Warden Changes: v8.2.2

Lughlongarm

Caribou77 wrote: »

Hm. I get that the chill proc from winters revenge and arctic blast greatly boost PVE MagDens, but I don't see this translating well to PVP.

Aldoss - do you use winters revenge much in PVP? I never have because it's so static (kind of like no one really uses wall of elements). It is entirely possible I am missing out an effective tactic. Please let me know if I am.

Also, I think I preferred the added penetration for Advanced Species (PVP, obviously it was horrible for PVE) as MagDens don't really build for crit in PVP -- or do they?

I would love to hear PVP Mag/FrostDen perspectives, as I am not feeling very confident that changes to Piercing Cold/etc for the next patch have done anything beyond pigeon-hole PVP MagDen with a frost staff, for a very neglegible increase (~2% overall) in damage.

Thanks to all of the well-informed and dedicated Magicka Wardens who continue to (try) to help the class evolve. Still feels like it needs alot.

For PvP, one of the things this change is doing is the ability for Wardens to once again be effective with proc sets. With 12% boost to any proc set in the game while wielding an ice staff, you are no longer limited to only Ice/magic procs(same with enchants/poisons etc). Also its giving you the ability to experiment with different skills which are now being boosted like "Dawnbreaker of Smiting", which many prefer as the go to ultimate and "Silver Leash" which is preferred by many as a spammble. When it comes to top line damage, don't expect a big boost from live(if any at all). Regarding "winters revenge", I don't see how Wardens can make room for it on their bar, I think "Elemental Blockade" is still better for PVP, even if it will not proc chill as much.

So Magicka Wardens basically traded weapon flexibility for skill+sets flexibility. Crit builds are still a solid option but require lots of investment to really be great. Proc builds could be interesting as well. Just remember that if you are going Mostly Medium/Heavy armor with a charged ice staff, and also trying to build crit chance+ high weapon/spell damage, its very hard to find place for pen. Also, the best defensive sets in the game right now are counters to both rapid status procs and crit builds. So we will have to see what will be the new meta.

ESO_Nightingale

thoughts?

Necrotech_Master

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

thoughts?

i would almost use that over deep fissure at this point lol

the only problem i have with the current frozen gate skill is in PVE it currently does not trigger on enemies immune to cc such as bosses, if the enemy cannot be teleported, they cannot be debuffed (so for example it cannot apply the maim debuff to a boss)

im assuming since this just deals dmg it might possibly still trigger on something cc immune, but would want to be sure lol

pikHz

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

thoughts?

I'm never gonna fight anyone trying to turn this meme morph into a useful damage skill lol! Since the damage "sticks" here they'd probably want to budget it like the 20 second dots. That being said, I'm on board with this.

I even suggested somewhere turning Retreat into a 'frozen Flames of Oblivion centered on a gate' skill. Change the max gates to 1, have the gate proc 3 frost projectiles every 5 seconds for its duration. It's more expensive than FoO so give it the execute scaling.

I'd take anything for a skill to address the issue of Warden coming up a bit short on good skills that deal damage themselves vs giving us buffs we get from potions/healers. With Wardens (I believe) still behind on damage with this PTS it's a great time to throw ideas out to buff us in cool ways.

Mr_Stach

Since this week is boring for Warden, I'm working on a lil somethin somethin. Very early in the idea phase but I still want to utilize the Portal Aspect, just make it, you know interesting.


Just for Insight, Current Idea is a Tanking Morph that has a self-activated synergy that has Guaranteed Chilled Proc that does something to affected enemies, playing around with the synergy effect right now honestly. Sustain is an Idea, getting an Ice Shell that Absorbs Damage or something.

Other Morph is a Sustained Portal thing Gate of Babylon if you've seen Fate

But the Idea is the longer the Ability is sustained, the larger, faster, and more damage the Frost Dart/Spear/Projectiles do.

ESO_Nightingale

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Since this week is boring for Warden, I'm working on a lil somethin somethin. Very early in the idea phase but I still want to utilize the Portal Aspect, just make it, you know interesting.


Just for Insight, Current Idea is a Tanking Morph that has a self-activated synergy that has Guaranteed Chilled Proc that does something to affected enemies, playing around with the synergy effect right now honestly. Sustain is an Idea, getting an Ice Shell that Absorbs Damage or something.

Other Morph is a Sustained Portal thing Gate of Babylon if you've seen Fate

But the Idea is the longer the Ability is sustained, the larger, faster, and more damage the Frost Dart/Spear/Projectiles do.

As much as i like this, zos rarely ever does entire reworks like bound armaments or stone fist. Its why i try to stick to more simple reworks that keep fundamental skill mechanics in place.

Mr_Stach

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Since this week is boring for Warden, I'm working on a lil somethin somethin. Very early in the idea phase but I still want to utilize the Portal Aspect, just make it, you know interesting.


Just for Insight, Current Idea is a Tanking Morph that has a self-activated synergy that has Guaranteed Chilled Proc that does something to affected enemies, playing around with the synergy effect right now honestly. Sustain is an Idea, getting an Ice Shell that Absorbs Damage or something.

Other Morph is a Sustained Portal thing Gate of Babylon if you've seen Fate

But the Idea is the longer the Ability is sustained, the larger, faster, and more damage the Frost Dart/Spear/Projectiles do.

As much as i like this, zos rarely ever does entire reworks like bound armaments or stone fist. Its why i try to stick to more simple reworks that keep fundamental skill mechanics in place.

Yeah I know, mostly just going a little outside the box due to not much happening this week, ultimately I think the simple adjustments will work. But the possibilities could be really cool

ESO_Nightingale

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

thoughts?

i would almost use that over deep fissure at this point lol

the only problem i have with the current frozen gate skill is in PVE it currently does not trigger on enemies immune to cc such as bosses, if the enemy cannot be teleported, they cannot be debuffed (so for example it cannot apply the maim debuff to a boss)

im assuming since this just deals dmg it might possibly still trigger on something cc immune, but would want to be sure lol

The intention is that it would act like scalding rune. Only 1 gate, triggers on enemies in it's radius or when an enemy steps in it.

ESO_Nightingale

pikHz wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

thoughts?

I'm never gonna fight anyone trying to turn this meme morph into a useful damage skill lol! Since the damage "sticks" here they'd probably want to budget it like the 20 second dots. That being said, I'm on board with this.

I even suggested somewhere turning Retreat into a 'frozen Flames of Oblivion centered on a gate' skill. Change the max gates to 1, have the gate proc 3 frost projectiles every 5 seconds for its duration. It's more expensive than FoO so give it the execute scaling.

I'd take anything for a skill to address the issue of Warden coming up a bit short on good skills that deal damage themselves vs giving us buffs we get from potions/healers. With Wardens (I believe) still behind on damage with this PTS it's a great time to throw ideas out to buff us in cool ways.

I see what you're saying but as an execute ability I'd want it to be recast fairly often. 10 seconds would make it need to be pressed more often than 20. And perhaps the burst damage of the execute portion would warrant recasting it more often towards the end of a boss enemy's health.

ESO_Nightingale

Next week is the last week until late jan/early feb. Lets hope piercing cold doesn't force us into using an ice staff.

ESO_Nightingale

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Next week is the last week until late jan/early feb. Lets hope piercing cold doesn't force us into using an ice staff.

We tried i guess

ESO_Nightingale

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

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).

Its not just the damage. A proper frost warden build in pvp can proc chilled several times a second already. Ice wall, shards and arctic blast each have high chance of applying chilled already, and wardens can use the charged trait pretty comfortably already due to deep fissure giving major and minor breach.

In bgs, frost wardens are already pretty oppressive, and can dish out serious damage, only lacking in finishing power, really.
This change is going to push their damage over the top.

there's counters to aoe dots and immobilises that are often utilised anyway, if you didn't get out of it before, chilled isn't really the thing that's killing you. the real problem is the 10% increased damage when using an ice staff. chilled isn't the problem here, this change is really allowing frost damage builds to thrive in pve due to the procs over the course of a long fight.

i'm gonna be keeping an eye on what i said here. i could be right, but i also could be pretty wrong. if it proves too much for pvp, we're gonna have to see if they can reduce it's effectiveness in pvp and not pve as this actually makes frost warden solid there.

Lughlongarm

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

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).

Its not just the damage. A proper frost warden build in pvp can proc chilled several times a second already. Ice wall, shards and arctic blast each have high chance of applying chilled already, and wardens can use the charged trait pretty comfortably already due to deep fissure giving major and minor breach.

In bgs, frost wardens are already pretty oppressive, and can dish out serious damage, only lacking in finishing power, really.
This change is going to push their damage over the top.

there's counters to aoe dots and immobilises that are often utilised anyway, if you didn't get out of it before, chilled isn't really the thing that's killing you. the real problem is the 10% increased damage when using an ice staff. chilled isn't the problem here, this change is really allowing frost damage builds to thrive in pve due to the procs over the course of a long fight.

i'm gonna be keeping an eye on what i said here. i could be right, but i also could be pretty wrong. if it proves too much for pvp, we're gonna have to see if they can reduce it's effectiveness in pvp and not pve as this actually makes frost warden solid there.

-Keeping an eye? How are you going to that? You have data room access or something? Even if you could tell that Magden is doing well this patch and being popular, how would you will able to identify it got do with one passive and not the other?

-Master frost staff Wardens with Destructive Reach, is probably one of the only build variant that is buffed(in PVP) from the ice staff damage boost buff, compared to live. My theory is that players will play with it for a while because its the flavor of the month and will get back to their original builds very fast.

-If needed, a very easy nerf that will not impact PVE at all, is to get the attached "chilled" out of "Destructive Reach" moprh, and make it part only of the "Destructive Clench". It will reduce the burst potential of this skill as a spammable in PvP.

-BTW, If frost Wardens will be a thing, Nord DKs will be amazing. with wings on, frost staff is shutdown completely. Also "Trial by Fire" set could increase in popularity.

Mr_Stach

Lughlongarm wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

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).

Its not just the damage. A proper frost warden build in pvp can proc chilled several times a second already. Ice wall, shards and arctic blast each have high chance of applying chilled already, and wardens can use the charged trait pretty comfortably already due to deep fissure giving major and minor breach.

In bgs, frost wardens are already pretty oppressive, and can dish out serious damage, only lacking in finishing power, really.
This change is going to push their damage over the top.

there's counters to aoe dots and immobilises that are often utilised anyway, if you didn't get out of it before, chilled isn't really the thing that's killing you. the real problem is the 10% increased damage when using an ice staff. chilled isn't the problem here, this change is really allowing frost damage builds to thrive in pve due to the procs over the course of a long fight.

i'm gonna be keeping an eye on what i said here. i could be right, but i also could be pretty wrong. if it proves too much for pvp, we're gonna have to see if they can reduce it's effectiveness in pvp and not pve as this actually makes frost warden solid there.

-Keeping an eye? How are you going to that? You have data room access or something? Even if you could tell that Magden is doing well this patch and being popular, how would you will able to identify it got do with one passive and not the other?

-Master frost staff Wardens with Destructive Reach, is probably one of the only build variant that is buffed(in PVP) from the ice staff damage boost buff, compared to live. My theory is that players will play with it for a while because its the flavor of the month and will get back to their original builds very fast.

-If needed, a very easy nerf that will not impact PVE at all, is to get the attached "chilled" out of "Destructive Reach" moprh, and make it part only of the "Destructive Clench". It will reduce the burst potential of this skill as a spammable in PvP.

-BTW, If frost Wardens will be a thing, Nord DKs will be amazing. with wings on, frost staff is shutdown completely. Also "Trial by Fire" set could increase in popularity.

You're reading into too much, if it goes live, which it looks like it will he's just going to watch how the Meta shakes out. If he's wrong, he's wrong, if not, he's not.

Everything on the pts is hyper focused, you never quite know how things shake out or if Zos will sneak in an extra little something right at the end that no one can test.

Frost Wardens that already play frost warden will be better. Stamina builds get a free little bump for nothing and free Chilled procs from Arctic Blast which will be good for a little burst.

But let's see where the dust settles. Right now we've got nothing to test because this is two weeks in a row of nothing.

ESO_Nightingale

Lughlongarm wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

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).

Its not just the damage. A proper frost warden build in pvp can proc chilled several times a second already. Ice wall, shards and arctic blast each have high chance of applying chilled already, and wardens can use the charged trait pretty comfortably already due to deep fissure giving major and minor breach.

In bgs, frost wardens are already pretty oppressive, and can dish out serious damage, only lacking in finishing power, really.
This change is going to push their damage over the top.

there's counters to aoe dots and immobilises that are often utilised anyway, if you didn't get out of it before, chilled isn't really the thing that's killing you. the real problem is the 10% increased damage when using an ice staff. chilled isn't the problem here, this change is really allowing frost damage builds to thrive in pve due to the procs over the course of a long fight.

i'm gonna be keeping an eye on what i said here. i could be right, but i also could be pretty wrong. if it proves too much for pvp, we're gonna have to see if they can reduce it's effectiveness in pvp and not pve as this actually makes frost warden solid there.

-Keeping an eye? How are you going to that? You have data room access or something?

Huh? I just meant i was going to be keeping an eye on public opinion when the patch drops.

Caribou77

Thank you, again, Nightingale. I will experiment with a PVP crit build on my MagDen.

I gotta admit, it feels very unintuitive, as I have always kept high impen on my armor (play no CP BGs, mostly) and assumed that everyone else does as well. I figured Nightblade was the only crit class.

I will give it a shot and let you know what I learn.

Mr_Stach

So these past two weeks have been probably the most boring PTS weeks that I have ever been a part of, there not only has not been anything for warden but also nothing for any class really. I've tried to not just sit by idly wait for Zos to do something on any front so in my time I've workshopping as I usually do during the PTS season. These changes as is will most definitely go live and with that I've made some future stuff for people to think about. The Magic/Frost Damage passives are gone, but Warden is definitely more Frost focused than ever with the Glacial Presence passive. One of the large issues that Frost Warden will still face is a lack of core frost abilities in it's kit. I think with the removal of magic damage bonus in general the changing of damage types on abilities is much more of a moot point now, so here are some of our ideas:


General Shalks changes: All Shalks morphs have the 3/3 timing similar to current Sub Assault, as well as have Major Breach connected to them.
Glacial Fissure: Now leaves a persistent Ice Ground effect for 6 seconds instead of applying Minor Breach, this will allow for some area denial and make the Deep Fissure Morph a little less overwhelming for people. And of course does frost damage.


Rime Racer: Instead of swooping down, the Cliff Racer is conjured directly in front of the caster and speeds toward the target dealing frost damage, compared to the current rendition, this attack is considerably faster but deals reduced damage compared to the current ability, as the current ability deals more because of the delay.


Frost Flies: Instead of the dual casting feature we currently have, the Idea is that whenever a Chilled proc activates, the 60% damage activates for 5s with a 6s cd. Also deals frost damage of course.


Glacial Guardian: Polar bear doin' polar bear things. Purely by this doing frost damage, and getting chilled procs constantly, it will get closer to the Bleed Bear. Not exactly sure if it needs more, but I'm always open to suggestions.

Also as a side note, Bear is always been a necessary evil for Frost and while this bear change would just continue that, I do think that there should be something done to Northern Storm to make it more viable in PvE vs Bear. I think that you have to be very careful when buffing it because it is strong in PvP especially with the upcoming changes, maybe make a buff that is only active when fighting monsters or something. but some things to consider.