Please Make Warden More Fun to Play

kojou

I have been playing Warden again lately because I like how the class performs in Endless Archive, and I am reminded of why I don't like it in other content, so I thought I would make a post and see if anyone else agrees with me as a fun thought experiment, since I doubt any of these changes will be considered.

My suggested changes are as follows:

1. Cutting Dive can remain a cliff racer, but I would like it if Screaming Cliff Racer was changed to an Ice Wraith, did frost damage, and was renamed appropriately.

2. I would also like it if all morphs of Scorch were changed to a burrowing Haj Moto like some of the NPC enemies can cast. Make one that does frost damage and one that does bleed damage. I always thought that 3 beetles that suddenly appear and disappear was boring aesthetically.

3. I have no complaints for Swarm, Netch, or Falcon, other than the magic version of swarm (Fetcher Infection) should do frost damage.

4. Wild Guardian is fine as is, but Eternal Guardian should be a Polar Bear and do frost damage.

5. Warden needs a good class personal heal over time. I like Living Vines ok, but the only skill that heals a target over time is Natures Grasp which requires an Ally, and pulls you around. It means that the only skill that allows you to heal and be mobile is Vigor. Maybe "Bond with Nature" could be buffed a little and turned into a heal over time? This is a more minor complaint as Vigor is good, but I would prefer something that fit the flavor of the class.

My biggest complaint about the Warden is the spread of damage types. Some skills do "magic" damage, some do frost, some do bleed, one does poison... I would like it if all the skills that cost magic did frost and all the ones that cost stamina did bleed damage. This would mean that Warden could either have a "track" as a frost mage that focused on chill and brittle, or a warrior that focused on bleeding and hemorrhaging. We could focus in on sets that work well with those damage types and have more of a class identity.

Necrotech_Master

polar wind is a heal over time and fairly potent one at that, works better if you have high max hp (on my warden that has 40k max hp with food, i regularly can see 20k crit burst heal followed up by 3200 (non crit) to 5500 (crit) heals from the heal over time portion (on avg twice as much healing per tick as regeneration or echoing vigor)

for my archive warden setup i pair it with echoing vigor to help take some pressure off my mag pool and add another heal over time

for point 2, while i agree with that, i also want to add that i hate the delay on it, especially the 6 second one for the mag morph, 3 sec is alright, 6 is too long

my problem with the cliff diver is it just feels awful to use, no matter the morph, its way too slow and doesnt feel impactful for how slow it is

Elrond87

ah id love like a ice ability for main spammable, highly dislike this cliff racer

Remiem

Elrond87 wrote: »

ah id love like a ice ability for main spammable, highly dislike this cliff racer

Frost reach is good enough, I wish ZOS would give Flame and Shock reach the same buff Frost reach got, right now they're both completely useless compared to the frost version.

Janni

I seems like most of your concerns are about aesthetics rather than actual mechanics, which is fine because personally I love playing my wardens and think they are a lot of fun. But I tend to be so focused on the fight I don't really have time to take in the visuals. The 'feel' is really where the fun is for me, sorta like playing an instrument I guess?

I also wanted to point out that Wardens have one of the best class heal over time skills in the game. Polar Wind. That gets a lot of hate right now for how strong it can be so I think that can be checked off of your list

SandandStars

I like many of your ideas, @kojou, it would be great to get more skills that synergize with frost on Warden.

As a PvPr, I’d love it if the spammable ice wraith skill you propose could be sped up considerably so that it could actually be used in PvP. Cliff racers slow animation has made it a 100% unused skill in PvP for years.

Having no class spammable and no class execute has been tough on Warden’s identity. They’re all spamming dizzy or masters dual wield. It would be so much more fun to have an effective class spammable lije dks and nbs.

Janni

SandandStars wrote: »

I like many of your ideas, @kojou, it would be great to get more skills that synergize with frost on Warden.

As a PvPr, I’d love it if the spammable ice wraith skill you propose could be sped up considerably so that it could actually be used in PvP. Cliff racers slow animation has made it a 100% unused skill in PvP for years.

Having no class spammable and no class execute has been tough on Warden’s identity. They’re all spamming dizzy or masters dual wield. It would be so much more fun to have an effective class spammable lije dks and nbs.

I actually used cliff racer it a lot before they nerfed it a few patches ago. It was a great delayed skill so I could time it to land at the same time as my deep fissure (before they nerfed that) and a medium weave into another skill. It was also really good at killing perma-block tanks due to the stacking bleed. But I guess a dev must have died once to that so they got rid of the stacking bleed and made it basically useless as it is now.

Araneae6537

Pet cosmetic options would be cool. Personally, I like the Morrowind pet abilities but detest the bear.

As far as how fun it feels to play though, it’s been a while since I’ve played mine but I recall it feeling a bit clunky with cast times and delays. I should see how it feels now.

kojou

Janni wrote: »

I seems like most of your concerns are about aesthetics rather than actual mechanics, which is fine because personally I love playing my wardens and think they are a lot of fun. But I tend to be so focused on the fight I don't really have time to take in the visuals. The 'feel' is really where the fun is for me, sorta like playing an instrument I guess?

I also wanted to point out that Wardens have one of the best class heal over time skills in the game. Polar Wind. That gets a lot of hate right now for how strong it can be so I think that can be checked off of your list

I prefer Arctic Blast because I want more Chill Procs (and one more Frost oriented damage skill), but I get everyone's point on this, it is technically a heal over time. It just wasn't on my radar since I don't use that morph. Maybe I should say my requirement is a sticky heal over time in the Green Balance tree that is not an ultimate, so I don't have to sacrifice Arctic Blast or Northern Storm.

kojou

SandandStars wrote: »

I like many of your ideas, @kojou, it would be great to get more skills that synergize with frost on Warden.

As a PvPr, I’d love it if the spammable ice wraith skill you propose could be sped up considerably so that it could actually be used in PvP. Cliff racers slow animation has made it a 100% unused skill in PvP for years.

Having no class spammable and no class execute has been tough on Warden’s identity. They’re all spamming dizzy or masters dual wield. It would be so much more fun to have an effective class spammable lije dks and nbs.

I don't see any reason why it should be delayed either. It used to be kinda fun to set up a burst with Shalks, Dive, and an instant cast spammable and make them all hit at the same time, but I'm not sure if that is viable anymore (someone who still PvPs on a Warden will have to tell me). I suppose they could make the Ice Wraith instant and the Cliff Racer delayed and let players pick which one they want.

kojou

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

for point 2, while i agree with that, i also want to add that i hate the delay on it, especially the 6 second one for the mag morph, 3 sec is alright, 6 is too long

On this one, I have the (probably) unpopular opinion that I prefer the old timing where it just hit one time after 3 seconds and not when they updated it to hit a second time.

I was used to doing a Scorch, Skill 1, Skill 2, Scorch rotation, and having Scorch be a "long skill" (One 3 second burst and one 6 second burst) took away some of the fun IMO, as it felt good to get into the rhythm and see things get obliterated when Scorch hit. It feels like most of the time everything is dead by the time the 6 second burst hits and it is a waste. Also it lowered the amount of healing I got from the Bond With Nature passive, since it now only hits once every 9 seconds with that skill.

kojou

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Pet cosmetic options would be cool. Personally, I like the Morrowind pet abilities but detest the bear.

As far as how fun it feels to play though, it’s been a while since I’ve played mine but I recall it feeling a bit clunky with cast times and delays. I should see how it feels now.

The only skill that bothered me with a delay is Cliff Racer. It feels way better to play Warden than it does Necromancer (in terms of clunkiness of skills). You can substitute Cliff Racer with either Force Pulse or Destructive Reach (on a magicka build) and it feels way better to play.

AcadianPaladin

I've never liked the mix of warden - frost, forest critters (bear) and fugly Morrowind critters (shalks, cliffies). I love the bear and would like to see the class more embrace the concept of a forest ranger. Make cliff racer a hawk. Make shalks vines that pop out of the ground. The frost is okay as an idea I guess but the problem is the frost staff is split between damage and tanking, resulting in shortchanging both purposes. Just as we have a staff devoted to healing, so should we have a new staff devoted to tanking. And focus purely on dps with the ice staff.

Necrotech_Master

kojou wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

for point 2, while i agree with that, i also want to add that i hate the delay on it, especially the 6 second one for the mag morph, 3 sec is alright, 6 is too long

On this one, I have the (probably) unpopular opinion that I prefer the old timing where it just hit one time after 3 seconds and not when they updated it to hit a second time.

I was used to doing a Scorch, Skill 1, Skill 2, Scorch rotation, and having Scorch be a "long skill" (One 3 second burst and one 6 second burst) took away some of the fun IMO, as it felt good to get into the rhythm and see things get obliterated when Scorch hit. It feels like most of the time everything is dead by the time the 6 second burst hits and it is a waste. Also it lowered the amount of healing I got from the Bond With Nature passive, since it now only hits once every 9 seconds with that skill.

i used to basically do a heavy attack weave with it (HA for ice staff was a little closer to 3 sec back then)

i tried to use it in the same rotation and just ignoring the 6 sec delay portion of deep fissure, but the first hit does a lot less dmg than it used to, i ended up just dropping the skill entirely

for my ice tank warden it actually worked out well because i was already doing minor breach with unstable wall, and then i added major breach from elemental susceptibility

MindOfTheSwarm

Remiem wrote: »

Elrond87 wrote: »

ah id love like a ice ability for main spammable, highly dislike this cliff racer

Frost reach is good enough, I wish ZOS would give Flame and Shock reach the same buff Frost reach got, right now they're both completely useless compared to the frost version.

Not only good enough. It excellent. One of the best spammables in the game even if you’re not focused on Frost.

MindOfTheSwarm

What I would suggest at least:

Make all magic animal companions deal Frost Damage.

Do something with wings. Maybe buff active on both bars.

Do something with the Frozen Device morph. Perhaps, have it apply Chilled every second and snare but it remains up like a Pseudo DoT.

Do something with Icy Rage and Eye of the Storm.

Change how Northern Storm works. The Spell Damage buff isn’t bad, but it cannot compete with either Icy Rage or Ice Comet at this time. Perhaps if it applied Flat Frost Damage to your Frost Damage sources for 30 seconds instead?

Split up destro staves and make the stand out with Frost serving both tank and DD morphs.

Janni

kojou wrote: »

Janni wrote: »

I seems like most of your concerns are about aesthetics rather than actual mechanics, which is fine because personally I love playing my wardens and think they are a lot of fun. But I tend to be so focused on the fight I don't really have time to take in the visuals. The 'feel' is really where the fun is for me, sorta like playing an instrument I guess?

I also wanted to point out that Wardens have one of the best class heal over time skills in the game. Polar Wind. That gets a lot of hate right now for how strong it can be so I think that can be checked off of your list

I prefer Arctic Blast because I want more Chill Procs (and one more Frost oriented damage skill), but I get everyone's point on this, it is technically a heal over time. It just wasn't on my radar since I don't use that morph. Maybe I should say my requirement is a sticky heal over time in the Green Balance tree that is not an ultimate, so I don't have to sacrifice Arctic Blast or Northern Storm.

Maybe you could try lotus blossom? I swear by it. The heal is technically a smart heal so it could hit anyone but when playing solo or off to the side by yourself that isn't an issue. It also procs the nature's gift passive for some serious sustain. I use it in every build and think it's an often overlooked part of the warden toolkit. If you're weaving regularly its basically a great buff to damage, sustain, and survival that can be backbarred and very rarely needs recasting.

Zodiarkslayer

I think Warden is Fun to play. You just have to free your mind and let go of the "unfun" abilities and fill up your build with ither stuff.

I like my IceMauler 😁 She is fun. Not OP strong, but fun.

kojou

Janni wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

Janni wrote: »

I seems like most of your concerns are about aesthetics rather than actual mechanics, which is fine because personally I love playing my wardens and think they are a lot of fun. But I tend to be so focused on the fight I don't really have time to take in the visuals. The 'feel' is really where the fun is for me, sorta like playing an instrument I guess?

I also wanted to point out that Wardens have one of the best class heal over time skills in the game. Polar Wind. That gets a lot of hate right now for how strong it can be so I think that can be checked off of your list

I prefer Arctic Blast because I want more Chill Procs (and one more Frost oriented damage skill), but I get everyone's point on this, it is technically a heal over time. It just wasn't on my radar since I don't use that morph. Maybe I should say my requirement is a sticky heal over time in the Green Balance tree that is not an ultimate, so I don't have to sacrifice Arctic Blast or Northern Storm.

Maybe you could try lotus blossom? I swear by it. The heal is technically a smart heal so it could hit anyone but when playing solo or off to the side by yourself that isn't an issue. It also procs the nature's gift passive for some serious sustain. I use it in every build and think it's an often overlooked part of the warden toolkit. If you're weaving regularly its basically a great buff to damage, sustain, and survival that can be backbarred and very rarely needs recasting.

I use Lotus Blossom, and I agree with your other points, but it requires light attacks. If I have to block or get stunned then I won't get heals from it. If the heal was made into a HoT then I would be all for it. Even if it was a short 3 second HoT that would be enough to keep ticks of health coming while I block a mechanic, or if I get stunned and have to break free.

kojou

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

I think Warden is Fun to play. You just have to free your mind and let go of the "unfun" abilities and fill up your build with ither stuff.

I like my IceMauler 😁 She is fun. Not OP strong, but fun.

I didn't say playing Warden was not fun, I am just saying there are areas that could be improved to make it more fun. All classes (except for Necromancer) are fun in their own way, but Warden could be epically fun IMO with just a few changes.

MindOfTheSwarm

Frost has received some love in recent patches but it’s still a way to go before it is on par with Fire or even Shock at the moment. I used to be against changing Animal Companions to Frost, but I’ve had a change of heart. My disdain was due to not liking Shalks. It’s the one skill I really don’t like on the Warden. Another worry is the bear. If it got changed to Frost, where would that leave Northern Storm, Icy Rage and Meteor. Bear is so strong right now as is. Making it Frost might make the other options obsolete.

kojou

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Frost has received some love in recent patches but it’s still a way to go before it is on par with Fire or even Shock at the moment. I used to be against changing Animal Companions to Frost, but I’ve had a change of heart. My disdain was due to not liking Shalks. It’s the one skill I really don’t like on the Warden. Another worry is the bear. If it got changed to Frost, where would that leave Northern Storm, Icy Rage and Meteor. Bear is so strong right now as is. Making it Frost might make the other options obsolete.

Bear vs Northern Storm would still be the same sacrifice whether it did magic or frost damage. You are choosing between more AoE (and mitigation) or more single target damage. I don't think it would affect that choice. In Endless Archive I would still run Northern Storm during trash rounds and bear during boss rounds especially now that the bear doesn't die as much.

yadibroz

kojou wrote: »

I have been playing Warden again lately because I like how the class performs in Endless Archive, and I am reminded of why I don't like it in other content, so I thought I would make a post and see if anyone else agrees with me as a fun thought experiment, since I doubt any of these changes will be considered.

My suggested changes are as follows:

1. Cutting Dive can remain a cliff racer, but I would like it if Screaming Cliff Racer was changed to an Ice Wraith, did frost damage, and was renamed appropriately.

2. I would also like it if all morphs of Scorch were changed to a burrowing Haj Moto like some of the NPC enemies can cast. Make one that does frost damage and one that does bleed damage. I always thought that 3 beetles that suddenly appear and disappear was boring aesthetically.

3. I have no complaints for Swarm, Netch, or Falcon, other than the magic version of swarm (Fetcher Infection) should do frost damage.

4. Wild Guardian is fine as is, but Eternal Guardian should be a Polar Bear and do frost damage.

5. Warden needs a good class personal heal over time. I like Living Vines ok, but the only skill that heals a target over time is Natures Grasp which requires an Ally, and pulls you around. It means that the only skill that allows you to heal and be mobile is Vigor. Maybe "Bond with Nature" could be buffed a little and turned into a heal over time? This is a more minor complaint as Vigor is good, but I would prefer something that fit the flavor of the class.

My biggest complaint about the Warden is the spread of damage types. Some skills do "magic" damage, some do frost, some do bleed, one does poison... I would like it if all the skills that cost magic did frost and all the ones that cost stamina did bleed damage. This would mean that Warden could either have a "track" as a frost mage that focused on chill and brittle, or a warrior that focused on bleeding and hemorrhaging. We could focus in on sets that work well with those damage types and have more of a class identity.

Right rework some skills especially ice skills and necromancer

yadibroz

Remiem wrote: »

Elrond87 wrote: »

ah id love like a ice ability for main spammable, highly dislike this cliff racer

Frost reach is good enough, I wish ZOS would give Flame and Shock reach the same buff Frost reach got, right now they're both completely useless compared to the frost version.

It suck

Turtle_Bot

My biggest issues with warden are Dive and so much of its damage tied to running frost staff.

- Both morphs of Dive just feel clunky to use. Increasing the projectile speed would help a lot (same with a lot of projectile abilities such as necro skulls imo).
- The passive for frost staves could have easily been 4-5% base, then increased to 12% with frost staff equipped (instead of the current 2% increased to 12% with frost staff equipped).

I would've like a frost damage spammable in the class kit (was hoping for an ice shard/ice lance spammable when warden was first announced, before we saw the skills), but frost reach can be decent for a themed spammable when building for it.
A lot of the magicka abilities probably could have been frost, to better fit the warden class theme of cold + nature, but that is mostly visual.

Personally I've never had issues with deep fissures 9 second duration, but that is likely due to me being a sorc main and having to wait 12 seconds for the full duration of curse so the 9 second timer on fissure does feel fast by comparison.

kojou

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Personally I've never had issues with deep fissures 9 second duration, but that is likely due to me being a sorc main and having to wait 12 seconds for the full duration of curse so the 9 second timer on fissure does feel fast by comparison.

On the Sorc it isn't so bad because you can set it and forget it. On a Warden you have to be pointing the right direction when the timer runs out. It can be difficult in mobile fights to make sure you are facing what you want to damage at that moment.

yadibroz

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

My biggest issues with warden are Dive and so much of its damage tied to running frost staff.

- Both morphs of Dive just feel clunky to use. Increasing the projectile speed would help a lot (same with a lot of projectile abilities such as necro skulls imo).
- The passive for frost staves could have easily been 4-5% base, then increased to 12% with frost staff equipped (instead of the current 2% increased to 12% with frost staff equipped).

I would've like a frost damage spammable in the class kit (was hoping for an ice shard/ice lance spammable when warden was first announced, before we saw the skills), but frost reach can be decent for a themed spammable when building for it.
A lot of the magicka abilities probably could have been frost, to better fit the warden class theme of cold + nature, but that is mostly visual.

Personally I've never had issues with deep fissures 9 second duration, but that is likely due to me being a sorc main and having to wait 12 seconds for the full duration of curse so the 9 second timer on fissure does feel fast by comparison.

Yes need more ice rework or remove ice and make a class with ice like DK who is fire and Sorcerer who is lightning.

Turtle_Bot

kojou wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Personally I've never had issues with deep fissures 9 second duration, but that is likely due to me being a sorc main and having to wait 12 seconds for the full duration of curse so the 9 second timer on fissure does feel fast by comparison.

On the Sorc it isn't so bad because you can set it and forget it. On a Warden you have to be pointing the right direction when the timer runs out. It can be difficult in mobile fights to make sure you are facing what you want to damage at that moment.

Curse is really the only "set and forget" ability on sorc. Everything else is single target direct damage casts so as a sorc you still need to be facing the correct way when curse procs because you need to land your combo of frags/weapon + overload when curse procs (Speaking from a PvP perspective here, where every fight is highly mobile and enemies actually defend themselves from your attacks).

Yes, shulks requires facing the right direction, but it is also a decently sized AoE, it also cannot be dodge rolled if you are facing the correct direction and it cannot be purged. Deep Fissure also inflicts major + minor breach on all of the targets it hits while curse has zero additional effects, so yes, it does take skill to use shulks, but it's a trade off for what you get out of shulks compared to curse.

It's a trade off, shulks has AoE and has secondary effects and cannot be cleansed, curse is easier to land but it's primarily single target (it's AoE damage is tiny) and has zero secondary effects and can be cleansed.

Like I said, shulks isn't an issue for me personally and the payoff it gives is very nice. I never said it wasn't an issue for others.

MindOfTheSwarm

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

My biggest issues with warden are Dive and so much of its damage tied to running frost staff.

- Both morphs of Dive just feel clunky to use. Increasing the projectile speed would help a lot (same with a lot of projectile abilities such as necro skulls imo).
- The passive for frost staves could have easily been 4-5% base, then increased to 12% with frost staff equipped (instead of the current 2% increased to 12% with frost staff equipped).

I would've like a frost damage spammable in the class kit (was hoping for an ice shard/ice lance spammable when warden was first announced, before we saw the skills), but frost reach can be decent for a themed spammable when building for it.
A lot of the magicka abilities probably could have been frost, to better fit the warden class theme of cold + nature, but that is mostly visual.

Personally I've never had issues with deep fissures 9 second duration, but that is likely due to me being a sorc main and having to wait 12 seconds for the full duration of curse so the 9 second timer on fissure does feel fast by comparison.

You’re forgetting the damage passives that Fire and Shock staves get. Frost staves don’t have one, this is why it is higher in the passives for the Warden.

I don’t agree that it should be like this, but that’s their reasoning behind it.

MindOfTheSwarm

kojou wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Frost has received some love in recent patches but it’s still a way to go before it is on par with Fire or even Shock at the moment. I used to be against changing Animal Companions to Frost, but I’ve had a change of heart. My disdain was due to not liking Shalks. It’s the one skill I really don’t like on the Warden. Another worry is the bear. If it got changed to Frost, where would that leave Northern Storm, Icy Rage and Meteor. Bear is so strong right now as is. Making it Frost might make the other options obsolete.

Bear vs Northern Storm would still be the same sacrifice whether it did magic or frost damage. You are choosing between more AoE (and mitigation) or more single target damage. I don't think it would affect that choice. In Endless Archive I would still run Northern Storm during trash rounds and bear during boss rounds especially now that the bear doesn't die as much.

If Northern Storm bonus of 300 Weapon and Spell Damage for 30 seconds got changed to something like this:

Increases the damage of your Frost Damage over Time effects and Chilled status by 300 for 30 seconds.

Ok, now we’re talking and Bear being Frost would be no issue whatsoever as now we have two options. Bear would still come out on top no doubt, but at least Northern Storm would present some competition. It would also suit Warden health tanks too as it would augment their play style very well.

Of course, such a change would be problematic for Permafrost but this could be changed to compensate.

Maybe something like this:

Everytime Permafrost deals damage, it reduces the cost of your next Permafrost by 1 Ultimate. Alternatively it could give you and allies a big damage shield while it’s active and for 10 seconds after.

As it stands they have nerfed and nerfed this morph because of Chilled, but if that’s the case. The best recourse is to readdress the role of this morph in particular. But I digress.

In summary, this way you choose between a more offensive variant that is useful to both DD as an alternative and Tanks or an option with high uptime on its defensive and CC bonuses.

Zodiarkslayer

The only way I have come to enjoy MagDen in content is a Lightning Staff HA setup.
With everything else you have to, at some point, deal with so much trouble. And MagDen becomes such a bother.