ESO Warden Tank Build – Pros and Cons and Best Races
The ESO Warden Tank has a lot of advantages to it. There’s a lot of different abilities available that can help to keep your allies alive whilst dealing with large amounts of enemies as well. In this guide, you will learn all about the Warden Tank, as well as what the pros and cons of using it are.
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ESO Warden Tank Build
It has to be said that the Warden is a great choice for you to go with. They suit Tanking very well, and do a good job of keeping your peers amongst the living. This is helped by the likes of Major Resolve through Frost Cloak. This can introduce 5948 Resistances to those that are in the vicinity.
The way in which Chilled effect is adapted is probably one of the best things about the Warden. It ultimately has a less stressful time with it, especially when using the Frost Staff that offers Minor Brittle. This increases the critical damage that is inflicted on enemies by 10%.
The Maturation passive is also very effective. This offers a buff from Minor Toughness that increases your teammates’ health by 10%, though you’ll need to use an area of effect heal for it to work as a tank. Other group buffs include the likes of Enchanted Growth for recovery, or debuffs for your enemies such as Minor Vulnerability used with Fetcher Infection. You could also use Off Balance with Cliff Racer if you wish. You can also heal an ally with both Polar Wind and Budding Seeds as well.
We also want to look into what kind of crowd control this build is capable of. The Warden Tank can provide the likes of Gripping Shards to keep nearby enemies in their place, whilst causing damage. This can also apply the Chilled status effect, which scales with the damage with Max Health that can come in very handy. You can also pull enemies with Frozen Device. This teleports your foes to where you are, at the cost of Magicka. You should use this when you have a good idea of where the enemies are spawning from. This gives you the opportunity to put the portals so that enemies are teleported straight to your location. For a quicker option, you could use the Silver Leash, since Frozen Device can be hard to pinpoint where to place it.
Looking to absorb incoming projectiles? No problem. The Shimmering Shield presents a massive barrier that will withstand what’s thrown at you, protecting you from hits that could easily kill you or at least need to be blocked. Meanwhile, Sustain is also very good for the Warden Tank, and you can use Betty Netch to get a Purge too. If you want to self heal, then it’s very easy for you to do so. Polar Wind provides both a heal over time and a burst heal, and will even heal one of your allies if they are nearby. This scales with max health, so you are getting another great use out of being a Warden Tank.
One thing to look out for is that a lot of groups do tend to use a Warden Healer. This can somewhat nullify your efforts, so if this does happen then maybe organise what buffs and debuffs you are both going to use. In general however, the Warden Tank is a good choice for a Tank. You will be able to bring higher survivability to your team, and dish out respectable damage to your enemies as well.
Positives
So as you will have seen listed above, there are a lot of pros to choosing this build. You get great group and survival buffs for you and your allies. The fact that you can absorb deadly projectiles is also another massive plus. Combine that with the ability to have good crowd control and being able to effectively debuff enemies, and you have a force to be reckoned with. Don’t forget that there’s useful self healing abilities as well for you and your allies.
Negatives
With all that being said, you should still be aware of the potential downsides of this Tank. For starters, Green Ballance passive are difficult to use, and you have a distinct lesser bar space since you need slots for the likes of Blood Altar and Frost Cloak so you can provide buffs for your group. The need for a Frost Cloak also affects your Magicka sustain as well.
When you are using Frozen Device, you may find that it is rather slow, and isn’t very accurate either, especially when you are comparing it with direct pull abilities that are available. Perhaps the main downside to consider is just how common Warden Healers are. Although you could discuss amongst yourselves which would be the best path forward for it to work, it still makes the need of the Warden Tank rather useless in a lot of cases.
Best Races for an ESO Warden Tank Build
When it comes to what race you should use, there’s a couple of choices that you should look into. Typically, the choices are between the Argonian and the Nord. If you are a beginner, then you should certainly check out the Argonian. This has great resource management that you can take advantage of, and is also a fast swimmer. That said, the Nord’s ability to boost group damage make it a very popular choice for Tanks in general, so it is completely dependent on your approach to the game and what you want to get our of it.
Conclusion
Hopefully now this has given you more of a background on the ESO Warden Tank allowing you to make the most out of your use of this build. It truly is a great build, and is considered among the best options for a tank class in ESO.
