Improving the Warden class

uarjj9664nub18_ESO

I was having a discussion with my friend the other day and We discussed how wardens are bottom DPS currently for PvE content. Two changes ZoS could make is simple:
Make damage increase by 3% per animal companion ability, up from 2% for the Advanvced Species Passive (a change previously made but reverted a patch or 2 later) This will bring both specs closer to Par with other classes.
The other change is specifically for Stamina Warden and that is Make Winter's Revenge scale off of Highest stat. This will make the crit damage increase to chilled enemies given with the Winter's Embrace tree's passive recently changed in update 26 more incentive to run on stamina warden. This will bring Stam warden back to Par with its magicka counterpart which is currently outperforming stam.
Both these changes should minimally effect PvP and bring warden back to a playable class for DPS in High end Trials.
Anyone have thoughts about this they would like to mention? Please, feedback would be appreciated!

Raisin

I thought magwarden was BiS now?

uarjj9664nub18_ESO

Definitely not BiS, but they are definitely doing better than they have previously... The major improvement here will be the Winters revenge change and it would only effect the stamina spec.

Everest_Lionheart

The issue I have with warden and stamwarden in particular is that the Winters Embrace line has very little place in the rotation except to alleviate the stam costs which aren’t really an issue in group play anyway. I actually do use gripping shards on my stamwarden and I believe that damage scales off your health plus offers the chance to escape some pretty hairy situations when things go sideways.

I really see warden as more of a solo type of class because of the tool kit it has and I prefer stamwarden to mag warden when playing solo myself. You have be to more creative with your AOE’s and not be afraid to play a bit of a hybrid. I generally pull mobs with a growing swarm, drop leeching vines, endless hail and lock them all down with gripping shards. Get your shalks out when they are all stacked and trash fights are over. I run DW with rapid strikes also so sometimes I strafe the line slicing and dicing to help soften things up to let the AOE’s finish the job. Boss fights I change leeching vine for enchanted growth for the burst heals. I also use enchanted growth in trials for the emergency heals.

I can see some other utility when it comes to mitigation in the winters embrace line but I think overall that whole line needs a rework as well. The other viable skills in the line for stamina even though they use magicka are expansive frost cloak for cheap endless shields and crystal slab for certain ranged fights to reflect the damage back when you also have to fight from long range.

The plus of this class is that it has access to major fracture and major brutality. Again definitely needed in solo play but less in a good group. You get so many so surveys of it in certain trails also. Because of this you don’t need to consume the expensive pots when tackling 95% of the content. That’s the advantage of stamwarden.

So overall, steady but passable DPS with ok mitigation, solid self healing, excellent mobility and above average sustain. It will never be the best at anything, that’s how these all around classes tend to work though.

SidraWillowsky

Raisin wrote: »

I thought magwarden was BiS now?

On a stationary trial dummy using Blood for Blood as a spammable, yes, but in those cases a healer usually stands nearby, so it's way too cheesy to be viable.It's definitely much stronger overall now, though, and it finally stopped being a meme class. I don't actually think it's bottom of the barrel, personally, especially as far as mag DDs are concerned.

Stamwarden is in a slightly worse spot- someone mentioned letting Impaling Shards scale off max stam OR mag, and I think that would seriously improve the class.

The class absolutely shines when it comes to solo play and group play where things may be less organized and you can't always count on getting certain buffs. IMO (granted, I am a warden fanatic, so....) no other class has access to the mobility, damage, tankiness, and healing that Wardens have, at least not all at the same time. On a self-buffed 6 mil parse, my stam and magwardens can easily clear 50+k, and that's without having to double-bar camo hunter and parse behind the dummy like I have to do with some classes. It provides the best self-buffs in the game, but it fails when it comes to group utility where those are often rendered redundant by other skills/players and/or class buffs can just as easily be applied by a warden tank or healer.

Everest_Lionheart

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

Raisin wrote: »

I thought magwarden was BiS now?

On a stationary trial dummy using Blood for Blood as a spammable, yes, but in those cases a healer usually stands nearby, so it's way too cheesy to be viable.It's definitely much stronger overall now, though, and it finally stopped being a meme class. I don't actually think it's bottom of the barrel, personally, especially as far as mag DDs are concerned.

Stamwarden is in a slightly worse spot- someone mentioned letting Impaling Shards scale off max stam OR mag, and I think that would seriously improve the class.

The class absolutely shines when it comes to solo play and group play where things may be less organized and you can't always count on getting certain buffs. IMO (granted, I am a warden fanatic, so....) no other class has access to the mobility, damage, tankiness, and healing that Wardens have, at least not all at the same time. On a self-buffed 6 mil parse, my stam and magwardens can easily clear 50+k, and that's without having to double-bar camo hunter and parse behind the dummy like I have to do with some classes. It provides the best self-buffs in the game, but it fails when it comes to group utility where those are often rendered redundant by other skills/players and/or class buffs can just as easily be applied by a warden tank or healer.

Greetings fellow warden fanatic. I posted above you almost the same thing! I’m in a similar boat but under your DPS output sitting at 40K at last parse when I was CP400. I’m still in Hundings and Briarheart with a random 2pc that gives extra stam. Working on my BiS gear now. Normal trial groups are OK with my numbers but my bear is particularly over aggressive in trials often tanking before the tanks tank. They laugh every time because my group is easy going, but for the more serious fights in trials I have to drop the bear and summon him as the tanks approach the boss. Apparently my bear thinks it can solo Dragons in Sunspire.

Got any recommendations on other ultimates I can slot that won’t drop the overall damage output?

SidraWillowsky

uarjj9664nub18_ESO wrote: »

I was having a discussion with my friend the other day and We discussed how wardens are bottom DPS currently for PvE content. Two changes ZoS could make is simple:
Make damage increase by 3% per animal companion ability, up from 2% for the Advanvced Species Passive (a change previously made but reverted a patch or 2 later) This will bring both specs closer to Par with other classes.
The other change is specifically for Stamina Warden and that is Make Winter's Revenge scale off of Highest stat. This will make the crit damage increase to chilled enemies given with the Winter's Embrace tree's passive recently changed in update 26 more incentive to run on stamina warden. This will bring Stam warden back to Par with its magicka counterpart which is currently outperforming stam.
Both these changes should minimally effect PvP and bring warden back to a playable class for DPS in High end Trials.
Anyone have thoughts about this they would like to mention? Please, feedback would be appreciated!

Oh, and to OP- these changes are great for solo players, but it won't change the biggest issue that people have with the class- lack of group utility in PvE.

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

Raisin wrote: »

I thought magwarden was BiS now?

On a stationary trial dummy using Blood for Blood as a spammable, yes, but in those cases a healer usually stands nearby, so it's way too cheesy to be viable.It's definitely much stronger overall now, though, and it finally stopped being a meme class. I don't actually think it's bottom of the barrel, personally, especially as far as mag DDs are concerned.

Stamwarden is in a slightly worse spot- someone mentioned letting Impaling Shards scale off max stam OR mag, and I think that would seriously improve the class.

The class absolutely shines when it comes to solo play and group play where things may be less organized and you can't always count on getting certain buffs. IMO (granted, I am a warden fanatic, so....) no other class has access to the mobility, damage, tankiness, and healing that Wardens have, at least not all at the same time. On a self-buffed 6 mil parse, my stam and magwardens can easily clear 50+k, and that's without having to double-bar camo hunter and parse behind the dummy like I have to do with some classes. It provides the best self-buffs in the game, but it fails when it comes to group utility where those are often rendered redundant by other skills/players and/or class buffs can just as easily be applied by a warden tank or healer.

Greetings fellow warden fanatic. I posted above you almost the same thing! I’m in a similar boat but under your DPS output sitting at 40K at last parse when I was CP400. I’m still in Hundings and Briarheart with a random 2pc that gives extra stam. Working on my BiS gear now. Normal trial groups are OK with my numbers but my bear is particularly over aggressive in trials often tanking before the tanks tank. They laugh every time because my group is easy going, but for the more serious fights in trials I have to drop the bear and summon him as the tanks approach the boss. Apparently my bear thinks it can solo Dragons in Sunspire.

Got any recommendations on other ultimates I can slot that won’t drop the overall damage output?

40k using Hunding's and Briarheart and no monster set is fantastic; you'll have no problem whatsoever clearing 50k in BiS gear.

Unfortunately, we are entirely dependent on the bear in order to maximize DPS output, especially now that it inherits the Bloodthirsty jewelry trait if you're wearing it. You'll probably just need to keep unsummoning it til the tank starts in trials. Oh, and just a random fyi- you NEED to unsummon and resummon the stupid thing in the room where you fight the first boss in MoL. You don't have to do the unsummoning in the room itself, but the bear needs to be resummoned in that room or else it won't hit the boss at all.

This is a bit of a tangent, but my DPS absolutely tanks on the bosses in Sunspire on my warden- like, close to halved. There is something wrong with how our skills interact with the dragons, so I've just stopped taking wardens in there, which sucks. It might be a "me" issue, but the dragons' hit boxes are so wonky that I think a lot of our skills ave trouble hitting them...

MaleAmazon

Well, as has been written above - there is a conflict of interest here.

There are many playstyles in ESO, and it is short-sighted to reduce this to a DPS number.

The warden was the first DLC class (actually it was originally a vanilla class that never got released, I have no idea how far into development it went). As such it is a pretty well rounded class which was probably exactly what they intended, and my new main character Zelda Daggerdress (the last main character I´ll ever have unless they add more classes) uses it. The warden can tank, heal, and do decent damage. If I want to switch from stamina to magicka later, it is a reasonably painless switch.

And in return it isn´t the best at everything in all situations.

My pet peeve with the warden is that one passive only affects magicka and frost damage, so if stamina DPS is the issue, maybe put that in (IIRC it originally affected physical damage as well, but this was taken out in PTS because the warden overperformed, but things have changed since then).

It just tickles my OCD, that´s all.

Also, I mean, one class will always be bottom DPS. You improve the DPS and another class will get a thread like this. I mean, it is similar to how some skills will be useless for some content. I don´t think you will need Nightblade cloak in PvE trials, but for solo PvP it is my favourite utility skill.

Anyway, not having given it much thought, I do think the winter´s embrace could be rounded out. At the moment it is a bit too much healing and magic in there. Polar winds is a bit of an oddball and the warden has enough healing to raise the dead, anyway. So perhaps that morph could be changed into a stamina DPS morph. Oh yeah and change the 'piercing cold' passive to give something to stamina players as well.

Megatto

Here's how they can make the Warden better. Remove the bear.

Athyrium93

If they had other pets besides the bear I would play a warden even if it was garbage, but I HATE the bear. It's ugly, it's in the way, it's so big my tiny bosmer can't see over it, and it doesn't match the style of the other animals at all.

The bear gets more hate threads than any single other thing in the game minus performance. The bear is an easy fix. Please fix it, PLEASE?!?

*edit for spelling

Everest_Lionheart

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

uarjj9664nub18_ESO wrote: »

I was having a discussion with my friend the other day and We discussed how wardens are bottom DPS currently for PvE content. Two changes ZoS could make is simple:
Make damage increase by 3% per animal companion ability, up from 2% for the Advanvced Species Passive (a change previously made but reverted a patch or 2 later) This will bring both specs closer to Par with other classes.
The other change is specifically for Stamina Warden and that is Make Winter's Revenge scale off of Highest stat. This will make the crit damage increase to chilled enemies given with the Winter's Embrace tree's passive recently changed in update 26 more incentive to run on stamina warden. This will bring Stam warden back to Par with its magicka counterpart which is currently outperforming stam.
Both these changes should minimally effect PvP and bring warden back to a playable class for DPS in High end Trials.
Anyone have thoughts about this they would like to mention? Please, feedback would be appreciated!

Oh, and to OP- these changes are great for solo players, but it won't change the biggest issue that people have with the class- lack of group utility in PvE.

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

Raisin wrote: »

I thought magwarden was BiS now?

On a stationary trial dummy using Blood for Blood as a spammable, yes, but in those cases a healer usually stands nearby, so it's way too cheesy to be viable.It's definitely much stronger overall now, though, and it finally stopped being a meme class. I don't actually think it's bottom of the barrel, personally, especially as far as mag DDs are concerned.

Stamwarden is in a slightly worse spot- someone mentioned letting Impaling Shards scale off max stam OR mag, and I think that would seriously improve the class.

The class absolutely shines when it comes to solo play and group play where things may be less organized and you can't always count on getting certain buffs. IMO (granted, I am a warden fanatic, so....) no other class has access to the mobility, damage, tankiness, and healing that Wardens have, at least not all at the same time. On a self-buffed 6 mil parse, my stam and magwardens can easily clear 50+k, and that's without having to double-bar camo hunter and parse behind the dummy like I have to do with some classes. It provides the best self-buffs in the game, but it fails when it comes to group utility where those are often rendered redundant by other skills/players and/or class buffs can just as easily be applied by a warden tank or healer.

Greetings fellow warden fanatic. I posted above you almost the same thing! I’m in a similar boat but under your DPS output sitting at 40K at last parse when I was CP400. I’m still in Hundings and Briarheart with a random 2pc that gives extra stam. Working on my BiS gear now. Normal trial groups are OK with my numbers but my bear is particularly over aggressive in trials often tanking before the tanks tank. They laugh every time because my group is easy going, but for the more serious fights in trials I have to drop the bear and summon him as the tanks approach the boss. Apparently my bear thinks it can solo Dragons in Sunspire.

Got any recommendations on other ultimates I can slot that won’t drop the overall damage output?

40k using Hunding's and Briarheart and no monster set is fantastic; you'll have no problem whatsoever clearing 50k in BiS gear.

Unfortunately, we are entirely dependent on the bear in order to maximize DPS output, especially now that it inherits the Bloodthirsty jewelry trait if you're wearing it. You'll probably just need to keep unsummoning it til the tank starts in trials. Oh, and just a random fyi- you NEED to unsummon and resummon the stupid thing in the room where you fight the first boss in MoL. You don't have to do the unsummoning in the room itself, but the bear needs to be resummoned in that room or else it won't hit the boss at all.

This is a bit of a tangent, but my DPS absolutely tanks on the bosses in Sunspire on my warden- like, close to halved. There is something wrong with how our skills interact with the dragons, so I've just stopped taking wardens in there, which sucks. It might be a "me" issue, but the dragons' hit boxes are so wonky that I think a lot of our skills ave trouble hitting them...

The Dragons are better at ranged, even the overland dragons in Elsweyr though they are way less mechanicy than SS dragons. You have to stand on the exact pixel on the floor or skill will miss. Line up to the right and you get a wing/head slap every time. It worth it to slot poison injection and soul consuming trap on the bow bar and sit back a bit so you can still catch them with your growing swarm as well. For sure you aren’t maximizing your damage, but you are maximizing your survivability. It crazy, but I find the second dragon harder than the final boss because of the lava. It really mucks up positioning.

MaleAmazon

The bear gets more hate threads than any single other thing in the game minus performance. The bear is an easy fix. Please fix it, PLEASE?!?

What´s to fix?

You summon a bear, the warden was portrayed with a bear pre-release, the bear is an important part of the class, they are obviously not going to remove it.

Make it smaller and it isn´t really a bear anymore, just a bear cub.

I don´t know what you mean by 'doesn´t match the style of the other animals'. It´s a bear, it looks like a bear.

Pets being in the way is one thing, that applies to all pets.

Don´t use it if you don´t like it.

UGotBenched91

Mag warden collecting bodies in PVP. . Haven’t done a pve build.

Stx

My biggest issue with wardens is more thematic. I hate how they fused a nature lover with an ice mage and a bug/bear summoner.

You basically just cherry pick the best skills from each tree and have no options. I mean I know most classes are like this, but I feel like other classes 3 skill trees all mesh together much better than wardens.

Like, if I want to play an ice mage, I don't want to summon bugs or have a creepy squid laser beaming me.

As for performance, I thought wardens were doing a lot better than in previous patches? Mag specs are all pretty balanced arent they?

Athyrium93

MaleAmazon wrote: »

The bear gets more hate threads than any single other thing in the game minus performance. The bear is an easy fix. Please fix it, PLEASE?!?

What´s to fix?

You summon a bear, the warden was portrayed with a bear pre-release, the bear is an important part of the class, they are obviously not going to remove it.

Make it smaller and it isn´t really a bear anymore, just a bear cub.

I don´t know what you mean by 'doesn´t match the style of the other animals'. It´s a bear, it looks like a bear.

Pets being in the way is one thing, that applies to all pets.

Don´t use it if you don´t like it.

I DONT use it cause I hate the bear, and just because it was shown in a pre-release pic doesn't mean they shouldn't have another option for a pet....

As for matching the style, yeah it's just a bear, that's the problem, all the other animals are fantasy stuff with a cool blue glow, even the cliff racer which is just a bird....

As for being smaller, have you seen it next to a shorter character? It's literally as tall as a short bosmer, as in you literally can't see over it. It's annoying....

MaleAmazon

As for being smaller, have you seen it next to a shorter character? It's literally as tall as a short bosmer, as in you literally can't see over it. It's annoying....

Yeah, but doesn´t that go for stuff like infernal maw also?

I mean, it is a bear, it is going to be the size of a bear.

I suppose they could go for a semi-transparent magical version like Selene.

Karmanorway

uarjj9664nub18_ESO wrote: »

I was having a discussion with my friend the other day and We discussed how wardens are bottom DPS currently for PvE content. Two changes ZoS could make is simple:
Make damage increase by 3% per animal companion ability, up from 2% for the Advanvced Species Passive (a change previously made but reverted a patch or 2 later) This will bring both specs closer to Par with other classes.
The other change is specifically for Stamina Warden and that is Make Winter's Revenge scale off of Highest stat. This will make the crit damage increase to chilled enemies given with the Winter's Embrace tree's passive recently changed in update 26 more incentive to run on stamina warden. This will bring Stam warden back to Par with its magicka counterpart which is currently outperforming stam.
Both these changes should minimally effect PvP and bring warden back to a playable class for DPS in High end Trials.
Anyone have thoughts about this they would like to mention? Please, feedback would be appreciated!

I agree they should have those buffs, in exchange for worse tankiness ofc. 😉

Runefang

Magdens are top dps now and it shows particularly in content where the bear isn’t a problem such as KA and SS. In movement heavy trials like in AS and CR the Magden is not top tier.

spekdah

Not fond of the bear pet as a stamwarden, wish they would alter one if the morphs so it's no longer a pet but some kind of spell or ability. Even if it's something like selenes proc as someone mentioned.

stevenyaub16_ESO

Magden is in a good place

But for Stamden just make the bonus Crit damage given by Poisoned as well as Chilled.

That change alone should bridge the gap somewhat.

But all stams are suffering because so many things favor magDD. Like hollowfang, magicka steal, ranged mechanics.

Dracane

Advanced species is the best slot damage passive in the game and probably the strongest damage passive after burning light. I would not change it.

I would like to see the breach and fracture time from shalks be increased. I feel 6 seconds is way too short and it's not always guaranteed that it can be kept up with all the line of sighting in pvp. It should be at least 10 seconds, if not more.

Sylvermynx

The one thing I really want is for the bear to actually be able to tank mobs. Yeah. Probably not hap'nin, but damn....

barney2525

These threads are so funny. Somebodys favorite class gets passed up in "ratings" vs the other classes and suddenly there Has to be some changes made.

And IF there are changes made, somebody else's favorite class drops and They whine about it. Not to mention all of the bashing of the class that got adjusted as now being over powered.

This is the game where people MUST change their race if the passives change because the character is 'no longer playable'.

I needed a good laugh. Thanks

IMHO

Everest_Lionheart

barney2525 wrote: »

These threads are so funny. Somebodys favorite class gets passed up in "ratings" vs the other classes and suddenly there Has to be some changes made.

And IF there are changes made, somebody else's favorite class drops and They whine about it. Not to mention all of the bashing of the class that got adjusted as now being over powered.

This is the game where people MUST change their race if the passives change because the character is 'no longer playable'.

I needed a good laugh. Thanks

IMHO

I guess you could call it a L2P issue but it more learning what the class can and can’t do. Warden can do all things well but it doesn’t shine at anything. They make solid hybrid types for solo play and well above average for PvP as well with minimal swapping of skills and equipment.

Endgame PvE is another animal (pun intended.) Wardens bread and bitter skills are a bit redundant in a group setting and the buffs they provide are redundant. Like major brutality/sorcery on the netch. Yet you still have to cast it for the overall sustain. It’s mostly a wasted buff because in trial groups that utility will already be there.

I’ve still been doing trials on mine despite the limitations to DPS because it’s good at other things but I much prefer the extra 10k DPS that my DK brings to the table.

It does need a little lift but not much. The ice line needs work that’s it. The other two lines are still fine as is.