Warden Bears & Pet Class Mechanics / Abilities

ZoeliTintanie · April 9

After a long long, looong time of deciding what to main, I have finally settled on Warden and as soon as I did (been playing since 2017 on a templar on and off with another game), I realized something about Wardens.

Are they not a pet class?
Bear takes up 2 Ultimate Slots.
Where are all the passives that benefit the bear and the warden using a bear?
Where are the secondary effects on the Animal Companion line that command the Bear to do something offensive, while defensive on Winters and Regen/Heal on Green Balance?

I've only gotten to level 41 so far on my Warden and I do enjoy it a lot, but it's lacking some stuff (teleport, leap/pull to enemy, damage shield with a heal, and it feels like its skills aren't consolidated as well as some of the other classes. On top of that, the Bear taking up 2 ultimate slots but not turning the class into a beastmaster/petclass type of elementalist/frost mage is strange.

If I go frost, i'd like to turn the bear into water elemental / spirit of some kind.
If i'm on Green Balance, i'd love that bear to turn into a SPriggan with all the fireflies.
If i'm using it through animal companion, give it some armor or bones, something, to armor/buff it up like a companion.

It's too costly right now without actually turning the class into a pet class.
There aren't even passives that boost health/stam for example if you use the bear, or whatever else if you don't use the bear (like sorcs have now)

So dear Devs, if you intend on keeping the bear as a 2-slot Ultimate ability, please consider adding some Beastmaster/Summoner type of benefits to the warden. It's class Identity even as a Druid or an Elementalist or even a Water Mage is lackluster, let alone considering it a hunter with a pet since its can't command the pet to do anything and gains no bonus from summoning it, other than a Mobile-DoT that refreshes itself OR causes bleed damage, (why not both btw and have the other morph give it a healing aura/tank aura)

So one morph of the bear would give the bleed/hemo and re-rez itself, the other morph would give a heal over time and armor buff while its around that way, we don't loose out too much on not having northern storm or Forest.

Pretty please and thank you. It would also be fantastic but its been mentioned everywhere including in another one of my warden posts about morphs/visuals.

Sakiri · April 9

Sorc pets take two slots on both bars. You command your pet to attack with a special by using the ultimate just like sorc presses the button again to use theirs.

Leeching vines heals target when they get hit by applying lifesteal.

The bear is a dps ulti. Healers and tanks don't use it.

ZoeliTintanie · April 10

Sorcerer pets atleast have some pet-functionality, if you click the button again they'll heal or do something.
Sorcerers have passives that work with pets to do something, or without pets to do something. They're kind of like a traditional summoner in most games, kind of.

One pet has range, the other melee. 4 Skill slots used for them, but atleast they come with pet-perks, however small if you click the abilities again and also if you have certain passives or armor sets.

Wardens and the Bear pet feels like handcuffs on the Warden class to play.
I can't tell the bear to charge, shield, tank, knock down, stun etc, nothing other than clicking the bear button again to cause an additional strike. (With effects every class gets on regular skills and spammables but on Warden its an Ultimate without the added strength of being an ultimate like other classes, weapon lines, even some armor ultimates)

I cannot gain any extra benefit from having it aside from DPS, no passives, armor buffs/set bonuses, nada. No passive movement speed buff, armor increase from having the pet around, an aoe taunt the bear pet could/might do if commanded, for examle, while using something like Cliff Diver. (Sends bird to attack, bear taunts/charges to target)

I cannot command the pet with secondary effects on my current skills, such as "Cliff diver, click to blah blah as now, but if a pet is active, the pet charges the target enemy when you click this ability", instead, the bear that takes 2 ultimate slots, is a mobile-dot on single target.

If some skills were updated, we could do something along the lines of :

`Ice Fortress, same as now, but if you click while pet is active, it causes the bear to shield/heal itself
`Sub Attack, if you click it while pet is active, the pet knocks enemies down
`Lotus Bloom, if you click this while pet is active, the pet gains a heal over time or something
so on and so on.

Then, it would justify being used as an Ultimate for both ultimate slots.

Right now its just a mobile dot with a click that does damage.
Even the Eternal Guardian Morph confirms the bear as a mobile DoT effect, doesn't even need to be recast, but then it looses its hemo/bleed bonus.
So basically the bear is a aura-buff, It's kind of like Hurricane Aura on Sorc or Solar Barrage on Templar, but on Warden, its a pet that takes up 2 ult slots and only hits 1 target and can be killed.

I hope i'm expressing the strange-ness with the Wardens bear pet properly from a very casual, newbie player.
I just don't comprehend why that bear takes up an ultimate slot but the two sorc pets dont while sorc pets offer way more than wardens bear does, yet wardens bear is more costly to use for less utility and even dps than many other ultimates in the game.

The warden, has no utility to support/give the notion/idea that it is a pet class, yet it has a Pet as an Ultimate. If anything, Sorcerers SHOULD have an Ultimate that is a pet.
Wardens SHOULD defnitely have the Stormcalling Tree abilities.

Its silly to me and I hope i'm not offending anyone and that this is useful to the developers.
Thank you

TumlinTheJolly · April 10

Yes, and also if they are good at animals maybe they should have skills that let them change into things like cat, bear, bird?

Also, why can't a sorc deal fire, arcane and frost damage? I think it's insane that they don't have access to PoM Pyro.

And Templar not being able to bubble hearth actually blows my mind.

Sakiri · April 10

This isn't wow....

SilverIce58 · April 10

Sakiri wrote: »

This isn't wow....

Except now with scribing this is a lot more possible, so you can relax.

ZoeliTintanie · April 10

Ya'll can troll all you want but a Bear Pet Ultimate on a class that has no pet skills or passives is kinda weird.

Sakiri · April 10

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

This isn't wow....

Except now with scribing this is a lot more possible, so you can relax.

Scribing isn't going to affect class skills last I'd heard, and I highly doubt it's going to let you shape-shifting and stuff.

RandomKodiak · April 10

All pets by keyboard default will attack specific targets on (hold) y left mouse and stop attacking anything with (hold) y right mouse. As far as skins go we have been asking for sorc pet and bear skins for years

Hope the above controls help a bit.

CameraBeardThePirate · April 10

RandomKodiak wrote: »

All pets by keyboard default will attack specific targets on (hold) y left mouse and stop attacking anything with (hold) y right mouse. As far as skins go we have been asking for sorc pet and bear skins for years Hope the above controls help a bit.

Worth noting that only Sorc and Warden pets do this - you cannot command Necromancer pets for some strange reason, despite necro pets counting as pets for every other aspect of the game (cannot proc sets, don't show up in damage/healing done on scoreboards, etc.)

RandomKodiak · April 10

True, sorry Camera is 100% right only Sorc and Warden. Thanks

Trejgon · April 10

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

Ya'll can troll all you want but a Bear Pet Ultimate on a class that has no pet skills or passives is kinda weird.

"no pet skills" is incorrect. Warden has whole line of combat pet skills (bear is part of it). Just because the pets are time-restricted does not mean they are suddenly no longer pets.

ZoeliTintanie · April 10

Trejgon wrote: »

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

Ya'll can troll all you want but a Bear Pet Ultimate on a class that has no pet skills or passives is kinda weird.

"no pet skills" is incorrect. Warden has whole line of combat pet skills (bear is part of it). Just because the pets are time-restricted does not mean they are suddenly no longer pets.

I'm uncertain if you are miscomprehending what i'm saying or if i'm being unclear.

No Pet Skills, meaning

The Bear has no abilities, boosts, passives, nothing it can do that I can activate, other than its own Ability-Button.

Cliff Dive, activating this, does not, *also*, tell the Bear, to, for example, charge the target
Festerflies, does not, *also*, tell the bear to activate a dot attack for example. *replace dot with whatever, even a swipe*
Betty Netch, activating this, does ,not tell, the bear, to do anything or involve it either.
Flappy Wings, does not *also* tell the bear to do something, for example, attack speed increase or thorns-effect for itself.

Example, in current skill format

Cliff Dive : Current Ability Effects
Added : If your Bear pet is summoned while casting, the bear will charge at the target.

Festerflies : Current Ability Effects
Added : If your bear is summoned while casting this, the bear pet will do a short-range aoe swipe

Ice Fortress : Current Ability Effects
Added : If your bear pet is summoned, the bear pet gets an "ice-thorns" shield that reflects damage back at the attacker if the bear is hit

Crystal Shard : Current Ability
Added : If your bear is summoned, it will stun whoever shot the projectile that was absorbed

I hope that clarifies that.

Warden has become my main, so I enjoy it greatly just as it is. I'd simply like to offer more ideas.
And I know this isn't wow, but it also isn't league of legends either so let me fantasize about my elemental naturie druid earthie witchie magical little elf OKAAAY?

ADarklore · April 10

The bear is fine... because it also draws aggro (without being told to do so) so it helps your survivability. There is also commands to tell your bear to attack, or disengage. Using the ultimate is the same as telling your bear to use it's special attack, and it is extremely potent and is cheap.

My biggest gripe about my Frostden, is the fact it's heavily underpowered compared to other classes. Trying to defeat a world boss with Frostden, sure it can be done, but it takes FOREVER compared to other classes. They sadly haven't buffed Frost staff enough to compete with the other staves because they continue to believe that Frost is pretty much meant for 'magic tank' only.

Sakiri · April 11

Every passive that affects animal companion abilities also affects the bear. Bear has one special you use when pressing ulti button. Sorc pets... Have one ability they use when you press the button. Our daedric summoning passives affect them as well as everything else in that tree. Your animal passive affect your other animal abilities too.

They're not going to change what the bear does, he's a dps ability. He does the dps. It's fine.

ZoeliTintanie · April 11

Again, this isn't about what you're responding with Sakiri.

I'm talking about the skills that are already present, issuing orders to the bear which is already present.

Why is that so confusing to comprehend?

TaSheen · April 12

I'm not comprehending either. My bears (all my mains are wardens, 3 accounts both pc megaservers) attack what I attack, or what I send them to attack using Y + left mouse button. Usually I don't use the specific attack key + mouse button - far faster and easier to just attack with cliff diver from distance and let the bear tank; the only class skills I use are the bear and the cliff diver, I don't need anything else in the warden toolkit such as it is. Mostly other than bear and diver, I use weapon skills and since all my girls run oakensoul, that's really all I need.

Anyway, for the "gimped" pet setup in warden, it works fine for the most part - though I really REALLY miss the whole wow pet setup.

Not enough to ever touch that game again though.... Ugh.

Hapexamendios · April 12

I use the bear with my stam warden and have no issues with it.

TaSheen · April 12

Hapexamendios wrote: »

I use the bear with my stam warden and have no issues with it.

Yeah. I just don't seriously comprehend what the OP is referencing.

HowlKimchi · April 12

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

After a long long, looong time of deciding what to main, I have finally settled on Warden and as soon as I did (been playing since 2017 on a templar on and off with another game), I realized something about Wardens.

Are they not a pet class?
Bear takes up 2 Ultimate Slots.
Where are all the passives that benefit the bear and the warden using a bear?
Where are the secondary effects on the Animal Companion line that command the Bear to do something offensive, while defensive on Winters and Regen/Heal on Green Balance?

I've only gotten to level 41 so far on my Warden and I do enjoy it a lot, but it's lacking some stuff (teleport, leap/pull to enemy, damage shield with a heal, and it feels like its skills aren't consolidated as well as some of the other classes. On top of that, the Bear taking up 2 ultimate slots but not turning the class into a beastmaster/petclass type of elementalist/frost mage is strange.

If I go frost, i'd like to turn the bear into water elemental / spirit of some kind.
If i'm on Green Balance, i'd love that bear to turn into a SPriggan with all the fireflies.
If i'm using it through animal companion, give it some armor or bones, something, to armor/buff it up like a companion.

It's too costly right now without actually turning the class into a pet class.
There aren't even passives that boost health/stam for example if you use the bear, or whatever else if you don't use the bear (like sorcs have now)

So dear Devs, if you intend on keeping the bear as a 2-slot Ultimate ability, please consider adding some Beastmaster/Summoner type of benefits to the warden. It's class Identity even as a Druid or an Elementalist or even a Water Mage is lackluster, let alone considering it a hunter with a pet since its can't command the pet to do anything and gains no bonus from summoning it, other than a Mobile-DoT that refreshes itself OR causes bleed damage, (why not both btw and have the other morph give it a healing aura/tank aura)

So one morph of the bear would give the bleed/hemo and re-rez itself, the other morph would give a heal over time and armor buff while its around that way, we don't loose out too much on not having northern storm or Forest.

Pretty please and thank you. It would also be fantastic but its been mentioned everywhere including in another one of my warden posts about morphs/visuals.

The bear is the animal companion ult. Why on earth should it be affected by the other skill lines? I feel like you have different expectations of the game than what it actually is. If you are keen on playing a beastmaster with very fine control of the pet, there are MMOs who do that. In my experience with that MMO though, people hate it because of stupid pet AI so there's that.

TaSheen · April 12

Okay. Wait. I think I may have a glimmer....

OP.... the skill lines are specified in three directions (not only in warden, but in all classes) - DPS Stamina and DPS Magicka; Healing; and Tanking. While not exactly mutually exclusive, you do need to choose how you are going to approach the game: as pure damage; as healing; or as a tank.

Trying to fill the skill bars with options from each "vocation" is going to gimp your warden in a big way. This game (unlike others in similar genre niches) is going to NOT reward you unless you choose a "main vocation". [And yes, I know that we now have hybridization - but that's another whole can of worms which I hope we can simply NOT discuss for now.]

So, you need to decide what you want your warden to be at base. Stam or Magicka DPS, Healer, or Tank. That's the bottom line.

AzuraFan · April 12

I understand where the OP is coming from. Warden is my favourite class, and I love the bear. But compared to other MMOs, the Warden pet controls are poor. Also, there's no variety. It would have been nice if there were different pets with different abilities. I'm not complaining, just making an observation. I love the warden partly because the class does have a pet, but the pet angle could be a lot better.

TaSheen · April 12

AzuraFan wrote: »

I understand where the OP is coming from. Warden is my favourite class, and I love the bear. But compared to other MMOs, the Warden pet controls are poor. Also, there's no variety. It would have been nice if there were different pets with different abilities. I'm not complaining, just making an observation. I love the warden partly because the class does have a pet, but the pet angle could be a lot better.

Absolutely. Which is why I reference (over and over - to the point that people are likely TIRED TO DEATH of me doing so) the fact that as much as I despise wow, I STILL love the pet setup there. And that's not what we have here, unfortunately.

HowlKimchi · April 12

TaSheen wrote: »

Trying to fill the skill bars with options from each "vocation" is going to gimp your warden in a big way. This game (unlike others in similar genre niches) is going to NOT reward you unless you choose a "main vocation". [And yes, I know that we now have hybridization - but that's another whole can of worms which I hope we can simply NOT discuss for now.]

So, you need to decide what you want your warden to be at base. Stam or Magicka DPS, Healer, or Tank. That's the bottom line.

This is not really true too. You can definitely pick and choose from any skill line and make an effective build for solo play which is a BIG part of the game (Solo arenas, soloing dungeons, pvp, etc.). The trinity only matters specifically group content.

Having said that, the bear is an ult of one skill line and while there are some interplay between the three skill lines via passives, it's never as extreme as what OP wants.

I do understand wanting to be a beastmaster though, and there are viable ways to do that through equipment sets. Building a complete character in ESO involves (requires) you to min max your limited skill slots with skills from a variety of skill lines and not just the 3 lines from your class together with setting up your armor sets which can have vastly different setups.

For example, you feel that the freeze mage capabilities of wardens are lackluster, but, if you incorporate the ice staff skills with the ice skills and passives of the warden, you get an extremely potent dps/solo build which is actually the top build for climbing IA (the endless dungeon).

Similarly, you can make your own beastmaster build. You just have to look around for sets or skills that can round up and complete the class fantasy you want. Especially with the upcoming scribing system which will be giving us a skill to use our mount to deal damage/debuff enemies.

Sakiri · April 12

Yeah I don't get it. There is no full fledged pet control system, you tell it what to attack and it has A special.

Thats it. It's a dps ulti. That's all it'll ever be. You want full fledged pet control try EverQuest, wow or ffxiv.

ZoeliTintanie · April 12

You guys really are the most unkind and uncomprehending group of people i've ever encountered on a post.
I've never felt so misunderstood and disliked in one thread. WoW

You guys act like you have no idea what i'm saying but you do.
You insult what im suggesting and insult the already badly written and designed skills I mentioned.
Then tell me to stfu and go to wow to play a druid with a pet? Are you high?

Do you guys talk to your own friends like this or am I the special trash bag that gets crapped on anytime I post by you 3?