Warden's unintentional homogenization and magic damage bias

Trixterion · February 2022

I would like to address an issue that's arising during hybridization process - there is one passive skill particularly known as "Piercing Cold" https://eso-hub.com/en/skills/warden/winters-embrace/piercing-cold that boosts Warden's magic and frost damage by 10%(however since Warden has a lot of inbuilt damage multipliers that particular 10% tends to be relatively smaller).
Almost The whole previously known Magden skill setup consisted of magic damage, 1 or 2 frost skills and same goes for fire damage. However with new update we should be able to use different Animal Companion morphs that previously considered as Stamina Warden's options, but wait - here is THE Prooblem:
•"Cutting Dive" and Screaming Cliff Racer" seem to be equal because ZOS buffed stamina version - that's fine;
•"Deep Fissure" deals more damage per burst and applies Major Fracture while "Subterranean Assault" deals damage twice, have chance of poisoning and spares 1 extra GCD in rotation - seems alright;
•"Fetcher Infection" deals more single target damage even without extra 50% upon every second cast, while "Growing Swarm" has an AoE portion of damage that moves with affected target - sounds reasonable enough;
•and finally, THE CORE PROBLEM - "Eternal Guardian" not only resurrects itself but also DOES more damage than "Wild Guardian" which according to the morph description SHOULD DO more damage https://eso-hub.com/en/skills/warden/animal-companions/wild-guardian.
Dear ZOS, please rebalance our Bear Ultimate with one thing in mind: if either morph will do more damage, than the other one will be utterly useless unless it will provide something useful to the play(seriously, resurrection won't ever justify one morph over other even if "Wild Guardian" will be buffed to ACTUALLY do MORE damage); maybe something like that "Wild Guardian"- will do more damage and the damage is still considered to be magic, while "Eternal Guardian" could become a "Stalgrim Guardian" - now does frost damage and cannot be killed with "oneshot mechanics"(literal "Ice Block" from WoW or HS)

ESO_Nightingale · February 2022

i agree that piercing cold's magic damage bonus is making wild guardian literally useless compared to eternal guardian, wild or eternal should probably just be reworked.

however these changes fully kill what remains of deep fissure in pve. while it's major breach is now 10 seconds(?) the massive damage increase from it recasting itself and thus giving you an extra GCD, while also removing the entire magicka cost to instead be on stamina AND having a better damage type with poison means that generally speaking you'll never use deep fissure again in pve. I'd have considered it if it did frost damage since that would actually mean you could use different sets with it, but it doesn't. it'd be nice to have a reason to use it over sub assault since i actually like the 3 second rotation more. but it's more effort for no upside.

phaneub17_ESO · February 2022

I was thinking of what they could do with wild guardian, what if it did multiple damage types not just all physical damage. Base attack stays physical damage, the occasional swipe deals bleed damage over 6 seconds, and the ultimate activation deals poison damage over 10 seconds. Any associated debuff effects like Sundered with physical damage always apply with wild guardian attacks.

Frost Bear was the second idea that it deals frost damage, so that both magic and frost bear deals identical damage, and has a pulsing aura that applies minor brittle for 4 seconds, refreshing every 4 seconds to enemies within 8 meters of the bear. This gives Wardens a personal source of minor brittle without a frost staff, but only affects enemies near the bear.

Araneae6537 · February 2022

One of the things I’ve always wished was different about warden is that sooo many of the morphs seems to be just magicka and stamina versions as opposed to other classes in which the morphs work differently and might best fit different roles (damage or support), solo versus group, etc. IMHO, this change adds further reason to add variety and versatility to warden’s abilities — more frosty damage and trapping roots for instance. Or even make the animal morphs different animals entirely as many people have long been requesting different options. Now I love the Morrowind animals but dislike the bear while others feel the inverse or would like all different. At least there could be two choices for each.