Warden Class Identity/Balance

MindOfTheSwarm

I would like the communities opinions on Warden's as they stand right now. To me they feel a bit mish mashed and some of their skills are barely used.

Animal Companions:

Aside from the Bear, Netch and to an extent the Fletcherflies I don't feel as though my animals are 'companions' at all and feel more like spells. I think that Dive, Scorch and Falcon's Swiftness need a slight rework to make them feel more "companiony".

Dive: Rename to Cliff Racer:

Summon a cliff racer that can be commanded to dive bomb an enemy dealing x Magic Damage and setting the target off balance for x seconds.The Cliff Racer remains until it is killed or unsummoned. If the cliff racer is not commanded to attack a specific target it will attack any enemy that hits you.

Scorch: To be honest this is not a bad idea as a skill, but the animation feels off. Why not have it so you can see them tunnelling just under the surface (similar to mud crabs) before popping up under a target. The damage and debuffs would remain as is. It just feel weird having it locked to the players position.

*Or even better yet for lulz, just remove it completely and let players summon a bunch of mud crabs that work like the spiders from trapping webs and simply stay until they are killed or unsummoned. Frost Crabs for Magicka and Physical for Stamina. 🦀.

Falcon's Swiftness: I love the effects of this skill but let's face it, everyone picks Bird of Prey. Minor Berserk is just too good. I think you would be hard pressed to find even a tank running Deceptive. I would just make Deceptive bonus baseline and have it do something else for example:

Rename to Apex Predator: While slotted increase the damage of your Animal Companion abilities by 10%.

This way Bird of Prey can be useful for more generic damage Wardens, and Apex can be useful for dedicated animal summoners. Also, I would change the graphics for the ability and maybe have a smokey ghost like pair of wings that are visible while the ability is slotted and then flap as they normally do for the movement speed buff. Make it feel like an actual spirit guardian.

Bear: Don't change, the bear is good. We just want some skins for it.


Green Balance:

I actually feel like out of all the skill lines this one feels really nice. The idea of summoning plant and mushrooms to heal is great. However, I think there is great potential here to really make from for a Stamina based healer that can compete with Magicka counterparts. I would suggest maybe changing Corrupting Pollen and either Bursting Vines or Nature's Embrace scale with Stamina. With these changes a player could play a dedicated Stamina healer alongside Resolving Vigor and Mend Wounds.

Winter's Embrace:

I think this Skill Line 'almost' has it right, but I think it needs a few tweaks on a couple of skills. The skill line should feel like an 'eye of the storm' like the player is the centre of the effects that constantly tick rather than be instant'

Sleet Storm: A nice strong ultimate that some would argue is overpowered but I would disagree, no change needed.

Frost Cloak and Morphs: I would change the effect on allies to only affect them while staying close to the Warden and have the armor quickly melt off if they do not stay within a certain range, but get reapplied when the go back in the radius. Also, I would have it deal low Frost Damage to enemies that are within the same radius.

Impaling Shards and Morphs: Great ability no changes needed to either morph.

Arctic Wind and Morphs: A great ability, but I would argue that it is too short. 10 seconds would be better. Its animation is weird too in my opinion, does not feel like a 'wind' at all, more like a burst of ice. I would rework the animation so it looks like cold winds swirling round the players similar to Bone Shield or Blade Cloak.

Cystallized Shield: The base ability and Shimmering Shield are both good, but Slab is a little weird. The skill is essentially a tanking skill and yet the damage from this morph scales with Magicka. Furthermore, you get no value if you are not hit making it clunky for a damaging ability. Personally, I think just having the bolts fire at your target if they do not get reflected would be enough to make it more appealing.

Frozen Gate and Morphs: Base ability is fine, but the Frozen Retreat morph is rarely taken, even in PvP where it sees more use, Warden's still opt for Device due to the Major Maim. I suggest combining both morphs into Frozen Retreat.

Frozen Device could then be reworked into having a different utility. Personally, I think giving this morph a snare and having it apply a 'frostbitten' style status would be cool. This unique status would deal low Frost Damage per second and increase damage taken by 2% increased to 3% vs Frost Damage. This would give this amazing PVE potential and utility for trials and dungeons that other classes would benefit from.
It would lose its teleport mechanic and you could only have 1 up at any time, but it would remain for the full duration even when enemies are hit. Obviously for balance, enemies could only be affected by one instance of frostbite at any time.

I did not list any passive suggestions as I think Warden Passives are great as they are.

Please leave your thoughts below and offer up alternatives if you have any.

Appreciate all feedback.

Joxer61

should change title to Magdens because none of what you suggest would help a Stamden. Why not a stam version of shards so stam can benefit from the crit passive as well?

ESO_Nightingale

I can't be bothered writing much but here are the summaries of problems with this class:

Spammable is too slow and badly designed when it comes to procs.

General lack of quantity and quality of damage skills through poor design and skill distribution.

Too many raw damage passive boosts instead of actual power in damage skills themselves.

Arctic Blast, the stun, is genuinely awful in the 2 aspects it should be strong in, instead having most of it's power concentrated into a heal that makes us way too tanky. A 6m range dot stun that requires 3 consecutive ticks is awful to use offensively.

Both types of DPS want a form of unique group damage buff that makes them desired as opposed to just a healer or tank warden.

Stamina warden specifically is in a spot where they are one of the top tier classes for pvp, but is pretty crap compared to other classes in pve. They also want access to the crit damage bonus. Which could probably be easily buffed by adding "enemy who has recently been bleeding or chilled" to glacial presence.

Both classes really want a thematic boost. Personally i think adding damage identities to both classes would be splendid. Stamden with bleeds, as they have already been seen on cutting dive and growing swarm. And Magden with frost. Additionally, magic damage skills on animal companions would greatly benefit from having a damage type change from magic, to frost, and more bleed related effects could be added to stamina damage morphs.

For healers, their skills are notoriously wonky. Especially nature's grasp which is super buggy and doesn't work correctly in a lot of scenarios, trees is also super *** to place and often refunds itself or doesn't work. Shrooms have a cone that is a bit too thin even for a skill shot.

I don't know of any tank issues, someone else can probably fill that in.

My list of proposed changes is in my signature if you want to have a look. I've updated a lot over these past few months.