uses. I have seen one tank using an Ice Staff once.

Varana

Tanking with an ice staff is in a really weird place. Up until mid-tier, double sword-and-shield is doing just fine. Once you get to the level where you care about stuff like Crusher uptimes (the main reason for using a staff), many people try to transition into using a lightning staff instead. Ice staves therefore occupy a spot someplace between things.
Also, the ice staff taunt is ... I'm not sure. I've seen tanks use it but very rarely. On my tank, I skipped the passive - it makes you block with magicka, and that is confusing as hell.
A major annoyance is that named Sanctuary ice staff drop in BC1. I had several beginning healers use it and steal taunt because they had no idea that ice staves did that.

There are some builds that use an ice staff in PvP, and it has some use there. Again, you can skip the taunt passive or get it, doesn't matter. You don't taunt other players into attacking you by using a taunt, you do it by playing a healer.