The purpose of this thread is to discuss the Magicka Warden as it currently stands in end-game PvE as a DPS role. The majority of posts on the matter share the opinion that it's lackluster overall, and likely parses the worst out of all other setups and classes. At the same time, it's still very early since most players have had access to it (some still don't), so I would imagine most of us, myself included, have not had the opportunity to test it utilizing its maximum potential as we are still leveling important skill lines such as Undaunted and Mage's Guild. We've also not had time enough yet to discover which sets are best, the Champion Point setup that is most optimal, or even which skills to have on which bars to produce the best results.
Off the top of my head, here are the pros and cons to the Magicka Warden DD:
Pros
- Strong and cheap spammable (Screaming Cliff Racer)
- Strong AOE skill that also hits like a truck in single-target (Deep Fissure)
- Two strong class DoTs (Winter's Revenge, Fetcher Infection)
- Fluid rotation that is easy to upkeep in situations involving a lot of self awareness, movement, etc. (at least the one I'm experimenting with at the moment)
- Cheap / strong single-target ultimate (Eternal Guardian)
- Resource management is not an issue
Cons
- Lacks any kind of group synergy (not including the one skill from the Green Balance line)
- Offensive passives are lackluster
- Its strongest offensive ultimate is primarily single-target, and must be double-barred to remain active (Eternal Guardian)
- Its strongest AOE ultimate does roughly half as much damage as the Destruction Staff ultimate
- The Piercing Cold passive is applicable to and viable with only class skills (i.e. Who's going to be using a frost staff as a DD in any trial?)
- Its class passives lack group synergy in a way that boosts overall group damage. For example: Dragonknights have Engulfing Flames, causing affected enemies to take extra damage from all flame attacks; Sorcerers have the Exploitation passive, boosting the Spell Critical of nearby allies; Templars have the Illuminate passive, granting Minor Sorcery to nearby allies; Nightblades have the Hemorrhage passive, granting Minor Savagery to nearby allies, and also possess off-healing ability while simultaneously dealing damage
- Its strongest class DoT (Winter's Revenge) currently appears to be bugged in that it is not affected by one of our crit modifiers; or perhaps I am consistently experiencing horrible RNG
- That I have so far found, the way to achieve the highest single-target damage output is by using the Eternal Guardian ultimate, which is not as effective in a good portion of trial scenarios as an AOE ultimate would be
I'm sure there are loads more of both the positive and the negative that I'm missing, and would love to hear others' thoughts as well.
Below is a parse on a 3 million HP dummy that I completed with my Magicka Warden. (Note: The Winter's Revenge crit is unusually high in this parse. For most of my parses, it sits around 10-12% lower than all other sources of damage.)
A couple of things to note on the above parse:
I am able to consistently achieve this number with Spell Power Cure and Ele Drain. While the Magicka drain appears to be much higher than the regen, implying that I would not be able to sustain, this is because I purposely was not as careful concerning resources near the end of the parse as I knew that the skeleton would die before I ran out of magicka. With that in mind, in a longer fight, I do not believe resources would be an issue.
To wrap up, again, I'm curious how other players are faring with their Magicka Warden DDs. With all of the above in mind, I can't help but ask myself, "Why would I bring a Magicka Warden to a trial when I could bring something better?", and am hoping there's a missing piece that I'm just not seeing yet that truly makes this class shine.
PS: Thanks to
@MrClyde for helping me test all of this stuff. He's the brains behind the outfit. I'm merely the keyboard warrior.
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