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I've started a Warden recently and have a few questions

daza1978
daza1978
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Hello players of ESO,

A short time ago I started playing again and decided to try the Warden class - with the High Elf race. I've not played the class before. The last time I played was back before the Morrowind expansion.

I'm not having any issues with the Warden, but would like to ask a few things and hopefully get some tips from those that know the class. Here goes!

1 - Is it correct that the Warden class uses frost damage? I've been picking up weapons with the frost damage enhancement on them or crafting a glyph.

2 - Speaking of weapons, I've been using the bow a lot. I like ranged combat and it seems fun. The skill build is built around stamina. Does stamina effect the damage output of some weapons? I think I read this in game.

3 - I've been putting the earned points into stamina and maybe a couple into health. How many should I put into stamina? I'm currently level 15. Can I reset these points at an NPC or another location?

This is all I can think of for now. I will add more if I think of anymore questions.

Many thanks!

An MMO player since 2003. A new adventure awaits in Tamriel.Warden - PC EU.
  • SydneyGrey
    SydneyGrey
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    A high elf is going to have zero bonuses to stamina, so he'll end up being weak as a stamina character. If you make him a magicka character, though, he'll be quite strong and be able to do a lot of damage later in the game. Bows, daggers, swords, axes and other melee weapons scale off stamina, so these are bad choices for a magicka-based character.
    It sounds like you want a stamina character. Stamina wardens are super fun, but a high elf isn't a good race for that. I'd choose Wood Elf, Redguard, Orc, Imperial or Nord for a stamina character. You can even get away with using a Dark Elf for stamina, because they have a small stamina bonus.

    Sure, you CAN have a High Elf stamina character, but he'll be relatively weak and run out of stamina more quickly compared to a stamina character that uses a race better suited for stamina. The good thing is, you can play your High Elf for a while, and if you start to get tired later of him running out of stamina quickly, you can always do a race change at a later date.

    OR

    You can re-spec to magicka, and make a High Elf magicka warden. I have one of those, and she's awesome.
  • daza1978
    daza1978
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    Thanks for the tips @SydneyGrey

    I started off as a High Elf using a magicka build but switched to a stamina one and totally forgot about the race I'd picked. I'm going to reset my build and return to magicka. I'm guessing a staff with frost damage might be a good choice of weapon? How well does dual wield function as a Warden?

    Edited by daza1978 on May 7, 2018 9:25AM
    An MMO player since 2003. A new adventure awaits in Tamriel.Warden - PC EU.
  • davey1107
    davey1107
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    So like the other commenter said, altmer are intended to be magic characters. HOWEVER...you can go against the racial passives and have plenty of fun playing a stamina altmer. You will be able to do 98% of the content in the game just fine...maybe not trials, and maybe you’ll suffer a little in PvP, but don’t feel you have to respec or re-really if you don’t want to. You’ll be fine. But to answer your questions either way.

    - I don’t think wardens have any special features that make a frost damage enchantment any better than Anything else. They do have various frost damage abilities...but weapon enchantments kinda do the same for every class. But it’s as good as any other damage enchant and goes with the them, so bam.

    - the damage formulas in ESO are a bit complex. The power of an attack is determined by looking at:

    1. The damage value of the weapon you’re holding. For this part it doesn’t matter if it’s a physical or magical weapon. If I cast a magic based attack holding a staff with a damage rating of 2,000 and then the same attack holding a bow with 2,000, the computer treats this the same.

    2. Your maximum pool of the resource the attack uses. How much stamina you have in total makes physical damage, disease and poison damage hit harder. The more magic you have, magic damage, fire frost and lightning hits harder.

    3. Then the computer looks at either your characters spell damage or weapon damage...same deal, depending on what the ability cost and what sort of damage it does.

    4. The. It considers all buffs and enchantments in effect. But let’s skip that, it’s complicated and we’ve answered your main question.

    Therefore, if you had a magic character who could call down terror with their magical lightning attacks, but you gave them a bow and had them do the same lightning attack, they’d still hit hard. It ofmyou had them snipe, they’d do teeny amounts of damage because snipe does physical damage. So usually you want to use stamina abilities for stam characters and vice versa.

    - on any character ever, you can put all attribute points into your fighting resource. They make a tiny differenceh, and you can use armor enchantments to add health if you ever needed to. It’s just easier to dump them all into one thing.

    In any of the three capital cities (and I assume vvardenfell somewhere) you will find three shrines. Elden Root is the easiest, they’re twenty feet south of the wayshrine. One will respec attribute points. Another allows you to respec either ALL skill points or just morph skill points at a price of $50 per point. So on my vet characters the cost tends to be like $1500 for morphs and $10,000 for all...on a new character you won’t have to spend much.


    Skills advisor

    If you didn’t notice, there’s a skills advisor built in now that will try to help you pick,and choose your skills and morphs. You may need to adjust it to build your high elf stam warden...the computer might not understand you’re doing that. Go into the skill advisor menu, and then there’s a prompt to change the build it’s guiding you toward. On PS4 I think you push r3...it says in the lower right hand but it’s a bit hidden.

    Once you decide if you want to be magic or stam and then set that as the build in the skills advisor, the system will guide you to the best skills and appropriate morphs.
  • JesQu
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    daza1978 wrote: »
    I'm guessing a staff with frost damage might be a good choice of weapon? How well does dual wield function as a Warden?

    I'm myself main stamden, skills/dmg isn't far away from stamdk, Dual Wield is still the best for pve end-game and works well on warden. But since you're a high elf, i recommend resetting attributes and placing almost all to magicka and some to the health. For weapons Frost staff is weak in pve, but in pvp it might work.
  • nihirisutou
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    The Class skill that Wardens have utilizes Frost damage indeed.

    However the weapon you will use is a Destruction staff, which has options. Fire/Shock and Frost.

    Now the frost option on that Staff is not the greatest in terms of damage as it is essentially intended to taunt enemies into attacking you rather than damage compared to fire.

    But this is okay! Your passives and Champion Points later on refer to Elemental damage.

    Which refers to all three.

    So you're not missing out on anything if you were to give your Warden a Fire Staff while using Frost Class skills.

    They essentially all scale from either Direct Magicka Damage or elemental damage.
    [PS4/EU]

    PSN: Nihirisutou

    CP: 650+

    FOR THE DOMINION!!
  • daza1978
    daza1978
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    Thank you for the replies and advice. :)

    Once the servers are back online I'm going to reset the build and return to a magicka based one.
    An MMO player since 2003. A new adventure awaits in Tamriel.Warden - PC EU.
  • DarcyMardin
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    One word of warning on the frost staff if you decide to make a magicka build and use the ice staff — the first passive on the destruction staff, if you put skill points into it, will turn your frost staff heavy attack into a taunt. This is fine if you are tanking, but if you are doing DPS in a group, you will pull mobs away from the tank and probably irritate the hell out of him/her. So avoid that passive on your frost staff unless you are the tank.
  • daza1978
    daza1978
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    JesQu wrote: »
    daza1978 wrote: »
    I'm guessing a staff with frost damage might be a good choice of weapon? How well does dual wield function as a Warden?

    I'm myself main stamden, skills/dmg isn't far away from stamdk, Dual Wield is still the best for pve end-game and works well on warden. But since you're a high elf, i recommend resetting attributes and placing almost all to magicka and some to the health. For weapons Frost staff is weak in pve, but in pvp it might work.

    Which choice of weapon(s) might be a good choice for PvE levelling as a magicka based Warden?
    An MMO player since 2003. A new adventure awaits in Tamriel.Warden - PC EU.
  • JesQu
    JesQu
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    daza1978 wrote: »
    JesQu wrote: »
    daza1978 wrote: »
    I'm guessing a staff with frost damage might be a good choice of weapon? How well does dual wield function as a Warden?

    I'm myself main stamden, skills/dmg isn't far away from stamdk, Dual Wield is still the best for pve end-game and works well on warden. But since you're a high elf, i recommend resetting attributes and placing almost all to magicka and some to the health. For weapons Frost staff is weak in pve, but in pvp it might work.

    Which choice of weapon(s) might be a good choice for PvE levelling as a magicka based Warden?

    I would level all skills lines regardless of race/class/stamina/magicka. Dest and rest staves for a start.
    Edited by JesQu on May 7, 2018 10:33AM
  • daza1978
    daza1978
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    Thanks to everyone that has replied.

    I've reset back to a magicka build, changed the weapon, and gear into Light armor.
    An MMO player since 2003. A new adventure awaits in Tamriel.Warden - PC EU.
  • GreenhaloX
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    As others have already said, as you are making a stam-based Warden (or Stamden, as folks are calling it), you want to go with a higher stamina-base class as Imperial or Redguard. Even a Nord can work. High Elf, Breton and Dark Elf are good if you're into the magicka-based Magden, as folks are referring the magicka warden as. Bow with whatever weapon skill class is definitely a stam-base toon, and you will short yourself of damage and dps with a magicka-base High Elf. Since you're still low level, I would suggest to go ahead and delete your current High Elf and create a new Imperial or Redguard one, or Orc, or Argonian; whatever the preference. I prefer the Imperial, though. On the latter, you can keep the High Elf, respect the attributes and make it a Magden with inferno and lightning staffs, or ice and lightning; whatever the preference. As far as attributes, yeah, you can respec at one of the 3 shrines at the capital of any class zone, as in Mounhold, Elden Root and Wayrest. Same with respec of skills and skill morphs.

    If staying with a Stamden.. then, as for weapons.. for stam with a bow, you can go with 2H or DW. I have a DW/bow Stamden. Certain warden skills are based on frost, but not all, and you can always use other skillsets. For my Stamden, for example. The only frost-base skill I use is the Ice Fortress; the one that gives you phys/spell resist buff. The other warden skills I use which aren't frost-base are the Green Lotus, Bird of Prey and the Subterranean thingies. Otherwise, I use Rapid Strikes, Subterranean thingies, Shrouded Dagger, Razor Caltrops and Resolving Vigor (unfortunately, for Caltrops and Vigor, you have to bang your head and endure PvPing to gain the AP to unlock) to include with my front DW bar. On the bow back bar, it's the standard Poison Injection (or Venow Arrow), Green Lotus, Endless Hail, Bird of Prey and the Ice Fortress. For my ult, it's always Flawless Dawnbreaker for the front primary weapon bar, and I'll switch between the Ice Comet and Healing Thicker on the back; depends on if I'm in a solo situation or in a group effort. I don't use the Green Betty, due to slot availability, and I get Major Brutality with the Shrouded Daggers and added damages from the Bird of Prey.

    Well, this is PvE-base and for PvP, have to switch up the skills a bit. I understand you still low level. You want to throw it on all stamina and find 5-piece set gears along the way that offer something on the line of increases max stamina, max weapon damage and crit. There are some good craftable sets, even for low level. Join a guild or find someone who can craft you the likes of Shacklebreaker, Mechanical Acuity, Hunding's Rage or Axiom Innate. I create new toon all the time, and since I have a main is the crafter with all traits researched, I would craft different sets (as those I have mentioned) for every 5-10 levels while leveling to max.

    My current Stamden, which is max CP, I use Shacklebreaker and Red Mountains. It is nice to get the extra increases of mag and stam resources with the Shackle (more than other crafted sets) and you also get increase weapon/spell damages as well as extra mag and stam recovery. Other prefers the MA, but I like the Shackle for this one. I use MA for other toons of mine. With the Red Mountains, I just like the proc of the lava splash; that's about 10k or so extra damages like every few seconds. I also use the 2-piece Validreth .

    Yeah, my Stamden is quite brutal. Ha ha. I understand you are still low level, but get some crafted set, as I have mentioned, if you can. If not, still find pieces of weapons and armors from whatever (chests; drops) that offers increase in stam, weapon dam and crit or stam, stam and weapon damages as those Spriggin sets. Same with jewelry.. as you may not find, readily, a 5-piece set. Still, ensure those necklace and rings are Robust/stamina. Don't focus too much on the frost, though.
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