Magicka Warden PvP Build ESO – Frost Storm

Build Written By: Nirnstorm – PC NA/EU – YouTube – Twitch

Role: Damage Dealer

Patch: Markarth

Table of Contents

1. Video
2. Introduction
3. Setup
   1. Gear
   2. Attributes
   3. Skills
   4. Vampire vs. Mortal
   5. Champion Points
   6. Other Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Poisons, Passives)
4. Resource Management & Rotation
5. Contact Info
6. Update Log

Video

Introduction

Welcome to one of Dottzgaming.com’s Magicka Warden PvP builds, Frost Storm, for the Elder Scrolls Online written by Nirnstorm!

This build embraces the Markarth PvP meta and utilizes the powerful Malacath mythic item and the effective health-based healing which only the Warden class benefits from to create a super tanky setup with a surprisingly strong pressure and burst potential.

Keep in mind that PvP builds are very personal.  This is what worked for ME.  If you don’t like something about it, change it to fit your playstyle.

Setup

Gear

Gear Explanation

Malacath – We are utilizing Malacath in this build as it allows us to use heavy armor and set up our build quite defensively for the sake of tankiness, and still lets us deal a whole lot of damage using proc sets (mentioned below). This is one of the most powerful sets of the patch and is very much recommended to use.

Ice Furnace – This set allows us to constantly proc a considerably high amount of damage -which is buffed by malacath- every single second, as long as we deal frost damage to any enemy around us. We deal that damage using either Arctic Blast, Perfmafrost, or our spammable Force Pulse. It allows us to keep a lot of pressure on our enemies passively without much effort.

Icy Conjurer – This set allows us to focus enemy targets down and deal a massive amount of damage to them, one at a time. Most of our build consists of AoE pressure that is meant to lower the health of all nearby enemies, however this set allows us to focus one of them down at a time and make sure their health goes all the way down to zero. The damage of this set is also buffed by Malacath, and we proc it by using our spammable Force Pulse, as with our charged staff, Force Pulse is almost guaranteed to proc the set on-cooldown every single time we cast the skill.

Master’s Ice Staff – We are using this set on the back bar to help increase our burst potential. While unbuffed, our offensive stats are quite low. And despite the fact Malacath and our proc sets still deal a very high amount of damage, sometimes we need to have a powerful burst or a few hitting our enemies to finish the kill. To power up our burst, we simply go to the back bar and cast Frost Clench using our Master’s staff, which increases our spell damage to almost 4,000 when we are fully buffed and helps our shalk, arctic blast, northern storm and force pulse spammable deal a whole lot more damage.

Attributes

Magicka – 33
Health – 31
Stam – 0

Skills

Main Bar – Destruction Staff: Arctic Blast / Deep Fissure / Bird of Prey / Force Pulse / Blue Betty / Feral Guardian

Back Bar – Destruction Staff: Spiked Bone Shield / Shimmering Shield / Living Trellis / Destructive Clench / Ice Fortress / Northern Storm

Vampire vs. Mortal

This build plays as a mortal, without either Vamprism or Werewolf form.

Champion Points

CHAMPION POINT 810 SETUP
THE MAGE (BLUE)

• Blessed – 37
• Elfborn – 13
• Spell Erosion – 18
• Elemental Expert – 64
• Master-at-Arms – 81
• Staff Expert – 37
• Thaumaturge – 20

THE THIEF (GREEN)

• Warlord – 56
• Siphoner – 1
• Sprinter – 3
• Arcanist – 56
• Tenacity – 37
• Shadow Ward – 61
• Tumbling – 56

THE WARRIOR (RED)

• Ironclad – 61
• Resistant – 30
• Thick Skinned – 31
• Hardy – 49
• Elemental Defender – 49
• Quick Recovery – 37
• Expert Defender – 3
• Heavy Armor Focus – 10

Other Important Info

Buff Food

Bewitched Sugar Skulls (Max Health, Magicka and Stamina)

Mundus

The Lord: Increased Max Health.

Race

1: Breton: This is my favorite race for this build. Since having the cost reduction and max mag from the passives is amazing and surpass all other races, and the extra spell resistance is great to tank incoming damage.

2: Dark Elf: This race, while still gives you the very needed extra max magicka, also gives you max stamina and more spell damage. It will be slightly more difficult to sustain with this race, but your damage will surely be higher, and your stamina management will be a lot easier too..

Potions

Tri-Stat (Restore Health, Magicka and Stamina)
Bugloss, Columbine and Mountain Flower

Passives

• Animal Companions: All
• Winters Embrace: All
• Green balance: All
• Light Armor: All that don’t require 5 pieces worn
• Heavy Armor: All.
• Medium Armor: All that don’t require 5 pieces worn.
• Destruction Staff: All EXCEPT TRI-STAT FOCUS! (Important not to have it unlocked).
• Undaunted: All
• Assault: All
• Support: Combat Medic, Battle Resurrection
• Alchemy: Medicinal Use
• Racial: All

Resource Management & Rotation

Offensive rotation

For your offense, you want to apply your icy conjurer to an enemy target, then use your arctic blast to proc ice furnace to damage them and additional enemies in the area. Then you want to repeatedly CC your enemies using arctic blast and hit them with deep fissures and force pulse recasts to keep the pressure against them, until you can burst and kill them. Make sure to keep your defensive buffs going while you’re on the offence as they don’t last long, reproc Icy Conjurer on your selected target whenever it runs out, and try and weave as many light attacks as possible between skill casts.

Defensive Rotation

First of all, you should always have Frost Cloak applied, to give you the Major Resolve buff, which increases your resistances.

You always want to try and keep the Living Trellis and Arctic Blast buffs active on you, to gain heals over time and more as you take damage. Whenever you are being pressured, you can use Arctic Blast for a burst heal (in addition to it’s heal over time) or recast Living Trellis to get it’s end effect triggered and heal you more. These skills both have a heal over time AND a burst heal part to them, so as long as you cast both, you will keep gaining more and more heals.

In addition, you can use bone shield to apply a damage shield to yourself to prepare yourself to mitigate an incoming burst, or keep regenerating your magicka while defending yourself using your stamina pool.

To top it all off, when you are being pressured too much, you can use Northern Storm to apply the Major Protection buff to yourself and reduce your incoming damage even more.

As with all builds, offensive and defensive power will be maximized if you maintain your buffs on yourself and debuffs on your opponent(s).

Contact

If you have any questions about the build, join our discord server and ask @NirnStorm about the build! You can also ask questions on Nirnstorm’s personal discord, which can be found here.

Update Log

12/3/2020 – Build created