Should the Warden be buffed?

Knowledge · March 2018

It seems as though the Warden gets shafted in all forms of PVE at the highest levels by other classes. Sure, it shines somewhat in PVP and is arguably one of the better classes for that game type. Nonetheless, shouldn't it get a little love in PVE? It pales in comparison to other magicka classes and especially to other stamina classes in terms of output.

That being said I am simply wondering where the community stands on nerfing or buffing the Warden. I am by no means saying it needs to be better than the rest but at least a little bit more competitive.

WrathOfInnos · March 2018

Yes, particularly petless magWarden needs a buff. The class relies too much on the bear, which often dies (and eternal guardian is bugged to force a cast animation instead of instant respawns).

Warden DPS also has poor sustain compared to other classes.

MLGProPlayer · March 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Yes, particularly petless magWarden needs a buff.

Pet warden needs a buff too. The class still parses like 5k+ behind everyone else WITH the bear equipped. No bear, and you're hitting for less than a level 20 sorc wearing heavy armour.

MLGProPlayer · March 2018

Yes. They have been the weakest DPS class in the game by a country mile ever since they launched.

The argument by PvP whiners was always that they deserve to be weak in PvE because cliff racer is OP in PvP. Well, guess what. Cliff racer was nerfed in PvP. It's time to buff the *** out of them in PvE ZOS. We paid real money for this class. I don't expect them to be OP just because I paid for the class, but I do expect them to not be a steaming pile of garbage.

JobooAGS · March 2018

Pve wise, certainly

Nemesis7884 · March 2018

yeah, the problem is finding ways to buff the warden in pve which doesnt make it exploitable in pvp...but i think the bird is dodgeable or blockable now? So maybe it isn't such an issue anymore? But i dont think playing the warden as a DD doesn't make much sense to be honest...works well as Tank and Healer tough.

What would be nice is if for example the bear ultimate was turned into an AOE cleave skill or give him some AOE capabilities...

for example Ultimate deals X damage in a cone area in front of the bear + applies minor fracture to all enemies hit (THE DREAM)

WrathOfInnos · March 2018

A buff to Northern Storm would benefit petless Warden. Increasing the 8% passive Magicka to 18% would be around a 3% DPS increase. The active skill could be buffed to be more in line with Veil of Blades for duration and damage, so that it might be considered for both bars (avoiding the annoyance of bouncing resources).

For PVE, it has been pointed out many times that Winters Revenge could hit harder without affecting PVP much.

For sustain, I think that Nature's Gift should work on self-heals. This would give a reason to slot Lotus and help sustain. Otherwise a flat buff to the resource return from Netch or a cost reduction on the expensive skills like Deep Fissure could help.

The most important thing Wardens could use is a passive group DPS buff. All the other classes get Minor Prophecy, Sorcery, Brutality, and Savagery. Warden has nothing comparable and is often not wanted in coordinated trials. Frost cloak and enchanted growth do not qualify because they have to be slotted and used actively and do not work well on a DPS build.

WuffyCerulei · March 2018

Magden dps in particular needs to be buffed. Some suggestions:

1. Buff the damage done by Winter's Revenge 2. Increase Bird of Prey duration and/or decrease cost 3. Buff their damage done buff 4. Add critical damage buff to a having a winter's embrace skill slotted (like nightblades and templars) 5. Decrease cost of Deep Fissure. It's too expensive to maintain as a dps
Stamdens are pretty balanced, cept for pvp. The only 2 recommendations I have for that issue is: 1) Alter Shimmering Shield so they can't spam it and make range people completely useless against them. 2) Make Subterranean Assault act like Deep Fissure: only applying the debuffs to one enemy, not all.

MLGProPlayer · March 2018

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

yeah, the problem is finding ways to buff the warden in pve which doesnt make it exploitable in pvp...but i think the bird is dodgeable or blockable now? So maybe it isn't such an issue anymore? But i dont think playing the warden as a DD doesn't make much sense to be honest...works well as Tank and Healer tough.

What would be nice is if for example the bear ultimate was turned into an AOE cleave skill or give him some AOE capabilities...

for example Ultimate deals X damage in a cone area in front of the bear + applies minor fracture to all enemies hit (THE DREAM)

It's actually a junk class in PvP since the cliff racer nerfs. There is literally no excuse anymore to not buff their PvE performance. There never was an excuse since wardens always laked DoT damage, which is mostly useless in PvP (especially on a *** AOE skill like winter's revenge which a human player can just walk out of).

datgladiatah · March 2018

Warden needs their passives looked at, and their rotation synergy on DoT effects. I think their biggest problem is their key aoe DoT is ice damage and doesn't do much compared to burning or concussed. Something in the ice line should apply more damage or more crit/penetration or something against chilled enemies.

I think they're close to being effective with pet mechanical acuity and war machine are nice, but their mana scaling is weak and they have too many sustain and tank passives like DK's to make them effective at mag. And they have too few stam morphs to make them fantastic at stamina. Mostly the lack of a stamina cliff racer effect and a fletcherfly stam morph.

Diddly_D_Potatoes · March 2018

I miss undodgeable bird spam.

Nemesis7884 · March 2018

maybe give the bear an aoe dot (but make it a bleed) similar to dawnbreaker....give the bird minor fracture...make one of the netch flyes a stamina dot and give them back the physical damage passive

for magicka maybe make more skilld do frost damage to allow for more synergy there

Seraphayel · March 2018

I recently saw a DPS parse of 50k from a MagWarden. So I don't know if that's the exception or can be achieved when you have the proper gear and skill.

teladoy · March 2018

Winter embrace needs a buff for Magicka and utility builds.

Vaoh · March 2018

Seraphayel wrote: »

I recently saw a DPS parse of 50k from a MagWarden. So I don't know if that's the exception or can be achieved when you have the proper gear and skill.

And if that player used a Mag NB they’d probably have hit 60-65K. Mag Warden is behind in all PvE DPS scenarios. The stars have to align during one of the few fights they can properly take part in (using Eternal Guardian with no deaths) for them to just be considered slightly below average.

And that’s not to mention they’re the only class that doesn’t have any true rotation..... meaning without addons to track AoE DoTs (rip console) they’re even worse.

MLGProPlayer · March 2018

Seraphayel wrote: »

I recently saw a DPS parse of 50k from a MagWarden. So I don't know if that's the exception or can be achieved when you have the proper gear and skill.

A parse on what? And that's irrelevant since NB or Sorc would hit 10k+ over that. DK and Templar would also hit 5K+.

The warden class is a sick joke that ZOS is playing on its paying customers.

MLGProPlayer · March 2018

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

maybe give the bear an aoe dot (but make it a bleed) similar to dawnbreaker....give the bird minor fracture...make one of the netch flyes a stamina dot and give them back the physical damage passive

for magicka maybe make more skilld do frost damage to allow for more synergy there

The biggest buff the bear needs is to not have a summon animation.

The animation currently takes 2 seconds, cannot be cancelled, and interrupts YOU every time the bear dies and automatically re-spawns.

During boss battles with AOE, the bear is dying every few seconds, so you are literally being interrupted to re-summon every few seconds too. The design of this skill is beyond awful.

ccfeeling · March 2018

Endgame tank class 2nd choice.

Anhedonie · March 2018

Well, it should be not only buffed, but reworked.
A lot of skills are useless, gimmicky or poorly thought out. Also, some animations are flashy, but irritating as hell. For example shalks. I'm so fed up with that lazy, amature and low-effort animation.

SSlarg · March 2018

Buff the frail and fragile warden.
Its a very weak and dull class

SSlarg · March 2018

Anhedonie wrote: »

Well, it should be not only buffed, but reworked.
A lot of skills are useless, gimmicky or poorly thought out. Also, some animations are flashy, but irritating as hell. For example shalks. I'm so fed up with that lazy, amature and low-effort animation.

So much This ^^^^^^

Sinolai · March 2018

IMO it needs a small PvE Magicka DD buff. for PvP and Tank role it is fine. Heal is otherwise good but it lacks a panic button nuke heal that would require no targetting (BoL / Matriarch equivivalent). Still pretty solid healer.
For MagDD however it simply doesnt hit hard enough. My suggestion would be buffing the Winter's Revenge and Fetcher Infection damage. Those are the 2 main DoTs for MagWarden and their impact for pvp would be quite minimal.

Oh, and make Expansive Frost cloack always target yourself. It sucks to be a tank who cant give major buff to himself becouse there are too many dds around you.

Beardimus · March 2018

Yeah nerf it for PvP and buff it for PvE I'm fine if they all disappear over there

xbobx · March 2018

I remember on the pts when warden just came out everyone said it was overpowered. So was that a lie or were there massive changes to it before it went live.

Asardes · March 2018

PvE DPS is mostly about ground based DoTs, so you can buff PvE DPS without unbalancing it for PvP. Winter's Embrace does really need a buff since the damage is very low.

starkerealm · March 2018

xbobx wrote: »

I remember on the pts when warden just came out everyone said it was overpowered. So was that a lie or were there massive changes to it before it went live.

A lie.

More accurately, there were a lot of people who didn't have access, looking at the skill lines, and crying about how they wouldn't get it for free, so it must be P2W. Bonus points: that it took awhile for anyone to figure out how to even play the Warden. I hate casually attacking the motivations of entire groups, but a lot of the people screaming P2W on the Warden were really just trying to demand they get the class (and Vvardenfell) for free.

There was some legitimate anxiety in there, but no one who actually got their hands on the Warden thought it was P2W. The only exception was Grove, which was a bit overpowered initially, and later got toned down, but that wasn't what people were complaining about.

Skander · March 2018

Lol no, for the love of the gods

terrordactyl1971 · March 2018

I am CP 450 ish

I have a Magsorc and a Stamwarden, both in gold gear and built for DPS as best I can.

On a training dummy, the Magsorc is doing around 25k and the Stamwarden hits around 19k.

Ch4mpTW · March 2018

Yes, magicka Wardens need to buffed. And dramatically. It’s stupid how underpowered they are. It really is. And while ZOS is at it, I would appreciate it if they made frost damage a viable option for doing damage.

Hutch679 · March 2018

Screaming cliff racer is garbage in pvp since the undodgable nerf. The issue is you can only line your burst up once every 3 to 4 seconds because of no execute. That means if the enemy dodges an attack, you will be unable to kill them without going through another 4 second burst window. If they dodge again, it's just the same thing over and over. In essence, if you wanna beat a mag warden, just dodge roll sideways once during their burst rotation. You roll out of the shalks and dodge the cliff racer. Its really a joke. They need something, but not sure what that something is. PVE dps is laughable with mag wardens. I just use mine as a healer (which they are very strong at).

WarMasterCyp · March 2018

Yes because if you don't want animal class then you are pretty weak