warden dilemma and debating

Lynx7386

So I'm one of those players super psyched for the warden class (and one who's been requesting it's re-addition to the game since launch). I mained a Druid for my entire 4~ years in wow and have, always wanted a nature based character in eso to get some of those feels again.

In eso, I've mained a stamina 7/7 medium 2h+bow nightblade since launch. I love the playstyle and 2h is by far my favorite weapon set in the game. I've never been big on magicka builds, I hate light armor, and staffs have always felt clunky to me.

So while I impatiently wait for Morrowind to get here, I'm spending all this time trying to figure out exactly how I want to build my warden, no easy task considering we know so little about the class and it's abilities right now.

I've narrowed it down to three basic options though, and would like some discussion and opinions on each.

Option 1: medium/damage dealer
Basically tossing the nightblade aside and going with the same setup on my warden - 7 medium, 2h, bow, all stamina. My main issue here is that, while the warden will inevitably have stamina morphs for some abilities, it's likely to have a lot of magicka based skills that I'd be missing out on with a stamina heavy build. I have the same issues with my nightblade and stamsorc; they ignore 80% of the class skills because they're magicka based.
Additionally, I've played stamina medium builds to death on all 4 classes, and maybe it's time for a change to keep things fresh.

Option 2: heavy tank
7/7 heavy with frost staff and 1h/shield. This would have to be set up as a hybrid build with an even split between magicka and stamina and their related champion perks. Having both resources available for blocking along with warden class abilities regardless of resource type would make this one of the most versatile builds, but probably have the least damage potential.
Of the 3 I think i like this option most but it requires losing 2h, which again is my favorite weapon type.

Options 3: hybrid damage
Going with either 7 heavy or a mix, and using 2h as my main weapon. Not sure what would go on the back bar. This build would focus more on a split between magicka and stamina, but lean more towards stam to make the 2h effective. The idea would be to have enough magicka available to cast class spells and heals as needed without giving up too much damage. Considering the poor state of hybrid damage dealers, this seems like the worst build choice.

In any case, I'm hoping that even if my own damage isn't ideal, the bear ultimate will help counteract that, at least when soloing, so I don't take all day to kill things.

What I really loved most about my druid in my wow days was versatility. He could tank, he could heal, and he could even deal moderate damage. I liked the Jack of all trades, master of none style and I enjoyed the versatility of it all. On top of that, he was a tough sob that could tank and survive pretty much anything.

Would appreciate any opinions you guys have on this, especially if you've used those setups effectively on other classes

Waffennacht

I like the frost staff idea the best. Seems more tanky and versatile with the SnB choices too, (Tremorscale comes to mind of course) paired with Ysgramor jewelry and another set or some such thing.

Winterborn would seem like a cool choice (heh) depending on the availability of abilities.

Anyway I like that idea.

Lynx7386

Some of the heavy armor changes kinda work against it though, a little disappointed with the patch notes.

Still, wonder how well it might work?

Lynx7386

And what crafted sets might support that build? Would be a long while before using dropped sets, if at all. I prefer crafting my gear whenever possible

EldritchPenguin

The good news is that, considering the adaptable nature of all of the classes, you'll get your wish with the versatility.

This is all extremely speculative at this point, since we really only know the names of a couple Warden abilities, and what some of them look like, and we know some very basic functions, while what we don't have is hard numbers. But speculate I shall.

We can say for sure that, like with the other classes, the Warden will have a viable build path as both a Magicka and Stamina DPS, a healer, and a tank. A Stamina DPS Warden, given how other classes are, won't be exceptionally different in playstyle from other Stamina DPS setups. I think I can pretty safely say that you're going to be mostly running weapon abilities, with some class abilities mixed in. Possibly with the bear ult.

Given by my experience with other similar games, it's pretty likely that Warden is going to be top dog in at least one of the three holy trinity roles, since they want to incentivize people to play the new class. Given at the game is flooded with DPS, it probably wouldn't be all that far-fetched to say that either their Magicka or Stamina DPS will come out ahead of the other four classes. Given the general trend of most games, I'd say Stamina DPS will probably be a pretty safe option, especially considering that it's the only setup where we can really say that we know more or less what it's going to look like.

The bear looks like it could be a game-changer, depending on what they do with it. It's likely to have both a Magicka and Stamina morph, which means that they could have a full-blown DPS setup and have a pet to do even more DPS. Whether or not the bear is good remains to be seen, but I wouldn't be very surprised if it became the defining trait of DPS Wardens, both Magicka and Stamina.

Other than that, I could see them becoming good tanks. I expect their frost tree to be packed with crowd control, especially snares and immobilizations. They might be able to compete pretty well with the Dragonknight's crowd control, which looks very good for possible tank builds. It might also be fair to say that the nature tree is going to focus on healing pretty heavily, which would be good for a tank as well.

It's really hard to say what the best builds are going to be, but I think it's pretty reasonable to expect that the Warden is going to be at the very least viable for just about any kind of build you want to try.

Lynx7386

I don't think there will be magicka\stamina variants of the bear, that isn't the case for any ultimates right now. Ultimates all scale on your highest resource.

More likely there will be a damage morph and "tanking" morph - the latter being the self-reviving bear we were told about.