Theorycrafting a Magden build platform to cope with the shield cast time - Murkmire

PickleRick

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=77772

5 Robes of the Hist
We're a warden in light armor with no snare immunity so we'll basically always be snared. Thankfully, warden has a passive that reduces snare effectiveness as does the new light armor passive, since these are additive we get a total of 35% snare resistance. We're running 2x swift and using speed stam immovable potions so we have a native movement speed of 150%, this means we can never be reduced to less than normal movement speed and while we're snared we get a 2800 per second heal, which is a lot stronger than vigor for a point of reference

2 Troll King
Tons of health regen, this just gives us more passive healing. I'm looking at ways to make healing ward effective as an only shield on light armor and being able to quickly reset to full health without getting the full healing ward shield is an important part of that

5 Transmutation
We're running this front bar because it allows us to get enough crit resist to run 3x Infused 4x well fitted and still get adequate crit resistance. Remember that the crit resist will help keep your shield from getting melted and the well fitted is needed to get out of roots with dodge rolls.

VMA resto
Since we're running a single bar set and using Rapid Regen this is really a no brainer, it gives us even more sustain and it doesn't have a real opportunity cost to run since Transmutation will have a 100% uptime on just a single bar

We're using Det+Fissure to burst, Blockade for pressure and to apply status effects that will allow Force Pulse to be an AoE. We've got Lotus, Rapid Regen, Vines, Hist, and Troll King to maintain our health pool and Healing Ward as a burst heal. Running DBoS front bar for the quick CC and added burst, Permafrost back bar as our defensive ultimate(we don't need more healing so trees and resto ult are overkill)

brandonv516

Seems good in theory.

I've been trying BGs without Dampen/Harness in light armor and it's rough. You get focused, the HoTs and Healing Ward don't seem to get the job done.

Hist might be a good option now that they've expanded the parameters.

Healing Ward could be getting a nerf (see the PTS forums) so this would completely kill it as a burst heal.

I've also been running with the AS destro staff and I find it really strong (if you are using Force Pulse of course).

I really want light armor to work but even when I tried out Fortified Brass I dropped like a sack of potatoes.

I might try out Spinners in heavy armor with a sharpened staff. This would make up for the loss from not using 5 piece light armor.

Good luck to you.

PickleRick

brandonv516 wrote: »

Seems good in theory.

I've been trying BGs without Dampen/Harness in light armor and it's rough. You get focused, the HoTs and Healing Ward don't seem to get the job done.

Hist might be a good option now that they've expanded the parameters.

Healing Ward could be getting a nerf (see the PTS forums) so this would completely kill it as a burst heal.

I've also been running with the AS destro staff and I find it really strong (if you are using Force Pulse of course).

I really want light armor to work but even when I tried out Fortified Brass I dropped like a sack of potatoes.

I might try out Spinners in heavy armor with a sharpened staff. This would make up for the loss from not using 5 piece light armor.

Good luck to you.

The thing with healing ward is that with these levels of healing and health regen it’s only purpose is to protect your health bar when you take a burst. For that it functions perfectly, although you could certainly make an argument for ward ally being superior now that we can’t protect healing ward or get an initial heal to stop execute damage scaling up on us.

On live Harness doesn’t pull you from cloak so you could always pre-cast it on a mageblade healer but you’ll still need healing ward/ward ally as your main reactive defense

ccmedaddy

I thinking Necro + heavy Clever Alchemist (3pc body, resto) + Balorgh + Master's Ice Staff.

Basically, troll enemy players with frost Blockade + Reach while running around like a maniac until I have 300+ ult, then pop a potion + Northern Storm and hope for the best.

It sucks that the patch where we finally get a stun back in our kit is also the one where light armor survivability is completely gutted.

Minno

ccmedaddy wrote: »

I thinking Necro + heavy Clever Alchemist (3pc body, resto) + Balorgh + Master's Ice Staff.

Basically, troll enemy players with frost Blockade + Reach while running around like a maniac until I have 300+ ult, then pop a potion + Northern Storm and hope for the best.

It sucks that the patch where we finally get a stun back in our kit is also the one where light armor survivability is completely gutted.

Definitely Balorgh. It's like dominhaus except much higher stats and you can turn it on at will lol.

PickleRick wrote: »

brandonv516 wrote: »

Seems good in theory.

I've been trying BGs without Dampen/Harness in light armor and it's rough. You get focused, the HoTs and Healing Ward don't seem to get the job done.

Hist might be a good option now that they've expanded the parameters.

Healing Ward could be getting a nerf (see the PTS forums) so this would completely kill it as a burst heal.

I've also been running with the AS destro staff and I find it really strong (if you are using Force Pulse of course).

I really want light armor to work but even when I tried out Fortified Brass I dropped like a sack of potatoes.

I might try out Spinners in heavy armor with a sharpened staff. This would make up for the loss from not using 5 piece light armor.

Good luck to you.

The thing with healing ward is that with these levels of healing and health regen it’s only purpose is to protect your health bar when you take a burst. For that it functions perfectly, although you could certainly make an argument for ward ally being superior now that we can’t protect healing ward or get an initial heal to stop execute damage scaling up on us.

On live Harness doesn’t pull you from cloak so you could always pre-cast it on a mageblade healer but you’ll still need healing ward/ward ally as your main reactive defense

Keep in mind, they butchered the heal off healing Ward. So one always granta shield and the other just a higher shield on low health.

PickleRick

Minno wrote: »

ccmedaddy wrote: »

I thinking Necro + heavy Clever Alchemist (3pc body, resto) + Balorgh + Master's Ice Staff.

Basically, troll enemy players with frost Blockade + Reach while running around like a maniac until I have 300+ ult, then pop a potion + Northern Storm and hope for the best.

It sucks that the patch where we finally get a stun back in our kit is also the one where light armor survivability is completely gutted.

Definitely Balorgh. It's like dominhaus except much higher stats and you can turn it on at will lol.

PickleRick wrote: »

brandonv516 wrote: »

Seems good in theory.

I've been trying BGs without Dampen/Harness in light armor and it's rough. You get focused, the HoTs and Healing Ward don't seem to get the job done.

Hist might be a good option now that they've expanded the parameters.

Healing Ward could be getting a nerf (see the PTS forums) so this would completely kill it as a burst heal.

I've also been running with the AS destro staff and I find it really strong (if you are using Force Pulse of course).

I really want light armor to work but even when I tried out Fortified Brass I dropped like a sack of potatoes.

I might try out Spinners in heavy armor with a sharpened staff. This would make up for the loss from not using 5 piece light armor.

Good luck to you.

The thing with healing ward is that with these levels of healing and health regen it’s only purpose is to protect your health bar when you take a burst. For that it functions perfectly, although you could certainly make an argument for ward ally being superior now that we can’t protect healing ward or get an initial heal to stop execute damage scaling up on us.

On live Harness doesn’t pull you from cloak so you could always pre-cast it on a mageblade healer but you’ll still need healing ward/ward ally as your main reactive defense

Keep in mind, they butchered the heal off healing Ward. So one always granta shield and the other just a higher shield on low health.

Correct. And without the heal you will require a HoT(multiple really) to remove your health from execute levels otherwise the shield will take execute scaled damage and you will be stuck in a cycle of spamming an expensive shield until you die.

The loss of the initial healing ward heal on cast just reinforces the need to incorporate other healing into the build. This is true for any spec that’s running healing ward, you either need a heal that occurs concurrent to the cast or you will have to spend 2 GCD to leave execute range, during which time you are likely to die.

Perhaps you don’t need 6k+ passive HPS like this build has but you will need a plan to both protect your health pool and heal out of execute.

Minno

brandonv516 wrote: »

Seems good in theory.

I've been trying BGs without Dampen/Harness in light armor and it's rough. You get focused, the HoTs and Healing Ward don't seem to get the job done.

Hist might be a good option now that they've expanded the parameters.

Healing Ward could be getting a nerf (see the PTS forums) so this would completely kill it as a burst heal.

I've also been running with the AS destro staff and I find it really strong (if you are using Force Pulse of course).

I really want light armor to work but even when I tried out Fortified Brass I dropped like a sack of potatoes.

I might try out Spinners in heavy armor with a sharpened staff. This would make up for the loss from not using 5 piece light armor.

Good luck to you.

Don't use fort brass too much stat loss. Get your defense off a 5pc or defensive 2pc. Trans is more efficient and doubles as a Regen set. Reposte is still good if you double bar it I believe.

Ele drain + 3k CP is also enough penetration in CP PvP. Otherwise you can do sharpened + ele drain (right 7k). Definitely run a staff spell or two for the 10% penetration on those attacks. Try that first before using spinners, though definitely not a bad set to get now.

Mojomonkeyman

I'm playing MagWarden without any Shield, including Healing Ward, in Light Armor this patch (and did so all patches before summerset) and I'm having great success with it. It was always very viable, exception being the rune cage meta. I'm playing either solo up to 3 men groups or BGs.

Your build won't kill anything, your overdoing it on the defensive side. You can be unkillable in 6 Light 1v1 with two offensive Sets (I'm using Balorgh, Moonhunter) and just one defensive set (you are on the right track with Hist, good choice- I'm using something else tho).

Your theorycrafted build will probably "feel" good in grp settings (since you wont die and your mates will do the killing). But as soon as you add some performance tracking addon which allows you to see your grp mates dmg and heal output, you will realize how little you contribute to your groups efforts. Solo, you are just a damage sponge unable to kill even cp300 medium armor NBs. A very good testing ground would be BGs. Bring your current theorycrafted build to BGs and compare your performance (DMG/HEAL done, Kills, Deaths & Assists) to a build using 2x Damage set + one strong defensive set.

I see a lot of questionable advice on this thread (ele drain for pen on magwarden when fissure is giving the exact same debuff, thats an overlap you dont wont to have in a top notch build) and just wanted to add some educated opinion.

If you want to have a chance at killing stuff, 2 offensive sets is mandatory because the magwarden damage scaling is terrible, the skills itself are stationary, very telegraphed and delayed. The 1% buff on animal skills wont change that.

In short, I like your theorycrafting, you got some smart ideas. That's it tho, all theory, fully focused on defense forgetting that MagWarden is the weakest class when it comes to killing potential. Your build just won't be viable outside of very comfortable settings (PvP raid) where individual performance is not as important. But you could run full damage in such settings anyways.

My playtested tip would be to focus your theorycrafting more on sets that help with your offensive subparness, and rely on your excellent class native defensive maneuvers to survive - enhanced by min/maxing healing ouput via potions, cp, etc.

Edit: There is no need to cope with shield nerfs, because MagWarden (and Templars, not to the same degree tho) has the most easy time making a non-shield light armor build work. Its one of the very few things we are already good at.

PickleRick

@Mojomonkeyman thanks for the input! I knew I was leaning towards overkill with the all the defense in this build, however I specifically wanted to start from a place of being almost unkillable then scale it back to a more balanced setup. Nobody likes to die and it discourages some people. Balorgh is obviously super good solo or small scale so I think that’s the first change to definitely make.

Mag warden is one class I’ve always struggled to get a feel for personally, I’ve always ran it either in heavy with all damage sets and relied on Healing Ward+HoTs to survive or in Light with the Healing Ward + Harness stack.

Would you care to elaborate more on how you play with no shield, what you do when focused etc? I’m very interested in this idea but I’ve never tested it personally because the idea of having no burst heal scares me.

Mag warden has been in a bad spot and I’m hoping this thread brings visibility to that issue as well as let’s those who are successful share some tricks or knowledge with the others.

Also, Hist is absolutely so good, it’s healing is off the charts

Myux

magdens weakness is complete lack of damage or kill potential, not building raw damage makes it completely useless. at most, pick either hist OR trans. not both. id say your best bet for doing anything would be going heavy and using wardens innate defenses and healing in order to facetank, and build 2 offense sets. if you wanna go light, yeah id say try out hist itll probably be fun at least, but the 2nd set and the monster set NEEDS to be offensive. also DB is gonna hit like a wet noodle regardless of what you do, use ice comet instead. it gets the frost damage bonus from warden passives to boot.

Enkil

Should try heavy armor + fortified brass and use crystallized shield/slab for PvP....

Wardens have enough heals to not need a rest staff, can use fire/dual Destro staff for better CC/dmg output.

Mojomonkeyman

PickleRick wrote: »

@Mojomonkeyman thanks for the input! I knew I was leaning towards overkill with the all the defense in this build, however I specifically wanted to start from a place of being almost unkillable then scale it back to a more balanced setup. Nobody likes to die and it discourages some people. Balorgh is obviously super good solo or small scale so I think that’s the first change to definitely make.

Mag warden is one class I’ve always struggled to get a feel for personally, I’ve always ran it either in heavy with all damage sets and relied on Healing Ward+HoTs to survive or in Light with the Healing Ward + Harness stack.

Would you care to elaborate more on how you play with no shield, what you do when focused etc? I’m very interested in this idea but I’ve never tested it personally because the idea of having no burst heal scares me.

Mag warden has been in a bad spot and I’m hoping this thread brings visibility to that issue as well as let’s those who are successful share some tricks or knowledge with the others.

Also, Hist is absolutely so good, it’s healing is off the charts

- You will need at least one block bar (s&b or frost staff). Nothing fancy like focus on blockcost-redcution or permablock setups. It's more about being able to reduce damage to an acceptable level for 1-2 sec when spiked
- Accordingly a healthy stampool of about 16k in CP environments is what I recommend in light armor (no heavy = no native stam returns apart from regen)
- You need a heal that can be spammed & blockcasted on block bar (Trellis is perfect here due to its low cost, ideally with Netch on same bar, so you can rotate those 2 while blocking when pressured hard)
- You want one more heal over time to buff your steady HPS to at least 2k when targeted (I'm using Arctic Blast & Lingering Pots). With AB, Trellis and Hist alone you will have a steady 3-4k HPS (more when in dangerzone sub 50% HP due to major mending)
- Learn to rely on your major mending proc, dont block too much

When focused you need to check beforehand what is actually attacking:
- Range setups? Forget about active heals, just HoT up, go shimmering and fight back
- Melee Setups? Get a feeling for their ult dump, when you got ulted go on blockbar, block and heal actively (rotate trellis and netch) until u reach 50% HP again then rely on HoTs and fight back
- A mix of both? Use anti melee strategy and cast shimmering before going back to offense

DeadlyRecluse

I'm thinking about trying out the double-shield morph of healing ward, now that the initial heal is gone. Seems like it would be nice in small group to get twice the shields, especially on builds running enough HoTs that you'll be topped off after 6 seconds (i.e. the final heal really doesn't matter).

Minno

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

I'm thinking about trying out the double-shield morph of healing ward, now that the initial heal is gone. Seems like it would be nice in small group to get twice the shields, especially on builds running enough HoTs that you'll be topped off after 6 seconds (i.e. the final heal really doesn't matter).

I fought a magden on PTS with my magplar. Mag bone pirate/spinners and resto staff with healing ward was what he used.
I used the same thing, except trans with ice staff. Very tanky with good sustain and damage. IDK what he used for monster set, but maybe it was a defensive set combo.