PSA #2: Warden DPS Is STILL terrible.

Skjaldbjorn

mague wrote: »

No wonder some dev changes are extreme. You guys are the same.

There is a difference of ~5k to the top. Thats like 5.5% difference. Why not just slightly raise some values and be done with it ? Maybe raise Piercing cold to 11% and Advanced species to 2.5%. Or raise the damage of every skill by like 3 points. Its not really difficult to adjust this slightly for 5.5% more dps.

Uh...no. The differences are much more complex than just flat numbers. First of all, the difference is much larger than 5k. Necros are top parsing atm at 94k. Stamdens clock in at 87k currently. Dummy parses, but the same rules apply to everyone. It's ideal scenarios with no mechanics, and Necro is 7k ahead. That aside, the issue with Stamden is the Birds/Off-Balance change. It's incredibly trash in PVE. Let me set the scene for you.

Enter fight, apply off-balance, spam birds
On Off-Balance CD, no one applies it
Now, you either have to step back 7m and apply it yourself, OR wait for someone to apply it
Either way, you now have to reset your rotation timings to match the new off-balance counter
Any fight with any mechanics at all, or any significant movement or down-time on boss complicates this even further

This change was mind-numbingly stupid from jump, and hasn't improved with time. Some changes age like fine wine. This change is aging like milk.

llBlack_Heartll

mague wrote: »

No wonder some dev changes are extreme. You guys are the same.

There is a difference of ~5k to the top. Thats like 5.5% difference. Why not just slightly raise some values and be done with it ? Maybe raise Piercing cold to 11% and Advanced species to 2.5%. Or raise the damage of every skill by like 3 points. Its not really difficult to adjust this slightly for 5.5% more dps.

The issue is, DD Warden’s bring nothing to the buff group. It’s more than being boring and bandaid fixes for the class by biffing passives.

No one takes Mag Warden and even worse Stam Warden’s into trials, because they offer nothing and deal less damage.

TheFM

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Two weeks into the PTS so far, Magden has gained a ~500-1k DPS buff, and Stamden remains the lowest parsing Stamina DPS, often behind several Magicka classes. I'm hoping we can see some meaningful change with this patch to help bring Warden up, but this change wasn't it at all. 2-3 weeks left in the PTS. Hoping Wardens can come together and try to be the driving factor for change, even though I know most Warden mains just PVP now and have given up on PVE for their Wardens.

Meanwhile warden is right up on the top of over performance in PvP with Templar. Ranged builds and dots classes have no chance against them atm. Frags? Absorbed, la? Absorbed, curse? Auto purged, mages wrath? Auto purged. A 5 k DPS difference on dummies is not bad at all. And is totally ok imo.

Brandathorbel

The dummy is a single target that doesn't move and that DOESN'T TAKE IN ACCOUNT CLEAVE DAMAGE. Some classes are much better at cleave.

What we need is to look at a total parse of a full dungeon. Aoe damage matters.


Dummy parses imo are complete crap and way too many people take them as some law.

kylewwefan

I don’t get it? Everyone is a couple thousand dps less than Necro. We’re generally cool with that.

Take Necro out of the equation and all Classes are within 4K dps of each other.

How is this terrible? They’re close. Not everyone has or wants to play Necro or even play at a level where that kind of organization is remotely meaningful.

Is warden viable? Heck yeah. Even without using the bear ultimate? Absolutely viable.

Some people will play what they want to play, while others will only play what is the absolute best on paper. Even if this doesn’t exactly correlate well in the game.

thadjarvis

llBlack_Heartll wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Be a bit like Zos firmly sticking to Winter's Revenge being Magden's only frost option and deciding their identity isn't frost. It doesn't make sense. Magden needs more frost identity because it fits them. Bleed doesn't fit Warden without a complete visual and contextual overhaul. Bleeds can absolutely exist in nature, but bugs doing bleed damage didn't make sense when they did it, and should be changed to poison.

The worst thing you can do when you make a bad design choice is double down on it.

Poison fits Stam Warden, but it’s already covered by other classes.
I’m definitely keen on Frost Damage for Mag.

Like every other class has its Specific Element.
DK - Fire & Poison
Sorc - Lightning & Physical
Templar - Magic & Physical
NB - Magic & Disease/Physical
Necro - Hybrid of all Elements
Warden - Well Should be Frost for Mag, as it just fits, no other class fills that gap other than Necro.
I don’t see an issue with Stam becoming the bleed class? No other class really covers it?

The only other option would be to make the DK the Bleed Class and Warden the Poison Class for Stam.
Bleed kind of fits the DK? I don’t know though.

Stam damage types are: Physical, Poison and Disease. Bleed is within physical damage type.
Being a hybrid damage type as stam is a disadvantage. Can't benefit from set like Automaton or Morag Tong really. Classes that have focus in one area (save necro) have set options and ways to leverage it. Ie if proposing bleed, then Sub Assult should become physical.

Bleed focus in PvE would be poor as ZoS doesn't like bleeds to be powerful enough for PvE due to PvP (eg Dro'Zakar pre-nerf). Bleed is also a DoT mechanic, and stamden has always been known and played for burst power. Bleed doesn't seem to fit with stamden. If a bleed theme was added to a class, I'd pick Sorc. RP-wise Poison or Disease fits 2 bugs + 1 bird skill over physical.

It's obvious to most that Magden should be frostier. Does anyone oppose that?

r3turn2s3nd3r

llBlack_Heartll wrote: »

No one takes Mag Warden and even worse Stam Warden’s into trials, because they offer nothing and deal less damage.

I like to have one in my group so neither of the healers have to waste a 5 piece set on IA. Mind you we're not leaderboarding, so the lower ceiling they have for potential max dps matters little to our group.

thadjarvis

mague wrote: »

No wonder some dev changes are extreme. You guys are the same.

There is a difference of ~5k to the top. Thats like 5.5% difference. Why not just slightly raise some values and be done with it ? Maybe raise Piercing cold to 11% and Advanced species to 2.5%. Or raise the damage of every skill by like 3 points. Its not really difficult to adjust this slightly for 5.5% more dps.

Agree in some part and that's what they've done for magden. Add more % bonuses to get them up to others. Personally, I'm ok with it but others find it lazy preferring the damage to come from internal class synergy.

Parse numbers actually do not compare classes all that well. A major reason why is they do not represent a class's effective group DPS. Consider a few:

Sorc's provide 14% uptime of Major Beserk to one ally or a 14% * 25% = 3.5% bonus
Thus, Sorc effectively should have 3.5% damage done modifier added to their effective parse. This does not include the group sustain and damage benefit of conduit or Minor Prophecy.

Stamplar's debuff adds up to 2% to all group members (call it 1.5%). Thus, 1.5% * 7 other dds = 10.5%. Again doesn't include group sustain benefit of synergy or Minor Sorcery.

If Minor Vulnerability is up as it has always been provided by a support, then Warden DDs quickly fall to the bottom of the list in terms of group attributable damage even if they both parsed over 90k. That's why out of all the ideas I've seen @Skjaldbjorn 's ideas of a Morag Tong or Minor Heroism buff make the most sense. I guess @ESO_Nightingale flat damage thing works but the former options seem to be a more interesting way to do it. (Usually Night you bash simple flat damage buffs and come up with something unqiue; I assume it's a placeholder for now)

Aside: Note that I do strongly believe that wardens are unappreciated in groups as even in some content I do not see the warden healer keeping up 70%+ MV uptime. Though I think MV really shouldn't be so easy to applied the way it now without trade-off. I may just be reaching there.

Another element not represented in the singular parse number is the execute, which is usually most important.

5% difference matters because 5%*8 DD's is 40%. But if you look at group adjusted parse it gets higher such that you may be short a DD. Interesting experiment: How many Stamcro's does it take to produce the damage that 8 Stamden's can (say with good supports on a 50mil dummy)?


The bottom line is you see it in the usage data. We can discuss why, how, or if warden DPS is good or not. But, the point is the sum of people's collective choices clearly shows that across the community almost no one chooses to play a Warden DD when the class choice actually starts matter. Sure my, yours, people in this thread's opinion may matter a bit; the data shows everyone's plainly...

Sky-Piercer

On a side note, speaking of magden being low on Frost identity regarding their skills and elemental properties, it feels like ZOS missed an easy opportunity with the Bear ult.

Stamden using a physical grizzly/brown bear makes sense, but they should have a polar bear with some amount of ice damage for the mag version of the bear. My 2 cents.

Skjaldbjorn

kylewwefan wrote: »

I don’t get it? Everyone is a couple thousand dps less than Necro. We’re generally cool with that.

Take Necro out of the equation and all Classes are within 4K dps of each other.

How is this terrible? They’re close. Not everyone has or wants to play Necro or even play at a level where that kind of organization is remotely meaningful.

Is warden viable? Heck yeah. Even without using the bear ultimate? Absolutely viable.

Some people will play what they want to play, while others will only play what is the absolute best on paper. Even if this doesn’t exactly correlate well in the game.

Whether or not a class is viable is entirely contextual to the content and the meta. I'd LOVE to take Necro out of the equation. Their bloated kit is causing a ton of issues. But even with Necro out of the picture, both Stamplar and Stam Sorc provide group utility while being 4-5k ahead of Stamden with no clunky ass mechanic that works significiantly better on a dummy than an actual trial (bird bleed w/ off-balance).

I play Stam Sorc, Stamplar and Stamden. Mained Stamden since Morrowind, played Sorc since Summerset, played Stamplar for a few weeks. I dumpster my best Warden parses on both for both the dummy and in-trial parses. Warden is just bad. Unless you main one in end-game PVE, you really can't speak to how awful they actually are in content.

Skjaldbjorn

TheFM wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Two weeks into the PTS so far, Magden has gained a ~500-1k DPS buff, and Stamden remains the lowest parsing Stamina DPS, often behind several Magicka classes. I'm hoping we can see some meaningful change with this patch to help bring Warden up, but this change wasn't it at all. 2-3 weeks left in the PTS. Hoping Wardens can come together and try to be the driving factor for change, even though I know most Warden mains just PVP now and have given up on PVE for their Wardens.

Meanwhile warden is right up on the top of over performance in PvP with Templar. Ranged builds and dots classes have no chance against them atm. Frags? Absorbed, la? Absorbed, curse? Auto purged, mages wrath? Auto purged. A 5 k DPS difference on dummies is not bad at all. And is totally ok imo.

We aren't talking about PVP. Also, my list of suggestions recommends removing the auto-purge. It's busted.

Skjaldbjorn

xbobx15 wrote: »

The dummy is a single target that doesn't move and that DOESN'T TAKE IN ACCOUNT CLEAVE DAMAGE. Some classes are much better at cleave.

What we need is to look at a total parse of a full dungeon. Aoe damage matters.


Dummy parses imo are complete crap and way too many people take them as some law.

That would be relevant if the same classes busting Warden in AoE weren't all pretty much busting them single target. Stamplar and Stamcro dumpster Stamden in both mediums. Therein lies the problem, at least partially.

There's also a lot of content where cleave simply doesn't matter. Single target DPS carries a much higher weight on average than AoE.

kylewwefan

Anyways, I think it’s unfair to say the warden DPS is terrible. Also you see Sorc as the 2nd highest DPS, but barely picked over warden for hard mode dlc trials. In fact every stam in general is significantly lower picked than Necro.

Best I can gather from information found on this thread is that even in high end hard mode trials, people still play what they want to some degree. And surprisingly it’s not the one class with the highest dps parse.

Is it even fair to add in AS and CR on the list? Stam is virtually un represented here. Perhaps that’s a whole other issue.

And stam Sorc being the number 2 highest DPS behind Necro. Barely represented in hard mode dlc trials.

Also it wouldn’t be that surprising if all these parses were coming from a relatively small number of the same people over and over and over again. And that’s what we want to call the endgame community. Something around 1000 players give or take.

Skjaldbjorn

kylewwefan wrote: »

Anyways, I think it’s unfair to say the warden DPS is terrible. Also you see Sorc as the 2nd highest DPS, but barely picked over warden for hard mode dlc trials. In fact every stam in general is significantly lower picked than Necro.

Best I can gather from information found on this thread is that even in high end hard mode trials, people still play what they want to some degree. And surprisingly it’s not the one class with the highest dps parse.

Is it even fair to add in AS and CR on the list? Stam is virtually un represented here. Perhaps that’s a whole other issue.

And stam Sorc being the number 2 highest DPS behind Necro. Barely represented in hard mode dlc trials.

Also it wouldn’t be that surprising if all these parses were coming from a relatively small number of the same people over and over and over again. And that’s what we want to call the endgame community. Something around 1000 players give or take.

I'm not sure how you can say Sorc is "barely picked" over Warden in HM DLCs. To piggyback off @thadjarvis great work



Among Stam, that's still a monstrous jump from less than 1% to 8%. Yes, Stamcros are clearly the cream of the crop and need to be brought in line which would help, but there's a reason every other Stam hovers close to the same numbers except Stamden.

One of the reasons Stam Sorc is overall less popular is their reliance on weapon skill spammables. Both are channeled which is...iffy, in some content. Uppercut is crazy strong but on some fights it's super inefficient.

I think vAS and vCR were there just as much for Mag representation, since it's all classes, not just Stam.

Again, i'm not saying Stamden need to be pulling 100k DPS. I'm saying they need to be brought in line. While a dummy says the off-balance/bleed relationship works fine, in trials, it's awful by nearly every standard. Removing that alone would go a tremendous length toward fixing Stamden in PVE. They need help. Some group utility and QoL cleanup would help tremendously. As I mentioned in my suggestions, letting bugs for Stam scale up poison damage would give them an instant slot in most stam-based groups. They would have a buff that's only available from a set otherwise, which should in theory be a great DPS gain for everyone and make Stamden significantly more appealing.

Again, people want to point at JUST flat numbers of parses, but that's only a small part of the story. Looking at parses in a vacuum with zero context is probably how we got here to start with.

EDIT: There is a sick irony in the fact that the highest representation of Stamden is for vAS HM though rofl

Valdek

thadjarvis wrote: »

mague wrote: »

If Minor Vulnerability is up as it has always been provided by a support, then Warden DDs quickly fall to the bottom of the list in terms of group attributable damage even if they both parsed over 90k. That's why out of all the ideas I've seen @Skjaldbjorn 's ideas of a Morag Tong or Minor Heroism buff make the most sense. I guess @ESO_Nightingale flat damage thing works but the former options seem to be a more interesting way to do it. (Usually Night you bash simple flat damage buffs and come up with something unqiue; I assume it's a placeholder for now)

I believe that he has indeed included one of these ideas with his suggestion for the debuff the bear can provide for stamdens to the whole group (4% bonus dmg for the group). That may bring wardens in line.

llBlack_Heartll

[quote="kylewwefan;c-6575892"

Also it wouldn’t be that surprising if all these parses were coming from a relatively small number of the same people over and over and over again. And that’s what we want to call the endgame community. Something around 1000 players give or take. [/quote]

If this is the case that the data is from the same elite group, there is an issue right there, if the top 1000 elite players are not using the Mag/Stam Warden, then you know there is a clear issue with the class.
Because they use the most viable classes to get the best result, Warden’s are not in that.
If Wardens were more beneficial in Group play, we would see more “Elite/End Game players using the class.

thadjarvis

@kylewwefan
I did look at AS and looked at percents per trial. It didn't change much, and thought it TMI to post. I (hope) don't think anyone is expecting stamden to be a solid choice for a mag AS group. But you see that magNB is choosen over magWarden 16:1. Neither give any damage buff outside of MA.

In that particular case I believe people prefer NB because AS+2 pre-execute is one fight and then there's the execute. The later is twice as difficult and warden's have a negative execute hidden in the class (bloodthirsty does not apply to bear, 15%+ of their DPS). Stamden runs into the same issue in other places.

It does matter for intermediate groups just trying to clear. In fact it may matter more as the top score runners could probably do anything on any class. Optimization is yes for score, but also used more loosely by intermediates to make clearing less of a grind and hence more fun. I spot checked regular Vet: both wardens still bottom (non-existent on a few) except stamsorc in CR/AS. vHRC/AA non-hm didn't see much else either. So, it is much wider scope than end-game meta. In player's view there's massive reasons not to play warden.

I think I agree in the sense that every class wanting their class to be in the top meta doesn't make sense much sense to me:

• -There are 12 DD builds and 8 slots.....
• -Even just within mag/stam you have 3 necro + 1 of each class? Even if that were achieved it would be quite unstable to maintain.
• -IMO it will always be 2-4 of the 12 builds with supports stacked around them from the other classes. It seems to just be the way ESO is designed.

I am trying to understand why Warden isn't utilized more. The old theory was it's an expansion class which Necro data does not support. It may be partly a bad wrap or undervalued, but there's also some objective reasons at play. It's easiest to look at the higher levels to understand what those are, but it certainly seems to effect all levels.

thadjarvis

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

Again, people want to point at JUST flat numbers of parses, but that's only a small part of the story. Looking at parses in a vacuum with zero context is probably how we got here to start with.

Yea some joker posted the parse data a few pages ago.

Skjaldbjorn

thadjarvis wrote: »

I am trying to understand why Warden isn't utilized more. The old theory was it's an expansion class which Necro data does not support. It may be partly a bad wrap or undervalued, but there's also some objective reasons at play. It's easiest to look at the higher levels to understand what those are, but it certainly seems to effect all levels.

To be candid, I don't think there's a whole lot to understand. Difficult rotation by comparison to most Stam DPS, delayed spammable was off-putting for people till Necro, which is essentially just a significantly stronger version of Warden, mediocre DPS at best, wonky mechanics that don't really fit end-game raiding and zero group utility.

I've been a Warden main since they released and even I am moving further and further away purely out of frustration at the lack of direction and improvement.

thadjarvis

Valdek wrote: »

I believe that he has indeed included one of these ideas with his suggestion for the debuff the bear can provide for stamdens to the whole group (4% bonus dmg for the group). That may bring wardens in line.

It certainly would, but I do not advocate that method. What MagDK has is the best implementation I've seen ZoS do to revive a dead class. Unfortunately, probably not possible with magden because MagDK keys off of DK tank being ultra popular and DK healer non-existent.

4% group buff is 4*7 = 28% damage buff. I haven't done the math but I'd be curious if anyone has worked out the group DPS benefit of the 4 original class minor buffs. And heck that could maybe beat warhorn...tanks with bears

Although it may be difficult to sidestep giving stuff to warden supports crowding out warden DDs further, I don't like putting all power into the bear. For AOE it often better to unslot it (on magden) and the option to actually have an ultimate is kinda nice. Other classes situationaly switch around ultimates; I wouldn't want to make that harder.

My primary thoughts for magden would be:

1. Consider converting mag morphs into frost damage to synergize with new passive and give the many RP'ers what the want (someone mentioned polar bear; they're almost dead here, let's take them to Tamriel). Think about it: there may actually be more frost mage RP wannabe's out there then trial score runners or magden PvP 1vXers
2. Simply remove bloodthristy application restrictions across every skill in the game; ie everything but damage from sets. This would include the warden bear.
3. Consider a small group damage buff that warden supports can't use effectively

thadjarvis

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

thadjarvis wrote: »

To be candid, I don't think there's a whole lot to understand. Difficult rotation by comparison to most Stam DPS, delayed spammable was off-putting for people till Necro, which is essentially just a significantly stronger version of Warden, mediocre DPS at best, wonky mechanics that don't really fit end-game raiding and zero group utility.

I've been a Warden main since they released and even I am moving further and further away purely out of frustration at the lack of direction and improvement.

Wait a tick, do you not like Sub Assault rotation style or remarking that many others do not? If the former, I'm a little lost.

ChunkyCat

Yes. Please buff my Stamina Warden.

I want him to hit even harder in PvP.

Skjaldbjorn

thadjarvis wrote: »

Wait a tick, do you not like Sub Assault rotation style or remarking that many others do not? If the former, I'm a little lost.

Oh no, I love Shalks. But lots of folks hated it, particularly before Necro.

Skjaldbjorn

ChunkyCat wrote: »

Yes. Please buff my Stamina Warden.

I want him to hit even harder in PvP.

The primary goal is to buff Stamden PVE without impacting PVP in any significant way.

SodanTok

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

thadjarvis wrote: »

Wait a tick, do you not like Sub Assault rotation style or remarking that many others do not? If the former, I'm a little lost.

Oh no, I love Shalks. But lots of folks hated it, particularly before Necro.

Was actually the scalebreaker patch that broke their back, they were solid before during Elsweyr even tho just worse in every way to Necro (at least stamden) and Scalebreaker patch just brough huge nerf to the passive out of nowhere.

thadjarvis

ChunkyCat wrote: »

Yes. Please buff my Stamina Warden.

I want him to hit even harder in PvP.

All the PvE suggestions I've seen are related to cleaning up PvE stamden rotation wonkiness (OB conditions in DLC mechanics) and small damage buffs that enhance the group. I know ball groups use things like Ebon, but do they use things like TP and Morag Tong? I usually small scale so I have no clue.

Those are the kinds of buffs the PvE warden's are coming up with. Heck Night proposes dropping major mending to minor; that would be a substantial nerf to stamden.

thadjarvis

@Skjaldbjorn

The Morag Tong idea makes the most sense for stamden, but how could it be implemented. If it's 5 seconds on Sub Assult, that'd be less draining for a warden tank to keep up than it is for a DK tank to keep up stonefist on live. Warden tanks would have IA, MT, and (stacking) Ebon all built in? A MK Warden healer could actually benefit from using it.

Making it more expensive would help, but it should get more damage in that case. Then there's a PvP issue potentially. So, basically how can it get thrown in there. Maybe from the bear?

ESO_Nightingale

thadjarvis wrote: »

ChunkyCat wrote: »

Yes. Please buff my Stamina Warden.

I want him to hit even harder in PvP.

Heck Night proposes dropping major mending to minor; that would be a substantial nerf to stamden.

I'm always open to suggestions, but i did this because I've often heard and felt that wardens have too much healing along with damage and tankiness. Paticularly when it comes to Stamina Warden. So i decided to propose a somewhat controversial nerf to really reduce that healing when being attacked. Magicka Warden would lose this healing as well while also loosing the arctic blast heal. If it proves too much of a nerf to magicka warden, I'd suggest increasing the burst heal on trellis. Stamina wardens would also get stamina scaling with their green lotus.

ESO_Nightingale

thadjarvis wrote: »

Valdek wrote: »

I believe that he has indeed included one of these ideas with his suggestion for the debuff the bear can provide for stamdens to the whole group (4% bonus dmg for the group). That may bring wardens in line.

It certainly would, but I do not advocate that method. What MagDK has is the best implementation I've seen ZoS do to revive a dead class. Unfortunately, probably not possible with magden because MagDK keys off of DK tank being ultra popular and DK healer non-existent.

4% group buff is 4*7 = 28% damage buff. I haven't done the math but I'd be curious if anyone has worked out the group DPS benefit of the 4 original class minor buffs. And heck that could maybe beat warhorn...tanks with bears

Although it may be difficult to sidestep giving stuff to warden supports crowding out warden DDs further, I don't like putting all power into the bear. For AOE it often better to unslot it (on magden) and the option to actually have an ultimate is kinda nice. Other classes situationaly switch around ultimates; I wouldn't want to make that harder.

My primary thoughts for magden would be:

1. Consider converting mag morphs into frost damage to synergize with new passive and give the many RP'ers what the want (someone mentioned polar bear; they're almost dead here, let's take them to Tamriel). Think about it: there may actually be more frost mage RP wannabe's out there then trial score runners or magden PvP 1vXers
2. Simply remove bloodthristy application restrictions across every skill in the game; ie everything but damage from sets. This would include the warden bear.
3. Consider a small group damage buff that warden supports can't use effectively

The point of suggesting the group buff on bear was because it would restrict useage from PvE Tanks and Healers and PvP. The goal of this change is to make specifically Stamina Warden wanted in a group. Magicka Warden has a more niche group buff on shalks.

Skjaldbjorn

thadjarvis wrote: »

@Skjaldbjorn

The Morag Tong idea makes the most sense for stamden, but how could it be implemented. If it's 5 seconds on Sub Assult, that'd be less draining for a warden tank to keep up than it is for a DK tank to keep up stonefist on live. Warden tanks would have IA, MT, and (stacking) Ebon all built in? A MK Warden healer could actually benefit from using it.

Making it more expensive would help, but it should get more damage in that case. Then there's a PvP issue potentially. So, basically how can it get thrown in there. Maybe from the bear?

@thadjarvis My idea to put it on the stam bugs instead of minor vuln means it's an active choice. Either you bring Warden DD, or you have two warden supports, one running each. Further, I had the poison damage % scale with offensive stats, just like engulfing. That way, even if a support ran it, they would get minimal benefit.

That's one idea i've actually taken to two different class reps and gotten some very positive feedback thus far.