Warden's design, Adaptable Warriors of the Seasons

ESO_Nightingale · January 30

Hey everyone, as has been discussed on the forums lately regarding the upcoming warden refresh, we saw that warden's description has a bit more ambiguous wording than other classes. If you're unaware, this is how Warden is currently thought of from the developers point of view:

There are 2 major things i'd like to unpack from this description.

Source of Power: Using the seasons to adapt and preserve balance
Power Fantasy: Adaptability to react to what the situation demands

Source of Power

"Using the seasons" is actually an incredibly vague description. We already know that wardens use winter's embrace. So that is automatically 1 season, but outside of the bad item set "herald of spring" previously we've had no mention of autumn, spring or summer as far as i can tell. Personally i dont think this line means very much unless the class is going to have a new mechanic that involves using different seasons, or involves rotating different skills with different inherent seasons.

Of course, this is just speculation, but we could see some class mechanic akin to crux's combo-like system where we need to rotate different themed seasonal skills to gain some kind of buff or additional effect. this could end up being too difficult to concept or work-rotationally as it involves strategically assigning each warden skill to a rotational patern that would work for tank, dps and healing and could be insanely hard to balance properly. My assumption is that this wording is pretty much just fluff because warden doesn't have an inherent design mechanic or focus.

Edit:
Hey everyone, i just made a concept for seasons that i think could work! rather than seasons, we could specifically target the "solstices" with winter and summer.

Using that concept i made these!

These would replace piercing cold and a green balance passive.

Payoff Skill examples:

Ultimates would generate Midwinter/Midsummer!

Power Fantasy

Adaptability is an interesting word since adaptability in gaming usually means the class can do everything. Whether or not this means we're going to get stuff like a frost damage melee spammable so you can adapt to melee better, as well as additional burst and dot damage options to focus more on either of those is anyone's guess at the moment. My chief concern is that ZOS thinks that not having a specific identity IS an identity and i think thats a bit of a shame. since every class has some kind of rotational mini-game besides warden. Warden has always struggled with it's identity and as i've seen the community develop, it's become clear to me that the split nature of our community between the "frost dps" and "nature druids" could actually work AS the class's identity as its a kind of adaptation!

Designing warden as a dual natured dps class that can go 100% into animals and plants OR frost magic or all of the above could be really interesting thematically. this also lends support to subclassing as well!

as far as it goes, Frost and (Bleed OR Poison) damage should really be the focuses with Frost damage being included on animal companions and winter's embrace, and Bleed/Poison being included on Animal Companions and Green Balance. Regarding some people's confusion as to why animal companions should get frost damage, As warden's animals are a type of storytelling magic, it's a logical conclusion that (to me) you could easily imbue that storytelling magic with warden's natural element of frost. Shalks, bears, cliff racers and fetcher flies don't deal magic damage in the wild, so that means they're magical constructs. But changing up the animal types used on the animal companions skills would be really nice.
1 piece of feedback i've seen a lot over the years is that people dont like how alien the animals are, its hard to connect with them compared to the bear. things like eagles and wolves are a much easier thing to connect with as they're already popular real-world animals. That being said, i think Ice Wraiths could be a fun and interesting animal to have on the magicka morph of scorch instead of shalks to make it thematically work a bit easier.

Also, we haven't forgotten this:

Radiate77 · January 30

Having 4 seasons, and 3 skill lines, would make this kind of difficult to pull off, right?

Maybe they’ll play off of the two Solstices.

ESO_Nightingale · January 30

Radiate77 wrote: »

Having 4 seasons, and 3 skill lines, would make this kind of difficult to pull off, right?

Maybe they’ll play off of the two Solstices.

definitely, i think this concept would be too difficult/annoying to pull off. i hope they come up with some other class mechanic

SkaiFaith · January 30

I'd like to see "different seasons" implemented in the visuals of the skills, for example: the healing morph, Polar Wind, could have the visuals of a springy blossoms whirling around you in pink, while the damage morph, Arctic Blast, could be white/light blue with whirling snow flakes.

I always thought Warden is the best class to solo/solo with companion (especially for One Bar builds), so I REALLY hope they don't take this away from it but build more into it.

Frosty animals like ice wraiths instead of shalks would be nice, or a whisp instead of netch and a white gryphon pet instead of cliff racer...

Soarora · January 30

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Source of Power

"Using the seasons" is actually an incredibly vague description. We already know that wardens use winter's embrace. So that is automatically 1 season, but previously we've had no mention of autumn, spring or summer. Personally i dont think this line means very much unless the class is going to have a new mechanic that involves using different seasons, or involves rotating different skills with different inherent seasons.

It’s maybe pushing it but I could see the other seasons in there: mushrooms for fall, flowers for spring, uhh summer… animals I guess.

We do have the gardener of seasons set from IA:
(5 items) Gain Herald of Spring, causing your Green Balance overheals to apply Minor Heroism for 3 seconds. Casting a Heal ability while Bracing consumes Herald of Spring and gives you Harbinger of Fall for 6 seconds, causing your Green Balance overheals to create an 8 meter area for 5 seconds, applying Major Cowardice to enemies and Minor Vitality to allies. You can create an area once every 5 seconds. When Harbinger of Fall ends, regain Herald of Spring.

I see the vision but it seems complicated to use for no gain over meta sets. I don’t think we’d be forced into a season rotation since ZOS mentioned they’re not adding class mechanics but rather enhancing what’s already there (which I think more obviously is status effect damage & the 3/6 second shalk timer). I hope we’re not getting season rotation, it’d probably make warden simply too complicated and simplicity is a part of what makes a build viable (hence oakensorc meta even though it had less damage than other options). That said, I suppose I’m open to it if it’s not actually as complicated as the set is (like just casting a skill from each of the 3 lines every so often or something).

ESO_Nightingale · January 30

Soarora wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Source of Power

"Using the seasons" is actually an incredibly vague description. We already know that wardens use winter's embrace. So that is automatically 1 season, but previously we've had no mention of autumn, spring or summer. Personally i dont think this line means very much unless the class is going to have a new mechanic that involves using different seasons, or involves rotating different skills with different inherent seasons.

It’s maybe pushing it but I could see the other seasons in there: mushrooms for fall, flowers for spring, uhh summer… animals I guess.

We do have the gardener of seasons set from IA:
(5 items) Gain Herald of Spring, causing your Green Balance overheals to apply Minor Heroism for 3 seconds. Casting a Heal ability while Bracing consumes Herald of Spring and gives you Harbinger of Fall for 6 seconds, causing your Green Balance overheals to create an 8 meter area for 5 seconds, applying Major Cowardice to enemies and Minor Vitality to allies. You can create an area once every 5 seconds. When Harbinger of Fall ends, regain Herald of Spring.

I see the vision but it seems complicated to use for no gain over meta sets. I don’t think we’d be forced into a season rotation since ZOS mentioned they’re not adding class mechanics but rather enhancing what’s already there (which I think more obviously is status effect damage & the 3/6 second shalk timer). I hope we’re not getting season rotation, it’d probably make warden simply too complicated and simplicity is a part of what makes a build viable (hence oakensorc meta even though it had less damage than other options). That said, I suppose I’m open to it if it’s not actually as complicated as the set is (like just casting a skill from each of the 3 lines every so often or something).

I totally forgot the item set because it sucks lol, ive updated the post.

SirBanana1992 · January 30

This must be the thread that was being referred! It looks nice and detailed!

Yeah I share some concerns of how Warden are going to be shaped with the refresh, there's a big of conflicts of identity but it may come down to trying to condense multiple concepts that on their own are vast into 3 skill lines. All based on the idea of "what is nature" then you get fauna, flora and seasons but each can be digged into even deeper into animal breeds, plant types individual seasons, weather, natural phenomenons etc.

By using Winter's Embrace as one skill line (and yet I love it and want it to stay) they may have dug themselves into a rut where they have restricted the seasonal theme itself but since players are now committed to its frost aspect they can hardly back out without any sort of backlash. They'd have to make concessions into the remaining skill lines

I'm still hopeful we'll get some interesting changes but there definitely is not an easy band-aid solution to appeasing the entire vision of seasons and adaptability, spreading the lines focus for all roles AND also keep the fans of the current version of the wardens happy.

Moothos · January 31

The warden seasonal balance theme is already pretty clear in their 3 existing skill lines.

Green balance and animal companions = spring/summer, plant and animal life are flourishing and most active.

Winter's embrace = fall/winter, transitioning from abundant plant and animal life in the spring/summer into winter where many plants die or go dormant, and animals don't have as much available food and many become less active or die.

ESO_Nightingale · January 31

Moothos wrote: »

The warden seasonal balance theme is already pretty clear in their 3 existing skill lines.

Green balance and animal companions = spring/summer, plant and animal life are flourishing and most active.

Winter's embrace = fall/winter, transitioning from abundant plant and animal life in the spring/summer into winter where many plants die or go dormant, and animals don't have as much available food and many become less active or die.

In a way, i hope that's all they mean by it. A seasonal themed rotation sounds cool but also very very hard to get right.

noblecron · February 1

The whole season and protectors of nirn thing inspired me to reroll my elementalist build from a base sorc class to a warden class for thematic reasons

Zodiarkslayer · February 1

One thing has me concerned for a while. And that is how the animal/ flower theme and the frost theme have to be both viable. They are quite different in that in regards to playstyles and how they work.
That means that the mechanics and power budget that the Devs will imbue to the class have to be 100% accessible to all playstyles.

For example, passives like +15% to frost damage are useless when the animals all have poison/bleed/magic damage. Ideally such thinking goes away all together and we get an approach like +200WD/SD per class ability slotted, again as an example. Something that gives you base power, not specific power. That also goes both ways. Because you cannot make the Sorcerer approach and just slap bleed damage into the same passive (+15% to frost and bleed damage), because one cannot get 12 abilities for both damage types on their both bars. Bleed damage has no back bar ground effect weapon ability and there is no way to get a bleed damage light attack. Frost damage on the other side has both, but lacks the powerful abilities that bleed ones can boast of.

Warden is a big mess, when you take a closer look. All the band aids that the class has gotten over the years are just showing. I mean, the class was live for years without a dedicated frost spammable, until we, the players, brought that problem up on a forum discussion over the effectiveness of the Frostbite set and ZOS buffed Frost Touch as a direct result of that discussion (Was it really 4 years between Morrowind and the Frost Touch change in 7.1.5?). That just shows you how there was never a structured approach to its design.

In my opinion the best choice is still to make two separate classes. One for the animals theme and one for the frost theme. And I also know that will never happen.

Anyway, there is a lot to rethink here. 😊

ESO_Nightingale · February 1

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

One thing has me concerned for a while. And that is how the animal/ flower theme and the frost theme have to be both viable. They are quite different in that in regards to playstyles and how they work.
That means that the mechanics and power budget that the Devs will imbue to the class have to be 100% accessible to all playstyles.

For example, passives like +15% to frost damage are useless when the animals all have poison/bleed/magic damage. Ideally such thinking goes away all together and we get an approach like +200WD/SD per class ability slotted, again as an example. Something that gives you base power, not specific power. That also goes both ways. Because you cannot make the Sorcerer approach and just slap bleed damage into the same passive (+15% to frost and bleed damage), because one cannot get 12 abilities for both damage types on their both bars. Bleed damage has no back bar ground effect weapon ability and there is no way to get a bleed damage light attack. Frost damage on the other side has both, but lacks the powerful abilities that bleed ones can boast of.

Warden is a big mess, when you take a closer look. All the band aids that the class has gotten over the years are just showing. I mean, the class was live for years without a dedicated frost spammable, until we, the players, brought that problem up on a forum discussion over the effectiveness of the Frostbite set and ZOS buffed Frost Touch as a direct result of that discussion (Was it really 4 years between Morrowind and the Frost Touch change in 7.1.5?). That just shows you how there was never a structured approach to its design.

In my opinion the best choice is still to make two separate classes. One for the animals theme and one for the frost theme. And I also know that will never happen.

Anyway, there is a lot to rethink here. 😊

i agree but i dont think that they'll seperate the skill lines. its too late for that now especially now that subclassing is a thing.

in the meantime, i made these potential skill ideas for a melee "spammable" that also has payoff for the chilled application playstyle.

I also designed a single target version of the ability that is likely much better balanced

YandereGirlfriend · February 1

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

One thing has me concerned for a while. And that is how the animal/ flower theme and the frost theme have to be both viable. They are quite different in that in regards to playstyles and how they work.
That means that the mechanics and power budget that the Devs will imbue to the class have to be 100% accessible to all playstyles.

For example, passives like +15% to frost damage are useless when the animals all have poison/bleed/magic damage. Ideally such thinking goes away all together and we get an approach like +200WD/SD per class ability slotted, again as an example. Something that gives you base power, not specific power. That also goes both ways. Because you cannot make the Sorcerer approach and just slap bleed damage into the same passive (+15% to frost and bleed damage), because one cannot get 12 abilities for both damage types on their both bars. Bleed damage has no back bar ground effect weapon ability and there is no way to get a bleed damage light attack. Frost damage on the other side has both, but lacks the powerful abilities that bleed ones can boast of.

Warden is a big mess, when you take a closer look. All the band aids that the class has gotten over the years are just showing. I mean, the class was live for years without a dedicated frost spammable, until we, the players, brought that problem up on a forum discussion over the effectiveness of the Frostbite set and ZOS buffed Frost Touch as a direct result of that discussion (Was it really 4 years between Morrowind and the Frost Touch change in 7.1.5?). That just shows you how there was never a structured approach to its design.

In my opinion the best choice is still to make two separate classes. One for the animals theme and one for the frost theme. And I also know that will never happen.

Anyway, there is a lot to rethink here. 😊

I hope that we have moved away from the era of class design where we're just slapping Weapon Damage on random things in lieu of thinking more deeply about them.

However, I do agree that Warden unavoidably presents several different elemental affinities; namely, Frost, Bleed, and Poison. And that those will be more complicated to juggle than the relatively straightforward case of the Dragonknight.

I won't claim to know how to best pull that off but I do have some newfound confidence in ZOS' ability to craft some interesting new class mechanics.

Apart from hopefully changing some generic Magic abilities such as Shalks to Frost Damage, the thing that I most look forward to is the inclusion of some new Poison-type damage abilities in Green Balance. That tree is super emblematic of Warden as a whole in having essentially redundant morphs (e.g. Lotus, Living Vines, Nature's Grasp, potentially one morph of the ultimate) of most of its abilities and as such present clear cases for morphs that can be recycled into something more interesting and useful to players.

One morph of Lotus could potentially make your light attacks deal Poison Damage (to account for there not being any base weapon type that deals Poison Damage), Vines could easily be converted into an enemy-targeted Poison DOT, the ult-gen morph of the ultimate could become an AOE Poison skill, and then Nature's Grasp is such a bizarre and seldomly used skill in general that I wouldn't hate to have it see just a complete do-over of its design.

There is a decent case for having Vines deal Bleed Damage as well (since the icon is clearly thorns) and perhaps that could be incorporated by making use of the base morph or something, which is, in general, a very under-utilized approach toward giving the players a higher number of viable skills.

robpr · February 2

Warden lines are very stricly defined as dps/heal/tank lines and are thematically consistent. You can't just shuffle them around like DK could. Out of base classes, only NB and DK have some freedom in exchanging skills around.

To make sense out of this, there would have to be one skill designated as 'season switcher', that would 'adapt' existing skills to do different things depending on the current season. Nightmare for complexity sake, but at the same time maximum flexibility and 'adaptation to anything' power fantasy.
-Winter: skills cost magicka, dealing frost or magic damage. Animal companions get the frost version appearance, green balance skills are transformed to ice and snow
-Spring: skills heal and buff allies
-Summer: skills cost stamina, dealing poison or bleed damage, winter embrace skills are transformed in appearance to vines and thorns
-Autumn: skills apply debuffs, damage reduction, shields and overall tanking stuff. Winter embrace skills are transformed in appearance to bark

This is what I understand as "Adaptable warrior of the seasons".

ESO_Nightingale · February 2

robpr wrote: »

Warden lines are very stricly defined as dps/heal/tank lines and are thematically consistent. You can't just shuffle them around like DK could. Out of base classes, only NB and DK have some freedom in exchanging skills around.

To make sense out of this, there would have to be one skill designated as 'season switcher', that would 'adapt' existing skills to do different things depending on the current season. Nightmare for complexity sake, but at the same time maximum flexibility and 'adaptation to anything' power fantasy.
-Winter: skills cost magicka, dealing frost or magic damage. Animal companions get the frost version appearance, green balance skills are transformed to ice and snow
-Spring: skills heal and buff allies
-Summer: skills cost stamina, dealing poison or bleed damage, winter embrace skills are transformed in appearance to vines and thorns
-Autumn: skills apply debuffs, damage reduction, shields and overall tanking stuff. Winter embrace skills are transformed in appearance to bark

This is what I understand as "Adaptable warrior of the seasons".

I really dont want magic damage polluting the class

Faltasë · February 2

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

One thing has me concerned for a while. And that is how the animal/ flower theme and the frost theme have to be both viable. They are quite different in that in regards to playstyles and how they work.
That means that the mechanics and power budget that the Devs will imbue to the class have to be 100% accessible to all playstyles.

For example, passives like +15% to frost damage are useless when the animals all have poison/bleed/magic damage. Ideally such thinking goes away all together and we get an approach like +200WD/SD per class ability slotted, again as an example. Something that gives you base power, not specific power. That also goes both ways. Because you cannot make the Sorcerer approach and just slap bleed damage into the same passive (+15% to frost and bleed damage), because one cannot get 12 abilities for both damage types on their both bars. Bleed damage has no back bar ground effect weapon ability and there is no way to get a bleed damage light attack. Frost damage on the other side has both, but lacks the powerful abilities that bleed ones can boast of.

Warden is a big mess, when you take a closer look. All the band aids that the class has gotten over the years are just showing. I mean, the class was live for years without a dedicated frost spammable, until we, the players, brought that problem up on a forum discussion over the effectiveness of the Frostbite set and ZOS buffed Frost Touch as a direct result of that discussion (Was it really 4 years between Morrowind and the Frost Touch change in 7.1.5?). That just shows you how there was never a structured approach to its design.

In my opinion the best choice is still to make two separate classes. One for the animals theme and one for the frost theme. And I also know that will never happen.

Anyway, there is a lot to rethink here. 😊

I would rather not have another skill or ability that gives us a boring weapon damage buff.

ESO_Nightingale · February 4

Hey everyone, i just made a concept for seasons that i think could work. rather than seasons, we could specifically target the "solstices" with winter and summer.

Using that concept i made these!

These would replace piercing cold and a green balance passive.

Payoff Skill examples:

Ultimates would generate Midwinter/Midsummer!

LunaFlora · February 4

those skill ideas seem awesome

Rungar · February 4

if i was to guess i think this means that wardens will have summer (growth) and winter (freeze) morphs for all their skill lines, meaning that wardens will basically be able to become frost mages or druids or a mix of both etc. Its actually not a bad idea since frost mage idea is pretty popular in the game. Based on the dragonknight rework i dont see them putting in an extra mechanic to change this on the fly, though it would be neat as the above poster illustrated especially if they changed skills to focus more on healing and buffing for growth and dps and debuffs for ice.

brandsnipe · February 4

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

I don't know about solstices but i like where you're going with the skills. Changing out frozen gate for this would make warden so much more fun to play. How do you create these?

ESO_Nightingale · February 4

brandsnipe wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

I don't know about solstices but i like where you're going with the skills. Changing out frozen gate for this would make warden so much more fun to play. How do you create these?

I edit the client-side html of eso skillbook

ESO_Nightingale · February 5

LunaFlora wrote: »

those skill ideas seem awesome

thanks

ESO_Nightingale · February 5

Rungar wrote: »

if i was to guess i think this means that wardens will have summer (growth) and winter (freeze) morphs for all their skill lines, meaning that wardens will basically be able to become frost mages or druids or a mix of both etc. Its actually not a bad idea since frost mage idea is pretty popular in the game. Based on the dragonknight rework i dont see them putting in an extra mechanic to change this on the fly, though it would be neat as the above poster illustrated especially if they changed skills to focus more on healing and buffing for growth and dps and debuffs for ice.

i think it still may mean nothing at this point in time.

Destai · February 7

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Hey everyone, i just made a concept for seasons that i think could work. rather than seasons, we could specifically target the "solstices" with winter and summer.

Using that concept i made these!

These would replace piercing cold and a green balance passive.

Payoff Skill examples:

Ultimates would generate Midwinter/Midsummer!

Love this idea!

NoireJin the Witchking · February 7

I think the essence is spot on, each class such have unique elements that help not only with class identity but also synergize with pure classing. Its a win/win. The way DK has seething fury i think Warden could most definitely use the same treatment, the idea of midwinter/midsummer stacks is cool. Just needs a little bit more work to get it right.

On another note, as a necro main i want the same principle. A new type of gameplay and stacktype entirely unique to necros. Something i floated by, was a stack called dread. The more necromantic abilities you use, the more dread you accrue and when you hit a certain number you gain different bonuses. For example, your raised dead last indefinitely as long as you're in combat, (that way you can circumvent the criminal act problem but i think that should be removed in all honesty) but when you're at max stack dread on a target your raised dead do increased damage to that target and your skill have different effects Like a scythe slash refunds some cost + heals more according to the amount of stacks the target has, blastbones at max stack leaves a 6m circle of corruption that's a dot for stam or a 6m zone of increased weapons/spell damage and magika regen for magcro morph etc the possibilities are endless. Basically like crux but a bit more macabre.

That way Necroes can be less buff timer gameplay and have a more rounded system.