As a Dragonknight main who moved to being a Warden Main a very long while back (because who doesn't love bears.) I know a fair bit of what your saying (but not the complete picture hence why delegation for "paws" and effect is necessary.)

Scorch: the damage on it is pretty high, even moreso when built into it properly, and the time it takes between bursts, you would be right about the use of skills in between, but there is also the time for resource recovery via heavy attack if needed, while I find subterranean assault to be good for a poison stamina morph despite having less damage on the second tick which happens quicker, I usually have a better time with deep fissure as the added armor debuffs and the chonky damage on the second tick, quite nasty, and on the off-chance it somehow manages to proc the overcharge status effect, it helps a smidge with magicka sustain. On that note, it is technically a form of delayed burst damage and really, unless someone is trying too hard to be a top DPS on a target dummy, it ain't gonna do too well in a real situation such as an actual vet trial or group dungeon where knowledge of mechanics is likely to take greater presidence. (except in cases like rockgrove where some mechs are dps checks but thats another topic for a different time.)

Fetcher infection: I know of this pain, hence why I prefer Growing swarm as the AoE damage to enemies near the target is too good to pass up (even though it can only be applied to one target at a time unlike its magicka morph), while the 60% bonus damage every second cast on fetcher infection is a pain, I find it teaches one about target frugality, specifically, reserving the first cast for weaker targets while saving the second cast with the 60% bonus for more tougher targets that you know will still be roughly alive enough to suffer a full 20 seconds while using other abilities in the wardens toolkit, that and being able to have fetcher infection applied to more than one target which is nice.

Dive: where do I begin, I feel as though honestly It could fly faster like back in the morrowind expansion days, I don't mind the noise (just a me thing on that one) and there should be some adjustments to make it easier to weave with ranged light attacks as it sometimes causes rotations to be a bit messed up Global Cooldown wise. aside from that, cutting dive is my jam as if it is already afflicted by the abilities bleed over time, the first tick of bleed damage always occurs on recasting cutting dive on the afflicted target.

I hate Dive but the other two are just fine. I didn’t like scorch at all but grew to enjoy it, especially because I don’t use it every 3 seconds, I let by sub assault pop both times. I don’t double cast fetcher either.

Magwarden Main (pvp) for 2 years.

Birds are not viable for pvp. Way too slow to hit anyone. Way, way too slow.

Scorch worked when it was on a 3 second timer. 9 seconds killed it for me. You’ve got to develop the skill to line them up and time them perfectly to hit a good player, and 9 seconds is just too wonky (and long) for the pace of pvp.

Warden (Magwarden using warden skills, not Stamden crutching on polar wind and dizzy swing) is fun because it takes skill to use effectively in pvp; however, it’s also pretty crappy and awkward compared to NB or DK, and a player of equal skill on either class will kill you 99% of the time.

My biggest issue with the class is birds/cliff racer, which literally does not work for pvp. Having an effective class spammable that synergizes with other class skills is an enormously powerful element. Look at NB & DK, the only 2 classes that have them for pvp.

Apologies for delayed response, I've been busy! Thank you all for the replies.

I've never liked scorch at all. I think delayed damage attacks in a fast-paced action game are awful, especially when you go to hit something with it only for the enemy to die just before it pops.

Fetcher infection bad, all in agreement.

Birds need to be faster (Instant, IMO) or just give us another ability. Let me throw Kwama eggs

Once I got oakensoul on my old account, I couldn't stop playing my warden, just using the standard class skills, for fun

Mesite wrote: »

Once I got oakensoul on my old account, I couldn't stop playing my warden, just using the standard class skills, for fun

I hate the fact that the Frost Warden isn't really happening when you are SOLO in ESO. You need to be in a group for all the frost focus to pay off.
But when you swap to Oakensoul, at least the Magicka non Frost Warden becomes viable.

Ironically, the StamDen has better Brittle uptimes, because Arctic Blast hits hard in melee range. You can even take good old Iceheart for flavour and it isn't really downgrade.

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I also prefer growing swarm (20 second DoT on target & surrounding enemies). Irrelevant that it cost stam due to its 20 second timer.

My magward uses oakensoul and finds that a rotation of HA weaving shalks, wall and winter's revenge works pretty well for timing. My oaken stam bow warden's rotation is LA weaving silver shards while keeping shalks and the soul trap 10 second sticky AoE active works pretty well.

I'm not discounting OP's concerns, just offering what works for me - and I very much like both my wardens.

the problem i have with growing swarm in its current iteration is you can only have 1 instance active at a time (like curse for sorcs, or mark for NB, or backlash+morphs for templar)

if you have 2 ranged enemies who dont stay near each other, you can only effectively dmg 1 of them at a time with the skill, where as with the other morph you can throw it on both enemies

i dont really pay attention to when i have the bonus dmg, just like that i can apply the dmg to each enemy regardless if they are standing near each other