Well, i think you're right that arctic blast shouldn't heal. However as as damage skill, Arctic Blast is extremely bad because it has no-where near enough duration and costs a massive amount of resources, it's stun is only really good defensively or on melee builds, and not as much on Magicka Warden. As it is very hard to effectively pull off and has little to do with our actual playstyle, stamina builds can make the best use of it, especially when they can snare enemies an control them better than Magicka Warden can while also playing in close range due to their weapon skills. It is overall a really infuriating thing to fight against for a lot of people regardless.

I think that it is important to address some warden issues before suggesting a rework to the skill so i'll list off the ones that we want to solve

• The identity of magicka warden is nature based and uses animals for damage skills while also having a focus on frost magic, while only having one realistic frost damage skill for the element (Winter's Revenge).
• Lack of reliable magicka warden damage skills in general that aren't ultimate based or hard to obtain conditional damage, and raw damage passive effects to make up for this loss.
• Complete lack of an offensive stun with bad and extremely limited options outside of the class.
• Lack of Class synergy. there are no real combos between skills anymore like there once was with the old "Shalks, Dive, Force Pulse" combo that was fun and added some more skillful elements to the gameplay. instead, all of the damage skills that are on our class are entirely unrelated to one-another gameplay-wise.
• The ability to apply the chilled status effect in PvP is a lot harder than in PvE, where it is already very spotty. due to having limited access to good and reliable frost damage skills.

The suggestion that I want to pitch, attempts to fix these issues either partly, or completely.


my suggestion is, firstly, to keep Polar Wind exactly how it is on the pts with no changes whatsoever.

and for Arctic Blast a whole lot of changes:

• Remove the healing from this morph entirely
• Remove the current stun effect (as this is being reworked)
• Increase the duration of the skill by roughly double
• Remove the cost reduction per rank and add bonus damage done.
• Add a new component to the skill upon cast that is seperate to the cloak (will be explained below)

This new component is a line traveling AoE. the best example of this type of skill, is Necrotic Orb. However, it differs in that it is much faster as it's damage effect is different.
It will deal a standardised AoE Burst Amount of damage to the enemy, and it would stun the first enemy it travels through.

This looks like a lot on paper, and it would take about a patch or 2 to rework, however, the result would be this:

I have a document that is a bit outdated as far as damage values go, but still will convey the general information about my arctic blast rework idea that I dub "AB4.0", that I can share that may help give you a better idea, as it includes GIFs.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n68B7D2Zna4NNcDCiPp1zYmJP4KDh3n-PsRAI80RLnM/edit?usp=sharing


so, after all of this is said in done, we are potentially left with a couple of new issues. which can also be solved.

• Healing on the class is now much lower!: Meaning it will be more difficult to survive, especially without the HP stacking. This can be solved by testing the healing of Wardens in general in PvP, if they are consistently shown to not healing enough to survive decently well, or one is, but the other is not, then you can take steps to improve the burst healing Soothing Spores for stamina warden, and Living Trellis for Magicka Warden.
• The Damage is now insane on the Warden class!: The most simple fix for this, is to start removing some of the passive damage effects. The effects that can be removed are Minor Berserk, Minor Vulnerability and the Magic Damage of piercing cold. all together, removing all of these would mean that you would reduce the damage done by the class by 10% (if minor berserk and vulnerability are taken away) and the magic damage done by the class would be reduced by 10%. these shouldn't all be taken away immediately, but should be tested so that the class doesn't fall behind by having a significant portion of it's damage taken away.
• The stun effect that was good for my build and now it's been taken away! The current stun effect could possibly be moved to another skill on the class in the winter's embrace line, one that can fully focus on this type of stun and adding effects that better work for the stamina melee playstyle or for those who want to have a defensive stun as well as an offensive stun on the class. However, this skill is well known for being unfun to play against, and it was an old ultimate effect that was suited towards large-scale group stunning as opposed to close-range melee stunning, perhaps it is healthier for the game to leave this effect behind.

I am confident that this rework will absolutely be an important thing for the class, to both play with, and against. As it either fully fixes or partially fixes many of warden's existing longest standing design issues from many angles of the game.

Alurria wrote: »

Why is Zos balancing around pvp? Why when most people are not pvpers. It's ridiculous that pvpers are always nerfed for pvp. I use this skill on my back bar for when I'm in a dicey situation in pve. Pvp and pve should be two separate things.

I propose gutting skills in pvp and rebuilding them to only work in a pvp situation. Just make skills separate.

the healing it gave was absolutely busted in pvp when stacked with a ton of health. and changing all of the skills in the game to work differently in pvp is such a massive undertaking that i cannot even explain just how much time that would take.

this video will explain the change from the perspective from pve tanking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1MKFBHHfBc

Alurria wrote: »

I get that you are saying it was broken in pvp, I get it. But this changes affects pvers too. I don't play pvp because lag. Why should a skill I use be changed because pvp? Do you think there are more people who play pvp than pve? I don't how is that in anyway fair to the people who don't pvp?

Because PvP is also a significant part of the game if you only balance for PvE, the balance will just get so far out of whack in PvP that before long everyone will leave that part of the game because nothing will have been fixed. zenimax cares about pve as much as pvp. you cannot just favor one or the other.

The skill is still fine in PvE, you will still heal a very large amount of HP, and your healing with it is still going to be more than dragonknight's tank heal while also dealing AoE frost damage, healing another person and healing over time.

Alurria wrote: »

Well I will take your word for it, I have read prior posts by you and consider you to be reasonable. I haven't been on the test server but I think I may try. Saying this tongue in cheek if you are wrong I'm holding your toes to the 🔥. The only thing you are missing from what I wrote and it's a valid point is the population of pvp is less than pve. I don't feel that will ever change. I also believe balancing for the smaller population in a game that is based on single players games where there was no pvp is doing a diservice to the majority of players. I have always held the belief that PVP and PVE should be on separate systems of skills. Through ever game I have ever played that was mixed there are always problems. That is a fact.

If Zos balanced according to what the majority of players want there either wouldnt be any balance at all or every ability would just oneshot every mob. Because those doing group PvE content are no majority either. On Xbox One only 15% of all tracked players(over 46000) reached lvl 50. Do you really think the missing 85% care about balance?
People have been asking to split PvE and PvP balance for years but Zos doesnt want abilities to behave differently in PvE and PvP.

Alurria wrote: »

Well that doesn't make sense, let's just insert minority in your statement. Do you think that a minority of players opinions are worth more than the majority that finance this game. The point is pve players getting nerfed for pvp is not right and never will be. The minority is not all knowing and seeing.

Personally I think that every opinion is worth the same and spending more money doesnt make an opinion more important but thats just me. Pve players getting nerfed for pvp may not be right but its gonna be happening as long as Zos supports pvp. The reverse will also continue to happen which also isnt right. Zos cant just say "well pve said they like how it is no more balancing everyone thats it" because that wouldnt be right either. Nevermind that the pve as one entity with the same balance needs and wants doesnt exist. Zos is also gonna keep nerfing the ceiling for the sake of the floor which also isnt right. (or attempt it at the very least, their track record hasnt been very solid on that particular matter)
I dont know where you get the all knowing and seeing from so I dont even know what to say towards that other than that no one is all seeing and knowing.

Personally I also think that Zos shouldve been done with major balance changes years ago and just do small tweaks where required but we all know how that worked out. I also think that you will be hard pressed to find any pvper or pveer that would actually be unhappy if pve and pvp balance got split.

Joy_Division wrote: »

@DTStormfox , this issue I have when fighting against a warden is not the little damage or even the stun this skill has. The heal is stronger than anything else in the game and when combined with the rest of the Warden's very good kit and ubiquitous procs, it makes for an extremely tanky build that hits very hard, a combination that is broken in a MMO designed around the notion that there are "tanks," DPS, and healers.

Currently, one of the morphs does all three things: damage, heal, and stun. I believe this is overkill. It is not the individual attributes (damage, heal, and stun) of the ability that are too strong but the combination of them. Hence, I proposed to remove the healing from one of the morphs, forcing Warden players to make a choice between healing or no healing, and proposed to buff the damage of the no-healing morph.



Edit: elaborated my response more

I don’t know why this is getting such a nerf while the crazy Crimson set looks insane as ever.

Nser wrote: »

Make it scale of spell damage...

The healing shouldn't be on the morph at all. We don't need 6 mag heals on a class with 4 damage skills