Warden class

Shaloknir · December 2019

There is this little thing that bothers me with wardens. Why did they design the class with winter/nature abilities. That is a huge turnoff for me. Arent those things contradicting one another. In winter flowers wither and leaves fall from the trees. Is there some kind of lore explanation for this? Now the identity is a mess. Anyone feel the same way?

alanmatillab16_ESO · December 2019

What is unnatural about winter? there is nothing MORE natural than the cycle of leaves withering, falling, rotting to feed the tree and regrowing.

Shaloknir · December 2019

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

What is unnatural about winter? there is nothing MORE natural than the cycle of leaves withering, falling, rotting to feed the tree and regrowing.

Uh. Thanks maybe im just overthinking this :-)

SmukkeHeks · December 2019

Well............

I don’t get the frozen theme combined with the animals coming to aid. The animal companion are in my head something you’d meet in bosmer culture, where the ice is a nord fetish..

I would have gone all out in the companion, maybe even keep the healing attached to the plants idea, making both utilities and damage animal depended. Calling the class something like ... uhm..... nature’s selected.. selected companion... in that area.

The ice I would create class for. Ice, fire, earth, wind. Elemental warrior, maybe? Ice is the crowd control, fire is the prolonged damage, wind is the healing and earth utility/defense

Michaelkeir · December 2019

No OP. I felt and sometimes still feel the same.
For example I have a few issues that bother me about the class.

-I have an Argonian tank and healer. How does being an lizard tie into using ice powers?

-The class has a bear ultimate and to my knowledge bears are not native to Morrowind. They have a cliff racer attack and those are native to Morrowind and hardly anywhere else. The little match is native to Morrowind as well.

-The theme of the class has no focus. I felt they should have gone full ice (cryomancer anyone) or full nature (plant druid) which would fit the argonians and woodelves perfectly.

So I agree...the identity is a mess. Looks like they wanted to go with a Morrowind theme...then threw a bear in there....and slapped on some ice powers into the mix.

tyggerbob · December 2019

TBH, I'm not sure why you're tying the class abilities/identify to races. That is purely a player choice.. Any race can play any class. If you choose to play an Argonian Warden, it's up to you to make your own backstory for that character, not up to ZOS to have it intrinsically make sense for you for your race choice.
I have an Orc warden, who I have created under the premise that he is a Wood Orc from Malabal Tor. I made a story that works for him, even though an Orc Warden may not automatically spring to mind for most.
Just my $0.02
TB

Michaelkeir · December 2019

Ok Bob...I get your point. What I'm mainly focused on as well as the OP is the class identity is all over the place. It doesn't have a set theme/identity.

As you said tying race and class abilities together makes no sense...ok...i get that. But I feel they should have stuck with a certain theme. Either ice, or nature (plant and vines), or animals. Or at the very least stuck with a region. Bears and cliff racers? What, how and why? Change the bear to a more Morrowind-ish animal and then you're set. Or better yet...a class animal/power skins changer would fix this. Swapping out a bear skin for one of those many beetle/bug like creatures you see some dark elf rangers using would solve my gripe I guess.

I like the class don't get me wrong. I managed to create a nicely themed character around being a Breton druid (Wyrd sister) and it works. So long as I don't focus to hard on that cliff racer....🤔

Tigerseye · December 2019

I agree, to be honest.

It seems kind of irrelevant.

I don't use any of them.

I'm not a frost mage.

Tigerseye · December 2019

Shaloknir wrote: »

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

What is unnatural about winter? there is nothing MORE natural than the cycle of leaves withering, falling, rotting to feed the tree and regrowing.

Uh. Thanks maybe im just overthinking this :-)

No, you're not.

Tigerseye · December 2019

To me, it should be tigers and jungles and wolves and forests, for wardens/hunters/rangers.

The bear is another valid option, of course, but why they made it bear-only and then tied it, so inexorably, with Vvardenfell (when that was just a passing xpac) and then added icy themes, apparently just for the hell of it, I have no idea.

tyggerbob · December 2019

I guess it depends on what role you play.
The frost skills are very useful for a warden tank, but I never use any of them for my bow/bow DPS.. I use only the animal skills. So.. I'm not using the flowery plant skills either.
So I kind of see your point.
But every class has things like that.. The skills that you use on a DK tank are very different than the ones you use on a DK DPS. Yes, the theme is similar, but still you don't use chains very often as a DPS.
I guess I can agree that the the themes could be consolidated into one main idea, but I don't see it as a big deal..
Just my other $0.02
TB

Tigerseye · December 2019

Michaelkeir wrote: »

No OP. I felt and sometimes still feel the same.
For example I have a few issues that bother me about the class.

-I have an Argonian tank and healer. How does being an lizard tie into using ice powers?

-The class has a bear ultimate and to my knowledge bears are not native to Morrowind. They have a cliff racer attack and those are native to Morrowind and hardly anywhere else. The little match is native to Morrowind as well.

-The theme of the class has no focus. I felt they should have gone full ice (cryomancer anyone) or full nature (plant druid) which would fit the argonians and woodelves perfectly.

So I agree...the identity is a mess. Looks like they wanted to go with a Morrowind theme...then threw a bear in there....and slapped on some ice powers into the mix.

They should have gone full nature.

Tigerseye · December 2019

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

What is unnatural about winter? there is nothing MORE natural than the cycle of leaves withering, falling, rotting to feed the tree and regrowing.

I could have gone with Autumn, but icy winteryness is just too much like an ice mage, or a frost dk, or something.

Just doesn't say Warden, to me.

Wardens aren't icy cold and aloof; they're natural and earthy.

Maybe if they had given us a polar bear and the other animal companion stuff had been snow and ice-related, it might have worked, but they didn't even do that.

Ice, plus a brown bear, netches, cliff racers, shalk and fetcherflies?

Just doesn't gel.

Same with ice plus mushrooms, flowers and vines.

SanguineMyBrother · December 2019

I main a magwarden. What I really don't like about the class is the bear ultimate. I wish it were a regular skill like the sorcerer pets and something else were in its place. A sharknado would be better. Or a bearnado. I need more coffee.

xxthir13enxx · December 2019

If you market it...People will buy it!

Ppl wanted Warden Class
Ppl wanted Ice Sorcs
Devs were making New Chapter
Marketing need a Hook to make buying a New Chapter that wasn’t included in the ESO+ seem more acceptable

FierceSam · December 2019

If we think of it in terms of ZOS’s concept of class identity, Wardens need some kind of power fantasy.

ZOS thought about the 4 seasons and felt the one that is most clearly distinctive and ‘elemental’ was winter. This clearly differentiated the Warden (ice) from the DK (fire/earth) and fitted in well with all the ice elemental effects that were already in the game, which will have made a lot of the developmental work significantly easier.

It provides a class that is clearly unique in its power fantasy, while their healer/dealer vibe gives them a strong individual play style. Although that identity is not ‘Aragorn from Lord of the Rings’, which is what I imagine a lot of players might associate with the concept of a ranger.

I am fine with Wardens, I like mine, but I never expected them to match up to anything out of game, so I couldn’t really be disappointed. Unlike the classes before them, which were designed with more clear cut roles (tank, healer, dd) in mind, Wardens were the first class where there was no preconceived role, which is a good thing.

I feel the issue OP has is more that the class is called Warden and doesn’t meet his vision of what a ‘warden/ranger/nature warrior’ is rather than the class being poor per se. If it had been called Ice Warrior, he would have no real issue with the class.

jircris11 · December 2019

Shaloknir wrote: »

There is this little thing that bothers me with wardens. Why did they design the class with winter/nature abilities. That is a huge turnoff for me. Arent those things contradicting one another. In winter flowers wither and leaves fall from the trees. Is there some kind of lore explanation for this? Now the identity is a mess. Anyone feel the same way?

Warden is nature, winter is a part of it.

AlnilamE · December 2019

A Class for All Seasons!

Asardes · December 2019

Well, of all seasons Winter is the only one which is really dangerous to people IRL, since we are a really tropical species. Avoiding death by sun stroke only requires passive measures, like getting shade, compared to dying of exposure which is harder to avoid, and requires far more active measures like thick clothing, maintaining a fire etc. So culturally cold is more threatening than sunshine and balmy weather. So winter can be easily seen as a threatening part of nature.

JanTanhide · December 2019

Well, I think ZOS wanted to introduce a class that could make good use of Frost staves and the Warden was it.

But yeah, I see your point. I thought it a bit odd as well but it adds a lot choices in character builds in the game.

theyancey · December 2019

To everything there is a season, including winter. That includes healing and destruction too. In that respect I have no problems with the class. My main is a warden. A vamp warden at that. I enjoy her. My main complaint with her is the paucity of combat pets. Sure, I have the bear and can send out a destructive bird and a pestilence here and there but they all have suffered to some degree or another on the altar of nerfdom. She has become a shadow of her original self. Hopefully in some future update she will be augmented and refined.

Zardayne · December 2019

Sure winter can be attributed to nature just as well as summer and spring, but IMO they should not have went full bore winter line. The line that has the arctic spells should have been a mix of different elements which a druid should have.

IMO a full blown ice line should have went to necromancer. It's more fitting as extreme colds bring death to most plants/creatures unless they are adapted to it

Another thing that also bothered me was the fact they used Morrowind creatures such as the shalks and cliff racer. I wish it would have been a hawk or eagle and something else for the shalk.

Even though it was my main, it always felt so cobbled together unless I was healing. I've been back playing Baldur's Gate 2 on my druid and it feels a lot better lol.

mystfit · December 2019

EQ2 also has a warden class. My main here is a recreation of toon. In Eq2. wardens were druids, with the nature lean to their spells and spell effects. However, they were also fire and ice casters. (I prefer an inferno on back bar to recreate the fire part in ESO.
One guide defines the class as 'Wardens are one of the six healing classes in EQ2. We specialize in Heal over Time spells (HoT) and elemental damage spells. While doing more damage than other healing classes, our armor is leather based, providing less physical protection than available to a Mystic/Defiler (chain) or Templar/Inquisitor (plate).'
I'm not sure of the lore attached to it in ESO and EQ2, but they both seem to ahve gone the same direction.

Canned_Apples · December 2019

Just be glad it's not a clunky glitchy mess like the Necro.

FierceSam · December 2019

mystfit wrote: »

EQ2 also has a warden class. My main here is a recreation of toon. In Eq2. wardens were druids, with the nature lean to their spells and spell effects. However, they were also fire and ice casters. (I prefer an inferno on back bar to recreate the fire part in ESO.
One guide defines the class as 'Wardens are one of the six healing classes in EQ2. We specialize in Heal over Time spells (HoT) and elemental damage spells. While doing more damage than other healing classes, our armor is leather based, providing less physical protection than available to a Mystic/Defiler (chain) or Templar/Inquisitor (plate).'
I'm not sure of the lore attached to it in ESO and EQ2, but they both seem to ahve gone the same direction.

I’m sure EQ2’s Wardens are lovely, but I don’t think they’re relevant in any way to ESO. This game should not be taking its development cues from other games.

Ysbriel · December 2019

Tundra Biomes, they have fauna and flora and ice in higher altitudes. You know Skyrim? Solsteim? those areas. Look it up TUNDRA BIOME

Asardes · December 2019

Ysbriel wrote: »

Tundra Biomes, they have fauna and flora and ice in higher altitudes. You know Skyrim? Solsteim? those areas. Look it up TUNDRA BIOME

Most likely next chapter.

Fallen_Ray · December 2019

Shaloknir wrote: »

There is this little thing that bothers me with wardens. Why did they design the class with winter/nature abilities. That is a huge turnoff for me. Arent those things contradicting one another. In winter flowers wither and leaves fall from the trees. Is there some kind of lore explanation for this? Now the identity is a mess. Anyone feel the same way?

Zo$ didn''t make this game with any logical sense at all to begin with so just go with it.

peacenote · December 2019

I have always thought that everything meshed nicely for the warden, and this thread has made me question why. I think I have the answer.

While I suppose this could have been done in many ways, I think partially why winter/ice was chosen for Warden is because all of the classes seem to have a template palette. If you look at the ability icons, and the actual abilities, they are each a bit unique. Warden is very aqua, blue and green, like the earth, so to me the frozen abilities go with that in addition to being nature. Combining Winter's Revenge with Deep Fissure.. the colors mix together well.

Dragonknight is red/orange/black, Templars are yellow, etc.

Obviously lots of things lend themselves to different colors and other ideas could have been stylistically made to fit, but I think part of the identity is those palettes, and someone probably thought "oh ice goes with the aqua theme and it's nature based." If you search for frozen ice images a lot of the pictures that pull up have that look to them.

Even more of a guess, probably for each class they come up with a color theme and a few pivotal abilities to start, and work from there. From the color perspective, actually the green balance and winter's embrace trees fit together more thematically, and the animals are blue and green to tie them together.

<shrug>

mystfit · December 2019

FierceSam wrote: »

mystfit wrote: »

EQ2 also has a warden class. My main here is a recreation of toon. In Eq2. wardens were druids, with the nature lean to their spells and spell effects. However, they were also fire and ice casters. (I prefer an inferno on back bar to recreate the fire part in ESO.
One guide defines the class as 'Wardens are one of the six healing classes in EQ2. We specialize in Heal over Time spells (HoT) and elemental damage spells. While doing more damage than other healing classes, our armor is leather based, providing less physical protection than available to a Mystic/Defiler (chain) or Templar/Inquisitor (plate).'
I'm not sure of the lore attached to it in ESO and EQ2, but they both seem to ahve gone the same direction.

I’m sure EQ2’s Wardens are lovely, but I don’t think they’re relevant in any way to ESO. This game should not be taking its development cues from other games.

That wasn't really my intent. It was more of a comment that clearly there are people out there who think elemental is part of warden lore.

Shaloknir · December 2019

FierceSam wrote: »

If we think of it in terms of ZOS’s concept of class identity, Wardens need some kind of power fantasy.

ZOS thought about the 4 seasons and felt the one that is most clearly distinctive and ‘elemental’ was winter. This clearly differentiated the Warden (ice) from the DK (fire/earth) and fitted in well with all the ice elemental effects that were already in the game, which will have made a lot of the developmental work significantly easier.

It provides a class that is clearly unique in its power fantasy, while their healer/dealer vibe gives them a strong individual play style. Although that identity is not ‘Aragorn from Lord of the Rings’, which is what I imagine a lot of players might associate with the concept of a ranger.

I am fine with Wardens, I like mine, but I never expected them to match up to anything out of game, so I couldn’t really be disappointed. Unlike the classes before them, which were designed with more clear cut roles (tank, healer, dd) in mind, Wardens were the first class where there was no preconceived role, which is a good thing.

I feel the issue OP has is more that the class is called Warden and doesn’t meet his vision of what a ‘warden/ranger/nature warrior’ is rather than the class being poor per se. If it had been called Ice Warrior, he would have no real issue with the class.

Your conclusion is pretty good and solid. It's the preconception of druid/ranger type of character from fantasy fiction that makes the winter theme hard to swallow for me.

BUT now that i've read through all the replies and opinions in this thread, I think people are fine with it just like you are. And that is great. Im happy people like it and find playing Warden enjoyable.

And maybe it has some lore-background as well:

Animal companion skills Wardens learned from the land of Morrowind,
Winter magic came from the mages in the cold north, you guessed it... Skyrim and
Green balance skills from the swampy Black Marsh

Plausible? Maybe. At least I think I can get over my preconceptions :-) And after all the class is pretty unique. Maybe in a good way. Ill try leveling my Warden character to level 50 and have some fun!