PvP warden build feedback.

LittlePinkDot

So I'm dusting off my old warden and reinventing her.
I'm wondering how well this build would work. Skills are subject to change, still figuring out what will work
She's 2H and and sword and board.
Front bar is cutting dive, carve, deep fissure, bird of prey and the last one I'm thinking of using gripping shards for the immobilize. Also have Dawnbreaker of smiting.

Back bar is the Betty, vigor, polar wind, lotus
blossom and ice fortress.

She's a Crit build. She's using orders wrath with heartland conquerer set with precise weapon.
And shadow mundus. She's currently using Zaan but I find it hard to trigger and sustain is hard. Thinking of getting roska the warped (whatever it's called) for sustain. She's currently a Redguard but I think I want to change her to Kahajit. She has a little over 50% Crit chance. She also has 35k health.
I put all 4 blue CP stars into damage. Master at arms, thaumaturge, fighting finesse and exploiter to take advantage of the off balance from cutting dive.


What do you think of the build? And suggestions?

Navaac223

1)Weapons:
When creating a stam build, you have the choice between 2H and dual wield. As I understand it, 2H has better abilities but dual wield gives you better passives. Since you only use a 2H for carve (a terrible skill in pvp), dual wield would probably be better.

2)Sets:
All of your gear seems pretty good for a crit build but there are a few problems :
-In pvp, for pure damage penetration>weapon/spell damage>crit chance. That's why most builds use sharpened maces so precision isn't the best idea (unless you really want to go full crit mode and don't care about META). Maybe you could even replace heartland with stuhn's favor for that massive pen buff (I don't think heartland is very good for offense).
-Both of your sets are active on 2 bars. It would be better to have, for example, an offensive one that reaches the 5 piece bonus only on the front bar and a defensive one on the back bar. That way, you would have 2 free slots to equip a mythic (markyn is always good) and a 1 piece trainee for the extra health.

So here's what I would do :
2 heartland conqueror maces, 1 medium boots, 1 medium gloves and 1 heavy reinforced chest.
1 heavy reinforced trainee legs.
1 markyn ring
1 rallying cry (a set that gives decent defense, good damage and increases crit chance) sword, 1 shield (with a stamina enchant because you will have more stamina on the front bar because of heartland, the enchant will negate the stamina loss when bar swapping), 1 necklace, 1 ring and 1 light sash.

3)Sustain
I used to have the same problems as you but then I discovered jewels of misrule. I don't know if you use it but it makes you instantly have good sustain. If you still have trouble with it, either roksa or wretched vitality on the back bar (replace rallying cry with it).

4)Skills
-Cutting dive can work but it isn't the best spammable. If you want, you can replace it with dizzying swing (though it is really, really hard to use, especially in 1vx).

-Carve is just terrible. If you really want an aoe, use whirling blades, an ability that can also be used as an execute. If you stick with 2H, executioner is way more useful.

-Maybe living trellis for your 5th slot ?

5)Mundus
I prefer thief over shadow because I prefer more chances of critting when it matters : big burst combos and healing. A bonus to crit damage and healing doesn't seems that useful to me, especially with the changes that I suggested (that would lower your crit chance a bit). Also with a khajiit, you'd have more than enough crit damage.

Durham

Look at the test server they are changing the healing of most stam wardens. (artic blast will be unuseable in PVP) You will have to run a Warden north of 40k in the next patch this will limit your build choices, probally to a D swing build with much lower resources.

xylena_lazarow

Durham wrote: »

Look at the test server they are changing the healing of most stam wardens. (artic blast will be unuseable in PVP) You will have to run a Warden north of 40k in the next patch this will limit your build choices, probally to a D swing build with much lower resources.

I'm sure someone will try 29k hp front bar shenanigans, but the majority of Wardens seem to already be congealing into the same 40k hp dual wield vamp slash setup (with a blocking weapon back bar). Major Toughness and Polar Wind are too strong not to build for. The awful change to Piercing Cold reinforces the superiority of the 64 hp setup.

Durham

Yep, I like D swing:) But Vamp Slash is better alt. for most!

LittlePinkDot

Navaac223 wrote: »

1)Weapons:
When creating a stam build, you have the choice between 2H and dual wield. As I understand it, 2H has better abilities but dual wield gives you better passives. Since you only use a 2H for carve (a terrible skill in pvp), dual wield would probably be better.

2)Sets:
All of your gear seems pretty good for a crit build but there are a few problems :
-In pvp, for pure damage penetration>weapon/spell damage>crit chance. That's why most builds use sharpened maces so precision isn't the best idea (unless you really want to go full crit mode and don't care about META). Maybe you could even replace heartland with stuhn's favor for that massive pen buff (I don't think heartland is very good for offense).
-Both of your sets are active on 2 bars. It would be better to have, for example, an offensive one that reaches the 5 piece bonus only on the front bar and a defensive one on the back bar. That way, you would have 2 free slots to equip a mythic (markyn is always good) and a 1 piece trainee for the extra health.

So here's what I would do :
2 heartland conqueror maces, 1 medium boots, 1 medium gloves and 1 heavy reinforced chest.
1 heavy reinforced trainee legs.
1 markyn ring
1 rallying cry (a set that gives decent defense, good damage and increases crit chance) sword, 1 shield (with a stamina enchant because you will have more stamina on the front bar because of heartland, the enchant will negate the stamina loss when bar swapping), 1 necklace, 1 ring and 1 light sash.

3)Sustain
I used to have the same problems as you but then I discovered jewels of misrule. I don't know if you use it but it makes you instantly have good sustain. If you still have trouble with it, either roksa or wretched vitality on the back bar (replace rallying cry with it).

4)Skills
-Cutting dive can work but it isn't the best spammable. If you want, you can replace it with dizzying swing (though it is really, really hard to use, especially in 1vx).

-Carve is just terrible. If you really want an aoe, use whirling blades, an ability that can also be used as an execute. If you stick with 2H, executioner is way more useful.

-Maybe living trellis for your 5th slot ?

5)Mundus
I prefer thief over shadow because I prefer more chances of critting when it matters : big burst combos and healing. A bonus to crit damage and healing doesn't seems that useful to me, especially with the changes that I suggested (that would lower your crit chance a bit). Also with a khajiit, you'd have more than enough crit damage.

I switched out heartland for blood drinkers set. I figured I would make her a bleed build since warden seems to have so many bleed skills.
Dude I can't hit the backside of a barn with dizzying swing, that's why I don't use it. But I also don't like that I need 16 gold tempers to upgrade dual wield weapons. If the enchants effect is halved, the gold mats required should be halved too.

It's definitely easier to hit people with cutting dive and the bleed version of swarm.

I am disappointed though that I can't use bleed damage on soul wield... Call it Bleeding Soul. I really hope ZoS adds bleed option to soul wield in the future.

Navaac223

You don't need to fully upgrade everything though. I change my builds so often that I stopped golding everything yet I still perform well.

You should really try dual wield, especially if you're going to use bleed (for example rending slashes has better damage than cleave)