Welcome to Nirnstorm.com‘s Magicka Warden ( Magden ) PvP build for the Blackwood patch!
This build utilizes the revamped Champion Points system, the recently added Armor Bonuses and several new item sets to get a powerful amount of damage and healing power and an incredible amount of damage prevention in addition to high resistances.
If you’re looking to be able to both pressure and burst down enemy players and still have more than enough survivability to dominate Cyrodiil and other PvP activities, you’ve come to the right place!
Setup
Race
The optimal race for this Magicka Warden build is Breton. This race helps you sustain magicka skills better than any, and increases your spell resistance and your magicka pool as well.
Other good alternatives for races would be Dark Elf, Argonian and High Elf.
Mundus
The mundus stone we are using on this build is The Atronach. This mundus helps us sustain our Magicka, and by doing so allows us to afford more Spell Damage jewelry glyphs to increase our overall damage and healing done.
Skills
Heartland Conqueror’s Lightning Staff
Heartland Conqueror’s Restoration Staff
If you suffer from high-ping or connection issues, I suggest replacing Elemental Weapon with Force Pulse as it’s a much more reliable spammable skill that doesn’t depend on your light attacks’ timing.
Note: For the full explanation on why we use all these skills and how to utilize them effectively, make sure to check out the build video (coming soon).
Passives
Animal Companions Warden
All Passives
Winters Embrace Warden
All Passives
Green Balance Warden
All Passives
Light Armor Armor
All Passives
Medium Armor Armor
Unlock all the passives except Dexterity, Improved Sneak and Agility, these are optional and not very relevant.
Heavy Armor Armor
All Passives
Destruction Staff Weapons
All Passives
Restoration Staff Weapons
All Passives
Psijic Order Guilds
Unlock all passives except Deliberation.
Undaunted Guilds
All Passives
Assault Alliance War
All Passives
Racial Character
All Passives
Alchemy Crafting
Unlock only Medicinal Use
Gear
Reinforced
Tri-Stat
heavy
Well Fitted
Tri-Stat
medium
Well-Fitted
Tri-Stat
medium
Impen
Tri-Stat
light
Impen
Tri-Stat
light
Well Fitted
Tri-Stat
medium
Well Fitted
Tri-Stat
light
Arcane
Spell Damage
Arcane
Spell Damage
Arcane
Mag Regen
Sharpened
Shock Damage
Front Bar
Powered / Infused
Weapon Damage ( Berserker )
Back Bar
Mythic Item
Gaze of Sithis – We are utilizing Gaze of Sithis in this build as our main method of damage prevention is not blocking but rather roll-dodging. We don’t use an effective blocking weapon (SnB & Ice Staff) and so using this set, we give up blocking for the purpose of mitigating damage (you may still block to prevent incoming stuns and to benefit from your psijic & restoration staff passives) to gain a high amount of Max Health and resistances instead.
Monster Helm
We are not using any monster helms on this build as Gaze of Sithis requires our helmet slot, and thus can’t use both this mythic and monster helms.
Main Sets
Necropotence – This set gives us the highest amount of Max Magicka obtainable through a single set, provided as we have a combat pet active. Luckily for Wardens, our free Blue Betty skill counts towards this effect activation, so all we must do is cast this skill once per 25 seconds and we will gain the benefits of Necropotence at all times.
Heartland Conqueror – This brand new craftable set increases the effectiveness of our weapon traits by 100%. This effect grants us a lot of penetration thanks to our front-bar Sharpened weapon, and either a lot of healing power (via Powered) or spell damage (via Infused) thanks to our back bar weapon.
Minor Set
Armor of the Trainee – We use one piece of this set to help increase our Max Health pool further to provide some additional survivability and healing power, as we have one extra armor slot available when using all the other sets previously mentioned.
Weights & Traits
Light & Medium Armor – We are using mainly light & medium armor pieces on this build as those armor types both reduce the cost of our roll-dodging, which is one of our main damage prevention methods on this build. Light armor benefits our damage and sustain a lot, however due to it’s new penalties we can’t afford to use too many pieces of it, which is where the medium pieces come in. We also use one piece of heavy armor for the Undaunted passives.
Well Fitted & Impen – A lot of our traits are Well Fitted on this build to help further reduce the cost of our roll dodging. We don’t benefit at all from the Sturdy trait as we don’t block much on this build, and so Well Fitted is the most effective trait for us to use. We also use multiple pieces of Impen on this build to increase our Critical Resistance a bit more, to increase our survivability against not proc-oriented builds.
Consumables
Food
We use Clockwork Citrus Fillet as this one food gives us all: Max Health, Health Recovery, Max Magicka and Magicka Recovery.
Potions
We use Tri-Stat potions (made with Bugloss, Columbine and Mountain Flower) to help us heal and sustain both our Magicka pool and our Stamina pool.
Champion Points
Craft (0) Warfare (520) Fitness (542) Increases your damage done with area of effect attacks by 2% per stage.
BONUS
10% damage done
Increases your damage done with direct damage attacks by 2% per stage.
BONUS
10% direct damage
Reduces your damage taken by area of effect attacks by 2% per stage.
BONUS
10% damage reduction
Grants 132 Critical Resistance per stage.
BONUS
660 Critical Resistance
Grants 160 Critical Chance per stage.
BONUS
320 Critical Chance
Grants 260 Max Magicka per stage.
BONUS
520 Max Magicka
Increases your Healing Done by 1% per stage.
BONUS
2% Healing Done
Grants 260 Max Stamina per stage.
BONUS
520 Max Stamina Extended Might
Grants 350 Offensive Penetration per stage.
BONUS
700 Offensive Penetration Extended Might
Increases your chance to apply a Magical status effect by 30% per stage.
BONUS
60% increased chance Extended Might
Increases your chance to apply a Martial status effect by 30% per stage.
BONUS
60% increased chance Extended Might
Grants 100 Weapon and Spell Damage to Magical attacks.
Affects Magic, Flame, Frost, and Shock Damage.
Extended Might
Grants 100 Weapon and Spell Damage to Martial attacks.
Affects Physical, Poison, Disease, and Bleed Damage.
Increases your damage done with area of effect attacks by 2% per stage.
BONUS
10% damage done Staving Death
Increases your Healing Taken by 1% per stage.
BONUS
2% Healing Taken Staving Death
Reduces the damage you take from Magical attacks by 1% per stage.
ffects Magic, Flame, Frost, and Shock Damage.
BONUS
2% damage reduction Staving Death
Reduces the damage you take from Martial attacks by 1% per stage.
Affects Physical, Poison, Disease, and Bleed Damage.
BONUS
2% damage reduction Staving Death
Grants 132 Critical Resistance per stage.
BONUS
660 Critical Resistance Staving Death
Reduces your damage taken from non-player attacks by 2% per stage.
BONUS
10% damage reduction
Reduces your damage taken by area of effect attacks by 2% per stage.
BONUS
10% damage reduction
Increases your damage done with direct damage attacks by 2% per stage.
BONUS
10% direct damage Grants 3 Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery per stage.
BONUS
150 Health, Magicka and Stamina Recovery
While afflicted with a Status Effect, your core combat skills cost 5% less per stage.
BONUS
25% cost reduction
While under the effects of a damage shield your dodge roll costs 160 less stamina per stage.
BONUS
800 cost reduction
While under the effects of Crowd Control Immunity, you take 2% less damage per stage.
BONUS
10% damage reduction
Grants 3 Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery per stage.
BONUS
150 Health, Magicka and Stamina Recovery
Reduces the cost of Roll Dodge by 120 Stamina per stage.
BONUS
240 cost reduction
Reduces the cost of Break Free by 110 Stamina per stage.
BONUS
220 cost reduction
While under the effects of Crowd Control Immunity, you take 2% less damage per stage.
BONUS
10% damage reduction
Reduces the duration of Elemental Status Effects applied to you by 5% per stage.
BONUS
25% reduced duration
Reduces the cost of Sprint by 20 Stamina per stage.
BONUS
40 cost reduction
Increases your movement speed when Sprinting by 2% per stage.
BONUS
4% Movement speed
Grants 280 Max Health per stage.
BONUS
560 Max Health
Increases your Stealth Detection by 1 meter per stage.
BONUS
3 meters
While afflicted with a Status Effect, your core combat skills cost 5% less per stage.
BONUS
25% cost reduction
Return to life after resurrection with 5% more resources per stage.
BONUS
10% more resources
While under the effects of a damage shield your dodge roll costs 160 less stamina per stage.
BONUS
800 cost reduction
Reduces the cost of Block by 20 Stamina per stage.
BONUS
40 Block cost reduction
Increases the amount of damage you can block by 2% per stage.
BONUS
4% Block mitigation
Increases your Movement Speed while Bracing by 3% per stage.
BONUS
6% Movement speed
Reduces the cost of Bash by 45 Stamina per stage.
BONUS
90 cost reduction
Increases your Bash damage by 60 per stage.
BONUS
120 increased damage The Craft Champion Points as a whole do not effect combat much, and so they are completely up to your playstyle!
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My personal recommendations and preferences (by order of importance):
Passive Stars
- Breakfall – This star will prove useful while kiting enemies off ledges such as keeps, towers and cliffs.
- Steadfast Enchantment – This passive will let you spend less soul gems on your weapons’ enchantments.
Active Stars
- Liquid Efficiency – This effect will help you save potions by consuming less of them while gaining their effects.
- Steed’s Blessing – The speed bonus you gain from this passive can help you at the start of the fight, before you get stuck in combat status.
- War Mount – Will make you much less likely to be dropped off of your mount and zerged or ganked down.
- Rationer – This star will save you some money when you go groceries shopping for your PvP build.
Summary
That’s about all the information you need to set up this Magicka Warden build and play it in PvP! I hope you found this build setup useful and will enjoy playing it in game!
If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, please feel free to reach out to me either via my discord server, or by tagging me on Twitter.
You can also find my other socials down below to get in touch with me live on my streams or see more of my content!
Good luck tearing Cyrodiil apart!
NirnStorm is a content creator on Twitch and on YouTube. He currently plays and streams mainly The Elder Scrolls Online, with a focus on end-game PvP, and occasionally some different games such as Witcher, Among Us, Apex Legends and many others!