Arctic Blast is Bad. Real Bad.

MashmalloMan

https://youtu.be/LsVlpMpNkz4

Start off by saying, 0 bias here. I don't play Warden in pvp at all.

This is without a doubt the worst stun in the game and it just got worse.

Tell me how any Warden is going to rely on this as a viable class stun they can time burst with? They won't, 15s was on a stationary target, realistically you're looking at 14-20+ seconds in between stuns due to movement and there is always a chance they reset the stacks.

Completely revamp Arctic Blast and place the stun on an on demand skill, Slab does not cut it. Artctic Blast and Slab just give free CC immunity to attackers, never when you actually need it.

There is too many cooks in the kitchen. Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

Bad aoe dot, bad aoe stun, bad on demand stun, bad delayed stun, bad % based heal, bad % based hot, and a horrible cost.

ESO_Nightingale

I helped MashmalloMan test arctic blast and we both recorded just how bad this stun is.

Here's a duel to show off the stuns in proper action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE2jiHm_u88

Awful. Crys slab and Arctic are fantastic at giving cc immunity but have no combo potential and are completely frustrating for the caster to use.

+1 to arctic blast being reworked (at least give it 5s more duration and ticks so it can be useful in pve). We need to be given a real on-demand offensive ranged stun.

Aldoss

As a dps magden using 3 frost abilities this patch, I learned fast that Arctic was useless. Why would I spam a skill that costs twice as much as budding seeds, heals for less, does worse dmg than any other frost skill, and gives out free cc immunity?

It's already bad on live. PTS change will kill it entirely.

IncultaWolf

I agree, it needs a rework at this point, most people already dropped it after they nerfed the healing some patches ago

ESO_Nightingale

IncultaWolf wrote: »

I agree, it needs a rework at this point, most people already dropped it after they nerfed the healing some patches ago

As i've stated before many times i think that a great way to rework the arctic blast morph is with this suggestion:



in short:

• Remove the healing and defensive iteration of the stun from this skill (we literally have green balance for the dps's healing skills, we don't need any more magicka/stamina scaling healing skills. i see this suggestion a lot, to turn the heal into a magicka and stamina scaling one, don't need that. We just need to make the ones we currently have in the Green Balance line, better.)
• double it's duration and ticks to allow the skill to be a lot more useful in pve
• Make the initial cast also spawn a fast moving line-traveling aoe frost tornado that deals some damage to enemies it passes through and stuns the first enemy it hits.

this will achieve the following:

• It will give us an on-demand offensive ranged stun that has synergy and works with specifically well with Scorch and Northern Storm.
• it will finally give us another dps skill to use on our builds in pve, and specifically a frost damage skill with very noticible visuals increasing the build variety and identity of warden skills to chose from, Frost Damage builds currently lack frost damage skills.
• it will make wardens less obnoxious to fight against in close range as you aren't randomly stunned and the warden had to put legitimate thought, and, aim behind stunning you.

Vaoh

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

I agree, it needs a rework at this point, most people already dropped it after they nerfed the healing some patches ago

As i've stated before many times i think that a great way to rework the arctic blast morph is with this suggestion:



in short:

• Remove the healing and defensive iteration of the stun from this skill (we literally have green balance for the dps's healing skills, we don't need any more magicka/stamina scaling healing skills, we just need to make the ones we currently have in that line, better.)
• double it's duration and ticks to allow the skill to be a lot more useful in pve
• Make the initial cast also spawn a fast moving line-traveling aoe frost tornado that deals some damage to enemies it passes through and stuns the first enemy it hits.

this will achieve the following:

• It will give us an on-demand offensive ranged stun that has synergy and works with specifically well with Scorch and Northern Storm.
• it will finally give us another dps skill to use on our builds in pve, and specifically a frost damage skill with very noticible visuals increasing the build variety and intentity of warden skills to chose from, Frost Damage builds currently lack frost damage skills.
• it will make wardens less obnoxious to fight against in close range as you aren't randomly stunned and the warden had to put legitimate thought, and, aim behind stunning you.

^^^^^

Exactly this. I cannot emphasize enough just how great this would be for the class.

I’m not sure why ZOS wastes so much time on terrible reworks when the community comes up with better ideas most of the time. The community are the ones playing your game.

It was the same idea with Crystal Blast. The skill was reworked most patches over the course of years before they finally listened to their players and made it a Stam spammable.

Dovahmiim

Honestly I'm just curious where they got the idea that Arctic Blast was making it easy to line up burst. Magden has no burst to speak of, and it's an unreliable stun even on live in a 1v1. It literally had to be a salty dev who was upset they died, I can't think of a single other way they could have got that idea.

Dovahmiim

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

I agree, it needs a rework at this point, most people already dropped it after they nerfed the healing some patches ago

As i've stated before many times i think that a great way to rework the arctic blast morph is with this suggestion:



in short:

• Remove the healing and defensive iteration of the stun from this skill (we literally have green balance for the dps's healing skills, we don't need any more magicka/stamina scaling healing skills, we just need to make the ones we currently have in that line, better.)
• double it's duration and ticks to allow the skill to be a lot more useful in pve
• Make the initial cast also spawn a fast moving line-traveling aoe frost tornado that deals some damage to enemies it passes through and stuns the first enemy it hits.

this will achieve the following:

• It will give us an on-demand offensive ranged stun that has synergy and works with specifically well with Scorch and Northern Storm.
• it will finally give us another dps skill to use on our builds in pve, and specifically a frost damage skill with very noticible visuals increasing the build variety and intentity of warden skills to chose from, Frost Damage builds currently lack frost damage skills.
• it will make wardens less obnoxious to fight against in close range as you aren't randomly stunned and the warden had to put legitimate thought, and, aim behind stunning you.

Warden currently has the worst survivability of all PvP classes, as well as the worst bar management. Arctic blast, although fairly bad, does kill 2 birds with one stone (CC , good heal). If one of those aspects was removed, say healing, you'd need to buff warden heals elsewhere. I'm down with your idea of making one morph purely offensive, but warden 100% needs survival buffs if that happens.

ESO_Nightingale

Dovahmiim wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

I agree, it needs a rework at this point, most people already dropped it after they nerfed the healing some patches ago

As i've stated before many times i think that a great way to rework the arctic blast morph is with this suggestion:



in short:

• Remove the healing and defensive iteration of the stun from this skill (we literally have green balance for the dps's healing skills, we don't need any more magicka/stamina scaling healing skills, we just need to make the ones we currently have in that line, better.)
• double it's duration and ticks to allow the skill to be a lot more useful in pve
• Make the initial cast also spawn a fast moving line-traveling aoe frost tornado that deals some damage to enemies it passes through and stuns the first enemy it hits.

this will achieve the following:

• It will give us an on-demand offensive ranged stun that has synergy and works with specifically well with Scorch and Northern Storm.
• it will finally give us another dps skill to use on our builds in pve, and specifically a frost damage skill with very noticible visuals increasing the build variety and intentity of warden skills to chose from, Frost Damage builds currently lack frost damage skills.
• it will make wardens less obnoxious to fight against in close range as you aren't randomly stunned and the warden had to put legitimate thought, and, aim behind stunning you.

Warden currently has the worst survivability of all PvP classes, as well as the worst bar management. Arctic blast, although fairly bad, does kill 2 birds with one stone (CC , good heal). If one of those aspects was removed, say healing, you'd need to buff warden heals elsewhere. I'm down with your idea of making one morph purely offensive, but warden 100% needs survival buffs if that happens.

I did hint to that already in the first list. I'm well aware of this. shrooms should at the very least heal self for 10% more. to allow major mending to bring us the rest of the way to where the other class's main burst heals are at.

SEINTDARKNES

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

I agree, it needs a rework at this point, most people already dropped it after they nerfed the healing some patches ago

As i've stated before many times i think that a great way to rework the arctic blast morph is with this suggestion:



in short:

• Remove the healing and defensive iteration of the stun from this skill (we literally have green balance for the dps's healing skills, we don't need any more magicka/stamina scaling healing skills. i see this suggestion a lot, to turn the heal into a magicka and stamina scaling one, don't need that. We just need to make the ones we currently have in the Green Balance line, better.)
• double it's duration and ticks to allow the skill to be a lot more useful in pve
• Make the initial cast also spawn a fast moving line-traveling aoe frost tornado that deals some damage to enemies it passes through and stuns the first enemy it hits.

this will achieve the following:

• It will give us an on-demand offensive ranged stun that has synergy and works with specifically well with Scorch and Northern Storm.
• it will finally give us another dps skill to use on our builds in pve, and specifically a frost damage skill with very noticible visuals increasing the build variety and identity of warden skills to chose from, Frost Damage builds currently lack frost damage skills.
• it will make wardens less obnoxious to fight against in close range as you aren't randomly stunned and the warden had to put legitimate thought, and, aim behind stunning you.

I just hope zos hear us, i will love to have this skill morph, i think it's pretty amazing and the best part is that work for pve and pvp!

ESO_Nightingale

SEINTDARKNES wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

I agree, it needs a rework at this point, most people already dropped it after they nerfed the healing some patches ago

As i've stated before many times i think that a great way to rework the arctic blast morph is with this suggestion:



in short:

• Remove the healing and defensive iteration of the stun from this skill (we literally have green balance for the dps's healing skills, we don't need any more magicka/stamina scaling healing skills. i see this suggestion a lot, to turn the heal into a magicka and stamina scaling one, don't need that. We just need to make the ones we currently have in the Green Balance line, better.)
• double it's duration and ticks to allow the skill to be a lot more useful in pve
• Make the initial cast also spawn a fast moving line-traveling aoe frost tornado that deals some damage to enemies it passes through and stuns the first enemy it hits.

this will achieve the following:

• It will give us an on-demand offensive ranged stun that has synergy and works with specifically well with Scorch and Northern Storm.
• it will finally give us another dps skill to use on our builds in pve, and specifically a frost damage skill with very noticible visuals increasing the build variety and identity of warden skills to chose from, Frost Damage builds currently lack frost damage skills.
• it will make wardens less obnoxious to fight against in close range as you aren't randomly stunned and the warden had to put legitimate thought, and, aim behind stunning you.

I just hope zos hear us, i will love to have this skill morph, i think it's pretty amazing and the best part is that work for pve and pvp!

Being able to use it in pvp and pve would be so incredibly nice

MashmalloMan

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

This is really awesome and I could see it fitting the class really well. I'd make some small adjustments imo. You can feel free to steal the PNG if you like my idea's.

Changes I'd make:

• Stun's all enemies in its path instead of just the closest enemy, having an aoe direct/dot skill that only stuns the first target would feel very odd and would make stunning the right target annoying.
• Decreased range, hard CC's are typically placed into 15-22m range categories to avoid situations in Cyro where it's increased by being beyond 28m. Being hit by an unblockable train traveling across the battlefield at up to 30+m is too much.
• Unblockable stun, this is needed in the class kit. Templar, DK and Sorc have one. I'm not sure about NB and Necro, but Necro's in a similar hard CC class issue as Warden and NB can surprise people from stealth. It's aoe like streak, but it has a large telegraph with the animation, delay, effect of the tornado visually and the travel time across the 20m.
• Stun increases based on distance traveled, this interaction is to help balance it out for melee vs long range due to it being an aoe stun. 2s in melee range while short, serves to punish players less for not having as much time to react to it, while rewarding the Warden and giving them possibly more time to fight someone at farther distances due to the up to 4s stun. Since the target is so far and they had ample time to avoid the Tornado, 4s is more than fair. In the end, stun duration isn't too much of a concern as you should in most cases be able to break free within 1s depending on server performance aha. 3s is the average stun duration.
• Delay on the stun. This is a kiss/curse. Warden can time burst with Shalks easier if the target is in 0-10 meter range as both would hit roughly around the same time, however, like Shalks, this would provide a pretty obvious Telegraph for enemies to know it's coming. This gives Warden a small boost to their delayed burst that Shalks doesn't quite cover. Blast Bones, Haunting Curse + Crystal Weapon/Crystal Shards, Bow Proc + Incap, Leap + Whip + Foo + Deep Breath, etc. Every class has stronger hitting delayed burst than Warden.
• For a rough idea on what I'd consider the damage calculation, dots with direct damage typically do 50% of a spammable upfront and 100% over the duration for a total of 150%. The upfront damage would be like Streak, with the aoe dot around your character similar to a spammable tooltip over 10s. Aka, about 5k upfront, 10k over time. This makes it usuable for damage purposes, while not being overloaded. Less bursty than Shalks, as the point is to augment Shalks burst, not be your entire burst.

ESO_Nightingale

MashmalloMan wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

This is really awesome and I could see it fitting the class really well. I'd make some small adjustments imo. You can feel free to steal the PNG if you like my idea's.

Changes I'd make:

• Stun's all enemies in its path instead of just the closest enemy, having an aoe direct/dot skill that only stuns the first target would feel very odd and would make stunning the right target annoying.
• Decreased range, hard CC's are typically placed into 15-22m range categories to avoid situations in Cyro where it's increased by being beyond 28m. Being hit by an unblockable train traveling across the battlefield at up to 30+m is too much.
• Unblockable stun, this is needed in the class kit. Templar, DK and Sorc have one. I'm not sure about NB and Necro, but Necro's in a similar hard CC class issue as Warden and NB can surprise people from stealth. It's aoe like streak, but it has a large telegraph with the animation, delay, effect of the tornado visually and the travel time across the 20m.
• Stun increases based on distance traveled, this interaction is to help balance it out for melee vs long range due to it being an aoe stun. 2s in melee range while short, serves to punish players less for not having as much time to react to it, while rewarding the Warden and giving them possibly more time to fight someone at farther distances due to the up to 4s stun. Since the target is so far and they had ample time to avoid the Tornado, 4s is more than fair. In the end, stun duration isn't too much of a concern as you should in most cases be able to break free within 1s depending on server performance aha. 3s is the average stun duration.
• Delay on the stun. This is a kiss/curse. Warden can time burst with Shalks easier if the target is in 0-10 meter range as both would hit roughly around the same time, however, like Shalks, this would provide a pretty obvious Telegraph for enemies to know it's coming. This gives Warden a small boost to their delayed burst that Shalks doesn't quite cover. Blast Bones, Haunting Curse + Crystal Weapon/Crystal Shards, Bow Proc + Incap, Leap + Whip + Foo + Deep Breath, etc. Every class has stronger hitting delayed burst than Warden.
• For a rough idea on what I'd consider the damage calculation, dots with direct damage typically do 50% of a spammable upfront and 100% over the duration for a total of 150%. The upfront damage would be like Streak, with the aoe dot around your character similar to a spammable tooltip over 10s. Aka, about 5k upfront, 10k over time. This makes it usuable for damage purposes, while not being overloaded. Less bursty than Shalks, as the point is to augment Shalks burst, not be your entire burst.

this would definitely work, but it's a bit more labour intensive for zenimax to do. either way, this, or my suggestion would work wonders.

ESO_Nightingale

Man i hope they make some huge changes in week 3 and 4.

Mr_Stach

So on my own research on things and stuff. Arctic Blast is a worse Freeze Time now. They made a worse bad skill.

ESO_Nightingale

Mr_Stach wrote: »

So on my own research on things and stuff. Arctic Blast is a worse Freeze Time now. They made a worse bad skill.

i cannot even.

LeHarrt91

Mr_Stach wrote: »

So on my own research on things and stuff. Arctic Blast is a worse Freeze Time now. They made a worse bad skill.

At least Time Freeze snares you so your more likely to get stunned, with Arctic when hit you can still move at full speed to get away and never get stunned.

ESO_Nightingale

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

So on my own research on things and stuff. Arctic Blast is a worse Freeze Time now. They made a worse bad skill.

At least Time Freeze snares you so your more likely to get stunned, with Arctic when hit you can still move at full speed to get away and never get stunned.

and they both cost an arm and both legs.

MashmalloMan

Mr_Stach wrote: »

So on my own research on things and stuff. Arctic Blast is a worse Freeze Time now. They made a worse bad skill.

My God 7.5k lol.

Yeah I can't see Warden's using Arctic anymore, slot regular spell damage scaling heals and a different stun like Turn Evil. Dead skill unless you want a bad heal if you happen to boost your hp high enough for it to mean anything, but at that point you're probably no longer a threat.

Warden's offensive kit needs a lot of work.

ESO_Nightingale

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

So on my own research on things and stuff. Arctic Blast is a worse Freeze Time now. They made a worse bad skill.

My God 7.5k lol.

Yeah I can't see Warden's using Arctic anymore, slot regular spell damage scaling heals and a different stun like Turn Evil. Dead skill unless you want a bad heal if you happen to boost your hp high enough for it to mean anything, but at that point you're probably no longer a threat.

Warden's offensive kit needs a lot of work.

turn evil costs stam and is so damn expensive. every stun that is functionally okay that warden has access to has some major flaw. most are stam costing and/or require specific weapons.

Mr_Stach

My suggestion would be just taking Crystalline Shield, remove the shield aspect completely and just make it like a Shotgun blast front conal ice thing. Guaranteed chilled proc, already chilled enemies are stunned.

ESO_Nightingale

Mr_Stach wrote: »

My suggestion would be just taking Crystalline Shield, remove the shield aspect completely and just make it like a Shotgun blast front conal ice thing. Guaranteed chilled proc, already chilled enemies are stunned.

that'd be better than this current stuff i suppose but having chilled proc being the stun condition makes it unreliable, if they're already chilled then reliably timing it is harder, if they're not you have to waste 2 casts just to stun.

SEINTDARKNES

Mr_Stach wrote: »

So on my own research on things and stuff. Arctic Blast is a worse Freeze Time now. They made a worse bad skill.

Oh man that's insane! I never thought about this skill being better about anything, of course it have some nice uses in trials or some dungeons but being better than a class skill? Wow

I propose the @ESO_Nightingale change to the artic blast morph, i like it because we get the utility of a dps frost skill for pve and we get some dmg and a stun on demand in pvp like streak, fossilized, templar javelins and others

Mr_Stach

Also let's not forget that Arctic Blast is a 5 Second Skill so if you miss one tick on the enemy or they step out, there goes your stun. Hopefully they really look into better ways to salvage this Over-Reworked Skill but also have literally anything that Wardens can use as an on-demand stun.

SEINTDARKNES

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Also let's not forget that Arctic Blast is a 5 Second Skill so if you miss one tick on the enemy or they step out, there goes your stun. Hopefully they really look into better ways to salvage this Over-Reworked Skill but also have literally anything that Wardens can use as an on-demand stun.

And don't forget it's not cheap so you cant spam the skill to try to get 1 stun

Urzigurumash

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Yeah I can't see Warden's using Arctic anymore, slot regular spell damage scaling heals and a different stun like Turn Evil.

Yeah spell damage heals like.. Rally and Vigor?

I don't know that Mushrooms should be as strong as Dragonblood, Honor the Dead, or Resistant Flesh, but, it still seems rather weak to me after its last buff?

MentalxHammer

They should really just completely rework the functionality of this skill now that it’s an unreliable stun and an unreliable heal. Warden has more than enough healing potential, what they need is a CC.

Warden has been struggling to find its niche in the PvP meta, it has worse damage than necro with similar functionality, and worse healing/support than templar. Why not carve its niche in CC/control?

MashmalloMan

Urzigurumash wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Yeah I can't see Warden's using Arctic anymore, slot regular spell damage scaling heals and a different stun like Turn Evil.

Yeah spell damage heals like.. Rally and Vigor?

I don't know that Mushrooms should be as strong as Dragonblood, Honor the Dead, or Resistant Flesh, but, it still seems rather weak to me after its last buff?

Still better than relying on this garbage.

Necrotech_Master

i primarily use arctic blast on my mag warden as a heal first, and then dmg second

the dmg is alright, and its more useful for procing stuff like ice furnace

never really paid much attention to the stun (since its mostly a pve build, most weak enemies die before the stun, and most strong enemies are immune to the CC anyway), but i think it did seem to kind of feel tacked on

Mr_Stach

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

never really paid much attention to the stun (since its mostly a pve build, most weak enemies die before the stun, and most strong enemies are immune to the CC anyway), but i think it did seem to kind of feel tacked on

It's funny because they are tacking stun onto Crystalline Slab now.

ESO_Nightingale

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

never really paid much attention to the stun (since its mostly a pve build, most weak enemies die before the stun, and most strong enemies are immune to the CC anyway), but i think it did seem to kind of feel tacked on

It's funny because they are tacking stun onto Crystalline Slab now.

Man i really hope they revert that.