Buffing Warden DPS in PvE - Please read @ZOS

I have played Magicka Sorc since launch, but have also tried Damage Dealing, aka DPS, on all Class specs. I have been (and for most still am) #1 on all PS4 NA Vet trial Leaderboards and am therefore pretty knowledgeable about everything you can do to be good at dealing DPS in ESO. When Morrowind launched, I mained Magicka Warden for awhile. I can say with certainly it is my favorite class (coolest looking too), though it has proven pretty bad at putting out DPS. Very bad, actually.

***The highest numbers I have seen some of the best players pull against target dummies with their Magicka Wardens (including Healer support for an unrealistic 100% uptime on Moondancer procs, Necrotic Orb synergies, and Ele Drain) is just sad. My Magicka Sorc can pull higher DPS with no Ultimate, no Ele Drain, and with much easier and more reliable rotation that still ends DPS parses at nearly full Max Magicka, plus with increased DPS for execute phases, far better AoE DPS, and slightly better overall group utility.

If I'm not qualified to judge this class at all for DPS, then I don't think there is anyone else who can either tbh. I do know my stuff when it comes to ESO, and a lot of people in-game look up to me and ask me all the time for what I'll be running next patch because I'm apparently reliable when it comes to stuff like that. I took time to write this all up so...... what you'll find in this post is going to be as realistic as possible.

Participating in endgame PvE content means pitting class specs against each other and determining which ones are best when fulfilling 12 person rosters. You won't take 12 Dragonknights because other classes could perform much better depending on the scenario and you miss out on the tons of meaningful group buffs provided by other classes. Although each of the five classes play different and bring many of their own unique abilities and playstyles to a raid, it is important to choose whichever class spec holds its weight in a given role and optimize as much as possible.

To put it plainly - trials are already difficult enough, and high scores are placed by experienced/optimized groups, so why choose to bring that Hybrid Templar DPS over the Magicka Sorc DPS when one of them is clearly superior at their role? Unless the reason is to purposely bring weak builds during a fun trial run or a skin (carry) run, then there is no point to it as it makes your group weaker before even attempting difficult content.

It seems that Wardens had their class skill lines drastically changed sometime midway through development, and in a way that caused their development to become different than the four original classes. Two big hints are given which point to this.

1. Wardens existed as a class in early versions of ESO, but were likely unfinished/not unique enough and weren't ready to make the finished version of ESO at release. Knowing they were a class that long ago tells us they were not Morrowind-related at all when first designed. Cliff Racers, Shalks, Betty Netches.... none of these were even thought of yet. Judging by the focus of Sorcerer on a Shock-based DPS skill tree, and Dragonknights on a Flame-based DPS skill tree, Wardens were definitely given a focused Cold-based DPS skill tree. This builds on to the second point....

2. I won't claim to know a whole bunch about how ZOS functions, but I do know that Wrobel was not the Lead Combat guy when ESO launched (aka when Warden was first developed). It is clear that Wrobel has his own vision for ESO, and when tasked with the development of the Warden class, had different ideas than the former Lead Combat Designer.
Although the Warden class is very cool, Wrobel and the Devs created the a bit Warden differently than the other classes - here is what I mean:

(quoted from this article)

"Wrobel: This was a pillar of the class's design. ESO: Morrowind is a great opportunity for new players to experience The Elder Scrolls Online for the first time, so we wanted a class that was easy to pick up, yet difficult to master. When we came up with the ideas for Animal Companions, Green Balance, and Winter's Embrace, they each had to fit into one of these molds.

We did move some of the Skill Lines around as we were designing them to see what best fit. For example, we were playing with the idea of having Winter's Embrace exclusively deal damage, but when trying to make an entire class' Skill Lines, the other options made less sense for a tanking tree. There are only so many abilities you can make out of mudcrab armor!"

From here, Winter's Embrace was seen originally as a DPS skill line, mirroring Sorcerers and Dragonknights elemental DPS skill lines. Equally as important, they announce that Wardens were going to have one skill line dedicated to each of the three roles, which strays from the design of other classes which tend to draw from all skill lines for all roles.

I'm sure I am pretty off about some of my assumptions, but regardless there are certainly strains of truth here. This is why the Warden turned out how it has, and I don't think ZOS intended it to underperform so badly in any role. (why would they?)

Warden is the only class where you cannot effectively build a *competitve* DPS, since they inherently lack the active and passive skills to be competitive with other classes.

The Warden class is the weakest of all classes when it comes to DPS passives.

Since Magicka DPS specs rely mostly on class active skills, and Stamina DPS rely mostly on weapon active skills, the current situation is easy to figure out. Stamina Wardens are weaker than the other Stamina specs, but can still sort of attempt to compete since they still have many good non-Class skills for DPS. Magicka Wardens are drastically behind in all areas of PvE DPS, and need massive buffs to be made on par to any of the four other Magicka DPS class specs. It ofc needs to happen while not buffing their PvP effectiveness too.

This is actually a lot easier than it sounds, since ZOS has already managed this with the Dragonknight class.

More on that when going over Wardens and how they compare to Dragonknights These two classes have much in common, making it pretty simple as to what is missing.

Given the role-focused skill lines of a Warden, ZOS (as the've said on numerous occasions) chose to build their trees like this:
• Winter's Embrace: Tanking
• Green Balance: Healing
• Animal Companions: Damage Dealing

Other classes cannot be broken down the same way, as each skill one is *generally* meant to fulfill multiple roles rather than a singular role.
Warden has been focused into having each skill tree encompass one role. The Warden class skill trees do not properly synergize with each other because they are built around the idea of striving to be different rather than synergize into one class. Healing and Tanking can be generalized into the role of Support, while Damage Dealing is its own category. As a result, Healers/Tanks can both sort benefit a decent amount from both Green Balance and Winter's Embrace, while a Damage Dealer is given just one skill tree to really work with in terms of killing stuff. The Winters' Embrace skill tree should have been a secondary tree for this, but was changed to be exclusively for tanking. We can easily fix this by overhauling that skill line - it's that easy. We already changed one morph (Winter's Revenge) from a tanking skill into a DPS skill. The issue has been proven to be noted by ZOS since they made such a big change (as well as the Piercing Cold change), though the issue is still almost as bad as before the buffs.

Warden passives are cool, but when compared to what other classes are offering, they simply don't stand a chance for DPS. Most notable is their severe lack of DPS-oriented passives. It's not that ZOS provided bad passives, but that they are spread too thin - certain passives need to be merged in order to allow for necessary DPS passives to be added. Magicka Wardens being weak at Damage Dealing is due both to Passive and Active skills.

Here is a comparison of all passives that benefit each class when specced as Damage Dealer in trials. This is where we find Wardens are severely lacking:

Dragonknight

Strong
• Increase damage of Burning and Poisoned status effects by 66%
• Increase damage of Fiery Breath, Searing Strike, and Dragonknights Standard by 3%, and grant 2 seconds of extra duration to them
• Increase damage of Flame and Poison AoE abilities by 6%
• Increase the duration of Earthen Heart ablities by 20%
• Restore 46 Health, Magicka, and Stamina for each point of an Ultimate's cost
• Casting an Earthen Heart ability grants you 990 Stamina
• Grant you group Minor Brutality for 20 seconds on casting a an Earthen Heart ability. When in combat, you will now generate 3 Ultimate every 6 seconds.

Other
• Increase Spell Resistance by 3299



Sorcerer

Strong
• Increase Health and Stamina recovery by 20% when a Daedric Summoning ability is slotted
• Increase Shock and Physical Damage done by 5%
• Increase Weapon Damage and Spell Damage by 2% per Sorcerer ability slotted
• Increase Magicka Recovery by 10%
• Reduce Magicka and Stamina costs by 5%
• Reduce Ultimate Cost by 15%
• Grant you group Minor Prophecy for 20 seconds on casting a Dark Magic skill
• When damaging an enemy under 15% health with Shock or Physical damage, you have a 6% chance to proc Implosion which deals X Shock or Physical damage to the enemy (strong passive execute)

Other
• Your Dark Magic skills (aka Crystal Fragment) will heal you for 8% Max health on striking a target
• Increase Max Health by 8% when a pet is active
• Restore about 1500 Magicka when a pet dies



Nightblade

Strong
• Increase Weapon and Spell Critical ratings by 438 per Assassination ability slotted
• Increase Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery by 15%
• Increase Max Magicka by 8% if a Siphoning ability is slotted.
• Increase Shadow Ability duration by 15% (Path of Darkness, Consuming Darkness, Veiled Strike buff)
• Increases Critical Damage by 10%, and grants Minor Savagery to your group for 20 seconds when you critically strike an enemy
• Casting a Siphoning skill grants 2 Ultimate, with a 4 second cooldown.
• Drinking a potion grants 20 Ultimate

Other
• Casting a Shadow ability grants you Major Resolve and Major Ward for 6 seconds, with a 25% duration increase per Heavy Armor piece slotted (a Damage dealer wears 0-1 heavy armor pieces)
• Restore about 2000 Magicka over 6 seconds when you kill an enemy with an Assassination Ability
• Increase Max Health by 3% per Shadow Ability slotted



Templar

Strong
• Increase Critical Damage done and damage against blocking targets by 10% while an Aedric Spear ability is slotted
• Increase Weapon Damage by 6%, Increase Spell Resistance by 2640
• Increase duration of Sun Fire, Eclipse, and Nova by 30%
• Reduce Magicka, Stamina, and Ultimate costs by 4%
• Casting a Dawn's Wrath skill grants 3 Ultimate, with a 6 second cooldown.
• Grant you group Minor Sorcery for 20 seconds on casting a Dawn's Wrath skill
• When you deal damage with an Aedric Spear ability, you have a 25% chance to deal X Physical or X Magic damage, with a 0.5 seconds cooldown

Other
• Increase damage you can block from melee attacks by 15% while an Aedric Spear ability is slotted
• Increase resurrection speed by 20%



Warden

Strong
• Increase Damage Done by 2% per Animal Companion ability slotted
• Increase Magic and Frost damage by 6%
• Increase Magicka and Stamina recovery by 12% when an Animal Companion ability is slotted
• Casting an Animal Companion skill grants 4 Ultimate, with a 8 seconds cooldown

Other
• When an Animal Companion is killed or unsummoned, you are healed for about 1300 Health
• When healing yourself or an ally, the affected target is granted Minor Toughness for 10 seconds
• When healing yourself or an ally you gain 250 Magicka or Stamina, based on whichever resource is lower with a 1 seconds cooldown
• Increase Spell and Physical Resistance by 500 per Winter's Embrace ability slotted
• Increase chance of applying Chilled to enemies by 200% with Winter's Embrace abilities

.... and when you play a Warden DPS, it is painfully clear how weak they are compared to other setups.
How do we buff their passives? Well it's easy.
Look to the Dragonknight class.

These two classes are similar. Why are they so similar? Well... neither have an execute!

Dragonknights do not have an execute. Wardens have one, but it is connected to the Bear Ult, which is a double-barred Ultimate and is not taken in trials/endgame PvE since all other DPS ultimates are better in practice for that content. Even when used, it never changes up your rotation and DPS doesn't become much greater like a real execute would cause. Wardens and Dragonknights are the only two classes that put out DPS that stays consistent, while the other three classes (especially Templar) spike in DPS during execute. Although the Bear is awesome against a target dummy, trials are far more complex, and the bear will even die! (zero DPS+no other Ults)

In order to compensate for not having an execute, Dragonknights have amazing sustained DPS. An Ultimate more powerful than Elemental Rage, great DoTs, an insane group buff DoT, and amazing passives to support a Damage Dealer. These make up for their flaws - they must be in melee range to apply all DoTs, and have no execute.

A Warden has the similar flaw of having no true execute. However, they do not have anywhere close to the great DoT DPS that Dragonkights are capable of through both passives and actives. Buffing Wardens has to do with fixing two issues:
1. Overhauling the most confused skill line in the game - Winter's Embrace.
2. Buffing a few Animal Companions skills

As a result, they will not only be worth taking into trials for DPS, but also unique. Right now they feel like a much weaker version of a Sorcerer using the rotation that was used before Velocious Curse became Haunting Curse. These buffs will focus on their *overtime* sustained damage. A Dragonknight immediately applies high DoT damage and sustains it since they do not have an execute. A Warden should work the same way as a Dragonknight, but apply a DoT damage that begins weaker and spikes in damage overtime into a very powerful DoT effect. Doing this will not only work fantastically, but also stop PvP Magicka Wardens from gaining an OP burst skill too. It'll be very impractical and quite bad to try to set up the high DoT damage in PvP.

The goal: Make Magicka Warden DPS on par. There is a loooooong way to go in balance changes before Magicka Wardens can even get close in DPS to the other classes. Stamina Wardens needed help too, and I've definitely made sure to address that in a way that supports PvE as well. I have had an awesome time writing this up, thinking about what Magicka Wardens could be if Frost Damage is embraced like we wanted from the "Ice Mage" class.

Magicka Wardens have good enough burst damage. They can fight a pack of adds that die quick and kill them fast enough to where they are not behind in DPS. Any fight longer than a quick pack of weak enemies is where they already start to fall behind. The goal of the buffs here is to make them on par in a way that drastically increase their overtime sustained DPS. Even more important - have Magicka Wardens actually BE the Ice Mages us RPers and endgame players alike hoped for.

---

The buffs - what Magicka Wardens need to be competitive! (and also very cool )

• Winter's Revenge (morph of Impaling Shards): Give this morph a *small* burst of initial hit damage, equal to 2 ticks of the DoT. The purpose is to increase DPS slightly when not making use of the full duration, since it is usually recasted around the 8-10 second mark in rotations. Causes Winter's Embrace skills to gain 100 Spell and Weapon damage while slotted. Also Fix the bug that is causing this skill to critically strike less than intended.

• Swarm: Increase tooltip damage by 5%. Mainly give this skill a secondary effect of some sort. Right now it is the only DoT in the game with no secondary effect. I propose causing afflicted enemies to deal slightly less damage to the caster, though this secondary effect could be anything. It shouldn't be just a plain DoT.....

• Cutting Dive (Dive morph): Now deals up to 15% increased damage based on your distance from the target. This effect synergizes very well with Stamina when forced away from the target, and specifically buffs Bow builds to help them possibly be viable in endgame

• Screaming Cliff Racer (Dive morph): No longer increase damage based on distance. This morph now has a 25% chance to pierce though the original target and strike a nearby target for X Magic Damage (maybe around 33% of this skill's original damage). This is very nice for people who hate cliff racers in PvP, as those Magicka Wardens casting it from afar will now deal 15% less damage, and you won't have to think about it when using this skill in PvE since you are almost always close to a boss/enemy to get heals. The pierce also makes it more on par with the slight AoE component of Force Pulse.

• Piercing Cold: Grants 2%/5% Frost and Magic damage, and 3%/6% Physical Damage.


****And now for the giant PvE DPS buffs which will hopefully be enough to get Magicka Wardens on par! There are two major buffs that will allow this to happen alongside what I have written above.****

1.
• Arctic Wind: This skill feels very plain. It also doesn't feel like it has two meaningful morphs. Give this skill the Arctic Blast morph as part of the base effect.

• Polar Wind (morph of Arctic Wind): Leave as is. With this morph chosen, the resulting skill will now behave like the current version of Arctic Wind but with both morphs active. A tank can now give out the occasional heal while dealing a small bit of DoT damage which may also aid them in aggroing enemies.

• Arctic Blast (morph of Arctic Wind): It is now a totally different skill and the main buff to help Magicka Wardens be on par. We can coincidentally change this skill into the same skill we saw in the announcement trailer for Morrowind! (here from 1:55 -1:58)

Arctic Blast now scales off of Maximum Magicka and Spell Damage. This skill casts a ball of permafrost that is targeted at an enemy, which deals a burst of Frost Damage (not greater than Dive) to the target and nearby enemies (6m radius), and afflicts on your target a Frost Damage DoT for 8 seconds. All enemies hit by Arctic Blast are afflicted with a debuff that causes them to take 3% increased Cold Damage from all sources for 12 seconds. If the skill is cast on the enemy after 5 seconds, the debuff is increased by another 3%, and the duration is reset to 12 seconds. This debuff can be stacked 5 times, up to 15% increased Cold Damage taken. When the debuff reaches its maximum potential (15%), you are returned 1 Ultimate for every 6 seconds the debuff is active at this strength.

Why? How is it balanced?
The Magicka cost is still high - the same as Arctic Wind. Multiple casts of Arctic Blast by different Wardens will not bypass the 5 second cooldown, and the increased Cold Damage taken debuff still cannot surpass 15%. This balances the skill out very nicely, and causes it to be not so great in PvP, though still potentially useful in a 1v1 if the cost isn't too tough to work with. Wardens are supposed to gain ultimate fast, but this is not possible for PvE DPS since Shimmering shield is not used, so the small Ultimate gain would help them get Ultimate just a tiny bit faster.


2.
• Glacial Presence: Add the effect of Icy Aura onto this passive skill.

• Icy Aura: Dealing Frost Damage gives you a 5%/10% chance to create a subtle aura of frost around your feet that deals X Frost Damage over 2/4 seconds, beginning with a radius of 4 meters and expanding 1 meter each second. This effect can only occur once every 6 seconds.

Dealing Physical Damage gives you a 5%/10% chance to create a subtle aura of cold wind around your feet that deals X Physical Damage over 2/4 seconds, beginning with a radius of 4 meters and expanding 1 meter each second. This effect can only occur once every 6 seconds.

Increases the duration of all casted abilities that deal Frost Damage or Physical Damage by 1/2 seconds.

The purpose of these changes is to give Wardens an inherent sort of Elfborn set. This makes them more unique, and especially helps out Stamina Wardens too. That small AoE passive gives them better melee range DPS which helps their close range AoE DPS as well. Overall, it creates more options AND mainly allows non-warden Cold Damage skills (Ice Comet, Ice Destruction Staff skills) to be worth using and quite good.




A nice quality of life buff for Tanks:

• Frozen Gate: Apply the the Frozen Device morph effect to this skill.

• Frozen Retreat (morph of Frozen Gate): Leave as is.

• Frozen Device (morph of Frozen Gate): Reduces the range, but now casts the rune under a selected target, and reduces the rune arming time to 1 second. This should help PvE tanks quite a bit in pull targets in. I know many tanks who would love this change, since it would behave very much like a Dragonknight's chain pulling utility. The current version is awesome but gets messy in raids and especially at longer distances.



These buffs all around sound like a lot, but if you have tried to play a Magicka Warden DPS before, or compared a Stamina Warden with other Stamina DPS under the same conditions, you won't find these changes too OP at all. They'll seem (hopefully) interesting and strong enough to make Wardens an option for the Damage Dealer role. On top of this, they don't have any Critical Damage buffs, so those Horns of the Reach 2/3/4 piece buffs don't give them the extra push that certain other *already viable* DPS class specs are getting. We create Ice Mages AND viable Warden DPS for endgame PvE. Please ZOS....