Warden vs Necromancer, battle of the DLC classes

Wing · May 2019

as of right now, the final patch of PTS, what do you feel is the superior DLC class?
-theme
-identity
-abilities
-damage
-healing
-ease of use
-particle effects
-versatility
-etc.

it can be any reason, all reasons, etc. but what do you feel is the better DLC class as of now, and why if you don't mind posting your thoughts?

Rygonix · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

One is all about life, the other is all about death. In my opinion that evens everything out.

ESO_Nightingale · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

Rygonix wrote: »

One is all about life, the other is all about death. In my opinion that evens everything out.

Last time i checked, litteral ice wasn't alive. It doesn't make any sense on Warden to be honest.

DisgracefulMind · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

They're both trash in their Magicka form.

Anhedonie · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

Magwarden is plagued by terrible class design, magicka necro is plagued by terrible class design.
Stamina warden is superior, stamina necro is superior. Seems like a draw to me.

spacebandit · May 2019

Warden!

I like the bear. I like a lot of the stamwardens kit. But i’m Not fond of magewarden

Raising skeletons doesn’t really sound like my kind of thing but I will try it out on live.

darkblue5 · May 2019

Necromancer!

Necromancer was made with all the knowledge of what came before. No wonder it (on a broader design sense) hits it out of the park. People have been complaining about the mediocre permanent pet AI for years and thank Devs that ZOS didn't give the Necromancer permanent pets controlled by that AI. Especially multiple pets controlled by that AI.

It has stamina morphs because players like having more classes than magsorc, magplar, magdk, magblade, magcro and weapons skills with two random passives.

Your skills make sense lore wise and you have an interesting tension in the class especially in PvP with the harmful house idea. It isn't as restrictive as the original house concept maybe more of a harmful car idea XD.

Feels kinda... hand holdy to slot all the damage skills in the damage tree on your dps because they are the damage skills. I get why it happened functionally but I actually feel a bit silly as I'm slotting them.

The animations work well with cancels which is swell. Really swell. You can see the blood sweat and tears of some coders while playing the game in the way that made it actually fun to play an endgame MMO. Animation canceling is the unintentional Soul of ESO's game design and it is appropriate and beautiful that the Necromancer grasps that Souls so well. Or maybe it'd be more appropriate if the Necro ripped that Soul out to offer to Molag Bal so YMMV.

There's some real issues with some particular skills functioning as you'd expect and need them to in PVE. Tethers and Blast Bones you know who you are.
I actually like the tether mechanic a lot as far as game design goes. Actually dealing damage or healing etc are the parts of the skills that are not all working. Which matters. Though matters less as we're not even through the iterative bug fixes that always happen after live release. Not the biggest deal.

Blast bones are another very bifurcated mechanic in PvP. Very punishing but easily countered. Works a lot worse at range. Then in PVE the way they work at range really is not good at all. The Blast Bones are maybe the elevator pitch skill for the class and a lynch pin skill that determines how the class feels to play as a dps in PvE and PvP.
If there was any way to let players cast them at range in a regular rotation without the class losing effectiveness beyond melee range and make it work in PvP.... that'd be swell.
It'd even help satisfy the people who want to have horde of skeletons if you could repeatedly cast them. Or the cleverness of the necromancer if the Blast Bones were always, in a very slow and telegraphed way, summoned under the target. How clever to raise your one and done attacker so that they're actually near their target.
(Even though unmodded ES players have always had a very difficult time managing either if it is even possible in the particular game. The very few and very limited necromantic pets better reflects ES lore than the skeleton horde idea. Yes, necromancers usually have to be close to the raised corpse and you'd be a bit surprised if there was always a usable corpse right under our opponent.)

Overall though it is a class too well design for me to resist. I originally was very down on playing a necromancer in a game where literally necromancy from the start to the end is always against you and harmful. The class really reflects the game as it is post Morrowind reset and Justice System patch reset. It is how ESO classes could have been designed if the original designers had time traveled to today and ignored everything better that they could do and only went back and changed the class design. Necromancy is the origin of the game, the very first cut scene, and it is the future.

BalticBlues · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

Anhedonie wrote: »

Magwarden is plagued by terrible class design,
magicka necro is plagued by terrible class design.
Stamina warden is superior,
stamina necro is superior. Seems like a draw to me.

THIS. Both Magicka classes are plagued with micromanagement skills.
Both Magicka classes cannot even use a spammable execute.
While Stamina can select of three spammable weapon executes.

Even skills are similar (Skull mimics Cliff Racer, BlastBones mimics Fissure, ...).
so Necros feel like reskinned Wardens: Warden skin is "life", Necro skin is "death".
People pay for a reskinned Warden class... reskinned Mag failure and reskinned Stam success.

Casul · May 2019

Warden!

Look at you all. Thinking these noobmancers will replace the warden as the pay to win class. My delayed burst hits harder then my ultimate. And don’t you forget it.

Also I enjoyed taking all your class buffs when I was born.

Dark_Lord_Kuro · May 2019

Necromancer!

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Rygonix wrote: »

One is all about life, the other is all about death. In my opinion that evens everything out.

Last time i checked, litteral ice wasn't alive. It doesn't make any sense on Warden to be honest.

Its solid water and water is the element of life

Its also what is the nearest to water magic in elder scroll

wheem_ESO · May 2019

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

They're both trash in their Magicka form.

I might qualify this somewhat by saying that they're trash in an offensive capacity, but still have solid potential as healers (at least, I think Necromancers will fall into that category; didn't really get a chance to test that in PvP on the PTS).

But yea, offensively, both Magicka builds are quite bad overall while Stamina manages to be really strong. The baseline Stamina toolkit is good, and has many worthwhile offensive abilities attached, along with superior mobility and very good self healing. Most of the generic Magicka skills aren't worth slotting (especially without a Master's and/or Black Rose Prison Staff), and Stam players are constantly clamoring to get an ever greater number of class morphs - Magicka be darned.

Most of the mistakes made with Warden were simply copy/pasted into Necromancers, along with some even more janky and hard to use mechanics, and it's a overall pretty huge disappointment to me. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have pre-ordered Elsweyr. Given the track record that we've seen with Magicka Warden over the past 2 years, I doubt that Magicka Necromancer's issues will ever actually get fixed.

Wolfpaw · May 2019

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Rygonix wrote: »

One is all about life, the other is all about death. In my opinion that evens everything out.

Last time i checked, litteral ice wasn't alive. It doesn't make any sense on Warden to be honest.

Its solid water and water is the element of life

Its also what is the nearest to water magic in elder scroll

I wish it was water magic instead of ice

Iskiab · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

I voted draw even though I have no idea, I didn’t test it enough. I just wanted to see the results.

psychotic13 · May 2019

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

They're both trash in their Magicka form.

Try playing it first, magicka warden is hands down the best support class imo. If you have a good magden built for support in your group, it makes killing groups alot easier. AoE Major Defile is tasty. Not every class is going to be great at damage. Not that they cant be, you just have to build right.

DisgracefulMind · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

psychotic13 wrote: »

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

They're both trash in their Magicka form.

Try playing it first, magicka warden is hands down the best support class imo. If you have a good magden built for support in your group, it makes killing groups alot easier. AoE Major Defile is tasty. Not every class is going to be great at damage. Not that they cant be, you just have to build right.

My Magicka Warden is AR46. I play it in a duo, almost always only in a duo, I know the class's ups and downs. It's still trash. Do I enjoy it? Yes. Is it in a good place? No.

zeus1gdsm · May 2019

Necromancer!

I'm stoked for the new necro class.

wheem_ESO · May 2019

psychotic13 wrote: »

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

They're both trash in their Magicka form.

Try playing it first, magicka warden is hands down the best support class imo. If you have a good magden built for support in your group, it makes killing groups alot easier. AoE Major Defile is tasty. Not every class is going to be great at damage. Not that they cant be, you just have to build right.

The defile is getting nerfed, which I'm honestly fine with, though I'm not sure that morph will be all that widely used anymore (maybe something else should be done with it?)

And not everyone wants to play the class as some sort of dedicated support/healer build for premade groups. If a Templar was complaining about some of their offensive mechanics being clunky, would it be a good retort to tell them what a strong healer/support the class is capable of being?

Trying to 1v1 someone on a Magicka Warden, when that person actually knows how to fight you, is one of the most annoying things I've ever done in ESO. You can't run away unless the other person is bored and decides to let you, but you're also not very likely at all to actually land a kill. And if they start making mistakes and it looks like they're going to lose, they can escape from you without too much issue most of the time, as long as they don't try and wait until the very last second to run.

For a primarily or purely offensive role, I think Magicka Warden is quite bad overall, and Magicka Necromancer may very well be even worse. For healers it's a different story, but that's only relevant if you want to play a healer.

DarkPicture · May 2019

Necromancer!

Warden its a not finished class, looks like beta with missing a lot of things.

Necro is in better place

LiquidPony · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

It'll get cleaned up but currently the Necromancer is buggy and there are some odd decisions in there, like the summoned archer/mage attacking the closest target. Necromancer lacks polish, a lot of stuff is still clunky.

From a gameplay perspective, I prefer the Warden ... but the Necro Major Vulnerability ultimate is so incredibly useful for a group that it evens things out.

RaddlemanNumber7 · May 2019

Warden!

I have a Warden Ice Mage. The build works very well. No real weak points. It's definitely a winner.

I've tried necro mage on PTS. It's very high maintenance. Pet/corpse control takes up so much time I find it difficult to keep buffed or to put out any amount of well-aimed damage. Add in all the problems with the law, plus the difficulty reconciling a necro with all the good guy story lines in the game, and I'm wondering if it's really going to be worth the bother.

ManwithBeard9 · May 2019

Sorcs, we need to nerf them.

ESO_Nightingale · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

I have a Warden Ice Mage. The build works very well. No real weak points. It's definitely a winner.

Warden ice mage is definitely losing hard next patch due to snare nerfs and increased counterplay. It has barely any single target frost damage skills to use too. Glad you enjoy it though because a lot of us feel ditched on the side of the road

Solariken · May 2019

Necromancer!

Necro by default because Warden is garbage design with too broad of a theme and too much power focused into too few skills. I haven't even played Necro yet I'm 100% confident it will be better.

wheem_ESO · May 2019

Solariken wrote: »

Necro by default because Warden is garbage design with too broad of a theme and too much power focused into too few skills. I haven't even played Necro yet I'm 100% confident it will be better.

Might wanna scale back that confidence level a bit, at least when comparing Magicka-to-Magicka.

The only offensive ability in the Magicka Necromancer's toolkit that I don't have a problem with, from a PvP oriented perspective, is Ricochet Skull (and most people will probably still replace it with Destructive Clench/Reach if they have a Master's Staff available). I've gone on at length about Magicka Necromancer's offensive shortcomings on this forum over the course of the PTS, but to reiterate:

Blastbones:
1) Pathing is oftentimes pretty bad. As I mentioned on day 1 or 2 of the PTS, I had an enemy Necromancer target me with a Blastbones from the platform below his spawn in Foyada Quarry while I was one level below it, and it never managed to reach me before the duration expired, even though I never CC'd or snared it and wasn't moving around.
2) It can be snared/rooted/stunned/feared/etc..., which amplifies the issues with pathing.
3) It cannot be resummoned once active. If it has no chance of reaching its target due to the aforementioned issues and/or them running away, you'll just have to wait out the 8 second duration before casting it at someone else.
4) It's highly telegraphed, and the setups I was using on PTS left the tooltip about 1k below that of my Warden's Shalks. While it won't be able to be avoided in the same way that Shalks are, it's still blockable (as Shalks are also about to be). And of course it can still be CC'd as mentioned above.
5) The AOE explosion radius of 6 meters will often not be worth the tradeoff of having most Stamina builds reduce the damage by 25%, especially since the Magicka morph won't apply Major Defile. Sure, that AOE damage is great for padding a scoreboard, but when you really want to land kills on good players/groups, it'd be better to not have a full quarter of the damage chopped off.

Mystic Siphon:
1) The corpse mechanic, which is required to use this ability, is pretty clunky. Corpses generated by your spells don't last long at all, and can't really be positioned very well, especially considering dynamic and mobile fights. The damage only affects people that stand in a small AOE around the targeted corpse, or the narrow beam that tethers you to it.
2) The damage is abysmal. When I actually got it to connect here and there in Battlegrounds, I was seeing ticks of around 200 (which were fast, probably every half-second or so). We're talking half the damage of a single proc'd bleed even if you managed to keep it on someone for the full 12 second duration (which you absolutely cannot do unless they're AFK or lagging out).
3) It also fails as a sustain ability, given the amount of magicka returned vs the amount spent.

Skeletal Arcanist:
1) The damage is weak. The highest hit I saw in BGs was 1.2k, and it was typically around 800-1k, once every two seconds. Again, we're talking about half the damage of a proc'd bleed.
2) You can't control its target; it'll simply nuke whoever is closest to you. I didn't get a chance to test for certain, but it might even target pets over players if the pets are closer to you, which would be compounded because of the next issue...
3) The Magicka morph's damage is a tiny 4 meter AOE, which means it's reduced by widespread Major Evasion on Stamina builds, and will hit enemy pets for < 100 damage per 2 second cast. You're virtually always going to be better off *not* morphing this ability for Magicka builds in PvP.

Boneyard:
1) With a 6 meter radius and no snare/root/stun/fear/etc...attached, it's mostly just a scoreboard padder when it comes to BGs.
2) Avid Boneyard's synergy is incredibly finicky and hard to activate, even if you have someone standing in the radius to get hit by it.
3) Unnerving Boneyard's debuff only applies while people are standing inside the radius - you're way better off using Elemental Drain instead.

There are issues with other abilities too, but I've been longwinded enough that I doubt very many people will read it as-is.

ESO_Nightingale · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

wheem_ESO wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

Necro by default because Warden is garbage design with too broad of a theme and too much power focused into too few skills. I haven't even played Necro yet I'm 100% confident it will be better.

Might wanna scale back that confidence level a bit, at least when comparing Magicka-to-Magicka.

The only offensive ability in the Magicka Necromancer's toolkit that I don't have a problem with, from a PvP oriented perspective, is Ricochet Skull (and most people will probably still replace it with Destructive Clench/Reach if they have a Master's Staff available). I've gone on at length about Magicka Necromancer's offensive shortcomings on this forum over the course of the PTS, but to reiterate:

Blastbones:
1) Pathing is oftentimes pretty bad. As I mentioned on day 1 or 2 of the PTS, I had an enemy Necromancer target me with a Blastbones from the platform below his spawn in Foyada Quarry while I was one level below it, and it never managed to reach me before the duration expired, even though I never CC'd or snared it and wasn't moving around.
2) It can be snared/rooted/stunned/feared/etc..., which amplifies the issues with pathing.
3) It cannot be resummoned once active. If it has no chance of reaching its target due to the aforementioned issues and/or them running away, you'll just have to wait out the 8 second duration before casting it at someone else.
4) It's highly telegraphed, and the setups I was using on PTS left the tooltip about 1k below that of my Warden's Shalks. While it won't be able to be avoided in the same way that Shalks are, it's still blockable (as Shalks are also about to be). And of course it can still be CC'd as mentioned above.
5) The AOE explosion radius of 6 meters will often not be worth the tradeoff of having most Stamina builds reduce the damage by 25%, especially since the Magicka morph won't apply Major Defile. Sure, that AOE damage is great for padding a scoreboard, but when you really want to land kills on good players/groups, it'd be better to not have a full quarter of the damage chopped off.

Mystic Siphon:
1) The corpse mechanic, which is required to use this ability, is pretty clunky. Corpses generated by your spells don't last long at all, and can't really be positioned very well, especially considering dynamic and mobile fights. The damage only affects people that stand in a small AOE around the targeted corpse, or the narrow beam that tethers you to it.
2) The damage is abysmal. When I actually got it to connect here and there in Battlegrounds, I was seeing ticks of around 200 (which were fast, probably every half-second or so). We're talking half the damage of a single proc'd bleed even if you managed to keep it on someone for the full 12 second duration (which you absolutely cannot do unless they're AFK or lagging out).
3) It also fails as a sustain ability, given the amount of magicka returned vs the amount spent.

Skeletal Arcanist:
1) The damage is weak. The highest hit I saw in BGs was 1.2k, and it was typically around 800-1k, once every two seconds. Again, we're talking about half the damage of a proc'd bleed.
2) You can't control its target; it'll simply nuke whoever is closest to you. I didn't get a chance to test for certain, but it might even target pets over players if the pets are closer to you, which would be compounded because of the next issue...
3) The Magicka morph's damage is a tiny 4 meter AOE, which means it's reduced by widespread Major Evasion on Stamina builds, and will hit enemy pets for < 100 damage per 2 second cast. You're virtually always going to be better off *not* morphing this ability for Magicka builds in PvP.

Boneyard:
1) With a 6 meter radius and no snare/root/stun/fear/etc...attached, it's mostly just a scoreboard padder when it comes to BGs.
2) Avid Boneyard's synergy is incredibly finicky and hard to activate, even if you have someone standing in the radius to get hit by it.
3) Unnerving Boneyard's debuff only applies while people are standing inside the radius - you're way better off using Elemental Drain instead.

There are issues with other abilities too, but I've been longwinded enough that I doubt very many people will read it as-is.

both classes are messy. necro's trade off is that it's got many more interesting stills, at the cost of functionality where as warden's skills work but there are so few of them and most are boring.

WildWilbur · May 2019

the match, is a DRAW!

Look for yourself...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OO27A8xllA

Revokus · May 2019

Warden!

wheem_ESO wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

Necro by default because Warden is garbage design with too broad of a theme and too much power focused into too few skills. I haven't even played Necro yet I'm 100% confident it will be better.

Might wanna scale back that confidence level a bit, at least when comparing Magicka-to-Magicka.

The only offensive ability in the Magicka Necromancer's toolkit that I don't have a problem with, from a PvP oriented perspective, is Ricochet Skull (and most people will probably still replace it with Destructive Clench/Reach if they have a Master's Staff available). I've gone on at length about Magicka Necromancer's offensive shortcomings on this forum over the course of the PTS, but to reiterate:

Blastbones:
1) Pathing is oftentimes pretty bad. As I mentioned on day 1 or 2 of the PTS, I had an enemy Necromancer target me with a Blastbones from the platform below his spawn in Foyada Quarry while I was one level below it, and it never managed to reach me before the duration expired, even though I never CC'd or snared it and wasn't moving around.
2) It can be snared/rooted/stunned/feared/etc..., which amplifies the issues with pathing.
3) It cannot be resummoned once active. If it has no chance of reaching its target due to the aforementioned issues and/or them running away, you'll just have to wait out the 8 second duration before casting it at someone else.
4) It's highly telegraphed, and the setups I was using on PTS left the tooltip about 1k below that of my Warden's Shalks. While it won't be able to be avoided in the same way that Shalks are, it's still blockable (as Shalks are also about to be). And of course it can still be CC'd as mentioned above.
5) The AOE explosion radius of 6 meters will often not be worth the tradeoff of having most Stamina builds reduce the damage by 25%, especially since the Magicka morph won't apply Major Defile. Sure, that AOE damage is great for padding a scoreboard, but when you really want to land kills on good players/groups, it'd be better to not have a full quarter of the damage chopped off.

Mystic Siphon:
1) The corpse mechanic, which is required to use this ability, is pretty clunky. Corpses generated by your spells don't last long at all, and can't really be positioned very well, especially considering dynamic and mobile fights. The damage only affects people that stand in a small AOE around the targeted corpse, or the narrow beam that tethers you to it.
2) The damage is abysmal. When I actually got it to connect here and there in Battlegrounds, I was seeing ticks of around 200 (which were fast, probably every half-second or so). We're talking half the damage of a single proc'd bleed even if you managed to keep it on someone for the full 12 second duration (which you absolutely cannot do unless they're AFK or lagging out).
3) It also fails as a sustain ability, given the amount of magicka returned vs the amount spent.

Skeletal Arcanist:
1) The damage is weak. The highest hit I saw in BGs was 1.2k, and it was typically around 800-1k, once every two seconds. Again, we're talking about half the damage of a proc'd bleed.
2) You can't control its target; it'll simply nuke whoever is closest to you. I didn't get a chance to test for certain, but it might even target pets over players if the pets are closer to you, which would be compounded because of the next issue...
3) The Magicka morph's damage is a tiny 4 meter AOE, which means it's reduced by widespread Major Evasion on Stamina builds, and will hit enemy pets for < 100 damage per 2 second cast. You're virtually always going to be better off *not* morphing this ability for Magicka builds in PvP.

Boneyard:
1) With a 6 meter radius and no snare/root/stun/fear/etc...attached, it's mostly just a scoreboard padder when it comes to BGs.
2) Avid Boneyard's synergy is incredibly finicky and hard to activate, even if you have someone standing in the radius to get hit by it.
3) Unnerving Boneyard's debuff only applies while people are standing inside the radius - you're way better off using Elemental Drain instead.

There are issues with other abilities too, but I've been longwinded enough that I doubt very many people will read it as-is.

Exactly ! What a shame ! Poor magicka necro

It’s like magicka was an afterthought for them when it should be the opposite.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Warden vs Necromancer, battle of the DLC classes

Warden vs Necromancer, battle of the DLC classes 124 votes