Alucardo wrote: »

OK, so I have played Warden for long enough. After getting to Major in PVP and unlocking basically everything I can in PVE, I can honestly say I'm pretty much done with the class, unless it sees some severe improvements.
If you're looking for something casual and fun to play, it's great and I would definitely recommend it. For competitive ESO, go with Sorc instead. Everybody else is anyway.

What I don't like

Gameplay feels slow
The slow gameplay. Everything is delayed. At first I thought it would great, like catching your opponents unaware with a huge amount of burst. Well, no. People are aware of Wardens now to step out of the way of Scorch, and Cliff Racer is way too slow.
I just had a 6 minute fight with a magicka sorc and literally 2 of my deep fissures landed. They saw me cast it, then would streak over me just before they landed making sure I was facing the other way. People aren't stupid ZOS.

The slow gameplay could be rectified by completing overhauling cliff racer. It's the Warden's main spammable, so it needs to be fast like every other spammable ability in this game. I would suggest removing the 15% damage from max range and replacing it with Major Breach, increasing the speed, making it shoot horizontally, and making it dodgeable (not reflectable, like Crushing Shock)

No reliable CC
The only CC wardens have is the magicka morph of Scorch (Deep Fissure). If you're fighting multiple people it only CCs one enemy, so I never really know who it will hit. I believe every class should have a reliable CC, especially classes that rely on burst combos such as magicka nightblades. So not only do we have slow combat, but we have no reliable CC to aid us in these combos, once again relying on Deep Fissure.

Maybe a morph of frozen gate could be reworked. You cast it once and it freezes the target in a kneeling position similar to fossilize. If you cast it on them again while they're frozen they get pulled to you and obviously thawed out. This can go through block

Low damage, no execute
You give the Warden slow damage abilities and no execute. Why? What was the thought process behind this? Trying to close kills on a Magicka Warden is like that feeling you get when you want to sneeze but can't quite get it out. It's frustrating.

You didn't really give us a lot of damage skills to work with, so it's hard to say where to put an execute. You can't add it to the cliff racer because that would be ridiculous, you can't put it into deep fissure because that's AOE. Fetcher infection is an option, but that's just a DoT that can be purged. I don't really know. Maybe if the first point was taken care of and had at least one faster attack we wouldn't need an execute as badly

The Passives

Winter's Embrace needs redoing. Most of the passives in there are just silly. 500 resistances for each winter's embrace skill slotted. Really? Unless you're role playing Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat you're not going to get much use out of this.
Icy Aura is supposed to dull the effectiveness of snares by 15%, but the thing is, you barely notice it. There's so much snaring you in this game that it always feels the same. Change this to something more useful, or give it an additional bonus of "Increase Physical damage by 6% to at least benefit stam wardens.

Now if you haven't already guessed this is purely from a damage role perspective. I've also healed on a Warden, and it's actually not bad at all. If you're more into support, then this class is brilliant.
But yeah, if you want to be a damage dealer, then the Warden is only useful if your opponent has the IQ and reflexes of a target dummy.

I'll be on my Sorc until you get this mess cleaned up.

As someone who has played a mag and stam warden (and race changed a few times to get the best experience of each) I feel the same as the OP on most items. The abilities are so slow...it's painful. Sure if you line up on a pve static target and hit them with shalks it's nice burst but if things are moving all over or say in pvp it's tough as hell to land. 3 seconds is killer. the bird hits pretty well but once again it feels so slow. When I have a mob dead and one or two birds are still incoming to hit it's corpse, that's SLOW..It's irritated me so much that I've recently been spending more time on my Stamplar just to get back into some fast fighting again. I miss the nature theme of the warden but at least I feel "alive" again.

Birds as a spammable feels horrible in my opinion for a stam warden. When I'm using my 2 hander it's either birds or dizzying swing. To me it just feels clunky on a melee fighter. Replacing the bird with rapid strikes for a spammable worked well if your into that for a replacement though. I need a spear weapon line to replace the bird! For a magden I find it ok even though it is kinda boring and I find myself slotting force pulse sometimes in it's place. The heal you get off of birds is pretty nice though.

I feel the warden really needed some CC, especially to land these slow abilities (mainly shalks). Like a lot of games int he past, the druidish characters had some form of grasping vine root or something to that effect and I was sure hoping they'd do the same with the warden. Unfortunately that didn't happen and I think it really hurts the class.

As far as low damage I've always felt it was pretty good myself. Then again I don't do times trials and such but I do PVP and dungeons. With my mag warden In a pve environment I always felt my damage was pretty good doing the same thing most clases do, dump AOEs and wait till everything melts. PVP I use what quite a few warden around here do and just try to front load, bird, shock, and shalks or Dizzying swing, shalks, and execute but in both of these though, missing those slow ass shalks hurts a lot. Finisher wise, I know ZOS was hoping the bear would be it but it's so wonky and unreliable I hardly run it.

I'd also agree that from a healer perspective it does a fine job and it's actually fun. Not spamming BOL makes healing a lot more entertaining IMO.

Swarm to me is a horrible. Hell most Dots in this game are pretty bad bar DK ones. I've tried both morphs and both were off the bar pretty quick. Growing swarm..oh boy another wait before it turns AOE. Shouldn't this be AOE up front?!

Living Vines- I love leeching vines. It migtht not be the best but I love the look of the animation and what it does. Three things really bother me though, one- and once again the cast time animation is so clunky and slow..., two-I wish the length was longer, and three- I wish there was a morph that would make it stay on me only.

Bear-2 ultimate slots. That's horrible. With only 10 ability slots and two ultimates, there should not be a damn ability in the game that has to be double barred. It's ridiculous. Escpecially this ultimate-he's unbearable! (I had to)

Ultimately, if I'm not healing on the warden I feel it's subpar, clunky, and just wasn't what I thought it should be. As someone who always plays druids and rangers this was what I had waited 3 years for after hearing they shelved it in the beginning and after the initial excitement and the grind to 50 I now catch myself back on my stamplar more and more. I feel from a stamina perspective the stamplar does more fast, reliable damage than my warden does. He might not have as much up front burst but at least I feel I'm not a one trick pony (waiting on shalks). If I'm healing it's fresh and enjoyable and does the job. Trying to be a damage dealer as a magden, well, there are better classes for that. If support is your thing, then this class is for you.

i think they added warden to morrowind for fun. how warden is pet class when sorc have 2 pet and warden 1?
Warden is currently totally pre alpha class.

VinyParsley2016 wrote: »

Must nerf Warden.

Oh I'm sure they'll be coming for something soon now that folks have exterminated proc sets. As soon as someone got killed by birds a few times in pvp it was added to the target board....

luen79rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Awww but hey! Warden has pretty looking visuals

Yep that it does. It's one of the reasons I keep trying to get into the class. When I get on my Templar I always feel it's abit blah looking but it does the job.

Waffennacht wrote: »

You can get a hard CC from weapon tree - same with execute for stamina
You can Soul Assault for 70% and line up Shalk during to guarantee hit and burst
Can stack bigger shields than a mSorc
Best damage mitigation ability in game
Great passive heals
Once it works biggest spot AoE heal in game
Enough resource return to run heavy
Undodgeable spammable

I get a ton of Warden OP messages now

For PvP forget the ice tree

Oh and a healing ult that lasts 10 secs and heals for insane amounts with the highest up time

Yeah, I think Wardens can be good

Don't ignore Winter: Ice Fortress and Shimmering Shield are great to have

Just like on my MagBlade, I use a Frost Staff on my MagDen which synergizes really great:

- The increased chance to apply Chilled means that a MagDen can easily keep up Minor Maim on an enemy
- The Frost Clench root, which works great while the Heracross are preparing to burst out of the ground
- As well as the Piercing Cold passive

With Frost Clench and the undodgeable Pidgeys, hitting with Deep Fissure is easy. In fact, I think the Pidgeys are undodgeable to force ppl to block them, making it easier to land the Shalk.

Throw in Ursaring or the Soul Assault ulti, and you can easily take someone out before they can react

On top of that, Warden has many useful skills to defend as well: Minor Protection, Shimmering Shield, Vines, Forest Ulti, Major Defile AoE,...

The Warden is def a tough as nails opponent who, when he sets up, can take you out with a nasty combo and powerful burst

I love my Warden Tank. That is all.

While i don't necessary disagree with most of OP's points, I do tho with the essence of it. I feel like mwarden pvp is in quite a good spot right now, think they occupy this cool role as very strong burster while also providers of meaningful group support without slotting many skills for it, or at least that's how i play them. I also think @Alucardo is actually well aware of this, and is exaggerating his complaints a bit for the sake of the argument, as I've heard he is a really strong dueler; i'd also bet he wins most of them (I think it was you, disregard if not lol)

Now about some of your points i want to say that, I don't think "gameplay being slow" is necessarly a bad thing. I enjoy delaying dps to setup burst, that's the number one thing that originally attracted me to sorcs, and I very do so on wardens. I do agree tho that they are in dire need of more reliable Cc. Wardens are far, far too dependant on landing those Deep Fissures. Icy Aura and Frozen Armor passives most certainly need some work, as Arctic Wind and particularly Frozen Gate, this skill just doesn't work, period.

Also, on the sorc v warden matchup, I think crippling grasp is a very important skill to force dodge rolls and land fissures, feel like not enough wardens are taking advantage of this skill.

Finally, I want to paste my most desire change. The bear, yes:

SanTii.92 wrote: »

I think the first priority got to be to let the bear be single barred it. It's functionality is too straight forward to occupy both ult slots, and can't really compete with the utility that brings a second ult for pvp nor the aoe for pve, even when it's single target dmge is fine. Not to mention the pathing issues it still probably has.

Increase proc cost to 85, move some dmge from the basic attacks to the proc, so you got to choose aoe/utility or single dmge, split the dmge into 2 hits, so it's not too oppresive for pvp, and allow us to single bar it.

ComboBreaker88 wrote: »

Lmao. Git Gud. Wardens are OP. The class is utterly broken. In PvE it can tank, heal and dps. In PvP they are unkillable juggernauts that can easily 1vX. If anything the class needs to be nerfed into the ground. If you can't figure out how to play it that's not a class problem, that's a you problem.

That is soooo 4 months ago... it's not even funny anymore >_>

FearAndPatching wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

OK, so I have played Warden for long enough. After getting to Major in PVP and unlocking basically everything I can in PVE, I can honestly say I'm pretty much done with the class, unless it sees some severe improvements.
If you're looking for something casual and fun to play, it's great and I would definitely recommend it. For competitive ESO, go with Sorc instead. Everybody else is anyway.

What I don't like

Gameplay feels slow
The slow gameplay. Everything is delayed. At first I thought it would great, like catching your opponents unaware with a huge amount of burst. Well, no. People are aware of Wardens now to step out of the way of Scorch, and Cliff Racer is way too slow.
I just had a 6 minute fight with a magicka sorc and literally 2 of my deep fissures landed. They saw me cast it, then would streak over me just before they landed making sure I was facing the other way. People aren't stupid ZOS.

The slow gameplay could be rectified by completing overhauling cliff racer. It's the Warden's main spammable, so it needs to be fast like every other spammable ability in this game. I would suggest removing the 15% damage from max range and replacing it with Major Breach, increasing the speed, making it shoot horizontally, and making it dodgeable (not reflectable, like Crushing Shock)

No reliable CC
The only CC wardens have is the magicka morph of Scorch (Deep Fissure). If you're fighting multiple people it only CCs one enemy, so I never really know who it will hit. I believe every class should have a reliable CC, especially classes that rely on burst combos such as magicka nightblades. So not only do we have slow combat, but we have no reliable CC to aid us in these combos, once again relying on Deep Fissure.

Maybe a morph of frozen gate could be reworked. You cast it once and it freezes the target in a kneeling position similar to fossilize. If you cast it on them again while they're frozen they get pulled to you and obviously thawed out. This can go through block

Low damage, no execute
You give the Warden slow damage abilities and no execute. Why? What was the thought process behind this? Trying to close kills on a Magicka Warden is like that feeling you get when you want to sneeze but can't quite get it out. It's frustrating.

You didn't really give us a lot of damage skills to work with, so it's hard to say where to put an execute. You can't add it to the cliff racer because that would be ridiculous, you can't put it into deep fissure because that's AOE. Fetcher infection is an option, but that's just a DoT that can be purged. I don't really know. Maybe if the first point was taken care of and had at least one faster attack we wouldn't need an execute as badly

The Passives

Winter's Embrace needs redoing. Most of the passives in there are just silly. 500 resistances for each winter's embrace skill slotted. Really? Unless you're role playing Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat you're not going to get much use out of this.
Icy Aura is supposed to dull the effectiveness of snares by 15%, but the thing is, you barely notice it. There's so much snaring you in this game that it always feels the same. Change this to something more useful, or give it an additional bonus of "Increase Physical damage by 6% to at least benefit stam wardens.

Now if you haven't already guessed this is purely from a damage role perspective. I've also healed on a Warden, and it's actually not bad at all. If you're more into support, then this class is brilliant.
But yeah, if you want to be a damage dealer, then the Warden is only useful if your opponent has the IQ and reflexes of a target dummy.

I'll be on my Sorc until you get this mess cleaned up.

I agree 100% with the OP. I have not leveled my MagWard yet but I do have a StamWard I have full BIS gear on him, he's currently stormproof I'm working on getting flawless on him. However if you try a StamWard for end game trials there are glaring holes with the class as the OP said.
Most notable in my opinion is the damage rotation. They have far more buffs to keep up than other classes that deal far more damage than wardens do. You have to keep up Bull Netch, Lotus Bloosum, and Blade Cloak up constantly which compared to MagSorc currently which you literally can just go full damage the entire fight the only thing you have to use that does not deal damage is Ward which is not a big deal since you don't need it up constantly just for incoming burst. Meanwhile you have to reapply subterranean assault every 3 seconds which leads to an extremely spastic rotation especially when you mix in trying to keep 3 buffs up constantly.

One thing here that was brought up as well that is truly irritating is the number of buffs you have to maintain vs other classes such as netch, blossom, and then whatever abilities you want to throw on top. You spend quite a bit of time micromanaging buffs instead of playing and having "fun". I get on my stamplar, hit rally and I'm in the mix. The micromanaging (and in my opinion all of the number crunching ) really kills some of the fun factor.

Waffennacht wrote: »

Drpsychoball wrote: »

I saw some Wardens in Cyrodill, IDK why but i can tell, they dont lose hp at all

Let's say your tooltip is 10k DMG
Let's say after all said and done they have 10k-ish resistance
Your 10k is 5k in PvP
5k after mitigation is now 4200 (2100 or less if they block)
Trellis would bring that to 3100 (1000 or less if they block)

Any HoT or passive heal will completely negate all damage if they block or bring your 10k tooltip attack to 2k or less passively

Then you can factor in things like:

Lotus with weaves
Shields for magicka Rally/Vigor for Stam
Pirate Skele or Northern Storm
Minor protection from Ice ability
Reactive Armor/Malubeth etc
Troll King
Resto Staff/Ult
Forest ult with very high up time
Potions Lingering/Vitality
Major Vitality

In PvP, if a heavy warden has resources, he shouldn't die unless he over extends

While I do agree I feel like I am in heavy while wearing medium. The design is just bad/boring when you play stamina.
So you have full tree of healing and healing related passives. Then only one is scaling with stamina. So you have to return to vigor or rally. But then what about netch. Using both is stupid so you either dont have that small HoT with burst or you dont have resources. So you decide and add vigor to it and then even the rest of tree bar Minor Toughness does exactly nothing for you.
Thank god the healing ult is still OP. Hopefully they wont nerf it before they make soothing spores/passives better

(Or you just give up like I did and supplement your low damage from having bow and using dive and slot soothing spores and roleplay stam healer half the time)

There's also the Bond with Nature passive

No issues with mine !

SodanTok wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Drpsychoball wrote: »

I saw some Wardens in Cyrodill, IDK why but i can tell, they dont lose hp at all

Let's say your tooltip is 10k DMG
Let's say after all said and done they have 10k-ish resistance
Your 10k is 5k in PvP
5k after mitigation is now 4200 (2100 or less if they block)
Trellis would bring that to 3100 (1000 or less if they block)

Any HoT or passive heal will completely negate all damage if they block or bring your 10k tooltip attack to 2k or less passively

Then you can factor in things like:

Lotus with weaves
Shields for magicka Rally/Vigor for Stam
Pirate Skele or Northern Storm
Minor protection from Ice ability
Reactive Armor/Malubeth etc
Troll King
Resto Staff/Ult
Forest ult with very high up time
Potions Lingering/Vitality
Major Vitality

In PvP, if a heavy warden has resources, he shouldn't die unless he over extends

While I do agree I feel like I am in heavy while wearing medium. The design is just bad/boring when you play stamina.
So you have full tree of healing and healing related passives. Then only one is scaling with stamina. So you have to return to vigor or rally. But then what about netch. Using both is stupid so you either dont have that small HoT with burst or you dont have resources. So you decide and add vigor to it and then even the rest of tree bar Minor Toughness does exactly nothing for you.
Thank god the healing ult is still OP. Hopefully they wont nerf it before they make soothing spores/passives better

(Or you just give up like I did and supplement your low damage from having bow and using dive and slot soothing spores and roleplay stam healer half the time)

As a Stam build I'd seriously consider running Blue Betty for the purge and mag resources to help cast them abilities, then run Rally - maybe

Something like:
2H: Execute, Crit charge, Shalk, Rally, and WB (trellis worth anything on a Stam build)? Something that people like (ult maybe the 2h ult... Or DboS)
Bow, Injection, Soothing, Betty/Bull or Vigor, snipe, birds (Thicket esp in BGs)

To be evil and if shield breaker has jewelry I'd go

Shield breaker, Torug Pact x1 Stam Regen piece

Plink Sorcs to death, of course it's a rough draft but an idea (I wouldn't run medium, I'd go heavy personally)

Got heals, got burst, got the ol' death by plink

I dunno sounds pretty awesome

Edit: you could go x5 breaker bow, x5 Torug 2h and a monster set like Selene or (shhh Troll King 0_0)

ya i was looking forward to playing a new class, but it feels so slow/clunky to me its like a worse mdk. the overall style and animations were a disappointment too. oh well