How is this tank build?

Lynxyn

I'm a fairly new player to this game, but I understand pvp way more than pve. However I did want to get into pve a bit more and decided to take a shot at making a build for it.

I decided to make it a warden, since it's my favorite class, and use ice staves because frankly I'm more of a magic fan than stamina fan despite reading that ice staves aren't as good as S&b. I (think) I have come up with a decent build from reading some expectations of a tank.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=92795

My logic here is that, I hit 37k hp (with food and buffed up) which allows me to put 64 points into magicka. I also hit resistance cap on spell res and get pretty close to phys res cap, but on top of that I have the nord passive for 6% damage mitigation and 8% from minor protection off of ice fortress plus the undeath passive. You also will have major protection (30%) fairly often on trash pulls due to crystalline shield giving major heroism + bloodspawn, making you extremely tanky and helping your group easily shrug off damage from pulls with heavy damage since the major protection is an aoe. With the charged backbar blockade of frost you hold trash in place very easily for the dps to burn down the trash quickly.

In murkmire warden tanks/healers are going to be the only reliable source of minor toughness since warhorn is getting nerfed and to combat the relatively low (at least by my view point as a pvp player) mag recov on the build you're looking at crys shield, HA passive, ele drain, deep thoughts, and blue betty (which is getting buffed by 60% or so in murkmire) and your stam should be fine since you're only using it to sprint, breakfree and dodge roll and it's sitting at a solid 18.9k. (This is why I chose the Lord mundus instead of atronach or serpent)

Thanks for reading, if there's anything that can be improved on (other than the obvious of that S&B etc would probably be more of a meta choice because I knew that going into this) then feel free to let me know, thanks : )

Mister_DMC

Will work just fine

Mister_DMC

Take a look at liofas warden guide, very detailed.

fred4

I'm a PvPer as well, but perhaps I have played the game a little longer (3 years), and I have tried a warden tank.

The first thing that stands out to me is that you have all magicka skills, and you will be blocking with magicka. Your only sources of sustain, while blocking, are Blue Betty and Elemental Drain. I think there is no way that this is going to work, despite having a nice big magicka pool.

A way to fix this may be to drop the Tri Focus passive from the destro staff, so you actually block with stamina. In that case I would switch to Bull Netch. I am unsure whether not having a stamina weapon for heavy attacks will be an issue in that case.

I wouldn't argue with most skills, except:

I would not use Vines. It only lasts 10 seconds and is too expensive to spend magicka on, as a tank. You are not the healer.

I also think there is no way Deep Thoughts is going to work.

Polar Wind / Arctic Blast is a good self heal for PvP tanking, but it's the healers job to heal you in PvE.

You might consider double-slotting Structured Entropy for added health.

Gripping Shards is a good health-based attack for lesser dungeons, unless they are changing it.

In terms of gear traits I would use all Sturdy.

Just for comparison, when I tanked with my warden, I used a soloing PvP / PvE / random PUG build. For example I made a point of soloing the rather nasty Tempest Island final fight with it, on vet. I stacked health much higher (to around 60K), giving Arctic Blast and Gripping Shards some extra bite and healing. One of the best self-heals - again for soloing - is Absorb Magic from 1H+S. I used 1H+S and resto staff, and Red Frothgar. This allowed magicka sustain while more or less perma-blocking on stamina until the 1H+S ult was ready, at which point I would do some heavy attacks for mag or stam sustain, as needed.

fred4

Just a thought on Deep Thoughts (no pun intended). I believe blocking, while naked, mitigates something like 55% of damage, and it only gets better with gear and the right weapon. Blocking mitigates way more damage than Major Protection. The latter won't save you on it's own. What may, however, be interesting is combining the 1H+S ult with Deep Thoughts or Meditate.

ccmedaddy

Where's your source of Major Fracture/Breach though..

(which is not your fault, it's because of ZOS's lazy, half-baked attempt at turning frost staff into a tanking weapon)

fred4

I just realised you slotted the vines to grant an ally Minor Toughness. Only for 10 seconds, though. This does not seem viable to me, as a tank, whereas Polar WInd, being a health-based skill, at least has some logic to it.

ccmedaddy

fred4 wrote: »

I just realised you slotted the vines to grant an ally Minor Toughness. Only for 10 seconds, though. This does not seem viable to me, as a tank, whereas Polar WInd, being a health-based skill, at least has some logic to it.

Disagree. Leeching vines is an awesome skill for a Warden tank. Easy to have permanent uptime on Minor Toughness for all members of your group and also procs Nature's Gift on cooldown.

Polar Wind, on the other hand, is a garbage skill and a complete waste of magicka.

fred4

ccmedaddy wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

I just realised you slotted the vines to grant an ally Minor Toughness. Only for 10 seconds, though. This does not seem viable to me, as a tank, whereas Polar WInd, being a health-based skill, at least has some logic to it.

Disagree. Leeching vines is an awesome skill for a Warden tank. Easy to have permanent uptime on Minor Toughness for all members of your group and also procs Nature's Gift on cooldown.

Polar Wind, on the other hand, is a garbage skill and a complete waste of magicka.

I had overlooked Nature's Gift. I have no real group-tanking experience, as you may be able to tell. Let me ask you though, do you recommend blocking with stamina or magicka? It seems more advantageous to block with stamina to me, keep up some mag regen (more than in the OP's build), and use Nature's Gift and Bull Netch to obtain some stamina while blocking.

ccmedaddy

^ I agree, I prefer blocking with stam even on a mag oriented build, since most of the useful utility skills cost magicka.
I also would personally have SnB on the backbar for Pierce Armor (Major Fracture/Breach). I'm not a tank expert by any means though.

Lynxyn

ccmedaddy wrote: »

Where's your source of Major Fracture/Breach though..

(which is not your fault, it's because of ZOS's lazy, half-baked attempt at turning frost staff into a tanking weapon)

I have breach, which ideally both would be better but since mag blade is top dps right now of either it's probably the best to have. I could slot sub somewhere but that'd leave me low on stamina since i'd have to use it so often.

fred4 wrote: »

ccmedaddy wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

I just realised you slotted the vines to grant an ally Minor Toughness. Only for 10 seconds, though. This does not seem viable to me, as a tank, whereas Polar WInd, being a health-based skill, at least has some logic to it.

Disagree. Leeching vines is an awesome skill for a Warden tank. Easy to have permanent uptime on Minor Toughness for all members of your group and also procs Nature's Gift on cooldown.

Polar Wind, on the other hand, is a garbage skill and a complete waste of magicka.

I had overlooked Nature's Gift. I have no real group-tanking experience, as you may be able to tell. Let me ask you though, do you recommend blocking with stamina or magicka? It seems more advantageous to block with stamina to me, keep up some mag regen (more than in the OP's build), and use Nature's Gift and Bull Netch to obtain some stamina while blocking.

between HA's being my main taunt and inner fire only being a taunt to gather dangerous adds, the HA sustain passive, the 60% blue betty buff, the undaunted orbs healers throw out, and being able to use deep thoughts during periods where I know I can survive while channeling between healers healing me and the heal from the channel I think I should be fine sustain wise (not sure though would have to best tested) this also isn't taking into account tri pots and the recov buffs that come with them.

Also leeching vines gives everyone minor toughness since it's getting removed from horn in murkmire. (it's also going from a 10 second buff to 20 seconds so really I should only have to use vines every 40 or so seconds.

Thorstienn

I love my frost staff warden tank.
For dungeons or trials?
For dungeons (how I run mine), go hard or go home. Get that ebony on jewels chest and legs, torugs LA and monster LA for a 5-2 LA HA. Get rid of ele drain (healer job), meditation (shouldn't need) and inner fire (unless you really need it, but ur shield will make HA easy in dungeons). Replace with sub assault, harness Magicka and force shock (if u really want to keep the breech from ele drain, fine, but get that on ur front bar).
I have some other slight changes, but this is my ultimate fun PUG build. You have big damage shileds (getting better in murkmire) personal and group healing, and good DPS (great for PUGs, I often get 35%)