I've been playing warden ever since the Morrowind Chapter released and fell in love with the class. I've stuck with the class when buffs and debuffs had their increased potency (major protection doing 30% dmg reduction) and even stuck with it when the artic blast skill got that weird five second until stun nerf. Suffice to say I enjoy the playstyle of this class a lot. Even so I wish some skills were adjusted a bit. The reason I came to this reasoning is because the class is honestly very well balanced. I know that may seem strange since warden does have some struggles as a PVE dps at times but it does have very good healing potential and some good tanking options. I play warden as a tank and I am off and on with a stam/mag pvp build to kind of give context to my thoughts. This is all my opinion but I'm interested in what other warden players think of some of the skills as well.

Animal Companions

So for this skill line I kind of wish some of the magic dmg skill morphs would be converted to ice dmg. As an example screaming cliff racer would do the same dmg and have the same passive ability but would instead do ice dmg instead of magic dmg. The reason I wish this was was the case is because there isn't too many ice dmg abilities outside of proc sets and destruction staff abilities. There are sets that can increase the dmg of ice abilities but most of the ice abilities do not hit nearly has hard as other elemental abilities. I would probably say screaming cliff racer and deep fissure would probably be the ones I would have with the ice dmg since it gives a decent single target spammable and a large burst that does the wardens prefer dmg type in the mag area. For stamina I would probably increase the bleed somewhat for cutting dive. Ten seconds is kind of long for the bleed dmg. I won't do the actual numbers but I haven't slotted it ever since the ability was changed. Some other ideas for it would be to place a stackable bleed up to 3 times (obviously for less dmg over time but can bring the bleed up to a very powerful amount) or doing something similar with screaming cliff race where if you use the skill on an enemy that is off balance the bleed dmg triples. Subterranean assault honestly should probably be burst bleed dmg instead of poison. This skill weirdly enough is the only poison dmg skill in the warden line up and feels fairly under power at the moment in comparison to deep fissure. Stam and mag builds all seem to use the mag skill for the same reason, major breech, and more burst dmg after waiting for the second shalk to come up. To make subterranean a decent option bleed dmg would be a start since there are more bleed dmg in the wardens line up and works better for builds center around that. There are also sets that can work on top of this dmg and can make builds centered around this. I would say the best thing for the morph would probably be a bleed effect on the second hit for x amount of dmg over 5 seconds (I'm not good with numbers but the shorter time on the dot works in conjunction with my ideas for cutting dive to place dot pressure on the stam side). I never had a problem with the other active skills and I think they are in a good spot right now. The advanced species passive is up for debate. I think the critical dmg is fine in my opinion since another passive has taken over the dmg increasing but I'm a bit conflicted with that one.

Green balance

Fungal growth and its morphs needs either a cost reduction or a higher scaled healing. Its very hard to run either morph on my bars because of its high cost and I can get more healing from other abilities like polar wind (about the same cost but has better scaling and I don't need to target other players in a cone) or budding seeds (an aoe for less cost, more healing, but slightly slower for burst). I think the stamina morph could receive a better heal while the magicka morph receives a cost reduction I think that would be best since I do like the mag ability's minor intellect and minor endurance. I personally may be not using the skill correctly but I always feel like I get almost no health back and I end up using all of my magicka when trying to get out of high dmg situation. The other skill I think needs something extra is nature's grasp. I don't really know any healers or tanks in both pve and pvp that really use this skill. I think part of the reason is because it brings the support to an ally where a lot of dmg may already be occurring. The ult regen is nice and you can get around by vining to your allies in a positioning game during some bosses. But most of the time its usually better to run something else most of the time. Its still a very powerful heal but it's also single target. I think bursting vines can probably stay the same if the ability can't really be changed too much but I think the nature's embrace may be better as a tanking option (kind of like silver leash from the fighters guild). It would give warden tanks a magicka chain similar to the dragon knight but instead of doing fire dmg it would do light mag dmg and give a small burst heal as well (significantly reduced from the other morph) it would taunt like the other chains as well.

Winter's embrace

Expansive frost cloak I think is being under utilized probably due to the fact that most most builds utilize some way of getting major resolve. While I think the effect and cost reduction are great I think the lack of minor protection from the other morph causes expansive to not be as used as often. Maybe having a light ice dmg passive to the cloak for everyone affected or a slight heal over time? Not sure. Would honestly like some feedback on how everyone feels about this on. Winter's revenge I think should be based off of your offensive stat. Most players that tend to run with the skill are dps or in a pvp setting so max health isn't necessarily a focus. The dmg is a little on the low side so a tank with decent health can get the most out of the skill now but tanks tend to run with gripping for our aoe immobilization. Also I think it has already been said before but we need a skill rework for the frozen device and its morphs. I was told as a tank to use them as my pull but they felt very clunky and a bit awkward to place in comparison to silver leash where all I have to do is point at the enemy I want to chain and chain them I don't think I ever slotted them again after one encounter in a dlc dungeon. I think the best thing for this would probably be something similar to corrupting pollen and budding seeds where one morph has a group buff like minor courage while in the area of effect and the other morph having a debuff option like minor maim with some ice dmg. I think others have said better things about that ability so I won't go into further details. I think the piercing cold morph should be adjusted so it would fit other play styles. The ice staff requirement for the most dmg defiantly feels restricting. Maybe adjusting the 12% damage to ice abilities and having other skills with a 5% increase. This would only be viable if something like the animal companion skill suggestions go through. Still a focus on ice but less restrictive.

Anyway those are my thoughts on the class right now. As a minor note I don't mind the slight nerf to artic blast having a delayed stun. The reason for this is the on demand stun in a pvp setting can be costly since the stun can be blocked. I found myself trying to stun but ended up wasting all my magicka as a result. I did like the on demand stun in a pve setting though when doing solo arenas which helped give me some breathing room. I personally don't mind the 2 seconds though (probably due to the fact I was used to the stun coming out after 3 and 5 seconds) since I can set up a very large burst that goes into a stun and immobilize quite nicely.

I'm interested in what others think of these ideas (especially from those that generally dps and heal since I don't normally play those roles) or if you have some better ideas for the skills I listed or didn't list. I by no means think any of these changes will get implemented anytime soon if at all (99.999999% probably not) but I kind of want to get the conversation going to hopefully help the class improve in the future and give more reasons to play the class in every role.