High Isle's frustrating Warden changes are a disappointing step back.

ESO_Nightingale

Every patch, complaining from people is bound to happen for all sorts of changes for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes the feedback isn't necessarily helpful or just plain mean to the developers. I understand that, which is why I will try my absolute hardest to provide as constructive feedback as possible for the presented warden changes. It seems to me, that the pain points that this class has about it are being misinterpreted by the developers, as there was an effort made to combat what the developers thought the problem was. So I will cover the pain points of each skill, why x thing is not suitable for y reason, and what the changes that have been presented as of week 1 will actually do. This is frankly a very disappointing patch for warden dps players, I've seen a lot discussion already for all aspects of the changes especially on the Frost Discord.

It's for reasons like this why the whole community keeps asking if we can have increased feedback from the developers, because we need to hash out these issues as soon as possible, the patch releases to live in a bit over a month, so this needs to be brought to Zenimax's attention asap. Now, to cover everything. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam

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Week 1 Warden notes if you didn't see them:

Warden

Animal Companions
Feral Guardian
Wild Guardian (morph):
This morph now deals 10% more damage, up from 5%, to ensure it deals similar damage to Eternal Guardian when you take the Piercing Magic passive.
This morph now converts the damage to Bleed Damage instead of Physical, and each attack applies the Hemorrhaging status effect. Wild.

Scorch
Deep Fissure (morph): This morph now also applies Minor Breach to enemies hit for the duration.

Green Balance
Healing Seed
Corrupting Pollen (morph): This morph now also applies Minor Cowardice to enemies in the area, to help it gain some viability in PvE areas.

Winter’s Embrace
Arctic Wind
Arctic Blast (morph):
This morph now requires enemies to be damaged 5 times in order to be stunned, up from 3.
Reduced the duration of the stun to 3 seconds, down from 4.
Increased the duration of the stack counter to 3 seconds, up from 1.

Developer Comment:
Right now, this ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden, allowing them to line up their burst perfectly with Scorch to remove counter play. By increasing the stack count required, there should be less of a guarantee with this combination and require more reactive play from the caster, while the increased duration of tracking helps also reduce the ease of counter play by backing off for 1 second from the Warden to completely avoid the stun.


Crystallized Shield
Crystallized Slab (morph): This morph now also stuns the target upon dealing damage.
Developer Comment:
For the masters of Ice, Wardens are lacking a lot of hard control. Without giving them something too over the top to make them even more oppressive to melee attackers, we've opted to add in a reactive ranged stun option to help deter those ranged builds that naturally kite and hound Wardens.

Frost Armor
Expansive Frost Cloak (morph): Expanded the radius of this morph to 36 meters, up from 28.

Sleet Storm
Northern Storm (morph): This morph now grants 300 Weapon and Spell Damage for up to 30 seconds after casting, rather than up to 15% Max Magicka for 30 seconds. This should help the Ultimate be more impactful across play styles.

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Animal Companions

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(MAJOR) Wild Guardian:

Pain Point reported by us: This morph is useless compared to Eternal Guardian because Eternal Guardian does more damage (via Piercing Cold) and has an auxilary effect.

Changes that were implemented to combat the Pain Point:

• Increased wild guardian's damage by 5%
• Changed the damage type to Bleed
• The bear dealing damage always applies the hemorrhaging status effect.

Problem:
This change appears to be spot on with the pain point, however this opens up a new can of troubling worms for the morphs.

This will take a bit of explaining, but long story short, This change literally just gets everyone to swap morphs to wild guardian. That's all it effectively does.

Eternal vs Wild:
Due to the nature of dps, the highest damaging morph will always be chosen unless the other morph is able to provide something significant enough to warrant it's use. Before high isle, everyone picked eternal guardian because it was statistically more damage, and it had a neat little effect for soloing. Wild Guardian offered nothing. so, we picked Eternal every time unless we didn't read the tooltips and thought that wild guardian was better because the green text said so. So, now that Wild Guardian does a ton more damage than Eternal Guardian, we have next to no reason to use Eternal Guardian. Even in duels where pets CAN DIE, having extra damage and hemorrhaging proc is huge compared to an extra respawn with a long cooldown and less damage, that respawn only happens once before you have to wait a while for it to work again. in pve, there's no reason to use Eternal, in pvp there is a very niche reason to use Eternal. and now, that means that Eternal needs a buff in some other direction than damage otherwise we just have the same issue again.
Suggestion:
My suggestion is making the summon time 1.5s instead of an instant respawn with a long cooldown, AND an instant teleport to the enemy that you target with Guardian's Wrath along with a short window for targets to be able to react to the incoming claw attack, this will make the ultimate a ton more consistent for PvP and give you a reason to use it over Wild Guardian in that sphere of play.

Bear's Damage:
My hemorrhaging proc damage went from something like 1% of my damage, all the way to about 5% of my damage. This is way too excessive. I will note that I really like the idea of changing Wild Guardian's damage type to bleed, but the hemorrhaging proc applying from all attacks is too much. Bear already is around 15% of our damage, but with this change it goes up to like roughly 18% of our damage which is genuinely insane. We are forced to use this ultimate in pve because if we don't use it, and instead try to use northern storm, we absolutely cripple our damage.

Suggestion:
Hemorrhaging should only always apply from the bear's casted heavy attack and the Guardian's Wrath portion of the bear. Not the light attack portion.

Here's the comparison:

build: Frostbite/Perf Whorl/Master and Mael Ice

(everything apart from the listed changes is the same, give or take some dps because of some lag/inconsistent weaving, name is edited out for being inappropriate, but these tests were still done by me.)


Wild Guardian (roughly around 18% of my damage):


Eternal Guardian: (roughly around 15% of my damage)


Northern Storm: (oof)

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Deep Fissure:

Pain Point reported by us: This morph is no longer used in pve because subterranean assault is more damage via more global cooldowns, way more sustain, and a better status effect leading us to a pvp and pve morph split while some of us still like deep fissure more than sub assault in pve but feel forced to use sub assault regardless of our preferences of rotation and thematics.

Perceived Pain Point:
unsure, (could we please have some clarification on what the pain point was?)

Change to combat the Pain Point:

• Added minor breach to the skill.

Problem:
Without knowing what the painpoint is which lead to this change, it's very hard to tell the whole picture. Regardless, the disparity between Deep Fissure and Subterranean Assault is a really tough problem to fix without doing a pretty big overhaul to either one of the skills, or both. Minor Breach was a really weird choice. It makes Deep Fissure even better for pvp, sure, but the problem we had with deep fissure was in the pve sphere of play, since that is where we want to be able to use it. Minor Breach really doesn't help much with pve, since penetration is usually covered for us already, so this effect just increases magden and stamden dps in pvp. This makes me think that what we reported, wasn't the focus. so clarification on why this change was made would really help out.

Suggestion:
I honestly can't come up with a legitimate suggestion here without knowing the real intent behind the change.

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Green Balance

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Corrupting Pollen:

Perceived Pain Point:
I'm assuming it's because of the morph's generally low pick-rate.

Change to combat the Pain Point:

• This morph now also applies Minor Cowardice to enemies in the area, to help it gain some viability in PvE areas.

Note:
Haven't tested this. but it's interesting. Budding is picked because it's burst is easier to control and because it also applies a small heal over time that makes accessing green balance passives easier. but I can't honestly say that i think this'll be used in either pvp or pve. Budding is a really strong option for group healers because you can reactively use the massive burst heal when you need it. corrupting doesn't have anywhere near as much control.
EDIT: Seems fairly strong. Glad that i had wrong initial impressions.

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Winter's Embrace

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(MAJOR) Northern Storm:

Pain Point reported by us: This ultimate is not powerful enough in pve and the major protection nerfs made it feel too expensive for what it does in both pve and pvp.

Perceived Pain Point:
the Ultimate isn't impactful enough across play styles.

Change to combat the Pain Point:

• This morph now grants 300 Weapon and Spell Damage for up to 30 seconds after casting, rather than up to 15% Max Magicka for 30 seconds. This should help the Ultimate be more impactful across play styles.

Problem:
I think it's fantastic that you guys also think that the ultimate isn't impactful enough across playstyles, because thats true, but I would go even further to say that the ultimate isn't impactful enough in general. Back when major protection was nerfed that felt like the case, and slowly but surely, Northern Storm has dropped in usage simply because it's just too expensive for what it does. Compared to other 200 cost ultimates, it doesn't do nearly as much damage as them, compared to other defensive ultimates(even permafrost), it's not as impactful as them and it's buff can't make up for it's other weaknesses. It's supposed to be the damage morph of sleet storm, but it just cannot perform as needed. It's much easier to use Dawnbreaker of Smiting as it deals a hefty amount of burst damage for cheap, along with stunning and dealing some damage over time. Northern is a lot more expensive, doesn't do burst very well, and it's pressure is only alright. and in pve, why would you ever think to use anything other than bear especially after the changes to Wild Guardian. The weapon and spell damage effect that was updated for the morph is fine, but it's just no-where near enough to save the ultimate from having a low usage, especially in pve.

Suggestions:

Because it's problem is that it's just too weak for it's cost, there's a ton of options that can be implemented to make the ultimate more impactful. Here's a list of options, where any one of them would be fantastic and would make the ultimate a lot more impactful in a lot more situations.

• Swap major protection for major brittle on the northern storm morph
• reduce the cost to 150 ultimate at base
• Increase the duration to 12 seconds at base
• increase the damage of each tick by a solid amount on the northern storm morph

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(MAJOR) Crystallized Slab:

(BUG AS OF WEEK 1: Re-casting this skill while it is active does not fire the projectile when the next one is absorbed. This was tested against NPCs.)

Pain Point reported by us: This morph is incredibly niche, only being useful against ranged damage dealers, while at the same time being very frustrating for them to fight against.

Perceived Pain Point:
For the masters of Ice, Wardens are lacking a lot of hard control. Without giving them something too over the top to make them even more oppressive to melee attackers, we've opted to add in a reactive ranged stun option to help deter those ranged builds that naturally kite and hound Wardens.

Change to combat the Pain Point:

• The projectile now stuns

Problem:
Yes. you're absolutely right. We're lacking hard control. We've said this for a long time. But here's the biggest problem with warden's lack of cc. (i'll explain again) what we lack is a ranged offensive stun. Something that we can control easily, is on-demand and it goes to our enemies, like old shock clench's stun or heck, even arctic blast 2.0's stun. But what we did not ask for was a reactionary stun. That is the entire problem with Arctic Blast that we've had since dragonhold, and that is the reason why we were oppresive in melee range in the first place. Zenimax, we need a ranged offensive stun, not reactionary stuns, i'm sorry if i'm being too blunt, it's just that we've reported this so many times only to see the same mistake made again.

I'll include a list of ranged offensive stuns that already exist or have existed in the game that can serve as a basis for what we need:

• Binding Javelin
• Old Shock Clench
• Arctic Blast 2.0
• Magnum Shot
• Stone Fist's 3rd cast
• Flame Clench

All of these are ranged, are targeted projectiles that travel to a target, stunning them when they hit. The good ones also dealt some burst damage.

We need that. not something that randomly ticks and then eventually stuns a target after 5 seconds, not something that relies on an enemy shooting projectiles around, not something that relies on an enemy facing you, not something that knocks an enemy out of our shalks and not something that relies on using a specific type of destruction staff. I hope that this provides a clear enough picture of what we need. Please, don't give us more reactionary stuns.

Crystallised Slab with a stun:
Finally, onto the skill itself, no, we don't need this to stun in it's current form. As explained before in the pain points, crystallized slab is a very powerful skill for a specific niche, it's very obnoxious to fight against as a projectile character ever since the damage was increased to make it viable, if this also stuns, it becomes even more oppressive, while also doing exactly nothing against melee characters which is a problem because we need a solid stun. In regards to being oppressive to melee attackers, please check the arctic blast section below.

Suggestion:
Rework this morph entirely or leave it be until you can, please remove the stun from it in the meantime.

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(MAJOR) Arctic Blast:

Pain Point reported by us: The stun is really annoying to use and fight against, the skill doesn't know what it wants to focus on, because it does everything from damage over time, healing, healing over time and stunning over time and it is the best candidate to be a really nice frost dps cloak skill for pve and pvp, but it's stuck in limbo.

Perceived Pain Point:
Right now, this ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden, allowing them to line up their burst perfectly with Scorch to remove counter play. By increasing the stack count required, there should be less of a guarantee with this combination and require more reactive play from the caster, while the increased duration of tracking helps also reduce the ease of counter play by backing off for 1 second from the Warden to completely avoid the stun.

Change to combat the Pain Point:

• This morph now requires enemies to be damaged 5 times in order to be stunned, up from 3.
• Reduced the duration of the stun to 3 seconds, down from 4.
• Increased the duration of the stack counter to 3 seconds, up from 1.

Problems:

The painpoints: this is so confusing to me, it's actually pretty hard to accurately line up the "perfect burst" if the target isn't standing still or if they stun you etc, theres already counterplay in those options because the skill is delayed, however it is still oppresive because it still feels cheap when you get stunned by it, because it wasn't a button press immediately linked to the stun, no, it was just punishing the attacker for being in melee range with an almost random stun.

I should emphasise (and I will go on a tangent here because there's a lot of interlocking reasons as to how we got to where we are today), the other reason why we are obnoxious in melee range, is because arctic blast is/ or i guess, was our primary stun. After the nerfs it has recieved again and again, it should be clear that Arctic Blast's core design is the problem. We had always used a ranged offensive stun because that was what worked best with our kit, and it was also fair to fight against, they mainly worked best with scorch, when those options were removed, suddenly we had to completely redo how we played and arctic blast was the next best thing. Except, it inherited a completely different type of stun from permafrost and it got broken healing scaling. permafrost's old function was as a lockdown ultimate, because of that, and shifting the stun to a much smaller aoe, the purpose of the stun changed from a group lockdown, to a defensive, melee stun. our class design was never about being in melee specifically all the time. it hadn't been designed that way from the gameplay. we are a mid-range class. not purely melee but definitely not purely ranged, and because of our identity anchoring skill in scorch, we are most comfortable within mid and melee range, but not locked into 1 or the other. this is why a ranged offensive stun worked so nicely with our kit, because we weren't always in melee. with the removal of the offensive ranged stuns and the addition of super powered healing on arctic blast that offset our naturally poor healing without major mending, it completely changed the gameplay of warden with 1 skill. most of us want to go back to how it was before with a ranged offensive stun and none of this obnoxious and oppressive reactionary stun stuff. Arctic Blast is the problem with our gameplay. It should not stun like it does currently.

The changes:
With these changes, Arctic Blast is definitely dead. After using it in several duels, it did nearly nothing for me except for healing, and it takes an absolute eternity to stun now, it honestly feels like the stun doesn't exist on it anymore because it takes that long. there's very little incentive to use this skill going forward.

Suggestion:

I recognise that time is of the essence now that we are in week 1, so i'll try and suggest something that probably isn't as intensive? I don't know.

I think the stuns should be completely removed from arctic blast and crystallised slab, and instead, temporarily placed on frozen retreat instead of an enemy pull and immobilise, even if only a temporary change, it's still better for the gameplay design of warden. Arctic blast's duration and ticks should be doubled in order for it to finally become a pve dps skill (we've been asking for this for more than 4 years).

However, if you are willing to hear a really outlandish suggestion that has a lot of design thought put into it, I still think that Arctic Blast 4.0 is the right move. Essentially, it adds a fun little line-moving aoe frost tornado to arctic blast in place of the burst heal, and that tornado is what stuns, along with dealing some alright burst damage and keeping that really nice frost damage aoe with doubled duration. This will turn it into both a pve damage skill that is very thematic and a pvp stun that works with the rest of the kit, to balance this, it will keep it's very high cost.



However, again, I understand that time is of the essence and you want to fix important pain points presumably with as few resources as possible.

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Expansive Frost Cloak:

Pain Point reported by us: This skill and it's morphs are boring.

Perceived Pain Point: The range on expansive frost cloak isn't enough

Change to combat the Pain Point:

• Expanded the radius of this morph to 36 meters, up from 28.

Notes: Not much to note here. Solid change for the functionality. Still boring but it does it's job.

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TL:DR:

Arctic Blast and Crystallized Slab's changes are a step in the wrong direction. These skills honestly should not function as they currently do on the the pts server. We have needed an offensive ranged class stun that we cast towards/on an enemy since Dragonhold, and instead we got yet another reactive stun that we neither asked for, nor needed.

Wild Guardian is massively overtuned because it applies hemo every single damage tick and there is now very little incentive to ever pick eternal guardian, completely reversing the problem.
Northern Storm's change is no-where near enough to help the skill out of the hole it's currently in.
I don't know what's going on with Deep Fissure.

EDIT:

Arctic Blast and Crys slab in a duel, being more of a hinderance to me than a help because they dish out free cc immunity and cannot be reliably controlled due to their design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE2jiHm_u88

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I have been writing this for over 6 hours with few breaks. I apologise if this is messy, i'm going to comb through it and try to fix any issues i find.

fred4

When I saw the warden changes, I thought they were a joke. The class, or more specifically magden, is already bottom tier in PvP. From my point of view:

• Deep Fissure: Buffed, but does not address the class' core issues. OK, so magden (warden) will do more damage, but that's all it was ever able to do. Pressure alone doesn't kill people. (Delayed) burst and CCs do. EDIT: Yes, Deep Fissure is delayed burst, but it's also predictable and you combine it with what? Dawnbreaker of Smiting? Dizzying Swing? Executioner? Oops. You're a stamden or a hybrid now.
• Northern Storm: A hard nerf to my playstyle. Yes, most people prefer building for weapon / spell damage. I still build for magicka and big shields. Not that I play my magden often, but whenever I do, I still find high magicka the best option. I had 30 seconds of up to 60K magicka and the consequent big Dampen shield with this. 300 weapon / spell damage does not compare. A hard nerf to my warden, though your mileage may vary.
• Arctic Blast: Nerfed for no reason. Constant CC may be annoying to fight against, but it kills no one, because it's uncontrolled and randomly gives targets CC immunity when you don't want that to happen.
• Crystallized Slab: That's also a nerf. You don't want to give people CC immunity when they attack you. You need to CC people when YOU decide, not when THEY decide. Sure, there is a defensive element to this, as there is to Arctic Blast. It may stop bow gankers. I would argue that defense is not magden's issue. Offense is.
• Expansive Frost Cloak: The problem with the warden's armor buff skill in PvP is that every single build on every single class already has that buff. It's a staple of every PvP build and the other classes get far better secondary buffs with their version of the skill. DK: 12% increased healing. Templar: A shtload of sustain. Nightblade: It just happens. Sorc: Speed, AOE damage and NB detection (magsorcs seem to still do it, not 100% sure). The other morph at least gives warden Minor Protection, but that is not a very unique nor powerful buff. Frost Cloak - the big AOE morph - does exactly nothing in PvP, regardless of how much reach it has. It always seemed like a PvE trial morph to me, but I don't know much about trials. If it included Minor Resolve as well, that might be something.

Xandreia_

at this point they are just changing things for the sake of changing things, warden is in a nice spot right now, everything seems to be well balanced, a few patches ago you couldn't get a warden to deal damage, it felt so lacklustre and almost ruined, all it had going for it was perm and toughness, this previous update brought it back to what it should be. if it does go back to being useless its going to be really sad

fred4

Of course the problems with warden run deep and IMO date back all the way to the introduction of the class. I remember it well. Everyone complained that warden had access to every buff under the sun. There were fears this was OP. No one considered the opportunity costs of the skills and whether those skills played well. For PvP ZOS' insistence of attaching the execute to an NPC - the bear - with it's typically shambolic AI was strike one against the class. Not having a straightforward, player-controlled CC was another and, arguably, the lack of a gap closer at a time when gap closers were neither bugged nor nerfed with a cast delay (?) was another.

Of course the heart of the issue is that there are only so many things that play well in PvP, and the things that do had already been divvied up among the four original classes, perhaps. You could argue warden has unique gap closer mechanics with (a) the healing latch skill and (b) the teleportation rune, but ... no. In an ever faster meta, those skills are (a) a healer skill and (b) far too clunky. You need immediate and responsive skills in PvP, now more than ever, because of the sheer amount of ground PvPers cover in a single second. I've said it before, but Falcon's Swiftness without root/snare removal is nothing. I will pick RAT every time, which I can of course do, but which poses questions for warden's class identity. I suppose they are a healer class at heart, but that's me saying so after the fact. Warden was, in fact, the first class that was designed to be universal with a clearly demarcated DD, healer and tank skill line.

I'm not a class designer, but neither IMO was the team that designed warden. Their design seemed very much a question of, OK, we got the Major / Minor System now, let's cobble together a class by distributing buffs randomly among skills. That's harsh and not entirely fair, I know, but the class plays like an accountant. You have to keep your buffs up and you have not much else to do, because the class lacks good situational skills. Yes, we have some. Clearly Deep Fissure was designed with PvP in mind and I think Living Trellis is a skill that plays well. The latter pays heed to barspace as it works as an ongoing heal, a (small) burst heal and a friendly heal. In general, though, warden (magden) has a drought of skills that are engaging, fun and effective.

WrathOfInnos

I don't like the Deep Fissure change, but it seems to be directed at PvP damage or PvE tanks (AoE minor breach is not entirely useless).

The bear morph choices now seem to be "more damage" vs "resurrecting", but in all PvE content the resurrecting feature does nothing. Maybe just remove that feature and let both bears deal roughly equal damage, possibly with each applying a different status effect.

Cliff Racer needs attention more than anything else IMO. A magden can sustain Sub Assault every 6s, and has no real issue using Wild Guardian, but they cannot use Cutting Dive as a spammable without building stamina or going medium armor. Screaming Cliff Racer remains one of the weakest spammables in the game, performing worse than generic options like Elemental Weapon. It's basically the damage of Swallow Soul, with a long delay, no heal, and worse passives for slotting.

fred4

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I don't like the Deep Fissure change, but it seems to be directed at PvP damage or PvE tanks (AoE minor breach is not entirely useless).

The bear morph choices now seem to be "more damage" vs "resurrecting", but in all PvE content the resurrecting feature does nothing. Maybe just remove that feature and let both bears deal roughly equal damage, possibly with each applying a different status effect.

Cliff Racer needs attention more than anything else IMO. A magden can sustain Sub Assault every 6s, and has no real issue using Wild Guardian, but they cannot use Cutting Dive as a spammable without building stamina or going medium armor. Screaming Cliff Racer remains one of the weakest spammables in the game, performing worse than generic options like Elemental Weapon. It's basically the damage of Swallow Soul, with a long delay, no heal, and worse passives for slotting.

You may have read my opinions on magden, which are pretty negative. Nonetheless I want to play devil's advocate for a second. I'm toying with a warden along the lines of building for 50K+ magicka for the big Dampen shield, but using Crunchy Spider Skewers and stamina skills. Necropotence, Fete, 2x Trainee, Domihaus, Swarm Mother, arena weapon, Inner Light. Mixed armor, 1x heavy, 3x light, 3x medium. Will it work? Will it still be a magden? I don't know.

Tannus15

While I agree on a lot of points, I feel I should point out that the warden isn't in a worse place this update. The wild guardian was intended to do more damage, it's in the description and that's blatently untrue on live. In PTS wild guardian is more damage, ok cool. Yes it's boring and now eternal guardian will never be used by anyone, but ok, at least people will use the right morph now.

From a PvE perspective there are only buffs here. No one is being helped here by hyperbole claiming that the sky is falling on wardens because they are getting some buffs. Warden dps, both stam and mag and frost is still in a good place on PTS.

You're far better off focusing on warden's weak areas, particularly on demand CC in PvP.

SEINTDARKNES

I really hope they do something as little changing the damage elements of magicka damage skills and bear ultimate to frost damage because right now sets like frostbite or ysgramor's birthright don't have almost nothing to buff doesn't make sense because dks have sets like:

Encrati's behemoth
Silks of the sun
Elf bane

And some monster set that can be buffed by these sets meanwhile frostbite and ysgramor's birthright only buff skills and we don't have a lot of them.

Corrupting pollen
Like is already said it's a really meh buff and almost nobody will pick it, i would like they try another more interesting effect and i want to say i hope they fix the healing seed skill in general because when you are running and press de skill you stop running but in some cases only appear the circle where it will be place in the ground but doesn't place it until like 3-4 seconds later and for a bust healing that's pretty bad.

Wild Guardian
The stamina morph will be better 100% of the time, so maybe we can get a burst ultimate in the other morph please )??
If not we can change the element of his damage to frost and put an additional thing?

Expansive frost cloak
I think the buff to this skills is just bad because in previous patches they increased the area of effect so this change isn't charging really nothing, i hope the can add some new effect on top of the radius.

Northern Storm
I have really some problems with this ultimate isn't cheap and doesn't have enough damage for both pve an pvp

Pvp:
The cost isn't much of a problem in this area but the damage it is, with all the cross healings and exceptional high healing the enemy can stand inside the AOE and live like nothing on top of that we don't have a stun on demand so we cannot use it a little better, the 300 weapon and spell dmg is good but nothing special nobody will use it because will give you 300 of dmg it wil be pick because does more dmg than permafrost, will be the same thing as dawnbreaker but we don't have a better version of northern storm like dawnbreaker of smithing.

Pve:
Here is when the low damage factor and the high cost ultimate doesn't make it feel worth it because we have betters ultimates that do more dmg and cost less so i don't think people would use it unless they change a lot of this ultimate.

Deep Fissure
Like i say earlier if the change the damage to frost it will be more appealing to people, i kinda like the change but kinda not because it's really good for pvp but really bad for pve, if you make the enemies drop some armor you will make more dmg but in pve that part is covered by the tank so i think it need a little more of love because right now subterranean assault is better because you don't need to cast again making rotations more easy.

Crystallized Slab
I think the buff to this skills is just bad, because we need a stun on demand no giving free cc immunity to everyone, if i give cc immunity's to my enemies when my teammates try to stun someone they will have to wait to stun someone making flights slower than ever, this is pretty bad in pvp because we have a lot of healing and cross healings and in the patch notes they nerf dmg and armor Cps but not healing Cps, right now the only way to down a player is with burst so i think this change only will have problems for wardens and for teammates and i never hear any warden saying a thing of range enemies this change is really weird.

Arctic Blast
Wow this is just wow, this skill is already bad if you are using it for the stun, this is like throwing some dices sometimes you win sometimes you don't, with this skill you have more chances to fail like 70-80% of the time, i think the change is really bad because if needed 3 times to stun was awful needed 5 times is worst i think the change @ESO_Nightingale it's on point.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

only always apply from the bear's casted heavy attack and the Guardian's Wrath porti

Suggestion:
However, if you are willing to hear a really outlandish suggestion that has a lot of design thought put into it, I still think that Arctic Blast 4.0 is the right move. Essentially, it adds a fun little line-moving aoe frost tornado to arctic blast in place of the burst heal, and that tornado is what stuns, along with dealing some alright burst damage and keeping that really nice frost damage aoe with doubled duration. This will turn it into both a pve damage skill that is very thematic and a pvp stun that works with the rest of the kit, to balance this, it will keep it's very high cost.

I don't want to sound rude or anything but i really don't know if any devs play warden to say something like artic blast stun is overpowered or stacks perfectly with shalks, patch after patch i only see fixes for warden meanwhile other classes get nice and fun things, classes already powerful get boosted and warden if is not a fix is a nerf rarely we got some form of love, already the class is very predecible and takes more skill than other classes so i don't get it but i don't want to rant so moving on, here are another skills/morphs you can give some love:

Dive both morphs
They feel really slow and the effects add little to nothing special, they feel boring spameables.

Betty netch
Both morphs (doesn't have any unique effect it supposed to be in the past having major sorcery and brutality but it's not unique no more).

Deceptive predator
I don't think minor evasion is enough for a tank and major expedition neither.

Nature's grasp both morphs
This skills feel very slow and clunky at times it really don't make anything special for healers maybe a rework could help here.

Frozen device
This is the worst pull hability of the game, only make that the portals pulls enemies when you press the button and could be really nice if you could pull a pack of enemies at the same time.

Frozen retreat
Maybe the worst skill in the game and probably the less used in the game, i think it need a complete rework, maybe can be converted to a dps frost skill, we lacking a lot of them to make a truly frost dps.

Thanks for reading and an apology for my english isn't my born language.

WildRaptorX

As a main Stam warden who does PVP and PVE, this post makes so much sense. I learnt a lot and agree with you.

Thanks for putting the class into perspective for me!

ArchMikem

Every time people talk about Arctic Blast they always want it kept as a utility somehow. I am so desperate for some good DPS on my Ice Mage themed Magden.

MudcrabAttack

SEINTDARKNES wrote: »

Wild Guardian
The stamina morph will be better 100% of the time, so maybe we can get a burst ultimate in the other morph please )??
If not we can change the element of his damage to frost and put an additional thing?

A frost bear sounds interesting, or maybe it applies chilled status or magicka steal status or minor maim

GetAgrippa

I can't wait to get stunned when I light attack a warden.

I have to agree with you 1000% on the slab stun. It's silly and it's not going to help offensively at all. All you'll be doing is handing out free CC immunity to staff users.

Also, how unimaginative do you have to be to just add minor breach to Deep Fissure. Yes the skill needs a buff but surely they can think of something better than just tacking on minor breach to it. Is there any other skill or set in the game that does that? Major and minor debuff of the same type? And why isn't it frost damage yet?

Aldoss

As a PvPer who swapped to magden for this patch, seeing the nerf to Arctic was a huge let down. I don't even know what to say to the developer comment:

"Right now, this ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden, allowing them to line up their burst perfectly with Scorch to remove counter play."

Wardens have very little control over the stun of Arctic. It's easy to understand in a 1v1 situation, but the moment you're in a pack, this skill dishes out cc immunity left and right and typically not on the target you want at the time that you want.

"...line up their burst perfectly with scorch to remove counter play."

Do the devs not realize that dks have fossilize that allow them to hit a defenseless target with a 3x molten? Do they not realize that they gave plars a ranged unblockable stun that allows them to hit a defenseless target with backlash or meteor? Sorcs have a ranged unblockable stun that let's them hit any one of their bursty skills. Nightblades have several on demand stuns that help them line up burst. Necros might be the only other class that has an uncontrollable stun, yet, over the last few patches have benefitted greatly from sets like Rush of Agony and Dark Convergence that give them the controlled burst they've been lacking.

Wardens are clearly forgotten in this meta and the proposed change is only further pushing us (magdens more so than stamdens) into the dirt.

Arctic Blast doesn't need more nerfs. It needs to be redesigned. It's a terrible burst heal, a pitiful heal over time, and too expensive for the cast time to be a useful damage over time.

If this change is not reversed then it likely won't get bar space anymore which seems tragic.

SEINTDARKNES

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

SEINTDARKNES wrote: »

Wild Guardian
The stamina morph will be better 100% of the time, so maybe we can get a burst ultimate in the other morph please )??
If not we can change the element of his damage to frost and put an additional thing?

A frost bear sounds interesting, or maybe it applies chilled status or magicka steal status or minor maim

Already can apply magicka steals because deal magic damage but yeah i think at least a rework of the damage type and some sort of buff could be nice!

SEINTDARKNES

Aldoss wrote: »

As a PvPer who swapped to magden for this patch, seeing the nerf to Arctic was a huge let down. I don't even know what to say to the developer comment:

"Right now, this ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden, allowing them to line up their burst perfectly with Scorch to remove counter play."

Wardens have very little control over the stun of Arctic. It's easy to understand in a 1v1 situation, but the moment you're in a pack, this skill dishes out cc immunity left and right and typically not on the target you want at the time that you want.

"...line up their burst perfectly with scorch to remove counter play."

Do the devs not realize that dks have fossilize that allow them to hit a defenseless target with a 3x molten? Do they not realize that they gave plars a ranged unblockable stun that allows them to hit a defenseless target with backlash or meteor? Sorcs have a ranged unblockable stun that let's them hit any one of their bursty skills. Nightblades have several on demand stuns that help them line up burst. Necros might be the only other class that has an uncontrollable stun, yet, over the last few patches have benefitted greatly from sets like Rush of Agony and Dark Convergence that give them the controlled burst they've been lacking.

Wardens are clearly forgotten in this meta and the proposed change is only further pushing us (magdens more so than stamdens) into the dirt.

Arctic Blast doesn't need more nerfs. It needs to be redesigned. It's a terrible burst heal, a pitiful heal over time, and too expensive for the cast time to be a useful damage over time.

If this change is not reversed then it likely won't get bar space anymore which seems tragic.

Yeah all the clases have some sort of a stun on demand, necros with the change to scythe will have a stun too, so warden are left in the dust xD

Eormenric

Always love reading about you input on Frost Warden, @ESO_Nightingale. I agree with everything you've written.

While I'm not the most active in Warden affairs, I've known these suggestions being present for some time. For the developers to STILL not approach you or the Frost Discord with feedback is appalling. It is clear that IF they are taking feedback, it is not their priority. Their priority seems to be something else--something it seems either of us, and others, do not understand. Poor communication, poor feedback reception, thus outputting a poor design for this class.

Doesn't this game have Class Contributors of some kind? Maybe they need 1-2 go-to people for each Skill Tree instead?

Eira_Rosynhwyr

I think the comments regarding Arctic Wind greatly miss the point that it's a tanking skill, and not a DPS skill. I go into more detail about that in a dedicated post, with a tl;dr of: Arctic Blast on Live is bad. Arctic Blast on PTS is slightly worse. The devs are right that something needs to change, but missed the mark in changing it. I suggest replacing the hard CC with soft CC that stacks with existing soft CC and adding in chilled for the damage utility (which is sorely needed). this allows the skill to retain its identity as a tank skill while also being more managable by all players in both PvP and PvE, foe and friend alike.

I wouldn't call the issue with the bear "major". It's replacing one problem with another, which isn't major, it's just not that much better. At least it's an overall buff to Warden DPS.

I otherwise agree. My personal preference would be to change the Eternal Guardian to a Polar Bear that deals frost damage and applies Chilled.

As for splitting PvP and PvE abilities... that would be ideal, but I don't see them doing it. As an FF14 vet, I find the current way balancing the two is handled to be baffling.

SEINTDARKNES

Eira_Rosynhwyr wrote: »

I think the comments regarding Arctic Wind greatly miss the point that it's a tanking skill, and not a DPS skill. I go into more detail about that in a dedicated post, with a tl;dr of: Arctic Blast on Live is bad. Arctic Blast on PTS is slightly worse. The devs are right that something needs to change, but missed the mark in changing it. I suggest replacing the hard CC with soft CC and adding in chilled for the damage utility (which is sorely needed). this allows the skill to retain its identity as a tank skill while also being more managable by all players in both PvP and PvE, foe and friend alike.

I wouldn't call the issue with the bear "major". It's replacing one problem with another, which isn't major, it's just not that much better. At least it's an overall buff to Warden DPS.

I otherwise agree. My personal preference would be to change the Eternal Guardian to a Polar Bear that deals frost damage and applies Chilled.

As for splitting PvP and PvE abilities... that would be ideal, but I don't see them doing it. As an FF14 vet, I find the current way balancing the two is handled to be baffling.

Tanks already have a soft cc with gripping shards and applied chilled too so i don't think your suggestions are in some form good

Eira_Rosynhwyr

SEINTDARKNES wrote: »

Eira_Rosynhwyr wrote: »

I think the comments regarding Arctic Wind greatly miss the point that it's a tanking skill, and not a DPS skill. I go into more detail about that in a dedicated post, with a tl;dr of: Arctic Blast on Live is bad. Arctic Blast on PTS is slightly worse. The devs are right that something needs to change, but missed the mark in changing it. I suggest replacing the hard CC with soft CC and adding in chilled for the damage utility (which is sorely needed). this allows the skill to retain its identity as a tank skill while also being more managable by all players in both PvP and PvE, foe and friend alike.

I wouldn't call the issue with the bear "major". It's replacing one problem with another, which isn't major, it's just not that much better. At least it's an overall buff to Warden DPS.

I otherwise agree. My personal preference would be to change the Eternal Guardian to a Polar Bear that deals frost damage and applies Chilled.

As for splitting PvP and PvE abilities... that would be ideal, but I don't see them doing it. As an FF14 vet, I find the current way balancing the two is handled to be baffling.

Tanks already have a soft cc with gripping shards and applied chilled too so i don't think your suggestions are in some form good

What would you suggest in it's place? The current hard CC is a problem as stated by a number of people, not just me and the devs. My solution is "if hard CC is a problem remove it and put in its place a soft CC that stacks with the existing soft CC". It's not perfect, but I'll take less imperfect over what we have.

FoolishOptimist

I wonder if Corrupting Pollen should get the Ritual of Retribution treatment. Remove the HoT and add a (?Poison) DoT while keeping the synergy heal and Defile for use in PvP.

A clear choice between damage and healing and let’s you evoke those frustratingly deadly Venomcallers from Maelstrom Arena.

Eira_Rosynhwyr

FoolishOptimist wrote: »

I wonder if Corrupting Pollen should get the Ritual of Retribution treatment. Remove the HoT and add a (?Poison) DoT while keeping the synergy heal and Defile for use in PvP.

A clear choice between damage and healing and let’s you evoke those frustratingly deadly Venomcallers from Maelstrom Arena.

I like that idea!

SEINTDARKNES

What would you suggest in it's place? The current hard CC is a problem as stated by a number of people, not just me and the devs. My solution is "if hard CC is a problem remove it and put in its place a soft CC that stacks with the existing soft CC". It's not perfect, but I'll take less imperfect over what we have.

Yes the hard cc is a problem for a lot of ppl but that is because the cc is really bad that bad that i think is the worst in the entire game so making the skill to be a stun on demand would be 100% better, they can drop the healings and keep some form of damage.

I really like the option that op write in this post, i really think we need a stun and artic blast have really no much utility for tanks, if tanks want a heal can use polar wind and make the other morph a stun on demand, the skill morph is there for some change maybe is an utility skill line but in the past dks where puré tanks and with time devs change their skills and now dks can heal or do dps so i dont see te problem to change this morph to be a stun or stun with some damage for dps utility.

Also want to say that we have 2 passives for dps and 2 passives for tanking so im in changing this morph

Eira_Rosynhwyr

SEINTDARKNES wrote: »

What would you suggest in it's place? The current hard CC is a problem as stated by a number of people, not just me and the devs. My solution is "if hard CC is a problem remove it and put in its place a soft CC that stacks with the existing soft CC". It's not perfect, but I'll take less imperfect over what we have.

Yes the hard cc is a problem for a lot of ppl but that is because the cc is really bad that bad that i think is the worst in the entire game so making the skill to be a stun on demand would be 100% better, they can drop the healings and keep some form of damage.

I really like the option that op write in this post, i really think we need a stun and artic blast have really no much utility for tanks, if tanks want a heal can use polar wind and make the other morph a stun on demand, the skill morph is there for some change maybe is an utility skill line but in the past dks where puré tanks and with time devs change their skills and now dks can heal or do dps so i dont see te problem to change this morph to be a stun or stun with some damage for dps utility.

Also want to say that we have 2 passives for dps and 2 passives for tanking so im in changing this morph

I personally wouldn't mind the change the OP suggested. As mentioned elsewhere, I'm not a tank, so making it more of a DPS skill is a boon to me. I just worry the devs won't go for something like that. Kind of like suggestions to have two sets of skills: one for PvE and PvP. That's what's done in FF14 to great effect, and it would be great here too, but I just don't think the ESO devs would ever do that.

I should probably make it clear in the other thread that I don't actually want the skill to remain tank-focused. I want it to change in a positive direction, and I just don't think a move towards DPS-focused would be listened to by the devs.

LeHarrt91

Well written and thought out. Some of the changes were a bit odd to see, and doesn't really help Wardens weak points.

Arctic Blast is in a really weird spot. As the only Class Stun, a DPS has to sacrifice to much to increase your health to get a semi-ok heal out of it, and the damage is not enough to warrant its cost and duration. I can understand that it may be intended as a tank skill but there are 2 morphs, can shift the aoe delayed stun to Polar. Make Arctic a Single Target on demand offensive Stun, with decent damage.

The Stun on Slab was again... odd. Another defensive stun we didnt want. I use Slab over Shimmering because i like the damage and it warms my heart to see snipers panic when they get hit. Yes this was the underused morph but not the change it should have gotten.

Frozen Gate. This is a skill that we would also like to see an updated morph of.

The Bear change is fine, its already been said that we will just change morphs and Eternal will not be used. A suggestion thats been made countless times is that make one morph single bar, now seems like a good opportunity to do that. or add something interesting (Polar Bear perhaps) but in PVE bear is still a requirement for high dps.

Northern needs more to be worth it, the cost does not justify the damage and major protection was reduced to have no impact on this skill. The suggestions made would be ideal, reduce cost, increase duration, increase damage, add a hurricane style damage increase per tick. Make us want to use this ultimate in pve.

ESO_Nightingale

Tannus15 wrote: »

While I agree on a lot of points, I feel I should point out that the warden isn't in a worse place this update. The wild guardian was intended to do more damage, it's in the description and that's blatently untrue on live. In PTS wild guardian is more damage, ok cool. Yes it's boring and now eternal guardian will never be used by anyone, but ok, at least people will use the right morph now.

From a PvE perspective there are only buffs here. No one is being helped here by hyperbole claiming that the sky is falling on wardens because they are getting some buffs. Warden dps, both stam and mag and frost is still in a good place on PTS.

You're far better off focusing on warden's weak areas, particularly on demand CC in PvP.

Yeah, the most important thing this patch is the focus on pvp because the stun situation there just got so much worse for everyone. pve is mostly fine, but in that field, wild guardian is just doing too much.

ESO_Nightingale

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

Well written and thought out. Some of the changes were a bit odd to see, and doesn't really help Wardens weak points.

Arctic Blast is in a really weird spot. As the only Class Stun, a DPS has to sacrifice to much to increase your health to get a semi-ok heal out of it, and the damage is not enough to warrant its cost and duration. I can understand that it may be intended as a tank skill but there are 2 morphs, can shift the aoe delayed stun to Polar. Make Arctic a Single Target on demand offensive Stun, with decent damage.

The Stun on Slab was again... odd. Another defensive stun we didnt want. I use Slab over Shimmering because i like the damage and it warms my heart to see snipers panic when they get hit. Yes this was the underused morph but not the change it should have gotten.

Frozen Gate. This is a skill that we would also like to see an updated morph of.

The Bear change is fine, its already been said that we will just change morphs and Eternal will not be used. A suggestion thats been made countless times is that make one morph single bar, now seems like a good opportunity to do that. or add something interesting (Polar Bear perhaps) but in PVE bear is still a requirement for high dps.

Northern needs more to be worth it, the cost does not justify the damage and major protection was reduced to have no impact on this skill. The suggestions made would be ideal, reduce cost, increase duration, increase damage, add a hurricane style damage increase per tick. Make us want to use this ultimate in pve.

yeah it's geniunely confusing to see these winter's embrace changes be implemented so..... badly. the changes don't address the issues properly whatsoever.

ESO_Nightingale

Eormenric wrote: »

Always love reading about you input on Frost Warden, @ESO_Nightingale. I agree with everything you've written.

While I'm not the most active in Warden affairs, I've known these suggestions being present for some time. For the developers to STILL not approach you or the Frost Discord with feedback is appalling. It is clear that IF they are taking feedback, it is not their priority. Their priority seems to be something else--something it seems either of us, and others, do not understand. Poor communication, poor feedback reception, thus outputting a poor design for this class.

Doesn't this game have Class Contributors of some kind? Maybe they need 1-2 go-to people for each Skill Tree instead?

thanks for the support @Eormenric . It's just unfortunate that posts like this are really necessary.

ESO_Nightingale

Eira_Rosynhwyr wrote: »

I think the comments regarding Arctic Wind greatly miss the point that it's a tanking skill, and not a DPS skill. I go into more detail about that in a dedicated post, with a tl;dr of: Arctic Blast on Live is bad. Arctic Blast on PTS is slightly worse. The devs are right that something needs to change, but missed the mark in changing it. I suggest replacing the hard CC with soft CC that stacks with existing soft CC and adding in chilled for the damage utility (which is sorely needed). this allows the skill to retain its identity as a tank skill while also being more managable by all players in both PvP and PvE, foe and friend alike.

I wouldn't call the issue with the bear "major". It's replacing one problem with another, which isn't major, it's just not that much better. At least it's an overall buff to Warden DPS.

I otherwise agree. My personal preference would be to change the Eternal Guardian to a Polar Bear that deals frost damage and applies Chilled.

As for splitting PvP and PvE abilities... that would be ideal, but I don't see them doing it. As an FF14 vet, I find the current way balancing the two is handled to be baffling.

arctic blast isn't used by tanks, and it doesn't need to be. pve tanks all use polar wind which is fine, arctic blast is supposed to act as a pvp stun, but it wasn't the right type of stun that best fit the warden gameplay in the firstplace. it's not currently a DPS skill, but i would argue, why shouldn't it be? again, tanks use polar wind. that's fine, but arctic blast keeps trying to hold onto being a tank skill when it should just let it go and become a damage morph. we've been asking for a new frost damage dealer skill on warden for more than 4 years and arctic blast is so close to becoming one. We're at a point where arctic blast is recieving changes once again, which is why i brought that up, because now is the best time for it to change when it's clear to everyone that it's current design just doesn't work well for balance.

LeHarrt91

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Eira_Rosynhwyr wrote: »

I think the comments regarding Arctic Wind greatly miss the point that it's a tanking skill, and not a DPS skill. I go into more detail about that in a dedicated post, with a tl;dr of: Arctic Blast on Live is bad. Arctic Blast on PTS is slightly worse. The devs are right that something needs to change, but missed the mark in changing it. I suggest replacing the hard CC with soft CC that stacks with existing soft CC and adding in chilled for the damage utility (which is sorely needed). this allows the skill to retain its identity as a tank skill while also being more managable by all players in both PvP and PvE, foe and friend alike.

I wouldn't call the issue with the bear "major". It's replacing one problem with another, which isn't major, it's just not that much better. At least it's an overall buff to Warden DPS.

I otherwise agree. My personal preference would be to change the Eternal Guardian to a Polar Bear that deals frost damage and applies Chilled.

As for splitting PvP and PvE abilities... that would be ideal, but I don't see them doing it. As an FF14 vet, I find the current way balancing the two is handled to be baffling.

arctic blast isn't used by tanks, and it doesn't need to be. pve tanks all use polar wind which is fine, arctic blast is supposed to act as a pvp stun, but it wasn't the right type of stun that best fit the warden gameplay in the firstplace. it's not currently a DPS skill, but i would argue, why shouldn't it be? again, tanks use polar wind. that's fine, but arctic blast keeps trying to hold onto being a tank skill when it should just let it go and become a damage morph. we've been asking for a new frost damage dealer skill on warden for more than 4 years and arctic blast is so close to becoming one. We're at a point where arctic blast is recieving changes once again, which is why i brought that up, because now is the best time for it to change when it's clear to everyone that it's current design just doesn't work well for balance.

Yeah they definitely need to decide its use and go 100% on that, its trying to do to much and ends up doing nothing well.

ESO_Nightingale

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Eira_Rosynhwyr wrote: »

I think the comments regarding Arctic Wind greatly miss the point that it's a tanking skill, and not a DPS skill. I go into more detail about that in a dedicated post, with a tl;dr of: Arctic Blast on Live is bad. Arctic Blast on PTS is slightly worse. The devs are right that something needs to change, but missed the mark in changing it. I suggest replacing the hard CC with soft CC that stacks with existing soft CC and adding in chilled for the damage utility (which is sorely needed). this allows the skill to retain its identity as a tank skill while also being more managable by all players in both PvP and PvE, foe and friend alike.

I wouldn't call the issue with the bear "major". It's replacing one problem with another, which isn't major, it's just not that much better. At least it's an overall buff to Warden DPS.

I otherwise agree. My personal preference would be to change the Eternal Guardian to a Polar Bear that deals frost damage and applies Chilled.

As for splitting PvP and PvE abilities... that would be ideal, but I don't see them doing it. As an FF14 vet, I find the current way balancing the two is handled to be baffling.

arctic blast isn't used by tanks, and it doesn't need to be. pve tanks all use polar wind which is fine, arctic blast is supposed to act as a pvp stun, but it wasn't the right type of stun that best fit the warden gameplay in the firstplace. it's not currently a DPS skill, but i would argue, why shouldn't it be? again, tanks use polar wind. that's fine, but arctic blast keeps trying to hold onto being a tank skill when it should just let it go and become a damage morph. we've been asking for a new frost damage dealer skill on warden for more than 4 years and arctic blast is so close to becoming one. We're at a point where arctic blast is recieving changes once again, which is why i brought that up, because now is the best time for it to change when it's clear to everyone that it's current design just doesn't work well for balance.

Yeah they definitely need to decide its use and go 100% on that, its trying to do to much and ends up doing nothing well.

the other issue is that they may try to go full in on the delayed reactionary melee style of stun which again. isn't what we asked for or need. they need to focus on giving warden an on demand, ranged offensive stun, and it would be so awesome if they made arctic blast into a solid skill that could be used by pve dps as well.

Skullstachio

There is a potential way to touchup on the eternal guardians defensive properties.
Instead of respawning on a 1 minute cooldown whenever the bear is killed, Try this:

• Rouse a grizzly to fight by your side. The grizzly swipes an enemy, dealing X Magic Damage, and sometimes swipes all enemies in front of it, dealing X Magic Damage and stunning them for 2 seconds. Once summoned you can activate Guardian's Wrath for 75 Ultimate, causing the grizzly to maul an enemy for X Magic Damage. Deals 100% more damage to enemies below 25% Health. The grizzly respawns when killed, consuming 75 ultimate and adding a stack of Receding Eternity, increasing the ultimate cost of the next respawn by +100%. Receding eternity is refreshed with an additional stack with each respawn and all stacks are removed completely after 1 minute has passed or the bear is killed and there is not enough ultimate to be consumed.

Thoughts? (I put the idea in bold.)

As for the rest of the OP, I do agree with a lot of what was written but I can’t say too much as I would not know how to approach a proper solution for each and every one of them (except the bear as I love the bear.)

With the morphs for feral guardian, I know animal companions is supposed to be focused on DPS while Winters embrace is tank and green balance is healing according to the original concept prior to the release of morrowind. (Just my thoughts.) DPS from wild guardian in PTS is on par with eternal guardian “with Piercing cold” we both know this, but my guess is even though wild guardian has higher damage compared to EG and that it does not have the resurrection mechanic which is where eternal guardian comes in, I think it is because the rez mechanic of EG might not have as much impact to warrant its use as a good choice.

Simply put DPS wise, Wild guardian has great Burst DPS potential with the added Hemorrhaging status proc, but Eternal guardians rez mechanic may need a touchup to make 'em a viable choice for “Sustained DPS” to have eternal guardian keep damaging targets through thick and thin without having to worry too much about re-summoning it upon death.