Warden Changes - Deep Dive/Discussion

SeaUnicorn

As Warden Healer: my class HOT is still 6s duration, while all other classes have 20s HOT. Feelsincludedman.

Skjaldbjorn

SeaUnicorn wrote: »

As Warden Healer: my class HOT is still 6s duration, while all other classes have 20s HOT. Feelsincludedman.

FeelsWardenMan.

Skjaldbjorn

Honestly, after giving it some thought, I think @Gilliamtherogue needs to address the Warden community directly and honestly. The change fatigue over the last year or so has been absurd and exhausting.

Nerf bear because community wants damage elsewhere in kit
Buff class passive to 3%

Class buff altered to 2%
Bear nerf retained

Stam Birds get stacking bleed chained to off-balance
Stam Birds changed to hemhorrage bot chained to off-balance

Change stam shalks to 6s duration, 2x damage
Change stam shalks to 10s duration, 2x damage
Change mag shalks to 10s duration, 2x damage on a different time pattern which literally does nothing and makes no sense

Class buff altered to pen, complete removal of % damage gains
Bear nerfed

Like, what the hell is the purpose behind all this? Where is the consistency? Where is the "vision"? The "identity"? What exactly are these changes intended to do? It feels like throwing a dart at a board and hoping whatever it lands on will be viewed as "good game design".

Mr_Stach

There's several things I have issues with:


They Successfully made Screaming Cliff Racer More interesting while not making it any better mechanically to point I'll use it, it's still slow and the hoops are just so awful. Tying a damage perk to a Status that the target can become Immune to is very annoying. SO, I will never use birds while the Off-Balance Hoop is Attached.



Arctic Blast is the poster child of Zos not listening to the Warden Community, the Delayed, Blockable Stun. Arctic Blast Once again being far behind the Standard they set for AoE Durations. We got that Burst heal and granted it's a nice heal but it's tied to a duration that you want to keep going as long as possible. Arctic Blast just makes me angry every time I look at it.




Right after you nerf Wardens best Damage Boosting Skill you talk about Magicka Wardens Lacking Damage.



Also Deadly Strikes is out damaging Winter's Revenge. Why did you hit it so hard?

Skjaldbjorn

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Right after you nerf Wardens best Damage Boosting Skill you talk about Magicka Wardens Lacking Damage.

I didn't even notice this. Holy hell, the amount of mental gymnastics is just surreal.

Mr_Stach

Zos should write Thriller Novels, they are so good at Plot Twists.

Warden's are So Bad at Damage, but what if we Nerfed their Damage even More!

ESO_Nightingale

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Right after you nerf Wardens best Damage Boosting Skill you talk about Magicka Wardens Lacking Damage.

I didn't even notice this. Holy hell, the amount of mental gymnastics is just surreal.

Indeed.

Medicate

its nice to see some others to agree with.
What does ZOS want warden to do? neither heal, nor dps seems to be the thing.

The more often i read the changes the wilder it gets. I wonder if they outright hate wardens. never on top, but always punished.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Some parses from a friend of mine.

LIVE:



PTS:

Keep in mind this is also after major buffs to the 21 mil... yikes

ESO_Nightingale

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Some parses from a friend of mine.

LIVE:



PTS:

Keep in mind this is also after major buffs to the 21 mil... yikes

yep. as if people struggling to do vet content would do any better with these poorly thought out changes. there are some changes this patch that i think are okay, such as arctic blast, however there's so much damage that's been done to our skills. winter's revenge, bear and advanced species took such ginormous hits, not to mention cutting dive. these were the things propping up our class from the gutter.

ESO_Nightingale

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Zos should write Thriller Novels, they are so good at Plot Twists.

Warden's are So Bad at Damage, but what if we Nerfed their Damage even More!

No thanks. Every single secret villain is predictable [snip].

[edited for profanity bypass]

lPeacekeeperl

The funniest thing about warden changes - this patch is all about druid... Which kinda relates to "nature" of warden.
I've already done some overviees, but let me add some new here:

Shalks cadence(pace,rythm,tempo name as you wish):
old
"skill" - "wait" - "wait" - "boom" ( - "wait" - "wait" - "boom" in stam version)
new horoble
"skill" - "wait" - "wait" - "wait" - "boom" - "wait" - "wait" - "wait" - "wait" - "boom"
i suggest:
"skill - boom"(like all normal spammable) - "wait" - "wait" - "boom" - "wait" - "wait" - "boom" - "wait" - "wait" - "boom"
(and split dmg in proportion 2/5 + 1/5 + 1/5 + 1/5)

Yes, i know, it will be a bit worse in PVP - less burst. But burst can be added in another way.
If shalks now designed to "be dot" they should be compared to DKs breath or "wall of elements" and not "assassins will" or "kamikadze"

in terms of burst - its better to rework "Dive" :
"Dive" can be changed to be burst ability, with stacking effect like sorks "bound armanents" or NBs "assassin will" or DKs "whip". To be more "class oriented" - give stack not from LA, but from class skil usage.
Or
"Dive" can be changed to self-buff with effects "Sends cliffracer to closest enemy once per X second", and when this buf applied you will have "summoned" cliffracer near you (for necropotence set, alternative for netch and bear)
OR
"Dive" can be class-execute. With usual "up to 400% more dms to targets under 50%HP)

And if "Dive" will be reworked - what will be class spamable?
I belive its time to say "good-bye" to our "teleport"(frozen device), replace them with spammable and put this spammable first in "Frozen" skill subtree
What kind of spammable? Be "instant-damage-application" well be good enough. Some kind of "throwable icecicle" might fit.

"Adwanced species" or also know as "im'm so overpenetrating in ligharmor now".
It's horoble idead doing something "good in pvp but bad in pve" and viceversa in passives. You cannot alter theyr effect. And not using them - just [snip]?
So, if "row dmd.buff" if too strong now"( i aggree it was strong, it affected proc-sets, and anything else, but also hardly locked to class skills) - it can be something in way
"+10% to physical and bleed damage" (why only "magden" have damage boost from passives?)
OR
+3-6% crit chance
OR
+0.75 - 1.5% to all resources (hp mp sp) per ability sloted (key factor - to ALL of 3)

[edited for profanity bypass]

Skjaldbjorn

I decided to hop on the PTS today for testing. I used a 6m to avoid discrepancy between the old trial dummy and the new. I used the exact same builds for all parses. Here are the results.

LIVE:


PTS:


What I think a lot of players will miss here is how much wider this DPS gap actually is than the perception. For example, despite my effective (read; front bar) pen being ~3x higher on the PTS parse, my numbers were lower. Now combine that with the reality that, generally speaking, if your group is organized pen is a wasted stat. That means the DPS in otherwise equal scenarios will be 6-12% lower, depending on how many abilities were slotted from Animal Companions.

Wardens don't get better in trials from this scenario - they actually go downward. Yes, buffs from sets/classes around you will raise your numbers just as they will anyone else. But Wardens have the ONLY class passive I can think of in the game that exclusively gets worse in organized settings, obviously outside of outliers like PVP-specific passives.

Skjaldbjorn

Also, this doesn't take into account our poor Mag-centric Warden friends wearing light armor, who now literally gain nothing from the class passive. At all.

Mr_Stach

Skjaldbjorn

So, my buddy who I posted parses from previously has been working tirelessly, along with many members of my core, on PTS setups. One of my Necros managed to crawl back to 110k but it required a very specific build that probably won't be good in real content. However, my friend Divine wanted to work his ass off on Warden, and after countless parses (probably a hell of alot more than Gilliam's "80 hours", honestly), here's what he came up with.



100% overpenetration. If we assume these parses are reasonable data, ~15k behind Necro. Extremely underwhelming, extremely depressing [snip].

But hey, we're just Wardens.


[edited for bashing]

ESO_Nightingale

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

So, my buddy who I posted parses from previously has been working tirelessly, along with many members of my core, on PTS setups. One of my Necros managed to crawl back to 110k but it required a very specific build that probably won't be good in real content. However, my friend Divine wanted to work his ass off on Warden, and after countless parses (probably a hell of alot more than Gilliam's "80 hours", honestly), here's what he came up with.



100% overpenetration. If we assume these parses are reasonable data, ~15k behind Necro. Extremely underwhelming, extremely depressing [snip].

But hey, we're just Wardens.

big warden moment

[edited to remove quote]

Skjaldbjorn

Decided to run some quick tooltip cross comparisons from PTS to Live using the exact same setup. I'm not saying I couldn't have made an error somewhere, but I am 99% sure my setups are identical.

LIVE:
Carve: 1,121/sec
Stampede: 1,989/sec
Winter's: 2,797/sec
Caltrops: 1,251/sec
Wall: 1,363/sec
Barrage: 1,895/sec

PTS:
Carve: 857/sec
Stampede: 1,211/sec
Winter's: 1,223/sec
Caltrops: 1,066/sec
Wall: 1,167/sec
Barrage: 1,750/sec

Winter's got absolutely dominated.

EDIT: Realized I forgot to slot skills, lul. Same bar setup as Live now.

Mr_Stach

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Decided to run some quick tooltip cross comparisons from PTS to Live using the exact same setup. I'm not saying I couldn't have made an error somewhere, but I am 99% sure my setups are identical.

LIVE:
Carve: 1,121/sec
Stampede: 1,989/sec
Winter's: 2,797/sec
Caltrops: 1,251/sec
Wall: 1,363/sec
Barrage: 1,895/sec

PTS:
Carve: 857/sec
Stampede: 1,211/sec
Winter's: 1,223/sec
Caltrops: 1,066/sec
Wall: 1,167/sec
Barrage: 1,750/sec

Winter's got absolutely dominated.

EDIT: Realized I forgot to slot skills, lul. Same bar setup as Live now.

33% Nerf to the skill + the Advance Species being basically gutted for Light Armor setups will have that effect. I mean it's better but it's not "Better"

Skjaldbjorn

Realized Thaum wasn't in either setup, so I could use that to "fudge" the numbers and create a more accurate cross-comparison to live, since I had 6% from Advanced Species there vs 6% from Thaum on PTS. These tooltips should be very, very close to accurate.

LIVE:
Carve: 1,121/sec
Stampede: 1,989/sec
Winter's: 2,797/sec
Caltrops: 1,251/sec
Wall: 1,363/sec
Barrage: 1,895/sec

PTS:
Carve: 908.5/sec
Stampede: 1,279/sec
Winter's: 1,286/sec
Caltrops: 1,127/sec
Wall: 1,227/sec
Barrage: 1,849/sec

Mr_Stach

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Realized Thaum wasn't in either setup, so I could use that to "fudge" the numbers and create a more accurate cross-comparison to live, since I had 6% from Advanced Species there vs 6% from Thaum on PTS. These tooltips should be very, very close to accurate.

LIVE:
Carve: 1,121/sec
Stampede: 1,989/sec
Winter's: 2,797/sec
Caltrops: 1,251/sec
Wall: 1,363/sec
Barrage: 1,895/sec

PTS:
Carve: 908.5/sec
Stampede: 1,279/sec
Winter's: 1,286/sec
Caltrops: 1,127/sec
Wall: 1,227/sec
Barrage: 1,849/sec

That's about a 45% damage Nerf based off of your Data. That's a big ol Rip for Winter's Revenge

ramdrop

Despite my low forum presence I have been reading the forums for a long time and more importantly over the past few weeks.

I struggled to find a class that suited my playstyle when I returned to the game a few years ago but then I stumbled across Warden and instantly felt at home with it. I ran a magicka warden since my return and once the hybridization started I had to change my playstyle.

I made a healer, a stamina version, tried a bow/bow and even a tank. I liked levelling these toons individually but then AwA hit and despite the thousand of posts pleading with ZOS to stop this implementation it still went live. This really hit my interest hard and I've struggled since.

Now about this patch, I've read all the comments regarding the "accessibility" for new players and quite frankly I'm concerned. Deep Fissure/Sub Assault has been changed to 4s/6s from 3s/3s. This has been a fundamental part of the Warden class and now it's being changed. I think it discourages newer players because the timings are now way off. It was easy to remember cast, 2 skills, recast and now it's harder at 4s/6s.

Winters Revenge has essentially been made useless. Its not even worth casting with the damage reduction it's had. If we look at the Warden and ignore the ultimates we have 15 class skills of which 4 do damage. If we now take out winter's we are left with 3. Fetcher has been changed to a 20s DoT and Sub is now on a 10s loop we are now left with the inevitable scenario of just casting bird the whole time and quite frankly that does not interest me.

As one of the previous members has noted. The new Advanced Species passive now grants penetration as opposed to increased damage but light armour is supposed to grant that. If I run light armor on a magden it's just pointless and so I would be forced to run stamina spec.

I like the idea of a frost mage but Warden (if this patch goes live) is far from it. There are NO frost skills that can be used at all.

I really don't see why all of these changes were made. I am somewhat in agreement with the LA changes but wouldn't it have been easier to do a straight 5-10% nerf across the board?

Skjaldbjorn

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Let's just cut to the chase and get right to one of the most extreme, heavy-handed, absurd nerfs I have ever seen since I joined ESO back in Morrowind.



The reasons why this is a horrendous change are multitude, if not legion. Let me explain.

1. This encourages Wardens to slot less class skills, not more. In optimized group content, this change is effectively worthless. Wasted stat. Give it crit, or weapon damage. Something useful. This change only encourages Warden to be the "overland master" and nerfs them ridiculously hard in literally every other arena we have.
   
2. This strips away yet more class identity as non-class skills become vastly superior, such as Silver Shards as a spammable, which was already dusting birds in a lot of content.
   
3. Wardens have long relied almost exclusively on this buff to stay competitive. When this passive was nerfed initially, it put Wardens in the dumpster for a full patch cycle, and that was only a relatively small adjustment to the % values. Removing that damage ramp entirely puts Wardens squarely in the basement.

With this change topping list of other changes, this just pushes Wardens further away from being competitive and viable in end-game content, particularly organized, optimized groups, and encourages Necro spam even further, which was already exceedingly strong last patch.

Fix. Your. Blunder. @ZOS_Gilliam

Azurezaber

ZOS, this change cannot be allowed to make it to Live. While we highly appreciate the alleged reversion of the SA timers and partial fix of cutting dive, this passive change still makes wardens useless in organized content. I know the combat team is very busy at the moment, but the fact that this was not addressed in any capacity in week 4, even just a dev note saying it was being looked at, is frankly unacceptable given the amount of feedback provided. Warden is already a mid-tier, sparsely played class in the raid scene. The current passive change is entirely unnecessary and will ensure the warden class is utterly dead for all group content next patch if this is not remedied in week 5

neferpitou73

Azurezaber wrote: »

ZOS, this change cannot be allowed to make it to Live. While we highly appreciate the alleged reversion of the SA timers and partial fix of cutting dive, this passive change still makes wardens useless in organized content. I know the combat team is very busy at the moment, but the fact that this was not addressed in any capacity in week 4, even just a dev note saying it was being looked at, is frankly unacceptable given the amount of feedback provided. Warden is already a mid-tier, sparsely played class in the raid scene. The current passive change is entirely unnecessary and will ensure the warden class is utterly dead for all group content next patch if this is not remedied in week 5

I literally loled at this

Auldwulfe

I think that ZOS is trying to make a NEW Class --- the "Guildie" --- you start with a Warden, but you DON'T use any of the class skills ---- instead, you use fighter, mage, and undaunted..... and if you can handle the grind on scout missions (you won't survive much else using Warden Skills), you can also add in some Alliance skills .,.....

Welcome to the Guildie Class .....


Ok, on a serious note, I recently deleted my level 50 CP 800 Warden ... he just wasn't working, and was losing his identity beyond just a generic harvester - self healer

I had planned for an Imperial Ranger-ish build, and he ended up ... meh, and it felt that no matter where I went, he was meh

I am currently trying again, with 2 wardens (maybe I am a glutton for punishment) - one is Wood Elf, and bow build, as a ranger, again, the second is a Nord Tank
Goal with the first was to use the flies, and some ice and support with a bow, and make him a fast skirmisher Ranger, using Ice and other skills to supplement
The Nord uses defensive ice tactics, etc
Neither are using the Bears, as I wanted to control my own DPS .... although the Nord is set to add it later, as he already rides a bear .... I was building that Theme (I build characters on a theme, and play them in that)
The elf has the East Skyrim Wolf as his follower, and rides the wolf mount .... again, a theme.

I am not too sure how it is all going to play out, though, as I am already seeing myself being pushed more into weapon skills, as opposed to class skills ..... and as noted, some of the Fighter Guild skills seem to be working better than our class skills.....sigh

My question to ZOS -- why does my High Elf Necro using a Frost staff feel more like an Ice Mage, or better with Ice Skills, than my Warden, which has an entire class skill for Ice?
My necro is just plain better, and yes, my Nord is Sword and shield on the front, was supposed to be ice staff on the back, but is now just using a 2 handed weapon as it works better with Stampede ......

It feels as though my joke above is the end goal .... the warden will become the "guildie"..... and that kind of sucks a LOT.

Auldwulfe

Skjaldbjorn

LOL so they're just leaving Advanced Species nerfed into the floor. Cool. GG. I'll see you folks down the road [snip]. It's been a ride.

[edited for bashing]

Azurezaber

They've left the class useless while also managing to strip it of all identity.... we were fools to hold out any hope I guess. Thanks for advocating so hard for our class @Skjaldbjorn, I really appreciate it. Time to retire from ESO until they actually listen to the players and deem my stamden worthy of running through tamriel again. Hope to see y'all then

Skjaldbjorn

Azurezaber wrote: »

They've left the class useless while also managing to strip it of all identity.... we were fools to hold out any hope I guess. Thanks for advocating so hard for our class @Skjaldbjorn, I really appreciate it. Time to retire from ESO until they actually listen to the players and deem my stamden worthy of running through tamriel again. Hope to see y'all then

@Azurezaber Happy to pitch in and offer perspective from an end-game Warden main, part of that "one percent" group that didn't give up on the class and jump ship through the highs and lows. I genuinely wanted to fight for my fellow bear-loving community, but this is simply absurd. There's no direction here. Just night terrors from Gilliam about Warden's release and PVP.

TheGreatBlackBear

I'm pretty sure I'll still do100k+ on both stamden and magden with destro backbar when this goes live. It's hilarious that they thought that locking winter's revenge to being stronger with a destro cast would deter stamdens.