What is so bad about the warden bear?

MagicalLija · September 2020

I've been playing my main warden since Vvardenfell came out;

I love the bear, so much I've resorted to naming them.

I'm not the best dps out there but I can get 50-60k DPS (MagDen) and I'm just confused on why there's so much hate for the warden bear.

Vevvev · September 2020

It has to be double barred in order for it to not get unsummoned when you bar swap, and it can be targeted by allies making it so it can block NPCs, crafting stations, doorways, and other things you can interact with.

redspecter23 · September 2020

It blocks interactions in towns. That's my #1 reason for hating it with a fiery passion. ZOS could fix that, but they choose to ignore it.

Other reasons:
Low dps gravitate toward it, thinking that somehow the bear itself will make their dps awesome. They occasionally contribute with a few heavy attacks and never actually realize that their 3k dps is horrible.

Bears can keep mobs busy in places that are inconvenient. As a tank, it can be frustrating to have pets keep mobs in place away from the main group. DPS first kill the main group, then go play clean up on all the mobs that the pets had locked down away from that group.

It locks you out of other ultimates. The bear does one thing (reasonably) well and that's dps. Other ultimates can arguably do better dps, especially if the player is non optimized. That says nothing of potentially useful group oriented ultimates that can't even be considered if you double bar the bear.

I'm sure there are more, but that's off the top of my head. Basically, the core issue is that beginners are drawn to pet builds in general and tend to lean on that pet, but that gets practically nothing accomplished and they get stuck in that pet groove, never actually improving.

MagicalLija · September 2020

redspecter23 wrote: »

It blocks interactions in towns. That's my #1 reason for hating it with a fiery passion. ZOS could fix that, but they choose to ignore it.

Other reasons:
Low dps gravitate toward it, thinking that somehow the bear itself will make their dps awesome. They occasionally contribute with a few heavy attacks and never actually realize that their 3k dps is horrible.

Bears can keep mobs busy in places that are inconvenient. As a tank, it can be frustrating to have pets keep mobs in place away from the main group. DPS first kill the main group, then go play clean up on all the mobs that the pets had locked down away from that group.

It locks you out of other ultimates. The bear does one thing (reasonably) well and that's dps. Other ultimates can arguably do better dps, especially if the player is non optimized. That says nothing of potentially useful group oriented ultimates that can't even be considered if you double bar the bear.

I'm sure there are more, but that's off the top of my head. Basically, the core issue is that beginners are drawn to pet builds in general and tend to lean on that pet, but that gets practically nothing accomplished and they get stuck in that pet groove, never actually improving.

Thank you so much for this, What if they did make the bear an ability not an ultimate, I wonder what they could replace the animal companions ultimate with. I also think not many players know that you can control pets on PC by pressing a button and left click to change the target.

Do you think if they made a timer when you switched bars, so for example, if you had bear placed on front bar, and you switched to back bar, you had 10-15 seconds to switch back before it was desummoned?

redspecter23 · September 2020

MagicAndrej wrote: »

redspecter23 wrote: »

It blocks interactions in towns. That's my #1 reason for hating it with a fiery passion. ZOS could fix that, but they choose to ignore it.

Other reasons:
Low dps gravitate toward it, thinking that somehow the bear itself will make their dps awesome. They occasionally contribute with a few heavy attacks and never actually realize that their 3k dps is horrible.

Bears can keep mobs busy in places that are inconvenient. As a tank, it can be frustrating to have pets keep mobs in place away from the main group. DPS first kill the main group, then go play clean up on all the mobs that the pets had locked down away from that group.

It locks you out of other ultimates. The bear does one thing (reasonably) well and that's dps. Other ultimates can arguably do better dps, especially if the player is non optimized. That says nothing of potentially useful group oriented ultimates that can't even be considered if you double bar the bear.

I'm sure there are more, but that's off the top of my head. Basically, the core issue is that beginners are drawn to pet builds in general and tend to lean on that pet, but that gets practically nothing accomplished and they get stuck in that pet groove, never actually improving.

Thank you so much for this, What if they did make the bear an ability not an ultimate, I wonder what they could replace the animal companions ultimate with. I also think not many players know that you can control pets on PC by pressing a button and left click to change the target.

Do you think if they made a timer when you switched bars, so for example, if you had bear placed on front bar, and you switched to back bar, you had 10-15 seconds to switch back before it was desummoned?

I think it might be better to just have an extremely long duration on the bear rather than make it permanent. Perhaps a 1 hour duration. That way, you summon it, can swap freely to your other bar and you basically forget about it like you would with a food buff.

However, any change that allows access to a second bar ultimate would definitely have to come along with a nerf to the power of the bear as currently, part of the cost is giving up your ultimate. If you could have the bear permanently without giving up another ultimate, it would likely be way above the power curve.

Grianasteri · September 2020

What is so bad about the warden bear?

You have to double bar it, which is ridiculous because its not strong/powerful enough to warrant taking up two ulti slots.

I also love the bear on a Warden class, it feels right (in so far as its a big wild animal). But Id like to see some major changes to this and in fact most "pet" skills in game.

1 - no double baring. None of the pets is strong enough in my opinion, to warrant taking up TWO slots.
2 - no set animal/creature. Skins for pets should be a thing. Why shouldnt a Warden be able to have a big cat as the ultimate, or an indirik etc. The theme is very much one of being a beast master, let us choose what animal our pets are (within reason). Picking a skin could easily be a drop down menu when picking a morph, or a new option menu in the outfitting station.

The end.
.

tzaeru · September 2020

I use the bear when running around solo. It's a fairly convenient lazy man's choice. Sometimes it even keeps mobs busy while I grab some harvest nodes or talk to a quest NPC, which is nice.

For dungeons though, it is mostly inconvenient and not strong enough to warrant the double slotting. I guess it's alright when doing non-vet dungeons or when still short on skill points and sets. But really it mostly gets in the way of doing things.

Grianasteri · September 2020

Just thought I would add... this is how I like to run around sometimes..

Bear non combat pet, bear ultimate, bear mount, Selene monster set... all the bears for the win!

Particularly sweet rocking 3 permanently available bears cos it does look like a bear family, aaaah.

Everest_Lionheart · September 2020

It gets in the way a lot, but I actually like the bear. Doesn’t matter that it’s double slotted, most builds are using 1 main ultimate anyway and a second for passives. Warden bear is no different with it’s 2% damage increase for slotting the ability due to the passive.

The bear can be used to your advantage in some solo boss fights if you learn to kite him properly and let it take aggro. The ultimate cost is also super cheap and comes up every other rotation provided your rotation is solid. For solo play I’ve seen my bear ultimate crit for upwards of 60K. In solid groups I’ve seen it go as high as 136K. Those numbers are a huge deal on Stamden and it makes up a large portion of your DPS.

But please put it away when you are in town. I do that to save everyone else the hassle of trying to peek around mine to turn it writs of deposit stuff at the bank. It gets in my way so I know it gets in yours. All I have to say is thank god jumping doesn’t cost stamina in this game because I jump a lot and it’s because my bear has something against me looting bodies and containers!

Araneae6537 · September 2020

To me, it doesn’t make sense as the default option for the warden ultimate because all the other summons are Morrowind / invertebrate based. A bear doesn’t fit the theme at all. I think the base option should have been nix hound or something iconic of Morrowind, and then I’d also be all for being able to choose among several other creatures — lions and tigers and bears, etc. (And personally I’d love a giant spider!)

Phaedryn · September 2020

My only issue is it blocking LoS.

However, found an interesting "bug" with bear last night. I was doing Depths of Malatar, with my Warden friend, and when King Narilmor split, the bear unerringly went to the "real" Narilmor.

Grianasteri · September 2020

Araneae6537 wrote: »

To me, it doesn’t make sense as the default option for the warden ultimate because all the other summons are Morrowind / invertebrate based. A bear doesn’t fit the theme at all. I think the base option should have been nix hound or something iconic of Morrowind, and then I’d also be all for being able to choose among several other creatures — lions and tigers and bears, etc. (And personally I’d love a giant spider!)

Given it is literally just a skin were talking about, I cant really understand the thinking behind NOT allowing players to pick the animal their skill "pets" are.

There are such a variety of non combat pets and mounts, why not the same for combat pet skills/ultis. Currently one of my Wardens rocks the full on bear experience, but if I could choose a big cat as the ultimate, its likely I would rock a big cat theme instead. (cos I like cats and bears are just, meh).

Everest_Lionheart · September 2020

Grianasteri wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

To me, it doesn’t make sense as the default option for the warden ultimate because all the other summons are Morrowind / invertebrate based. A bear doesn’t fit the theme at all. I think the base option should have been nix hound or something iconic of Morrowind, and then I’d also be all for being able to choose among several other creatures — lions and tigers and bears, etc. (And personally I’d love a giant spider!)

Given it is literally just a skin were talking about, I cant really understand the thinking behind NOT allowing players to pick the animal their skill "pets" are.

There are such a variety of non combat pets and mounts, why not the same for combat pet skills/ultis. Currently one of my Wardens rocks the full on bear experience, but if I could choose a big cat as the ultimate, its likely I would rock a big cat theme instead. (cos I like cats and bears are just, meh).

Same because my warden is a cat and a cat riding a cat with a pet cat and an attack cat would be fun thematically. But I’ll settle for riding a bear with a bear pet plus an attack bear and a spectral bear that also attacks.

etchedpixels · September 2020

Araneae6537 wrote: »

To me, it doesn’t make sense as the default option for the warden ultimate because all the other summons are Morrowind / invertebrate based. A bear doesn’t fit the theme at all. I think the base option should have been nix hound or something iconic of Morrowind, and then I’d also be all for being able to choose among several other creatures — lions and tigers and bears, etc. (And personally I’d love a giant spider!)

As a Nord the bear feels right to me.

It's a very good ultimate for solo play since you can use it to split the enemy up. For groups I agree there are better options in many cases - depends on the group. In a weak group the bear can also be very useful.

starlizard70ub17_ESO · September 2020

The bear is very useful for warden lvls 8-50, it helps those characters stay alive easier. Once you hit champion -levels, you gain other skills that are better than the bear. After awhile, the annoying problems with the bear outweigh any usefulness it once had. By the time you hit ~CP300, the bear is largely forgotten.
There is one exception to the bear fading away at higher levels trend. There is a niche "Druid priest(ess) with animal friends build, that's usually a magic warden now. You won't hit the top %10 of the leader boards with it, but it is still pretty powerful and fun to play. With the correct armor sets and CP adjustments, the animal skills set work well together. A few of my wife's friends run the High Druid Elven Priestess build. And while having 2 - 3 animal friends around them was alittle annoying, in fights there was no problem wiping out anything the small group of us encountered. (WB, group dungeons, etc)

hackdrag0n · October 2020

It makes up about 10% of my single target dps and it's basically free dps at that. I don't see any issue with it apart from it doing no dps if it has to run to a new target. Would be nice if it could just pounce on enemies within X metres.

Dorkener · October 2020

It can easily be 20%+ of your DPS on a stamden (add up basic attack, swipe + execute in your parse)... what exactly are the "better options" mentioned here? Other ults are usually in the 4-7% range...
If anything too much of the warden's (dps) power budget is stuffed in that damn bear :P

phileunderx2 · October 2020

Pve overland the bear is very weak. Go up against a world boss on your own and the bear is dead a considerable amount of time.

ESO_Nightingale · October 2020

The issues are that the bear is double slotted, there's no opertunity for another ultimate to mix it up, the bear claw does a decent amount of damage but there's not much satisfaction in using it, what would help with that would be an updated sound to really help it feel more powerful, additionally the ai is kinda dumb and it's prone to just disappearing sometimes, there are issues in mobile boss fights where it doesn't do a whole lot, but since it makes up so much of our dps, you can't drop it, which is why nerfing it's light attack damage to buff our other dps skills would be a great idea for variety in ultimates, and to at least feel like we have more powerful skills. Because we still rely so heavily on raw damage buffs in order to be viable, we don't need more raw damage buffs and debuffs, it's time to look at making the damage skills themselves better, and adding at least one unique skill for each subclass that fits the identity of that subclass, bleeds for stamden and frost damage aoe burst+DoT for magden.

In pvp bear has to hobble it's way over to the enemy and it can rarely ever be timed into a burst combo.

Those are the things i can pull off the top of my head. I like the bear but i wish i had the opportunity to use northern storm as a viable pve dps ultimate.

Tryxus · October 2020

Araneae6537 wrote: »

To me, it doesn’t make sense as the default option for the warden ultimate because all the other summons are Morrowind / invertebrate based. A bear doesn’t fit the theme at all. I think the base option should have been nix hound or something iconic of Morrowind, and then I’d also be all for being able to choose among several other creatures — lions and tigers and bears, etc. (And personally I’d love a giant spider!)

I think the bear is based on the Call Bear/Pride of Hirstaang spell from previous games. In that regard, the bear does make sense

juliandracos · October 2020

I understand many of the reasons people have listed. However, many of them have nothing to do with the bear itself. For example, it being stuck on the ultimate bar. This isn't an issue with the bear. It is issue with spell lines and the (horrible) decision ZOS has made on limiting out abilities available (unlike other games where you can have way more abilities on your bars).

I love my bear. He is awesome. When mobs try to show him disrespect, he just knocks them to the ground. Go bears!

newtinmpls · October 2020

Araneae6537 wrote: »

To me, it doesn’t make sense as the default option for the warden ultimate because all the other summons are Morrowind / invertebrate based. A bear doesn’t fit the theme at all. I think the base option should have been nix hound or something iconic of Morrowind, and then I’d also be all for being able to choose among several other creatures — lions and tigers and bears, etc. (And personally I’d love a giant spider!)

You might have something here...

What about ... some kind of split or skin in the skill line choices that relates to the race of the caster, or to the fauna/flora of a particular zone..

MinnesotaKid · October 2020

Phaedryn wrote: »

My only issue is it blocking LoS.

However, found an interesting "bug" with bear last night. I was doing Depths of Malatar, with my Warden friend, and when King Narilmor split, the bear unerringly went to the "real" Narilmor.

Same with any dungeon/trial that uses the clone mechanic.
Yokeda Kai in Hel Ra splits into multiple clones, simply follow the pet to the real boss every time. (works w/ sorc pets too)

Haquor · October 2020

redspecter23 wrote: »

It blocks interactions in towns. That's my #1 reason for hating it with a fiery passion. ZOS could fix that, but they choose to ignore it.

Other reasons:
Low dps gravitate toward it, thinking that somehow the bear itself will make their dps awesome. They occasionally contribute with a few heavy attacks and never actually realize that their 3k dps is horrible.

Bears can keep mobs busy in places that are inconvenient. As a tank, it can be frustrating to have pets keep mobs in place away from the main group. DPS first kill the main group, then go play clean up on all the mobs that the pets had locked down away from that group.

It locks you out of other ultimates. The bear does one thing (reasonably) well and that's dps. Other ultimates can arguably do better dps, especially if the player is non optimized. That says nothing of potentially useful group oriented ultimates that can't even be considered if you double bar the bear.

I'm sure there are more, but that's off the top of my head. Basically, the core issue is that beginners are drawn to pet builds in general and tend to lean on that pet, but that gets practically nothing accomplished and they get stuck in that pet groove, never actually improving.

So if you arent required to provide group utility with your ultimate, like many arent, is it BIS for warden DPS? Regardless if it is 'horrible'. Is there another ultimate that enables better numbers if the wardens job is purely damage? Or is it BIS?

ESO_Nightingale · October 2020

Haquor wrote: »

redspecter23 wrote: »

It blocks interactions in towns. That's my #1 reason for hating it with a fiery passion. ZOS could fix that, but they choose to ignore it.

Other reasons:
Low dps gravitate toward it, thinking that somehow the bear itself will make their dps awesome. They occasionally contribute with a few heavy attacks and never actually realize that their 3k dps is horrible.

Bears can keep mobs busy in places that are inconvenient. As a tank, it can be frustrating to have pets keep mobs in place away from the main group. DPS first kill the main group, then go play clean up on all the mobs that the pets had locked down away from that group.

It locks you out of other ultimates. The bear does one thing (reasonably) well and that's dps. Other ultimates can arguably do better dps, especially if the player is non optimized. That says nothing of potentially useful group oriented ultimates that can't even be considered if you double bar the bear.

I'm sure there are more, but that's off the top of my head. Basically, the core issue is that beginners are drawn to pet builds in general and tend to lean on that pet, but that gets practically nothing accomplished and they get stuck in that pet groove, never actually improving.

So if you arent required to provide group utility with your ultimate, like many arent, is it BIS for warden DPS? Regardless if it is 'horrible'. Is there another ultimate that enables better numbers if the wardens job is purely damage? Or is it BIS?

It makes up so much of our damage that we legitimately cannot use any other ultimate and be viable. (Pve)

dazee · October 2020

In soviet tamriel, bear block YOU!

Starlight_Whisper · October 2020

Not fluffy enough

weedgenius · October 2020

Guys I just used the bear today for the first time and now IDK how to get rid of it??

dazee · October 2020

weedgenius wrote: »

Guys I just used the bear today for the first time and now IDK how to get rid of it??

you cant, you have to grin and Bear it.

newtinmpls · October 2020

weedgenius wrote: »

Guys I just used the bear today for the first time and now IDK how to get rid of it??

Easiest way is to take it off your bar