What's with the massive uptake in wardens everywhere!!

Sergykid

you can play "something new" without any changes. Try a different playstyle, ranged warden melee warden, melee nb range nb, invis cloak morph, brawler cloak morph, etc. Try a different morph, try a different set.

there doesn't have to be any change for anyone to play something different

.

Rhaegar75

If people wanted to play something fresh or new why are they not jumping into Templars? Lots of skills are different and they even have a fresh animation to savour!!!!! Mmmmm I wonder why there are more wardens….bizarre

People are after ‘flavour of the patch’ and S-Tier classes’: overbuff a class and a week later you’ll find them everywhere……same as wardens.

Tanky meta + most classes had their damage nerfed + wardens were buffed = Jimmy Noob will play a tanky warden

Cadbury

Rhaegar75 wrote: »

If people wanted to play something fresh or new why are they not jumping into Templars? Lots of skills are different and they even have a fresh animation to savour!!!!! Mmmmm I wonder why there are more wardens….bizarre

People are after ‘flavour of the patch’ and S-Tier classes’: overbuff a class and a week later you’ll find them everywhere……same as wardens.

Tanky meta + most classes had their damage nerfed + wardens were buffed = Jimmy Noob will play a tanky warden

You know, that does explain why alot of the kills I get in BGs are now Wardens instead of Templars

Rhaegar75

Cadbury wrote: »

Rhaegar75 wrote: »

If people wanted to play something fresh or new why are they not jumping into Templars? Lots of skills are different and they even have a fresh animation to savour!!!!! Mmmmm I wonder why there are more wardens….bizarre

People are after ‘flavour of the patch’ and S-Tier classes’: overbuff a class and a week later you’ll find them everywhere……same as wardens.

Tanky meta + most classes had their damage nerfed + wardens were buffed = Jimmy Noob will play a tanky warden

You know, that does explain why alot of the kills I get in BGs are now Wardens instead of Templars

I totally agree...Jimmy Noob played Plars before and now moved to Wardens and will soon leave Wardens behind as soon as ZOS nerfs them.

Let's not fool ourselves with the fresh/new explanation. Meta surfers like Jimmy Noob follow whatever is strong and OP.
Some players don't though - I know plenty of Wardens who played them when they were trash - total respect!

OBJnoob

Can't tell if the salt is because people just disagree with what I said or because I irritated a lot of templar mains. Probably both.

Honestly if I... Or, excuse me, Jimmy Noob... Wanted to play S-tier classes I'd be playing a DK or a NB right now. Warden isn't even S-tier lol. They're good, yes, due to U35, I havent decided if the frost staff thing is any good or not yet.

As far as why not play a templar goes-- I'm going to say two things that admittedly kinda contradict themselves. 1) I don't have any templars. They always seemed OP to me and so I refused to make one. This opinion is based on the 4+ years before DK got buffed in U33 or whenever that was. I don't have any necromancers either, because I didn't buy the dlc.
2) I decided quite a while ago that I wouldn't make any new characters I just don't feel like running around collecting skyshards, maxing psijic and fighters guild blahblah, maxing undaunted and medicinal use. So... Other than the two classes I mentioned in #1... I have two of every class, one mag one stam, and I enjoy when things get changed up because I'll play one of the others for a while. I've done this on them for so long that they pretty much have all weapon lines unlocked already its a simple matter of respeccing skill points. Ranged, melee, hybrid, I do feel like I've played it all and need game changes to have fun.

Cadbury wrote: »

You know, that does explain why alot of the kills I get in BGs are now Wardens instead of Templars

Soooo... Are wardens S-tier or just a bunch of meta chasing noobs who you kill at will? I'm confused about what the complaint is. Oh yeah, now I remember, the meta templars who were recently nerfed got angry at a comment. There is no actual point about wardens its just whatever abstract bullcrap makes the tiniest bit of enough sense to be a witty insult. If anybody wanted to be meta they never would a stopped playing magdk.

Since wardens aren't S-tier people must be playing them for a different reason. I'll leave you salty bois to wonder.

Cadbury

OBJnoob wrote: »

stuff

Tl;DR

My takeaway is that there are probably alot of players who wanted to jump onto Warden now because, frankly any class getting any buffs currently is tempting to try out now. That's not to say that some people don't want to try out a different class. Like you said, running the same class can potentially become boring, so variety is the spice of life.

I'm just amused that there is a uptick in Wardens in BGs...

OBJnoob

Agreed. But this thread was started right after u35 and time has passed now and the only recent substantial change was the frost staff thing. Which, 10% extra damage done is strong-- but its replacing 10% magic and frost damage which most (mag)wardens are based around anyway, so that passive is a bit of a wash however wielding a frost staff means giving up the passives that inferno or lightning provide. It may in fact be a nerf...

So even though you won't read anything beyond a certain length and therefore will probably never fully understand anything, I'm continuing to explain why wardens aren't S-tier and therefore its probably their freshness that is attracting players.

TechMaybeHic

Rhaegar75 wrote: »

If people wanted to play something fresh or new why are they not jumping into Templars? Lots of skills are different and they even have a fresh animation to savour!!!!! Mmmmm I wonder why there are more wardens….bizarre

People are after ‘flavour of the patch’ and S-Tier classes’: overbuff a class and a week later you’ll find them everywhere……same as wardens.

Tanky meta + most classes had their damage nerfed + wardens were buffed = Jimmy Noob will play a tanky warden

Lol On point with wondering why there aren't more players checking out that fresh new templar animation. Wonder if ZOS wonders. 🤣

And I don't know about S tier but warden certainly is closer to that than the bottom. I think a lot of the people who rerolled them thought S tier though just going by patch notes , whether they are or not

Caribou77

Jimmy Noob is still playing DK. It’s by far the most “user friendly” pvp class.

It’s apparent when a Dk roots you and spams whip, but you don’t die and effectively kite them, that it’s Jimmy. Experienced Dks have corrossive or leap ready before they attack, and they tend to work in pairs (multiple leaps incoming!)

Sure, lots of new wardens trying out the updated skills (not buffs- lost tons of damage unless you use an ice staff) and Stamden (not Magden) is really tanky right now, so go 2h spam dizzy and it’s a pretty braindead effective class. But most of the Jimmys will give up on warden when seasoned DKs continue to whomp them.

LittlePinkDot

Syiccal wrote: »

endgamesmug wrote: »

I left my templar main in my dust awhile back and ive been really enjoying warden going hybrid damage/healing its great!

Is it though, I see them mainly as support it's not oftern I see decent dmg . Tanky yes killing machines not really but I spend alot of time in bg

Stam warden

Jabbs_Giggity

taugrim wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

DK and Templar were meta update 32,33 and 34. In update 34 however they had to share meta with stamsorc. Necro was also strong during this meta, especially harmony magcro. Warden and Necro were meta from before update 26 to including update 29 and since update 35 warden is meta again. DK meta was much shorter than warden meta and they were worst class before this for a while.

DK is still the best PVP class. Best burst self-healing in the game, unblockable CC, and and IWIN ult.

Templar was OP until Living Dark was nerfed to no longer scale with offensive stats. Then ZoS subsequently over-nerfed Puncturing Strikes, Burning Light, and in U36 Backlash. I feel bad for Templar mains, all the nerfs together is too much.

Warden is top 2 in PVP now but DK is still king.

The U35 for templars literally read "ALL damaging skills nerf 25% or more, suck it Templar mains. We hate you but can't Uninstall you from the game"...

Tiphis

Wardens always had good healing and tankiness but with the 12% increased damage done with ice staff it allows them to both be tankier than usual while also having the biggest damage modifiers in the game. It's not surprising with the standard over tuning that people play it. If they decide to buff Templar heals and utility and increased their damage done by 12% more people would play it.

Xandreia_

someone probably came out with a build, personally ive been playing warden for years and im not gonna lie, it sucks having my main be BIS now after learning to play it when it was in a bad state

i cant see it lasting long though, warden has amazing burst potential but you have to line everything up perfectly or else its useless, and the wardens ive been fighting lately, 60% of them dont do that, they just spam things.

katorga

Tiphis wrote: »

Wardens always had good healing and tankiness but with the 12% increased damage done with ice staff it allows them to both be tankier than usual while also having the biggest damage modifiers in the game. It's not surprising with the standard over tuning that people play it. If they decide to buff Templar heals and utility and increased their damage done by 12% more people would play it.

A 12% damage buff, (the largest single, raw damage buff in the game?), on a tanking weapon is Bad Design.

Even if it was limited to just frost damage, it would be too much.

If you recall, Resto Staff used to have 10% flat damage boost. That was nerfed as OP, years ago. Now this?

-

MEBengalsFan2001

OBJnoob wrote: »

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

Why do games end up with a Flavor of the Month class, ability, gear, etc...

When a game developer does not have a set baseline and multipliers or reduces to handle how abilities or gear should impact damage, CC effect, etc... the game is like ESO and we all know how broken it is.

Games where the devs set a baseline and follow it tend to have less issues and are able to resolve those issues quicker.

Older MMOs tend to follow a similar path as ESO and that is due to turnover within the organization. The original game designers/developers are probably no longer with the company and whatever baseline was set is now gone but their original code is still buried there somewhere and as new code is added or old code modify it is a guessing game on how it will impact the overall flow of the game.

I believe with the PVP overhaul we may see some abilities, gear sets and other things change and it will probably make another flavor of the month class or gear set, etc...

I for one don't like chasing the current flavor, I like specific classes and will continue to use them even if they are inferior because those are the classes I enjoy most.

I kinda disagree with you. Which... I wouldn't presume to tell you how to feel. If you don't like it then you don't like it-- no arguing with that.

But if ESO is one way, and as you say older mmorpgs are the same as ESO... Then maybe we should at least consider it a decent way to be. Call of Duty for example-- while it will have some guns balanced from time to time-- doesn't really see the big swings in flavors of the month as you say. And ESO does.

But could this be simply because a new CoD comes out every year and THAT is their chance to try something drastically new? Whereas ESO is just ESO and there arguably won't be another-- let alone a new one every year.

So in order to maintain their players and the sense of character building and uniqueness they have to shake it up over and over again.

I can't speak for you but for me I very much doubt I'd still be playing this game 5 years later if the first DK I ever made and optimized was still using the same gear and abilities. Or the same night blade, or warden, blahblah.

I mean what would there be to do?

BUT. Not to derail the thread... That's why there are a lot of wardens. Because as someone else said its "fresh." Not everyone goes with the flavor of the month because its the best. Some just want to have fun and try something new.

Not to hurt anyone's feelings or be overly personal... But if I may use templar as an example... I just can't personally sympathize with people who've played templars exclusively for 6 years straight and feel like their game is ruined because they do less DPS now. For the love of god just play a night blade.

FotM is a term I used from a game that made monthly updates and where players felt the need to chase the golden carrot of being top DPS in PVE content. Many good players swapped to the most overpowered class just so they can be top in damage. I stuck to my original class and rarely was their damage output all that much higher than mine that spending $10 per a month to change my character class IMO wasn't worth it. What was worth it was learning how to be effective and produce as much damage as possible.

ESO it is more about Flavor of the Update as each update there are enough changes that impact what gear and class to use that players swap to these to be competitive in PVP.

I see plenty of former Templars now using Wardens and DK in PVP. I still run my two characters in PVP which are a Warden and Templar. I have other characters but I only run two in PVP. With the Templar being my main I'm not worried about chasing the top of anything. I'm worried about having fun and see what I can do to keep my character enjoyable in PVP and PVE and if I don't like something I simply change up my gear or passives, etc...

Tiphis

katorga wrote: »

Tiphis wrote: »

Wardens always had good healing and tankiness but with the 12% increased damage done with ice staff it allows them to both be tankier than usual while also having the biggest damage modifiers in the game. It's not surprising with the standard over tuning that people play it. If they decide to buff Templar heals and utility and increased their damage done by 12% more people would play it.

A 12% damage buff, (the largest single, raw damage buff in the game?), on a tanking weapon is Bad Design.

Even if it was limited to just frost damage, it would be too much.

If you recall, Resto Staff used to have 10% flat damage boost. That was nerfed as OP, years ago. Now this?

-

Largest damage buff in terms of passives remember brutality/sorcerer isn't damage done but increases weapon and spell damage which typically doesn't translate into damage done (except maybe on very high stats to start). They should've just made is 5% increased magicka and frost damage (down from 10%) and 5% more damage done while wielding an ice staff. So it would be a 10% instead of 12% damage done for ice abilities to make a frost warden, while not overtuning it to be a 12% damage done on any and all damage.

Heck they could've just removed the increased magicka damage done part, increased the frost damage done to maybe 12%, made deep fissure and screaming cliff racer do frost damage.

Baconlad

I've been running magplar dark flare glass canon build since summerset as my only class. I've dabbled in sweeps builds but now I only whip it out extreme solo content.

I've learned that I'm just going to have classes and opponent builds that mine doesn't do well with. Unfortunately this patch I've seen redidculously high health setups. Gone are the days when 30k health was overkill. Makes my glass build have to try harder...but it's all fun still

But yeah...tons of wardens

OBJnoob

@MEBengalsFan2001 I understand the term and realize lots of people do it in eso. It just doesn't happen to be my personal motivation. People don't want to intentionally play a crap class... So templars and magsorcs, yknow, they might not be high on people's lists. But anything else? I'll play what's fun or new. And since I think dk and nb are better than warden right now... It's hard to consider warden much more than just average.

Warden FEELS better than average, both to fight against and to play. I'll give you that. But if you're only 3rd best in a game with 6 classes then guess what you're just average. People are hyping this 12% damage done but forgetting wardens (magdens anyway since that's who the recent change effected,) lost 10% on the damaging abilities they used anyway. So it's only a damage buff of 2%... Meanwhile losing the passive buffs for using any other weapon instead.

There is a benefit to doing good damage with a defensive weapon-- I'm not saying there's not. I'm just trying to help keep things in perspective.

The fact that magdens were garbage so long is perhaps another reason why they're coming out of the closets now. Or the fact that while not incredibly OP their class kit is very synergistic and easy to imagine and utilize.

Tiphis

OBJnoob wrote: »

@MEBengalsFan2001 I understand the term and realize lots of people do it in eso. It just doesn't happen to be my personal motivation. People don't want to intentionally play a crap class... So templars and magsorcs, yknow, they might not be high on people's lists. But anything else? I'll play what's fun or new. And since I think dk and nb are better than warden right now... It's hard to consider warden much more than just average.

Warden FEELS better than average, both to fight against and to play. I'll give you that. But if you're only 3rd best in a game with 6 classes then guess what you're just average. People are hyping this 12% damage done but forgetting wardens (magdens anyway since that's who the recent change effected,) lost 10% on the damaging abilities they used anyway. So it's only a damage buff of 2%... Meanwhile losing the passive buffs for using any other weapon instead.

There is a benefit to doing good damage with a defensive weapon-- I'm not saying there's not. I'm just trying to help keep things in perspective.

The fact that magdens were garbage so long is perhaps another reason why they're coming out of the closets now. Or the fact that while not incredibly OP their class kit is very synergistic and easy to imagine and utilize.

The warden toolkit is very good and pretty much the best kit for the least slots, borderline tied with nb. Bird of prey gives 5% more damage, 4% more crit damage, 4 sec snare removal, major expedition and a small heal. It's better than any other means of snare removal or minor berserk. Polar winds is the best small scale heal. Between the netch's 353 regen, the 12% increased stam and mag regen animal companion passive and nature's gift passive potentially giving 500 mag or stam regen whichever is lower; you have the highest class passives for regen. Really only second after sorc curtesy of dark deal/conversion which has an offstat cost.

They were never bad, the only issues they suffered from recently is the incredible clunkiness of bird dive ability and the fact that shalks is telegraphed hard and aiming can be frustrating esp against immob. Those issues remain but they got their strengths buffed.

taugrim

Tiphis wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

@MEBengalsFan2001 I understand the term and realize lots of people do it in eso. It just doesn't happen to be my personal motivation. People don't want to intentionally play a crap class... So templars and magsorcs, yknow, they might not be high on people's lists. But anything else? I'll play what's fun or new. And since I think dk and nb are better than warden right now... It's hard to consider warden much more than just average.

Warden FEELS better than average, both to fight against and to play. I'll give you that. But if you're only 3rd best in a game with 6 classes then guess what you're just average. People are hyping this 12% damage done but forgetting wardens (magdens anyway since that's who the recent change effected,) lost 10% on the damaging abilities they used anyway. So it's only a damage buff of 2%... Meanwhile losing the passive buffs for using any other weapon instead.

There is a benefit to doing good damage with a defensive weapon-- I'm not saying there's not. I'm just trying to help keep things in perspective.

The fact that magdens were garbage so long is perhaps another reason why they're coming out of the closets now. Or the fact that while not incredibly OP their class kit is very synergistic and easy to imagine and utilize.

They were never bad, the only issues they suffered from recently is the incredible clunkiness of bird dive ability and the fact that shalks is telegraphed hard and aiming can be frustrating esp against immob. Those issues remain but they got their strengths buffed.

The most meaningful change in the past year was the class getting a class on-demand stun in Arctic Blast.

The class spammables remain garbage, but there are plenty of solid weapon and guild-based options.

OBJnoob

@Tiphis oh I agree. But the warden kit is so synergistic and obvious that pretty much every warden plays the same. Your bars are full of good double-utility skills and you just can't give any of them up. Not that it's a big deterrent obviously, but my warden for example lacks and execute. No class execute (well I guess I could use the bear ultimate but... Does that even count?? And I really don't wanna,) and guess what no frost staff execute either.

But I'm not complaining. Far from it. Just trying to keep things in perspective as I said.

@taugrim is probably right that the on demand stun was the best change for warden. I will tell you though tiphis when I logged on after u35 and built my spin to win warden the most surprising thing to me (it seemed to fly under the radar on these forums as everyone was hyped about other things,) was bird of prey, as you mentioned. Borderline OP for sure.

ESO_Nightingale

taugrim wrote: »

Tiphis wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

@MEBengalsFan2001 I understand the term and realize lots of people do it in eso. It just doesn't happen to be my personal motivation. People don't want to intentionally play a crap class... So templars and magsorcs, yknow, they might not be high on people's lists. But anything else? I'll play what's fun or new. And since I think dk and nb are better than warden right now... It's hard to consider warden much more than just average.

Warden FEELS better than average, both to fight against and to play. I'll give you that. But if you're only 3rd best in a game with 6 classes then guess what you're just average. People are hyping this 12% damage done but forgetting wardens (magdens anyway since that's who the recent change effected,) lost 10% on the damaging abilities they used anyway. So it's only a damage buff of 2%... Meanwhile losing the passive buffs for using any other weapon instead.

There is a benefit to doing good damage with a defensive weapon-- I'm not saying there's not. I'm just trying to help keep things in perspective.

The fact that magdens were garbage so long is perhaps another reason why they're coming out of the closets now. Or the fact that while not incredibly OP their class kit is very synergistic and easy to imagine and utilize.

They were never bad, the only issues they suffered from recently is the incredible clunkiness of bird dive ability and the fact that shalks is telegraphed hard and aiming can be frustrating esp against immob. Those issues remain but they got their strengths buffed.

The most meaningful change in the past year was the class getting a class on-demand stun in Arctic Blast.

The class spammables remain garbage, but there are plenty of solid weapon and guild-based options.

this took a very long time to get. we'd been asking for it for a lonnnnnnng time. several years.

katorga

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

My fear is what's happened to Magsorc and templar is the goal and others are just waiting their turn. Harmony Necro is on the edge of oblivion as well

Ya necro is one nerf away from oblivion. I expect next major chapter. Magcro is not feasible without harmony, and stamco is getting close.

Tiphis wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

Tiphis wrote: »

Wardens always had good healing and tankiness but with the 12% increased damage done with ice staff it allows them to both be tankier than usual while also having the biggest damage modifiers in the game. It's not surprising with the standard over tuning that people play it. If they decide to buff Templar heals and utility and increased their damage done by 12% more people would play it.

A 12% damage buff, (the largest single, raw damage buff in the game?), on a tanking weapon is Bad Design.

Even if it was limited to just frost damage, it would be too much.

If you recall, Resto Staff used to have 10% flat damage boost. That was nerfed as OP, years ago. Now this?

-

Largest damage buff in terms of passives remember brutality/sorcerer isn't damage done but increases weapon and spell damage which typically doesn't translate into damage done (except maybe on very high stats to start). They should've just made is 5% increased magicka and frost damage (down from 10%) and 5% more damage done while wielding an ice staff. So it would be a 10% instead of 12% damage done for ice abilities to make a frost warden, while not overtuning it to be a 12% damage done on any and all damage.

Heck they could've just removed the increased magicka damage done part, increased the frost damage done to maybe 12%, made deep fissure and screaming cliff racer do frost damage.

Raw % damage buff. 12% damage done for all damage, all the time, as long as you have an ice staff. That is huge, and on a tanking weapon, unbalanced. Ironic, since ZOS nerfed the animal companion's passive that gave 2% damage done for each AC skill slotted.

NB gets 20% and 10%, but for a limited time.

DKs have 15% tied to use of and duration of an ultimate.

Sorcs have 10% but is scales down to 1% as target's health decreases.

Necros have 10% but only for one damage type, dots.

And so on.

OBJnoob

@katorga it's weird for the 12% damage to be tied to a tank weapon but I wouldn't say it's unbalanced. It would be MORE unbalanced for it to be on a dps weapon, right? Right. Also the word unbalanced seems out of place when you proceed to list ways other classes have similar features.

12% damage done would be strong paired with malacath and some proc sets. It was what I wanted to do with my warden originally... But since you have to use a frost staff malacath is wasted because wardens now seem trapped into a brittle/crit focus.

There's a reason why most wardens seem super tanky but still only have middling damage. And that reason is probably that their damage is tied to a tanking weapon. So, again, I wouldn't say unbalanced. Just weird.