Arctic Blast can be solved. But this is not it.
ESO_Nightingale
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Arctic Blast has always been an issue since it's second iteration back in murkmire, and to this day in High Isle, it remains one. This patch arctic blast recieved some significant balance changes which are genuinely awful, this will be covered in the post in detail.
during the PTS cycle, There were several threads created. People other than myself such as @MashmalloMan @Mr_Stach and @SEINTDARKNESS (and MANY others) were instrumental in maintaining threads in order to bring up the issues and keep them on the radar. Instead, ZOS entirely ignored our posts for over a month during the cycle and didn't give a single comment about it. There's a lot of people who tried out their wardens in pvp this patch or on PTS and felt like the arctic blast change was a destructive nerf. This has gotten to the point that we will now continue to bring it up every patch and PTS cycle until it is addressed in some form. Warden still lacks fundamental tools that other classes have.
Here is a list of every ignored warden thread that us wardens created during the pts cycle that had gained major support.
This post is intended to be a call to action for ZOS as well as to inform people what is happening with Arctic Blast this patch.
@ZOS_Kevin (thanks so much for your response to my comment about passing on the sentiment) @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam
This morph now requires enemies to be damaged 5 times in order to be stunned, up from 3.
Reduced the duration of the stun to 3 seconds, down from 4.
Increased the duration of the stack counter to 3 seconds, up from 1.
Developer Comment:
To be frank, this developer comment does not accurately reflect how warden plays at all. In ZOS's theoretical perfect situation, you "remove counterplay" by perfectly lining up arctic blast with your scorch burst. That statement FULLY ignores that you can simply to move out of their line of sight and/or cc them within the very generous window given. Scorch by itself has counterplay too, by moving away from the front of a warden, shalks immediately cannot hit you. You have to put more effort behind playing a warden due to it's predictability. This is especially so for magicka warden as it is weaker than stamina warden. This makes it far harder to be as effective as any other class in the game paticularly in solo. It's also confusing to me how they say that you can remove counterplay with it(?) but then they make a balance change to make it harder to counterplay(?).
what these changes do, is:
This only exacerbates the issue where it was frustrating to fight against and to use as the caster of it. These changes are awful for anyone in the situation where arctic blast is being used.
Examples of how the skill currently works as of the high isle patch:
Here's some opinions/thoughts from 3 PvP Content Creators shared in their patch note/ class review videos:
Arctic Blast was our only class stun that was somewhat reliable and now it's not but it's somehow now even more toxic. It should be absolutely clear to ZOS, that after 2 and a half years that this iteration of arctic blast (AB3.0) should not remain in the game. It requires a rework as soon as possible. Crystallised Slab gets a mention here as it just recieved a stun, which doesn't address our pain points, while being even more toxic to fight against. We do not need more reactive stuns that make us annoying to fight. we need an offensive, on demand ranged stun that we can actually use to line up our burst combos.
For those 2 and a half years we have been asking for a ranged on-demand class stun. Arctic Blast's second iteration (AB2.0) was able to do that. But there are reasons why we complained about the old version. The issue with old AB2.0 was that it removed the damage that we really liked from it, while the direction followed through by ZOS from murkmire to scalebreaker was that they wanted to double down on that morph keeping a hp based heal on it, instead of damage which was not needed or wanted. The skill's main priority was to stun in pvp, so having a weak tank heal on it with no damage whatsoever made it really bad compared to it's competition, which, at the time was shock clench and block cancelled vampiric drain. Now, we don't have a single one of those anymore.
here is what should happen to solve various PvP AND PvE issues.
Arctic Blast:
Because of the removal of arctic blast's healing, and the general weakness of self healing within the kit, it needs to be re-incorporated back elsewhere. Probably the easiest option here is Fungal Growth as it is a green balance skill focused on burst healing with the same cost as other class's single target burst heals.
Fungal Growth and it's morphs:
Increase the healing done by fungal growth and it's morphs to the caster by 15%
Arctic Blast:
PvP: This will allow the wardens to reliably control when they want to stun their opponent and be enabled to make combos, this will make the warden less annoying to fight against as well as less annoying to play as, as they no longer randomly stun enemies whenever they're close to them, instead, they have to make a calucated attempt to aim at their enemies and stun them. this will allow them to more easily finish off their oponents which they currently struggle to do.
PvE: This will finally allow Arctic Blast to be a usable skill in pve frost dps builds, as currently warden only offers a single skill with winter's revenge. this will also increase their number of viable non ultimate damage skills from 4, to 5 and synergises well with skills such as frost pulsar.
Fungal Growth:
PvP: This change allows wardens to finally have a solid wep/spell damage scaling self burst heal within their class kit which will aim to increase their surviability in solo environments as well as generally just be good. Enchanted Growth becoming a viable skill to run also means that they will have a bit less of a struggle sustaining as they will gain access to minor recovery bonuses. It should be noted, that the suggestion of changing the healing scaling of arctic blast to wep/spell dmg and max stats is unnecessary as the class already has an entire healing line already.
PvE: this will mostly only have an effect on solo builds or pve healers, and as such, doesn't have too much of an impact especially on healers as healing numbers are generally not a problem.
Edited by ESO_Nightingale on June 10, 2022 2:52PM during the PTS cycle, There were several threads created. People other than myself such as @MashmalloMan @Mr_Stach and @SEINTDARKNESS (and MANY others) were instrumental in maintaining threads in order to bring up the issues and keep them on the radar. Instead, ZOS entirely ignored our posts for over a month during the cycle and didn't give a single comment about it. There's a lot of people who tried out their wardens in pvp this patch or on PTS and felt like the arctic blast change was a destructive nerf. This has gotten to the point that we will now continue to bring it up every patch and PTS cycle until it is addressed in some form. Warden still lacks fundamental tools that other classes have.
Here is a list of every ignored warden thread that us wardens created during the pts cycle that had gained major support.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/603188/high-isles-frustrating-warden-changes-are-a-disappointing-step-back/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/603702/arctic-blast-is-bad-real-bad/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/603856/fed-up-with-the-hesitation-to-give-frost-warden-a-win/p
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/604381/any-comment-would-have-been-nice-to-see-regarding-the-abundance-of-warden-feedback-this-patch/p11
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/605811/arctic-blast-nerf-cannot-go-live#latest
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/603702/arctic-blast-is-bad-real-bad/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/603856/fed-up-with-the-hesitation-to-give-frost-warden-a-win/p
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/604381/any-comment-would-have-been-nice-to-see-regarding-the-abundance-of-warden-feedback-this-patch/p11
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/605811/arctic-blast-nerf-cannot-go-live#latest
This post is intended to be a call to action for ZOS as well as to inform people what is happening with Arctic Blast this patch.
@ZOS_Kevin (thanks so much for your response to my comment about passing on the sentiment) @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam
Arctic Blast's Changes and their repercussions
This morph now requires enemies to be damaged 5 times in order to be stunned, up from 3.
Reduced the duration of the stun to 3 seconds, down from 4.
Increased the duration of the stack counter to 3 seconds, up from 1.
Developer Comment:
Right now, this ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden, allowing them to line up their burst perfectly with Scorch to remove counter play. By increasing the stack count required, there should be less of a guarantee with this combination and require more reactive play from the caster, while the increased duration of tracking helps also reduce the ease of counter play by backing off for 1 second from the Warden to completely avoid the stun.
To be frank, this developer comment does not accurately reflect how warden plays at all. In ZOS's theoretical perfect situation, you "remove counterplay" by perfectly lining up arctic blast with your scorch burst. That statement FULLY ignores that you can simply to move out of their line of sight and/or cc them within the very generous window given. Scorch by itself has counterplay too, by moving away from the front of a warden, shalks immediately cannot hit you. You have to put more effort behind playing a warden due to it's predictability. This is especially so for magicka warden as it is weaker than stamina warden. This makes it far harder to be as effective as any other class in the game paticularly in solo. It's also confusing to me how they say that you can remove counterplay with it(?) but then they make a balance change to make it harder to counterplay(?).
what these changes do, is:
- Make the stack counter for the stun so incredibly obnoxious to use that accurately timing it is a lot harder than it was even last patch given the counterplay issues
- Reduces counterplay potential from enemies by increasing the stack duration to 3 seconds from 1 meaning that enemies are more likely to be stunned by arctic blast, but not reliably so with a combo, giving the target free cc immunity.
This only exacerbates the issue where it was frustrating to fight against and to use as the caster of it. These changes are awful for anyone in the situation where arctic blast is being used.
Examples of how the skill currently works as of the high isle patch:
(Delay change visuallised with timer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsVlpMpNkz4
(Fight with new blast and crys slab)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE2jiHm_u88
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsVlpMpNkz4(Fight with new blast and crys slab)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE2jiHm_u88Here's some opinions/thoughts from 3 PvP Content Creators shared in their patch note/ class review videos:
Isth3reno1else:
https://youtu.be/BZtRirMh_Sw?t=2178
@Deltia :
https://youtu.be/YmKK7kSojig?t=178
The Real Godzilla
https://youtu.be/5hB0XsxaqiU?t=746
https://youtu.be/BZtRirMh_Sw?t=2178@Deltia :
https://youtu.be/YmKK7kSojig?t=178The Real Godzilla
https://youtu.be/5hB0XsxaqiU?t=746
WHAT DO WE NEED?
Arctic Blast was our only class stun that was somewhat reliable and now it's not but it's somehow now even more toxic. It should be absolutely clear to ZOS, that after 2 and a half years that this iteration of arctic blast (AB3.0) should not remain in the game. It requires a rework as soon as possible. Crystallised Slab gets a mention here as it just recieved a stun, which doesn't address our pain points, while being even more toxic to fight against. We do not need more reactive stuns that make us annoying to fight. we need an offensive, on demand ranged stun that we can actually use to line up our burst combos.
For those 2 and a half years we have been asking for a ranged on-demand class stun. Arctic Blast's second iteration (AB2.0) was able to do that. But there are reasons why we complained about the old version. The issue with old AB2.0 was that it removed the damage that we really liked from it, while the direction followed through by ZOS from murkmire to scalebreaker was that they wanted to double down on that morph keeping a hp based heal on it, instead of damage which was not needed or wanted. The skill's main priority was to stun in pvp, so having a weak tank heal on it with no damage whatsoever made it really bad compared to it's competition, which, at the time was shock clench and block cancelled vampiric drain. Now, we don't have a single one of those anymore.
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?
here is what should happen to solve various PvP AND PvE issues.
Arctic Blast:
- Remove the existing stun effect from arctic blast
- Remove the healing entirely from the arctic blast morph(This will be addressed soon)
- Double the duration of the frost damage cloak effect to finally allow it to be used in pve situations as a damage dealer
- Either:
- Add back the Arctic Blast 2.0 projectile stun (that can be blocked) when you cast the skill, as a seperate component to the frost damage cloak, and add some frost damage to the projectile.
- Add a line moving area of effect frost tornado that travels forward in the direction you face, dealing damage to enemies it passes through, and stunning(can be blocked) the closest one to you. this would act as a seperate component to the frost damage cloak.
- Add back the Arctic Blast 2.0 projectile stun (that can be blocked) when you cast the skill, as a seperate component to the frost damage cloak, and add some frost damage to the projectile.
Because of the removal of arctic blast's healing, and the general weakness of self healing within the kit, it needs to be re-incorporated back elsewhere. Probably the easiest option here is Fungal Growth as it is a green balance skill focused on burst healing with the same cost as other class's single target burst heals.
Fungal Growth and it's morphs:
Increase the healing done by fungal growth and it's morphs to the caster by 15%
INTENDED RESULTS
Arctic Blast:
PvP: This will allow the wardens to reliably control when they want to stun their opponent and be enabled to make combos, this will make the warden less annoying to fight against as well as less annoying to play as, as they no longer randomly stun enemies whenever they're close to them, instead, they have to make a calucated attempt to aim at their enemies and stun them. this will allow them to more easily finish off their oponents which they currently struggle to do.
PvE: This will finally allow Arctic Blast to be a usable skill in pve frost dps builds, as currently warden only offers a single skill with winter's revenge. this will also increase their number of viable non ultimate damage skills from 4, to 5 and synergises well with skills such as frost pulsar.
Fungal Growth:
PvP: This change allows wardens to finally have a solid wep/spell damage scaling self burst heal within their class kit which will aim to increase their surviability in solo environments as well as generally just be good. Enchanted Growth becoming a viable skill to run also means that they will have a bit less of a struggle sustaining as they will gain access to minor recovery bonuses. It should be noted, that the suggestion of changing the healing scaling of arctic blast to wep/spell dmg and max stats is unnecessary as the class already has an entire healing line already.
PvE: this will mostly only have an effect on solo builds or pve healers, and as such, doesn't have too much of an impact especially on healers as healing numbers are generally not a problem.
PvE Frost Warden Main and teacher. Come Join the ESO Frost Discord to discuss everything frost!: https://discord.gg/5PT3rQX
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Mr_Stach✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭This is a lot of really great points and some good changes.
Something still bothers me with the Developer Comment though:This ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden
I don't know in what World Warden has too much offensive nature when DK exists, DK, even after the nerf, is the largest Steamroll in PvP. Not to mention they have a skill that is Arctic Blast (although it's single target) but better.
Unblockable, Stun, Heal, and Damage, which the large driving factor of Arctic Blasts constant changes are because it's overloaded. I don't want Shattering Rocks nerfed. It's fine. But it does illustrate that Zos seems to want Warden to need to jump through hoops to do something that DK or other classes do, but worse.
Edited by Mr_Stach on June 10, 2022 3:38PMAltoholic, Frost Warden Sympathizer and Main
Glacial Guardian - Main - Frost Warden Zealot
The Frost Man Cometh - PC Frost Backup6 -
SEINTDARKNES✭✭✭This is a lot of really great points and some good changes.
Something still bothers me with the Developer Comment though:This ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden
I don't know in what World Warden has too much offensive nature when DK exists, DK, even after the nerf, is the largest Steamroll in PvP. Not to mention they have a skill that is Arctic Blast (although it's single target) but better.
Unblockable, Stun, Heal, and Damage, which the large driving factor of Arctic Blasts constant changes are because it's overloaded. I don't want Shattering Rocks nerfed. It's fine. But it does illustrate that Zos seems to want Warden to need to jump through hoops to do something that DK or other classes do, but worse.
And you forgot to mention that dk have one of the biggest burst combo with molten whip x3.
Meanwhile wardens lacks a solid healing and on demand stund, you could say we have artic blast but the healing aspect only gets bigger with health, even if you make a health build you don't get a great heal and if you make a health build you will lack damage and without an on demand stun you will have a rough time trying to beat 1 person.
I think the changes proposed by ESO_Nightingale are the way we need to go with the warden class for example:
The artic blast rework will offer an on demand stun for pvp and be more appealing for the master of ice in pve having 2 ice damge skills inside the winter's embrace skill line, that would be amazing!
The healing change to fungal growth it's needed because rn we don't have a great burst heal and you could say we have major mending and it's true but the reality is we need to go down 40% of the health and then try to heal but our heals don't get stronger as the health go down so almost all the time you try to heal spamming your heals, sometimes you live sometimes you don't and if you live almost all the time you will have 0 resources left so death it's the next to you.
Another problem with the healing is we have a skill line for healing but none are really good at least for pvp, you could say you have vines and yeah they are okey but nothing amazing and here is when we got another problem, warden need to use a lot of healing skills to stay alive so in fact you lose at least 3 skill slots plus maybe ultimate to be in pair to another classes in the healing department and taking a lot of slots making having really low options to have another damage skills or utility skills.
Warden Isn't a really easy class to play and still keeps getting nerfed, one thing i don't see anybody talks about it's the nerf to dmg cps.
Having a really high healing meta like we have now and don't nerfing healing cps only makes that clases like Warden or necromancers have a rough time bursting people because ppl can still recover faster than you can make damage because you are not trying to attack all the time or you only waste resources from you spameable or something, i remember when in the past you could erase people 100% of the life to 0% but right now you can't see that at least not with warden but with other classes you can! ( Not asking for nerfs for other clasees)
I just hope zos gets serious with the statement of buffing clasess that need help to make it aline to other clases.Edited by SEINTDARKNES on June 10, 2022 4:15PM3 -
skinnycheeks✭✭✭✭✭thanks for the feedback. can't really comment much from a pvp perspective but "Double the duration of the frost damage cloak effect to finally allow it to be used in pve situations as a damage dealer" sounds pretty cool. Would be nice if the "frost mage" dps had more than 1 ice dmg ability used in their class kit.4 -
ESO_Nightingale✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭skinnycheeks wrote: »thanks for the feedback. can't really comment much from a pvp perspective but "Double the duration of the frost damage cloak effect to finally allow it to be used in pve situations as a damage dealer" sounds pretty cool. Would be nice if the "frost mage" dps had more than 1 ice dmg ability used in their class kit.
Wardens really lack frost damage pve skills, arctic blast has gotten so close, but it's held back so much, Thanks for the comment skinny!PvE Frost Warden Main and teacher. Come Join the ESO Frost Discord to discuss everything frost!: https://discord.gg/5PT3rQX0 -
Mr_Stach✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭SEINTDARKNES wrote: »
Meanwhile wardens lacks a solid healing and on demand stund, you could say we have artic blast but the healing aspect only gets bigger with health, even if you make a health build you don't get a great heal and if you make a health build you will lack damage and without an on demand stun you will have a rough time trying to beat 1 person.This is a lot of really great points and some good changes.
Something still bothers me with the Developer Comment though:This ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden
I don't know in what World Warden has too much offensive nature when DK exists, DK, even after the nerf, is the largest Steamroll in PvP. Not to mention they have a skill that is Arctic Blast (although it's single target) but better.
Unblockable, Stun, Heal, and Damage, which the large driving factor of Arctic Blasts constant changes are because it's overloaded. I don't want Shattering Rocks nerfed. It's fine. But it does illustrate that Zos seems to want Warden to need to jump through hoops to do something that DK or other classes do, but worse.
I think the changes proposed by ESO_Nightingale are the way we need to go with the warden class for example:
The artic blast rework will offer an on demand stun for pvp and be more appealing for the master of ice in pve having 2 ice damge skills inside the winter's embrace skill line, that would be amazing!
The healing change to fungal growth it's needed because rn we don't have a great burst heal and you could say we have major mending and it's true but the reality is we need to go down 40% of the health and then try to heal but our heals don't get stronger as the health go down so almost all the time you try to heal spamming your heals, sometimes you live sometimes you don't and if you live almost all the time you will have 0 resources left so death it's the next to you.
Another problem with the healing is we have a skill line for healing but none are really good at least for pvp, you could say you have vines and yeah they are okey but nothing amazing and here is when we got another problem, warden need to use a lot of healing skills to stay alive so in fact you lose at least 3 skill slots plus maybe ultimate to be in pair to another classes in the healing department and taking a lot of slots making having really low options to have another damage skills or utility skills.
Warden has a lot of healing potential but it's not effective in Burst. Vines is great as a defensive heal to pad your life. Lotus is another pad to keep you up a bit. Healing Seeds is also a big heal but has a big delay so it's hard to use in emergency unless you have a team member to proc the burst early. Nature's Grasp also depends on an Ally to even use it.
In a solo situation, Warden's healing tree is basically just Trellis and rapid regen. I think the Spore tweak would be an easy fix, the harder fix that we've brought up before is reworking Bursting Vines as a Self Heal, which would actually be really nice since it's a pretty dead skill in my book.
Altoholic, Frost Warden Sympathizer and Main
Glacial Guardian - Main - Frost Warden Zealot
The Frost Man Cometh - PC Frost Backup1 -
Mr_Stach✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭skinnycheeks wrote: »thanks for the feedback. can't really comment much from a pvp perspective but "Double the duration of the frost damage cloak effect to finally allow it to be used in pve situations as a damage dealer" sounds pretty cool. Would be nice if the "frost mage" dps had more than 1 ice dmg ability used in their class kit.
The funny thing is that with High Isle we finally got a serious Frost DPS set from Whorls of the Deep. We have a nice utility with Brittle. Frost Reach as a good Spammable via Master Ice Staff. We're so close in PvE, if Arctic Blast was tweaked to be an AoE that was worth Casting, that would be amazing.
Altoholic, Frost Warden Sympathizer and Main
Glacial Guardian - Main - Frost Warden Zealot
The Frost Man Cometh - PC Frost Backup3 -
ESO_Nightingale✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭skinnycheeks wrote: »thanks for the feedback. can't really comment much from a pvp perspective but "Double the duration of the frost damage cloak effect to finally allow it to be used in pve situations as a damage dealer" sounds pretty cool. Would be nice if the "frost mage" dps had more than 1 ice dmg ability used in their class kit.
The funny thing is that with High Isle we finally got a serious Frost DPS set from Whorls of the Deep. We have a nice utility with Brittle. Frost Reach as a good Spammable via Master Ice Staff. We're so close in PvE, if Arctic Blast was tweaked to be an AoE that was worth Casting, that would be amazing.
The thing with frost dps is it's only usable if it's damage is comparable to other classes with little damage loss. Currently in score running people are considering magden to be bad. Frostden is worse meaning you'd just run brittle on a tank. It's fine in more casual groups. But it still lacks frost damage skills.Edited by ESO_Nightingale on June 11, 2022 7:22AMPvE Frost Warden Main and teacher. Come Join the ESO Frost Discord to discuss everything frost!: https://discord.gg/5PT3rQX1 -
SEINTDARKNES✭✭✭SEINTDARKNES wrote: »
Meanwhile wardens lacks a solid healing and on demand stund, you could say we have artic blast but the healing aspect only gets bigger with health, even if you make a health build you don't get a great heal and if you make a health build you will lack damage and without an on demand stun you will have a rough time trying to beat 1 person.This is a lot of really great points and some good changes.
Something still bothers me with the Developer Comment though:This ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden
I don't know in what World Warden has too much offensive nature when DK exists, DK, even after the nerf, is the largest Steamroll in PvP. Not to mention they have a skill that is Arctic Blast (although it's single target) but better.
Unblockable, Stun, Heal, and Damage, which the large driving factor of Arctic Blasts constant changes are because it's overloaded. I don't want Shattering Rocks nerfed. It's fine. But it does illustrate that Zos seems to want Warden to need to jump through hoops to do something that DK or other classes do, but worse.
I think the changes proposed by ESO_Nightingale are the way we need to go with the warden class for example:
The artic blast rework will offer an on demand stun for pvp and be more appealing for the master of ice in pve having 2 ice damge skills inside the winter's embrace skill line, that would be amazing!
The healing change to fungal growth it's needed because rn we don't have a great burst heal and you could say we have major mending and it's true but the reality is we need to go down 40% of the health and then try to heal but our heals don't get stronger as the health go down so almost all the time you try to heal spamming your heals, sometimes you live sometimes you don't and if you live almost all the time you will have 0 resources left so death it's the next to you.
Another problem with the healing is we have a skill line for healing but none are really good at least for pvp, you could say you have vines and yeah they are okey but nothing amazing and here is when we got another problem, warden need to use a lot of healing skills to stay alive so in fact you lose at least 3 skill slots plus maybe ultimate to be in pair to another classes in the healing department and taking a lot of slots making having really low options to have another damage skills or utility skills.
Warden has a lot of healing potential but it's not effective in Burst. Vines is great as a defensive heal to pad your life. Lotus is another pad to keep you up a bit. Healing Seeds is also a big heal but has a big delay so it's hard to use in emergency unless you have a team member to proc the burst early. Nature's Grasp also depends on an Ally to even use it.
In a solo situation, Warden's healing tree is basically just Trellis and rapid regen. I think the Spore tweak would be an easy fix, the harder fix that we've brought up before is reworking Bursting Vines as a Self Heal, which would actually be really nice since it's a pretty dead skill in my book.
Ah yes, that's what i meant to say the warden healing skills are okey for a healer but for solo play they all are cluky or slow and yeah we have some options like vines or lotus but for example if you use lotus, vines, vigor or rapids and a burst heal at least toks 4 slots.
Healing seed is kinda good but when you are running or moving around sometimes the heal don't get placed in the ground but you could see that the game is waiting for some weird confirmation to place the heal in the ground and could be fixed really easy if they make the heal to be like cleansing ritual and the heal gets placed around the caster.
I think a buff to fungal Growth, bursting vines, and artic blast would be amazing, i hope zos hear us.Edited by SEINTDARKNES on June 11, 2022 12:58PM1 -
Mr_Stach✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭ESO_Nightingale wrote: »skinnycheeks wrote: »thanks for the feedback. can't really comment much from a pvp perspective but "Double the duration of the frost damage cloak effect to finally allow it to be used in pve situations as a damage dealer" sounds pretty cool. Would be nice if the "frost mage" dps had more than 1 ice dmg ability used in their class kit.
The funny thing is that with High Isle we finally got a serious Frost DPS set from Whorls of the Deep. We have a nice utility with Brittle. Frost Reach as a good Spammable via Master Ice Staff. We're so close in PvE, if Arctic Blast was tweaked to be an AoE that was worth Casting, that would be amazing.
The thing with frost dps is it's only usable if it's damage is comparable to other classes with little damage loss. Currently in score running people are considering magden to be bad. Frostden is worse meaning you'd just run brittle on a tank. It's fine in more casual groups. But it still lacks frost damage skills.
That takes us to the next step of the Warden equation. The entire concept of the Brittleden playstyle is a Redundancy as Tanks run Frost Staff.
I think a large part of this is due to Destruction Staff HIGHLY favoring fire Staff as the "DPS Element" when the DESTRUCTION STAFF as a whole should be purely based as a Damage Skill Line.
I personally feel that Frost should go back to the Damage/CC it was in the past but also improve its damage potency across the board.Altoholic, Frost Warden Sympathizer and Main
Glacial Guardian - Main - Frost Warden Zealot
The Frost Man Cometh - PC Frost Backup2 -
ESO_Nightingale✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭ESO_Nightingale wrote: »skinnycheeks wrote: »thanks for the feedback. can't really comment much from a pvp perspective but "Double the duration of the frost damage cloak effect to finally allow it to be used in pve situations as a damage dealer" sounds pretty cool. Would be nice if the "frost mage" dps had more than 1 ice dmg ability used in their class kit.
The funny thing is that with High Isle we finally got a serious Frost DPS set from Whorls of the Deep. We have a nice utility with Brittle. Frost Reach as a good Spammable via Master Ice Staff. We're so close in PvE, if Arctic Blast was tweaked to be an AoE that was worth Casting, that would be amazing.
The thing with frost dps is it's only usable if it's damage is comparable to other classes with little damage loss. Currently in score running people are considering magden to be bad. Frostden is worse meaning you'd just run brittle on a tank. It's fine in more casual groups. But it still lacks frost damage skills.
That takes us to the next step of the Warden equation. The entire concept of the Brittleden playstyle is a Redundancy as Tanks run Frost Staff.
I think a large part of this is due to Destruction Staff HIGHLY favoring fire Staff as the "DPS Element" when the DESTRUCTION STAFF as a whole should be purely based as a Damage Skill Line.
I personally feel that Frost should go back to the Damage/CC it was in the past but also improve its damage potency across the board.
I'd feel like it'd be in a more acceptable place if it's destro skills actually had good effects for dps as well as getting arctic blast as a legit damage skill.PvE Frost Warden Main and teacher. Come Join the ESO Frost Discord to discuss everything frost!: https://discord.gg/5PT3rQX3 -
Mr_Stach✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Yeah I really think that Zos could do a lot more to make the outliers among class morphs and abilities better. This Arctic Blast change would be a great First Step to making Magicka Warden a better class.Altoholic, Frost Warden Sympathizer and Main
Glacial Guardian - Main - Frost Warden Zealot
The Frost Man Cometh - PC Frost Backup0 -
FrankonPC✭✭✭✭✭This is a lot of really great points and some good changes.
Something still bothers me with the Developer Comment though:This ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden
I don't know in what World Warden has too much offensive nature when DK exists, DK, even after the nerf, is the largest Steamroll in PvP. Not to mention they have a skill that is Arctic Blast (although it's single target) but better.
Unblockable, Stun, Heal, and Damage, which the large driving factor of Arctic Blasts constant changes are because it's overloaded. I don't want Shattering Rocks nerfed. It's fine. But it does illustrate that Zos seems to want Warden to need to jump through hoops to do something that DK or other classes do, but worse.
I came in to comment this and I agree. Arctic blast in general has always been a weird stun. I've felt it's always worked better defensively than offensively. Ofc once you get used to it it can be a good option, but my biggest concern is the apparent lack of understanding of what the best classes in pvp are. if you think warden and their "offensive nature" is crazy, wait until you see the two offensive kits that heal you on a large portion of their skills(templar and DK) that ALSO have unblockable ccs, but they're instant. Plus, their offensive kit is just better overall and nobody in pvp would really disagree.
To me, what zenimax does on the pve end is great and they really have top notch devs in that regard. It's tough to be really knowledgeable in both and playing either occasionally just doesn't get you there. It just doesn't seem like they have a finger on the pulse of what the pvp meta is. This dev comment shows it imo. Just find some pvp'ers that play regularly whose opinions you trust and bounce ideas off them. You will have a better product.3 -
Mr_Stach✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭This is a lot of really great points and some good changes.
Something still bothers me with the Developer Comment though:This ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden
I don't know in what World Warden has too much offensive nature when DK exists, DK, even after the nerf, is the largest Steamroll in PvP. Not to mention they have a skill that is Arctic Blast (although it's single target) but better.
Unblockable, Stun, Heal, and Damage, which the large driving factor of Arctic Blasts constant changes are because it's overloaded. I don't want Shattering Rocks nerfed. It's fine. But it does illustrate that Zos seems to want Warden to need to jump through hoops to do something that DK or other classes do, but worse.
I came in to comment this and I agree. Arctic blast in general has always been a weird stun. I've felt it's always worked better defensively than offensively. Ofc once you get used to it it can be a good option, but my biggest concern is the apparent lack of understanding of what the best classes in pvp are. if you think warden and their "offensive nature" is crazy, wait until you see the two offensive kits that heal you on a large portion of their skills(templar and DK) that ALSO have unblockable ccs, but they're instant. Plus, their offensive kit is just better overall and nobody in pvp would really disagree.
To me, what zenimax does on the pve end is great and they really have top notch devs in that regard. It's tough to be really knowledgeable in both and playing either occasionally just doesn't get you there. It just doesn't seem like they have a finger on the pulse of what the pvp meta is. This dev comment shows it imo. Just find some pvp'ers that play regularly whose opinions you trust and bounce ideas off them. You will have a better product.
This is where the Class Reps should come in. There are just different needs between PvE and PvP, and I think each class should have different representation for each. I know that the class rep system is Either Defunct or happening in the background, but whoever is giving driving these changes doesn't have the perspective of someone who really dives in and Mains their class.
Altoholic, Frost Warden Sympathizer and Main
Glacial Guardian - Main - Frost Warden Zealot
The Frost Man Cometh - PC Frost Backup0 -
Mr_Stach✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭The Real Godzilla actually had a pretty decent post about PvP balance yesterday on his channel.
I think that Zos needs to be careful on how they Address Magden, it's not going to be as easy as tweaking a number or in the most recent case, slapping a defensive stun on Slab, magden needs some very specific things and beating around the bush will not fix the issue.
I work in design, we use Design Sprints to tackle specific issues, if the scope is too large (ie. Magden is bad and needs to be fixed) we will never get to the right place, which is why it's important to focus on the root issue, (ie. Magden feels bad to play, due to lacking X or Y) we are really trying to focus on one of Wardens biggest pain points, Warden lacking an On Demand Stun.
Just as @ESO_Nightingale has stated, our proposed change for Arctic Blast fixes one issue, the stun, but opens up a different issue, lacking a good Self-Heal (Which Arctic Blast is not a great Self Heal anyways due to it scaling with Max Health).
Hopefully, our suggestions really drive some change. And we are definitely aware that Zos will probably not share anything on if they are addressing this issue until it's ready. But hopefully Something is happening in the near future.
Altoholic, Frost Warden Sympathizer and Main
Glacial Guardian - Main - Frost Warden Zealot
The Frost Man Cometh - PC Frost Backup3 -
Winstonshead✭✭✭Something is happening in the near future.
Well, will see.
Many years wardens (dps-role) was not good, as others.EU: Winstonshead
MD-ESO [RU]0 -
ESO_Nightingale✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Winstonshead wrote: »
Yep they may continue to utterly ignore us. They always say to report problems. But they never seem to fix them.PvE Frost Warden Main and teacher. Come Join the ESO Frost Discord to discuss everything frost!: https://discord.gg/5PT3rQX2 -
Mr_Stach✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭ESO_Nightingale wrote: »Winstonshead wrote: »
Yep they may continue to utterly ignore us. They always say to report problems. But they never seem to fix them.
I honestly don't know what the hold up is, Magicka Warden has been a serious Pain Point for years, they're considered to be the worst spec in PvP, and even in PvE, everything they bring to the table via Brittle is Redundant with Tanks providing it.
Hopefully Zos is doing something behind closed doors, and I get not sharing till they have something real to share, but at least letting the community know that something is being worked on to improve Magden, that would go a long way.
The silence is deafening and people are getting exhausted calling for action every single patch.Altoholic, Frost Warden Sympathizer and Main
Glacial Guardian - Main - Frost Warden Zealot
The Frost Man Cometh - PC Frost Backup5 -
ESO_Nightingale✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭ESO_Nightingale wrote: »Winstonshead wrote: »
Yep they may continue to utterly ignore us. They always say to report problems. But they never seem to fix them.
I honestly don't know what the hold up is, Magicka Warden has been a serious Pain Point for years, they're considered to be the worst spec in PvP, and even in PvE, everything they bring to the table via Brittle is Redundant with Tanks providing it.
Hopefully Zos is doing something behind closed doors, and I get not sharing till they have something real to share, but at least letting the community know that something is being worked on to improve Magden, that would go a long way.
The silence is deafening and people are getting exhausted calling for action every single patch.
given the amount of responses on our pts threads, it feels awful to hear nothing.
i mean, doesn't this say something?PvE Frost Warden Main and teacher. Come Join the ESO Frost Discord to discuss everything frost!: https://discord.gg/5PT3rQX0 -
Winstonshead✭✭✭
It should be.ESO_Nightingale wrote: »i mean, doesn't this say something?EU: Winstonshead
MD-ESO [RU]0 -
Mr_Stach✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Great video by Isth3reno1else on Arctic Blast and general disconnect of Feedback between Zos and the PvP Community
https://youtu.be/4Z_tBjsY_y8 Altoholic, Frost Warden Sympathizer and Main
Glacial Guardian - Main - Frost Warden Zealot
The Frost Man Cometh - PC Frost Backup1 -
Aldoss✭✭✭✭✭
✭I think it's weird for a company to make the decision to flat out not comment on 99% of all grievances shared by their players.
Magden is consistently ranked as bottom tier by nearly everyone and it's been this way for a long time.
The only comment made regarding warden recently was that one developer comment in U34 patch notes that I'd bet not even one player agrees with. If they're going to make a developer comment on a nerf, they should be available to discussion on that comment and the reasoning behind the decision.
The comment made is completely not based in any reality and likely hasn't been true for at least a year or more. There is barely any offensive nature present in a magden, let alone one that would be considered in need of down regulating.
At least with the combustion nerf, you could tell that there were people who fell on both sides of the decision and could extrapolate why combustion was attacked as hard as it was. I'd argue no further comment is needed by the devs on that change because of the clear split in support or against the change.
By contrast, no one agreed with the arctic change because it literally made no sense. The comment has been quoted numerous times by different people, some who don't even play warden, with disbelief that anyone on the dev team could come to the conclusion that warden possesses too much offensive nature. This deserves a comment and some acknowledgement from any ZOS employee to further the discussion.
I'm disappointed by the job done so far by ZOS to "improve" their communication this year. It's clear no one on the dev team plays warden seriously enough to understand why it fails so hard in today's meta.4 -
ESO_Nightingale✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Great, now they're getting rid of the class rep program. It hasn't felt like they even listened to them anyway. But it's another avenue gone.PvE Frost Warden Main and teacher. Come Join the ESO Frost Discord to discuss everything frost!: https://discord.gg/5PT3rQX2 -
MacRibs✭✭✭Unfortunately the elemental identity of frost is lost between being a tank element and some lost attempts of being damage element, as it stands if you look at the wardens Winter's Embrace there are no really useful damage skills, the entire skill line is mostly tank oriented and the worst is that there are better versions of them in the game from other classes, skills that are similar but work way better and are more versatile.
Impaling Shards and its morphs are weak skills on their own but are even worse if you compare them with Ash Cloud which is an insanely better and more versatile skill or even Boneyard which ironically is a frost damage skill, hell at this point even Razor Caltrops is a better option.
Then you have the new Crystallized Slab that while being better than the older version when compared with other similar skills already in the game its very weak, skills like Dragon Fire Scale which gives you a better protection against projectiles while being way better offensively, Defensive Rune gives a way better, easy to trigger and effective stun or even Living Dark which has a more easy and effective snare and even heals you more than Living Vines another warden skill.
Artic Wind and its morphs is a skill that has and identity problem it tries to be a healing ability and a damage ability and fails at both, the heal is weak, the damage is not enough, the stun is ridiculous a skill that has a 5 second uptime and needs to hit 5 times to stun makes no sense. Revert Polar Wind to the old healing scaling and reduce the damage then, like was suggested above, remove the healing from Arctic Wind, increase the damage and the uptime, between heal or damage be one or the other both at the same time clearly doesn't work.
Frozen Gate only has a usable morph being Frozen Device which again is a tank oriented skill, the bare minimum that can be done is at least rework Frozen Retreat into something else, an instant stun like a ice version of Shattering Prison which the warden is in dire need of, or even entire skill and morphs, there isn't much that can be said about it, most people agree that this a mostly a useless, clunky ability that barely anyone uses.
But even then another problem is the Ancient Knowledge Ice Staff passive the most incomprehensible and inconsistent thing that we have right now, it gives 0 offensive bonus is a full on tank passive and the worst part is that isn't even useful one specially in pvp, they looked at Fortress and Sword and Board passives and took only the block related part of both and made the Ice Staff passive, if they want to make Ice Staves the magicka version of Sword and Board at least also give them the complete bonuses from the passives they salvaged to do so, the increase to Weapon and Spell Damage by 5% from Sword and Board and the 15% cost reduction to Weapon related abilities from Fortress which still would be worst than Inferno and Lightning staves.
There has been amazing feedback and ideas from multiple people, there are many which have invested their time investigating, calculating and presenting solutions to solve problems we have with the warden right now and its a shame we have no feedback from anyone and the recent ending of the class representative program surprised no one. Some ideas are great and should be considered or at least tested in the game.Edited by MacRibs on June 17, 2022 1:10AM2 -
doesurmindglow✭✭✭✭✭Shoot unfortunately I had just posted IsThereNo1Else's video on another thread as I did not see this one. But I agree with the sentiments here.
This was a really poorly conceived change that was compounded by the failure to listen to the feedback that was provided during the PTS cycle. I too am stunned and disappointed that a change so obviously bad as this one actually went live.Guildmaster : The Wild Hunt (formerly Aka Baka) : AD PC/NA0 -
Brrrofski✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭I mean, a stun tied to a heal is just dumb.
Just make Arctic Wind two different heals and add a useful stun to one of the other warden skills.
Does anyone use the non tank morph of the portal skill? Just make that a stun of some sort.0 -
MacRibs✭✭✭I mean, a stun tied to a heal is just dumb.
Just make Arctic Wind two different heals and add a useful stun to one of the other warden skills.
Does anyone use the non tank morph of the portal skill? Just make that a stun of some sort.
A skill that heals, does damage, stuns and still manages to underperform is an achievement.
I've played Warden healer, tank, dps, pvp since it came out with morrowind Frozen Gate is the ability you try once to see how it works and never again barely anyone uses it but the devs know that, they have the analytics for which skills are overused and underused they have stated it countless times when reworking other skills, most classes already have some underused skills and morphs reworked or tweaked some long time ago one would think frozen gate would also be in line for a rework but to this day nothing came out of it.0 -
ESO_Nightingale✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I mean, a stun tied to a heal is just dumb.
Just make Arctic Wind two different heals and add a useful stun to one of the other warden skills.
Does anyone use the non tank morph of the portal skill? Just make that a stun of some sort.
we don't need another healing skill that scales off wep/spell damage. we have an entire line already that needs to be improved.
arctic blast should be repurposed either purely for damage or for damage and stunning.PvE Frost Warden Main and teacher. Come Join the ESO Frost Discord to discuss everything frost!: https://discord.gg/5PT3rQX4 -
ESO_Nightingale✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I mean, a stun tied to a heal is just dumb.
Just make Arctic Wind two different heals and add a useful stun to one of the other warden skills.
Does anyone use the non tank morph of the portal skill? Just make that a stun of some sort.
A skill that heals, does damage, stuns and still manages to underperform is an achievement.
I've played Warden healer, tank, dps, pvp since it came out with morrowind Frozen Gate is the ability you try once to see how it works and never again barely anyone uses it but the devs know that, they have the analytics for which skills are overused and underused they have stated it countless times when reworking other skills, most classes already have some underused skills and morphs reworked or tweaked some long time ago one would think frozen gate would also be in line for a rework but to this day nothing came out of it.
I thought at least that they would have changed it. But they didn't. They didn't even change screaming cliff racer either.PvE Frost Warden Main and teacher. Come Join the ESO Frost Discord to discuss everything frost!: https://discord.gg/5PT3rQX0 -
Mr_Stach✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭So with the "Sunsetting of the Class Rep Program" I'm really hoping that this along with a lot of our other feedback with be more direct or better yet, Zos will be more direct with us. It's very imperative that this be an open dialogue between Developer and Consumer, or at least Consumer and Community Managers.
Warden is just really missing pieces to make it where it needs to be to really be effective, part of that is an on demand stun and we've been getting tripped up over Arctic Blast for 5 years, this fix would be a 2 birds with one stone situation, we can move on to fix those other pieces.
Altoholic, Frost Warden Sympathizer and Main
Glacial Guardian - Main - Frost Warden Zealot
The Frost Man Cometh - PC Frost Backup2