Could somebody explain the dev comments on Warden bear nerf please?

Zypheran · October 2018

"We want Wardens to have more options with which Ultimate they select. Previously, if you didn’t use the Feral Guardian Ultimate, your damage was lower than other classes. We have redistributed power from this skill into the Advanced Species passive so all abilities will deal more damage, including a different Ultimate if desired. Net DPS when using the Feral Guardian should be about the same, and DPS will go up if you were using a non-bear ultimate."
I don't understand this. The bear was nerfed by 30% and the passive was only increased by 1% per ability slotted. How does this result in an unchanged dps for the bear?
What am I missing?

Sparr0w · October 2018

Previously dps was dependent on having the bear. Now you will pull the same DPS with or without it since the class got buffed but the bear got nerfed.

jypcy · October 2018

They’re not claiming that your damage from the bear specialfically should be the same. They’re saying that if you continue to use the bear, your overall dps should be about the same because although the bear deals less damage, all of your other attacks can deal more damage.

Yuffie91 · October 2018

So..they nerf one thing but buff other things so you do the same dmg with everything as you did before when the one thing was unbuffed..so basically you still do the same dmg? xD

Sparr0w · October 2018

Yuffie91 wrote: »

So..they nerf one thing but buff other things so you do the same dmg with everything as you did before when the one thing was unbuffed..so basically you still do the same dmg? xD

Yup pre patch and post patch you will do the same dps, just means you could go Destro ult & Meteor for example if you're mag rather than being forced into using the bear to pull higher dps.

MartiniDaniels · October 2018

Yuffie91 wrote: »

So..they nerf one thing but buff other things so you do the same dmg with everything as you did before when the one thing was unbuffed..so basically you still do the same dmg? xD

Bingo! And also you got some diversity

Zypheran · October 2018

jypcy wrote: »

They’re not claiming that your damage from the bear specialfically should be the same. They’re saying that if you continue to use the bear, your overall dps should be about the same because although the bear deals less damage, all of your other attacks can deal more damage.

Thanks, that makes more sense.
Although 1% increase per animal ability slotted sounds a little low to counterbalance a 30% nerf on the bear.
I will be interested to see what dps changes Wardens actually see!

jypcy · October 2018

Yuffie91 wrote: »

So..they nerf one thing but buff other things so you do the same dmg with everything as you did before when the one thing was unbuffed..so basically you still do the same dmg? xD

If you continue to use the bear. A constant complaint was that magden dps was reliant on the bear, as in using a destro ult or northern storm was a dps loss. With this change, because the class was buffed but the bear was nerfed, not using the bear is a more viable option.

WrathOfInnos · October 2018

It doesn’t. Not even close. Most builds will have 3 animal companion abilities slotted, which means the passive change results in 3% more damage. This is additive with CP’s (typically around 32%), minor berserk (8%), Minor and Major Slayer (5% and 15%). So with 3 animal abilities you now get a 69% bonus instead of a 66% bonus, meaning 0.03/1.66=1.8% DPS gain (or 2% without Major Slayer). The 30% bear nerf is far more impactful than 1.8% DPS gain.

In fact, the bear usually accounts for 15-25% of a Warden’s damage. This means the 30% reduction resulted in a 4.5% to 7.5% DPS loss for Wardens, far more than they gained with the passive change.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert Please rethink the magnitudes of these changes. Either increase the Advanced Species passive further (to around 5%) or give the bear some of its damage back (10% nerf instead of 30%). Either of these options would be approximately DPS neutral for a Warden bear build.

Wardens were certainly not overperforming in DPS, and did not need to be weakened.

Edit: I want to add that if Advanced Species actually multiplied damage by 3% (not additive with CP’s, Slayer and Berserk) then this would be a fine solution already. Slotting 3 animal companion skills would give 9% more DPS, which is equivalent to the 3x5%/1.66=9% I suggested above by making it 5% per animal companion skill if kept additive in the formula. This is not even difficult to implement, since the Bloodthirsty % damage increases already work as described (multiplicative).

Crafts_Many_Boxes · October 2018

Basically, wardens were in a spot where their "natural" dps was lower than other classes but their bear was very strong compared to other ultimates. This change fixed that, so that bear is in line with other ultimates and wardens are (supposedly) in line with other classes.

I'm torn about the whole thing. On one hand, it's a huge buff for my magden because I'm going for the ice theme and use the frost ultimate. On the other hand, the warden's class identity is being gutted because the devs don't really know what to do about combat pets and how inconsistent they are.

From a spreadsheet perspective, this is a good change, but I'm sure there are tons of players who simply enjoyed playing with their bear, even if it was dumb sometimes, and now that bear is much weaker.

Zypheran · October 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

It doesn’t. Not even close. Most builds will have 3 animal companion abilities slotted, which means the passive change results in 3% more damage. This is additive with CP’s (typically around 32%), minor berserk (8%), Minor and Major Slayer (5% and 15%). So with 3 animal abilities you now get a 69% bonus instead of a 66% bonus, meaning 0.03/1.66=1.8% DPS gain (or 2% without Major Slayer). The 30% bear nerf is far more impactful than 1.8% DPS gain.

In fact, the bear usually accounts for 15-25% of a Warden’s damage. This means the 30% reduction resulted in a 4.5% to 7.5% DPS loss for Wardens, far more than they gained with the passive change.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert Please rethink the magnitudes of these changes. Either increase the Advanced Species passive further (to around 5%) or give the bear some of its damage back (10% nerf instead of 30%). Either of these options would be approximately DPS neutral for a Warden bear build.

Wardens were certainly not overperforming in DPS, and did not need to be weakened.

Thanks @WrathOfInnos those numbers make way more sense. I thought I was missing something in the dev comments. I knew the nerf seemed way more than the buff.

RedRook · October 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

It doesn’t. Not even close. Most builds will have 3 animal companion abilities slotted, which means the passive change results in 3% more damage. This is additive with CP’s (typically around 32%), minor berserk (8%), Minor and Major Slayer (5% and 15%). So with 3 animal abilities you now get a 69% bonus instead of a 66% bonus, meaning 0.03/1.66=1.8% DPS gain (or 2% without Major Slayer). The 30% bear nerf is far more impactful than 1.8% DPS gain.

In fact, the bear usually accounts for 15-25% of a Warden’s damage. This means the 30% reduction resulted in a 4.5% to 7.5% DPS loss for Wardens, far more than they gained with the passive change.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert Please rethink the magnitudes of these changes. Either increase the Advanced Species passive further (to around 5%) or give the bear some of its damage back (10% nerf instead of 30%). Either of these options would be approximately DPS neutral for a Warden bear build.

Wardens were certainly not overperforming in DPS, and did not need to be weakened.

The problem with increasing the passive is it will buff stamdens (PVP specific, hell if I know how stamdens are doing as dps in PVE). They just made shalks more powerful, further stamden buffs are not a good idea.

Stamdens were ofc running dawnbreaker, just like most of the stamina specs in cyrodiil, so bear nerf is whatever.

Yes, stamden dawny will now be hitting you harder. I guess that needed to be a thing.

Darkenarlol · October 2018

if you nerf something so badly that ANY other options are now better

it brings *fun* and *build diversity* by ZOS' logic

p.s. actually i'm kinda happy to free my mag warden from bear+master architect slavery

Kiralyn2000 · October 2018

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

From a spreadsheet perspective, this is a good change, but I'm sure there are tons of players who simply enjoyed playing with their bear, even if it was dumb sometimes, and now that bear is much weaker.

Right, I'm running Bear on my Stamden because... it's a Warden. Bear is the Warden thing. If I wanted to run some other ult, I'd play a different class. Warden = Bear. (Just like my Nightblade has stealth armor and does thief-y things. And my staff-wielding spellcaster is a Sorc. etc.)

jypcy · October 2018

RedRook wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

It doesn’t. Not even close. Most builds will have 3 animal companion abilities slotted, which means the passive change results in 3% more damage. This is additive with CP’s (typically around 32%), minor berserk (8%), Minor and Major Slayer (5% and 15%). So with 3 animal abilities you now get a 69% bonus instead of a 66% bonus, meaning 0.03/1.66=1.8% DPS gain (or 2% without Major Slayer). The 30% bear nerf is far more impactful than 1.8% DPS gain.

In fact, the bear usually accounts for 15-25% of a Warden’s damage. This means the 30% reduction resulted in a 4.5% to 7.5% DPS loss for Wardens, far more than they gained with the passive change.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert Please rethink the magnitudes of these changes. Either increase the Advanced Species passive further (to around 5%) or give the bear some of its damage back (10% nerf instead of 30%). Either of these options would be approximately DPS neutral for a Warden bear build.

Wardens were certainly not overperforming in DPS, and did not need to be weakened.

The problem with increasing the passive is it will buff stamdens (PVP specific, hell if I know how stamdens are doing as dps in PVE). They just made shalks more powerful, further stamden buffs are not a good idea.

Stamdens were ofc running dawnbreaker, just like most of the stamina specs in cyrodiil, so bear nerf is whatever.

Your concern is also applicable to pve last I saw, where stamdens have become basically on par with stamblades for top pve dps and afaik the other stam specs are at least slightly behind (haven’t been keeping up too closely with stam tho so please correct me if I’m wrong).

If devs do mess around with AC to try to buff magden, stamdens will likely become even stronger. I don’t think lessening the bear nerf or further increasing the damage buff from AC skills would be the way to go at least. And unfortunately making eternal guardian a more impactful morph than it currently is would just make magden dps reliant on the bear again.

MartiniDaniels · October 2018

Zypheran wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

It doesn’t. Not even close. Most builds will have 3 animal companion abilities slotted, which means the passive change results in 3% more damage. This is additive with CP’s (typically around 32%), minor berserk (8%), Minor and Major Slayer (5% and 15%). So with 3 animal abilities you now get a 69% bonus instead of a 66% bonus, meaning 0.03/1.66=1.8% DPS gain (or 2% without Major Slayer). The 30% bear nerf is far more impactful than 1.8% DPS gain.

In fact, the bear usually accounts for 15-25% of a Warden’s damage. This means the 30% reduction resulted in a 4.5% to 7.5% DPS loss for Wardens, far more than they gained with the passive change.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert Please rethink the magnitudes of these changes. Either increase the Advanced Species passive further (to around 5%) or give the bear some of its damage back (10% nerf instead of 30%). Either of these options would be approximately DPS neutral for a Warden bear build.

Wardens were certainly not overperforming in DPS, and did not need to be weakened.

Thanks @WrathOfInnos those numbers make way more sense. I thought I was missing something in the dev comments. I knew the nerf seemed way more than the buff.

After some partial maths OP just jump to conclusion that bear provides more DPS then overall buffs to warden, ignoring that you also got buff to sustain, buff to dive and scorch, bear immortality in dungeons (so you may pick damage morph to compensate). Until all that is verified on comparison of real builds, those numbers above are just a clever whining.

Meanwhile, stamwarden hit 60k on PTS.. and you don't believe - he still uses "nerfed" bear.
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-warden-build-pve/

NewBlacksmurf · October 2018

+1 as you actually explained this better than I understood it. I’m very casually playing but I had devoted all my casual time to redoing a warden....non-group content

I moreso than ever don’t believe ZOS’ team knows what they are doing.

Now so than ever, classes are being impacted negatively by changes that make little sense in terms of a positive change to playing.

I see the driving issues being the same as they were in 2013...those being.
Classes need to go
VR needs to go (CP now)
Skill lines stopping at 50 makes little sense
PvE and PvP can’t work together

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

It doesn’t. Not even close. Most builds will have 3 animal companion abilities slotted, which means the passive change results in 3% more damage. This is additive with CP’s (typically around 32%), minor berserk (8%), Minor and Major Slayer (5% and 15%). So with 3 animal abilities you now get a 69% bonus instead of a 66% bonus, meaning 0.03/1.66=1.8% DPS gain (or 2% without Major Slayer). The 30% bear nerf is far more impactful than 1.8% DPS gain.

In fact, the bear usually accounts for 15-25% of a Warden’s damage. This means the 30% reduction resulted in a 4.5% to 7.5% DPS loss for Wardens, far more than they gained with the passive change.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert Please rethink the magnitudes of these changes. Either increase the Advanced Species passive further (to around 5%) or give the bear some of its damage back (10% nerf instead of 30%). Either of these options would be approximately DPS neutral for a Warden bear build.

Wardens were certainly not overperforming in DPS, and did not need to be weakened.

max_only · October 2018

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/438173/smokey-the-bear-needs-your-help

Actually got a response on this one, nonsensical but a response nonetheless.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/435756/why-nerfing-the-bear

ESO community only bands together enforce when it comes to Sorcerers or Nightblades, ignoring all others who are struggling.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/439220/so-how-bout-dem-bears
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/438534/dear-zos-please-reconsider-the-bear-nerf

Not even acknowledged in the official thread.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/435650/pts-update-20-feedback-thread-for-wardens

I’ve been saying this for weeks but what do I know.

And when you suggest they apply this “logic” to other classes people lose their minds

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/440161/decrease-ultimate-damage-increase-base-dmg-of-class-skills/

Tonturri · October 2018

ZOS compared the DPS of the bear to other ults' DPS and found the bear overperforming. They nerfed the bear without stopping to consider how different the bear is from other ults - it's not AoE, it requires micromanagement, it (could) die, it required double barring.

Why SHOULD a single target DPS ult be brought down to the level of the single target DPS of other ults that have a lot more utility (meteor aoe + stun + ticking AoE dot, or destro staff massive aoe, or the 8% max mag of northern storm + major prot + aoe). Let skills be different from each other.

Jhalin · October 2018

It’s a buff it you didn’t use your class ult (/s)

zTrok · October 2018

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Zypheran wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

It doesn’t. Not even close. Most builds will have 3 animal companion abilities slotted, which means the passive change results in 3% more damage. This is additive with CP’s (typically around 32%), minor berserk (8%), Minor and Major Slayer (5% and 15%). So with 3 animal abilities you now get a 69% bonus instead of a 66% bonus, meaning 0.03/1.66=1.8% DPS gain (or 2% without Major Slayer). The 30% bear nerf is far more impactful than 1.8% DPS gain.

In fact, the bear usually accounts for 15-25% of a Warden’s damage. This means the 30% reduction resulted in a 4.5% to 7.5% DPS loss for Wardens, far more than they gained with the passive change.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert Please rethink the magnitudes of these changes. Either increase the Advanced Species passive further (to around 5%) or give the bear some of its damage back (10% nerf instead of 30%). Either of these options would be approximately DPS neutral for a Warden bear build.

Wardens were certainly not overperforming in DPS, and did not need to be weakened.

Thanks @WrathOfInnos those numbers make way more sense. I thought I was missing something in the dev comments. I knew the nerf seemed way more than the buff.

After some partial maths OP just jump to conclusion that bear provides more DPS then overall buffs to warden, ignoring that you also got buff to sustain, buff to dive and scorch, bear immortality in dungeons (so you may pick damage morph to compensate). Until all that is verified on comparison of real builds, those numbers above are just a clever whining.

Meanwhile, stamwarden hit 60k on PTS.. and you don't believe - he still uses "nerfed" bear.
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-warden-build-pve/

Stamden had a net buff from this patch, and Magden had a straight nerf. And even still, bear still provides the most dps on a target dummy with it being 3-4k ahead of Destro from my testing. Best way to fix this is buff damage of swarm so that stamden doesn't get anything more.

MartiniDaniels · October 2018

zTrok wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Zypheran wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

It doesn’t. Not even close. Most builds will have 3 animal companion abilities slotted, which means the passive change results in 3% more damage. This is additive with CP’s (typically around 32%), minor berserk (8%), Minor and Major Slayer (5% and 15%). So with 3 animal abilities you now get a 69% bonus instead of a 66% bonus, meaning 0.03/1.66=1.8% DPS gain (or 2% without Major Slayer). The 30% bear nerf is far more impactful than 1.8% DPS gain.

In fact, the bear usually accounts for 15-25% of a Warden’s damage. This means the 30% reduction resulted in a 4.5% to 7.5% DPS loss for Wardens, far more than they gained with the passive change.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert Please rethink the magnitudes of these changes. Either increase the Advanced Species passive further (to around 5%) or give the bear some of its damage back (10% nerf instead of 30%). Either of these options would be approximately DPS neutral for a Warden bear build.

Wardens were certainly not overperforming in DPS, and did not need to be weakened.

Thanks @WrathOfInnos those numbers make way more sense. I thought I was missing something in the dev comments. I knew the nerf seemed way more than the buff.

After some partial maths OP just jump to conclusion that bear provides more DPS then overall buffs to warden, ignoring that you also got buff to sustain, buff to dive and scorch, bear immortality in dungeons (so you may pick damage morph to compensate). Until all that is verified on comparison of real builds, those numbers above are just a clever whining.

Meanwhile, stamwarden hit 60k on PTS.. and you don't believe - he still uses "nerfed" bear.
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-warden-build-pve/

Stamden had a net buff from this patch, and Magden had a straight nerf. And even still, bear still provides the most dps on a target dummy with it being 3-4k ahead of Destro from my testing. Best way to fix this is buff damage of swarm so that stamden doesn't get anything more.

I got a feeling that ZOS cares only about meta builds, and if non-meta get occasionally nerfed with some meta they try to balance.. then it's non-meta's problem.. and to calm any arguments they also nerfed swarm, so people have obvious choice what resource warden should use

i don't like changes to speed and evasion too, but who cares about PVE medium/nb tanks if they need to nerf PVP dodge masters..

fierackas · October 2018

Dumbest nerf ever.

You need to re-advertise Warden as a non-bear, non-ice magic using generic toon and refund everyone who spent money on the class.

What kind of pleb would want to double bar a pet that does 30% less damage and half the time doesn't even hit the friggin mob it's supposed to be fighting?

Ermiq · October 2018

Gosh, people can't use their brains and prefer to blame ZOS for "they don't know what they are doing".

Warden got buffed AC passives, Scorch, Dive, sustain, got passive Minor Berserk, etc, and all these buffs are synergizing and making average Warden DPS quite the same for "nerfed" BearWarden and brings more power and diversity to other Warden builds.
Though, StamDens got buffed as well while they were quite strong already, so we'll apparently get more changes to the class in near future. However, these changes is what MagWarden have been waiting for a long time.

For those, who whine about nerfs: guys, you can't bring balance to anything without nerfs. Try to understand it. It's a definition of balance to buff some things and nerf other things.

zTrok · October 2018

Eremith wrote: »

Gosh, people can't use their brains and prefer to blame ZOS for "they don't know what they are doing".

Warden got buffed AC passives, Scorch, Dive, sustain, got passive Minor Berserk, etc, and all these buffs are synergizing and making average Warden DPS quite the same for "nerfed" BearWarden and brings more power and diversity to other Warden builds.
Though, StamDens got buffed as well while they were quite strong already, so we'll apparently get more changes to the class in near future. However, these changes is what MagWarden have been waiting for a long time.

For those, who whine about nerfs: guys, you can't bring balance to anything without nerfs. Try to understand it. It's a definition of balance to buff some things and nerf other things.

They nerfed the already weakest spec in the game (magden) and gave a small boost to it which did not compensate for the nerf, leaving it in a net state weaker than it was previously, from a single target standpoint.

mb10 · October 2018

My question is why is it the only ultimate in the game that you need to double slot?

If it was a one bar ultimate it would be great, but two bars?

Not a chance espc in PVP

FatFred · October 2018

removing bear from my bars will make my golden pets set useless,i spent 30k on it, and i will not give it up so easily.
So,i say no to this change, will keep my lovely bear.

Lysette · October 2018

Jhalin wrote: »

It’s a buff it you didn’t use your class ult (/s)

Yeah, I see it like that, because even when I had the bear out, I just let him do his thing, not using the ult ability.

Azurya · October 2018

Sparr0w wrote: »

Previously dps was dependent on having the bear. Now you will pull the same DPS with or without it since the class got buffed but the bear got nerfed.

yes it now hits like a wet noodle,
before it didn´t hit anything
o
and we are the only ones with minor toughness now,
always reason to take a warden in the raid^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ LoL

MartiniDaniels · October 2018

mb10 wrote: »

My question is why is it the only ultimate in the game that you need to double slot?

If it was a one bar ultimate it would be great, but two bars?

Not a chance espc in PVP

I'll tell you truth about it. That was wonderful ult which adds 6-7k dps for doing nothing.

fierackas · October 2018

Eremith wrote: »

Gosh, people can't use their brains and prefer to blame ZOS for "they don't know what they are doing".

Warden got buffed AC passives, Scorch, Dive, sustain, got passive Minor Berserk, etc, and all these buffs are synergizing and making average Warden DPS quite the same for "nerfed" BearWarden and brings more power and diversity to other Warden builds.
Though, StamDens got buffed as well while they were quite strong already, so we'll apparently get more changes to the class in near future. However, these changes is what MagWarden have been waiting for a long time.

For those, who whine about nerfs: guys, you can't bring balance to anything without nerfs. Try to understand it. It's a definition of balance to buff some things and nerf other things.

Try engaging your brain and doing some research before posting absolute nonsense