Warden Tank disappointments

[iSagan]

The Ice Warden is the Tanky skill tree of the Warden boasting abilities that scale off of max HP, but the way it has been implemented has immediately removed their viability.

Arctic Wind heals for 10% of your maximum HP, and heals 2% per 2 seconds for 10 seconds (another 10%)
*At 30k HP this amounts to a 6,000 heal over 10 seconds (not including heal crits) for the cost of almost 5,000 magicka

Impaling Shards deals AoE damage based off of your max HP per second for 12 seconds
*At 30k HP I'm dealing 600 ~ 700 damage per second in an extremely small AoE at the cost of around 3,300 magicka. This spell almost always needs to be recast once the enemy takes a step or two, it DOES NOT scale off of your weapons like everything (even heals) in this game do and despite being a damage based spell it DOES NOT benefit from spell damage buffs

- - -

I'm just going to shed light on these two abilities for now as they've been as massively disappointing part of the Warden experience. These two abilities are the core part of the Tanks build, allowing you to stack HP and still have some form of reliable damage in this overall underwhelming kit as well as a personal heal to help you sustain.

HOWEVER the AoE is far too small whether in a Boss Fight or against mobs and the heal is extremely expensive and heals for around the same amount as a level 1 Templar. The lack of scaling from weapon types and the other abilities in the warden class also means the Warden Tank build all but forces you to pick up a magicka centred build... of which you will not get spell damage buffs for your core spells...

All the being said, I'd like to post some feedback to sign off;
The Warden class is fun and seemingly opened up new and interesting avenues to build your character towards. This didn't end up being the case. The Max HP scaling tree, a Stamina heal and a Bear (the gets unsummoned every time you switch weapons..) are things that make the Warden unique and allow for a new approach but they need to be fixed to become viable, otherwise the Warden hype will die fast and hard.

Impaling Shards needs to, at the very least, get some bonuses from your weapon damage as any other ability does and it needs to be able to receive a spell damage buff from Major Sorcery. While it doesn't scale off spell damage, it should receive the 20% bonus from Major Sorcery because it is still a spell whether or not it scales from Magicka or HP. The AoE size should also be looked at, because its current size means recasting is all be a required part of the Warden making you extremely Magicka hungry and overall very disappointed with the way it feels. Long story short, a small AoE and 700 damage isn't viable on fast moving bosses with 2 million HP.

Arctic Wind needs to be cheaper, nothing else is really needed there. It provides a basic, albeit weak heal, but it's morphs can return it to viability. The issue is the cost in an already mana hungry class.

Make the Scaling HP part of the Warden Tree people look forward too, not an area to avoid.

[JumbaWumba]

You realize a bunch of the animal companion tree skills can morph to stamina, to help you with an attack skill, right? Unless you are using attributes to raise HP, instead of items. Then nevermind.

[iSagan]

That is seriously the reply to this topic of Max HP scaling abilities? Try actually reading the post before you reply to it, please

[JumbaWumba]

Origineel geplaatst door iSagan:

That is seriously the reply to this topic of Max HP scaling abilities? Try actually reading the post before you reply to it, please

I already did, and disregarded it as you not setting up build properly. But if you are going to get butthurt about it, fine, whine some more to a forum that isn't actually watched by the developers, and feel that you are somehow helping.

[JumbaWumba]

The big point for me is, you are complaining that a tank skill line isn't doing enough damage.

You've been playing a while, so I wanted to assume you know how a tank should be playing.

Re-read your own words. You complain about the attacking skill......of the tank skill line.....not doing enough damage.

What does a tank do again?

[iSagan]

I never mentioned my build? And no this wasn't a "complaint about attacking"

Unsubbing from discussion to avoid the creepy forum lurkers types...

[JumbaWumba]

I never mentioned your build either. I said you should know how a tank works, since you've been playing a while, right?

Tanks don't need attack. Just like DPS doesn't need large HP. MMORPGs 101.

I'm point out that for one, you are complaining that a tank line skill that scales off HP doesn't do enough damage, which automatically makes me think you don't understand dungeon roles, and 2, it is only 4351 magika without anything that reduces mana consumption, if you are tanking you should already have nice dmg mitigation and won't have to heal that often anyways unless you are fighting a boss, which you shouldn't be doing alone anyways.

You are crying about a problem that doesn't exist, on a forum that doesn't care and has no power to change anything.

[Requimatic]

Origineel geplaatst door Bonnett88:

Tanks don't need attack. Just like DPS doesn't need large HP. MMORPGs 101.

Unfortunately, this isn't always the case.

While I haven't even played ESO in a while, nor do I know anything about Wardens, I can tell you this: unless this area damage skill comes with a taunt mechanism, or highly increased threat generation (likely), then it should be dealing more damage so the tank can keep some area threat going.

Nightblades already have an area drain they can use for this; although I don't think it comes with extra threat baked in the ability like it should (because some DPS Nightblades also use the skill and its morphs). I don't know what Templars use for area threat, but one of the best tanks I ever ran a vet dungeon with had insane crowd control to the point that it made me want to run a Templar tank because it looked so fun. (meaning, he did a damn good job with whatever he was using)

That being said, does the Warden ability in question have increased threat generation? If so, then yeah, I agree, the damage does not need to ramp up any further. If not, then it could use a bit of a tune up so they can keep area threat; otherwise, the ability is largely pointless and should be reworked in to a single-target threat bomb.

Speaking of that, what taunts do they have access to, if any? Minus any existing taunts from non-warden (ie: 1h/shield) trees.

As for the heal, that sounds pretty abysmal, however one could always augment it with Vigor if need be... although that would quickly deplete your Stamina pool for blocking.

Anyway, regardless of how the class plays right now, it's brand-new... it will very, very likely see tuning changes in every hotfix and patch for the next two months, so I wouldn't sweat anything bad about it right now; just try to work with what you've got and see if you can make something work.

That being said, how is the DPS version of Warden? Any good compared to existing classes? Also fun to play?

I'm genuinely interested and may come back to the game if it's worth it. Might have to look up some gameplay footage if so.

[Void#151625]

Warden hybrid class it has its role but in party not as main type since its support class

its stamina versiosn are worse then magika versions

Dps is also worse

heal is comlictated

warden is ment for solo quest play or 10+ content and pvp as support users

in 4 man can do normal version but will be useless in veteran versions

dps it for solo questing worse then most classes but good enough for questing.

tank path support buffer useful for 10+ party content and pvp (can not be main tank because its buff support system for party) its ment to be played in light armour with ice staff

healing s you place the heals on the floor for the group also tricky but can be nice support to templar and NB in 10+ party content, and pvp (is heal support can not be main heal sicne no debuff remover same thing with nightblade, main healer is still templar)

[quarre]

Warden is a piece of junk in every role, except, maybe, healer. As healer, Warden is a little bit better than Nightblade healer. And it have cheap Ultimates to spam. As healer, of course. 75 Ult for sh_tty execution is... meh.
Lets say, Warden class is "f_ck you" for all normal players and "challenge" for those who think ESO is too easy.

[Requimatic]

That... sounds terribly disappointing.

I know they said it was going to be kind of a "jack of all trades" class, but making them blow at every role is a pretty bad move.

Oh well, I'll keep my eyes peeled then. It sounded fun from early release notes, like a viable DPS or self-sustain tank, buuuuut...

[Void#151625]

the thing zenimax does with jack of all trades
is junk for normal users and mostly crap of everything
thats their definition of jack of all trades
so if you see them write jack of all trades you can be sure its junk.....
allways been like that...
if you have hope for proper class watch if they write, them a specific role only those will be better

[quarre]

When they said "jack of all trades", there was few grammar errors.
They meant "jack off on all buyers".

[rahdintimelord]

Let's just say ... ESO, you have Much room for improvement , regarding your warden class, even though I like all the pretty graphics!

[LadstonFelisGaming]

The main problem ZOS had in making the Warden a jack-of-all-trades is that a jack-of-all-trades already exists in the base game in the form of the Templar.

The other three classes are go-tos not for their specific roles but their attributes.

DK=Health
NB=Stamina
Sorc=Magicka

It seems to me that the Templar was designed with a balance of all three in mind. Being a Templar main, I can say from experience that they can perform admirably in all three areas, but they are surpassed by the other three classes in all things except healing.

The Warden's addition is essentially trying to fill a niche that is already filled to capacity. It's going to take a lot of work on ZOS' end to make it a decent long-term investment.

[quarre]

Made 5 new characters, played with each until lvl8 (since start on lvl 3). Warden is most weak of all even with hypebear.