U36 Warden Adjustments and Discussion

ESO_Nightingale

EDIT: WEEK 3 POST

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/619148/warden-changes-v8-2-2

Hey again everyone, including @ZOS_Gilliam, @ZOS_BrianWheeler and @ZOS_GinaBruno. it's time for the update 36 warden and frost warden notes, and the feedback for them. Again, i'll try to keep this as brief as possible, but as always, there's a lot to talk about because there's a lot of repercussions with making changes like these. I appologise for the size of this post but it is necessesary to cover everything.

Piercing Cold's changes:

Piercing Cold: This passive now increases your damage done by 1/2% which increases to 5/10% while wielding an Ice Staff, rather than increasing your Magic and Frost Damage by 5/10%.
Developer Comment:
This passive is currently creating issues with morph choices in the class, as Wardens have a healthy mix of damage types outside of Magic and Frost. Many morphs that are meant to focus on damage are either close to or even eclipsed by the more utility driven morphs that retain Magic Damage, and the lack of more DPS focused Ice Damage abilities (since they are predominantly made for tanks or utility) create a situation where this passive isn’t helping the unique identity of Ice Mages keep up with other play styles. By shifting the focus of the passive over to generic damage that contextually gets stronger for the audience the passive is made for, we hope to help bring that playstyle up a bit more.

I like that you're trying to help frost dps builds and are continuing to keep them in consideration when making changes, however, has you may have seen, people are extremely adverse to this type of bonus, it was already very controversial when it was introduced to winter's revenge and it still is. I'm aware that this is to close the gap between frost staves and non frost staff weapons specifically on warden, but beyond the atrocious balancing of this change the perception is really a big problem here. It goes against the whole mantra of play how you want because of the reference to specific weapons, generally people will be more inclined to go "oh damn i have to use this to get full benefit from my passives?" even if it doesn't actually make it best in slot, however, the initial balancing appears to make that the case 2% is absolutely nothing, and 10% for all damage is huge. weapon specific bonuses shouldn't be attached to a class, it just creates massive problems like we're seeing here.

Previously, a frost damage increase did pretty much the same effect except it was not something that was locked away from normal builds. it was exceedingly good at increasing the damage done when using a frost staff as it effected light and heavy attack, status effect, set and skill damage. by changing a frost damage increase to a normal damage increase, all that's being incentivized with your frost staff, is to use better damage types than frost damage. these being flame, bleed and poison as they all have better damage dealing status effects and flame damage is always buffed by trial groups which is an ongoing problem. this change removes any reason to use frost damage skills unless absolutely necessary and as such this is not desirable by frost mage builds. I understand the thought process and I did like the idea on paper, as it effectively gives frost staff a damage increase buff that it currently lacks, but to do it on a class using this wording and these numbers, and locking damage from a passive away from people who don't want to use a frost staff, just feels absolutely awful and takes away the power of frost damage in order to make the frost staff just a stat stick.

The only way to fix the problem with frost damage being undesirable as a dps is to introduce something like a mythic or monster set that increases SPECIFICALLY Chilled's direct damage. Chilled is the best reason/incentivization we have to use a lot of frost damage so making an item set that increases ALL status effect damage will not fix anything. it has to be specifically Chilled.

The problem that you are trying to address ("the passive is currently hurting many morph options that are meant to offer damage, as the class has a myriad of damage types that are not being affected by the passive.") is purely the fault of the magic damage bonus on piercing cold not the frost bonus. Currently there are no frost damage skills that have morphs with another damage type on the class. We wish that the passive increased bleed/frost damage with an update to animal companion damage types to match, but with the current state of the morphs and proposed changes to all damage dealt, there will be no specific damage benefit to specializing in the frost skills or sets, stripping away a reason to make that engaging pure frost build. but this direction, as long as it's raw damage, people will be incentivized to run the best damage types possible, this lowers the value of frost skills and effects. going in the direction of frost damage and bleed damage animal companions skills, will make the class a lot more synergistic with itself while indirectly suggesting to the player that it would be a good idea to make builds around those 2 damage types. please do not force a specific weapon on us. not everyone wants to play a frost mage.

I should add, adding a damage bonus effect to the frost staff is a great idea, but the way in which it's done needs to be done very carefully as the blocking bonus is very powerful, this can likely be achieved through a kiss curse item set that removes the blocking bonuses of ancient knowledge for an effect equivalent to a weapon bonus in addition to a 5 piece item set.

If i am to suggest a change for the meantime, it would be to drop the bonus when specifically using an ice staff, and instead add back increased frost damage done for +6% frost damage done and +6% damage done. this will be a lot less abrasive of a change, and it also means that it'll at least temporarily Band-Aid the problem in piercing cold.

Suggestion:
Remove any bonus on the class that specifically pertains to using a specific weapon in order to gain the bonus. this includes winter's revenge. these types of bonuses should stick to weapons, item sets and maybe cp.

Piercing Cold:
Change this to +6% frost damage done and +6% all damage done.
______________________________

Advanced Species changes:

Pentration to Crit Damage

While this change is technically better, it's only marginally so. yes it's useful in pvp and pve now, except now it directly interferes with medium armor as opposed to light armor. AND It's still a capped stat meaning at a certain point it loses value, it'll lose that value a lot faster if you're wearing medium armor and it invalidates the khajiit race pick. It's also important to mention that we already have glacial presence. it already provides a +10% bonus to critical damage when attacking a chilled enemy. critical damage isn't the right pick for advanced species.

we're still lacking a confirmed reason as to why it was changed away from % raw damage in the first place. if you want to make this passive useful, reverting it back to raw damage, changing it to weapon and spell damage, or just making it critical chance, are the only ways in which to make this passive design not feel like it was changed for the worse and specifically not for any 1 build type, mag or stam. the passive changes this and last update have not been improvements. they've just hurt the class. i understand that you want to help the class, so please let the community help you by listening to our feedback.

Suggestion: Change this bonus to one of the following:

• +2% damage done for every animal companions skill slotted
• +x weapon and spell damage for every animal companions skill slotted
• +x critical chance for every animal companions skill slotted

TL:DR

Piercing Cold losing it's bonus to frost damage, to instead gain increased damage with an ice staff equipped goes against the "play how you want" mantra previously expressed as players will believe that they will need to run an ice staff just to get the most out of their passives. this problem is much worse when it turns out to actually be the case like it is now. 2% is insultingly bad for non frost staff users, and a 10% increase to all damage while using a frost staff is too strong of a difference.
It's important to note that the listed change also hurts pure frost builds as now better damage types (with better damaging status effects) will gain the same bonus that only frost damage skills gained before. it might lead to more dps for those builds, but at the cost of the entire reason to run a frost mage build in the first place, using frost damage skills with a frost staff. this is a significant problem with this new design as frost skills are generally weaker in damage and have a worse damaging status effect. turning the frost staff into a stat stick for all damage types and builds does not help, it just makes everyone use it, and it also makes people drop sources of frost damage that were slightly stronger than other options when they had the +10% frost damage increase. IF you want to help frost mage builds, there are 2 ways to make this playstyle better at the same time as increasing their damage. 1 is that mythic/monster set idea i've previously listed, and the other is to increase the amount of frost damage skills. magic damage animal companions skills are the prime candidates to swap damage types.

Winter's Revenge and Ice Staff DPS: It is worth mentioning that this is also a major problem with winter's revenge, that locks damage away from the skill, making it weak unless you specifically run a destruction staff. this is not the way to make the ice and destruction staves more popular. that issue has to be solved with the weapons themselves, and for the ice staff specifically, having something like a mythic or monster helmet that increases SPECIFICALLY chilled's direct damage is going to be what makes it viable for dpsing. this is because of the amount of chilled procs obtainable on frost damage dealer builds. We generate so many procs of chilled, but we have no way to meaningfully increase their damage to a point where it becomes more powerful to invest in using as much frost damage as possible rather than just stacking bleeds, fire and poison.

Advanced Species:
This passive change just reverses the issue, instead of light armor builds getting screwed over, it'll be medium armor builds because of the cap, we also already have a great passive that increases critical damage in the first place. we still have yet to receive any reasoning for why Advanced Species was changed in the first place. The only options for this passive that will work without hurting a specific build are: Weapon and Spell damage, Raw Damage(like it was) and Critical Chance, it should be changed BACK or to one of these other 2 options.

Melzo

Man, can I donate those so that you also promote the necromancer?) Otherwise, your work and the work of another pepper to attract attention for the warden is more expensive than new DLC)))hah

warich

Thank you so much for typing this all out and providing based alternatives. My hat goes off to you, you absolute chad.

YandereGirlfriend

As usual, I agree with basically everything here.

veznan5

Another big nerf to wardens, we really can't catch a break

MashmalloMan

Agreed to everything. It's very sad they honestly thought this is what we asked for. Who is twisting our words back there?

Nser

I could work with 4 or 5% damage done from piercing cold for not using an icestaff, 2% is just a joke.
Play how you want, but only with an icestaff equiped
Thats not working for me

ESO_Nightingale

Nser wrote: »

I could work with 4 or 5% damage done from piercing cold for not using an icestaff, 2% is just a joke.
Play how you want, but only with an icestaff equiped
Thats not working for me

it's super frustrating that they "balanced" it like this. it's just so against what everyone wants, and we're going to get blamed for it.

Nser

Advanced Species should just be crit chance, like u mention benefits everybody since dmg done is now reserved for piercing cold.
We already have crit damage done on chilled enemies

Nexxperumbra

Exactly this

veznan5

As a hybrid build that leans more towards stam(my dmg is 70:30 for phys:mag) I crunched the numbers and found that this change to piercing cold would lead to a net total of -1% dmg for me, which isn't much but it'll be hitting much harder for non-ice staff using mag & mag-leaning-hybrid builds, up to -8% worst case.

stevenyaub16_ESO

To fit the descriptor I'd rather see piercing cold to do +x% critical chance vs chilled targets AND +10% damage when wielding a frost staff (for those brittledens).

As it stands now wardens are still left in the dirt when it comes to trials.

But we be careful when it comes to suggesting things, from their track record they don't like taking ideas from players no matter how sound the idea is.

Klingenlied

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Suggestion:
Remove any bonus on the class that specifically pertains to using a specific weapon in order to gain the bonus. this includes winter's revenge. these types of bonuses should stick to weapons, item sets and maybe cp.

Piercing Cold:
Change this to +6% frost damage done and +6% all damage done.

Difficult one actually. See, they do this to promote ice staff usage. Ice staff would need x < 5% more damage than it's counterparts to start being a real, valid alternative for usage. 8% extra (with 2% base going to 10% with icestaff) is on the upper end here - but not inherently bad. The real problem is the following: Warden dps is low right now. Those changes would not yet fix the low dps but instead nerf everyone but the classic Brittleden.

So for me .. let me say it this way: I love the idea of love for frost staffs, surely do! But the class does need more love - and more damage!


In regards to Advanced Species, I pretty much agree with you. Its just simple mathematics. We needn't more of something that already is easy to cap out.

_________________________________________________________________

Overall though:
I might be alone in this, but I think the concept of making froststaff a valid dps option is awesome. What is important here is to not make it feel mandatory. And though in theory the math behind those changes likely works out very well in PvE, the fact that we take away some dps from other specs seems wrong.

robpr

Just did some mock parses and all these changes are meaningless most likely because of destro passives. Advanced Species is wasted passive - I'm waaaay over crit dmg cap. Daggers are still slightly better than frost staff. If the goal was to have frost staves closer in dps department then the goal might be achieved, but they never gonna be meta on warden.

Someone better than me should check it though.

Same build - medium zaan, Whorl on body and frontbar, kilt, pillar on jewelry and backbar. Screaming pidgeon as spam.

Frost/Frost: 97k
Frost/Inferno: 98k
DW/Inferno: 103k
DW/Frost: 102k
DW/2h: 102k

https://imgur.com/a/RQTgIzs

ESO_Nightingale

robpr wrote: »

Just did some mock parses and all these changes are meaningless most likely because of destro passives. Advanced Species is wasted passive - I'm waaaay over crit dmg cap. Daggers are still slightly better than frost staff. If the goal was to have frost staves closer in dps department then the goal might be achieved, but they never gonna be meta on warden.

Someone better than me should check it though.

Same build - medium zaan, Whorl on body and frontbar, kilt, pillar on jewelry and backbar. Screaming pidgeon as spam.

Frost/Frost: 97k
Frost/Inferno: 98k
DW/Inferno: 103k
DW/Frost: 102k
DW/2h: 102k

https://imgur.com/a/RQTgIzs

Still, to bring down other weapons just to bring up the ice staff. It's so frustrating that they went in that direction. we never asked them to cripple the class just to help frost dps.

MashmalloMan

robpr wrote: »

Just did some mock parses and all these changes are meaningless most likely because of destro passives. Advanced Species is wasted passive - I'm waaaay over crit dmg cap. Daggers are still slightly better than frost staff. If the goal was to have frost staves closer in dps department then the goal might be achieved, but they never gonna be meta on warden.

Someone better than me should check it themselves.

Same build - medium zaan, Whorl on body and frontbar, kilt, pillar on jewelry and backbar. Screaming pidgeon as spam.

Frost/Frost: 97k
Frost/Inferno: 98k
DW/Inferno: 103k
DW/Frost: 102k
DW/2h: 102k

https://imgur.com/a/RQTgIzs

Thank you! Your results highlight the some of the problems imo.

Nothing wrong with melee being better than ranged, that should be intentional and the results show the target of around 5% being matched - that much is solid..

However, your best ranged parse is Frost front, Inferno back instead of Frost/Frost.

Since Frost skills don't get a unique bonus anymore, there is no reason to run double frost or choose frost skills and sets over alternatives which typically deal more already like Burning or Flame Wall of Elements.

Most people run Winter's Revenge back bar, were you adjusting WR to the bar with a Frost staff equiped every time you changed setups so it received the 30% buff. If you didn't, the Frost/Inferno setup could go a smidge higher.

Frost staff also gives minor brittle which the dummy probably already includes.

FrancisCrawford

Nser wrote: »

Advanced Species should just be crit chance, like u mention benefits everybody since dmg done is now reserved for piercing cold.
We already have crit damage done on chilled enemies

Doubly, because they'll also be afflicted with Minor Brittle.

Mortac

What's up with bonuses like 1% and 2% increased damage anyway? Such bonuses are so miniscule and boring because you can't feel any impact by taking them anyway. Lackluster filler stuff that makes placing skill points feel, uh, lackluster. Boooring.

ESO_Nightingale

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Nser wrote: »

Advanced Species should just be crit chance, like u mention benefits everybody since dmg done is now reserved for piercing cold.
We already have crit damage done on chilled enemies

Doubly, because they'll also be afflicted with Minor Brittle.

well since you'll be forced to run one, i guess you can technically consider wardens to have +20% crit damage before advanced species lol

FrancisCrawford

robpr wrote: »

Just did some mock parses and all these changes are meaningless most likely because of destro passives. Advanced Species is wasted passive - I'm waaaay over crit dmg cap. Daggers are still slightly better than frost staff. If the goal was to have frost staves closer in dps department then the goal might be achieved, but they never gonna be meta on warden.

Someone better than me should check it though.

Same build - medium zaan, Whorl on body and frontbar, kilt, pillar on jewelry and backbar. Screaming pidgeon as spam.

Frost/Frost: 97k
Frost/Inferno: 98k
DW/Inferno: 103k
DW/Frost: 102k
DW/2h: 102k

https://imgur.com/a/RQTgIzs

How can a different element be better than frost, on average? Others give +10% damage to some attacks; frost gives +10% to all. The only exception/possibility I can quickly think of are heavy attacks, and they don't seem to be in the mix in that test.

What am I overlooking?

Klingenlied

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

robpr wrote: »

Just did some mock parses and all these changes are meaningless most likely because of destro passives. Advanced Species is wasted passive - I'm waaaay over crit dmg cap. Daggers are still slightly better than frost staff. If the goal was to have frost staves closer in dps department then the goal might be achieved, but they never gonna be meta on warden.

Someone better than me should check it though.

Same build - medium zaan, Whorl on body and frontbar, kilt, pillar on jewelry and backbar. Screaming pidgeon as spam.

Frost/Frost: 97k
Frost/Inferno: 98k
DW/Inferno: 103k
DW/Frost: 102k
DW/2h: 102k

https://imgur.com/a/RQTgIzs

How can a different element be better than frost, on average? Others give +10% damage to some attacks; frost gives +10% to all. The only exception/possibility I can quickly think of are heavy attacks, and they don't seem to be in the mix in that test.

What am I overlooking?

For one, burning is very strong. Then, Inferno does get the 2% bonus and adds another 10% to single target damage. But the main culprit might be crit luck, dunno?
Anyway, I think making frost viable is awesome. However, Wardens need an overall dps boost, not a niche change masking a whole class nerf. If they go for bonus damage, why not just give more? 8% extra all damage, 16% when wearing frost staff and Warden should be settled with bonus damage. Now exchange crit damage from advanced species to flat damage, damage % or crit chance - any stat that can not easily be capped out.

Tannus15

98k frost warden
Rele + frostbite + master staff

Tannus15

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

robpr wrote: »

Just did some mock parses and all these changes are meaningless most likely because of destro passives. Advanced Species is wasted passive - I'm waaaay over crit dmg cap. Daggers are still slightly better than frost staff. If the goal was to have frost staves closer in dps department then the goal might be achieved, but they never gonna be meta on warden.

Someone better than me should check it though.

Same build - medium zaan, Whorl on body and frontbar, kilt, pillar on jewelry and backbar. Screaming pidgeon as spam.

Frost/Frost: 97k
Frost/Inferno: 98k
DW/Inferno: 103k
DW/Frost: 102k
DW/2h: 102k

https://imgur.com/a/RQTgIzs

How can a different element be better than frost, on average? Others give +10% damage to some attacks; frost gives +10% to all. The only exception/possibility I can quickly think of are heavy attacks, and they don't seem to be in the mix in that test.

What am I overlooking?

you get 2% without a frost staff, so it's technically only 8% more.

the dummy also has +6% fire damage so wall and light attacks are already on par. flame wall is 10% more damage to burning targets, so now it's out performing ice wall on % damage buffs.

There is a lot going on here to make it hard to do an "apples to apples" comparison. I like the dps increase for the frost warden and i'd feel comfortable taking this build into content again, which i don't on live. Sure it's lower dps than a pure dps build, but it supplies minor brittle as well as some additional utility like the frost wall shield.

LeHarrt91

Tannus15 wrote: »

98k frost warden
Rele + frostbite + master staff

Have you tried Precise frontbar?

LeHarrt91

robpr wrote: »

Just did some mock parses and all these changes are meaningless most likely because of destro passives. Advanced Species is wasted passive - I'm waaaay over crit dmg cap. Daggers are still slightly better than frost staff. If the goal was to have frost staves closer in dps department then the goal might be achieved, but they never gonna be meta on warden.

Someone better than me should check it though.

Same build - medium zaan, Whorl on body and frontbar, kilt, pillar on jewelry and backbar. Screaming pidgeon as spam.

Frost/Frost: 97k
Frost/Inferno: 98k
DW/Inferno: 103k
DW/Frost: 102k
DW/2h: 102k

https://imgur.com/a/RQTgIzs

lol screaming pigeon. i love it

Tannus15

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

98k frost warden
Rele + frostbite + master staff

Have you tried Precise frontbar?

i haven't yet. honestly this is just my U34 build.

ESO_Nightingale

Tannus15 wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

robpr wrote: »

Just did some mock parses and all these changes are meaningless most likely because of destro passives. Advanced Species is wasted passive - I'm waaaay over crit dmg cap. Daggers are still slightly better than frost staff. If the goal was to have frost staves closer in dps department then the goal might be achieved, but they never gonna be meta on warden.

Someone better than me should check it though.

Same build - medium zaan, Whorl on body and frontbar, kilt, pillar on jewelry and backbar. Screaming pidgeon as spam.

Frost/Frost: 97k
Frost/Inferno: 98k
DW/Inferno: 103k
DW/Frost: 102k
DW/2h: 102k

https://imgur.com/a/RQTgIzs

How can a different element be better than frost, on average? Others give +10% damage to some attacks; frost gives +10% to all. The only exception/possibility I can quickly think of are heavy attacks, and they don't seem to be in the mix in that test.

What am I overlooking?

you get 2% without a frost staff, so it's technically only 8% more.

the dummy also has +6% fire damage so wall and light attacks are already on par. flame wall is 10% more damage to burning targets, so now it's out performing ice wall on % damage buffs.

There is a lot going on here to make it hard to do an "apples to apples" comparison. I like the dps increase for the frost warden and i'd feel comfortable taking this build into content again, which i don't on live. Sure it's lower dps than a pure dps build, but it supplies minor brittle as well as some additional utility like the frost wall shield.

it's definitely understandable why you like the change, it's just that with everything else that the ice staff offers, it becomes such a slap-on weapon because it does everything. i think in order to make the frost staff reasonably viable, you should really be building into using one through chilled(and therefore, frost damage sources). this PTS change just makes it a stat stick if you're a warden, and this really just makes it super unbalanced especially regarding pvp. as a stat stick that replaces increased frost damage done, you're less incentivised to run frost damage abilities because they're generally weaker than bleeds, flame and poison. sure you might get a bit more damage in pve with using a flame staff or daggers, but because the frost staff now comes so close while offering brittle and block bonuses, it's really just a no brainer to run it. that's not what i've personally been trying to push for. i'm not asking for zos to make wardens run an ice staff because we think it should offer so much more than other weapons, we're trying to get it to be viable in dps alongside other playstyles, but not overly dominant over them. while one could argue that this isn't the case, our passives and winter's revenge basically scream "use an ice staff now because you lose a lot of class power without it" and that's a big perception problem that goes against the "play how you want" mantra. there was absolutely nothing wrong with increased frost damage. the problem that they were trying to fix lied solely with the increased magic damage bonus.

i'm also incredibly annoyed that we're starting to be scapegoats for people annoyed that zos keeps changing our passives for the worse.

FrancisCrawford

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Still, to bring down other weapons just to bring up the ice staff. It's so frustrating that they went in that direction. we never asked them to cripple the class just to help frost dps.

So, leave the old bon

Tannus15 wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

robpr wrote: »

Just did some mock parses and all these changes are meaningless most likely because of destro passives. Advanced Species is wasted passive - I'm waaaay over crit dmg cap. Daggers are still slightly better than frost staff. If the goal was to have frost staves closer in dps department then the goal might be achieved, but they never gonna be meta on warden.

Someone better than me should check it though.

Same build - medium zaan, Whorl on body and frontbar, kilt, pillar on jewelry and backbar. Screaming pidgeon as spam.

Frost/Frost: 97k
Frost/Inferno: 98k
DW/Inferno: 103k
DW/Frost: 102k
DW/2h: 102k

https://imgur.com/a/RQTgIzs

How can a different element be better than frost, on average? Others give +10% damage to some attacks; frost gives +10% to all. The only exception/possibility I can quickly think of are heavy attacks, and they don't seem to be in the mix in that test.

What am I overlooking?

you get 2% without a frost staff, so it's technically only 8% more.

the dummy also has +6% fire damage so wall and light attacks are already on par. flame wall is 10% more damage to burning targets, so now it's out performing ice wall on % damage buffs.

There is a lot going on here to make it hard to do an "apples to apples" comparison. I like the dps increase for the frost warden and i'd feel comfortable taking this build into content again, which i don't on live. Sure it's lower dps than a pure dps build, but it supplies minor brittle as well as some additional utility like the frost wall shield.

Ahh. I wasn't thinking of the DK's buff to fire damage. Thanks!

(I never do trials -- just solos, duos or GF PUGs.)

FrancisCrawford

Anyhow, if ice staffs are for support but wardens are an exception to that rule, I'm OK with wardens getting a DPS buff for ice staff use. Just please don't nerf the accompanying support to "compensate".

ESO_Nightingale

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Anyhow, if ice staffs are for support but wardens are an exception to that rule, I'm OK with wardens getting a DPS buff for ice staff use. Just please don't nerf the accompanying support to "compensate".

i'm okay with this as long as it's able to be balanced, and as long as the class isn't made worse just to compensate for it. it seems that right now, neither of those things are happening.

FrancisCrawford

How would people feel about loading some of the damage buffs into different morphs of an active skill, such as Lotus or the Netch? Whichever one is chosen would immediately become a required skill, but so what? Oakensoul users might be annoyed, but at least the skills each already give value beyond the part that Oakensoul is redundant with.

In any case, it should be a skill that OTHERWISE works more or less the same way in either morph, to minimize complaints about the rest of the morph design.