Advice on Warden PvP tank

Ishtharo · October 2018

Hey all!

So, I am a main PvP Templar healer, and I wanted to try something new. So I made a Warden and planned to use her as an Ice Tank with Guard. On paper everything sounded rather good, and I like playing support style characters. Here is the gear I am running:

5 Desert Rose
5 Pariah
1 Choke thorn
1 Domihaus

Currently I am S&B and Lightning staff, but as soon as I get a resto staff of Desert Rose, that will be my back bar.

Skills:
S&B - Gripping Shards, Arctic Blast, Bull netch, Shielded Assault, Mystic Guard, U: Enchanted FOrest
Lightning (Will be Resto) - Ice Fortress, Leeching Vines, Corrupting Pollen, Matures EMbrace, U: Perma Frost

Stats in No CP:
32k HP
18k Mag
19k Stam

1k for both recoveries (Desert Rose takes care of the Mag Recovery and then some, I feel like I never run out)

Now, I envisioned this playstyle as a more mobile-ish CC tank. Able to jump to enemies and friends. The ability to drop a guard on someone and leeching vines is a lot of fun, and has gotten me some compliments. I do almost no damage, but nothing moves around me.

However, I'm thinking I could get more out of this build, and this playstyle. To start, if I get focused by two good players, or 3-4 average players I melt. I can hold block and spam Arctic Blast to delay it, but I will go down. So I was hoping to tap into the community as a whole and get some ideas on what to do.

A few things I was looking at:
Black Rose - Sounds good in theory, but even with 7 heavy, the return is an additional ~300 Mag and Stam per 4 seconds. Doesn't seem worth it for a full set.
Malubeth - Back when I played in 2016 this was king, but has since been nerfed. Is it still viable?
Engine Guardian - Meh? Random proc like that wouldn't end well I think.
Robes of the Hist - Moving all my mag sustain to infused jewelry and running this set sounds like an option to me, but unsure what it looks like in practice.
Zaan - Can't hurt me if they are dead right? Might let me be both offensive and defensive at the same time. Lord knows they aren't getting away from me.
Shackle Breaker - The tried and true. I know you can't go wrong with this, but I don't think it addresses my issue.
Sanctuary - 12% healing increase for the group? Yes please, and it helps me out.

Basically I'm looking for gear, ability and play style recommendations to better run this build.

EDIT:
I was considering Troll King as well, but being a Vamp I don't think it's worth it (Undeath and Pariah just synergize so well!), but I keep myself at stage 3 to reduce the incoming fire damage.

fred4 · October 2018

With a build like that, I would go for super-high health, e.g. around 60K in CP ... not sure how that would come out in no CP. More healing and damage from Arctic Blast, Gripping Shards, Invigorating Drain, Absorb Magic (1H+S skill, very good). Sets to consider: Plague Doctor, Warrior Poet. A friend swears by having the extra health passive permanently, even though warden gets it temporarily already. Pariah obviously makes sense, as does Desert Rose. Not sure what the best combination is. Consider (double-)slotting Structured Entropy for the health.

You won't do enough damage to kill anyone decent, but being able to kill NPCs in IC means you won't get stuck in a district for never shedding aggro. I've used Skoria with this type of build, and it works. I have another friend who used Malubeth as vamp, recently, and likes it. Was not impressed with Robes of the Hist, but haven't tried it on a tank. Pirate Skeleton is an option, but you have Permafrost already.

Casul · October 2018

I was running 5 reactive 5 impregnable 2 engine guardian.

Running all my CP into healing I was able to get off 8k crit heals with budding seed, not to mention the tankiness you have from reactive means you don’t have to break free often.

I was using a restoration staff as my weapon and kept a good uptime in life giver, I would say make sure you have shimmering shield, budding seed, elusive mist (I want a vampire at the time but now I am and I definitely recommend this), and lastly living tendrils.

With the setup above I was able to tank 10+ people with relatively no issues.

Also engine guardian is just a preference, I’m using Zaan with my warden now but I’m much more of a damage spec. The reason I opt for engine guardian is you can restore magicka while in elusive must which can really help at times.

Jimmy_The_Fixer · October 2018

Biggest advice I can give is to not run mismatched monster sets, the 2piece is always extremely strong. Thorvokun is a great set for a support tank since it gives you and your whole group better survivability by applying AoE minor maim and gives your DPS bettter pressure by applying AoE minor defile.

Other options are Blood Spawn, Earthgore or Pirate Skeleton, etc. There's a lot of strong monster sets for a support tank.

Waffennacht · October 2018

There is couple different warden tanks. @Jimmy_The_Fixer is correct and has helpful advice for your current build

@fred4 is also correct and has really solid advice for a healthden; if you go this route you want to run skoria or Zaan for damage, or if you're more into support - earthgore or troll king; bloodspawn for general

@BuildMan sounds like a very solid healer, tanky healer, solid advice

Ishtharo · October 2018

I appreciate all the help guys! I'll have to distill some of this into my current build.

I think I'm looking to the Healthden route, but how do I handle resource management with everything pumped into health? The constitution passive just isn't strong enough to maintain uptime on anything really.