Winterborn Frost Warden: Maelstrom Edition

kylewwefan · February 2019

I’m Back to working on Flawless Conquer with two toons now; Stamina Nightblade and Magic Warden.

What is working really well for me on the Warden is and has been Breton wearing 5 Necropotence, 5 Winterborn, Iceheart Monster Set, Maelstrom Icestaff Backbar w/ standard Absorb Magic Enchant, Winterborn Ice Staff Front Bar w/ Frost Damage Enchant. Both staves infused.

I use the Apprentice Mundus stone for extra spell damage, and one of my jewelry piece is Infused. All Jewelry is Spell Damage enchants. It puts me right around 2950 Spell Damage, 48k max magic with Clockwork Citrus Filet Gold food.

Magic sustain is incredible, the extra health recovery is nice. I don’t get top tier damage (28k), but this setup is very enjoyable for me to play.

Bar setup is

Front: Screaming Cliff Racer, Deep Fissure, Blue Betty Netch, Bird of Prey, Inner Light, Ult Northern Storm
Back: Wallof Elements, Winters Revenge, Fetcher Infection, Expansive Frost Cloak, Living Trellis, Ult Northern Storm

I had inner light on the backbar as well, but swapped it out for trellis and I right like having that on there now. It does make my max magic ping pong around bar swapping but it doesn’t seem to affect the gameplay.

I’ve tried going the fire route keeping Necro but swapping Burning Spell Weave and Spell Strategist. Didn’t work as well for me. Spell strat was actually quite terrible. I found Siroria to be gadawful as well.

I don’t have any Destro Staff Passives on the front bar, but that’s going to change next patch, I’m so excited! Oh and Bretons are gonna have even better sustain...it has me wandering why? My sustain is really good. Well, For Maelstrom anyways.

If I could ask for a little advice; do you think it would be worth changing any other jewelry traits? I don’t have a shield slotted, So the max magic is all about damage and perhaps sustain. Unless it changes the size of Iceheart s shield. I dont know?

I’m very close to getting Flawless now. Gotten through with as little as 2 deaths. So I don’t really want to change anything too major at this point and then have to re learn.

zvavi · February 2019

Can't give you any input about tips on a magden, but set bonuses don't give you more the more spell damage/max magicka, it stays the same. Hope I helped a bit

md3788 · February 2019

Wouldn't you get more damage out of the max magicka from Arcane versus the spell damage of infused? I assumed that's why most magicka players don't run infused over arcane. Either way, I personally don't think changing any jewelry traits are going to make much of a difference at this point. You're almost there. I personally prefer lover for vMA, and elemental drain the big guys. May be easier to control the major breach versus deep fissure.

zvavi · February 2019

Infused is better on gold jewelry. On purple it is almost the same (infused a bit more damage, while less resource pool). Blue and below arcane is better.

ccmedaddy · February 2019

Iceheart's shield doesn't scale with any of your offensive stats, but it does scale with Bastion in your CP setup. It's probably better to invest your points in other defensive stats though since shields benefit from those too.

The only change I'd suggest is using Ice Fortress instead of Expansive Frost Cloak. The rest of your setup seems pretty nice.

Also, I hate you for having a Winterborn ice staff.

Iki · February 2019

Try mighty chudan instead of iceheart, then slot channeled acceleration to frostcloaks slot. That could boost both your dps and defense. Also, have you tried bear there? Magden doesn`t really lack aoe-dps and bear would increase single-target dps and that is quite helpful there in many rounds..

ccfeeling · February 2019

Your setup is fine, keep focus on mechanics.

Taleof2Cities · February 2019

Keep us posted if you can get your Flawless clears, @kylewwefan.

Would be a great accomplishment to add to a Frost Warden resume.

ESO_Nightingale · February 2019

kylewwefan wrote: »

I’m Back to working on Flawless Conquer with two toons now; Stamina Nightblade and Magic Warden.

What is working really well for me on the Warden is and has been Breton wearing 5 Necropotence, 5 Winterborn, Iceheart Monster Set, Maelstrom Icestaff Backbar w/ standard Absorb Magic Enchant, Winterborn Ice Staff Front Bar w/ Frost Damage Enchant. Both staves infused.

I use the Apprentice Mundus stone for extra spell damage, and one of my jewelry piece is Infused. All Jewelry is Spell Damage enchants. It puts me right around 2950 Spell Damage, 48k max magic with Clockwork Citrus Filet Gold food.

Magic sustain is incredible, the extra health recovery is nice. I don’t get top tier damage (28k), but this setup is very enjoyable for me to play.

Bar setup is

Front: Screaming Cliff Racer, Deep Fissure, Blue Betty Netch, Bird of Prey, Inner Light, Ult Northern Storm
Back: Wallof Elements, Winters Revenge, Fetcher Infection, Expansive Frost Cloak, Living Trellis, Ult Northern Storm

I had inner light on the backbar as well, but swapped it out for trellis and I right like having that on there now. It does make my max magic ping pong around bar swapping but it doesn’t seem to affect the gameplay.

I’ve tried going the fire route keeping Necro but swapping Burning Spell Weave and Spell Strategist. Didn’t work as well for me. Spell strat was actually quite terrible. I found Siroria to be gadawful as well.

I don’t have any Destro Staff Passives on the front bar, but that’s going to change next patch, I’m so excited! Oh and Bretons are gonna have even better sustain...it has me wandering why? My sustain is really good. Well, For Maelstrom anyways.

If I could ask for a little advice; do you think it would be worth changing any other jewelry traits? I don’t have a shield slotted, So the max magic is all about damage and perhaps sustain. Unless it changes the size of Iceheart s shield. I dont know?

I’m very close to getting Flawless now. Gotten through with as little as 2 deaths. So I don’t really want to change anything too major at this point and then have to re learn.

is this for PvE? i can't tell. i can reccomend mother's sorrow over winterborn if you want more DPS.

kylewwefan · February 2019

Okay. My Winterborn jewelry’s are all gold quality form weekly rewards. One was healthy so I made it Infused. I don’t know if it would have been better to go arcane or something else even?

The Winterborn Ice Staff is pretty crucial to my setup. It’s kind of like a BSW inferno or something.

I think I really like the set for slows or snares more so than damage really. I majorly helps bring things down to a reasonable pace.

Taleof2Cities · February 2019

kylewwefan wrote: »

I think I really like the set for slows or snares more so than damage really. I majorly helps bring things down to a reasonable pace.

Correct, but that means you're in that place longer ... I can only take a few stages at a time on my Frost Warden for that reason.

kylewwefan · February 2019

I changed all the jewelry to Infused. It diddnt seem to make much difference. I don’t often die so much on bosses, but dumb stuff. Just mistakes. Like catching an arrow with my face or letting a dot build up on me working on the wrong target. And weekend game performance. It’s not the best time to be working on something.

ccfeeling · February 2019

As a magden, I think stage 7 is the only one stage u may die. Your setup is fine.

There is not much difference between infuse and Arcane, you should try blood x 3

if u are really familar all mechanics in VMA

You could also use the signils to minimize the death chance, shield signil is the best, save it at the worst moment.

GL.

luen79rwb17_ESO · February 2019

I really been wishing to try VMA with my magden ice setup with MA/Winterborn/Iceheart with bear ult. Idk if it might be viable tho.

kylewwefan · February 2019

I haven’t had much luck replacing Necro. It’s just works really good for me. I know Winterborn is not the greatest, but it’s one that also kind of works really well for me.

I tried Necro MA Iceheart with the bear yesterday. That freaking bear though. Kept on just standing around, not fighting, Ult refusing to fire off...he had to go. It was an “if you're not with us, you’re against us” kind of moment.

Oddly enough, MA Necro Zaan and bear Ult has given me the best DPS on this toon. Against the dummy anyways. But that’s straight poo in Maelstrom.

Ciovala · February 2019

I really like the bear in vMA. I seem to stay alive better with him, but that is probably since I need to work on killing the high DPS targets quicker. The problem is that I swear the bear ultimate only goes off if I smash the button like 5x.

kylewwefan · February 2019

I got Flawless with my StamBlade and so happy with that, but really want it on this guy too!

I gotta figure something out. Every time I change something I get worse. Tried Master Architect with the bear Ult. That was just frustrating, and just doesn’t work for me. Here anyways.

Swapped in Mother Sorrow, switched to thief mundus. That only barely got me to %70 Crit front bar, just kind of felt blah. Maybe this could be better for someone else?

I got a Winterborn Inferno Staff Infused. Hmm. Uh, well I golded it out and threw a frost damage enchant on it and it’s still just not nuking stuff down quite like I want it to.

To make up for Destro Passives Front Bar

Changed to Destro Ult on front bar. Lost a crap ton of max magic from losing Northern Storm’s %8 extra max magic. Northern Storm is definitely better there. Maybe it’ll be better with the update. I hope it does.

I tried putting ele drain in place of the netch. That messed me up pretty good. I’m to used to my crappy rotation already. Can’t change it now. It’s been working right? It diddnt really do me any better anyways.

I tried swapping to blue food from the gold food. That actually helped more than I thaught it would. Magic sustain is still pretty good.

Oh yeah, also I use tripots instead of spell power pots. Cause they’re not really needed with this setup.

I’m going back to working on mechanics and my original setup. The gear chase is getting me nowhere. Everything I do is about the same or possibly worse. Maybe a bloodthirsty jewelry piece could help, but that’s about it.

Little Side Note

This exact same setup in battlegrounds does really well. Puts out a ton of damage and sustains like crazy; doesn’t often secure me kills but the group utility is something else.

remilafo · February 2019

i think you would get better results with lover mundus.

kylewwefan · February 2019

remilafo wrote: »

i think you would get better results with lover mundus.

The Lover did nothing for me.

A friend suggested I try Tourgs pact. So, I made up a staff and some jewelry. It was about as close to the Winterborn Necro setup I started using, playability wise. I have gone back to Winterborn setup. It does alright I just need to get a little luck.

My deaths are coming from stupid mistakes and stuff. Maybe a little bad RNG on the 7th.

On a whim, I went back and tried Siroria/ Necro the other day. 3 purple vanilla mag recovery enchant jewelry and an blue quality ice staff. The arena was cooperating beautifully.

Made it through 5 unscathed, 6 Flawless, then all the way through 7 to the boss and my 4 yo daughter starts messing around, pulling my arm, jumping in my lap. I died. Not to poison.

She has the nerve to taunt me. Haha! I made you dead! Grrrrr. Pull it together man. It’s just a game. Carry on, finish up. That was my only death.

So, at nap time tried again. Stupid death in the 3rd round, hagraven boss pulled me out into the electrified water. Restart. Get to the 6th round spiders. Stupid death trying to throw a hoarder sack thing. Diddnt even really need it. Restart. Got dead in the fifth.

Gonna try this some other time.

Not sure what to make about siroria. I’m never in the same place long enough to build up stacks and stuff. And the spell damage vs magic recovery enchants thing has me a little baffled.

I’m at the point now where I just gotta be on my A game and quit making stupid mistakes for an hour.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2019

If you are getting through on two deaths, dont over think your gear. What you have is clearly working for the most part. If you want flawless, this is my advice for any class.

Step 1. Use Meta (or close to meta) DPS gear.
Step 2. Add a bit of health and regen. One jewelry enchant for the regen, and one or two big armor or big pieces/jewelry pieces with health. Get to at least 18.5K health. I think over 20k means you are starting to leave damage on the table.
Step 3. Run the arena 3 or 4 times and write down where your pain points are. My guess is that you will find most of your deaths occur in the same handful of spots.
Step 4. Proactively grab one or two sigils at each pain point, and be very liberal with them once you get past stage 6 or 7.
Step 4.5 (forgot this one). Resist the urge to throw your computer out the window the first time the final boss kills you when you have a flawless run going. It happens to everyone.
Step 5. Flawless Victory.

stevenyaub16_ESO · February 2019

Another Winterborn Icewarden here!

Argonian, 450cp. I use the same setup, Iceheart, winterborn, but with julianos (for heavy chest/legs and higher iceheart uptime)

I also parse 28k, winterborn dealing 6% of my damage :O Iceheart also does 5% but ofcourse this is only if i stand close enough (which doesn't happen often) and the shield has to hold (which also doesn't happen often). Skoria does 5-6% which is a better option, but I like to keep to the theme and the iceheart isn't completely terrible due to the 833 crit you get and awesome survivability.

Now I also changed winterborn to nercropotence, and the parse results were.... exactly the same. between 27,5k and 28.5k

I have yet to try necropotence instead of julianos.... But I plan to change it to icy conjurer from the Wrathstone DLC. ICE ICE BABY!

If you want to up your dps switch to bear ultimate.

I run:

Blockade, Winters, Netch, Inner light, Birds of prey(or channeled acceleration). Bear/ice comet.
Divers, Fissure, Fletcher, Inner Light, Birds of prey. Bear/northern storm

You don't need healing or tanky spells because, Iceheart gives you shield, and your divers will heal you.

My rotation is:
1. blockade>winters
2. fissure>fletcher>diver>fissure>diver>diver(only on first go around)
3. blockade
4. fissure>diver>fletcher>fissure
5. Winters>netch>channeled>blockade
6. go back to step 2.

I hope to do 30k+ once I get closer to 810cp and thats all I need to do vet trials. I don't care for meta, screw the meta. The difference is small and skill>build in this game.

I know you prob lost 3-4k dps for not being optimal but the utility aoe frost provides is awesome. minor maim, aoe slow and root. It's just awesome and fun. Ignore the haters.

ESO_Nightingale · February 2019

stevenyaub16_ESO wrote: »

Another Winterborn Icewarden here!

Argonian, 450cp. I use the same setup, Iceheart, winterborn, but with julianos (for heavy chest/legs and higher iceheart uptime)

I also parse 28k, winterborn dealing 6% of my damage :O Iceheart also does 5% but ofcourse this is only if i stand close enough (which doesn't happen often) and the shield has to hold (which also doesn't happen often). Skoria does 5-6% which is a better option, but I like to keep to the theme and the iceheart isn't completely terrible due to the 833 crit you get and awesome survivability.

Now I also changed winterborn to nercropotence, and the parse results were.... exactly the same. between 27,5k and 28.5k

I have yet to try necropotence instead of julianos.... But I plan to change it to icy conjurer from the Wrathstone DLC. ICE ICE BABY!

If you want to up your dps switch to bear ultimate.

I run:

Blockade, Winters, Netch, Inner light, Birds of prey(or channeled acceleration). Bear/ice comet.
Divers, Fissure, Fletcher, Inner Light, Birds of prey. Bear/northern storm

You don't need healing or tanky spells because, Iceheart gives you shield, and your divers will heal you.

My rotation is:
1. blockade>winters
2. fissure>fletcher>diver>fissure>diver>diver(only on first go around)
3. blockade
4. fissure>diver>fletcher>fissure
5. Winters>blockade>netch
6. go back to step 2.

I hope to do 30k+ once I get closer to 810cp and thats all I need to do vet trials. I don't care for meta, screw the meta. The difference is small and skill>build in this game.

I know you prob lost 3-4k dps for not being optimal but the utility aoe frost provides is awesome. minor maim, aoe slow and root. It's just awesome and fun. Ignore the haters.

i reckon you've lost more than 3-4k dps. probably around 5k or 7k. A lot is down to personal skill too though. On a frostden build on pts, I've hit 38k max using iceheart, eleweapon(instead of dive), 2 frost staves (meaning frost wall instead of fire wall) and Northern/icy comet. along with everything else perfect. i swapped to a more meta build and hit 43k dps.

stevenyaub16_ESO · February 2019

edited my rotation because it was wrong.

but yea i prob lose a bit, but its fun as hell. and its nice being different. And my DD is my secondary role mostly used in 4man (I'm usually tank or healer with 64 in magicka)

I also use witchermother brew for this.

ESO_Nightingale · February 2019

stevenyaub16_ESO wrote: »

edited my rotation because it was wrong.

but yea i prob lose a bit, but its fun as hell. and its nice being different. And my DD is my secondary role mostly used in 4man (I'm usually tank or healer with 64 in magicka)

I also use witchermother brew for this.

yeah it's fun as hell, but we are skill lacking frost DPS skills. it's pretty sad.

BrokenGameMechanics · February 2019

Always surprised at the Ice Mages. They can be so flexible. My Ice Skill bar is very similar to everyone here. On the other bar, sometimes I go all Animals for DPS, or Green for heals, also for a real change up switch out the Winterborn for Olorime and Necro for the buffing, yet still focus on the chills and immobilizes. I find these Ice Mage variations to be really fun in PVP. It may be the best "Support" build in PVP there is.

kylewwefan · March 2019

Thanks for your comments! I have tried Julianos, Zaans, using the bear, etc; different variations have gotten more damage with a closer to meta setup. Master Architect/ Necro/ Zaans was about my highest damage.

The bear has been very annoying outside of dummy fighting. Though. Something is not right with this dude. He keeps resetting and running back in from offscreen.

Zaans is also about worthless in VMA. To me anyways. It procs on a target that was about dead all the time and then you need to wait another 20 second cooldown and now I have to slot a shield instead of Iceheart etc.

IceHeart fits the theme and is very useful. But you’re gonna lose about 3k DPS with it. Probably another 3k DPS using ice staves instead of fire. Then I’m also losing damage by having no Destro Staff skills on front bar, but that’s gonna change!

Back at it again with Julianos Siroria. This setup blows.

I’m going hard for Flawless this weekend. Gonna use Necro, Winterborn, Iceheart. It got me close before. Maybe this time I can get it done. Every time I change things around, it feels like I’m just wasting time and getting worse instead of better.

alexj4596b14_ESO · March 2019

kylewwefan wrote: »

Thanks for your comments! I have tried Julianos, Zaans, using the bear, etc; different variations have gotten more damage with a closer to meta setup. Master Architect/ Necro/ Zaans was about my highest damage.

The bear has been very annoying outside of dummy fighting. Though. Something is not right with this dude. He keeps resetting and running back in from offscreen.

Zaans is also about worthless in VMA. To me anyways. It procs on a target that was about dead all the time and then you need to wait another 20 second cooldown and now I have to slot a shield instead of Iceheart etc.

IceHeart fits the theme and is very useful. But you’re gonna lose about 3k DPS with it. Probably another 3k DPS using ice staves instead of fire. Then I’m also losing damage by having no Destro Staff skills on front bar, but that’s gonna change!

Back at it again with Julianos Siroria. This setup blows.

I’m going hard for Flawless this weekend. Gonna use Necro, Winterborn, Iceheart. It got me close before. Maybe this time I can get it done. Every time I change things around, it feels like I’m just wasting time and getting worse instead of better.

So I only PvP and do vet trails on my ice warden. I am personally struggling to find descent DPS and tanky/heal aspects in BGs and PvP. My current set up TBS and Necro with BloodSpawn. I used Dottz as my template. His set up goes for regen and physical defensive mundus stones. I personally fine this too defsensive. I don't feel like I hit hard enough in GBs with his exact setup. But when I have tried other sets I'm far too paper thin to stay alive.

So what I'm going to try is doing Regen and Pentration on my mundus. I normally sit at about 2.2k SP when my Betty is up and about 34k magicka in BGs. My effective SP amount to about 6k. The most damage I have been able to get out of my warden is running Necro/Spell Strategist. But I am so Squishy that you can fart on me and I'd die.

I have used spell Strategist in PvE and compaired to bright throat there is only a 61 SP difference when the proc is not up. This does very nice on bosses. Warden strength is AoE not single Target so this really helps with that problem.

kylewwefan · March 2019

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Keep us posted if you can get your Flawless clears, @kylewwefan.

Would be a great accomplishment to add to a Frost Warden resume.

It is finished. Flawless Ice Warden.

Necro Winterborn Iceheart

I’m so freaking happy!

kylewwefan · March 2019

Just a little update. I swapped out Necropotence for the Icy Conjurer Set from the new Frost Vault DLC. It’s pretty freaking good!

Using Winterborn, Icy Conjurer, and Iceheart with Maelstrom Ice Staff and Winterborn Ice Staff.

Slowing and snaring and maiming the enemy’s adds pretty good group utility IMO. I’m about to Gold this set out. It’s that good.

ESO_Nightingale · March 2019

kylewwefan wrote: »

Just a little update. I swapped out Necropotence for the Icy Conjurer Set from the new Frost Vault DLC. It’s pretty freaking good!

Using Winterborn, Icy Conjurer, and Iceheart with Maelstrom Ice Staff and Winterborn Ice Staff.

Slowing and snaring and maiming the enemy’s adds pretty good group utility IMO. I’m about to Gold this set out. It’s that good.

You'll get less effectiveness overall from this change. But more fun.

Waffennacht · March 2019

Very good read. Haven't touched my mag Warden in ages and this has been very inspiring.

Did you end up using the bear or no?