New Player - 2h Warden Winter's Embrace. Looking for Advice.

Vallant · July 2020

Hey there,
Pretty new to the game and I'm trying to make a 2h Warden that uses the frost tree. Do i need to put points into stamina or Magicka, can I mix them? I envision a 2h handed Knight in heavy armour that wields frost magic sort of thing. Can anyone advise me please?
Thanks in advance,
Vallant

zvavi · July 2020

What is your aim? Where do you plan to take your build?

Vallant · July 2020

I think mainly just to play with a couple of friends in PVE. Not really interested in min/maxing, but I don’t want to completely cripple myself with something that just doesn’t work.

Lughlongarm · July 2020

Vallant wrote: »

I think mainly just to play with a couple of friends in PVE. Not really interested in min/maxing, but I don’t want to completely cripple myself with something that just doesn’t work.

Most of your damage will probably be based on your 2H skills. So most/all your attributes point should go into Stamina. You need only enough magicka to cast your desired frost skills.

The main 2 frost skills you should use are Gripping Shards(Impaling Shards morph) and Arctic Wind (Arctic Blast Arctic Blast). Notice that both skills scales of max HP, so building high HP on this setup is not wasteful.

Don't worry about gear until you get to level 50, 160 CP. Just switch every time you get an upgrade.

witchdoctor · July 2020

Vallant wrote: »

... but I don’t want to completely cripple myself with something that just doesn’t work.

To be blunt, it can work, but only because overland questing and even base game dungeons are so easy.

ESO has got a few basic 'rules,' if you will:

1. Damage is associated with a weapon type and a paired resource (physical weapons and stamina, staves and magicka)
2. Armour weight is associated with a specific resource and role (heavy is health and tanking, medium and stamina, light and magicka)
3. Hybrid builds (combining magicka and stamina) are by design of the game, gimped in comparison to a single-resource build

Your build will 'suffer' in damage output on either the frost spells (as they will scale off magicka [though some warden spells scale off health]), or weapon skills (as they will scale off stamina). The passives for heavy armour do not lend themselves to damage (although an exception is in PVP, where many builds will use heavy armour [but PVP builds are by nature more self-sufficient]).

Options would be: 1) to not worry about it and just be aware of the limitations; 2) go all stam or magicka; and/or 3) wear medium armour and use an outfit to make it look like heavy armour.

tsaescishoeshiner · July 2020

Tanks use heavy armor and frost skills, but not so much 2H. I'd recommend wearing medium armor for a 2H build, but use a heavy armor outfit — will really feel like wearing heavy armor

The frost Ultimate scales with whatever your highest stat is, so you can use it pretty well on a stamina build. Arctic Blast can be helpful for crowd control, but the damage will be low. It turns people into frozen statues, which is cool! The Mages Guild ultimate Meteor has a frost damage morph that is way better damage than the warden frost ult (scales with Stamina, as well). If you can do vet dungeons or wait for the Golden Vendor, the Iceheart set deals AoE ice damage with a frosty visual effect

If you REALLY want to use a lot of frost magic, magicka or tanking is the way to go. Using a frost staff will really augment your frost ability choices, and most warden frost skills scale with Magicka/Spell Damage. Could play a 2H magicka build if you wanted. And wear light armor with cosmetic heavy armor.

Failing that, using an Infused 2H weapon with a Frost Damage enchantment will freeze plenty of mobs solid and look really cool! The frosty death effect for it is really pretty IMO

You do NOT have to optimize your build for questing, normal dungeons, or vet non-DLC dungeons—this content is easy once you learn it. But it feels good to be at least HALF optimized so you can still deal damage and kill things dead, while following whatever theme you like

Vallant · July 2020

Lughlongarm wrote: »

Vallant wrote: »

I think mainly just to play with a couple of friends in PVE. Not really interested in min/maxing, but I don’t want to completely cripple myself with something that just doesn’t work.

Most of your damage will probably be based on your 2H skills. So most/all your attributes point should go into Stamina. You need only enough magicka to cast your desired frost skills.

The main 2 frost skills you should use are Gripping Shards(Impaling Shards morph) and Arctic Wind (Arctic Blast Arctic Blast). Notice that both skills scales of max HP, so building high HP on this setup is not wasteful.

Don't worry about gear until you get to level 50, 160 CP. Just switch every time you get an upgrade.

Vallant · July 2020

So should I put any points into Health or will that come naturally from gear? Not sure if it’s important or not, but I chose Imperial as my characters Race. Thanks for the help, really appreciate it.

tsaescishoeshiner · July 2020

Vallant wrote: »

So should I put any points into Health or will that come naturally from gear? Not sure if it’s important or not, but I chose Imperial as my characters Race. Thanks for the help, really appreciate it.

For PvE the minimum health you want is 16-17k. You don't need ANY health bonuses other than food and passives to reach this, especially on a Warden

Vallant · July 2020

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

If you REALLY want to use a lot of frost magic, magicka or tanking is the way to go

Could you recommend a Tank build that utilises frost and 1h/shield?
I could quite easily see me having to take up a tanking role with a couple of friends.

Lughlongarm · July 2020

Vallant wrote: »

So should I put any points into Health or will that come naturally from gear? Not sure if it’s important or not, but I chose Imperial as my characters Race. Thanks for the help, really appreciate it.

Imperial is great.
Go most/all stamina, don't worry about HP, because you are going heavy armor, your armor traits will be always with "healthy" traits as a base(which increase HP).
Heavy armor passives also increase HP.

tsaescishoeshiner · July 2020

All you need to tank is a taunt. 3 main taunts in the game: Sword & Shield skill line, Undaunted skill line, and frost staff heavy attacks

Alcast's max-level frost tank build is aimed for veteran dungeons and trials, and doesn't have advice for leveling, so you don't have to follow it that closely. It has 1-2 frost spells in there, but you could always add 2 more and a frost enchant: https://alcasthq.com/eso-warden-tank-build-pve/

As long as you have a skill that says it taunts people, you'll be fine for non-veteran content. Sleet Storm, Frost Cloak, Impaling Shards, Arctic Wind, and/or a frost enchant are all tanking skills that will have you feeling plenty frosty as you level up ☃️☃️☃️☃️

Vallant · July 2020

Man you guys are all awesome, thanks to you all for taking the time to help a new player. I really like the sound of a frost tank so I may head in that direction. 🥶

zvavi · July 2020

I typed from dd perspective.

I will be honest with you, most of the tree is tanking focused, let's go over abilities one by one.

Frost cloak & morphs - this ability exclusively grands defense. Resistance for you and your group.

Gripping shards - the only skill which one of it's morphs are used in dps setups (winter's revenge) it scales from max magicka, while the other morph scales from max health.

Arctic winds and morphs - this ability use is focused on self heal based on max health. One of it's morphs arctic blast has damage component that scales from magicka and spell damage, but it is generally a dps loss even on full magicka spec. It is used in PvP though, because the heal is not bad, and most importantly, it has a stun component. Which I don't think this morph would be used without it.

Crystallized shield and morphs - defense ability focused on defending from ranged attacks.

Frozen gate and morphs - this ability is focused on pulling one mob if he walks inside of it to you, dealing a small amount of damage in the process. The damage is bad, and the ability is clunky as well, even warden tanks mostly prefer just using silver leash to pull in enemies (fighter's guild).

Steel storm and northern storm (ultimate) - luckily ultimates scale from higher resource, so these two are usable (bear still better by much in single target, and CP isn't very forgiving for going hybrid.

Now, I see before you 3 main options.
1. Disregard magicka and focus mostly on stamina, dealing damage as a 2h/bow stamina damage dealer, that has gripping shard slotted for more chilled procs, followed by you dealing 10% more critical damage to them.
2. Decide to go full hybrid. 2h/frost staff, dealing both magical and stamina damage, if you have greymoor you could try pairing malacath's band of brutality with something, but I would probably just go new moon acolyte + mechanical acuity for it. Most importantly, both are crafted.
3. Disregard stamina and focus mostly on magicka, with the only difference of u having 2h on front bar instead of destruction staff. Using the 2h sword passive for small damage buff, and one of the available magicka spammables on it (elemental weapon, blood for blood (or morph), screaming cliff racer).

Honourable mentions:
Scorch and morphs - warden's minigame damage ability, usually found in most warden builds.
Betty netch and morphs - resources, major sorcery and brutality, what else is there to say.
Elemental rage - destruction staff ultimate.
Ice comet - mage guild ultimate, for passives & damage.

Wolfchild07 · July 2020

For general PvE content (even normal and many vet dungeons), you can build how you like. The 2 warden frost damage skills scale off of health, so building for some extra health isn't a bad idea, and will also heal you for more when you cast arctic wind or it's morphs. Although they both cost magicka, you can still build for health/stam with your attributes/gear.

You would want to get some mag recovery from something. I've found that having around 1700 is about enough if you cast those 2 skills as they are dots, and don't use spamable mag abilities so that your mag can recover. Dots are good for this. You don't really need much stam recovery, as you can get it back by heavy attacking with your melee weapon, and get even more back if the enemy is off balance.

You can have alot of fun with impaling shards, arctic wind, and growing swarm (the stam morph), which can be applied to multiple enemies and take damage from each other's swarms.

Joxer61 · July 2020

https://xynodegaming.com/atronach/

etchedpixels · July 2020

My warden is roughly half health and the rest split evenly magicka/stamina. It wans't designed, finessed out of some build guide or tuned for anything it's just what I have ended up with so far learning the game

I mostly run heavy armour (meridia and undertaker or when solo hatchlings shell) and two handed, with a mix of frost and other skills on one bar, and bow skills plus betty (for dragon fighting especially) and a mix of other skills according to what I am doing or trying to get to 50.

Biggest problem I hit is stamina sustain. I can't for example sustain silver bolt.

Frozen retreat is also very useful with two or more people. You can pull some really handy travel shortcut tricks that way. Various routes intended to be one way trips stop being so.