stamina warden or stamina DK for PVP

Dardas

Hi,

I am having a hard time deciding which to use for PVP.

I am told that the Warden is very strong in PVP over the DK as its much more bursty, but how much more effective is it in PVP than the DK ?

Liofa

Stamina Warden is basically upgraded version of Stamina DK . More burst (more timable skills) , better survivability (minor protection and a lot more self healing) , better sustain (netch , also natures gift if you are in group) , more ultigen (shimmering shield) etc.

Lynx7386

Warden dps in pve is terrible but in PvP they have some of the best burst of any class in the game. Dk on the other hand has amazing dps for pve, but poor burst for PvP. That should answer your question.

Go warden, get good at comboing sub assault with dawnbreaker and either wrecking blow or heavy attacks.

Dardas

Thank you for your feedback.

@Liofa you are a legend for your tanking from what I hear. I will be using my Warden as a primary tank in PVE and would like to use it in PVP. I have yet to do trials but I saw your video of your Warden tank build.

Liofa

Dardas wrote: »

Thank you for your feedback.

@Liofa you are a legend for your tanking from what I hear. I will be using my Warden as a primary tank in PVE and would like to use it in PVP. I have yet to do trials but I saw your video of your Warden tank build.

I recommend using DK tank for PvE . Warden and DK has similar sustain but DK has such a strong buff to offer for your group , Engulfing Flames . It is pretty much essential for any trial group but not that necessary in 4 man content . Just keep that in mind . If you wanna play in competitive end-game trials , you want to tank as a DK , at least for this patch or until mDK DPS is viable . Have both in hand . If mDK gets fixed properly and becomes viable , DK tanks will have less to offer in terms of group support (which is 90% of PvE tanking) compared to Warden .

But ye , Warden is definitely stronger than DK in PvP (assuming both are stamina) , just a quick look at skills and passives makes anyone see the difference quite clearly . You can get a lot of good information from KodiPvP , I highly suggest checking his channel for Stamina Warden PvP .

Lynx7386

Engulfing flames is good, sure, but with the absence of mdk dps, who is really benefiting from it? Most of my trials groups run heavy on Magsorc, stamsorc, magblade, and Stamdk for dps roles, none of which really use much in the way of fire damage. The sorcs are all using lightning, especially now to help keep off balance up. The magblades may run a fire staff but only for the slight boost to single target spells, so the only thing engulfing flames is benefiting is their light attacks. Stamdk might run flames of oblivion or Sunderflame, buy that's it for fire damage.

Personally, I think the only one engulfing flames is really benefiting these days is the dk tank themselves, and 10% more fire damage coming from your tank isn't going to make or break the trial group.

Meanwhile a warden tank, assuming there isn't a warden healer, is boosting recovery, defense, and health for the entire trials group and is also throwing out a fair amount of extra healing, on top of having arguably better ultimate gen than dk with shimmering shield thus allowing greater warhorn uptime.

I see where you're coming from liofa, I just don't agree dk is in that much better of a position for trials tanking right now than warden is.

Liofa

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Engulfing flames is good, sure, but with the absence of mdk dps, who is really benefiting from it? Most of my trials groups run heavy on Magsorc, stamsorc, magblade, and Stamdk for dps roles, none of which really use much in the way of fire damage. The sorcs are all using lightning, especially now to help keep off balance up. The magblades may run a fire staff but only for the slight boost to single target spells, so the only thing engulfing flames is benefiting is their light attacks. Stamdk might run flames of oblivion or Sunderflame, buy that's it for fire damage.

Personally, I think the only one engulfing flames is really benefiting these days is the dk tank themselves, and 10% more fire damage coming from your tank isn't going to make or break the trial group.

Meanwhile a warden tank, assuming there isn't a warden healer, is boosting recovery, defense, and health for the entire trials group and is also throwing out a fair amount of extra healing, on top of having arguably better ultimate gen than dk with shimmering shield thus allowing greater warhorn uptime.

I see where you're coming from liofa, I just don't agree dk is in that much better of a position for trials tanking right now than warden is.

Magicka DDs don't use Shock Blockade anymore . Keeping Off Balance up is responsibility of tanks and healers at the moment because only a single wall is enough . A lot of groups run with 3 , if not 4 , Magicka DDs that all use Flame Blockades and double inferno staves . Shock staves on MagSorcs (or any magicka dd) era is long gone after the Asylum Staff and Off Balance changes . You can watch several videos on Youtube that proves double inferno Sorcerer has the highest DPS capability . A magblade pulling 41-42k on a 6 million dummy using Flame enchant and Flame Wall (and Fiery Rage at the start) gets around 1.5-2k DPS boost just from Engulfing Flames . This number goes up and up in a trial environment . Looking at top scores , you can see all those DK tanks using Engulfing Flames . It is there for a reason and it makes a huge difference . Of course it is not going to break the group but the DPS difference is highly noticable . Personally I saw magblades in a group I was in gaining 4k+ single target (which is huge) after I switch to a DK tank with Engulfing Flames after giving up on my Warden . Keep in mind that uptime on the buff is also important , I usually get 90%+ (95%+ on easier ones) on most bosses . I don't even want to mention how effective it is in AOE situations .

Here is a parse (here is video) of a MagBlade from our group on Ra Kotu that did NOT use Flame enchant . Do the calculation yourself and see how effective Engulfing Flames is I got around 95-96% uptime if I remember correctly there due to waiting for boss to come out after taunting it or would be around 97-99% ^^ Also remember that Engulfing Flames is actually even more useful for Sorcerers since they also use Force Pulse as spammable and have a lot of Burning Status effect DPS from Asylum Staff in addition to Blockade and Light Attacks . Shooting Star and Destro Ulti is also Flame Damage



Anyway , back to topic . To OP , use DK tank only if you want to do competitive PvE for the reasons I mentioned just now . If not , have fun with the Warden ^^ I honestly can't wait for a mDK fix so I can go back to my Warden tank

Ragnarock41

Its like stamDK, but better in every single possible aspect of pvp. I'm not even exaggerating.

Lynx7386

Liofa wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Engulfing flames is good, sure, but with the absence of mdk dps, who is really benefiting from it? Most of my trials groups run heavy on Magsorc, stamsorc, magblade, and Stamdk for dps roles, none of which really use much in the way of fire damage. The sorcs are all using lightning, especially now to help keep off balance up. The magblades may run a fire staff but only for the slight boost to single target spells, so the only thing engulfing flames is benefiting is their light attacks. Stamdk might run flames of oblivion or Sunderflame, buy that's it for fire damage.

Personally, I think the only one engulfing flames is really benefiting these days is the dk tank themselves, and 10% more fire damage coming from your tank isn't going to make or break the trial group.

Meanwhile a warden tank, assuming there isn't a warden healer, is boosting recovery, defense, and health for the entire trials group and is also throwing out a fair amount of extra healing, on top of having arguably better ultimate gen than dk with shimmering shield thus allowing greater warhorn uptime.

I see where you're coming from liofa, I just don't agree dk is in that much better of a position for trials tanking right now than warden is.

Magicka DDs don't use Shock Blockade anymore . Keeping Off Balance up is responsibility of tanks and healers at the moment because only a single wall is enough . A lot of groups run with 3 , if not 4 , Magicka DDs that all use Flame Blockades and double inferno staves . Shock staves on MagSorcs (or any magicka dd) era is long gone after the Asylum Staff and Off Balance changes . You can watch several videos on Youtube that proves double inferno Sorcerer has the highest DPS capability . A magblade pulling 41-42k on a 6 million dummy using Flame enchant and Flame Wall (and Fiery Rage at the start) gets around 1.5-2k DPS boost just from Engulfing Flames . This number goes up and up in a trial environment . Looking at top scores , you can see all those DK tanks using Engulfing Flames . It is there for a reason and it makes a huge difference . Of course it is not going to break the group but the DPS difference is highly noticable . Personally I saw magblades in a group I was in gaining 4k+ single target (which is huge) after I switch to a DK tank with Engulfing Flames after giving up on my Warden . Keep in mind that uptime on the buff is also important , I usually get 90%+ (95%+ on easier ones) on most bosses . I don't even want to mention how effective it is in AOE situations .

Here is a parse (here is video) of a MagBlade from our group on Ra Kotu that did NOT use Flame enchant . Do the calculation yourself and see how effective Engulfing Flames is I got around 95-96% uptime if I remember correctly there due to waiting for boss to come out after taunting it or would be around 97-99% ^^ Also remember that Engulfing Flames is actually even more useful for Sorcerers since they also use Force Pulse as spammable and have a lot of Burning Status effect DPS from Asylum Staff in addition to Blockade and Light Attacks . Shooting Star and Destro Ulti is also Flame Damage



Anyway , back to topic . To OP , use DK tank only if you want to do competitive PvE for the reasons I mentioned just now . If not , have fun with the Warden ^^ I honestly can't wait for a mDK fix so I can go back to my Warden tank

Guess I just run with an oddball trials guild, then again we aren't pushing leaderboards scores or anything.

Ragnaroek93

Warden is better. They are not even close...

Dardas

@Liofa I actually did check out Kodi's stam warden build before I saw that comment. I pllan on using it in PvP.

I also just hit CP level ont he Warden, which is about 380 atm. I am not doing into competitive tanking at all. So far been running vet 4 man dungs and I actually think the Warden benefits better than the DK because of the healing and ice fortress abilities. I find the Warden to be more fun as its not just stand block.

So overall, I would rather have the 2nd bass tank class in the game for in return have a much better PVP class

GeorgeBlack

Which is exacly why the meta/non meta gap needs to be reduced. There will always be a BiS but changes are needed in order to make room for personal options without risking being excluded from groups.

Changes are needed in class/weapon/guild skill morphs.
Introduction of PvE morphs/traits are needed. Eg invigoration is useless. So many ability morphs are useless.

The meta/non meta gap can be closed in PvP by introducing more stamina morphs for all classes.

Ragnarock41

GeorgeBlack wrote: »

Which is exacly why the meta/non meta gap needs to be reduced. There will always be a BiS but changes are needed in order to make room for personal options without risking being excluded from groups.

Changes are needed in class/weapon/guild skill morphs.
Introduction of PvE morphs/traits are needed. Eg invigoration is useless. So many ability morphs are useless.

The meta/non meta gap can be closed in PvP by introducing more stamina morphs for all classes.

more stamina morphs for stamDK has been suggested countless times.

A big majority of the community thinks otherwise, and even ZOS themselves, said NO to poison whip before.

To be honest stamDK was doing just fine before ZOS gutted the class because of community hate(Which is the fate of anything once meta favours you), so really the issue isn't the lack of stamina morphs, Its a power creep issue. But the community asked for it, and zos did what they asked, can't blame them for it.

Now they enjoy elder nightblades vs sorcs online, with a little bit of stamden on top of it.

Kabt

Warden is better for 1vX but DK is better for 1v1.

GeorgeBlack

Sooooo stamDK is fine as it is??
No need for buffs?