Let's Talk Warden, all of the stuff (Well at least for Magicka Warden and some QoL)

Mr_Stach

Hey Y'all! It's that Warden Guy talking about Warden things, this time I'm not going to talk about Frost Staff but have talked about my views on that in this post, check it out or don't.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/605490/upcoming-weapon-skill-line-improvements-this-year-that-i-would-like-to-see#latest

Now back to Warden, Warden is in an Interesting Spot right now, Zos has been putting in a LOT of Effort of Fleshing out Stamina Warden, which is great honestly, adding in all these Bleed Abilities is a great change (straight Magic or Physical Damage is kinda Boring no?). I think that Zos should take it further though but in the way of Passives, if Warden is going to be this big bleed monster and receive all these Bleed Abilities, I personally think it should have a Passive that reflects that, Enter in Piercing Cold!

Currently Piercing Cold gives Warden +10% Frost and Magic Damage, I've always thought it was weird that Warden got 2 flat Magicka Type Damage Buffs, and this is going to be a bit of Contention, but let's get rid of that Magic Damage, gone out the window (Maybe hand it gingerly to Magicka Nightblade, they could use a lil somethin somethin right now), Instead of just slapping on a 10% Damage Buff to Bleeds, let say that Bleeds Last longer. Thanks @ESO_Nightingale for the Idea here:



Next the Elephant in the Room, Magicka Warden just lost 10% Damage to it's Magic Damage Skills (i.e. All of Animal Companion Skills), that Sucks. Personally I feel like Magicka Warden has been extremely Stale and needed a Face Lift Anyways. Now anyone who's been hanging out around the PTS side of things know that myself and several other Warden Mains have been pushing for more Frost DPS Options, next I say that the Magicka Based Animal Companion skills can easily be Frost Damage. And before you type,

"But it doesn't make any sense that they would do Frost Damage!"

Warden Animal Companion Spells are MAGIC CONSTRUCTS, and by that Argument it doesn't make sense that they do Magic Damage then. So just so we don't get hung up on this, we'll continue on to some specifics.

Cliff Racer

Cliff Racer is probably one of the most contested skills in all of Wardens kit, it's Slow, the damage is fine, the Off-Balance Portion Sucks, but the Bleed on Cutting Dive is great, bla bla bla.

My suggestion is simple, Remove the Ranged Off-balance Portion, let each morph just do their special thing. The Bleed on Cutting Dive is VERY Potent and might need to be toned back a smidge, which is ok. The Magicka Morph though. I dislike any skill that "Does More Damage based on distance", it's boring and in different scenarios ineffective, such as PvP when you got people in your face constantly. So my solution is (now that the Magicka Morphs now do Frost Damage) that the Cliff Racer explodes on contact, with say a 4m explosion, the Enemy hit takes +50% Extra Frost Damage if Chilled oh and speed it up, like a LOT.

Fetcher Infection

Next onto Fetcher Infection, Fetcher infection is often used by both Stam and Mag builds for the second Cast aspect, I've been playing with some Ideas, But one I think would be a very simple change would be instead of the extra 50% every other cast, just make it an Execute, which Warden doesn't really have outside of it's PvE Crutch, the Bear, but we'll get to that in a bit.

Scorch

Scorch and Morphs is fine, Deep Fissure will now be the go to in PvP, Solo, and Tanking for the Major & Minor Breach. Stam is used on both Stam and Mag for the beefy double Cast. A thought we were having was the DK Engulfing Flames effect, "Enemies Affected take 10% bonus damage from Frost Damage" which could still work and make it useful for Magden a lil more, probably would still be weaker than Sub though.

Betty Netch

Next we got Netch, it's in a weird spot, it returns resources, Gives Brutality and has a purge built in. Personally I think Green Balance should have a Purge and Netch can just give more resources. Let me know what you think on that.

Falcon's Swiftness

Biggest Change of Wings is adding Snare/Immobilization Purge and Immunity as a Base Effect and Present on both Morphs, having a speed boost is no good if your glued to the ground

Feral Guardian

Alright, so Feral Guardian is fantastic and completely removes Eternal Guardian from any play, free revive isn't that good, resummoning isn't so bad, So let's make some changes, in light of my already proposed changes, we're Introducing the Polar Guardian, that's right a big ol Polar Bear, doing Frost Damage. Since Wild Guardian is gonna just destroy it with Hemorrhage, Polar Guardian can switch it up with a Frost AoE Slam when Activated.

That's the Animal Companion Rework, now lets talk about Green Balance. I'm not a Healer. Not even going to pretend but I have a few thoughts to make things better for Solo Play and PvP, I'm sure Warden Healers will tell me I'm Crazy. But we're just touching a few things, also for context, I want to add some CC options for Green Balance and a passive tweak.

Nature's Gift

Nature's Gift currently: When you heal an ally with a Green Balance ability, you gain 250 Magicka or 250 Stamina, whichever resource pool is lower. This effect can occur once every 1 second. Easy fix, add a you in there and we're good. When you heal yourself or an Ally. Bam, got some sustain

Soothing Spores

Soothing Spores deals more healing to things closer, my change is simple but impactful, allies healed by Soothing Spores have 2 negative effects removed.

Leeching Vines

Here's a big change, no longer on you, this is now a Targeted CC, it Roots the Target for 3 Seconds and deals Bleed Damage for 10s. You are Healed based on the damage done

Nature's Embrace

Selfish Heal Morph and Gap Closer, you now Swing to the Enemy, Stunning them for 3s and Healing for X

Ok Onto Winter's Embrace, don't want to too crazy here, we've done a lot of suggestions but let's break it down.

Piercing Cold change is already up above so we're moving on.

Arctic Blast

I swear Zos reworks this skill more than anything else in the game, the latest iteration was awful, 5 Seconds to stun on an expensive 5 second ability. At a minimum, revert AB back to the 3 second stun and increase the Duration to 10 seconds to match other AoE Abilities. We've worked on some ideas to make AB a Frontal AoE for the Stun. But for this conversation, let's keep it simple.

Crystalline Shield

Adding a Stun onto Slab was an interesting change, I still feel like it's worse than Shimmering Shield, I still think Slab needs i little more to close the gap

Frozen Gate

I generally dislike this ability and would like it completely removed, but just making it a AoE Frost Trap that Stuns when activated would be cool, more to workshop here

Sleet Storm

Oh boy, Sleet Storm change was bad, here's my review:

PTS Note -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.

300 Weapon/Spell Damage is about as Equal to 3k Resources. 15% Max Mag is about 5.4k Resources (on my build with 36k Resources). This is a nerf, straight up. If they wanted it to be more “impactful across play styles”, have it give +15% Max Mag/Stam, whichever is higher. I would also have the "DPS Morph" apply Major Brittle instead of Protection. Also while we’re talking about Sleet Storm, I’d love it if Permafrost had it’s stun back.

Way too much time was spent on this. Give me your thoughts, send me some complaints. Hopefully something good for Magden happens down the road.

Necrotech_Master

reading through, i think a lot of this makes sense

agree with the cliff racer, it just feels so insanely slow i hate using it and with the weird conditions like off balance but only if enemies are ranged, on a stam skill

fetcher i think would be good as a execute dot, it definitely needs to be reworked for stam because they changed it awhile ago so that it can only be applied on 1 enemy at a time, for a 10 sec duration dot

the netch i agree the purge could probably be moved on a more active skill, because right now its a plague bomb waiting to happen in pvp

in the healing tree i think most of those make sense too, except the natures embrace, while that sounds good in theory i think that could be too potent in pvp, getting both a gap closer and more HOT AND a stun on top of that? so you heal up while they are stunned and your not changing your chain except continuing the offense because you dont need to pop a heal since its built into the skill. it just sounds a little overloaded at that point

the arctic blast change on PTS seems really odd, but i never used it for stun, i used it for healing mostly, with the dmg to help trigger ice furnace

i like crystallized slab, but the stun still feels tacked on, i like the return dmg that it does, could it use improvement? sure, it is a little glitchy, if you used less than 3 of the shields before recasting, it doesnt appear to actually replace the missing shields until all 3 shields are gone

ive never really used frozen gate, but it would be nice to have some other kind of utility that would work, in pve its absolutely useless because it never triggers on anything immune to cc, so the major maim does nothing on stuff that it needs to hit, and does no dmg to boot, so in its current form has very limited usefulness

sleet storm, i think the effectiveness of the max mag buff is really varied depending on your setup, but in certain areas would be more effective than a flat dmg buff (vateshran arena with max side area buffs is +10k max on top of your own buffs), it would be nice to have more options though

Mr_Stach

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

in the healing tree i think most of those make sense too, except the natures embrace, while that sounds good in theory i think that could be too potent in pvp, getting both a gap closer and more HOT AND a stun on top of that? so you heal up while they are stunned and your not changing your chain except continuing the offense because you dont need to pop a heal since its built into the skill. it just sounds a little overloaded at that point

That's fair and with how Arctic Blast is overloaded skills get nerfed constantly. I think Warden just needs more Stuns in general but a Gap Closer Stun Heal..... It's a lot. Will need to rethink that, maybe remove the stun completely for a Gap Closer Heal to just keep you in the fight.

Necrotech_Master

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

in the healing tree i think most of those make sense too, except the natures embrace, while that sounds good in theory i think that could be too potent in pvp, getting both a gap closer and more HOT AND a stun on top of that? so you heal up while they are stunned and your not changing your chain except continuing the offense because you dont need to pop a heal since its built into the skill. it just sounds a little overloaded at that point

That's fair and with how Arctic Blast is overloaded skills get nerfed constantly. I think Warden just needs more Stuns in general but a Gap Closer Stun Heal..... It's a lot. Will need to rethink that, maybe remove the stun completely for a Gap Closer Heal to just keep you in the fight.

i think a good compromise would be adding the stun to the cliff racer (or at least one of the morphs, one could be bleed and one could be stun, it would provide more use for the mag morph)

i mean if you think about it from say an RP perspective, its a large animal barreling someone over, so it could apply a knockback or stun similar to the templars throwing javelin

Mr_Stach

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

in the healing tree i think most of those make sense too, except the natures embrace, while that sounds good in theory i think that could be too potent in pvp, getting both a gap closer and more HOT AND a stun on top of that? so you heal up while they are stunned and your not changing your chain except continuing the offense because you dont need to pop a heal since its built into the skill. it just sounds a little overloaded at that point

That's fair and with how Arctic Blast is overloaded skills get nerfed constantly. I think Warden just needs more Stuns in general but a Gap Closer Stun Heal..... It's a lot. Will need to rethink that, maybe remove the stun completely for a Gap Closer Heal to just keep you in the fight.

i think a good compromise would be adding the stun to the cliff racer (or at least one of the morphs, one could be bleed and one could be stun, it would provide more use for the mag morph)

i mean if you think about it from say an RP perspective, its a large animal barreling someone over, so it could apply a knockback or stun similar to the templars throwing javelin

Ta - Dah

Necrotech_Master

lol, there you go, the angry birds of elder scrolls

merpins

Cliff racer does feel like garbage to use, but is a strong skill. I prefer using Rapid Strikes or Recking Blow, even if they aren't as good, just because the racer just feels bad to use. Recently started using it as the main spammable on a toon, and it just does more damage, and that sucks imo. Not because it does more damage, but because I absolutely hate the skill. I've hated it since it came out and was the main reason why I didn't like warden when it came out and only came around to it a couple years after it released. And it's not even a hard fix!

It feels squishy because you press the button, time passes, and then the skill hits. This is kind of a theme with the Warden tool kit in both animal companion and the healing tree; delayed skills. But this skill isn't a delayed skill, it just FEELS like one. They could keep the down time exactly the same, but if they made the attack super responsive to your key press, like the racer immediately swoops down rather than taking a beat to swoop in, and at 2 or 3 times the speed it currently does the moment you press it, it would feel much better to use imo without impacting the performance of the skill.

I'm sure there are arguments to be made about the magicka morph and what it should do, but really, I just want it to feel good to use first, then they can address ice damage or whatever else.

Mr_Stach

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

Cliff racer does feel like garbage to use, but is a strong skill. I prefer using Rapid Strikes or Recking Blow, even if they aren't as good, just because the racer just feels bad to use. Recently started using it as the main spammable on a toon, and it just does more damage, and that sucks imo. Not because it does more damage, but because I absolutely hate the skill. I've hated it since it came out and was the main reason why I didn't like warden when it came out and only came around to it a couple years after it released. And it's not even a hard fix!

It feels squishy because you press the button, time passes, and then the skill hits. This is kind of a theme with the Warden tool kit in both animal companion and the healing tree; delayed skills. But this skill isn't a delayed skill, it just FEELS like one. They could keep the down time exactly the same, but if they made the attack super responsive to your key press, like the racer immediately swoops down rather than taking a beat to swoop in, and at 2 or 3 times the speed it currently does the moment you press it, it would feel much better to use imo without impacting the performance of the skill.

Yep you could have a super nuke ability, but if it feels bad to use, it doesn't matter.

merpins

Mr_Stach wrote: »

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

Cliff racer does feel like garbage to use, but is a strong skill. I prefer using Rapid Strikes or Recking Blow, even if they aren't as good, just because the racer just feels bad to use. Recently started using it as the main spammable on a toon, and it just does more damage, and that sucks imo. Not because it does more damage, but because I absolutely hate the skill. I've hated it since it came out and was the main reason why I didn't like warden when it came out and only came around to it a couple years after it released. And it's not even a hard fix!

It feels squishy because you press the button, time passes, and then the skill hits. This is kind of a theme with the Warden tool kit in both animal companion and the healing tree; delayed skills. But this skill isn't a delayed skill, it just FEELS like one. They could keep the down time exactly the same, but if they made the attack super responsive to your key press, like the racer immediately swoops down rather than taking a beat to swoop in, and at 2 or 3 times the speed it currently does the moment you press it, it would feel much better to use imo without impacting the performance of the skill.

Yep you could have a super nuke ability, but if it feels bad to use, it doesn't matter.

Exactly. To me, it feels like you're using an emote rather than an attack skill most of the time. It's really just a timing and animation problem. They just needa speed it up visually, make the attack itself come in immediately instead of after a beat, and hit the target faster. The amount of end lag on the skill can stay the same, just the animation itself and the amount of time between pressing the skill and when the damage appears on screen (when in melee range) is what the problem is.

ESO_Nightingale

I don't agree with everything here, but i agree with natures gift, arctic blast, northern storm, frozen device, piercing cold, frost damage animal companions, some of the suggestions for cliff racer and execute damage for fetcher instead of a random 50% damage increase.

Everything else I'm a bit iffy on. Bursting vines should use that rework. Not nature's embrace. Leeching vines is fine, and stamina shrooms definitely doesn't need to purge.

Mr_Stach

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Everything else I'm a bit iffy on. Bursting vines should use that rework. Not nature's embrace. Leeching vines is fine, and stamina shrooms definitely doesn't need to purge.

I personally feel like Warden Should have a Purge somewhere in their Kit. Warden, Necro, and Templar are the only classes with Skill Trees that are Purely for healing, Both Necro and Templar have purges in their kit, Warden's missing out there.

But like I said, I'm no expert on Warden Healing, I know of general things that need help, but mostly I just toss on Lotus blossom and call it good. Though I still feel like Green Balance could offer some interesting venues for CC.

Ashanne

Best we can hope for is some Patch day untested changed, like how they gutted mistform all regens when the patch landed (while everybody was already planning to do the whole health regen unkillable mistform, again).

I dont agree with everything in here but its a good baseline for future adjustments.

heres my two cents:

Animal companion changes are good but the main one that needs to happen is snare removal/immunity on falcon swiftness, like you said what good is speed when you are semi glued to the ground.

Green balance can use some love but some of the changes suggested make no sense to me, mostly the CCs attached to vines and embrace. These are healing skills and thus they should be buffed in a healing way, not overhauled for stuns,

Natures gift proccing on yourself is a great way to boost sustain as currently they only apply when you have a group member.
This is probly the main reason for running a bear solo to get the 250 per second resources, but in typical buff/nerf fashion i think zenimax would cut the 250 in half if it worked in a solo situation. Is that bad? maybe not but i fear more nerf than buff if it did happen.

Too much feedback the past weeks to count for winters embrace but the main ones being Arctic needs a healing increase and cost reduction as it unlikely they will revert the 5 stack change.
PERMAFROST NEEDS ITS STUN BACK

Lastly i want yet again talk about Piercing cold. Suggested change increases bleed by 2 seconds in favour of losing magic damage is not good, as it doesnt buff direct bleed damage. opt for 10% bleed damage and 10% frost instead

The magic damage makes not much sense in the current kit, but does allow Warden to be more effective with magic damage skill lines such as Vampire, making the Greymoor rework mostly viable for Warden with Arterial burst/Blood for Blood and Swarming Scion (pvp nitpicking but still valid). I would hate to give up the most unique Niche warden has ever had in High health (bc of arctic blast) and blood for blood (missing health scaling execute).

If Piercing cold trades magic damage for bleed, MAKE BLOOD FOR BLOOD DO BLEED DAMAGE

Mr_Stach

Ashanne wrote: »

Natures gift proccing on yourself is a great way to boost sustain as currently they only apply when you have a group member.
This is probly the main reason for running a bear solo to get the 250 per second resources, but in typical buff/nerf fashion i think zenimax would cut the 250 in half if it worked in a solo situation. Is that bad? maybe not but i fear more nerf than buff if it did happen.

Let's compare Nature's Gift vs the PTS version of Combustion.

1000 per 3 seconds is still more than 250 per 1 second, after a minute Nature's Gift would net you 13k resources IF you have a Green Balance healing every 1 sec like clockwork and it can swap resources on you depending on which resource is lower.

You can target what resource you want with Combustion, Burning for Mag, Poison for Stam, both can proc simultaneously if you have both statuses applied, and still if 100% uptime is maintained, 20k resources of each for that same minute.

I'm not saying that Combustion should be the Standard for all resources sustain to weigh against, but it's an easy comparison.

Personally I would say the value is fine at 250 for Nature's gift

Ashanne

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Ashanne wrote: »

Natures gift proccing on yourself is a great way to boost sustain as currently they only apply when you have a group member.
This is probly the main reason for running a bear solo to get the 250 per second resources, but in typical buff/nerf fashion i think zenimax would cut the 250 in half if it worked in a solo situation. Is that bad? maybe not but i fear more nerf than buff if it did happen.

Let's compare Nature's Gift vs the PTS version of Combustion.

1000 per 3 seconds is still more than 250 per 1 second, after a minute Nature's Gift would net you 13k resources IF you have a Green Balance healing every 1 sec like clockwork and it can swap resources on you depending on which resource is lower.

You can target what resource you want with Combustion, Burning for Mag, Poison for Stam, both can proc simultaneously if you have both statuses applied, and still if 100% uptime is maintained, 20k resources of each for that same minute.

I'm not saying that Combustion should be the Standard for all resources sustain to weigh against, but it's an easy comparison.

Personally I would say the value is fine at 250 for Nature's gift

ofcourse you are right, and combustion is 666 magicka AND stam while natures gift is either 500 mag OR stam.
Still it scares me what they might do. Logic And reason is not winning out for Warden

Mr_Stach

Well maybe after they finish making Stamina Warden nice and Unique, they'll look at some of our suggestions and start working on Magden.

I doubt it, but it's nice to be hopeful

Ermiq

I definitely don't want the animal skills to be Frost damage.
I like to play a shaman-like character with animals, plants and thunder (from Shock staff). The Winter's Embrace is something I'm trying to not use much because if how alien it feels to me for a druid/shaman archetype.
And yes, the Magic damage is, in my opinion, the most logical thing given the fact that the bird, shalks and flies are magical projections and spirits. And the bear is too, it seems. I mean, it's not the elemental magic, but rather a spiritual magic, therefore magic damage type.
PS: nobody cares but I hate the stamina based morphs. Summoning animal spirits with muscle power... Ridiculous and poor implementation that makes absolutely no sense.

ESO_Nightingale

Ermiq wrote: »

I definitely don't want the animal skills to be Frost damage.
I like to play a shaman-like character with animals, plants and thunder (from Shock staff). The Winter's Embrace is something I'm trying to not use much because if how alien it feels to me for a druid/shaman archetype.
And yes, the Magic damage is, in my opinion, the most logical thing given the fact that the bird, shalks and flies are magical projections and spirits. And the bear is too, it seems. I mean, it's not the elemental magic, but rather a spiritual magic, therefore magic damage type.
PS: nobody cares but I hate the stamina based morphs. Summoning animal spirits with muscle power... Ridiculous and poor implementation that makes absolutely no sense.

and yet winter's embrace, and therefore frost magic is our elemental charge, sorcs have shock damage pets, necromancer has different elements on all of their skills which are mostly conjurations of necromancy. it really isn't an issue whatsoever.

Ashanne

Ermiq wrote: »

I definitely don't want the animal skills to be Frost damage.
I like to play a shaman-like character with animals, plants and thunder (from Shock staff). The Winter's Embrace is something I'm trying to not use much because if how alien it feels to me for a druid/shaman archetype.
And yes, the Magic damage is, in my opinion, the most logical thing given the fact that the bird, shalks and flies are magical projections and spirits. And the bear is too, it seems. I mean, it's not the elemental magic, but rather a spiritual magic, therefore magic damage type.
PS: nobody cares but I hate the stamina based morphs. Summoning animal spirits with muscle power... Ridiculous and poor implementation that makes absolutely no sense.

But warden is not a druid/shaman. Where does this stuff come from? is it WoW? i never played that.

Ermiq

Ashanne wrote: »

Ermiq wrote: »

I definitely don't want the animal skills to be Frost damage.
I like to play a shaman-like character with animals, plants and thunder (from Shock staff). The Winter's Embrace is something I'm trying to not use much because if how alien it feels to me for a druid/shaman archetype.
And yes, the Magic damage is, in my opinion, the most logical thing given the fact that the bird, shalks and flies are magical projections and spirits. And the bear is too, it seems. I mean, it's not the elemental magic, but rather a spiritual magic, therefore magic damage type.
PS: nobody cares but I hate the stamina based morphs. Summoning animal spirits with muscle power... Ridiculous and poor implementation that makes absolutely no sense.

But warden is not a druid/shaman. Where does this stuff come from? is it WoW? i never played that.

From any medieval fantasy setting actually. D&D, WoW, LotR, Adventures of Asterix, anything really. The ones who are specialized on the nature's magic, forest, animals, rains, thunder - that's the druid/shaman/pagan archetype in fantasy worlds, not just games, but world settings in general.

Mr_Stach

Aren't the 4 elements also a part of Nature?

Changing the Damage Type has 0 effect on how you Play. And the changes I proposed at least for Animal Companion would only make using them feel better.

Wolfpaw

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Hey Y'all! It's that Warden Guy talking about Warden things, this time I'm not going to talk about Frost Staff but have talked about my views on that in this post, check it out or don't.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/605490/upcoming-weapon-skill-line-improvements-this-year-that-i-would-like-to-see#latest

Now back to Warden, Warden is in an Interesting Spot right now, Zos has been putting in a LOT of Effort of Fleshing out Stamina Warden, which is great honestly, adding in all these Bleed Abilities is a great change (straight Magic or Physical Damage is kinda Boring no?). I think that Zos should take it further though but in the way of Passives, if Warden is going to be this big bleed monster and receive all these Bleed Abilities, I personally think it should have a Passive that reflects that, Enter in Piercing Cold!

Currently Piercing Cold gives Warden +10% Frost and Magic Damage, I've always thought it was weird that Warden got 2 flat Magicka Type Damage Buffs, and this is going to be a bit of Contention, but let's get rid of that Magic Damage, gone out the window (Maybe hand it gingerly to Magicka Nightblade, they could use a lil somethin somethin right now), Instead of just slapping on a 10% Damage Buff to Bleeds, let say that Bleeds Last longer. Thanks @ESO_Nightingale for the Idea here:



Next the Elephant in the Room, Magicka Warden just lost 10% Damage to it's Magic Damage Skills (i.e. All of Animal Companion Skills), that Sucks. Personally I feel like Magicka Warden has been extremely Stale and needed a Face Lift Anyways. Now anyone who's been hanging out around the PTS side of things know that myself and several other Warden Mains have been pushing for more Frost DPS Options, next I say that the Magicka Based Animal Companion skills can easily be Frost Damage. And before you type,

"But it doesn't make any sense that they would do Frost Damage!"

Warden Animal Companion Spells are MAGIC CONSTRUCTS, and by that Argument it doesn't make sense that they do Magic Damage then. So just so we don't get hung up on this, we'll continue on to some specifics.

Cliff Racer

Cliff Racer is probably one of the most contested skills in all of Wardens kit, it's Slow, the damage is fine, the Off-Balance Portion Sucks, but the Bleed on Cutting Dive is great, bla bla bla.

My suggestion is simple, Remove the Ranged Off-balance Portion, let each morph just do their special thing. The Bleed on Cutting Dive is VERY Potent and might need to be toned back a smidge, which is ok. The Magicka Morph though. I dislike any skill that "Does More Damage based on distance", it's boring and in different scenarios ineffective, such as PvP when you got people in your face constantly. So my solution is (now that the Magicka Morphs now do Frost Damage) that the Cliff Racer explodes on contact, with say a 4m explosion, the Enemy hit takes +50% Extra Frost Damage if Chilled oh and speed it up, like a LOT.

Fetcher Infection

Next onto Fetcher Infection, Fetcher infection is often used by both Stam and Mag builds for the second Cast aspect, I've been playing with some Ideas, But one I think would be a very simple change would be instead of the extra 50% every other cast, just make it an Execute, which Warden doesn't really have outside of it's PvE Crutch, the Bear, but we'll get to that in a bit.

Scorch

Scorch and Morphs is fine, Deep Fissure will now be the go to in PvP, Solo, and Tanking for the Major & Minor Breach. Stam is used on both Stam and Mag for the beefy double Cast. A thought we were having was the DK Engulfing Flames effect, "Enemies Affected take 10% bonus damage from Frost Damage" which could still work and make it useful for Magden a lil more, probably would still be weaker than Sub though.

Betty Netch

Next we got Netch, it's in a weird spot, it returns resources, Gives Brutality and has a purge built in. Personally I think Green Balance should have a Purge and Netch can just give more resources. Let me know what you think on that.

Falcon's Swiftness

Biggest Change of Wings is adding Snare/Immobilization Purge and Immunity as a Base Effect and Present on both Morphs, having a speed boost is no good if your glued to the ground

Feral Guardian

Alright, so Feral Guardian is fantastic and completely removes Eternal Guardian from any play, free revive isn't that good, resummoning isn't so bad, So let's make some changes, in light of my already proposed changes, we're Introducing the Polar Guardian, that's right a big ol Polar Bear, doing Frost Damage. Since Wild Guardian is gonna just destroy it with Hemorrhage, Polar Guardian can switch it up with a Frost AoE Slam when Activated.

That's the Animal Companion Rework, now lets talk about Green Balance. I'm not a Healer. Not even going to pretend but I have a few thoughts to make things better for Solo Play and PvP, I'm sure Warden Healers will tell me I'm Crazy. But we're just touching a few things, also for context, I want to add some CC options for Green Balance and a passive tweak.

Nature's Gift

Nature's Gift currently: When you heal an ally with a Green Balance ability, you gain 250 Magicka or 250 Stamina, whichever resource pool is lower. This effect can occur once every 1 second. Easy fix, add a you in there and we're good. When you heal yourself or an Ally. Bam, got some sustain

Soothing Spores

Soothing Spores deals more healing to things closer, my change is simple but impactful, allies healed by Soothing Spores have 2 negative effects removed.

Leeching Vines

Here's a big change, no longer on you, this is now a Targeted CC, it Roots the Target for 3 Seconds and deals Bleed Damage for 10s. You are Healed based on the damage done

Nature's Embrace

Selfish Heal Morph and Gap Closer, you now Swing to the Enemy, Stunning them for 3s and Healing for X

Ok Onto Winter's Embrace, don't want to too crazy here, we've done a lot of suggestions but let's break it down.

Piercing Cold change is already up above so we're moving on.

Arctic Blast

I swear Zos reworks this skill more than anything else in the game, the latest iteration was awful, 5 Seconds to stun on an expensive 5 second ability. At a minimum, revert AB back to the 3 second stun and increase the Duration to 10 seconds to match other AoE Abilities. We've worked on some ideas to make AB a Frontal AoE for the Stun. But for this conversation, let's keep it simple.

Crystalline Shield

Adding a Stun onto Slab was an interesting change, I still feel like it's worse than Shimmering Shield, I still think Slab needs i little more to close the gap

Frozen Gate

I generally dislike this ability and would like it completely removed, but just making it a AoE Frost Trap that Stuns when activated would be cool, more to workshop here

Sleet Storm

Oh boy, Sleet Storm change was bad, here's my review:

PTS Note -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.

300 Weapon/Spell Damage is about as Equal to 3k Resources. 15% Max Mag is about 5.4k Resources (on my build with 36k Resources). This is a nerf, straight up. If they wanted it to be more “impactful across play styles”, have it give +15% Max Mag/Stam, whichever is higher. I would also have the "DPS Morph" apply Major Brittle instead of Protection. Also while we’re talking about Sleet Storm, I’d love it if Permafrost had it’s stun back.

Way too much time was spent on this. Give me your thoughts, send me some complaints. Hopefully something good for Magden happens down the road.

Great writeup.

The Betty Netch is a good move & Leeching Vines is fitting to the name. I like it all to be honest, and the changes are not too big of a swing from where there the Warden is now, just some good tweaks.

Slab or Frozen Retreat, Idk, I have always like the ground placed ice shield that protects cryomancers from range attacks you find throughout the game, forces you to go around and melee or damage the ice shield from range til it breaks.

good stuff, I hope ZOS reads this

Mr_Stach

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Great writeup.

The Betty Netch is a good move & Leeching Vines is fitting to the name. I like it all to be honest, and the changes are not too big of a swing from where there the Warden is now, just some good tweaks.

Slab or Frozen Retreat, Idk, I have always like the ground placed ice shield that protects cryomancers from range attacks you find throughout the game, forces you to go around and melee or damage the ice shield from range til it breaks.

good stuff, I hope ZOS reads this

Thanks!



I'd definitely go for a big Ice Wall

Wolfpaw

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Great writeup.

The Betty Netch is a good move & Leeching Vines is fitting to the name. I like it all to be honest, and the changes are not too big of a swing from where there the Warden is now, just some good tweaks.

Slab or Frozen Retreat, Idk, I have always like the ground placed ice shield that protects cryomancers from range attacks you find throughout the game, forces you to go around and melee or damage the ice shield from range til it breaks.

good stuff, I hope ZOS reads this

Thanks!



I'd definitely go for a big Ice Wall

yup, http://orcz.com/ESO:_Skeletal_Cryomancer_-_Ice_Barrier

Obviously players would need to be able to run through it, but would be pretty cool if it blocked range attacks up to X amount of damage.

Mr_Stach

Lol Group of Wardens just Boxing people in at Captial Cities. Block access to Shops.

Wolfpaw

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Lol Group of Wardens just Boxing people in at Captial Cities. Block access to Shops.

That would absolutely happen, range block/shield only, passable by players.

Or another idea for those two skills morphs a range ice turret (cone, single target, aoe...idk) of sorts, similar to bow Ballista.

DeadCrow777

Maybe instead of a cliff racer with ice just have a Ice wraith launched at someone? I also think that maybe frozen gate could be a blink with an ice aoe on the other end.

MacRibs

Great write up.

Fetcher definitely needs to be an execute, you could even copy the stats from Poison Injection.

As for cliff racer it somewhat seems a good ability on paper but despite being instant its just clunky and slow which seems to just reinforce the warden problem for me thats the wait and see playstyle, you activate an ability, (cliff racer, shalks, fetcher and then some) and wait some time for it to hit/do dmg to someone, you activate an healing ability (artic blast, vines, seeds, grove, lotus) and have to wait some time for it to heal you and the problem is that they are not even all that good abilities, the healing specially i dont mind most being over time as long as they are good but as always with the warden kit there's always someone doing it better, ex NBs Dark Cloak is way stronger than anything the warden has.
Even the new slab morph is a worst version of Defensive Rune if the idea was to give wardens a new stun ability.

dmnqwk

With the OPs crusade to buff Magdens not being completely incorrect, maybe it's time to say goodbye to Frozen Gate, and hellow to a frost-based execute ability!

I appreciate there will be a small number of players who feel Frozen Gate has a purpose, but it really does little because of the setup time allows people to simply... move. And if they're caught... move again! There's no other Frost ability to get rid of so they would have to replace Gate if there was to be a nice execute ability for frost.

Regelation - 2200 magicka Range 28m
Ice forms around the target's skin, briefly melting before re-freezing beneath the surface, causing SOME frost damages to them. This damage is doubled against targets below 30% health. (making it an execute and spammable in one, since losing animal companion spammable costs you self heal and 2% overall damage from passives).

Morphs would be:
Stam Morph - 2000 stamina. grants minor heroism for 6 seconds during execute.
Mag Morph - Deals 2-5% more damage to chilled targets.

lPeacekeeperl

Would be cool not only "tune\rework" some active skills, but also improve class passives.

"Hybridisation" kinda fits wardens nature, but our passives forces to "pick you role and stay only in they"
I'm tolking about : emerald moss, frozen armor, advanced species.
I think they should be improwed in a way:
advanced species increases your damage by 1-1.5% for every warden ability sloted
frozen armor increase HP by 2% for every warden ability sloted (seems wardens have more benefits from hp rather than raw armor, increase blocking amount by 10% ( to be on pair with dk nd templar)
emerald moss increases your healing done and healyng recieved by 1-1% for every warden ability sloted less healyn to teammates, more to self-survival


also required some changes on Bound with nature passive and Lotus Flower skill. seems like this is last skills without any kind of scalyng (affected only by buffs|trates(mending,vitality,powered) ) maybe scale them from wardens hp? like 10% base. will make more sense to hp-base builds. (or just remove hp base heal from arctic blast and make them weapon/spell.dmg based, like coagulating blood)


gripling shards - from tanking/pvp perspective would be more conviniet make effect like "cleave" - close range aoe in front with shield on yourself, high price, spamable (shield from HR, damage from weapon|spell.dmg). to be more "unic" - make shield not in "absorption" but in "mitigation" mode - only against direct attac and split damage 50% to shield, 50% to hp. and if anybody dare to say "its to op" - remember DK's mitigation to 3% of hp. wardens dont have anything like safe-ult

ESO_Nightingale

dmnqwk wrote: »

With the OPs crusade to buff Magdens not being completely incorrect, maybe it's time to say goodbye to Frozen Gate, and hellow to a frost-based execute ability!

I appreciate there will be a small number of players who feel Frozen Gate has a purpose, but it really does little because of the setup time allows people to simply... move. And if they're caught... move again! There's no other Frost ability to get rid of so they would have to replace Gate if there was to be a nice execute ability for frost.

Regelation - 2200 magicka Range 28m
Ice forms around the target's skin, briefly melting before re-freezing beneath the surface, causing SOME frost damages to them. This damage is doubled against targets below 30% health. (making it an execute and spammable in one, since losing animal companion spammable costs you self heal and 2% overall damage from passives).

Morphs would be:
Stam Morph - 2000 stamina. grants minor heroism for 6 seconds during execute.
Mag Morph - Deals 2-5% more damage to chilled targets.

As meh as frozen device is, it's still usable. Should be buffed though. It'd be much less of a pain to zos if they just reworked frozen retreat instead of the base skill.