So I guess my Non-frost Wardens are Mules now?

Janni · January 2023

I've had a fun ride with my wardens but it really looks like the changes to them over the last year and a half really just killed every single aspect of them. Stam brawler, Archer, and Hybrid DD/Healer (which was unique at the time because hybrids were very uncommon). I know that currently they are very popular in PvP due to the changes that allow them to synergize better with frost. And I'm glad for everyone that was rallying for that. I really am. But I just wish somehow it hadn't come to the detriment of every build that I came up with myself and loved to death. Ah well.

I guess I'm just a bit curious about the reasoning behind the change to the Shimmering Shield change though...

ZoS: Shimmering shield is enabling too much defensive power for the Warden against ranged opponents.
Also ZoS: Mist form now teleports you to the position of your cursor, up to a maximum of 15 meters away, and reduce your damage taken from the next 3 projectiles by 100% while teleporting.

ESO_Nightingale · January 2023

Janni wrote: »

I've had a fun ride with my wardens but it really looks like the changes to them over the last year and a half really just killed every single aspect of them. Stam brawler, Archer, and Hybrid DD/Healer (which was unique at the time because hybrids were very uncommon). I know that currently they are very popular in PvP due to the changes that allow them to synergize better with frost. And I'm glad for everyone that was rallying for that. I really am. But I just wish somehow it hadn't come to the detriment of every build that I came up with myself and loved to death. Ah well.

I guess I'm just a bit curious about the reasoning behind the change to the Shimmering Shield change though...

ZoS: Shimmering shield is enabling too much defensive power for the Warden against ranged opponents.
Also ZoS: Mist form now teleports you to the position of your cursor, up to a maximum of 15 meters away, and reduce your damage taken from the next 3 projectiles by 100% while teleporting.

i certainly wished they leant in a bit more with bleeds on the animal companions skill line. would be badass if sub assault did bleed damage and caused a seperate bleed to proc in tandem with cutting dive and growing swarm. a bleed passive that helps penetration or something would be nice.

TheTuSiK · February 2023

Warden got a passive rework that increases their damage done by 10% by wearing a weapon made for tanking. While fire or lighting destro get bonuses like boost to heavy attacks and st abilities or aoe ha and boost to aoes, ice staff increases the amount of damage you can block, reduces the cost of blocking and makes your block cost mag instead of stam (like Warden and their sustain need more mag draining). This is stupid. And stamdens are just dead. Idk why they decided to go for those changes, I had a lot of fun playing Warden in u33 and u34, now it's not the same.

ESO_Nightingale · February 2023

TheTuSiK wrote: »

Warden got a passive rework that increases their damage done by 10% by wearing a weapon made for tanking. While fire or lighting destro get bonuses like boost to heavy attacks and st abilities or aoe ha and boost to aoes, ice staff increases the amount of damage you can block, reduces the cost of blocking and makes your block cost mag instead of stam (like Warden and their sustain need more mag draining). This is stupid. And stamdens are just dead. Idk why they decided to go for those changes, I had a lot of fun playing Warden in u33 and u34, now it's not the same.

yeah tri focus is not a passive i'll ever take. i'll say i'm definitely not a massive fan of the way they went around changing piercing cold the glacial change was great however, but i think it'd be cool if they leant into the bleed theme a bit more for stamina wardens or speciallised the huge frost staff bonus into only increasing frost damage meaning that you'd only really get a big boost if you were running a lot of frost skills on an ice staff, something to that effect. 2% increased damage done in general is not really a lot, it should be closer to 4 or 5% in general.

OBJnoob · February 2023

I've been playing a Warden since u35, first a hybridy stamden and later a full blown pvp Magden with an ice staff. Very happy with my magdens performance in pvp... But I know that isn't saying much because they are very strong.

I thought being "forced" to run a frost staff was a pretty dumb change... But I went with it.

None of the new changes to warden are going to effect my build at all. I don't use crystallized shield and I didn't use wall of elements. Here's what bugs me:

I already saw some wardens using stam weapons that were better than my magden. Not a terrible thing-- they might've just been better than me or had a better build. I understand that DW or 2H comes with an execute (that wardens need,) and better damage passives and base damage... And this matches or maybe even exceeds the bonus of using a frost staff. No problem, people should have more than one way to play.

But NOW. Now that wrecking blow is going to give major berserk... Frost Staff really has no benefits. So in hindsight the whole frost staff thing is even sillier than it was in foresight. Ultimately we just lost 10% damage to magic and frost damage.

And again, it's "okay," because wardens are going to be fine. I just don't understand what the point of it all was.

ESO_Nightingale · February 2023

OBJnoob wrote: »

I've been playing a Warden since u35, first a hybridy stamden and later a full blown pvp Magden with an ice staff. Very happy with my magdens performance in pvp... But I know that isn't saying much because they are very strong.

I thought being "forced" to run a frost staff was a pretty dumb change... But I went with it.

None of the new changes to warden are going to effect my build at all. I don't use crystallized shield and I didn't use wall of elements. Here's what bugs me:

I already saw some wardens using stam weapons that were better than my magden. Not a terrible thing-- they might've just been better than me or had a better build. I understand that DW or 2H comes with an execute (that wardens need,) and better damage passives and base damage... And this matches or maybe even exceeds the bonus of using a frost staff. No problem, people should have more than one way to play.

But NOW. Now that wrecking blow is going to give major berserk... Frost Staff really has no benefits. So in hindsight the whole frost staff thing is even sillier than it was in foresight. Ultimately we just lost 10% damage to magic and frost damage.

And again, it's "okay," because wardens are going to be fine. I just don't understand what the point of it all was.

We also lost some raw damage from the animal companions line too since the crit damage was replacing the glacial presence chilled buff which doesn't mean a ton if you're not at least applying some chilled.

selig_fay · February 2023

They gave now guaranteed bleeding for the bird. I have a question. How much can a warden be overclocked if i use its damage buff for a frost debuff (what is the first damage on proc) + add a set to increase the duration of debuffs + add a bird with a bear + add 3 abilities that can proc fire + glyph? As I understand it, different skills are different sources, but I don't really know how much damage the negative effects do.

OBJnoob · February 2023

@ESO_Nightingale Sorry that went over my head, can you rephrase that somehow I don't understand? The buff to chilled proc (glacial presense,) and the animal companions thing are different and separate. One is not a replacement for the other.

My magden I was talking about, even though it uses an ice staff, really didn't do a lot of frost damage. I use Hrothgar's on him for a guaranteed AoE chilled proc which, with an ice staff, also does brittle. I was only using 1... No, make that 2, animal companion abilities front bar, but anyway that was how I decided to do it.

Stx · February 2023

Every change they have made to warden over the last year has reduced build diversity. They removed the magic damage bonus (no more synergy with vamp spammable, war maiden set, magic dots from mages guild etc etc). They nerfed winters revenge to only deal full damage with a destro staff.. so much for play how you want right? You’ll use a destro staff and you’ll like it!

ESO_Nightingale · February 2023

OBJnoob wrote: »

@ESO_Nightingale Sorry that went over my head, can you rephrase that somehow I don't understand? The buff to chilled proc (glacial presense,) and the animal companions thing are different and separate. One is not a replacement for the other.

My magden I was talking about, even though it uses an ice staff, really didn't do a lot of frost damage. I use Hrothgar's on him for a guaranteed AoE chilled proc which, with an ice staff, also does brittle. I was only using 1... No, make that 2, animal companion abilities front bar, but anyway that was how I decided to do it.

In basic terms, the damage passive distribution was reshuffled. All of the old bonuses we had were only fully returned to frost wardens who use ice staves.

OBJnoob · February 2023

Ah. Yes I think I understand. Because you need an ice staff for brittle, and brittle only really makes sense if you're taking advantage of other crit passives.

I agree. Never liked the +crit damage myself-- much preferred the penetration or even the damage done.

Janni · February 2023

@OBJnoob Yeah, I really didn't mind the penetration passive but between loosing that and having a pretty big nerf to Deep Fissure AND having DoTs reduced to less than uselessness really hurt my last remaining build.

I might be the only person in the world that actually used cutting dive back when it stacked bleed. My only guess is that one of those trolls tanks I killed using it (along with the 57 other people helping) must have been a dev and said 'never again' when it showed up on their recap? Like literally no one ever complained about it so I don't know how they justified it being too oppressive.

As for my point here, the last remaining tool in non-frost toolkit WAS shimmering shield. Now they are reducing the damage it protects from AND making it much harder to sustain. I already run tripots and betty netch on my stam melee warden and keeping it up at all times just isn't possible. And it really doesn't shut down a good player with a strong build even if they are all range. Elemental and Crushing weapon BOTH ignore it completely. Force shock will also make very quick work of the shield. Even with just a light attack and another ranged spammable it's very easy for someone to burn the shield down instantly which means I need to quickly decide if I a) close the gap and keep pressure up b) reapply the shield, thus loosing a gcd with no further attacks or healing of c) call it off, retreat somewhere safe and reassess. Yeah the shield is strong against ranged player but isn't that the point? Like if it wasn't strong I wouldn't use it at all! Which is what will be happening I guess. Glad I moved to sorc last patch as my main. For a melee stam playstyle it just feels so much better right now.

Edit: Forgot to reiterate that I still find the logic baffling. Like the shield is too strong against ranged players yet we can give an anti-ranged defense to something else? The reasoning is really just what annoys me.

Necrotech_Master · February 2023

i use fairly nonstandard warden builds, though my mag warden definitely performs a little better than the stam warden

the stam warden i ended up fully leaning into a WW spec instead of being like half and half (using oakensoul to fill in buff gaps on WW, and because being in WW only uses 1 bar anyway), so hes effective, but only in WW form, kind of lackluster in human form but like OKish with the master 2h for big cleave

the mag warden lost a bit of dmg with the u35/u36 changes, but overall still plays much better and the toon i usually used for running vet solo arenas (this toon had my first completion in vMA and vVH, though i used a different toon for the vVH trifecta due to the lack of dmg on the warden)

the deep fissure change along with the heavy attack changes in u35 are what hurt my mag warden the most, i would originally do a sort of heavy attack weave with deep fissure and the heavy attack, but having that extra 6 sec proc on there its like i know its a waste of resources to recast, but at the same time waiting those 6 sec is too long and i dont have another spammable to use, but the skill is still good enough to keep on the bar

lQrukl · February 2023

Janni wrote: »

I've had a fun ride with my wardens but it really looks like the changes to them over the last year and a half really just killed every single aspect of them. Stam brawler, Archer, and Hybrid DD/Healer (which was unique at the time because hybrids were very uncommon). I know that currently they are very popular in PvP due to the changes that allow them to synergize better with frost. And I'm glad for everyone that was rallying for that. I really am. But I just wish somehow it hadn't come to the detriment of every build that I came up with myself and loved to death. Ah well.

Welcome to the club! Forced to play frontbar daggers on my magplar instead of inferno staff for last 2 years...
At least my friends who main magwarden are happy that they can frontbar destro staff :,)

OBJnoob · February 2023

@Janni @Necrotech_Master Funny you both bring up things I'd almost forgotten. My first magden ever, years and years ago, was a DoT build. I don't think anyone else was running it (on my platform anyway,) I was Inferno/Lightning, using Fetcherflies, Degeneration, and the Soul Magic DoT. Back then they all had tooltips of about 1k every second. Mix in some double dot poisons and some birds with Valkyn Skoria and people would be taking a LOT of pressure. It'd make them want to get close to me... But then I'd swap bars and meet them with a deep fissure and pulsar combo.

It was kinda the only DoT build I ever had for PvP. Years later when they nerfed dots I guess it didn't really matter to me. It sounds like they're removing the off balance criteria for the bleed now though Janni perhaps you'll be able to try that style again?

The increase in time between fissures didn't really bother me either it'd been a long time since I played warden and I didn't take it as personally as some people. I think maybe I even enjoy having to cast it less often? Imagine like a competitive BG where you're involved in like a 3v3v3 fight. I treat deep fissure like a debuff, just keeping it up and facing my character towards the biggest cluster, though I may be on my backbar a lot of the time healing myself teammates or whatever.

I think in one small way it's even a buff to warden defense-- being able to do so much between fissures. You don't feel as locked to your front bar hoping to "see something through."

Azyle1 · February 2023

I just wanna know if StamWarden is decent now with bird changes and whatever else changed since I stopped when they ruined it last year around August or so.

OBJnoob · February 2023

@Azyle1 Really depends on if you mean PvE or PvP. In pvp they are good, but I think at the very least you'd want to run mag sub assault for the penetration. In organized "important" PvE I think Wardens are used for the brittle debuff and are therefore mostly mag. But, on the flip side, since the tank is probably debuffing for you, you'd want to use stam sub assault.

Dalsinthus · February 2023

When warden was announced with the Morrowind release, Rich on ESO Live stated that the class was designed to provide a range stamina option to the game, something that had previously been lacking. Rich said he was really interested to see if people played it as a ranged stamina build.

I have played mine this way, as an archer, ever since. It's become my main and my favorite character. I've done nearly every DLC dungeon perfecta on it, including Graven on Tuesday. It works, but it struggles compared to other set ups. I play it because this is the character I want to play in an MMO, not because the game makes it a high performing option.

The changes of 2022, basically are telling me I'm playing warden the wrong way. Some of the patch notes even indicate that stam warden is over performing (changes from raw damage, to pen, to crit damage, a capped stat). You have to use an ice staff or get very little out of your passives and have winter's revenge, the class aoe dot, be high cost and low damage. It's frustrating, particularly as the game's current version of the warden is not what was sold to me when I purchased and embraced the class.

I am glad the ice dps works now on the warden. But stam wardens are a thing and we also deserve some love.

emilyhyoyeon · February 2023

It's sad because there was no need to tie the ice destruction staff to warden to reduce the effectiveness gap between ice mages and fire mages. The changes have to be done within the destruction staff line itself. Period.

Janni · February 2023

@Dalsinthus My favorite way to play my wardens in PvP was as an archer. I made my first build during the no-proc tests and upgraded it after they re-enabled them later. In both cases it felt great and played in a very unique way. But it feels like every single patch it was harder and harder to play the style. Players became tankier, then crit damage (the main source of my damage) became less effective, then some changes to the bow. And the after a calm period and out of the blue they just whacked warden across the head with a frying pan and said no more bows!

The final remaining strategy for me was to be able to use shimmering shield to force my opponent's hand. If they wanted to fight range I could outrange them with snipe and stop some of their attacks with my shield. If they tried to close the gap I'd have deep fissue in their face waiting for them. And I moved FAST so I could choose what range to fight and make my opponents uncomfortable. But now everyone is fast all of the time. Crit damage barely does anything with rallying cry being so common. And my final element, the ability to absorb some damage at range and force my opponent onto their back foot has been taken away. There's just no way with the new shield I can possibly use proactively to my advantage anymore. I can't sustain it at all.