Please Make Warden More Fun to Play

Ulfgarde

Warden is doing well in PvP, but it lacks some of the flavor and love that has been given to classes in recent years (DK and NB i.e.). It isn't Necro-tier bad by any means, but having a viable spammable would be really nice for identity.

Main problem is Dive, everybody knows this. Completely lackluster skill that only works at range on a class that is using shalk, a 7 meter skill. The skill has this stupid delay it that makes it extremely predictable in fights. It should be a faster projectile and be more melee-friendly. This aligns better with the class's design.

The Bear is a dead ult in PvP. No open world use for it, and is overshadowed by sleet storm, which got majorly hurt by Major Prot nerfs.

Trees is simply a weaker arctic with a smaller vigor slapped on it. Its not dead for group healing but pretty underwhelming compared to soul siphon or remembrance. Not even talking about the ult regain morph which I havent seen since the class droped.

LB is in a decent place. I love how it lasts a whole minute, but the heals don't scale at all except for Healing Done/Rec. Would be nice if it scaled with your max mag/spell damage.

The healing vine (pull) was fantastic, but they nerfed the healing on it years ago. I miss how this was actually a viable heal in duos, now it's meh and rarely ever used.

Besides this, I like the ice staff passive and the interaction with Chilled status effects. Helps a lot with the flavor of the class, but I feel stamwarden is missing some of the love. They don't really take advantage of these new passives that well. Plus sub assault and growing swarm are just worse versions of their magicka counterparts. The class's strengths lean heavily into magicka right now (as do a lot of classes right now due to hybridity but I think moreso with stamden).

SandandStars

Magden is a wonky class, absolutely. I mained one for 2-3 years (pvp) and it really requires patience to learn, due largely to deep fissure being the class’s defining, critical skill. DF frees you from building into pen, but you’ve got to make it hit every time to be viable in pvp, and that 9 second delay is just quirky as hell to keep your attention on as you dodgeroll/heal/spam etc.

And even when you master DF, you’ve got ZERO class execute, ZERO class spammable (birds are too slow for pvp), and you will struggle to get kills (lots of assists though 😁).

Yes, you have to use frost reach on a masters ice staff, and this is actually a decent spammable, but it comes at the cost of no synergy with your other offensive skills (shalks, fetcher flies, birds).

The bear is next to useless in pvp. I’ve seen some MDW/Vatesh meta crutchers use the bear as a shield, akin to engine guardian, but I don’t care for that play style.

The perk is it takes time and skill to master Magden and its odd rotations, and remains challenging, unlike my templar that pretty much blasts radiant oppression most of the time and gets 5x more kills. Poor templar is incredibly boring to play right now, imo. Same for Arcanist, which amounts to spam your cc til you freeze opponent then… Fatecarver…
Can’t say I enjoy that either.

ESO_Nightingale

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.

We've been collectively asking for the frost/bleed split focus damage type change for a while now. It'd help a lot. Warden could use some sort of bleed based passive bonus too.

yadibroz

More ice skill

MindOfTheSwarm

This also ties in with elemental identity.

Frost offensively should focus on area of effect DoT abilities and Chilled. With other supporting abilities. Frozen Slab for example is great defensively, but it would be nicer if it auto fired nearby targets if it failed to deflect. Frozen Device is another option for a change.

Kalthea

1) I hate the delay on cliff racer and think that needs to go entirely, though I like the ice wraith idea for trying to weave in a bit more frost option (though I'd also say to just use the destro staff spammable to get frost procs)

2) I hate scorch. It sucks to use, it sucks to wait, it sucks to miss. Doesn't feel good to use at all, and even if the damage is "worth it", I tend to avoid the skill entirely because of how bad it FEELS to use. Replace this with a bar pet or scrap it entirely IMO

3) Fetcher infections bonus needs to not be proc'd on ever other cast. It's obnoxious to play with, and just makes me, yet again, avoid that skill.

4) The bear should be a Kwama Warrior and you can't change my mind.

5) Living Vines is only good if you remember to look away from teammates. It needs a selfish morph to be more user friendly. I also forget that we have the pull ability, because if there is one thing I hate personally, it's someone else controlling me against my will, and I refuse to do that to others.

I can appreciate your desire for more frost damage on the Warden, but you have to understand that some warden players aren't going to do ice, so having a split of damage types allows them to play however they want, like a bleed or poison stam build, or a generalized magicka build.

kojou

Kalthea wrote: »

I can appreciate your desire for more frost damage on the Warden, but you have to understand that some warden players aren't going to do ice, so having a split of damage types allows them to play however they want, like a bleed or poison stam build, or a generalized magicka build.

For the record, I said "I would like it if all the skills that cost magic did frost and all the ones that cost stamina did bleed damage." I don't want to imply that Wardens should only do frost damage.

The reason for this is simple, Frost has a chance to proc "Chill" which gives an extra damage spike + brittle, and Bleed procs "Hemorrhage" which is a nice additional damage over time. Poison also has a proc, so it is not the end of the world if a skill also does poison, but I like the thematic element of a Warden weapon user using bleeds to kill an opponent.

"Magic Damage" is stupid, and I will die on that hill.

SandandStars

from a pvp perspective, i wish shalks and fetcher infection did frost damage. it’s not like warden offensive skill dmg is overperforming.

i dont care what they do with cliff racers. for pvp, the may as well just delete the skill.

Pixiepumpkin

Agree with the title.

The class is just too spread out. It really should have been nature based, or ice based. Personally I would have made the healing tree water based (like shaman in wow, I love their heals and animations), and would have made the offensive tree frost themed.

I love my warden asthetically, I think he is so cool looking but playing him feels like I am wasting my time vs getting on a HA sorc or my arcanist.

But what is doubly frustrating is how long wardens have felt clunky. The issues people complaing about today (rightfully so) are the same ones complained about years ago.

If it was not for @ESO_Nightingale pushing for changes to frost, the frost playstyle would be even more insignificant than it is now.

ItsNotLiving

I play warden for the animal companions and plant heals all I want is the frost staff passive changed to 6/6% so I can run my lightning staff again. I’m not a fan of pushing ice on every magicka warden but I understand that people like it I just don’t want it to be forced on everyone.

kojou

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

I play warden for the animal companions and plant heals all I want is the frost staff passive changed to 6/6% so I can run my lightning staff again. I’m not a fan of pushing ice on every magicka warden but I understand that people like it I just don’t want it to be forced on everyone.

The passive isn't forcing you to run a frost staff, if you want to run a shock staff just run a shock staff...

I like that it is 12% as it makes up for the fact that the Frost Staff doesn't have a damage boosting passive in the destruction staff skill line, so it makes it a viable offensive weapon for the Warden.

ItsNotLiving

kojou wrote: »

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

I play warden for the animal companions and plant heals all I want is the frost staff passive changed to 6/6% so I can run my lightning staff again. I’m not a fan of pushing ice on every magicka warden but I understand that people like it I just don’t want it to be forced on everyone.

The passive isn't forcing you to run a frost staff, if you want to run a shock staff just run a shock staff...

I like that it is 12% as it makes up for the fact that the Frost Staff doesn't have a damage boosting passive in the destruction staff skill line, so it makes it a viable offensive weapon for the Warden.

I don’t want to make my character statistically worse for running a different weapon 12% flat > 11% to just direct damage.

merpins

Cries in stam warden main.

Ik everyone loves ice warden, but stam warden has really gotten the short end of the stick for a long time. They've nerfed bleeding a ton over the last few years, removing sources of bleed from areas of the game... Not Warden, but other areas like dual wield and sets. The less sources of bleed that exist = the less relevant stam warden is for damage. My suggestion is to turn all physical damage skills in warden into Bleed damage, make one of the Impaling Shards morphs into bleed damage and use Stamina. Then make one of the Green Balance skills into a bleed damage ability, like one of its morphs.

Darkstorne

kojou wrote: »

I like that it is 12% as it makes up for the fact that the Frost Staff doesn't have a damage boosting passive in the destruction staff skill line, so it makes it a viable offensive weapon for the Warden.

Nope. Nope nope nope. If the frost staff feels weak without Warden's 12% buff, that's a frost staff issue and not a Warden class issue. That buff should be applied to the frost staff's passives.

As it stands, the only viable way to play a DPS ice warden is with a frost staff equipped (Winter's Revenge, a class frost DPS skill, also gets a ludicrous 30% damage buff if you have a staff equipped), and the only viable way to use a frost staff as DPS is to be a Warden. It's so out of touch with their own stated design goals it's like ZOS needs to read their own ELI5 combat design message they sent out in place of the promised Q&A when we all got concerned about their combat design approach.

kojou

merpins wrote: »

Cries in stam warden main.

Ik everyone loves ice warden, but stam warden has really gotten the short end of the stick for a long time. They've nerfed bleeding a ton over the last few years, removing sources of bleed from areas of the game... Not Warden, but other areas like dual wield and sets. The less sources of bleed that exist = the less relevant stam warden is for damage. My suggestion is to turn all physical damage skills in warden into Bleed damage, make one of the Impaling Shards morphs into bleed damage and use Stamina. Then make one of the Green Balance skills into a bleed damage ability, like one of its morphs.

I'm not sure how I feel about the Green Balance skill doing bleed damage, but I am all for making the Stam Warden damage abilities doing Bleed Damage.

FrancisCrawford

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 loved the 3-second metronome.

FrancisCrawford

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

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.

That's how I play it now. And the side benefits of magicka Birds are actually strong in that context.

kojou

Darkstorne wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

I like that it is 12% as it makes up for the fact that the Frost Staff doesn't have a damage boosting passive in the destruction staff skill line, so it makes it a viable offensive weapon for the Warden.

Nope. Nope nope nope. If the frost staff feels weak without Warden's 12% buff, that's a frost staff issue and not a Warden class issue. That buff should be applied to the frost staff's passives.

As it stands, the only viable way to play a DPS ice warden is with a frost staff equipped (Winter's Revenge, a class frost DPS skill, also gets a ludicrous 30% damage buff if you have a staff equipped), and the only viable way to use a frost staff as DPS is to be a Warden. It's so out of touch with their own stated design goals it's like ZOS needs to read their own ELI5 combat design message they sent out in place of the promised Q&A when we all got concerned about their combat design approach.

I like the Ice Staff better than the other staves anyway. It is easier to weave than shock, and Warden isn't DoT heavy, so Flame wouldn't be that great. NM, that I am still generally sore about the Destro Passive changes that were made previously, but taking the Wardens affinity to frost staff doesn't help the destruction staff line as a whole, but it does give Warden something extra and unique.

And just for clarification the text for Winter's Revenge reads:

Conjure icy shards at the target location to skewer enemies in the area, dealing 294 Frost Damage every 1 second for 12 seconds. This damage increases by 30% if cast with a *Destruction Staff* equipped. Enemies hit are overcome with bitter cold, reducing their Movement Speed by 30% for 3 seconds. This ability has a higher chance to apply the Chilled status effect.

So you could totally run whatever destruction staff you want for that skill, and you wouldn't even lose damage if you wanted to use a flame staff as it would still buff it by 12% since Winter's revenge is a DoT. The Wardens passive just gives you one more choice, instead of being required to use a flame staff.

moo_2021

Kalthea wrote: »

1) I hate the delay on cliff racer and think that needs to go entirely, though I like the ice wraith idea for trying to weave in a bit more frost option (though I'd also say to just use the destro staff spammable to get frost procs)

2) I hate scorch. It sucks to use, it sucks to wait, it sucks to miss. Doesn't feel good to use at all, and even if the damage is "worth it", I tend to avoid the skill entirely because of how bad it FEELS to use. Replace this with a bar pet or scrap it entirely IMO

eh?! bird and scorch are perfect in pvp

scorch => charge => scorch fire at the same time, switch to bird spammable. It's much easier to hit and keep constant pressure than normal melee combos, and don't even need speed bonus.

ItsNotLiving

kojou wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

I like that it is 12% as it makes up for the fact that the Frost Staff doesn't have a damage boosting passive in the destruction staff skill line, so it makes it a viable offensive weapon for the Warden.

Nope. Nope nope nope. If the frost staff feels weak without Warden's 12% buff, that's a frost staff issue and not a Warden class issue. That buff should be applied to the frost staff's passives.

As it stands, the only viable way to play a DPS ice warden is with a frost staff equipped (Winter's Revenge, a class frost DPS skill, also gets a ludicrous 30% damage buff if you have a staff equipped), and the only viable way to use a frost staff as DPS is to be a Warden. It's so out of touch with their own stated design goals it's like ZOS needs to read their own ELI5 combat design message they sent out in place of the promised Q&A when we all got concerned about their combat design approach.

I like the Ice Staff better than the other staves anyway. It is easier to weave than shock, and Warden isn't DoT heavy, so Flame wouldn't be that great. NM, that I am still generally sore about the Destro Passive changes that were made previously, but taking the Wardens affinity to frost staff doesn't help the destruction staff line as a whole, but it does give Warden something extra and unique.

And just for clarification the text for Winter's Revenge reads:

Conjure icy shards at the target location to skewer enemies in the area, dealing 294 Frost Damage every 1 second for 12 seconds. This damage increases by 30% if cast with a *Destruction Staff* equipped. Enemies hit are overcome with bitter cold, reducing their Movement Speed by 30% for 3 seconds. This ability has a higher chance to apply the Chilled status effect.

So you could totally run whatever destruction staff you want for that skill, and you wouldn't even lose damage if you wanted to use a flame staff as it would still buff it by 12% since Winter's revenge is a DoT. The Wardens passive just gives you one more choice, instead of being required to use a flame staff.

All I want is it for it to be 6%/6% on the passives instead of 2%12% so I have the option to run other staves and it gives a nice buff if running dual wield or 2h it changes nothing about the ice staff it still has the same 12% damage buff it does now without being a dead passive unless you have an ice staff

merpins

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

I like that it is 12% as it makes up for the fact that the Frost Staff doesn't have a damage boosting passive in the destruction staff skill line, so it makes it a viable offensive weapon for the Warden.

Nope. Nope nope nope. If the frost staff feels weak without Warden's 12% buff, that's a frost staff issue and not a Warden class issue. That buff should be applied to the frost staff's passives.

As it stands, the only viable way to play a DPS ice warden is with a frost staff equipped (Winter's Revenge, a class frost DPS skill, also gets a ludicrous 30% damage buff if you have a staff equipped), and the only viable way to use a frost staff as DPS is to be a Warden. It's so out of touch with their own stated design goals it's like ZOS needs to read their own ELI5 combat design message they sent out in place of the promised Q&A when we all got concerned about their combat design approach.

I like the Ice Staff better than the other staves anyway. It is easier to weave than shock, and Warden isn't DoT heavy, so Flame wouldn't be that great. NM, that I am still generally sore about the Destro Passive changes that were made previously, but taking the Wardens affinity to frost staff doesn't help the destruction staff line as a whole, but it does give Warden something extra and unique.

And just for clarification the text for Winter's Revenge reads:

Conjure icy shards at the target location to skewer enemies in the area, dealing 294 Frost Damage every 1 second for 12 seconds. This damage increases by 30% if cast with a *Destruction Staff* equipped. Enemies hit are overcome with bitter cold, reducing their Movement Speed by 30% for 3 seconds. This ability has a higher chance to apply the Chilled status effect.

So you could totally run whatever destruction staff you want for that skill, and you wouldn't even lose damage if you wanted to use a flame staff as it would still buff it by 12% since Winter's revenge is a DoT. The Wardens passive just gives you one more choice, instead of being required to use a flame staff.

All I want is it for it to be 6%/6% on the passives instead of 2%12% so I have the option to run other staves and it gives a nice buff if running dual wield or 2h it changes nothing about the ice staff it still has the same 12% damage buff it does now without being a dead passive unless you have an ice staff

If they want to make it specific, it shouldn't be weapon specific. It should be increase your cold and bleed damage by 12%, or a flat 6-10% damage boost. You know, like other classes. Making Warden locked to a specific weapon sucks, and has always sucked since this change came out.

ESO_Nightingale

merpins wrote: »

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

I like that it is 12% as it makes up for the fact that the Frost Staff doesn't have a damage boosting passive in the destruction staff skill line, so it makes it a viable offensive weapon for the Warden.

Nope. Nope nope nope. If the frost staff feels weak without Warden's 12% buff, that's a frost staff issue and not a Warden class issue. That buff should be applied to the frost staff's passives.

As it stands, the only viable way to play a DPS ice warden is with a frost staff equipped (Winter's Revenge, a class frost DPS skill, also gets a ludicrous 30% damage buff if you have a staff equipped), and the only viable way to use a frost staff as DPS is to be a Warden. It's so out of touch with their own stated design goals it's like ZOS needs to read their own ELI5 combat design message they sent out in place of the promised Q&A when we all got concerned about their combat design approach.

I like the Ice Staff better than the other staves anyway. It is easier to weave than shock, and Warden isn't DoT heavy, so Flame wouldn't be that great. NM, that I am still generally sore about the Destro Passive changes that were made previously, but taking the Wardens affinity to frost staff doesn't help the destruction staff line as a whole, but it does give Warden something extra and unique.

And just for clarification the text for Winter's Revenge reads:

Conjure icy shards at the target location to skewer enemies in the area, dealing 294 Frost Damage every 1 second for 12 seconds. This damage increases by 30% if cast with a *Destruction Staff* equipped. Enemies hit are overcome with bitter cold, reducing their Movement Speed by 30% for 3 seconds. This ability has a higher chance to apply the Chilled status effect.

So you could totally run whatever destruction staff you want for that skill, and you wouldn't even lose damage if you wanted to use a flame staff as it would still buff it by 12% since Winter's revenge is a DoT. The Wardens passive just gives you one more choice, instead of being required to use a flame staff.

All I want is it for it to be 6%/6% on the passives instead of 2%12% so I have the option to run other staves and it gives a nice buff if running dual wield or 2h it changes nothing about the ice staff it still has the same 12% damage buff it does now without being a dead passive unless you have an ice staff

If they want to make it specific, it shouldn't be weapon specific. It should be increase your cold and bleed damage by 12%, or a flat 6-10% damage boost. You know, like other classes. Making Warden locked to a specific weapon sucks, and has always sucked since this change came out.

frost and bleed damage is still the best route to go

SandandStars

moo_2021 wrote: »

eh?! bird and scorch are perfect in pvp

scorch => charge => scorch fire at the same time, switch to bird spammable. It's much easier to hit and keep constant pressure than normal melee combos, and don't even need speed bonus.

@moo_2021 , how do you manage to get birds to hit people in PVP? Any insight you can offer would be greatly appreciated. I mained a Magden in PVP for almost 3 years, gave it up recently. In that time I tried several builds and playing styles to get birds to work. No matter what I did, decent players always dodged my birds. They just take forever to flap through the air and arrive at the opponent. I am in a pretty high MMR battleground on Xbox NA, so maybe the experience level of my opponents is a factor?

Soarora

I really love my frost warden, with frost reach spammable. That said, it would be nice to have a good class spammable so there's some options. I hate cliff racer for a few reasons (too slow, isn't even a cliff racer...).

Stamden deffo needs help though. I know more stamden mains than magden mains and all of my stamden bretheren lament about how stamdens are dead. Just recently, one became #1 stamden PC/NA for SE HM (first two, didn't get to third)... by default. Because there's only 2 stamdens who have cleared the first boss HM this whole patch. 2nd boss HM they're the ONLY stamden to have cleared this patch. Clear problem here.

moo_2021

SandandStars wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

eh?! bird and scorch are perfect in pvp

scorch => charge => scorch fire at the same time, switch to bird spammable. It's much easier to hit and keep constant pressure than normal melee combos, and don't even need speed bonus.

@moo_2021 , how do you manage to get birds to hit people in PVP? Any insight you can offer would be greatly appreciated. I mained a Magden in PVP for almost 3 years, gave it up recently. In that time I tried several builds and playing styles to get birds to work. No matter what I did, decent players always dodged my birds. They just take forever to flap through the air and arrive at the opponent. I am in a pretty high MMR battleground on Xbox NA, so maybe the experience level of my opponents is a factor?

I bet

They do dodge but I think you can keep firing without having to wait for earlier birds to hit, and since it's quite cheap I just spam light weaving bird and charge repeatedly (or maybe heavy; still terrible at weaving). When I'm not CC'ed it works well, even managed to kill a few arcanists myself.

Eventually they'd get hit at some point and run out of stamina. And I have like 4k regen.


However, it's obvious my newly leveled dk is much superior in pvp - the burst heal is instant (no animation) and heals much higher, and DoTs are far stronger even without proc sets or debuffs. Now I run alongside my groupmates to breath flame and put claws on whomever they're fighting against, and often that guy would be dead soon. Maybe I could do similar with warden? My charge / bird DoT is definitely weaker in comparison and also haven't found a good ulti.

OtarTheMad

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.

I like a lot of these ideas. It’d be nice if Warden had more frost damage stuff.

Plus, fun fact Hoj Mota was supposed to be the skill and not shalks but I think they had some issues with the ability not working. I’m cool with shalks if they did frost damage too.

Hottytotz

I think Warden's gameplay and kit are some of the best in the game.

However..... Aesthetically I think it is one of the worst.

Specifically the animal companion line. Both other lines are fine.

This is just my opinion but it really sucks that we cannot transmog abilities. If I could change racer to a generic blast of magic or ice, if I could change beetles to just be a magical/physical/ice eruption, and if the netch could just be a glowing blue or green ball I would die of happiness. Those animal companion abilities look so out of place and so jarring that it often causes me to stop playing my favorite class.

Im not saying get rid of the original but allow me to replace these janky zoo abilities with ones more cohesive with frost and magic. Obviously this is coming from a magicka damage or healer POV, but for tank or stamina versions just replace blue magic/frost exposions or animations with ground or green varients.

SandandStars

frost staff is so limiting, especially since warden has no effective class spammable (pvp perspective)

i started playing a few months before frost staff changes to warden and there were a lot more build options

SandandStars

Update: after making the above post, I tried once again to make a “magicka” warden pvp build using cliff racers as my main spammable. It’s been a couple years since I gave up on it in exchange for frost reach.

Sad to say, frost reach outperforms cliff racers in every way possible, and by a wide margin. Good pvprs dodge cliff racers 80% of the time, and in addition to being slow and unreliable, they do less damage, especially with the penetration passive on destruction staff.

If you want to play warden with a staff, you really have no choice but to use the masters ice staff with frost reach spammable.

Just wanted to provide a bit of context on why the frost staff restriction on warden is so limiting.

moo_2021

What execute do you have for ice staff warden?


I gave up my 2h and changed to a bash build, which has been doing much better except without execute (I can only bash people to death when they can't break free). Or need some DoT, but I can't give up my regen set for another proc set, and both the flies and degeneration look weak. DoT with burning plus poison like DK's would really be nice.