Welcome to my first written build guide, I’ve recently picked up the magika warden and found a build that works rather exceptionally for me. I’ve been getting asked quite often what I run so here we go. Note that this build is tested and tweaked to my play style and it may not work for you. The stamina sustain in particular is very, very tight and if you misplay at all or ignore any part of the stam sustain puzzle then you’ll struggle to survive.
This magden is a pure glass setup that will deliver you top tier damage scores consistently but requires that you play in position and make smart plays. Let’s jump right in.
Big changes coming for Dragon Bones, I'm going to shift my focus from recording content for this build to testing a new spec. Big updates coming soonRace - Argonian
This is mandatory. While other races give superior damage passives, nothing touches the sustain of Argonian. Resourceful is an effective 250 mag, health, and Stam Regen. The healing and health passives help counter burst that typically kills light armor specs.
Mundus - Mage
Damage, defense, sustain. We’re stacking lots of magika and this is part of the equation
Stats - Fully Buffed, in combat
Health - 24612
Magika - 47775
Stamina - 11947
Magika Regen - 1663
Stam Regen - 704
Spell Damage - 2716(2956 Resto)
Spell Crit - 32%
Spell Pen - 11813
Effective Spell Power - 10310
Spell Resist - 17025
Armor - 14952
Critical Resist - 2585
Sets5 Necro - This is a staple set for light armor mag warden. Push 45k+ magika and get a big Harness magika shield and one of the nicest PVP damage sets in the game. Pvp builds need defense, sustain, and damage, any set that adds two of those is extremely valuable, Necro adds all 3.
5 Spinners - More max magika, spell damage, 5% penetration. Simply put, it’s the best damage set available that’s always up and scales positively with multiple targets. It adds as much magika as shackle, the same amount of spell damage.
1 Domi - The second best magika 1pc in the game behind Masters destro. I need the stamina here so I can’t fit Masters destro. This is also a heavy, infused helm with a tri-glyph.
Front Bar Infused Inferno - Bersker Glyph - The damage scales with any number of opponents and boosts your healing. Some people back bar this, but I’ve got something more important back bar. We go destro instead of DW because the added pressure from weaves and reach is insane.
Back Bar Nirn Resto - Stam drain poison - This is a controversial choice, but I enjoy the stam sustain it provides and I despise fighting a tanky meta spec for 10 minutes.
1x Mag Regen 2x Spell damage glyphs on jewelrySkillsBird Of Prey - Mobility is key in BGs and the damage bonus scales well on builds that stack high damage and against multiple opponents. 10% total increase in damage
Flame Reach 7225 Impact 8378 Dot - Instant cast CC, decent initial damage, solid DoT, can proc burning, lands at the same time as Racer when cast immediately after.
Racer 14073 - Undodgeable, does more damage to opponents who run, 1 GCD travel time. Forces a poison pill decision on low health opponents between blocking the racer and risking getting hit with the unblockable fissure due to the block snare OR trying to outrun the warden while making racer more dangerous.
Fissure 17984 - Big AoE damage, the only truly scary part of the magden toolkit. This skill is the reason for all the build decisions based around multiple target damage scaling. Casting fissure-racer-reach is the main burst combo and in the hectic BG environment the Fissure CC will usually tag someone else.
Fetcher Infection 24682 - This ability currently scales on Master at Arms, which will be fixed in Dragon Bones. However, this build is all about direct damage burst so the broken scaling gives us a very potent DoT.
Northern Storm 5862 - AoE major protection, minor maim(from chilled status), and passive 8% max magika. If you can time this when you engage an opponent with the sigil it usually buys you time and allows you to get a quick kill or two to neutralize the threat.
Netch - Major Sorcery, 12% stam and magika regen for back bar, magika sustain, free purge. When I’m focused but I trust that my other defensive mechanics are holding I will spam this for the purge and the small heal. It’s free!
Living Trellis 3319 HoT 8078 Burst - 10 second duration, low cost, counters shieldbreaker, gives ~100k healing per BG match when with an organized group. Increase healing done, can proc all green balance passives. This build is defensively built around shield stacking which scales poorly against multiple opponents, but adding in the healing from Trellis means you don’t ever have to get the Healing Ward burst heal to survive.
Healing ward 7308 shield 3152 heal - Big Shield, burst heal, protects the health pool in execute range to allow trellis to do its job.
Ice Fortress - the armor buffs and minor protection along with the argonian HP passive are the only reason you can’t get 1 shot when shields are down, keep this up. The minor protection applies to shields.
Harness Magika 9257 shield 1950 return - Big shield, pays for itself and trellis when used against magika specs. Protects Healing Ward. The magika return is not necessary for the build to sustain.
Northern Storm 5743 - The 8% max mag is too good to pass here as well. Since I’m not high elf I really need to pack in magika where I can to offset and this is a nice space. I didn’t note it earlier but the minor maim and major protection give mitigation to damage shields.
Champion Points - May not be min-maxed perfectly but after a lot of testing and tinkering I'm pretty happy with the results, feel free to correct them if you can find more damage.
Bastion - 34
Light Armor Focus - 1
Thick Skinned - 51
Hardy - 27
Elemental Defender -27
Ironclad - 51
Resistant - 39
Thaumaturge - 13
Master At Arms - 72
Shattering Blows - 13
Elemental Expert - 64
Spell Erosion - 40
Elfborn - 28
Tumbling - 72
Mooncalf - 19
Arcanist - 43
Tenacity - 19
Siphoner - 5
Warlord - 72
Tri-Pots - these are crucial to your sustain
Detect Pots - I carry these in case of particularly nasty stamblades, but you cannot use it if your stam pool has been recently pressured or you risk running out of stam. Typically I tab-target good nightblades and try to catch them with the combo and 100-0 them before they even CC break.
Videos coming soon! My first PVP video has arrivedhttps://youtu.be/W-gNt_MdHzs
In this video I’m not wearing a 1 piece undaunted. I forgot to re-equip it when shuffling some gear around. 6 light