Nerf (Stamina) Wardens!!!

Ectheliontnacil · January 2018

[PVP Discussion]

I will strive to keep this short and simple.

Wardens are OP there is no denying it, frankly if someone disagrees with me on this, I will simply assume they main warden ^^. In this article however I will only take about stamina wardens, since they are the most op and most of the broken mechanics apply to magicka wardens anyway.

The problem with wardens, as I see it, is threefold.

1) Shimmering shield: This skill is ridiculous, how it was even implemented I struggle to understand. It is a huge damage shield that is also available to stamina players (which shouldn't be possible in the first place, stamina has dodge rolling and in most cases is more mobile and tanky) and it is basically a free cast, since the cost is refunded, making it possible for stamina builds to use this frequently. But that's not even the worst part! It also grants major heroism, an enormously strong buff, that this shield (which was already better than harness magicka basically) does not need, as it's already strong. Now major heroism is a fine thing to have, but what makes it nasty ist the "the tree ultimate". This is basically the healing ward ultimate for stamina builds, only that it is much cheaper and that it refunds a substantial part of its cost. This allows stamina wardens to spam their ultimate, making it completely impossible for ranged players (especially magicka users) to kill a warden by themselves: They can hardly get past the shields and if they do, the warden has an ultimate at the ready.

Remove the major heroism and it will still be strong !!!

2) Subterranean Assault (and Cutting Dive): Again we are simply dealing with an overpowered skill here. The ability to layer burst is innate to a lot of classes actually. Sorcerers can use curse and Templars have power of the light for example. Some classes also have a huge damage skill they can proc somewhat reliably i.e. sorc fragments and nb merciless resolve. But with wardens that is combined into one single skill. Subterranean assault deals an INSANE amount of damage and it can easily be COMBINED with another ability, since it only procs after 3 seconds (same is true for cutting dive btw). And if that was it I should be so happy. But Subterranean Assault is an AoE ability and it stuns enemies! It's getting ridiculous at this point and with stampede (that literally every stamden uses) it's really easy to aim the ability as well.

Take away the stun, increase the duration or reduce the damage just do something about it!

3) Healing: I mean I could accept the above mentioned points if warden were some sort of squishy low healing glass cannon. That would be a unique playstyle and would come with advantages as well as disadvantages but it is not so. Wardens have access to some great offensive buffs (berserk etc.) but also to defensive abilities that make them incredibly tanky. The heal over time abilities make heavy armour stamdens, near unkillable. Combine that with shimmering-shield/tree ulti spam and you've got a build that can do insane burst damage while retaining extreme tankiness - unless the stamina warden is completely incompetent it will be nigh impossible to kill him in a 1v1.

So what should we do about it? Well one option I have already mentioned above: Make wardens glass cannons. They can keep their insane burst but they should be medium armour squishies and not heavy armour tanks.
Another idea would to massively decrease their offensive potential, most other classes (with tanky builds) gain their damage from a smooth rotation and flawless animation cancelling. So my suggestion would be to change the wardens skill lines in a way that requires them to work for their damage pressure and doesn't allow them to simply burst enemies with THE simplest rotation in game: Sub assault > Dizzying swing > Dawbreaker (while the opponent is snared ofc).

Please comment and support this post, because wardens are quite literally breaking cyrodiil right now:/

Defilted · January 2018

Sub assault does not stun.. Deep fissure stuns. This is the magika version. Sub assault deals poison damage and lowers physical and spell resistance.

ManDraKE · January 2018

Subterranean Assault doesn't stun. Only the magika morph does.

Fixing stamwarden is simple, increase the cost of Shimmering shield and separate the bonuses between the morphs: one morph gives the magika return, the other one grants major heroism (reducing the duration of the major heroism buff could be a good idea too). Subterranean could use a 10-15% nerf in damage, but nothing crazy, is great that stamina finally gets an AoE ability that is useful vs groups.
Savage Beast passive also needs to be tune down, the ultimate gain should be cut in half (or the cooldown doubled). that passive combined with major heroism from Shimmering shield and/or bloodspawn/wirewolf hide/any form of minor heroism, put their ultimate generation over the top, specially on PvP when you can get even more ultimate with combat fenzy. Back to back ultimates is probably the main reason why the wardens are over performing so hard.

Magwardens are way more broken imo, if you ever have to face a competent magwarden with any stamina medium armor build you will realize that there is nothing you can do, they will destroy you every single time, there is no way of outheal or avoid the damage of a magwarden, and their burst is insane, is a hardcounter to any stamina build that dosn't run heavy + 1h&s. The bird NEEDS TO BE DODGEABLE, period, if cFrags and force pulse are dodgeable why the bird isn't? They already have an undoggeable AoE timmed-CC, they don't even need the bird to be undoggeable to land their combos. The only reason why the forum isn't full of ppl crying about magwarden is because most of the players running the class are mediocre at best, a magwarden in competent hands is probably the most dangerous class to play against. If everyone thought that sorcs were overpowered, wait till people starts to catch up with magwardens....

MrTtheDK · January 2018

Stam wardens are very powerful but they are not the God Mode Super Toons that you're making that out to be. Unlike every other class they do not have the ability to stun using a class ability (Permafrost- Expensive Ultimate and Deep Fissure- Magicka Morph of Sub Assault). This make's them rely on using 2h or Dawnbreaker to CC a target. This limits their play style immensely. Also what snare are you talking about in the last line. The only snares offered to stam wardens is a magicka ground place AOE or non class abilities (Stampede). I can agree that for magicka sorcs/NBs/MagWardens. It can be very difficult to to fight these but their burst is very predictable since the animation is so obvious with sub assault. I rarely run into an unkillable stamwarden as direct or dot damage can quickly burn these guys down. Remove the magicka return on the ice shield, remove minor protection from their armor ability, make birds dodgeable but create a reliable stam stun. That would balance the class as opposed to straight nerfs.

Defilted · January 2018

I have played Mag DK, Stam Sroc, Mag and Stam Wardens , Nightblade in PVP. I have played them for an extended period of time(minus Nightblade as I havea shorter time playing this class). I can say that each of these characters played by a high skilled person will make any of these classes seem completely OP.

I do not think that Warden stands out in this this group and has its own play style that makes it a fun class to play. Again I do not see Wardens being on top of the heap when compared to all the classes I have played. Is the Warden a effective class in certain situations, yes. The biggest thing IMO that makes stam Wardens hard to deal with is the stam burst heal they have. It makes them very hard to kill as they can just heal themselves easily.

Shimmering is a great skill and can be used very effectively. I still get killed using it all the time. It is not like you put the skill on and you become unbeatable.

I do not see Wardens in need of a huge change in PVP. The tree change was really big and I think put Stam Wardens in balance.

SodanTok · January 2018

It is easy to spot nerf warden threads that should be ignored. If at any point you bring up tree ulti since the nerf, it is very obvious you know very little

Shimmering is the only overpowered skill in warden tools, but most of suggestions around nerfing are just flat out crazy coming from people not seeing the bigger picture at all. The only reasonable suggestions I saw was to change Major Heroism to MInor.

Zer0oo · January 2018

I would prefer if they instead made other classes better again. Wardens are just so good right now because every other class got so many nerfs compared to wardens. It is a new class so the "balance team" did not have too many opportunities to ruin this class. Only Trees go nerfed and it was the first skill i replaced on my bars since other ultis are now way more powerful.

ValkynSketha · January 2018

It is hilarious that warden is op in pvp yet not that good in pve

, i don't know how the devs are going to handle this, nerf them in pvp and see the crying from pve, buff them in pve and see the crying in pvp, they should separate pvp from pve balancing already.

Nelson_Rebel · January 2018

It’s not that stam wardens are OP it’s the access to execute and immunity to all roots and snares on the 2h skill line. When they have this on backbar and a s&B on their front bar, they are very godly in any PvP scenario.

However they won’t be nerfed because 1. They are weak in PvE, and 2. Because they are the 1st bought class in ESO. P2w is the technical term, but they need incentives for people to buy morrowind. Having a powerful class is one of the incentives.

Waffennacht · January 2018

Still waiting to run into an OP warden.

Sure they can burst you down to 0 if you're not paying attention (like NB, DK, Templar or Sorc GASP)

But never faced one I couldn't kill

Oreyn_Bearclaw · January 2018

ValkynSketha wrote: »

It is hilarious that warden is op in pvp yet not that good in pve , i don't know how the devs are going to handle this, nerf them in pvp and see the crying from pve, buff them in pve and see the crying in pvp, they should separate pvp from pve balancing already.

I think a lot of it was that this was the first class designed after the Major/Minor buff overhaul. The Devs went over the top with wardens giving them very easy access to a lot of very powerful PVP buffs, that are either not needed or given by your group in PVE. This is compounded by the fact that their damage is primarily burst type damage, because several of their skills have built in delays, which makes it easy to line them up. Burst is great in PVP, and pretty worthless in a lot of PVE content (arenas being the huge exception). If they gave them the sustained PVE damage of some of the other classes, they really would be godly in PVP.

To OP's point, I do agree that warden is the most powerful PVP class in the current meta. My playtime is rather limited on them, but they are tanky and hit REALLY hard if you can line up your burst. I am not sure they are "breaking Cyrodill" at the moment, but if any class is in need of a modest nerf, its wardens in PVP.

As to balancing them separately, this is one of those ideas that sounds great in theory, but implementation would be enormous. You would literally have to design every skill a second time around. They have said many times that they have no intention of doing this because they want the classes to feel similar in both environments. I wouldnt hold my breath. Admittedly, they could probably make some tweaks to battle spirit to help things out a bit, but I never see them completely doing everything separately.

Waffennacht · January 2018

I dare a warden to catch me Open World
I dare a warden to out score me in BGs.

In duels we go back and forth.

Seems really kinda balanced Imo

BTW Stam warden feels like a Stam version of a mag sorc (if mag sorc had a spammable class ability)

callen4492 · January 2018

Waffennacht wrote: »

I dare a warden to catch me Open World
I dare a warden to out score me in BGs.

In duels we go back and forth.

Seems really kinda balanced Imo

BTW Stam warden feels like a Stam version of a mag sorc (if mag sorc had a spammable class ability)

Totally agree with the Stam Warden being a stam version of a mag sorc. If the damage on any of it's class abilities is reduced by any significant amount, they will be tough for anyone to play because they rely on high burst. Shim Shield could be made more expensive so less mag sorcs cry about it on the forums.

I assume the OP has just encountered a few really good wardens in the wild and got his feelings hurt.

callen4492 · January 2018

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

.So my suggestion would be to change the wardens skill lines in a way that requires them to work for their damage pressure and doesn't allow them to simply burst enemies with THE simplest rotation in game: Sub assault > Dizzying swing > Dawbreaker (while the opponent is snared ofc).

Does anybody else have so much trouble avoiding sub assault and dizzying swing? All you gotta do is move...

Also, I'm going to assume OP has never played a stam warden.

Kerioko · January 2018

Put a global cooldown on seventh legion like every other set that gives a large damage buff has and you will tune in the stam warden meta.

Don't kill the set completely, but maybe a 3-5 sec cooldown would work, then up the proc chance to about 15% and extend the time from 5 to 6 sec.

After that, the only other change that is really needed is a slight cost increase for the shield.

The add major heroism to DK wings also so that stam DK's get a little pvp love!

Lexxypwns · January 2018

Shimmering needs the magika return taken off entirely. It also needs its cost increased. Major heroism should be minor heroism.

Both morphs of sharks need a telegraph

Mazbt · January 2018

tone down shimmering shield a little (the ulti gen and magic return). Other than that warden seems fine. You can do big self healing, tankiness and line up big burst on any class.

ak_pvp · January 2018

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Shimmering needs the magika return taken off entirely. It also needs its cost increased. Major heroism should be minor heroism.

Both morphs of sharks need a telegraph

That seems excessive. That kills the uniquness of shimmering. It should be 3 projectiles per person (goes a long way to not be mown over by groups, but 100 mag per absorb and 1 ult.) This would make it more expensive vs one target but would increase efficiency against groups.

Telegraphs are skill less, and allow idiots to not assess surroundings and just run out of the red.

Bird needs to be dodgable and reflectable. Its the soul assault of spammables.

Dracane · January 2018

I main a mag warden at the moment and agree on shimmering shield and the tree ult ( not using any of the 2 though)
It was obvious, that shimmering shield would become stamwardens OP magicka dump. All stamclasses enjoy this superior benefit of being able to use both, stamina abilities, infinite dodge and very strong utility magicka spells. Shimmering shield needs a heavy nerf. It doesn't need to restore magicka, it doesn't need such a strong buff...Minor heroism would be enough. This way, stamina wardens may finally stop utilizing it as much.

As for subterranian/deep fissure. If you take this skill from wardens, they won't kill anything anymore. Stamwarden has lots of burst and a damage nerf to subterra would not hurt them at all.
But mag warden has no good instant burst besides that. Sure, they can keep constant pressure on brainless dodgespammers with birdspam, but is that actually an unhealthy thing ?

IF you make the bear able to survive in pvp somehow, or at least remove the 1 minute cooldown from eternal guardian or maybe reduce the cast time, then magicka warden has access to a very unreliable, but doable burst. Then they could reduce Deep Fissures damage (which is not necessary at all as I said)

Checkmath · January 2018

actually nerfing warden without touching him in PvE is possible.
there are three skills, which are mostly mentioned in the forums: Birds, shalks and shimmering shields.
Its easy to get the PvP warden in line, when you make birds dodgeable and reflectable (or only dodgeable). Doesnt hurt PvE at all.
Second is subterranian assault: make the damage blockable, somehow it counts as ground based aoe or similar, so that the damage goes fully through block. If its still too powerful then, make it dodgeable too. again no changes for pvE.
for the shimmering shields, you already said enough how to adjust this skill. increase skill cost, tone it down to minor heroism, etc.

AAbrigo · January 2018

Mazbt wrote: »

tone down shimmering shield a little (the ulti gen and magic return). Other than that warden seems fine. You can dobig self healing, tankiness and line up big burst on any class.

Let me know what big self healing and tankiness and big burst a stam sorc can do?