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

MashmalloMan

This is just my general mentality, but they should completely abandon morph choices being related to dps or utility, it's killing PVE diversity with the hybrid skill choices making only 1 option the right option.

Objectively, every DPS Warden should and will do Stam Shalks(more dps), Stam Bear(more dps), Cliff Racer(more dps), Winters Revenge, and Mag Flies(more dps). The only real morph choice in favour of mag is flies as Winters Revenge isn't a decision based on morph.

Honestly the bear does too much DPS as is and shoehorns every Warden DPS into using it for pve. This is only going to get worse with the buffs to Stam Bear. Northern Storm could become the best damage ultimate in the game if it was on any other class, but because Bear accounts for over 10-15% of your DPS, you will always be forced to use it. I've seen parses drop by 10-13k running Northern Storm over bear.

It's a similar problem Sorc has in that they're now locked to pets when we use to be able to do entirely no pet builds for similar or just a small decrease in DPS. The issue isn't as large as Warden because they've got a really large offensive kit to choose from, but it's a problem nonetheless.

You say.. "Well just don't use it then, play as you want." Well the problem with that is the entire classes DPS potential at the high end is based around 1 number, your total DPS.

If you have most of your DPS come from 1 source, like the Bear, you've effectively nerfed the class for other area's of the game. Eg. They look at the DPS ceiling for Wardens and they say "well they're fine, they're competing well with other classes." Except, remove the bear from the equation and where are you at?

Look at DK and Templar (both top tier in pvp), they change almost nothing about their skill choices when they move from PVE to PVP and as a result, their high end ceiling DPS translates over very well 1:1. Without Winters Revenge and Bear, both of which are some of the strongest PVE skills in the game compared to similar skills, they lose like 20-30%+ of their damage.

Detach damage from morph choices, make both of them utility decisions.

ESO_Nightingale

Skullstachio wrote: »

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.

The immediate problem i see with that suggestion is that you'll never get the claw ultimate off because it'll constantly be consuming the ultimate to respawn the bear. I don't think this suggestion works. The bear is fairly easy to kill if focused. If you want the bear to be more consistent in not dying/consistency in being alive, i think the way to do it is to just standardise the cast time of the morph to be the same as other pets. in order to see it have a use in pvp, you need a way to get around it's awful AI, and to make it more consistent in some form.

In terms of the whole "winter's embrace is the tank line" discussion, it's probably not very healthy to think of it purely in that way, the way that the builds for tanks and supports work doesn't require for every morph in the line to be specifically for that type of gameplay, especially not for tanks, not every single morph of a skill in this line is for tanking, and in the 1 situation where that is the case, it's blatantly obvious that both morphs being for tanking doesn't work (frozen gate). In order to make every single morph useful, each one needs to be good enough in a type of niche to see use.

Grizzbeorn

So, yet ANOTHER instance of PvE getting dumped on because of PvP issues.

This is getting so tiresome.

Ingram

I have used the Bear Ult for pvp for 4 years now despite all its multitude of issues with ai pathing, having to double bar the ult, the constant misses on the execute, and in many many many cases the ult just not going off. Universally this ult is considered to be one of the worst performing and least fun ults in the game I myself 4 years ago thought that and even after 4 years of only using the bear ult on warden find that its still a frustrating mess at its worst and a challenge to overcome at its best. I could go on and on about how poor the AI handles non PVE fights but that is neither here nor now but I can offer a Pvpers insight into the bear ult changes as I am probably one of the few players that have stuck around to use it. I can confidently say having tried both morphs and swapping between the two on my stamden that the free revive that the eternal guardian gets is worthless. Is it conveniant in a duel when your enemy targets the bear and it comes back for free once sure, does it play a vital role in how I play the game no. We already know in PVE the morph is useless. In PvP the morph is also normally useless as either the enemy player ignores your bear or focuses it and just kills it twice and you have to ressummon it anyways in 1vX situations or just in classic group v group pvp again either a group will focus your bear killing it very fast despite the bear being able to be healed or the bear will be ignored or cc chained and snared for eternity as the bear will never break free and will always take the full duration of any stun making it honestly a gamble that the AI even makes it to your target in time to do anything. It is for that reason the Eternal Guardian morph is in dire need of a fundamental change as obviously this morph was intended to be the defensive type of ult but just feels lackluster even in the ideal situation of it reviving once when you need it.

While I do think the Stam bear should keep its bleeding and damage buff as honestly the stam bear does need it and I should not have to run the magic morph on my Stam toon because for some reason it scales better and it comes with a free revive compared to my stam bear which offers me nothing in return. Having lurked in these forums for a while I have seen plenty of suggestions to change how the bear ai works and if it should be targetable and while all of most bring up good points it has been painfully obvious to me that none of this will ever happen as this bear change has been the first to come in years. I think the easiest solution ZOS could do is change the ternal guardian to be an artic polar bear its magic damage is now frost damage and its hits apply the chill effect and cause a minor 10% snare and lets just say that for some reason PVErs dont think its good enough damage maybe to embrace the warden ice tank build make it so that the bear could taunt enemeis or hold aggro better than the other pets openening another way to play warden. As it has been said before I am sure people will always switch to whatever gets you the higher dps in PVE and we will be back to square one with one morph being useless and another being only used in PVE.

Regardless I will continue to use the Bear as my one challenge in PvP knowing that despite all its issues it can be fun and until there are real fundamental changes at best this change can be a decent boost to dps in PvE and at worst these changes will just make another morph useless to an already underused class and ultimate in PvP.
Sincerly, Ingram Lord of the Bears

ESO_Nightingale

Ingram wrote: »

I have used the Bear Ult for pvp for 4 years now despite all its multitude of issues with ai path having to double bar the ult the constant misses on the execute and in many many many cases the ult just not going off and I can say having tried both morphs and swapping between the two on my stamden that the free revive that the eternal guardian gets is worthless. Is it conveniant in a duel when your enemy targets the bear and it comes back sure does it play a vital role in how I play the game no. We already know in PVE the morph is useless in PvP the morph is also normally useless either the enemy player ignores your bear or focuses it and just kills it twice nothing new. While unlike nightingale here I do think the Stam bear should keep its bleeding and damage buff as honestly bear does need it and I should have to run the mavic morph on my Stam toon because for some reason it scales better. I do think eternal guardian should be changed make the bear a polar bear make it cause the chill effect with each attack and cause a 10% snare on enemies. Not only do I think that added something like that would make the morph of the ult be up to the player choice it would also fit the warden theme of ice magic damage while not removing the only change the bear has recieved in honestly I dont know how many years.

the only thing that i think bear needs adjusting with is the amount of hemo proc it does. the bleed damage is a great idea and the hemo proc idea is nice, but because it applies it so often it's busted in it's current form. it shouldn't always apply hemo on it's light attacks.

MashmalloMan

Some idea's I had for the Bear morph choice problem I illustrated above.

Base Bear:

• Auto res added to base skill, this is a double bar ult and the effect only works in PVP and Solo content, it should not be unique to the mag morph as the only effect.
• Nerf passive and activation of bear damage by 20-30% to make other ult options more viable like Northern Storm in PVE.
• Activation and the large stun attack the bear passively does applies the status effect guaranteed, instead of every attack for only the stamina morph.
• Change execute scaling from 25% hp to 50% hp.
• Change execute scaling damage from a flat 100%, to a scaling of up to 100% based on your targets HP below 50%.
  • Stam Bear = Bleed damage type. Activation damage increased by 30%.
  • Mag Bear = Frost Damage type. Activation execute damage increased from +100% to +200%. Refunds up to 25 ultimate depending on the health of your target below 50% hp.
    • Eg. 50% = 1. 40% = 5. 30% = 10. 20% = 15.

Bear's relative DPS between morphs is aimed at being the same during the course of an entire fight. Choice between morphs is based on damage type, the auxillary effects those damage types give as they can be guaranteed via the base morph and finally, execute vs sustained damage.

Stam will get Hemorphaging which does a dot, doing more than chilled dps wise. Stam would be more front loaded in a fight with 30% more activation damage, but mag will excel in execute with more damage and a cost reduction mechanic to allow them to cast more frequently.

Damage type benefits: Chilled for damage reduction and hemorphaging for hp reduction.

Instead of dps being mostly passive, it's shifted to the activation of the bear. Since both bears can auto res now, this is a small buff for PVP, where the bear is pretty much useless. This gives mag a really strong execute that they lack, while giving stam more sustained pressure.

Do I expect to see Warden's using bear in pvp? No, probably not, it's dumb and takes 2 slots killing the option for a defensive option, but it would surely help to have the activation be better while having both morphs able to res automatically.

SEINTDARKNES

Nerf passive and activation of bear damage by 20-30% to make other ult options more viable like Northern Storm in PVE.

Northern Storm viable for pve? O.o

Even with the buff it will never be viable, too costly and doesn't do enough dmg + we have a lot of better ultimates in other skill lines.

ESO_Nightingale

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Some idea's I had for the Bear morph choice problem I illustrated above.

Base Bear:

• Auto res added to base skill, this is a double bar ult and the effect only works in PVP and Solo content, it should not be unique to the mag morph as the only effect.
• Nerf passive and activation of bear damage by 20-30% to make other ult options more viable like Northern Storm in PVE.
• Activation and the large stun attack the bear passively does applies the status effect guaranteed, instead of every attack for only the stamina morph.
• Change execute scaling from 25% hp to 50% hp.
• Change execute scaling damage from a flat 100%, to a scaling of up to 100% based on your targets HP below 50%.
  • Stam Bear = Bleed damage type. Activation damage increased by 30%.
  • Mag Bear = Frost Damage type. Activation execute damage increased from +100% to +200%. Refunds up to 25 ultimate depending on the health of your target below 50% hp.
    • Eg. 50% = 1. 40% = 5. 30% = 10. 20% = 15.

Bear's relative DPS between morphs is aimed at being the same during the course of an entire fight. Choice between morphs is based on damage type, the auxillary effects those damage types give as they can be guaranteed via the base morph and finally, execute vs sustained damage.

Stam will get Hemorphaging which does a dot, doing more than chilled dps wise. Stam would be more front loaded in a fight with 30% more activation damage, but mag will excel in execute with more damage and a cost reduction mechanic to allow them to cast more frequently.

Damage type benefits: Chilled for damage reduction and hemorphaging for hp reduction.

Instead of dps being mostly passive, it's shifted to the activation of the bear. Since both bears can auto res now, this is a small buff for PVP, where the bear is pretty much useless. This gives mag a really strong execute that they lack, while giving stam more sustained pressure.

Do I expect to see Warden's using bear in pvp? No, probably not, it's dumb and takes 2 slots killing the option for a defensive option, but it would surely help to have the activation be better while having both morphs able to res automatically.

i really like this change to bear. fantastic work!

Ingram

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Some idea's I had for the Bear morph choice problem I illustrated above.

Base Bear:

• Auto res added to base skill, this is a double bar ult and the effect only works in PVP and Solo content, it should not be unique to the mag morph as the only effect.
• Nerf passive and activation of bear damage by 20-30% to make other ult options more viable like Northern Storm in PVE.
• Activation and the large stun attack the bear passively does applies the status effect guaranteed, instead of every attack for only the stamina morph.
• Change execute scaling from 25% hp to 50% hp.
• Change execute scaling damage from a flat 100%, to a scaling of up to 100% based on your targets HP below 50%.
  • Stam Bear = Bleed damage type. Activation damage increased by 30%.
  • Mag Bear = Frost Damage type. Activation execute damage increased from +100% to +200%. Refunds up to 25 ultimate depending on the health of your target below 50% hp.
    • Eg. 50% = 1. 40% = 5. 30% = 10. 20% = 15.

Bear's relative DPS between morphs is aimed at being the same during the course of an entire fight. Choice between morphs is based on damage type, the auxillary effects those damage types give as they can be guaranteed via the base morph and finally, execute vs sustained damage.

Stam will get Hemorphaging which does a dot, doing more than chilled dps wise. Stam would be more front loaded in a fight with 30% more activation damage, but mag will excel in execute with more damage and a cost reduction mechanic to allow them to cast more frequently.

Damage type benefits: Chilled for damage reduction and hemorphaging for hp reduction.

Instead of dps being mostly passive, it's shifted to the activation of the bear. Since both bears can auto res now, this is a small buff for PVP, where the bear is pretty much useless. This gives mag a really strong execute that they lack, while giving stam more sustained pressure.

Do I expect to see Warden's using bear in pvp? No, probably not, it's dumb and takes 2 slots killing the option for a defensive option, but it would surely help to have the activation be better while having both morphs able to res automatically.

I like the majority of these sugesstions except for the damage nerf for passive bear damage and reduction of the exectute scaling while you joke about the PvP viability of the bear the exectue active already hardly hits when you want it to so nerfing that damage doesnt seem to make any sense to me as for the Mag Bear maybe instead of refunding ult change it to refunding magic on kill as warden sustain is pretty sub par and that could help with keeping up all the buffs and debuffs for magden and helping mitigate the stam morph of shalks extra resources but the answer to the dps question should not be nerf the bear damage instead of buffing northern storms damage for an ult that cost that much. I do love your ressurection sugesstion but if it was taken away in exchange for none of the passive damage nerfs that would be a better alternative as I said in PvP that extra revive is mostly useless as either they insta kill it twice or ignore it.

MashmalloMan

Ingram wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Some idea's I had for the Bear morph choice problem I illustrated above.

Base Bear:

• Auto res added to base skill, this is a double bar ult and the effect only works in PVP and Solo content, it should not be unique to the mag morph as the only effect.
• Nerf passive and activation of bear damage by 20-30% to make other ult options more viable like Northern Storm in PVE.
• Activation and the large stun attack the bear passively does applies the status effect guaranteed, instead of every attack for only the stamina morph.
• Change execute scaling from 25% hp to 50% hp.
• Change execute scaling damage from a flat 100%, to a scaling of up to 100% based on your targets HP below 50%.
  • Stam Bear = Bleed damage type. Activation damage increased by 30%.
  • Mag Bear = Frost Damage type. Activation execute damage increased from +100% to +200%. Refunds up to 25 ultimate depending on the health of your target below 50% hp.
    • Eg. 50% = 1. 40% = 5. 30% = 10. 20% = 15.

Bear's relative DPS between morphs is aimed at being the same during the course of an entire fight. Choice between morphs is based on damage type, the auxillary effects those damage types give as they can be guaranteed via the base morph and finally, execute vs sustained damage.

Stam will get Hemorphaging which does a dot, doing more than chilled dps wise. Stam would be more front loaded in a fight with 30% more activation damage, but mag will excel in execute with more damage and a cost reduction mechanic to allow them to cast more frequently.

Damage type benefits: Chilled for damage reduction and hemorphaging for hp reduction.

Instead of dps being mostly passive, it's shifted to the activation of the bear. Since both bears can auto res now, this is a small buff for PVP, where the bear is pretty much useless. This gives mag a really strong execute that they lack, while giving stam more sustained pressure.

Do I expect to see Warden's using bear in pvp? No, probably not, it's dumb and takes 2 slots killing the option for a defensive option, but it would surely help to have the activation be better while having both morphs able to res automatically.

I like the majority of these sugesstions except for the damage nerf for passive bear damage and reduction of the exectute scaling while you joke about the PvP viability of the bear the exectue active already hardly hits when you want it to so nerfing that damage doesnt seem to make any sense to me as for the Mag Bear maybe instead of refunding ult change it to refunding magic on kill as warden sustain is pretty sub par and that could help with keeping up all the buffs and debuffs for magden and helping mitigate the stam morph of shalks extra resources but the answer to the dps question should not be nerf the bear damage instead of buffing northern storms damage for an ult that cost that much. I do love your ressurection sugesstion but if it was taken away in exchange for none of the passive damage nerfs that would be a better alternative as I said in PvP that extra revive is mostly useless as either they insta kill it twice or ignore it.

Look no one likes nerfs, but my point still stands, too much of Warden's DPS ceiling is based around the bear, locking them into the ult too much. I don't think there is any amount of buffing to Northern Storm that would make it viable for PVE at this point outside making it outright stronger than similar costing aoe damage ults which is not fair from a balance perspective.

All I'm saying is shift some of the power from bear to Warden's class kit so there is less of a reliance on it and build diversity can go up.

The execute change is not a nerf, it makes it more viable as the scaling starts earlier and it's coupled with the Execute or Activation buff from the morphs.

In regards to ult return vs resources, ult is returned as a way to allow Warden's to have a more easily accessible execute that you can spam more in execute phases. Since it's an ult, without ult return you sometimes only get 1-2 casts against high health targets. Ult return is also much more valuable and rare, where as resources can be completely negated depending on the content. You can tackle sustain related issues with other means like class passives or increasing betty value. There is other ways and the idea presented doesn't match the bear in my opinion.

ESO_Nightingale

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Ingram wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Some idea's I had for the Bear morph choice problem I illustrated above.

Base Bear:

• Auto res added to base skill, this is a double bar ult and the effect only works in PVP and Solo content, it should not be unique to the mag morph as the only effect.
• Nerf passive and activation of bear damage by 20-30% to make other ult options more viable like Northern Storm in PVE.
• Activation and the large stun attack the bear passively does applies the status effect guaranteed, instead of every attack for only the stamina morph.
• Change execute scaling from 25% hp to 50% hp.
• Change execute scaling damage from a flat 100%, to a scaling of up to 100% based on your targets HP below 50%.
  • Stam Bear = Bleed damage type. Activation damage increased by 30%.
  • Mag Bear = Frost Damage type. Activation execute damage increased from +100% to +200%. Refunds up to 25 ultimate depending on the health of your target below 50% hp.
    • Eg. 50% = 1. 40% = 5. 30% = 10. 20% = 15.

Bear's relative DPS between morphs is aimed at being the same during the course of an entire fight. Choice between morphs is based on damage type, the auxillary effects those damage types give as they can be guaranteed via the base morph and finally, execute vs sustained damage.

Stam will get Hemorphaging which does a dot, doing more than chilled dps wise. Stam would be more front loaded in a fight with 30% more activation damage, but mag will excel in execute with more damage and a cost reduction mechanic to allow them to cast more frequently.

Damage type benefits: Chilled for damage reduction and hemorphaging for hp reduction.

Instead of dps being mostly passive, it's shifted to the activation of the bear. Since both bears can auto res now, this is a small buff for PVP, where the bear is pretty much useless. This gives mag a really strong execute that they lack, while giving stam more sustained pressure.

Do I expect to see Warden's using bear in pvp? No, probably not, it's dumb and takes 2 slots killing the option for a defensive option, but it would surely help to have the activation be better while having both morphs able to res automatically.

I like the majority of these sugesstions except for the damage nerf for passive bear damage and reduction of the exectute scaling while you joke about the PvP viability of the bear the exectue active already hardly hits when you want it to so nerfing that damage doesnt seem to make any sense to me as for the Mag Bear maybe instead of refunding ult change it to refunding magic on kill as warden sustain is pretty sub par and that could help with keeping up all the buffs and debuffs for magden and helping mitigate the stam morph of shalks extra resources but the answer to the dps question should not be nerf the bear damage instead of buffing northern storms damage for an ult that cost that much. I do love your ressurection sugesstion but if it was taken away in exchange for none of the passive damage nerfs that would be a better alternative as I said in PvP that extra revive is mostly useless as either they insta kill it twice or ignore it.

Look no one likes nerfs, but my point still stands, too much of Warden's DPS ceiling is based around the bear, locking them into the ult too much. I don't think there is any amount of buffing to Northern Storm that would make it viable for PVE at this point outside making it outright stronger than similar costing aoe damage ults which is not fair from a balance perspective.

All I'm saying is shift some of the power from bear to Warden's class kit so there is less of a reliance on it and build diversity can go up.

The execute change is not a nerf, it makes it more viable as the scaling starts earlier and it's coupled with the Execute or Activation buff from the morphs.

In regards to ult return vs resources, ult is returned as a way to allow Warden's to have a more easily accessible execute that you can spam more in execute phases. Since it's an ult, without ult return you sometimes only get 1-2 casts against high health targets. Ult return is also much more valuable and rare, where as resources can be completely negated depending on the content. You can tackle sustain related issues with other means like class passives or increasing betty value. There is other ways and the idea presented doesn't match the bear in my opinion.

Bear definitely shouldn't be doing 18% of our dps.

Myux

i think we're on year 3 of mag warden being the worst class in the game (pvpwise). its really impressive. maybe one day itll be better.

edit: "BUT ITS GOOD IN GROUPS THO" when its not trying to actually kill anything and is instead just being a bad attacker who can give decent buffs. the class cannot kill anything

LeHarrt91

I definitely agree that the Bear shouldn't be our only form of competitive DPS, if you take the bear off your bar you will drop around 10-15k dps. So if you reduce the Bears overall damage it will need to be increased elsewhere.

ESO_Nightingale

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

I definitely agree that the Bear shouldn't be our only form of competitive DPS, if you take the bear off your bar you will drop around 10-15k dps. So if you reduce the Bears overall damage it will need to be increased elsewhere.

Definitely.

ESO_Nightingale

ArchMikem wrote: »

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.

there hasn't been any time better than now in the last few years in order to make this happen. i just hope that they fufill our wishes while also fixing the stun situation.

Jem_Kindheart

This was very well written, detailed, and concise! Much appreciated. Just wish the teams would read this stuff and engage with it instead of "well, Megan from accounting had a great idea at the bar the other night, now we're putting it in the game whether it makes sense or not!"

ESO_Nightingale

Jem_Kindheart wrote: »

This was very well written, detailed, and concise! Much appreciated. Just wish the teams would read this stuff and engage with it instead of "well, Megan from accounting had a great idea at the bar the other night, now we're putting it in the game whether it makes sense or not!"

I just hope that they will read this thread and hear everyone's concerns. Seems like everyone mostly agrees. I hope they acknowledge this in a developer comment or in the patch notes. Theres a reason why people have been asking for increased communication. It's because of decisions like this that the players are plain confused about.

ESO_Nightingale

SEINTDARKNES wrote: »

Nerf passive and activation of bear damage by 20-30% to make other ult options more viable like Northern Storm in PVE.

Northern Storm viable for pve? O.o

Even with the buff it will never be viable, too costly and doesn't do enough dmg + we have a lot of better ultimates in other skill lines.

i'm not even entirely sure if a 20-30% nerf to bear would even cut it down from being BIS regardless of a northern storm buff. Too much of the class's dps power is in bear.

Runefang

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

SEINTDARKNES wrote: »

Nerf passive and activation of bear damage by 20-30% to make other ult options more viable like Northern Storm in PVE.

Northern Storm viable for pve? O.o

Even with the buff it will never be viable, too costly and doesn't do enough dmg + we have a lot of better ultimates in other skill lines.

i'm not even entirely sure if a 20-30% nerf to bear would even cut it down from being BIS regardless of a northern storm buff. Too much of the class's dps power is in bear.

Definitely the best approach is limit the passive dps and increase the active skill damage. Then nerf it overall so that it remains the best ST ulti for warden but only marginally, with something like Northern Storm the preferred AOE choice.

After that a substantial buff is needed to the warden to increase its dps via skills. Probably a mix of improved passives and some viable dps alternative morphs to bird of prey / artic blast. Maybe even a damage morph of a healing skill to let warden dps provide minor toughness.

ESO_Nightingale

Runefang wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

SEINTDARKNES wrote: »

Nerf passive and activation of bear damage by 20-30% to make other ult options more viable like Northern Storm in PVE.

Northern Storm viable for pve? O.o

Even with the buff it will never be viable, too costly and doesn't do enough dmg + we have a lot of better ultimates in other skill lines.

i'm not even entirely sure if a 20-30% nerf to bear would even cut it down from being BIS regardless of a northern storm buff. Too much of the class's dps power is in bear.

Definitely the best approach is limit the passive dps and increase the active skill damage. Then nerf it overall so that it remains the best ST ulti for warden but only marginally, with something like Northern Storm the preferred AOE choice.

After that a substantial buff is needed to the warden to increase its dps via skills. Probably a mix of improved passives and some viable dps alternative morphs to bird of prey / artic blast. Maybe even a damage morph of a healing skill to let warden dps provide minor toughness.

honestly, I'd just reduce the passive damage by a significant enough amount to make it not feel like the only option and balance that power into a dps rework of arctic blast and some other skills. i feel like the burst portion of the ultimate is already fair at 75 ultimate cost.

xDeusEJRx

I find it astounding for each problem ZOS fixes, they have to create 5 more problems to replace it. I was so happy to hear some warden abilities had their healing buffed in ascending tide finally addressing the problems the class had, then got slapped in the face when they said they were going to nerf arctic blast among other things.

The arctic nerf was the biggest to me, cause the class severely lacks in-class options of controllable hard CC's and the one hard CC we had that we can't even dictate ourselves got nerfed yet again. Sure I could use fighters guild fear for a hard CC, but I think it's funny how ZOS made a post about increasing viability of ability morphs instead of nerfing abilities, then go and nerf artic blast which is something wardens have to crutch on in most cases(unless you wanna be forced to use a destro for a CC).

ZOS why can't wardens just have an in-class hard-crowd control ability that we can activate whenever we want? Wardens are currently the odd one out, not having a class stun that we can cast on demand and stun that target on demand. It's beyond my understanding.

It's sad warden used to be my favorite class but the class just continually gets slapped with bad changes

newtinmpls

Eira_Rosynhwyr wrote: »

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

I do agree that from a game/skill perspective, this is a good idea.

However I have to confess that as a die hard roleplayer, the first thing I latched onto was "oh, cool, a different bear with a different backstory"

TPishek

All I want is an ice bear. And ice beetles. And to toss ice birds. Just make everything ice damage, that's what I'm getting at.

ESO_Nightingale

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

I find it astounding for each problem ZOS fixes, they have to create 5 more problems to replace it. I was so happy to hear some warden abilities had their healing buffed in ascending tide finally addressing the problems the class had, then got slapped in the face when they said they were going to nerf arctic blast among other things.

The arctic nerf was the biggest to me, cause the class severely lacks in-class options of controllable hard CC's and the one hard CC we had that we can't even dictate ourselves got nerfed yet again. Sure I could use fighters guild fear for a hard CC, but I think it's funny how ZOS made a post about increasing viability of ability morphs instead of nerfing abilities, then go and nerf artic blast which is something wardens have to crutch on in most cases(unless you wanna be forced to use a destro for a CC).

ZOS why can't wardens just have an in-class hard-crowd control ability that we can activate whenever we want? Wardens are currently the odd one out, not having a class stun that we can cast on demand and stun that target on demand. It's beyond my understanding.

It's sad warden used to be my favorite class but the class just continually gets slapped with bad changes

I'm not sure either. I mean, we've been reporting this exact issue for a very long time. But to see the same mistake made again really frustrates me. They also didn't even touch Screaming Cliff Racer, Frozen Retreat or Bursting vines either which is so confusing to me seeing as they are all really overshadowed by their other morph.

Fizzyapple

"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."

I only play Warden and this is something I've never done nor seen in BGS and I play several games a day. The change doesn't bother me because its just not a very useful stun to begin with. The few times I've actually stunned anyone was because they were jammed up in a tunnel or something similar. I've adapted by utilizing a stun from a weapon skill line. Not ideal but works for me. I'm not going to complain about the other changes because I kind of like them.

The Bear changes are fine and much needed just take a look at esologs this patch. For those who don't understand how or why the Bear is useful in BGS or other pvp areas quoting things such as easy to dodge and easy to kill I ask you to think carefully about that for a second.

ESO_Nightingale

Recorded another duel using both crys slab and arctic blast. this is probably the meanest i'm gonna be during this pts cycle, but these stuns are annoying as all hell to use for me because i can't properly control them, it's even worse than on live. We didn't ask for more reactive stuns. There is no reason to use arctic blast going forward because it's so damn slow. crys slab's stun is uncalled for. the skill is too one-sided and the reactiveness of it just keeps giving free cc immunity just like blast. Just because a skill can stun, doesn't mean the stun is good and especially not good for the game, these are 2 amazing examples of how not to implement stuns in ESO.

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

lonnml

Man I just got this game in January and my first/main toon was a magden but with all of the nerfs, its unviability in pve AND pvp content I just don't think I'll be playing much of that class anymore. So disappointed

ESO_Nightingale

lonnml wrote: »

Man I just got this game in January and my first/main toon was a magden but with all of the nerfs, its unviability in pve AND pvp content I just don't think I'll be playing much of that class anymore. So disappointed

The class performs fine in pve content, but it's problems come from an overwhelming lack of class damage skill options. Most builds are very very similar unlike the amount of options you have as something like a sorcerer or dragonknight. Necromancer has this issue as well.

We've been asking for arctic blast to become another viable frost dps skill for a long long time, since it's first horribly lacking iteration, and bear is frustratingly necessary for our dps builds. This patch, the class wasn't technically nerfed at all in pve, but it's issues weren't addressed properly at all either, leading to a weird buff to deep fissure which doesn't effect pve dps at all. And the changes to arctic blast and crystallized slab hugely cripple our already bad hard cc options for pvp.

Wild Guardian does much more damage than eternal guardian which is a problem because eternal guardian was already stacked as far as ultimates go. We have no diversity of ultimates that we can chose from and there are many in the magicka warden community that would be super stoked to have northern storm be an incredibly good option for pve dps. But, it's still pretty underpowered even after the change it just recieved on top of bear being disgustingly strong already and getting a further buff. I hope this clarifies things for you. TL:DR is magicka warden is definitely even more trash in pvp, but it's still fine in pve if you're just concerned about dps and not build variety.

Silversmith

Polar should scale healing and damage based on your hp.
Artic should scale healing and damage based on WD/SP.

Seems too simple to be implemented.

ESO_Nightingale

Silversmith wrote: »

Polar should scale healing and damage based on your hp.
Artic should scale healing and damage based on WD/SP.

Seems too simple to be implemented.

not really, the class already has a full line of mag/stam scaling healing skills. doesn't really need more because some of the green balance heals already need addressing anyway. The healing should drop from the arctic blast morph imo.