Wardens: A most frustrating class... or is it just me?

[Gargoyle Girl]

I tried asking in various guilds what I could do to make my Warden more functional, and well... let's just say they didn't have any ideas I could work with. ...or at all.

So This thread has two purposes. One, I'd like to file a sort of complaint/request to Zenimax or Bethesda, so if anyone could point me to the right page, I'd appreciate it.

Secondly... does anyone have any tips or advice on how to play this class and not get this confused feeling I get from it? It's probably my build, but my Warden is a confused combination of ranged and 'almost' melee that often just leaves me unsure as to exactly what I'm doing wrong with them.

There's also the Bear. That f'n thing is *broken*, which is why I'd like to communicate this to Bethesda.

The Cliff Diver skill seems to be designed to work at range... except only once. Then it's something you either stop using, since everything will charge you, or use in melee range... which feels stupid.

Deep Fissure is a skill that also feels to me as if its confused as to what its meant to be. The slow charge up to it makes it feel like a ranged attack, except it only has so much range. It would be cool if it sent those bugs it summons out to run at and explode on your targets.

Fetcher Infection is one of the only solid skills you get. It gives ranged damage, as well as weakening a target so they take extra damage, which makes it useful in melee as well. It's also quick, so there's no long build up like most Warden skills.

The Betty Netch thing seems like it might be useful... but looking at the times for it, it seems like those things it does will require a lot of recasting, wasting time you probably need for dealing damage or trying to survive. Removes one negative effect every 5 seconds, but only a 19 second duration? So just three times? And with dragons casting Soul Tear on you and killing you in 4 seconds? ...egh.

And then there's the Bear. WTF is up with *that* thing?

I currently have Eternal Guardian, which makes it respawn automatically if killed once a minute. But it still manages to just vanish when loading something, while leaving me to think it's still following behind. Just... gone.

The Bear also has no agro. You can send it into combat and the enemies will *ignore it and run right to you*, no matter how far away you are when you send it into battle. I've even had them agro on me while I was hidden, instead of the bear! HOW?! "Hmm, this bear just attacked; I'd best go attack this person I can't see hiding in the bushes over here and ignore the bear smackin me in my head."

The Ice skills seem mostly centered on melee, since none of them have any range. You can set Winter's Revenge at some distance... but the enemies just run to you, and out of the AoE, making doing that pretty pointless. Everything else is 10 meters or closer. I still need to mess around with a melee Warden, but I'm more of a ranged player.

Basically, I'm very confused on just how to play this class in a way that feels effective and balanced, and am looking for some ideas, along with where I would go to communicate these ideas to someone who might get something done about it, however slim that chance might be.

Any help would be appreciated.

[MMOGamer71]

If you need help on Warden builds see here:

https://alcasthq.com/eso-most-recent-builds/

[Brownstone]

Dude... Don't judge a class on how effective it is fighting overland mobs... Every class and playstyle have very unique roles & abilities while you play actual content. Like dungeons, trials etc. Or PvP. In group content you'll have a tank which holds aggro so you'll actually play ranged.

[blooman6203]

im running a warden mag healer and doing really well with it. its a bit harder to go dps warden, tank or healer are prob more optimal

[Drake]

Yeah the magden has never been a great magicka dps, they are more offensive support skills than real dps skills. I mean you can make it work, but if you want a summoner, go play a sorcerer, you'll have real summons.

About the netch though, every class has skills that you need to recast, that's how the game is made, we have no cooldown so we have to recast spells. That's the tradeoff.

The ice skill line is mainly a tank line, not a damage line. Becasue the warden is mostly a tank/heal oriented class. As a support it's phenomenal, you can gear a char that is almost as good as a templar heal while at the same time almost as good as a DK tank. It's very useful in group content to save the team from difficult situations if you know what you are doing.

That said, a stamina warden is a very solid stamina dps, most of your dps comes from weapons and you use class skills to buff yourself, and you spam the cliff racer.

[Exilyth]

Haven't played warden yet, but from what I hear, it's more of a support buff/heal type of class, good for tanks or healers.

Автор сообщения: Gargoyle Girl

The Bear also has no agro. You can send it into combat and the enemies will *ignore it and run right to you*, no matter how far away you are when you send it into battle. I've even had them agro on me while I was hidden, instead of the bear! HOW?! "Hmm, this bear just attacked; I'd best go attack this person I can't see hiding in the bushes over here and ignore the bear smackin me in my head."

The behavioral programming of the AI in this game is unfortunably not very good.

[Drake]

It's more general than that, pets don't aggro, their damage is kind of your damage. If a pet hits, you're registered as the hitter.
In this game they are not meant for tanking, they are just external source of damage and support.

[Vyrtualis]

OP, not sure if you've played warden in vet content/endgame yet, but all wardens in endgame PvE get shoehorned into being healers or tanks. They've never been top DPS choices for endgame PvE, and it's largely by design. ZOS intended the Warden class to be a catch-all. If you just want to run solo content and occassional dungeons, you can easily kit any Warden for decent DPS for that content. If you want to go further and hit endgame, you're better off choosing another DPS class.

The bear has been a main point of contention since its introduction, but ZOS has brushed off all criticism of it with no intention of fixing or improving it. Same goes for the Warden class in general. They've nerfed it nearly every patch. They even nerfed the bear before.

If you still want to voice your concern somewhere that ZOS might actually see it, you can do so on the official game forum. You need an invitation code to make a forum account, which you can get by making a support ticket and asking for one. No guarantee that ZOS will see your post or even respond if they do, but it's better than the Steam forum. This place is a black hole.

[Da Nut Crackah]

First of all, where would you go to communicate these things to get something done about it? Lol class reps on ESO forums would be a place to start, however I can tell you right now, they aren't going to listen to much from someone who doesn't know how to use the class. They look at ppl talking about numbers, CDs, cast times etcetera, from ppl who can compare them to other class skills and know how and why they should be doing the things they do. Also, ZOS does not read Steam forums, so you're complaint is wasted here.

Regardless, the warden is actually one of if not the MOST versatile class in the game. Their kit makes them viable as tanks, healers, and dps in end game content. That being said, you need to focus on some specifics to make your build work. Namely, if your stam dps, put all your points into stam so your weapon damage scales up, and use stam morphs of skills. The stamden kit is also very good for ranged playstyle, you will find a lot of the skills synergize well with the non class ranged skills.

The bear cannot and will never hold aggro. No pets can. They used to, and it was a freaking ♥♥♥♥ show in trials with pets aggroing bosses, or getting attacks focused on them that if they were on a player, that player would either need to take them out of group to avoid killing other players, or would need to stack tight with the rest of the group to avoid certain types of splashing damage - neither of which pets would or could do, and groups wiped if they brought pets. Taking aggro away from pets made pet builds viable for more content, they're never gonna turn that one back.

The ice skill tree is more for tanking, and a few of the skills are good for pvp, beyond that I don't see them used often in pve dps, except when a player is trying to boost some defenses.

The netch is OP. A duration of 19 seconds is actually pretty long considering how often most skills need to be recast. Also, I am not 100% sure, because I haven't messed around with the warden very much, but I believe the duration is extended by each rank up of the netch. Either way, the fact that it has a purge added to it at all is actually pretty awesome.

I have a player who joins me on my trial night each week that plays a bow/bow stamden, and she does very very well actually. She consistently would be in the top 3 dps for our runs, verified by logs. I would show you a picture of one of her parses, but lol, I don't know how to upload stuff like that here on steam forums. Never bothered learning it. In any case, lethal arrow, subterranean assault, and light attacks account for just under 50% of her total dps. Rele, endless hail, and her bear accounted for another 33%. Poison injection and growing swarm amounted to another 10%. Poisons and her monster set added another 5.5%, not sure what the remaining few % were done by.

[Vyrtualis]

Автор сообщения: Da Nut Crackah

Regardless, the warden is actually one of if not the MOST versatile class in the game. Their kit makes them viable as tanks, healers, and dps in end game content.

Автор сообщения: Da Nut Crackah

I have a player who joins me on my trial night each week that plays a bow/bow stamden, and she does very very well actually.

I'll add that while the warden is versatile and can do reasonably well at all roles, it will never be top-meta at any role (as ZOS intended). That being said, rolling endgame DPS Warden can be a lot of fun if you're a good and experienced player (helps if you can nail good DPS with any class), and if you have a raid group that isn't toxic/elitist and lets you play your DPS Warden.

[Da Nut Crackah]

Yeah, they definitely aren't top meta for any role, however I do think there are several situations where having a warden healer and a templar healer in a trial are better than having 2 templars. Healing tombs on hm in vSS and kite healing in vCR are the immediate examples that come to mind. I believe the same was true of having a warden as an off tank up until the recent update, cuz one of their abilities got nerfed? They still can be decent tanks, not top tier meta, but unless im mistaken they still bring some extra buffs to the table.

I never put class restrictions on my trials, just a modest dps reuirement. Yeah, many of my regulars pull better numbers on their Stamcros, but I want them to come on what they want.

[Trigger]

Put all animal companion on one bar = 18% more damage- i don't really use the Bear, but is on my animal companion bar for the extra Damage.

[Drake]

Автор сообщения: VerticalUplink

Автор сообщения: Da Nut Crackah

Regardless, the warden is actually one of if not the MOST versatile class in the game. Their kit makes them viable as tanks, healers, and dps in end game content.

Автор сообщения: Da Nut Crackah

I have a player who joins me on my trial night each week that plays a bow/bow stamden, and she does very very well actually.

I'll add that while the warden is versatile and can do reasonably well at all roles, it will never be top-meta at any role (as ZOS intended). That being said, rolling endgame DPS Warden can be a lot of fun if you're a good and experienced player (helps if you can nail good DPS with any class), and if you have a raid group that isn't toxic/elitist and lets you play your DPS Warden.

Also, and that's something a lot of people are forgetting, a good healer warden that knows his class is way better that a mediocre templar healer that is just templar because he thinks templar = healer.
The skill threshold where a templar beats a warden for healing and where a DK beats a warden for tanking is effectively pretty high. And unless you're in scoring league, there is little chance you'll see that threshold.

[deadspawn]

I like my orc stamwarden for trashing mobs, not the greatest dps and not a tank, but front bar dual wield and back bar bow allows me to range or in face fight bosses. I found that you must play all 10 sills to be somewhat effective with it, and if you mess up your rotation, you kinda have to reset.

I followed the alcast cookie cutter build until i figured what I wanted on it, prebuff with netch is a must, lay trap, hit the wings thing, then volley and poison arrow, move in, cast the assault, then soul strike, then skills you choose with some la weaved in, rinse repeat (if needed).

Once again, not top DPS but when I hit mobs in groups they go down quick, especially when velidrith procs. So far I found it sucks in PVP, although I don't have BIS gear, and my skills need a little rework for PVP. I find the bear annoying, gets in the way of looting stuff often, and most mobs run by it.

Now if you play in a group that pulls the aggro all over, well, it makes this char a little less viable IMHO.

[Da Nut Crackah]

For mobs you should definitely use a 2 hander instead of dual wield. The light attacks do splash damage, the bleed is an aoe, and the execute while already being crazy good also does splash damage.

[Drake]

Автор сообщения: deadspawn

I like my orc stamwarden for trashing mobs, not the greatest dps and not a tank, but front bar dual wield and back bar bow allows me to range or in face fight bosses. I found that you must play all 10 sills to be somewhat effective with it, and if you mess up your rotation, you kinda have to reset.

I followed the alcast cookie cutter build until i figured what I wanted on it, prebuff with netch is a must, lay trap, hit the wings thing, then volley and poison arrow, move in, cast the assault, then soul strike, then skills you choose with some la weaved in, rinse repeat (if needed).

Once again, not top DPS but when I hit mobs in groups they go down quick, especially when velidrith procs. So far I found it sucks in PVP, although I don't have BIS gear, and my skills need a little rework for PVP. I find the bear annoying, gets in the way of looting stuff often, and most mobs run by it.

Now if you play in a group that pulls the aggro all over, well, it makes this char a little less viable IMHO.

Stamina is a special case of dps.

Since all stamina build use weapon skills and guild skills as base attacks (you can check, the difference between stam build from all different classes, is usually 2 or 3 skills, everything else is the same), becasue that what is best in slot for stam builds, the dps doesn't change much, some are better than other but not by a great margin, sicne the core is always the same.
So a stamden isn't really going to perfrom worse than a stamblade or a stamsorc.
They'll have their playstyle but it's still going to be similar number wise.