Warden v10.1.0 Worst Changes

MATH_COW · July 8

I really feel those changes to be a direct shoot in the knee for Warden. Not because of the nerf, but because of the stupidity of those. (For PvP and even for PvE)

Because setting the "limit" of the max health of Piercing Cold to 30k is really stupid but in same time seem to be done in purpose to annoye as much as possible.

30k max HP is supposed to be a minimum to have to survive in PvP, so if Wardens want their damage bonus they gonna need to have less than 30k max HP...

So they gonna be weak with less than 30k HP but they at least got very good healing!
Wait... Artic Blast now doesn't heal instantly anymore and heal only if it doesn't stunt anybody?
And the other morph based on max health will not be very effective under 30k max HP...

So yeah...

Piercing Cold max HP limit should be at 35k not 30k. The powerfull tanky warden aren't below 35k HP but mostly above that max health.
Ant that will also allow Oak user to get the bonus as generally they reach 30k HP.
And maybe the blocking bonus should be permenant (or stay longer) when have more than 35k HP rather to need to deal frost damage because PvE Tank should not have to be forced to be sure to hit any frost damage every 6 seconds, even if everybody got wall of ice but in moving fight that could annoying.

For Artic Wind everything is fine to be honest, but not that healing change.
For PvP I already said that it will be annoying if we need heal but stunt instead but that's the same for PvE, if you are needing to heal yourself but there is a little trashmob that is near that get stunt you'll just not get your healing... This skill become a good tool when they added the stunt, finally giving a way to stunt people in PvP and even the "nerf" about making the stunt happen on the second pulse was finally somehow better than making the stunt happen on the initial pulse.
But making the heal happen only after 2 seconds and IF nothing get stunt is really bad idea.

If you really want to change the healing, I think something like "Heal a bit on activation then heal overtime" or just being a strong short heal overtime like Green Vigor instead of a big direct heal would be a better idea than what you actually propose in that PTS.

I can understand the will to reduce the damage power of tanky warden in PvP but I don't understand the urge to do that while there is DK and Arcanist that can be way worst.

Durham · July 8

I'm looking at this from a PVP perspective sorry:

Wardens are just dominating in PVP.. YES. Every night you are just waiting for the Kill Warden quest because there are just so many of them. /Sarcasim

This completely kills the ICE warden in PVP. Now if you want to play a warden you are going to have to sport 40k health and be a healer. Yes you can slot some melee weapons that are completely obsolete atm.

Meanwhile the two classes that simply dominate PVP are actually buffed indirectly

"Piercing Cold max HP limit should be at 35k not 30k. The powerful tank warden aren't below 35k HP but mostly above that max health."

- Agreed because there is no way a sub 30k Warden will survive to do damage in PVP with less then 30 health.

"I can understand the will to reduce the damage power of tank warden in PvP but I don't understand the urge to do that while there is DK and Arcanist that can be way worst."

I don't understand the Tanky Ice Warden is strong but nothing compared to a Sorc or Night blade. DKs and Arcs are pin cushions atm. Wardens in PVP will just be the healer and that will be only powerful role it has in PVP. Even your Melee centric Wardens are hurt from this now they have no stun or heal lol... So they will have to adjust to polar wind.

I do not understand why they just gutted the ICE MAGE. They even acknowledged that there is an imbalance in PVP with Night blades yet they hit a strong class but not an over performing class.

sarahthes · July 8

35K is too high. Some PvE tanks run 32K hp. 30K is probably just right for PvE, to be honest, as dds can sit at 26-28K.

Durham · July 8

But completely negates the ICE mage in PVP

Skjaldbjorn · July 8

For PVE, these changes are terrific. I don't PVP. But from a purely end-game PVE perspective, this is exactly what Warden needed.

Skjaldbjorn · July 8

What makes me chuckle is "worst changes".

No.

The worst was when they nerfed the bear, buffed our AC damage passive from 2% to 3%, then reverted that and left the bear nerfed because "reasons". Or when they changed the AC passive from percentage damage ramp to penetration. Then to crit damage. Or when they put an absurd hoop to jump through by equiping a frost staff for our best class damage buff. Or making the stam spammable a quasi-DoT for no reason.

Trust me, buddy. They've done Warden dirty for a long, long time. This is one of the best changes Warden has received in ages.

xDeusEJRx · July 8

I'm not too bothered by the 30k hp maximum for piercing cold to still apply for damage. Personally high health builds are way too prominent and lucrative, especially for PVP wardens using polar wind.
This does a lot to mitigate how you can be high health and still have tons of damage because now you're trading up damage in exchange for the potential of high HP polar winds. You have to actually pick and choose now, do you want passive damage or passive survivability?

And honestly 30k is not even that bad for a PVP DPS for survive with in PVP, especially considering in most cases you can still be cross healed by allies, 30k is perfectly comfortable health to sit at.

I don't see the issue with this at all unless you're trying to do a comp group and all run super high HP

React · July 8

The changes to require below a certain HP threshold for damage bonuses and above it for defensive bonuses are good, and are something I wish they'd do more of. It really would improve PVP balance if in general, lower HP was required to deal better damage (within reason).

The arctic change makes no sense at all. They need to just decide what this skill is supposed to be. Do we want it to be a stun? A self heal? An AOE spammable + dot? Pick a lane and just let it be. I don't know anybody that is asking for this skill to be continuously changed. Meanwhile...

Polar wind somehow was not adjusted. This is easily the most egregiously overperforming cross heal in PVP currently. 45-50k HP wardens are hitting themselves and one other player for 15-20k burst heals every single cast of this ability, while also applying a HOT that ticks for 3-4k per tick for 10 seconds each cast. It is disgustingly overpowered and has to be adjusted. Make it a self heal only or change it entirely, there is no reason why a 45k+ HP tank should the the most effective healer in PVP.

tsaescishoeshiner · July 8

For PvE, I want the instant health-based burst heal. The Stun and DoT are nice, but I often want to stun things and heal a little bit. I hadn't noticed Arctic Blast being as much an issue in PvP as the other one, but having a delayed burst heal is enough of a mystery on top of having it completely dependent on whether a delayed stun doesn't land.

I understand if people think it's good this skill was adjusted, but this really removes the utility of a health-based burst heal by making it both delayed and unreliable. I wish it had gotten a different adjustment. Meanwhile, Polar Wind will keep going ham.

xylena_lazarow · July 8

Piercing Cold change is horrible for PvP Warden DD. Just lost 12% damage for no reason, gained... some block mitigation so I can stalemate harder. No thanks, please give me my 12% damage back.

GusTheWizard · July 8

These are terrible changes all around.

Skjaldbjorn · July 9

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Piercing Cold change is horrible for PvP Warden DD. Just lost 12% damage for no reason, gained... some block mitigation so I can stalemate harder. No thanks, please give me my 12% damage back.

Do you not realize flat % damage gains were the reason Warden was put in the trash can the first time? The AC passive that gave ~2-12% flat damage is precisely why Zos nerfed them over, and over, and over again due to crocodile tears from PVPers. Making this damage gain hinge on not being a straight up tank is actually good. You can still have frost staff to make you tankier, but 12% damage tied to a weapon was dumb as hell from the start.

This change is great for the Warden class. It actually forces decision making.

MATH_COW · July 9

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

What makes me chuckle is "worst changes".
Trust me, buddy. They've done Warden dirty for a long, long time. This is one of the best changes Warden has received in ages.

Oh I know they are not the "worst changes" that happened to Warden, but I was talking about the change from this update.
That's why there is "v10.1-0" in the title actually.
I would have a lot to talk about every skills and passives of the Warden, been years I play but finally decide to creat a forum account to say what I think about the changes they are doing.

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

And honestly 30k is not even that bad for a PVP DPS for survive with in PVP, especially considering in most cases you can still be cross healed by allies, 30k is perfectly comfortable health to sit at.

That's not good, that's the minimum you really want to reach and having a bit more is still a better idea to have between 30k & 35k to be sure to survive to all the damage that can happen in same time, even with the cross healing and mostly when you are alone or with people that doesn't heal ally with their healing skill.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Piercing Cold change is horrible for PvP Warden DD. Just lost 12% damage for no reason, gained... some block mitigation so I can stalemate harder. No thanks, please give me my 12% damage back.

That's also a point about that bonus for the tanking, that's good only for a real tank and not even for a PvP DD.
If the bonus was a general damage reduction that could be a bit fine, because we could just compensate by using more offense with sets, skills or spam. But this is just block damage reduction...

xylena_lazarow · July 9

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Do you not realize flat % damage gains were the reason Warden was put in the trash can the first time?

You're a PvE raid player right? Here in PvP we will gladly take those.

MATH_COW wrote: »

that's good only for a real tank and not even for a PvP DD.

Only way you're really brawling below 30k hp on PvP Warden is with a permablock DD setup such as DW/SnB, that playstyle just got a nice damage buff, but why though? Permablock DD doesn't need to exist. Many PvP Wardens aren't going to change their hp at all, they'll eat the loss or trade their Frost for Lightning to keep dropping 40k scaled Polars.

RIP class identity, all hail the generic power of SnB or Lightning Staff.

Skjaldbjorn · July 9

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Do you not realize flat % damage gains were the reason Warden was put in the trash can the first time?

You're a PvE raid player right? Here in PvP we will gladly take those.

You're not understanding. The AC passive was the quoted reason why Warden got nerfed. They explicitly said scaling % damage gains without stipulations were too strong in PVP, particularly on Warden. Then they tried it again with a non-scaling passive in Piercing Cold (3/6% flat), and lo and behold, their only "solution" was to flip it to a flat 2% and then tie us to a weapon for absolutely no damn reason to bump it to 12%.

Reverting back to the original passive isn't going to happen. Zos took this long to find a road where we weren't handcuffed to an ice staff to do even moderate damage.

Faulgor · July 9

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

For PVE, these changes are terrific. I don't PVP. But from a purely end-game PVE perspective, this is exactly what Warden needed.

What kind of PvE? Because this change seems horrible for Archive builds, in a patch that updates Archive no less.

Skjaldbjorn · July 9

Faulgor wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

For PVE, these changes are terrific. I don't PVP. But from a purely end-game PVE perspective, this is exactly what Warden needed.

What kind of PvE? Because this change seems horrible for Archive builds, in a patch that updates Archive no less.

That's fair. I know archive builds are typically super tanky. It does kind of smack those, which sucks. That's the only spot it's really concerning though, and I have no idea how to fix it tbh. Though in my somewhat limited experience in IA, I would think ~29.5k HP with a lot of mitigation would probably still perform "okay" in a status effect build.

Araneae6537 · July 9

I don’t like the either/or aspect of the change to Arctic Wind — why not make one morph defensive and one morph offensive rather than having Arctic Blast kind of do both and poorly?

I think warden could be really improved by having the resource used for some skills be dynamic, as for arcanist, and then morphs could instead be given different purposes, which some have, but too many seem like just mag vs. stam.

(Edited for clarity.)

Skjaldbjorn · July 9

Araneae6537 wrote: »

I don’t like the either/or aspect of this change — why not make one morph defensive and one morph offensive rather than have a morph that kind of poorly does both?

I think warden could be really improved by having the resource used for some skills be dynamic, as for arcanist, and then morphs could instead be given different purposes, which some have, but too many seem like just mag vs. stam.

wut? There's no morphs for passives. Unless you meant the Arctic Blast change.

xylena_lazarow · July 9

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

You're not understanding

No % damage buff was anywhere near breaking PvP Warden at this point, but In a way you're right. Given the long history of strange changes to Piercing Cold, I really don't understand the devs' vision for Warden DD builds.

Skjaldbjorn · July 9

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

You're not understanding

No % damage buff was anywhere near breaking PvP Warden at this point, but In a way you're right. Given the long history of strange changes to Piercing Cold, I really don't understand the devs' vision for Warden DD builds.

I don't PVP, so I can't really say what was or wasn't breaking them. What I do know as an absolute certainty is % damage gains, both flat and scaling, have seemed to result in crocodile tears of epic proportions from the PVP community, and then within a patch or two, the class I love gets nerfed back into the basement for a year.

So maybe let's just chill out with the sky is falling so we don't get nerfed to hell again.

xylena_lazarow · July 9

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

So maybe let's just chill out with the sky is falling so we don't get nerfed to hell again.

They directly screwed my build. My back bar Master Ice just lost 12% damage for no reason. I rely on this to pressure MagSorcs. If I want that damage back, I'm running 29k hp, now a completely different build and playstyle. It was a strong fair stat build with Order's Wrath, there was no reason to nerf, now I'm incentivized to permablock instead, gross.

Skjaldbjorn · July 9

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

So maybe let's just chill out with the sky is falling so we don't get nerfed to hell again.

They directly screwed my build. My back bar Master Ice just lost 12% damage for no reason. I rely on this to pressure MagSorcs. If I want that damage back, I'm running 29k hp, now a completely different build and playstyle. It was a strong fair stat build with Order's Wrath, there was no reason to nerf, now I'm incentivized to permablock instead, gross.

This is my point. Either PVE Wardens get gimped and forced to use double arena weapons to be subpar and loosely competitive, or PVPers are forced to run glass cannon to do their thing if they don't want to be block tanks. One side is going to lose here, without question. But this all stems from the issue that flat/scaling % gains resulted in crocodile tears from PVP that set Warden on to the path of getting the nerf hammer over and over. PVE Wardens have been in the dumpster for ages due to these PVP-centric changes.

xylena_lazarow · July 9

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

PVE Wardens have been in the dumpster for ages due to these PVP-centric changes.

Why not just give Wardens 12% damage unconditional, they're still not overtaking NB or Sorc.

Skjaldbjorn · July 9

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

PVE Wardens have been in the dumpster for ages due to these PVP-centric changes.

Why not just give Wardens 12% damage unconditional, they're still not overtaking NB or Sorc.

Because that's what got us here to start with. What part of that are you not getting?

xylena_lazarow · July 9

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Because that's what got us here to start with. What part of that are you not getting?

Got us where? This meta is not comparable to the one years ago you're referring to. 12% flat is fine now.

Skjaldbjorn · July 9

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Because that's what got us here to start with. What part of that are you not getting?

Got us where? This meta is not comparable to the one years ago you're referring to. 12% flat is fine now.

Apparently Zos doesn't think so. It wasn't that long ago the 3/6% passive was "too much" which gave us the 2/12 terrible idea.

xylena_lazarow · July 9

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Apparently Zos doesn't think so. It wasn't that long ago the 3/6% passive was "too much" which gave us the 2/12 terrible idea.

They've gone back on quite a few designs, such as ranged burst proc stacking. They've powercrept the damage of Sorc and NB to the sky, Warden is barely keeping up, this pushes Warden further back in the race for no reason.

Skjaldbjorn · July 9

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Apparently Zos doesn't think so. It wasn't that long ago the 3/6% passive was "too much" which gave us the 2/12 terrible idea.

They've gone back on quite a few designs, such as ranged burst proc stacking. They've powercrept the damage of Sorc and NB to the sky, Warden is barely keeping up, this pushes Warden further back in the race for no reason.

I don't know what to tell you my dude. It's very clear their perspective on this. If they didn't find issues with flat % damage gains, that frost staff passive would have been 6/12% for frost staff and 3/6% with anything else. They chose 2% because the only way they felt they could "justify" that large of a damage gain was to stipulate it with frost staff jail. That was clearly a very specific, very calculated design choice.

xylena_lazarow · July 9

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

That was clearly a very specific, very calculated design choice.

I'd love the dev commentary on how in 2019 they ended up buffing dots by 30% one patch, then nerfing them 60% the next patch. So it's not like their calculations have never missed the mark badly. Press the Hardened Ward button.

Araneae6537 · July 9

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

I don’t like the either/or aspect of this change — why not make one morph defensive and one morph offensive rather than have a morph that kind of poorly does both?

I think warden could be really improved by having the resource used for some skills be dynamic, as for arcanist, and then morphs could instead be given different purposes, which some have, but too many seem like just mag vs. stam.

wut? There's no morphs for passives. Unless you meant the Arctic Blast change.

Yes, that’s what I was referring to (edited my post for clarity).

I don’t like the change to Piercing Cold either. I don’t think it was needed for PvE tanks (nor PvP tanks for that matter) and hurts the ability the deal damage as an ice mage! I wish that ZOS would stop trying to force damage vs. heal vs. tank skill line on every class and let it be done with morphs (maybe even on passives?). I want to have a DD ice mage and a tank that snares with vines!