Arctic Wind

Nser · May 2022

Arctic losing its Heal in a possible rework is not too farfetched, and then Polar remains the health based scaling heal.
My issue with that is if Arctic becomes the damage and stun morph, the stun thats so desperatly needed for the class, it leaves Polar wind users again having to look for mediocre stuns elsewhere since you cannot have both polar for the heal and arctic for the stun in the same build obv.

like, a magden will burst heal on enchanted growth and stun by arctic but the magden with Polar wind is in the same boat as right now. Both have to pick 2 skills to heal and stun, but only the enchanted growth magden gets the class stun buff here.
To keep build diversity in check where u build high spell/wpn dmg + max mag/stam or more on the max health side of things, alot more needs to happen than just Arctic Blast rework.
The 10% heal increase and 10% cost reduction is still valid regardless of what changes with the skill, for now.

Mr_Stach · May 2022

I mean Warden is the only class I can think of that does a Damage/heal/stun in one ability. It's just doing 3 things poorly.

Nser · May 2022

Its just the stun part that is iffy.
maybe we should focus more heavily on Frozen gate becoming a proper stun, and arctic blast the 10 second duration aoe dot frost damage pulse like now, but stronger, no stun no healing, and keep Polar much as is now.
Then u would have Warden with Shrooms for heal and frozen gate for stun, and Warden with Polar + frozen gate for healing and stun

Mr_Stach · May 2022

I just want Warden to have a cohesive kit. I think even with the Nerf, DK and Probably Templar have the best kit overall. You have skills for every situation you have a variety of choices to succeed.

That's what I want Warden to have as well, but it's gonna need some pretty big changes.

Panachudo · May 2022

In terms of morphs it would be better looking at it from a role perspective. Similar to what they did with destructive touch and it’s morphs. One is for DPS one is for tanks.

Polar wind scaling the heal with max health, pulsing out for a guaranteed stun. No damage required. Would be great for tanking and CC.

Arctic Wind could scale off max magicka, no heal, no CC, just frost damage. (Hear me out).

The CC should come from Winters Revenge (the DPS morph of Impaling Shards). That morph scaling damage off of max mag and giving a stun every X seconds.

The gripping shards morph should scale damage off max health and provide Major Brittle.

I believe the combination of these would fulfill the desired application.

Mr_Stach · May 2022

I think there's some potential, honestly Slab doesn't really have a use. I don't know of anyone that runs Slab over Shimmering Shield. They could rework it to be a Ranged Stun like Javelin.

ESO_Nightingale · May 2022

Panachudo wrote: »

In terms of morphs it would be better looking at it from a role perspective. Similar to what they did with destructive touch and it’s morphs. One is for DPS one is for tanks.

Polar wind scaling the heal with max health, pulsing out for a guaranteed stun. No damage required. Would be great for tanking and CC.

Arctic Wind could scale off max magicka, no heal, no CC, just frost damage. (Hear me out).

The CC should come from Winters Revenge (the DPS morph of Impaling Shards). That morph scaling damage off of max mag and giving a stun every X seconds.

The gripping shards morph should scale damage off max health and provide Major Brittle.

I believe the combination of these would fulfill the desired application.

WR is fine. It doesn't need to randomly stun. There's a lot of other candiates in warden's kit for stuns that make more sense.

Mr_Stach · May 2022

I wouldn't be opposed to a Synergy for Winter's Revenge. Flashfreeze a target. Stunning them for 3 seconds.

The problem comes overloading abilities, we got several skills/morph that are basically useless. Better to make more things good over tacking things that are already good with more stuff. That's how we got into this mess in the first place, they pushed the stun from Permafrost (which was perfectly fine) and slapped it on Arctic Blast (Which was also pretty ok at the time) now Petmafrost is meh and Arvtic blast got a 5 second stun which is borderline useless

Nser · May 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I wouldn't be opposed to a Synergy for Winter's Revenge. Flashfreeze a target. Stunning them for 3 seconds.

The problem comes overloading abilities, we got several skills/morph that are basically useless. Better to make more things good over tacking things that are already good with more stuff. That's how we got into this mess in the first place, they pushed the stun from Permafrost (which was perfectly fine) and slapped it on Arctic Blast (Which was also pretty ok at the time) now Petmafrost is meh and Arvtic blast got a 5 second stun which is borderline useless

Perma could be so much better as a more utility based ultimate if it had a stun attached.
Northenstorm is the damage ultimate having more than double the values of Permafrost, and adding 300 wpn/spell dmg for 30 seconds.
Permafrost sacrefices higher damage for utility and stun

GetAgrippa · May 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I just want Warden to have a cohesive kit. I think even with the Nerf, DK and Probably Templar have the best kit overall. You have skills for every situation you have a variety of choices to succeed.

That's what I want Warden to have as well, but it's gonna need some pretty big changes.

I main a magdk in pvp (I was a magdk main long before the buffs, the meta came to me) but before that I mained a magden. In fact, my magden is my only Grand Overlord. I also have a magcro, a magplar and a magsorc. I am 100 percent certain all my pvp toons would absolutely destroy my magden 1v1. And that's before the Arctic Blast nerf. Magden is so far behind everyone else in 1v1 potential it's not even funny. Magden is relegated to a support role but it doesn't even really excel at that in comparison to, say, templar support. It's a damn shame.

ESO_Nightingale · May 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I wouldn't be opposed to a Synergy for Winter's Revenge. Flashfreeze a target. Stunning them for 3 seconds.

The problem comes overloading abilities, we got several skills/morph that are basically useless. Better to make more things good over tacking things that are already good with more stuff. That's how we got into this mess in the first place, they pushed the stun from Permafrost (which was perfectly fine) and slapped it on Arctic Blast (Which was also pretty ok at the time) now Petmafrost is meh and Arvtic blast got a 5 second stun which is borderline useless

winter's revenge is entirely fine as it is at the current point in time, it does some of the highest tick damage of all of the class ground AoE DoTs and it's secondary effects makes it better at doing our job of applying chilled. if anything needs a buff at the moment it's liquid lightning.

Mr_Stach · May 2022

Yeah it does plenty damage and procs stuff like crazy. Other stuff though, needs some work

ESO_Nightingale · May 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Yeah it does plenty damage and procs stuff like crazy. Other stuff though, needs some work

Id really focus on arctic and northern atm.

Mr_Stach · May 2022

I think at the Moment Arctic is the biggest contender for a fix because that is basically all Zos ever balances in Winter's Embrace ever.

I also hope they look into making Northern Storm just on par with Wild Guardian. Adding Major Brittle onto it would help a bunch.

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think there's some potential, honestly Slab doesn't really have a use. I don't know of anyone that runs Slab over Shimmering Shield. They could rework it to be a Ranged Stun like Javelin.

i personally prefer using slab over shimmering, because it does a ton of dmg without me having to focus on attacks

ive had it crit for upwards 9k, on a mediocre build, and it does even more if it also procs ice furnace (adds around 1000 extra fire dmg in 8 meter aoe around target)

i mostly use this toon for doing solo arenas because warden is a pretty good balance of dmg and healing, and with the bear ult i dont feel i really need the ult gen

Mr_Stach · May 2022

Ok, I know of 1 person that uses Slab

But that being said, the Defensive stun is still a really weird tack onto the ability

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Ok, I know of 1 person that uses Slab

But that being said, the Defensive stun is still a really weird tack onto the ability

that i agree with, the stun on slab just seems tacked on for no apparent reason

the only use i can even see possible for that is a counter to ranged ganks in pvp lol

Mr_Stach · May 2022

Yeah it's real weird, ok I stunned that sniper..... oh he's too far away to actually capitalize on.

If they made Slab work on any Direct Damage attack it might be more useful

ESO_Nightingale · May 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Ok, I know of 1 person that uses Slab

But that being said, the Defensive stun is still a really weird tack onto the ability

that i agree with, the stun on slab just seems tacked on for no apparent reason

the only use i can even see possible for that is a counter to ranged ganks in pvp lol

They gave a reason for it. Because warden is "naturally kited" by ranged builds and the reason for that is because arctic blast is a melee specific delayed stun which is the entire problem in the first place.

Mr_Stach · May 2022

I will take a direct on demand stun over a defensive or delayed stun any day of the week. I should choose when you use CC, not my enemies.

ESO_Nightingale · May 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I will take a direct on demand stun over a defensive or delayed stun any day of the week. I should choose when you use CC, not my enemies.

I'm not sure why they think trying to make everything in the kit delayed is a good idea. Because they're really proving that it's not.

Mr_Stach · May 2022

Another funny thing is the Ice Animations they gave Sombren. I really hope Zos actually has plans for some ice Warden goodness.

ESO_Nightingale · May 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Another funny thing is the Ice Animations they gave Sombren. I really hope Zos actually has plans for some ice Warden goodness.

doubt it at least this patch tbh

Mr_Stach · May 2022

Maybe more down the road, which is business as usual for Warden

Ashanne · May 2022

Fingers crossed its Warden week.
ALOT needs to happen so I doubt its going to be any better, but plenty of good suggestions on these posts regarding Warden and specificly Arctic Blast showing that there ARE ways to improve the current mess.

Ashanne · May 2022

i am going to state the obvious, Warden has no good stun.

just because something can POTENTIALLY stun, doesnt mean its good.

im willing to bet ZOS looks at the following and says, WDYM no stun?

The Stuns:

Dive and morphs - stun on a 22 second cooldown per target because of the off balance cooldown, and the min range of 7 meters required is your characters distance from the target when the bird lands, not when you casted the bird.
you cannot throw dive from 7 meters and close the gap while the bird is traveling, it wont count as being 7 meters away, only viable if u stay at range and like i said, 22 seconds cooldown.

Bear ultimate - Completely random and highly telegraphed like Selenes. Not on demand. Requires both ultimate slots. Free CC immunity for your opponent.

Arctic blast - on pts requires 5 hits to stun. not sure where to begin, theres so much wrong with this. first of all its melee 6 meter radius, anything moving fast can avoid the stacks building up. Second the cost, 4k magicka to get the potential 5 stacks in a single cast, but like i said easily avoidable, miss 1 stack and you have to recast = 8k magicka and still doesnt garantee the stun. third, maybe potent defensively, but will trigger CC at random that you cannot take advantage of because you are on the defence.

Crystal slab - goodluck stunning any build using 2h/dual wield no range light atks nor skills. And even if you do face people at range, they will likely be too far away from you to take advantage of the stun. Might work if the user is a ranged build themselfs, but just like Arctic blast it will likely only cc when you are on the defense or give your opponent CC immunity at random not desired moments.

That makes 4 stuns that are not on demand, have cooldowns and are highly depending on what you are fighting.
4 unreliable stuns that plague Warden, ill say it again: ZOS be like WDYM no stun???

Possible solutions:

- Bring back 3 stack Arctic stun and increase radius
- remove the 7 meter min requirement from Dive (still not a good way of stunning)
- Add stun to permafrost (its an ulti and northen got some love already)

Mr_Stach · May 2022

Ashanne wrote: »

Possible solutions:

- Bring back 3 stack Arctic stun and increase radius
- remove the 7 meter min requirement from Dive (still not a good way of stunning)
- Add stun to permafrost (its an ulti and northen got some love already)

So just revert Permafrost to it's originally functionality. That's easy enough.

I don't understand why it's so difficult to give Warden the tools it needs. Every class should have access to an On Demand Stun.

Ashanne · May 2022

Stun on Permafrost is the least they can do after making Northen available for all builds, not just max magicka builds.

Still is not as on demand as i would like, but its a start and gives A CLASS ULTIMATE meaning.

For me personally even once per 30-45 seconds on a 200 costing ultimate, that stun would be a gamechanger and would shut me up for a while on my demand for a proper stun.

Not entirely sure in what way it should return, perhaps the exact mechanic as the old version.

that would mean arctic can keep its 5 stack stun badness, and perma would have 3 stack stun (ability meh but ultimate good)

Dive has more issues than just being a crappy offbalance stun, somebody else can probly fix this with better ideas than i could so im not even going to try.

Limiting Warden ultimate use to Permafrost because you need a stun is not ideal, but about 10x better than the options available now

Ashanne · May 2022

It is also important we get stuns in skill layouts already available on most (pvp) warden specs/builds.

Giving a stun to an ability not already part of a (meta) warden skill layout is just going to cripple the class further because theres only so many skill slots. Barspace is tight and mostly established

Its alot easier and build friendly to have a proper stun in an ultimate slot, which u have two of.

Ashanne · May 2022

for example here is my pvp warden skill layout:

Growing swarm, blood for blood, green lotus, deep fissure, bird of prey - Permafrost
Betty netch, shimmering shield, ice armor, leeching vines, arctic blast - healing thicket

Lets say they added a proper stun to Frozengate, a skill not already on my bar, what am i going to give up?
As it stands ive got 3 damage abilties, a DOT a spammable and delayed burst, giving up one of these will cripple me on the damage department.
Generic sorcery/brutality buff + major resolve as all builds should have.
a Hot and a burst heal in vines and arctic. imagine only running 1 form of healing on a pvp build nowadays. Arctic would become Enchanted growth on a more spell damage focussed build (but i primairly build max health)
Shimmering because on demand major heroism is unique to warden and should be ran.
Newly buffed Lotus, imagine dropping a skill they finally made usefull and ofcourse Bird of Prey iconic warden skill that should be on all specs.

Only my ultimates are flex spots so to speak and one could use Dawnbreaker atm for a stun, but thats not a class ultimate so class identity is starting to struggle there.

imo only solutions are deep fissure/sub assault and Permafrost for stun to not ruin whats already established for warden