Amazing Warden Patch, Thank You

ShadowKyuubi

Dear Combat Team,

I wanted to thank you for the changes you've made to Wardens this patch. The Warden/Frost Stave interaction has been one of the best combat updates of all time, in my personal opinion. It provides opportunities for thematically cool and interesting builds that not only do well individually, but also provide important group debuffs, like brittle.

The perfect example of this is the Perfected Whorl of Depths/Ice Furnace/Perfected Master's Ice Staff/Za'an's build that I made this patch. I told myself it would be fun and interesting to make a Fire and Ice build, much like the new Twins fight in DSR. With Frost staves becoming an integral part of making this build work, I was able to make a build that is not only good (100K+ on trial Atro), but fun to play. I find great delight in seeing all the enemies explode with fire after hitting them with a frost staff light attack.

So thank you. In my personal opinion, you've opened up a lot of fun and new builds with Wardens that I would not thought to be viable in previous patches.

My only criticism is why stop at Wardens? Why not make more Weapon/Class interactions? I won't give suggestions, because it is not my place. However, I feel like there are some very obvious classes that would work well with this kind of interaction. It is my personal belief that it would make the combat more diverse and thematic to individual classes.

Either way, you still did an amazing job with Wardens and I would love to see more changes like this in the future. Thank you again.

Cheers,
Shadowkyuubi

robpr

Performance wise, its great, but limits the class versatility. If you want the best out of your Warden you have to play around Ice Staff and Chilled status effects, using other weapons just hurts.

Caribou77

Agree with robpr.

While warden (and especially magwarden) desperately needed some help with damage and viability, tying that help to using a very specific weapon type gutted any diversity of build options for warden. Frost skills are very limited, and now so is warden.

Scyware

cries in stamwarden thats currently nerfed into the ground just to make frost viable

endgamesmug

Ive only been using ice staff on back bar for wall, its probably sub par or something but yeah ive been loving warden too!😁

Kng_Ayumayuma

Maybe I need to get my warden out of the moth balls!! As an aside those must have been enormous moths.

lQrukl

it limits the class versatility!

Said by people who have previously played the same meta setups in all classes.
There wasn't even role versatility, could you please share me this irreplaceable class versatility that we lost after update?
As an endgame player, I see a huge amount of enthusiasm and increased interest in the warden and in the game in general after these changes between other endgame players who try current trials (vRG HM/Trifecta, vDSR HM/Trifecta).

If you are not an endgame player, you even won't feel these changes, because daggers are still pretty strong.

YandereGirlfriend

Scyware wrote: »

cries in stamwarden thats currently nerfed into the ground just to make frost viable

YEP - every patch for like the last 3/4 year I've watched my Deep Fissure get nerfed and nerfed and nerfed and nerfed again.

I think we're down about 40% from the glory days of a year ago. That is an ABSURD value to change a skill.

Caribou77

Deep fissure on my pvp Magwarden hit for ~16k a year ago. Now it hits for ~9.7k.

And the 3/9 second delay is absolute garbage in pvp.

ALSO, THE SKILL WAS NEVER OVERPOWERED TO BEGIN WITH.

The skill required to line it up against a good opponent and work it into your rotation is incomparable.

You can spam whirling blades as fast as you can mash a button without having to aim, and do more damage than where deep fissure was a year ago.

Inept change.

Zodiarkslayer

ShadowKyuubi wrote: »

Dear Combat Team,

I wanted to thank you for the changes you've made to Wardens this patch. The Warden/Frost Stave interaction has been one of the best combat updates of all time, in my personal opinion. It provides opportunities for thematically cool and interesting builds that not only do well individually, but also provide important group debuffs, like brittle.

The perfect example of this is the Perfected Whorl of Depths/Ice Furnace/Perfected Master's Ice Staff/Za'an's build that I made this patch. I told myself it would be fun and interesting to make a Fire and Ice build, much like the new Twins fight in DSR. With Frost staves becoming an integral part of making this build work, I was able to make a build that is not only good (100K+ on trial Atro), but fun to play. I find great delight in seeing all the enemies explode with fire after hitting them with a frost staff light attack.

So thank you. In my personal opinion, you've opened up a lot of fun and new builds with Wardens that I would not thought to be viable in previous patches.

My only criticism is why stop at Wardens? Why not make more Weapon/Class interactions? I won't give suggestions, because it is not my place. However, I feel like there are some very obvious classes that would work well with this kind of interaction. It is my personal belief that it would make the combat more diverse and thematic to individual classes.

Either way, you still did an amazing job with Wardens and I would love to see more changes like this in the future. Thank you again.

Cheers,
Shadowkyuubi

So, you are saying by focusing on class identity, you did not only become more powerful, but also had MORE FUN? 😂😂😂

I think the devs need feedback like this. Maybe they will give the other classes some of their identities back as well.

Klingenlied

I still have my grumblings with overall class balance and a hella lot of yet unadressed issues with the Warden.

However, I too will say this: Playing Frost Warden is fun. The sound is crunchy, the animations blend together so much better then they do if you are on a stam spec and watching all the enemies freeze and shatter is a bliss.

So here you got it - I really enjoy the current iteration of Warden and I hope they do not destroy him as a "whole package". I assume there will be changes, especially due to PvP - and I would not mind some tuning there. However, the general direction: Ice as a valid choice for Warden DPS - should absolutely stay - and maybe even be improved upon. Not by "more dps" but by "more choice" in form of some extra ice-damage morphs for example.

YandereGirlfriend

More Frost Damage morphs is what we've needed all along.

ESO_Nightingale

i still don't agree with piercing cold's change. we tried to ask zos to change it away from forcing the frost staff, because it's definitely limiting, moreso for stamina wardens. while stamina warden has been stronger in a lot of situations for a while, that's mainly due to medium armor and stamina weapons.

i get what they were doing because i'm sure they just want to be done with it. but telling players that they must use a specific weapon just to unlock the benefits from their passives feels bad. it's a different feeling to the old passive which was mag and frost damage increase. because while it didn't help you as much on stamina warden, it didn't have wording that actively locked power away from you. the passive's effect however has had an extremely positive effect for the viability of frost dps in a way where it's no longer a joke and is now competitive, glacial presence has also done a huge amount of heavy lifting, as now it makes frost damage something that wardens actively want to use because chilled procs are so strong now.

MindOfTheSwarm

robpr wrote: »

Performance wise, its great, but limits the class versatility. If you want the best out of your Warden you have to play around Ice Staff and Chilled status effects, using other weapons just hurts.

100% agree.

Having Winter’s Revenge deal 30% more damage with Ice Staff is ok as an idea but not on its own. If they go in this direction, then other skill morphs need buffing when equipping a different weapon. Growing Swarm dealing more damage with a Bow equipped as an example.

However, I think the Ice Staff passive buff was a bad move as you are now shoe boxing players into only using one weapon.

Frost may bethe identity of Magden’s but that does not mean we should be forced to run Ice Staff.

Ice Staff should be viable for all classes. This passive would have been better off on the ice staff itself. If ZoS wants to improve Frost DPS as an option, the answer is on the staff or skills outside of class skills.

Flame Staff boosts direct damage and Lightning Staff boosts AoE damage, why not have Frost Staff boost DoT damage? As a simple idea. But honestly Destro Staff needs gutting and reworked into three distinct weapon lines as was originally planned. Each Staff would then buff certain things in their passives.
Flame Staff for single target DoTs, Lightning Staff for AoE Direct Damage and Frost Staff for AoE Dot’s. None should buff single target direct, as that would make it meta choice since most of our damage comes from single target direct damage.

SkaiFaith

I'm happily with the OP in thanking devs for Frost Warden changes ^^
Long time Frost Warden here. I'm not a pro in doing math so I was a bit concerned during PTS seeing these changes but it turned out to be fantastic. I got a nice buff - using Frostbite + Mother Sorrow, so easy gear, no monster Set nor Mythic. I'm also a huge fan of the new Occult Overload, Arctic Blast and Polar Wind.
Really, thank you devs for the actual state!
The only weird thing maybe is that 1/2% damage done bonus seems really low for non-frost staff users. 2/4% seems more reasonable perhaps.
P.s. thanks to the OP too for letting me know about Ice Furnace! I was wondering myself if it would be a valid option now...

AinSoph

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

robpr wrote: »

Performance wise, its great, but limits the class versatility. If you want the best out of your Warden you have to play around Ice Staff and Chilled status effects, using other weapons just hurts.

100% agree.

Having Winter’s Revenge deal 30% more damage with Ice Staff is ok as an idea but not on its own. If they go in this direction, then other skill morphs need buffing when equipping a different weapon. Growing Swarm dealing more damage with a Bow equipped as an example.

However, I think the Ice Staff passive buff was a bad move as you are now shoe boxing players into only using one weapon.

Frost may bethe identity of Magden’s but that does not mean we should be forced to run Ice Staff.

Ice Staff should be viable for all classes. This passive would have been better off on the ice staff itself. If ZoS wants to improve Frost DPS as an option, the answer is on the staff or skills outside of class skills.

Flame Staff boosts direct damage and Lightning Staff boosts AoE damage, why not have Frost Staff boost DoT damage? As a simple idea. But honestly Destro Staff needs gutting and reworked into three distinct weapon lines as was originally planned. Each Staff would then buff certain things in their passives.
Flame Staff for single target DoTs, Lightning Staff for AoE Direct Damage and Frost Staff for AoE Dot’s. None should buff single target direct, as that would make it meta choice since most of our damage comes from single target direct damage.

I feel this so hard. It genuinely seems easier to adjust destro it the elements were seperate and maybe even add a generic destro line that all elements share.