Warden Changes: v8.2.2

ESO_Nightingale

Hey everyone including @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam and @ZOS_GinaBruno , I'm here to give my feedback on the 2nd iteration of warden changes this patch. this post will be a lot shorter than my other one, as the glacial presence change fixed a couple of issues that frost warden builds face.

let's start out with the most positive change

Glacial Presence: This passive now increases the damage done by your Chilled status effect based on a value determined by your highest offensive stats, rather than adding 10% Critical Damage and Healing to recently Chilled targets.

Developer Comment:
It didn’t feel right having two passives that essentially did the same thing (between this and Advanced Species). As such, we're making Glacial Presence grant a bonus damage modifier that scales with your Offensive stats. This way, we don't need to worry too much about tankier builds getting a lot of power out of this passive, while helping the generic damage of the class go up when utilizing their kit and rewarding them even more if they are focused on Frost Damage as a whole. We're not too concerned about the potential Critical Healing loss here either since the requirement of an ally recently being Chilled was only applicable in PvP, where Warden healers specifically will be losing this small bit of power.


My Response:

This is honestly the best change that could have been made regarding the frost warden builds in the current state of the game. I firmly believe that due to chilled application being our job, that it was a good idea to tie much of our damage to it's direct damage portion, what this change does is reward us for not only doing our job, but also using as much frost damage as possible in order to get competitive damage. this outcome was exactly what frost warden builds wanted, and for that, i thank you.

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Advanced Species: Increased the Critical Damage bonus of this passive to 2/4% per ability slotted, up from 1/3%.

Developer Comment:
We've reworked the Glacial Presence's offensive bonus of Critical Damage and decided to bring a portion of it into this passive to make up for some of that potential loss. This should help retain relative Critical Damage potential while making the class less restricted with a capped stat.

My Response:

this change feels a bit better as now we don't have as absurdly high levels of critical damage that gets us to the cap without being able to take another option like medium armor or khajiit. i'm still not 100% sure that critical damage is the right move, but this change is a bit less abrasive.

---

Unfortunately, this next change is still a major issue.

Piercing Cold: Increased the damage done bonus of this passive to 6 and 12% with an Ice Staff equipped, up from 5 and 10%.

Developer Comment
Rather than increasing the generic damage bonus of this passive, we're relying on Glacial Presence's new effect to help the base line Warden experience, then sweetening the deal slightly for those extra frosty builds out there.

My Response:

this change is still extremely problematic and the reasoning for it makes little sense as well. your goal is to help the baseline warden, which is completely understandable as they definitely now feel very left out from a lot of these changes. however, glacial presence doesn't have a huge amount of value for non frost wardens. you can't expect the glacial presence change to carry the damage loss when non-frost wardens only really care to use winter's revenge.
by tying a whole 10% damage done bonus to the ice staff, it just makes the requirement to run frost staves even higher in all forms of content for damage dealers. because the ice staff gives ancient knowledge blocking bonuses, minor brittle on chilled application and this warden specific 10% increase to all damage, all other weapons really pale in comparison to the ice staff. with the change to glacial presence, we got what we needed, incentivisation to run as much frost damage as possible. this passive acting as it does, just makes frost damage dealers feel like the only proper way to build a warden damage dealer. please don't double down on this type of change it just feels really bad for playing how you want to play. there's a lot of people out there that like to play frost wardens, but there's also a lot of people out there who like to play stamina wardens and even non frost staff magicka wardens. glacial presence gave us what we needed, it is time to revert this passive away from a specific weapon type. just make it +6% all damage with no requirement and +6% to 10% frost damage to help bring up frost damage skills in general, this will help to sweeten the deal for both frost and regular wardens while also not forcing a specific weapon down people's throats.

Suggestion: change this passive from 2% damage done that increases to 12% with a frost staff equipped, to +6% damage done and +6%/10% frost damage done. if you are adamant on keeping the ice staff specific change, make it only increase the frost damage part of this passive.

Mr_Stach

I think if there is one good thing to come out of this PTS, it's the change to Glacial Presence. Honestly. I thought that it just being a copy of what Brittle does was much more boring, this new change has more impact and flavor and makes people want to use Frost Abilities for those bigger chilled procs.

That beings said, I'll agree with the rest here.

I am how ADAMANTLY opposed to weapons being tied to passives and skills. It set a bad precedent last patch and that continues to this patch.

I do think that have a bonus for doing "something" is interesting though, so make it something inside the skill tree.

+6% damage done, while a winter's embrace ability is active, get a bonus +6% Frost Damage Bonus

Make people want to use their class abilities, make those abilities impactful. That's how you make Frost Warden desirable, you don't staple Frost Staff to their face.

Necrotech_Master

for my stam warden (who is also a WW with an oakensoul lol), overall these changes probably wont affect him, being in WW mode all the times mean im benefitting from almost none of the passives to begin with lol

on the other hand my mag warden who was already using a frost theme with a ice destro will probably benefit, my only issue with him is getting a better skill rotation down lol

i do agree though that requiring a specific weapon type is bad and goes against the games play how you want mantra

MashmalloMan

Agreed!

Glacial Presence. Great!

• Fantastic change. This is what we meant when we said that the Frost Staff bonuses don't make any sense because they don't actually incentivise using Frost skills or sets. Now get rid of the Winter's Revenge bonus for something new like 6% Frost Damage taken to match DK's or increased damage to chilled targets. Stop restricting all Wardens to Frost Staves.

Advanced Species. Neutral.

• I'm neutral on this because the class no longer double dips in Crit Damage, but it still would of been better to go for an uncapped stat.. 4% per slotted is very valuable and stat dense compared to the previous 990 penetration, but not as great as the 2% damage done. Step in the right direction at least, unfortunately many pvp builds not built for crit chance will never see the benefit of this, while pen and damage done worked for everyone.

Piercing Cold. Bad.

• For some reason after all the feedback, they chose to double down on this bad idea. Now just holding a Frost staff increases all damage you deal by another 10%, which makes no sense in comparison to Fire/Shock only increasing Single Target/AOE for 10%. Did they forget it also provides Brittle and Utility? They're overstacking Frost Staves for Warden's to compensate Encratis/DK's Fire Debuff. The Glacial Presence change was already a huge step in closing the gap against Burning, so it's really only those 2 effects left, of which could be covered again by a Winter's Revenge update.
• The gap between no Frost Staff and Frost Staff is also way too large. 2% and 10%? What a joke to be a non Frost Warden, this isn't what any Warden asked for and it's causing us to look like the cause of problem. I would much rather prefer 4% damage done + 6-8% Frost damage, no Staff required.... but if they must keep that awful idea, 4% damage done + 10% Frost damage while holding the staff. Get rid of the all damage done bonus for staves, it makes no sense. Incetivise using Frost damage, not holding it for stats.

WrathOfInnos

The direction of Warden this year has been confusing and misguided. The stated goals don't align with the changes at all, and it seems like issues go unaddressed or get a small bandaid fix.

I get that frost warden should be viable, but the old passives made a lot more sense than things like requiring a staff to make Winter's Revenge viable. Restricting skills based on weapon type is very limiting, while a class passive making a weapon type viable is great.

The 10% increased frost damage was great for this. I could see it increased to 15% or maybe even 20%. This passive helped to fix the weak points of Ice Staff (light attacks, wall damage, spammable). This would (and did) give Wardens the option of Ice without making their class skills require it.

I'm fine with removing the 10% magic damage passive, as long as something else is buffed to make up for the power loss.

Advanced Species is a terrible change. Even with the change to Glacial Presence, Wardens have too much crit damage. As long as the stat is hard capped (which IMO it should not be), Wardens will struggle in organized groups if one of their primary damage passives gets cut off. % damage done was a much better choice, as it was slightly diminished by full group buffs (Major Slayer, Berserk, etc.) but still valuable for all builds.

I also really dislike the 9s timing on Deep Fissure. Please allow us to use the 3s rhythm without severely reducing our damage. And fix the ability of Shalks to hit Tideborn Taleria.

warich

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

The direction of Warden this year has been confusing and misguided. The stated goals don't align with the changes at all, and it seems like issues go unaddressed or get a small bandaid fix.

I get that frost warden should be viable, but the old passives made a lot more sense than things like requiring a staff to make Winter's Revenge viable. Restricting skills based on weapon type is very limiting, while a class passive making a weapon type viable is great.

The 10% increased frost damage was great for this. I could see it increased to 15% or maybe even 20%. This passive helped to fix the weak points of Ice Staff (light attacks, wall damage, spammable). This would (and did) give Wardens the option of Ice without making their class skills require it.

I'm fine with removing the 10% magic damage passive, as long as something else is buffed to make up for the power loss.

Advanced Species is a terrible change. Even with the change to Glacial Presence, Wardens have too much crit damage. As long as the stat is hard capped (which IMO it should not be), Wardens will struggle in organized groups if one of their primary damage passives gets cut off. % damage done was a much better choice, as it was slightly diminished by full group buffs (Major Slayer, Berserk, etc.) but still valuable for all builds.

I also really dislike the 9s timing on Deep Fissure. Please allow us to use the 3s rhythm without severely reducing our damage. And fix the ability of Shalks to hit Tideborn Taleria.

This. Except for tying a weapon to a class passive. It is not warden's job to make ice staff good. The ice staff shouldn't just be the worst damage option. Fix the weapon, don't fix the class around the weapon.

Necrotech_Master

warich wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

The direction of Warden this year has been confusing and misguided. The stated goals don't align with the changes at all, and it seems like issues go unaddressed or get a small bandaid fix.

I get that frost warden should be viable, but the old passives made a lot more sense than things like requiring a staff to make Winter's Revenge viable. Restricting skills based on weapon type is very limiting, while a class passive making a weapon type viable is great.

The 10% increased frost damage was great for this. I could see it increased to 15% or maybe even 20%. This passive helped to fix the weak points of Ice Staff (light attacks, wall damage, spammable). This would (and did) give Wardens the option of Ice without making their class skills require it.

I'm fine with removing the 10% magic damage passive, as long as something else is buffed to make up for the power loss.

Advanced Species is a terrible change. Even with the change to Glacial Presence, Wardens have too much crit damage. As long as the stat is hard capped (which IMO it should not be), Wardens will struggle in organized groups if one of their primary damage passives gets cut off. % damage done was a much better choice, as it was slightly diminished by full group buffs (Major Slayer, Berserk, etc.) but still valuable for all builds.

I also really dislike the 9s timing on Deep Fissure. Please allow us to use the 3s rhythm without severely reducing our damage. And fix the ability of Shalks to hit Tideborn Taleria.

This. Except for tying a weapon to a class passive. It is not warden's job to make ice staff good. The ice staff shouldn't just be the worst damage option. Fix the weapon, don't fix the class around the weapon.

it also doesnt help that over the years the ice staff has been relegated to being more of a "tank oriented" weapon

so its like they are trying to make a tank weapon viable for dps, but in this case only for warden

MashmalloMan

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

The direction of Warden this year has been confusing and misguided. The stated goals don't align with the changes at all, and it seems like issues go unaddressed or get a small bandaid fix.

I get that frost warden should be viable, but the old passives made a lot more sense than things like requiring a staff to make Winter's Revenge viable. Restricting skills based on weapon type is very limiting, while a class passive making a weapon type viable is great.

The 10% increased frost damage was great for this. I could see it increased to 15% or maybe even 20%. This passive helped to fix the weak points of Ice Staff (light attacks, wall damage, spammable). This would (and did) give Wardens the option of Ice without making their class skills require it.

I'm fine with removing the 10% magic damage passive, as long as something else is buffed to make up for the power loss.

Advanced Species is a terrible change. Even with the change to Glacial Presence, Wardens have too much crit damage. As long as the stat is hard capped (which IMO it should not be), Wardens will struggle in organized groups if one of their primary damage passives gets cut off. % damage done was a much better choice, as it was slightly diminished by full group buffs (Major Slayer, Berserk, etc.) but still valuable for all builds.

I also really dislike the 9s timing on Deep Fissure. Please allow us to use the 3s rhythm without severely reducing our damage. And fix the ability of Shalks to hit Tideborn Taleria.

Disagree on the class passive for weapon bonus, it's just as bad if not worse than the Winter's Revenge bonus you don't like for all the same reasons.

Easy fix for Deep Fissure is to swap the damage values. Make the upfront 3s burst stronger than the second 9s tick. The second tick has no visual queue so there is no counterplay to it, so why does it hit harder? They even aknowledged that they wanted to keep the same rhythm Wardens are used to, but they made the first hit 25% weaker than what it was before.

The reward for casting it more frequently should be stronger burst (that the enemy can see coming), the longer 9s burst is purely for free dps/preasure and debuff management at the cost of being weaker.

Darkstorne

My sword and board frost Warden has mixed feelings.

Glacial Presence
Advanced Species
Piercing Cold

WrathOfInnos

warich wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

The direction of Warden this year has been confusing and misguided. The stated goals don't align with the changes at all, and it seems like issues go unaddressed or get a small bandaid fix.

I get that frost warden should be viable, but the old passives made a lot more sense than things like requiring a staff to make Winter's Revenge viable. Restricting skills based on weapon type is very limiting, while a class passive making a weapon type viable is great.

The 10% increased frost damage was great for this. I could see it increased to 15% or maybe even 20%. This passive helped to fix the weak points of Ice Staff (light attacks, wall damage, spammable). This would (and did) give Wardens the option of Ice without making their class skills require it.

I'm fine with removing the 10% magic damage passive, as long as something else is buffed to make up for the power loss.

Advanced Species is a terrible change. Even with the change to Glacial Presence, Wardens have too much crit damage. As long as the stat is hard capped (which IMO it should not be), Wardens will struggle in organized groups if one of their primary damage passives gets cut off. % damage done was a much better choice, as it was slightly diminished by full group buffs (Major Slayer, Berserk, etc.) but still valuable for all builds.

I also really dislike the 9s timing on Deep Fissure. Please allow us to use the 3s rhythm without severely reducing our damage. And fix the ability of Shalks to hit Tideborn Taleria.

This. Except for tying a weapon to a class passive. It is not warden's job to make ice staff good. The ice staff shouldn't just be the worst damage option. Fix the weapon, don't fix the class around the weapon.

Fair point. Ice Staff should be an option on any class, but excel slightly more on Warden. I think they've achieved this pretty well with Inferno Staff on Dragonknight (with their increased Burning ticks, 5% more Fire damage passive, and Engulfing Flames debuff), where other classes are pushed a little more into Daggers/Greatsword.

Sorcerer and shock damage should get the same treatment. 5% is not nearly enough to incentivize using the weaker weapon, and the fact that Sorcs also get 5% physical damage means Lightning still cannot pull ahead. This should be at least 10% bonus to shock damage to make the weapon excel on the lightning specialist class. I will be seriously annoyed if they delete the Energized passive and make Lightning Flood deal 30% less damage unless you hold a lightning staff.

Maybe 10% increase to Frost Damage is the right amount, but Frost Staff itself should get a buff to make up another ~10% on Light Attacks, Frost Wall, etc. Either way, the changes are moving in the wrong direction, deleting this passive entirely, and forcing a build to use a certain weapon for their class skills (active or passive) to function is a bad move.

Aldoss

MashmalloMan wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

The direction of Warden this year has been confusing and misguided. The stated goals don't align with the changes at all, and it seems like issues go unaddressed or get a small bandaid fix.

I get that frost warden should be viable, but the old passives made a lot more sense than things like requiring a staff to make Winter's Revenge viable. Restricting skills based on weapon type is very limiting, while a class passive making a weapon type viable is great.

The 10% increased frost damage was great for this. I could see it increased to 15% or maybe even 20%. This passive helped to fix the weak points of Ice Staff (light attacks, wall damage, spammable). This would (and did) give Wardens the option of Ice without making their class skills require it.

I'm fine with removing the 10% magic damage passive, as long as something else is buffed to make up for the power loss.

Advanced Species is a terrible change. Even with the change to Glacial Presence, Wardens have too much crit damage. As long as the stat is hard capped (which IMO it should not be), Wardens will struggle in organized groups if one of their primary damage passives gets cut off. % damage done was a much better choice, as it was slightly diminished by full group buffs (Major Slayer, Berserk, etc.) but still valuable for all builds.

I also really dislike the 9s timing on Deep Fissure. Please allow us to use the 3s rhythm without severely reducing our damage. And fix the ability of Shalks to hit Tideborn Taleria.

Disagree on the class passive for weapon bonus, it's just as bad if not worse than the Winter's Revenge bonus you don't like for all the same reasons.

Easy fix for Deep Fissure is to swap the damage values. Make the upfront 3s burst stronger than the second 9s tick. The second tick has no visual queue so there is no counterplay to it, so why does it hit harder? They even aknowledged that they wanted to keep the same rhythm Wardens are used to, but they made the first hit 25% weaker than what it was before.

The reward for casting it more frequently should be stronger burst (that the enemy can see coming), the longer 9s burst is purely for free dps/preasure and debuff management at the cost of being weaker.

Full agreement. This change still makes no sense to me. The -25% nerf to the first hit still feels awful and the 9s window is still frustrating.

The big hit should have the most counter play and waste the most amount of resources, although I guess there's an argument to be made that time in a battle is the single most valuable resource. The magicka cost of shalks for the 9s window is barely noticeable and you're right, there's no visual queue for the boom. It's a surprise for the target and the caster, unless you use tracking add ons to help you know when the boom will fire.

I miss the 3s window.

MashmalloMan

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

warich wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

The direction of Warden this year has been confusing and misguided. The stated goals don't align with the changes at all, and it seems like issues go unaddressed or get a small bandaid fix.

I get that frost warden should be viable, but the old passives made a lot more sense than things like requiring a staff to make Winter's Revenge viable. Restricting skills based on weapon type is very limiting, while a class passive making a weapon type viable is great.

The 10% increased frost damage was great for this. I could see it increased to 15% or maybe even 20%. This passive helped to fix the weak points of Ice Staff (light attacks, wall damage, spammable). This would (and did) give Wardens the option of Ice without making their class skills require it.

I'm fine with removing the 10% magic damage passive, as long as something else is buffed to make up for the power loss.

Advanced Species is a terrible change. Even with the change to Glacial Presence, Wardens have too much crit damage. As long as the stat is hard capped (which IMO it should not be), Wardens will struggle in organized groups if one of their primary damage passives gets cut off. % damage done was a much better choice, as it was slightly diminished by full group buffs (Major Slayer, Berserk, etc.) but still valuable for all builds.

I also really dislike the 9s timing on Deep Fissure. Please allow us to use the 3s rhythm without severely reducing our damage. And fix the ability of Shalks to hit Tideborn Taleria.

This. Except for tying a weapon to a class passive. It is not warden's job to make ice staff good. The ice staff shouldn't just be the worst damage option. Fix the weapon, don't fix the class around the weapon.

I will be seriously annoyed if they delete the Energized passive and make Lightning Flood deal 30% less damage unless you hold a lightning staff.

Wow.. whats funny is that is exactly what they did and some Wardens are excited about it. Sad if you don't keep up with all the changes, it can appear as if you're receiving a buff, when really you're receiving a restriction.

ZOS.. do not lay your hands on Energized. Feel free to give us a Sundered/Concussed passive bonus, that is what actually promotes class themes and identity. I am still salty they removed our old school Implosion passive for Amplitude, a generic, reverse execute damage done bonus.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good passive, but Implosion was really fun and interesting to build for. Like DK and Warden's, it rewarded Sorc's for stacking as much damage ticks as they could from Physical/Shock damage. Yeah it was a bit cheasy to nuke people under 15%, but they could of reworked it into something better.

In typical ZOS fashion, slap a generic bonus on it and call it a day (CP 2.0/Piercing Cold).

Mr_Stach

MashmalloMan wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

warich wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

The direction of Warden this year has been confusing and misguided. The stated goals don't align with the changes at all, and it seems like issues go unaddressed or get a small bandaid fix.

I get that frost warden should be viable, but the old passives made a lot more sense than things like requiring a staff to make Winter's Revenge viable. Restricting skills based on weapon type is very limiting, while a class passive making a weapon type viable is great.

The 10% increased frost damage was great for this. I could see it increased to 15% or maybe even 20%. This passive helped to fix the weak points of Ice Staff (light attacks, wall damage, spammable). This would (and did) give Wardens the option of Ice without making their class skills require it.

I'm fine with removing the 10% magic damage passive, as long as something else is buffed to make up for the power loss.

Advanced Species is a terrible change. Even with the change to Glacial Presence, Wardens have too much crit damage. As long as the stat is hard capped (which IMO it should not be), Wardens will struggle in organized groups if one of their primary damage passives gets cut off. % damage done was a much better choice, as it was slightly diminished by full group buffs (Major Slayer, Berserk, etc.) but still valuable for all builds.

I also really dislike the 9s timing on Deep Fissure. Please allow us to use the 3s rhythm without severely reducing our damage. And fix the ability of Shalks to hit Tideborn Taleria.

This. Except for tying a weapon to a class passive. It is not warden's job to make ice staff good. The ice staff shouldn't just be the worst damage option. Fix the weapon, don't fix the class around the weapon.

I will be seriously annoyed if they delete the Energized passive and make Lightning Flood deal 30% less damage unless you hold a lightning staff.

Wow.. whats funny is that is exactly what they did and some Wardens are excited about it. Sad if you don't keep up with all the changes, it can appear as if you're receiving a buff, when really you're receiving a restriction.

ZOS.. do not lay your hands on Energized. Feel free to give us a Sundered/Concussed passive bonus, that is what actually promotes class themes and identity. I am still salty they removed our old school Implosion passive for Amplitude, a generic, reverse execute damage done bonus.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good passive, but Implosion was really fun and interesting to build for. Like DK and Warden's, it rewarded Sorc's for stacking as much damage ticks as they could from Physical/Shock damage. Yeah it was a bit cheasy to nuke people under 15%, but they could of reworked it into something better.

In typical ZOS fashion, slap a generic bonus on it and call it a day (CP 2.0/Piercing Cold).

Really Weapons have no place being attached to skills or passives, It's not a buff to Nerf a skill to nothing then tell us to get it back to hold a stick. I am already going to hold the stick because that's what I use, being told I will be punished if I don't hold the stick is very annoying.

Zos needs to rethink both Winter's Revenge, Piercing Cold and this whole line of thinking

MashmalloMan

Mr_Stach wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

warich wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

The direction of Warden this year has been confusing and misguided. The stated goals don't align with the changes at all, and it seems like issues go unaddressed or get a small bandaid fix.

I get that frost warden should be viable, but the old passives made a lot more sense than things like requiring a staff to make Winter's Revenge viable. Restricting skills based on weapon type is very limiting, while a class passive making a weapon type viable is great.

The 10% increased frost damage was great for this. I could see it increased to 15% or maybe even 20%. This passive helped to fix the weak points of Ice Staff (light attacks, wall damage, spammable). This would (and did) give Wardens the option of Ice without making their class skills require it.

I'm fine with removing the 10% magic damage passive, as long as something else is buffed to make up for the power loss.

Advanced Species is a terrible change. Even with the change to Glacial Presence, Wardens have too much crit damage. As long as the stat is hard capped (which IMO it should not be), Wardens will struggle in organized groups if one of their primary damage passives gets cut off. % damage done was a much better choice, as it was slightly diminished by full group buffs (Major Slayer, Berserk, etc.) but still valuable for all builds.

I also really dislike the 9s timing on Deep Fissure. Please allow us to use the 3s rhythm without severely reducing our damage. And fix the ability of Shalks to hit Tideborn Taleria.

This. Except for tying a weapon to a class passive. It is not warden's job to make ice staff good. The ice staff shouldn't just be the worst damage option. Fix the weapon, don't fix the class around the weapon.

I will be seriously annoyed if they delete the Energized passive and make Lightning Flood deal 30% less damage unless you hold a lightning staff.

Wow.. whats funny is that is exactly what they did and some Wardens are excited about it. Sad if you don't keep up with all the changes, it can appear as if you're receiving a buff, when really you're receiving a restriction.

ZOS.. do not lay your hands on Energized. Feel free to give us a Sundered/Concussed passive bonus, that is what actually promotes class themes and identity. I am still salty they removed our old school Implosion passive for Amplitude, a generic, reverse execute damage done bonus.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good passive, but Implosion was really fun and interesting to build for. Like DK and Warden's, it rewarded Sorc's for stacking as much damage ticks as they could from Physical/Shock damage. Yeah it was a bit cheasy to nuke people under 15%, but they could of reworked it into something better.

In typical ZOS fashion, slap a generic bonus on it and call it a day (CP 2.0/Piercing Cold).

Really Weapons have no place being attached to skills or passives, It's not a buff to Nerf a skill to nothing then tell us to get it back to hold a stick. I am already going to hold the stick because that's what I use, being told I will be punished if I don't hold the stick is very annoying.

Zos needs to rethink both Winter's Revenge, Piercing Cold and this whole line of thinking

At this rate, I really fear for U37 and Sorcs.. it's a recipe for disaster in the making. Especially since they appear to be doubling down by increasing the value. I said during U36 WR would open a can of worms, here we are.

Now there are a few Sorc's asking for Energized to be changed. No, please no.

I'm all for Frost Wardens and Shock Sorcs, but this isn't the way. Glacial Presence, Combustion, World in Ruin and to a much lesser extent Energized are excellent examples of how to handle class identity and synergy with elements without restricting them.

The worst part is.. it feels like they're confused. Why did they unlock every skill by giving us hybridization, only to lock them again behind a specific Weapon. So we went from 1/2 options to get value from a skill, to 1/6. How does that make any sense? How does that highlight the play as you want mantra?

Mr_Stach

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

warich wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

The direction of Warden this year has been confusing and misguided. The stated goals don't align with the changes at all, and it seems like issues go unaddressed or get a small bandaid fix.

I get that frost warden should be viable, but the old passives made a lot more sense than things like requiring a staff to make Winter's Revenge viable. Restricting skills based on weapon type is very limiting, while a class passive making a weapon type viable is great.

The 10% increased frost damage was great for this. I could see it increased to 15% or maybe even 20%. This passive helped to fix the weak points of Ice Staff (light attacks, wall damage, spammable). This would (and did) give Wardens the option of Ice without making their class skills require it.

I'm fine with removing the 10% magic damage passive, as long as something else is buffed to make up for the power loss.

Advanced Species is a terrible change. Even with the change to Glacial Presence, Wardens have too much crit damage. As long as the stat is hard capped (which IMO it should not be), Wardens will struggle in organized groups if one of their primary damage passives gets cut off. % damage done was a much better choice, as it was slightly diminished by full group buffs (Major Slayer, Berserk, etc.) but still valuable for all builds.

I also really dislike the 9s timing on Deep Fissure. Please allow us to use the 3s rhythm without severely reducing our damage. And fix the ability of Shalks to hit Tideborn Taleria.

This. Except for tying a weapon to a class passive. It is not warden's job to make ice staff good. The ice staff shouldn't just be the worst damage option. Fix the weapon, don't fix the class around the weapon.

I will be seriously annoyed if they delete the Energized passive and make Lightning Flood deal 30% less damage unless you hold a lightning staff.

Wow.. whats funny is that is exactly what they did and some Wardens are excited about it. Sad if you don't keep up with all the changes, it can appear as if you're receiving a buff, when really you're receiving a restriction.

ZOS.. do not lay your hands on Energized. Feel free to give us a Sundered/Concussed passive bonus, that is what actually promotes class themes and identity. I am still salty they removed our old school Implosion passive for Amplitude, a generic, reverse execute damage done bonus.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good passive, but Implosion was really fun and interesting to build for. Like DK and Warden's, it rewarded Sorc's for stacking as much damage ticks as they could from Physical/Shock damage. Yeah it was a bit cheasy to nuke people under 15%, but they could of reworked it into something better.

In typical ZOS fashion, slap a generic bonus on it and call it a day (CP 2.0/Piercing Cold).

Really Weapons have no place being attached to skills or passives, It's not a buff to Nerf a skill to nothing then tell us to get it back to hold a stick. I am already going to hold the stick because that's what I use, being told I will be punished if I don't hold the stick is very annoying.

Zos needs to rethink both Winter's Revenge, Piercing Cold and this whole line of thinking

At this rate, I really fear for U37 and Sorcs.. it's a recipe for disaster in the making. Especially since they appear to be doubling down by increasing the value. I said during U36 WR would open a can of worms, here we are.

Now there are a few Sorc's asking for Energized to be changed. No, please no.

I'm all for Frost Wardens and Shock Sorcs, but this isn't the way. Glacial Presence, Combustion, World in Ruin and to a much lesser extent Energized are excellent examples of how to handle class identity and synergy with elements without restricting them.

The worst part is.. it feels like they're confused. Why did they unlock every skill by giving us hybridization, only to lock them again behind a specific Weapon. So we went from 1/2 options to get value from a skill, to 1/6. How does that make any sense? How does that highlight the play as you want mantra?

I honestly think it falls to them Seeing the Feedback, the complete landslide of Ideas, but they can't use our Ideas, they need to make their own Ideas, so they Frankenstein things together that just don't stand up to pressure. People were asking for Damage done to come back to Advanced species but they can't possibly just go back on that and people are asking to rework passives, so Piercing Cold gets Frankensteined together and people hate it.

The only way that they can move forward is to look at the Ideas and feedback, I mean I don't think my Ideas are perfect, but they get a similar result without relying on Frost Staff and punishing people who don't want it.

ESO_Nightingale

@ZOS_Gilliam and @ZOS_BrianWheeler it would be really nice if northern storm got a solid buff to help it be able to compete more with bear. if the permafrost morph's auto chilled application and duration increase was applied to the base skill (sleet storm), in return for major protection being limited to only permafrost, i think the ultimate choices for damage dealers would be a lot healthier if it came within a 4-5k dps difference i think it would be fine. you'd pick permafrost for a strong aoe snare and group protection, and you would pick northern storm to do devastating damage in an area for 12 seconds, with a lingering 30 second weapon and spell damage boost.

Rex-Umbra

Warden DPS will be OP with all that extra crit dmg.

Mr_Stach

Rex-Umbra wrote: »

Warden DPS will be OP with all that extra crit dmg.

Eh I mean in Organized endgame groups you'd already have capped crit damage. So you'd just build different. The real benefit is the bonus damage on chilled procs which if you run Winter's Revenge, you'll get constantly. A really nice bonus if you are running a frost setup as well, a lot of people see it as a meme build but it's starting to catch up slowly.

Still the issue is the Piercing Cold passive, really pushing people towards frost staff is not a good direction.

Just some thoughts to consider

FrancisCrawford

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Rex-Umbra wrote: »

Warden DPS will be OP with all that extra crit dmg.

Eh I mean in Organized endgame groups you'd already have capped crit damage. So you'd just build different. The real benefit is the bonus damage on chilled procs which if you run Winter's Revenge, you'll get constantly. A really nice bonus if you are running a frost setup as well, a lot of people see it as a meme build but it's starting to catch up slowly.

Still the issue is the Piercing Cold passive, really pushing people towards frost staff is not a good direction.

Just some thoughts to consider

What's the Chilled proc rate on Winter's Revenge? The tool tip on the passive doesn't sound like it would be as high as it seems to be in real life, since the base rate before all the buffs should be just 1%.

ESO_Nightingale

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Rex-Umbra wrote: »

Warden DPS will be OP with all that extra crit dmg.

Eh I mean in Organized endgame groups you'd already have capped crit damage. So you'd just build different. The real benefit is the bonus damage on chilled procs which if you run Winter's Revenge, you'll get constantly. A really nice bonus if you are running a frost setup as well, a lot of people see it as a meme build but it's starting to catch up slowly.

Still the issue is the Piercing Cold passive, really pushing people towards frost staff is not a good direction.

Just some thoughts to consider

What's the Chilled proc rate on Winter's Revenge? The tool tip on the passive doesn't sound like it would be as high as it seems to be in real life, since the base rate before all the buffs should be just 1%.

i think it's like 5% base before glacial, cp, destro and charged.

Turtle_Bot

Seems a lot of the complaints are that the class is being tied to frost staves (I feel for you, being a magsorc pushed into being a zookeeper for years now). So my solution would be to stop trying to tweak the passives so much and instead focus on the destro staff line itself.

My fix for frost (and shock) staves while not ruining flame staves would be to remove the single target/aoe buffs and make each staff buff its own elemental damage type by 10% and all other magicka based damage types by 8% and change the penetrating magic passive to work with ALL magicka skills, not just destro staff skills only. I would also change a passive to one that grants bonuses to raw stats depending on the type of staff being used (crit damage for frost, pen for shock and raw damage for flame) that would be similar in power to the 2h line bonuses.

This way, they don't have to tie a class to a specific weapon, and anyone can play an ice mage (warden will min/max the best for this, but others still can do it), or a lightning mage (sorc min/max best, others viable) or a fire mage (dk min/max best, others viable) or even go a mixed mage if they want to without losing too much damage.

Couple this with focusing each class into its given elemental theme (i.e. what they did for dk with making all their abilities deal fire/poison damage instead of magic damage, do it for wardens with frost/bleed damage, and sorcs with shock/physical damage) it would work wonders for making dps a lot more equal across the board and once again allow staves to compete with dual wield/2h in terms of raw power.
Classes like necro would get to choose which staff they prefer to suit their chosen skill to buff (flame for skull, ice for boneyard or lightning for mage/siphon) and get the 8% onto everything else and plars and nbs won't miss out entirely either since they get the 8% buff to everything and penetrating magic also works with their skills as well.

Obviously there would still need to be some slight tweaks to the numbers on certain skills (skulls/scythe/dive) or some changes to a few skills to modernise them a bit more (remove cast time from frags and make it deal shock damage) and the different status effects (burning/concussed/chilled) to balance them out with each other, but it would allow for a lot more play as you want since the difference in the values would be super close (2% is practically nothing for the overall scaling) if you wanted to play an off theme build or use off theme abilities for your class, but would give that option for classes to focus if they want to without massively losing out if they want to play something else.

Also, it wouldn't really affect the stamina or hybrid characters, since the stamina characters would go for stamina weapons anyway with their currently much stronger buffs/debuffs/effects and hybrids can now choose between either without seeing a huge loss in damage for running the staff instead of DW or 2h.

FrancisCrawford

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Rex-Umbra wrote: »

Warden DPS will be OP with all that extra crit dmg.

Eh I mean in Organized endgame groups you'd already have capped crit damage. So you'd just build different. The real benefit is the bonus damage on chilled procs which if you run Winter's Revenge, you'll get constantly. A really nice bonus if you are running a frost setup as well, a lot of people see it as a meme build but it's starting to catch up slowly.

Still the issue is the Piercing Cold passive, really pushing people towards frost staff is not a good direction.

Just some thoughts to consider

What's the Chilled proc rate on Winter's Revenge? The tool tip on the passive doesn't sound like it would be as high as it seems to be in real life, since the base rate before all the buffs should be just 1%.

i think it's like 5% base before glacial, cp, destro and charged.

5% vs. the presumed 1%. Yeah, that could account for observed behavior.

ESO_Nightingale

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Rex-Umbra wrote: »

Warden DPS will be OP with all that extra crit dmg.

Eh I mean in Organized endgame groups you'd already have capped crit damage. So you'd just build different. The real benefit is the bonus damage on chilled procs which if you run Winter's Revenge, you'll get constantly. A really nice bonus if you are running a frost setup as well, a lot of people see it as a meme build but it's starting to catch up slowly.

Still the issue is the Piercing Cold passive, really pushing people towards frost staff is not a good direction.

Just some thoughts to consider

What's the Chilled proc rate on Winter's Revenge? The tool tip on the passive doesn't sound like it would be as high as it seems to be in real life, since the base rate before all the buffs should be just 1%.

i think it's like 5% base before glacial, cp, destro and charged.

5% vs. the presumed 1%. Yeah, that could account for observed behavior.

yeah there's several things increasing it. the base skill has a significantly higher proc rate than other aoe dots, then it has a 200% increase from glacial presence, 100% from destro, 60% from cp and then finally a 365% increase from a gold charged 2 handed weapon.

MashmalloMan

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Rex-Umbra wrote: »

Warden DPS will be OP with all that extra crit dmg.

Eh I mean in Organized endgame groups you'd already have capped crit damage. So you'd just build different. The real benefit is the bonus damage on chilled procs which if you run Winter's Revenge, you'll get constantly. A really nice bonus if you are running a frost setup as well, a lot of people see it as a meme build but it's starting to catch up slowly.

Still the issue is the Piercing Cold passive, really pushing people towards frost staff is not a good direction.

Just some thoughts to consider

What's the Chilled proc rate on Winter's Revenge? The tool tip on the passive doesn't sound like it would be as high as it seems to be in real life, since the base rate before all the buffs should be just 1%.

i think it's like 5% base before glacial, cp, destro and charged.

5% vs. the presumed 1%. Yeah, that could account for observed behavior.

Did tests in 2020 about this because they never said at any point what it's suppose to be.. they haven't changed the base chance, only other effects like Charged since then. My conclusion was it was 5%.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/553749/wardens-winter-revenge-mechanics-experiment#latest

The post included thoughts about addative vs multiplicative, knowing what I know now and how they've treated other skills, it's definitely multiplicative. They "decuple" the % chance from the base game value it should be by multiplying it for a new base value used for all other status effect chance increases. They used this term "decuple" for Barbed Trap in U35.

• Barbed Trap (morph): This morph now decuples (x10) the chance of applying the Hemorrhaging status effect, rather than increasing the duration. This means the initial hit will have a 50% chance of applying it, rather than a 5%, and the Damage over Time will have a 30% chance per tick instead of 3%.

So in the case of Barbed Trap, you only need +100% status effect chance for the first hit to always Hemorphage, for the dot, you only need +233%. Fairly easy to achieve.

Base game:

• 20% Enchant
• 10% Single Target - Direct
• 5% AoE - Direct
• 3% Single Target - DoT
• 1% AoE - DoT

So although Winter's Revenge counts for AoE DoT damage and should be 1%, it's actually 5%. You then add every other bonus like the 200% from Winters Embrace passive, 100% from Destro, 60% from CP, 365% from Charged and you get +725% or 8.25x... aka 41.25% per tick.

Arctic Blast is suppose to be AoE DoT at 1%, but they mentioned it's 15% in U35, with the above bonuses, thats 123.75%, aka guaranteed AoE chilled proc every 2s.

FrancisCrawford

If Winter's Revenge pretty reliably applies Chilled, then it would seem that Force Pulse could do a lot of cleave damage.

Also, if your staff is Charged, then Force Pulse could also apply a lot of Burning and Concussed.

And if your spammable is applying a lot of Concussed, then the debuff appeal of Fetcherflies would presumably reduced, in an era when the damage from single-target DoTs is fairly underwhelming.


Or am I missing something?

LeHarrt91

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

If Winter's Revenge pretty reliably applies Chilled, then it would seem that Force Pulse could do a lot of cleave damage.

Also, if your staff is Charged, then Force Pulse could also apply a lot of Burning and Concussed.

And if your spammable is applying a lot of Concussed, then the debuff appeal of Fetcherflies would presumably reduced, in an era when the damage from single-target DoTs is fairly underwhelming.


Or am I missing something?

Force Pulse AoE would be guaranteed with new Elemental Susceptibility wouldn't it?

WrathOfInnos

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

If Winter's Revenge pretty reliably applies Chilled, then it would seem that Force Pulse could do a lot of cleave damage.

Also, if your staff is Charged, then Force Pulse could also apply a lot of Burning and Concussed.

And if your spammable is applying a lot of Concussed, then the debuff appeal of Fetcherflies would presumably reduced, in an era when the damage from single-target DoTs is fairly underwhelming.


Or am I missing something?

Force Pulse AoE would be guaranteed with new Elemental Susceptibility wouldn't it?

Only if you cast susceptibility on every enemy, and even then the status effects would be active 4 out of 6 seconds.

Yiko

Isn't that Chilled scaling going to be extremely oppressive on Magden in PVP when using Destructive Clench with Master's Ice Staff (or maybe even w/o Master's Ice Staff)? The Master Destruction staffs and Destructive Clench were reworked to not be used as spammables, but having Chilled as a guaranteed proc on hit would essentially make this ability a spammable that also: roots the target, applies Major Maim, applies Minor Maim, and gives the caster 600 SD w/ Master's Ice on top of the 12% damage boost from the Warden passive. That sounds extremely oppressive and overloaded, considering it's already fairly broken on Live in terms of value/utility.
Maybe I'm overestimating the damage, so I'll check the actual numbers when the PTS build editor is updated, but this is definitely a concern of mine.

ESO_Nightingale

Yiko wrote: »

Isn't that Chilled scaling going to be extremely oppressive on Magden in PVP when using Destructive Clench with Master's Ice Staff (or maybe even w/o Master's Ice Staff)? The Master Destruction staffs and Destructive Clench were reworked to not be used as spammables, but having Chilled as a guaranteed proc on hit would essentially make this ability a spammable that also: roots the target, applies Major Maim, applies Minor Maim, and gives the caster 600 SD w/ Master's Ice on top of the 12% damage boost from the Warden passive. That sounds extremely oppressive and overloaded, considering it's already fairly broken on Live in terms of value/utility.
Maybe I'm overestimating the damage, so I'll check the actual numbers when the PTS build editor is updated, but this is definitely a concern of mine.

Chilled's bonus power from the passive is probably only about 1.5k if you invest a ton into wep/spell damage before any pvp scaling, on my pve build i only got it up to about 1165 normal buffed with betty. Most of it's value is in really high proc rate with charged by winter's revenge and arctic blast in pve.

Lughlongarm

Yiko wrote: »

Isn't that Chilled scaling going to be extremely oppressive on Magden in PVP when using Destructive Clench with Master's Ice Staff (or maybe even w/o Master's Ice Staff)? The Master Destruction staffs and Destructive Clench were reworked to not be used as spammables, but having Chilled as a guaranteed proc on hit would essentially make this ability a spammable that also: roots the target, applies Major Maim, applies Minor Maim, and gives the caster 600 SD w/ Master's Ice on top of the 12% damage boost from the Warden passive. That sounds extremely oppressive and overloaded, considering it's already fairly broken on Live in terms of value/utility.
Maybe I'm overestimating the damage, so I'll check the actual numbers when the PTS build editor is updated, but this is definitely a concern of mine.

Hi, you give the damage from Chilled scaling way too much credit. We are talking about up to ~2k damage proc on high damage builds. Even with this damage, Destructive Clench damage is way too low to be a functional spammable. On the other hand, the other morph just crossed the barrier of becoming a very competitive spammable to force pulse/ vamp spammable. One of the reasons players never liked this skill as a spammable was due to the animation and low velocity of the projectile. This aspect of the skill is still an issue for some players. You have to remember that magden biggest problem was always the lack of an execute skill and therefor the ability to really land the killing blow. Offensive Magdens can't afford to sacrifice damage for defense/utility. Master ice staff builds could be effective for BGs, but I don't see this trend overshadowing Stamdens in cyrodiil. DB+SA+Spin2Win, just way stronger(Can kill a group of players in one combo).

Yiko

Lughlongarm wrote: »

Yiko wrote: »

Isn't that Chilled scaling going to be extremely oppressive on Magden in PVP when using Destructive Clench with Master's Ice Staff (or maybe even w/o Master's Ice Staff)? The Master Destruction staffs and Destructive Clench were reworked to not be used as spammables, but having Chilled as a guaranteed proc on hit would essentially make this ability a spammable that also: roots the target, applies Major Maim, applies Minor Maim, and gives the caster 600 SD w/ Master's Ice on top of the 12% damage boost from the Warden passive. That sounds extremely oppressive and overloaded, considering it's already fairly broken on Live in terms of value/utility.
Maybe I'm overestimating the damage, so I'll check the actual numbers when the PTS build editor is updated, but this is definitely a concern of mine.

Hi, you give the damage from Chilled scaling way too much credit. We are talking about up to ~2k damage proc on high damage builds. Even with this damage, Destructive Clench damage is way too low to be a functional spammable. On the other hand, the other morph just crossed the barrier of becoming a very competitive spammable to force pulse/ vamp spammable. One of the reasons players never liked this skill as a spammable was due to the animation and low velocity of the projectile. This aspect of the skill is still an issue for some players. You have to remember that magden biggest problem was always the lack of an execute skill and therefor the ability to really land the killing blow. Offensive Magdens can't afford to sacrifice damage for defense/utility. Master ice staff builds could be effective for BGs, but I don't see this trend overshadowing Stamdens in cyrodiil. DB+SA+Spin2Win, just way stronger(Can kill a group of players in one combo).

That’s good to hear. Warden survivability is already pretty overtuned in general, especially considering how easy it is. I didn’t think a bunch of magdens running around spamming roots and major/minor maim + competitive damage on top of that ridiculous survivability would be conducive to healthy play and counterplay. I mean the morph on live is probably too much as is, but still, good to hear the chilled proc won’t be contributing to oppressive damage on top of everything else.
I still think the devs missed their mark with most of these warden passive changes and that stamden’s offense isn’t being properly considered for this passive reassessment