PVP Warden Meta?

Monroe585

Starting a Warden for pvp and am wondering what works nowadays. Any good builds? I usually use Deltia's builds. Thanks!

Janni

I have like five wardens cause I love the class and I love to play them with a lot of different setups. It seems the most successful ones out there really stack into the healing and defense but personally I just like to hop into the melee and kill/be killed since it's more exciting. Since the last Whitestrake's event I've basically been running a variation of an old fengrush build called the Hammer of Justice. The original build used a set specifically for imperial city but with all of the changes over the years you can get a similar effect in cyrodiil without that set.

It's basically just vicious death on the belt, neck, 1 ring, and dual wielding a sword and mace (nirned and sharpend). 3 Pieces of trainee for some help with sustain. The wild hunt ring for speed since you really need it these days plus it's lots of fun. Titantic cleave on the backbar for some more punch against groups as well as turning carve into a decent spammable. Balorgh's for that extra kick though bloodspawn is a good alternative. You could also drop the trainee and master's and run clever alchemist on the backbar.

Infused weapon damage on neck and one ring. Leave wild hunt as swift with weapon damage. Well fitted traits except the chest. Stage 3 vampire (does that even need to be said?), jewels of misrule food. Thief or steed mundus, your pick. Three health enchants on your big pieces of armor and stam on the rest. All points into health.

For the skills I pretty much use the same ones as the original build except I swapped out vigor for polar wind and forward momentum for bird of prey. Shimmering shield is a really good defense but sometimes I swap it out for vigor or even mist form depending on the fights.

This probably isn't even close to competitive when up against coordinated groups or tanks but it really shines in the chaos of the the crazy big fights where factions are stacking up at a single keep. I find as long as I'm not getting focused I have plenty of staying power and the damage is pretty good at winning or scaring off some potential 1v1s and only gets stronger when more opponents stack up.

Starlight_Knight

Meta for any class atm is Vatershran Staff - Masters DW and marsalock monster helm

notReclaimer

Starlight_Knight wrote: »

Meta for any class atm is Vatershran Staff - Masters DW and marsalock monster helm

Yeah, no

Brakkish

MAX HP + Polar wind. Doesn't matter after that. WIn.

Monroe585

Anybody know what Ahtu's build is?

ItsNotLiving

Monroe585 wrote: »

Anybody know what Ahtu's build is?

Asking for a specific players build on the forums is probably not gonna get you very far, if you want a specific players build I would send them a whisper in game most of the time they’ll tell you if not then watch them play and look for visual clues, like the blue ring for rallying cry and so on.

SandandStars

If u run masters dw on a warden built for tanky hi health polar wind you’ll be very hard to kill while dishing out more damage than just about any build that isn’t on the masters dw train except for a skilled nb who might incap/merciless/concealed wep spam before you can block or spam polar

this game used to be fun I swear

Theignson

React faster had a video on a warden build that I think involved gryphon's and rallying cry. He also showed how to play the build. As always, his builds are very well thought out but can be a little hard to play. Worth looking at if you don't want Vate+Maar+ Masters+Fire

Sluggy

Brakkish wrote: »

MAX HP + Polar wind. Doesn't matter after that. WIn.

Tried it. Wasn't impressed. I'll stick with sub 30k health and a whole lot of raw damage, thanks.

Perhaps the tank meta only exists because you're all running around with no ability to actually deal damage?

SandandStars

yep agree @Sluggy , i also sacrifice tanky hi health and build to get kills; however, if i run into a skilled player on the tanky meta, they tend to win. also, if u dont join the tanky meta the hordes of nbs will find you and follow you

note that my definition of the tanky meta includes masters dw/vatesh/marselok… the procs do damage while you sit safe behind high health & high resistance

Sluggy

SandandStars wrote: »

yep agree @Sluggy , i also sacrifice tanky hi health and build to get kills; however, if i run into a skilled player on the tanky meta, they tend to win. also, if u dont join the tanky meta the hordes of nbs will find you and follow you

note that my definition of the tanky meta includes masters dw/vatesh/marselok… the procs do damage while you sit safe behind high health & high resistance

Yeah, I was pretty flippant with my remark I guess. There is a lot of merit to building for survival. I just prefer risk v reward and survive mostly by making my opponents follow me into situations that are not favorable for them. If they are smarter than the average bear it does get me into trouble though.

But do stand by my remark about that build - it's no where as good as people say. Not terrible but def not an easy win button. Even with 52k health I was getting laid low in just a couple of seconds by a two people coordinating. By dropping my health and raising my damage I was far more capable of surviving simply because I could bite back when people started to crowd me. Master's dual wield has an okay burst (okay, not great) but DoTs are simply dead unless you're doing the whole vMA + Draugrkin + Dragon's build.

OBJnoob

The build is definitely as good as people say. Perhaps it isn't the greatest on a class that lacks a good spammable and execute, which warden is, but still.

moo_2021

Brakkish wrote: »

MAX HP + Polar wind. Doesn't matter after that. WIn.

But what's the option for stamden?

My pariah vampire combination no longer seems to work in BG. Despite 24-28k HP I got killed by a burst of 5-6 4k damage in a matter of 2-3 seconds (in recap) repeatedly - the numbers don't even add up but most damage was poison, that was unexpected. Echoing vigor was up all the time.


Deltia's builds have high health but very low armor. How would that survive? Not even reaching the cap.

Brakkish

moo_2021 wrote: »

Brakkish wrote: »

MAX HP + Polar wind. Doesn't matter after that. WIn.

But what's the option for stamden?

My pariah vampire combination no longer seems to work in BG. Despite 24-28k HP I got killed by a burst of 5-6 4k damage in a matter of 2-3 seconds (in recap) repeatedly - the numbers don't even add up but most damage was poison, that was unexpected. Echoing vigor was up all the time.


Deltia's builds have high health but very low armor. How would that survive? Not even reaching the cap.

Assuming since you're asking about stam you're wanting to DPS targets.
My answer to that is purely opinion, and subject to debate as not everyone here shares the same playstyle or what they find "enjoyable".

Personally, I build tanky, as I find not dying more "enjoyable" than spending time in the respawn. There are others that feel kills are their "enjoyment". - neither is either the right way or wrong way.

For ME:

I realized a long time ago that the number of kills as a DPS largely depends on the composition of the other teams (good players or inept?) - So for the last several years I play tanky, built for 1vs8 - because, how often does a 1vs1 ever happen in a bg vs you getting in a 1vsX?

To add to it; most regulars know that "I'm not worth their time" and pursue squishier targets compounding the euphoric feeling of instawin I have when opposing players run past me an mow down the (unfortunate for them) squishy target on the flag with me.

I'd like to assist with some suggestions - but unfortunately unless you want to play as an immortal tank, who occasionally gets a kill or two - I'm not able to offer up much!

I'm more objective based. My warden is a one button healer, stands on flags, doesn't die, gets ignored and heals others in need, and that's about it.

OBJnoob

moo_2021 wrote: »

Brakkish wrote: »

MAX HP + Polar wind. Doesn't matter after that. WIn.

But what's the option for stamden?

My pariah vampire combination no longer seems to work in BG. Despite 24-28k HP I got killed by a burst of 5-6 4k damage in a matter of 2-3 seconds (in recap) repeatedly - the numbers don't even add up but most damage was poison, that was unexpected. Echoing vigor was up all the time.


Deltia's builds have high health but very low armor. How would that survive? Not even reaching the cap.

I'll try to help, but I'm quite sure we don't have all the information about your character yet that we'll need to make this thorough, so please go back and fourth with me a little because it may take more than one question and more than one answer.

First things first. The Death Recap. Fairly unreliable. It records the largest contributors to your death but does not necessarily list them all or in the order they happened in. So. Allowing for some margin of error, let's realize that 6(ish) instances of 4k(ish) damage does infact add up to 24k(ish) damage. So. Allowing for a margin of error, and assuming one or two other small things hit you as well but just wasn't recorded, it does add up. You were legitimately killed.

Here's what you're doing wrong. So you're a vampire. Stage 3 I assume? Make sure, before entering a fight, that your stage 3 vampirism hasn't worn off down to stage 2. You're only a vampire (stage 3!) For a vampire passives called Undeath. Undeath grants "up to 30% damage mitigation based on your missing health." The key words are "up to," because at 100% health you aren't mitigating any damage. At 50% health you are mitigating 15% and, right before you die, theoretically, you are mitigating the full 30%.

So. Stage 3 vampires tend to run more max HP than you are. While 28k isn't terrible, it is on the low side of today's standards. You will be mitigating 15% of damage once you have 14k health left. If you had 40k health you would be mitigating 15% of damage when you had 20k health left. This is why having more HP benefits vampires. Not just in the regular sense of "well I have more health duh," but also because you gain more mitigation from Undeath.

Pariah works basically the same way. "Up to X armor, depending on missing health." SO. By increasing your health you not only a) increase your health, duh but also b) gain more % mitigation AND c) gain more armor.

Max HP is the key to your build. You're walking around with a slightly less than average amount of health when you should have an above average amount. Also, and I should've mentioned this before, your main heal Polar Wind scales off of your max HP. So add more healing to the list of benefits. You need to have MORE than 35k HP. Make it happen... You won't be sorry.

Also, I see you are using Echoing Vigor. Why? Use Resolving Vigor. It gives you minor resolve, which is like another 3k resistances.

Janni

moo_2021 wrote: »

Brakkish wrote: »

MAX HP + Polar wind. Doesn't matter after that. WIn.

But what's the option for stamden?

My pariah vampire combination no longer seems to work in BG. Despite 24-28k HP I got killed by a burst of 5-6 4k damage in a matter of 2-3 seconds (in recap) repeatedly - the numbers don't even add up but most damage was poison, that was unexpected. Echoing vigor was up all the time.


Deltia's builds have high health but very low armor. How would that survive? Not even reaching the cap.

Personally I don't put much stock into armor these days. It is so easy to hit 30k pen that unless you are wearing 40k+ armor you are basically naked as soon as a decent player starts their combo. You either need to go all out on the armor or not bother at all. Something in-between might help avoid random deaths to the odd accidental attack here or there but won't do much against an concentrated effort to kill you.

Brakkish

@moo_2021

Just wanted to add another tip; aside from actual build details.

I'd recommend avoiding using any sets or skills that react to a dip in X percentage of health.

A dipping health bar in PVP is just like chum in shark infested waters. You will immediately become the focus of any group looking for a weak spot.

For instance; in a 4 vs 4 skirmish, everyone has full health bars except for one person - guess who becomes focussed? This is the reason it would be preferable to work on builds that don't let your HP dip to begin with, not count on it.

OBJnoob

@Brakkish makes an excellent point there. But still, a high HP pool on a Pariah Vampire stage 3 warden should honestly make you tanky enough to withstand quite a beating, even being focused by multiple enemies, even alone, for a little while. Don't forget to block sometimes! And don't forget to stay mobile with some form of snare removal and major expedition.

moo_2021

OBJnoob wrote: »

Max HP is the key to your build. You're walking around with a slightly less than average amount of health when you should have an above average amount. Also, and I should've mentioned this before, your main heal Polar Wind scales off of your max HP. So add more healing to the list of benefits. You need to have MORE than 35k HP. Make it happen... You won't be sorry.

What would be target stamina and stamina recovery these days? Previously I always aimed for 30k/3k, but with high HP that seems impossible.


If I move all attributes to health, it's 38k health with 5h+2m armor, with only 20k stamina when food (lava foot) is active. I'll also get the new ring for one bar build, since bar swapping frequently fails in PvP.

But damage looks really low, and my bleeding sets no longer work now. In BG I can see my overall damage is usually better than my teammates', but I rarely made any kills if at all.

OBJnoob

Target stamina and stamina recovery? That's harder to answer. But it's definitely not as high as you might think. I'm going to randomly saaaay... 22k stam, if you're a stam spec, and I dunno maybe like 1.5 or 1.8k stam recovery?

Here's the thing... Since hybridization happened and all skills scale off your highest offensive stat, you should really be using a combination of magic AND stamina skills. Which means you don't need as much recovery as you used to.

For example, with your build. You're using Ice Fortress (or whatever morph) for major resolve, right? Mag skill. Polar Wind is your main heal, right? Mag skill. You're probably either using living trellis, lotus blossom, or both right? Mag skills. You're using the magic morph of your beetles I hope since it gives major and minor breach? Mag skill.

I mean what stam skills are you actually running? Let me guess... Vigor, the spammable and execute from whatever weapon line you're using?

If you're running out of stam here's what you need to do:
1) Try to block less. Blocking is important but it's all in how you do it. What you don't want to do is hold block for more than 2 seconds in a row. Stamina (and magic too for that matter,) recovery ticks every 2 seconds when in combat. Stamina recovery is disabled when you're blocking (with anything except an ice staff, because that blocks using magic instead so it disables magic recovery.) BUT. You can watch your stam recovery tick... Then press and hold block for exactly 1.5 seconds... And when you release block your stamina recovery will tick again.
2) You can do a similar thing with sprinting. Try not to sprint too much period though. It's a bad habit to get into.
3) Heavy attack more (with your stam weapons, obviously.) Heavy attacking generally feels slow and, well, annoying. But I have found it works better with Warden than most other things. If you press Deep Fissure (the mag morph! Use the mag morph!) And then wind up a heavy attack... Then hit your spammable at the same time as the heavy attack lands, your beetles hit at roughly the same time. It's decent burst damage and a decent excuse to heavy attack.

Also, with Warden, consider that you could use an Ice Staff back-bar instead of Sword and Shield. This would also help take pressure off your stamina.

Also, with stage 3 vampire, and since Warden doesn't have a very good spammable, realize that you could use the vampire spammable and that would also help your sustain.

Edited to add: Also, what traits do you use on your armor? Reinforced on heavy big pieces and impen on other pieces is a good way to go... BUT... If you find yourself roll-dodging and sprinting a lot then consider that a few well-fitted may help you. But since you're mostly wearing heavy armor I hope you aren't rolling very often... So a few pieces of sturdy might be in order for reduced block cost.

moo_2021

Thanks! I had no idea about hybridization or anything happened in the last 2 years. My skills were all stamina based.

My main character was all stamina, maelstrom 2h mace with unleashed and pariah (5 medium 2 heavy). All traits / enchants were into stamina and stamina recovery.

Now it's made much worse by set changes and non-responsive charge/pull I relied on (often disabled but I can do other targeted attacks). Previously I never used block or heavy attack or anything with channeling time, since it's always close range attack after charge and people were running in circles.

I got the Oakensoul Ring today to prepare a new one bar build. Would you suggest I restart with ranged attack style, that seem to fit better with warden's abilities? I had seen some people running around hitting with the very slow dizzying swing but couldn't do it myself. And whenever I pull successfully now, enemy would fall behind me and I get myself disoriented

OBJnoob

I think we found your problem-- you were running all stam skills. Especially your beetles, you're gonna want the magic morph. This is a big part of why you felt your damage was low probably... You were missing a lot of penetration.

It's hard to say what makes a character stam or mag these days... The weapons they use I guess? But it's almost always best to use a combination of mag and stam skills.

I don't think Oakensoul is that great for PvP honestly, but if you ever decide to try the new Endless Archive I have had success with an Oakensoul "stam"warden. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try it just let me know how it goes!

Honestly my advice is try your build the way it already is, but with the changes we've discussed. That's how you'll know if they were good changes or not. And then if you make some other changes... Like using Oakensoul, or using a Bow, and you start doing poorly then you'll know exactly what went wrong.

If you do go ranged I would probably try an Ice Staff. And if you stay melee I would probably use dual wield. But then again you said you're using Unleashed so maybe you need 2h for the gap closer?

I don't want to tell you how to build your character-- that's for you to have fun with. I'm just here to help you solve problems

moo_2021

2h gap closer is almost useless in BG now (EU) because most of time the ability is disabled - can't aim at all, until I leave BG.

I also noticed the one bar could sometimes have vigor disabled for 1-2 seconds too, but my survivability did increase a lot with 2 healing skills slotted.


What's the advantage of ice staff?

ItsNotLiving

moo_2021 wrote: »

2h gap closer is almost useless in BG now (EU) because most of time the ability is disabled - can't aim at all, until I leave BG.

I also noticed the one bar could sometimes have vigor disabled for 1-2 seconds too, but my survivability did increase a lot with 2 healing skills slotted.


What's the advantage of ice staff?

12% flat damage increase while wielding an ice staff, new warden passive.

ItsNotLiving

Just to add to warden ideas, Baron Zaudrus monster set with charged trait on the front bar should be giving you a ton of ultimate paired with heroism shield and the very expensive heroism potions could be pretty strong with very good uptime on ultimates.

OBJnoob

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

2h gap closer is almost useless in BG now (EU) because most of time the ability is disabled - can't aim at all, until I leave BG.

I also noticed the one bar could sometimes have vigor disabled for 1-2 seconds too, but my survivability did increase a lot with 2 healing skills slotted.


What's the advantage of ice staff?

12% flat damage increase while wielding an ice staff, new warden passive.

Yes, this is the answer.

ZOS decided to make Ice Staff extra strong on warden so that they have a viable way to do frost damage if they want to.

Now that doesn't mean you NEED to use an Ice Staff though. If you look in the destruction staff skill line you'll see that Lightning and Inferno staves also have some bonuses to damage that almost equal it out.

The deciding factors, in the end, are twofold. Minor brittle and blocking. If you do frost damage to a target with any other weapon... Then you have a chance to apply Chilled, which if I recall correctly makes targets do 5% less damage. Warden chilled procs (thanks to their passives... Glacial presense I think it's called,) do more damage than other people's chilled procs, so I mean, you want to be doing the occasional chilled proc. And Wardens have some ice skills... so you really can do your chilled procs with any weapon, but when you do it with an ice staff you automatically also apply minor brittle to the same target. Which makes them take 5% more damage from critical strikes.

And you might be thinking, "jeez bro, I'm wearing pariah, pumped my max HP, and I'm trying to still have enough recovery to sustain with AND have a reasonable amount of weapon damage.... Now you want me to try to have a high crit percentage??" Nope. It doesn't matter if you have high crit or not. Minor brittle applies to the target, not to you, so they will take more damage from your teammates crits as well

So that's one reason why Ice Staff pulls ahead for a Warden. The other is the blocking. Which is easier to explain. If you can do offensive levels of damage with a "defensive" weapon, why use an "offensive" one?

The warden I used to use in BGs used an Ice Staff on his offensive bar and sword and shield on the other bar. This meant I could use both stam and mag pools to block with, get increased mitigation and reduced cost for blocking either way, and also be able to heavy attack for whatever resource I needed most. It was a very good set-up... That fact alone made me rather tanky, and I wasn't even using tanky sets.

But you don't HAVE to use a staff either. Just like Lightning/Inferno staves have passives that basically equal the Ice Staff (if it weren't for the brittle and blocking,) there is a lot to be said for Dual Wield as well. Dual Wield will give you the highest raw weapon damage still. And that, although it may or may not equal the Ice Staff thing for damage, will have the added benefit of increasing your healing power too (but not for Polar Wind because that scales off your max HP. But Vigor, living trellis, and whatever else you use will scale off weapon damage.) Also with dual wield you can mix and match your traits, so for example you have a nirnhoned sword for the mainhand and a sharpened mace in the off-hand now you kinda have the best of both worlds for dealing damage... A bit of weapon damage and a bit of penetration. Plus there's 1 more weapon enchant you'll have access to. So you won't be able to inflict Brittle anymore... But you'll still be able inflict Chilled (because Wardens have their own frost damage, they don't need an ice staff to do that,) and now you can maybe inflict a new status effects you wouldn't have otherwise had access to... Such as poisoned or burning.

SO. In the end, since you're a "stam"warden... If I were you, I might go Dual Wield on my offensive bar (with a skill setup something like: deep fissure, swift predator, Vigor, rending slashes, spin to win, Dawnbreaker,) and Ice Staff on my back bar (with a skill setup something like: Betty netch, ice fortress, polar wind, living trellis, lotus blossom.)

Edited to add: I decided my post wasn't long enough yet so I'd better think of something else to say. LOL. No, actually, I just realized I proposed skill bars for you that don't include any frost damage. You could use a frost damage enchant on any of your 3 weapons, or, if your healing seems okay you could consider either lotus blossom or living trellis to be a flex spot. And you could replace it with something like Gripping Shards, Crystalline Shield, Wall of Elements, or whatever you need!

gariondavey

Chilled gives you 10 percent more crit damage

xFocused

Magden just feels weak honestly. There's some fun sets that I like to run with it like Frostbite and Ice Furnace but magden's just feel like they don't pack that punch. Even trying Nunatak with Ice Furnace, the damage is meh at best. Probably doesn't help with the current tank meta but I'd love to hear others thoughts on this

OBJnoob

I wouldn't say Magden feels weak, but yes I did have trouble securing kills against good players. Then again I wasn't running some of the better damage sets -shrug-

For me, even with an ice staff, I just focused on AoE damage, so my 1v1s were a little lackluster. But I frequently went 0 deaths which made me feel good because I'd like to think I have an aggressive playstyle. And I frequently would only have like 4 kills. Sometimes I'd think I had a lot more but turns out someone else got credit -shrug- such is life when you don't run an execute.

When I would like up my AoE burst into a group of fighters-- that's when I would get my kills. So that's kinda kill stealing too in a way. But that's just the way I was set up.

I see plenty of Wardens that seem to do preposterous damage. And I don't know if that's Frostbite, Draugrkin, or just like a charged Ice Staff and Force Pulse... But the ones that know don't have any trouble, I assure you.

I was using Hrothgars, which is less than optimal, but I made a viable little niche build with it. On the occasions when I would win a 1v1 against someone that seemed otherwise talented it was normally in a way, I'd like to think, was rather clever on my part.

I played my toon like a melee class so even though I could've used force pulse I didn't. I was CC heavy, using Gripping Shards to immobilize and proc chilled/brittle, and mostly waiting for an opportunity to hit my Dawny Beetles. The spammable I went with instead was Arterial Burst, and it doubled as my execute. I would let myself get low health, baiting the opponent to forego healing and try to finish me, but I'd be block-casting arterial bursts. Which is a guaranteed crit if I'm under half health, and does 10% more damage if they are brittle.

Wardens feel a little slow-paced but they can still deliver a pop when they need to. Find a way to add some pressure-- whether that be an arena weapon, some DoTs/procs, some status effects... And you're good to go.

moo_2021

Thanks, I made some changes and attempts with different weapons. It looks like the highest dps is still 2h, opening with scorch (changed to magic morph for debuff) and stampede which crits and can proc several sets.

The problem with other weapons is that I need to get close for scorch to work, and only 2h offers gap closer (when it works). Pen is almost zero with all med armor and 2h sword for damage and vigor boost. And I can't afford any other close range ability either, so it's charge, retreat and switch to range, charge again, ...


Resistance seems far less important with high hp, and polar wind + vigor can often keep me and my team alive. I have to get 3.5k stam recovery and 1.5k mag though (sometimes not enough mag)

So now it seems okay, and I just need to try some tank build with 45k hp and ice.. looks fun