I think the tank identity of Winter’s Embrace needs to be updated with some damage shields in its passives. This would make sense as it would fit the feel of its icy nature. Below I have outlined a possible way to emphasise this while attempting to fix some of the underused skills and morphs.
* I have highlighted main changes in bold to help streamline the post.
Winter’s Embrace:
Sleet Storm: Twist a violent storm around you, dealing X Frost Damage every 1 second for 8 seconds to enemies around you and reducing their Movement Speed by 40%. You and nearby allies gain Major Protection, reducing your damage taken by 10%. You are considered to be Bracing while this skill is active.
Also considered Bracing to tie in to the Icy Aura passive change below.
Northern Storm: Twist a violent storm around you, dealing X Frost Damage every 1 second for 8 seconds to enemies around you and reducing their Movement Speed by 40% and increasing your Frost Damage by 300 for 30 seconds. You and nearby allies gain Major Protection, reducing your damage taken by 10%. You are considered to be Bracing while this skill is active.
* Spell and Weapon Damage removed in favor of flat Frost Damage benefitting both Tanks and DPS specs.
Permafrost: Twist a violent storm around you, dealing X Frost Damage every 1 second for 12 seconds to enemies around you and reducing their Movement Speed by 70%, and granting an X Damage Shield based on your Maximum Health to you every 1 second. Enemies hit are afflicted with Major Maim for 4 seconds, reducing their damage dealt by 10%. You and nearby allies gain Major Protection, reducing your damage taken by 10%. You are considered to be Bracing while this skill is active.
* No longer guaranteed Chilled. Instead applies Major Maim and grants damage shields based on Maximum Health.
Frost Cloak: Wrap a thick cloak of ice around you and your grouped allies. The ice grants Major Resolve, increasing your Physical and Spell Resistance by 5948 for 20 seconds. You are considered to be Bracing while this skill is active.
Also considered Bracing to synergize with Icy Aura below.
Expansive Frost Cloak: Wrap a thick cloak of ice around you and your grouped allies. The ice grants Major Resolve, increasing your Physical and Spell Resistance by 5948 for 20 seconds. You are considered to be Bracing while this skill is active.
Ice Fortress: Wrap a thick cloak of ice around you and your grouped allies. The ice grants Major Resolve, increasing your Physical and Spell Resistance by 5948 for 30 seconds. You gain Minor Protection, reducing your damage taken by 5% for 30 seconds. You are considered to be Bracing while this skill is active.
Impaling Shards and Morphs: No change.
Arctic Wind and Morphs: No change.
Crystallised Shield and morphs: No change.
Frozen Gate: Summon an ancient portal, which arms after 1.5 seconds. When triggered the enemy is teleported to you, immobilized for 3 seconds, and dealt 1799 Frost Damage. An ally in the portal can activate the Icy Escape synergy, teleporting them to you and granting them Major Expedition, increasing their Movement Speed by 30% for 8 seconds. You can have up to 3 Frozen Retreats active at a time.
* Retreat becomes base ability.
Frozen Device: No change except the additional base function addition.
Frozen Retreat: Removed and Replaced with…
Frozen Arena: Summon a frozen arena for 30 seconds that pulses every 5 seconds dealing X Frost Damage and immobilizing enemies hit for 3 seconds. Enemies in the area take 30% more damage from Chilled.
* Increased area of effect pulses periodically but loses teleport effect and can only have 1 at a time. Enemies taken more damage from Chilled.
Glacial Presence: Increase chance of applying Chilled to enemies by 200%. Increases the damage of your Chilled status effect by 336. This effect scales off your highest offensive stats.
Frozen Armor: Increases your Physical and Spell Resistance by 990 for each Winter's Embrace ability slotted.
Icy Aura: While Bracing you gain an X Damage Shield. The shield strength is based on your Maximum Health. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds but cannot stack.
Increases the duration of your Winter’s Embrace abilities by 4 seconds.
Piercing Cold: Increases your Bleed and Frost Damage by 10%. Increases your Frost Damage dealt by a further 4% while holding an Ice Staff.
* Piercing Cold passive changes emphasise the identity of the Warden with Bleed and Frost as damage. The Frost Staff condition has been toned down to not box players in but also giving a slight bonus to those that specialize in pure Frost only builds. Glacial Presence isn’t just tied to the skill line, it applies to any and all Frost Damage. Icy Aura Bracing shield increases the defensive identity of the skill line while also giving it synergy with some of the skills.
** Note that Bracing does not mean Blocking. Simply that when blocking you will gain the Icy Aura shield as expected. However, you can gain the shield by using certain skills without having to manually brace. This does NOT mean that these skills would automatically block. Important distinction I felt was necessary to clarify.
*** Icy Aura also increases duration of Winter’s Embrace skills to hit home that feel of an enduring snow storm.
Goals of above changes:
1. Increase viability of Northern Storm over Permafrost by focusing their functions down. With Northern Storm offering more damage while Permafrost a dedicated tanking and CC role.
2. Make Frozen Gate a more desirable skill by buffing its base utility by making Frozen Retreat the base function and creating an alternative morph in its place that offers a more “stand your ground” feel.
3. Adjust the passives to fall in line with the overall identity of the Warden by focusing on Bleed and Frost, reworking Icy Aura into something far more useful and nerfing the Ice Staff bonus of Piercing Cold by making it useful for dedicated Frost builds but not a requirement for all builds.
As you can see the proposed changes are actually quite minor but with increased synergy and class identity. Also, as an added bonus you could pop Frost Cloak and gain the Frozen Guardian set bonus without having to manually brace. 😉
Edited by MindOfTheSwarm on December 19, 2023 8:35AM