Pain Points and Ideas for the Warden Class Refresh (plus Destruction staff)

YandereGirlfriend · February 5

Destai wrote: »

Long time Warden main here, incredibly vested in how this turns out.

My biggest pain point is the inconsistent themes in the class. I have 3 wardens, and I had wanted them to be roughly a ranger, a frost mage, and a druid. That's not doable because we really only have 1.5 DPS skill lines. The Animal companions skill line is too married to Vvardenfell.

robpr wrote: »

I'd be rather concerned that Warden already has distinct dps-heal-tank lines and majority of Tank tools are in the line you desperately want to be a dps line instead. Where you would switch them around to even make any sense and make room for frost dps? Armor buff to Living Vines? Enemy pull to Nature's Grasp? Should the pure healing line get a damaging skill too?

DK could this because its rather thematically consistent, Warden is such a mess of a design.

It is. And like @tomofhyrule said, there's this desire to have DPS morphs of the support skill lines. This first came onto radar thanks to SkinnyCheeks, but I see no reason why we couldn't have this. It would reduce morphs per role, and expand the build capabilities of the jack-of-all-trades class. I'm envisioning a DPS line for Green Balance, focused on poison (poisonous plants) and a maturation of the frost damage capabilities

Personally, I don't think bleed is the best fit for Wardens. IMO, that makes the most sense for Nightblades, who are essentially blood mages, as represented in their Siphoning skill line.

I think ZOS needs to align on the core aesthetic for this class. It sounds like "Seasons" is it, but we don't know how that'll actually play out.

I think that Bleed arose in the logical context that animals with claws can cut you, hence Bleed. And then there is the secondary missed opportunity that ice is also sharp and can easily cut you if you are careless around it. However, the connection to ice is perhaps overthinking it and it could instead be distilled into Frost only, since that is the underlying form of what is actually causing the damage.

In any case, while cool and interesting for its time, I would not hate or fight against Bleed leaving Warden and flowing instead to Nightblade, which, I would agree, makes the most sense given the inclusion of Blood Magic in their class kit. It also helps to fight against lazy Magic Damage spam, which is already way too over-represented in the game.

Part of shifting Warden into Poison is also practical - because, if not them, then who among the existing classes even viably can? Nightblade might have had a claim if their skills were re-worked (and Necromancer should have the obvious new monopoly on Disease type) but that isn't the order of operations that we were given.

And Poison solves the clear issue with Warden of giving Green Balance some additional purpose in the game outside of generally under-powered healing line.

ESO_Nightingale · February 5

unbeknownst to me, this post and my other one was moved to general.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · February 6

I am a Warden main and there is nothing I miss more than my frost dps pure Warden. And healing end game as a pure Warden. Or tanking end game as a pure Warden. The game has not been the same since last summer. That Warden caused tremendous aoe and dot damage and you could outrun just about anything with Falcon's swiftness. Spam with the bird, keep up a dot while healing. It even had real resistances through its frost line. In those days, Whorl of the Depths and Pillar of Nirn were in their hay day. And it was fun to run Iceheart.

Ill add my two cents because the Warden refresh will be the deal breaker of whether I stay with this game or shut my guilds down and move us somewhere else.
Firstly, the class refresh should be tailored to the use of pure class, meaning all three Warden lines together. Not about how it will get cherry picked by subclass. Or even worse designed around another skill line or class like Nighblade.

The Warden is and always was strong in support roles and this needs to be addressed. And maintained. Everything in the game is not and should not be about dps.

Breaking up the Green Balance line is a bad idea from the healing aspect of the game. Wardens are the best of healers and this should always be part of their uniqueness. One thing its always needed is its own cleanse. One that is more cost efficient than Purge and is usable on group members. Just about every healer in the game uses this line in healing. While some people do not like the blue betty, its worth noting that its needed for sustain and that it keeps the healer alive and able to keep healing free of status effects in group content (though that's changed somewhat since subclass). But it's mandatory for pureclass to be effective. And that sustain should be carefully examined for its necessity in support roles as well.

Strong and pure healing lines are necessary to maintain healing support roles.

Regarding the dps, consideration needs to be given to the aoe. Any aoe it has or by extension Chilling explosion (even though its a scribing skill) needs to be checked against the aoe arcanist beam which should not be direct damage either. Or, the rest of the aoe need to be converted to direct damage for fairness and to close the obscene gap between meta. That aside, it should still have worthy dot and spammables. The effects of those are equally important for things like 'off balance'.
You should also restore the damage to its Ultimate that was nerfed. Or only apply the reduction in PvP.

Though it pains me to talk about it in the past tense, Wardens were known for being strong sustainable self healing tanks. Powerful and very sustainable healing among all 3 healing types. And while unique, able to cause tremendous damage with almost any damage type or effect in end game. Or to cause those effects when others do not. They were somewhat a jack of all trades but still able to compete in all roles and on leaderboards. And should be allowed to do so again - without subclass.

LunaFlora · February 6

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

unbeknownst to me, this post and my other one was moved to general.

Kevin said this on Wednesday:

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. Over the next day or two, we will be moving some un-related threads out of the PTS section. While we know some folks are excited for things like Werewolf and Warden changes, having threads like those in the PTS section now is making it difficult to read through current PTS feedback. We'll be moving these to either the General section or an appropriate section based on the context of the thread. Thanks for understanding!

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688464/moving-some-threads-in-the-pts-section

ESO_Nightingale · February 6

LunaFlora wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

unbeknownst to me, this post and my other one was moved to general.

Kevin said this on Wednesday:

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. Over the next day or two, we will be moving some un-related threads out of the PTS section. While we know some folks are excited for things like Werewolf and Warden changes, having threads like those in the PTS section now is making it difficult to read through current PTS feedback. We'll be moving these to either the General section or an appropriate section based on the context of the thread. Thanks for understanding!

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688464/moving-some-threads-in-the-pts-section

ah i definitely missed this.

ESO_Nightingale · February 6

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

I am a Warden main and there is nothing I miss more than my frost dps pure Warden. And healing end game as a pure Warden. Or tanking end game as a pure Warden. The game has not been the same since last summer. That Warden caused tremendous aoe and dot damage and you could outrun just about anything with Falcon's swiftness. Spam with the bird, keep up a dot while healing. It even had real resistances through its frost line. In those days, Whorl of the Depths and Pillar of Nirn were in their hay day. And it was fun to run Iceheart.

Ill add my two cents because the Warden refresh will be the deal breaker of whether I stay with this game or shut my guilds down and move us somewhere else.
Firstly, the class refresh should be tailored to the use of pure class, meaning all three Warden lines together. Not about how it will get cherry picked by subclass. Or even worse designed around another skill line or class like Nighblade.

The Warden is and always was strong in support roles and this needs to be addressed. And maintained. Everything in the game is not and should not be about dps.

Breaking up the Green Balance line is a bad idea from the healing aspect of the game. Wardens are the best of healers and this should always be part of their uniqueness. One thing its always needed is its own cleanse. One that is more cost efficient than Purge and is usable on group members. Just about every healer in the game uses this line in healing. While some people do not like the blue betty, its worth noting that its needed for sustain and that it keeps the healer alive and able to keep healing free of status effects in group content (though that's changed somewhat since subclass). But it's mandatory for pureclass to be effective. And that sustain should be carefully examined for its necessity in support roles as well.

Strong and pure healing lines are necessary to maintain healing support roles.

Regarding the dps, consideration needs to be given to the aoe. Any aoe it has or by extension Chilling explosion (even though its a scribing skill) needs to be checked against the aoe arcanist beam which should not be direct damage either. Or, the rest of the aoe need to be converted to direct damage for fairness and to close the obscene gap between meta. That aside, it should still have worthy dot and spammables. The effects of those are equally important for things like 'off balance'.
You should also restore the damage to its Ultimate that was nerfed. Or only apply the reduction in PvP.

Though it pains me to talk about it in the past tense, Wardens were known for being strong sustainable self healing tanks. Powerful and very sustainable healing among all 3 healing types. And while unique, able to cause tremendous damage with almost any damage type or effect in end game. Or to cause those effects when others do not. They were somewhat a jack of all trades but still able to compete in all roles and on leaderboards. And should be allowed to do so again - without subclass.

Given the new philosophy they kind of have to break up the green balance and winters embrace lines to give some of that role functionality to other lines. For example, i can easily see them moving the tank pull to bursting vines and an offensive stat based single target instant burst heal to polar wind.

ESO_Nightingale · 6:19AM

Hey everyone, my video on this is well underway, i've just completed the script and recorded some background footage. tomorrow i plan to do voiceover and editing, though theres a lot of that so it might take a few days. i plan to get it all done within the next few days.