Powerful Warden Tank Build for ESO – Elder Scrolls Online

Table of Contents

• Trials & Dungeons Setup
  • Gear
  • Skills
  • Scribing Skills
  • Champion Points
  • Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives Attributes)
• Resource Management
• Warden Subclassing
• Outfit Style Showcase
• Update Log

Welcome to the Warden Tank Build PvE “Frostbite” for ESO (Elder Scrolls Online). Make sure to bookmark the link as I will keep updating the build for each new Update of ESO. The Warden Tank Build is optimized for Dungeons & Trials!

Other Tank Guides:

• All Tank Guides
• Beginner’s Tanking Guide
• Advanced Tanking Guide
• Endgame Tank Sets

Warden Tanks have amazing group support. You have access to good sustain and tons of support abilities. Ice Fortress gives everyone Major Resolve increasing their Armor & Spell Resistance by 5948 which is a lot of extra damage mitigation for the whole group!

The Warden also benefits from faster ultimate regeneration thanks to the Shimmering Shield skill. And you also always have a heal ready thanks to the Polar Wind skill that scales with max health. Of course, there are more useful skills, more info in the skill section of the ESO Warden build.

• Dungeon & Trial Build
• Warden Class
• Tank/ Support Setup
• Good sustain
• Good group support
• Good healing

Trials & Dungeons Setup Warden Tank Build

In this section, we are going to take a look at the ESO Warden Tank Build setup.

5x Turning Tide, 5x Powerful Assault, 2x Nazaray, 2x Puncturing Remedy with Bewitched Sugar Skills on a Nord.

• Unbuffed: Out of combat, buff-food active.
• Buffed: In combat, Raid Target Dummy buffs, Tri-Stat Potions, Powerful Assault and Puncture Remedy set, Bull Netch, Ice Fortress active.

Gear Warden Tank Build

Gear Setup

Gear Combo: Combining the sets Turning Tide and Nazaray creates a powerful combo. You can apply Major Vulnerability with Turning Tide and then activate an ultimate to proc Nazaray to get a very extended duration on the Major Vulnerability debuff. Basically increasing the damage output for the whole group for a long duration. If you have 500 ultimate points saved up you get an additional 25 seconds of Major Vulnerability, increasing the total time to 35 seconds!

Backbar Weapon: We use a Frost staff as a base back bar weapon, because of the Ancient Knowledge passive. However, you can also use a Lightning Staff or another sword and board if you wish to do so.

Puncturing Remedy: If you don’t have access to the Puncturing Remedy set you can simply use Powerful Assault on the frontbar too.

Powerful Assault: We only backbar this set because we use the Echoing Vigor skill on the backbar to apply the buff to yourself and allies.

Lucent Echoes: If you use Lucent Echoes make sure to swap out Nazaray for another Monster Set.

Beginner Gear Setup

This beginner setup is here for people that do not have access to the other setup now. You can ask a friend to craft Fortified Brass and Torug’s Pact for you. You could also use Plague Doctor instead of Torug’s Pact as it is very cheap available in the Guild Stores.

Where can I get the gear?

Turning Tide: Shipwright’s Regret dungeon
Powerful Assault: Imperial City Vault, Guildstores
Puncturing Remedy: nDragonstar Arena
Perfected Puncturing Remedy: vDragonstar Arena
Nazaray: vShipwright’s Regret dungeon, Undaunted Enclave rewards.
Fortified Brass: Craftable
Torug’s Pact: Craftable
Night’s Silence: Craftable
Plague Doctor: Deshaan, Guildstore

Skills ESO Warden Tank ESO

• Fetcher Infection is also another skill you might want to consider, to apply Minor Vulnerability to the enemy.
• Silver Leash can be used if you need something to pull monsters to you.

Skill explanation:

• Polar Wind: Can be used to support heal on this tank, both for you and a group member.
• Shimmering Shield: When you absorb a Projectile, you gain Major Heroism, increasing your Ultimate generation by a lot.
• Pierce Armor: Your main taunt, also debuffs the enemy with Major Fracture and Major Breach, reducing Spell and Physical Resistance by 5948.
• Heroic Slash: Debuffs the enemy with a 5% damage reduction debuff and also gives you Minor Heroism, increasing your Ultimate generation.
• Bull Netch: Your most important stamina resource management tool, it is free cast and is active for a long time.
• Enchanted Forest: Only use this Ultimate in case your group drops very low on health. Huge burst heal while ppl stand in that healing AoE.
• Echoing Vigor: Applies an AoE heal and also activates the set Powerful Assault.
• Spell Symmetry: This gives you unlimited Magicka, just be careful when you activate it due to the Health loss.
• Ice Fortress: Provided you with Major Ward and Resolve, increasing your Physical and Spell Resistance by 5948 plus another 5% damage mitigation from Minor Protection.
• Inner Rage: This is your ranged taunt, in case you can not get to a mob fast enough.
• Elemental Blockade: If you are using a frost staff, this can proc Minor Brittle and Minor Maim on the enemy, which increases enemy critical damage taken and reduces enemy damage. Also provides a small shield to allies.
• Aggressive Warhorn: Your main Ultimate, to buff the group with 10% more max resources and crit damage boost.

Scribing Skills

The ESO Scribing System offers plenty of adjustable skills to add to our build. The Scribing Skills aren’t a must have. There are some viable options that you can use in certain situations for tank builds.

Important: Please read here how to get Grimoires, Focus Scripts, Signature Scripts and Affix Scripts for the ESO Scribing system.

Base Scribing Skill useful to our build:

• World: Soul Burst and Wield Soul
• Mages Guild: Ulfsild’s Contingency
• Fighters Guild: Torchbearer

The skills are unlocked by:

• Soul Burst: Complete Final ESO Scribing Quest
• Wield Soul: Complete ESO Scribing Tutorial Quest
• Ulfsild’s Contingency: Reach Mages Guild Rank 5
• Torchbearer: Reach Fighters Guild Rank 5

Soul Burst (Leashing Burst)

Soul Burst turns into Leashing Burst by adding the following scripts below. This is an AoE centered around you and pulls all targets to you, reduces their movement speed and interrupts casting enemies. Great against trash packs.

• Focus Script
  • Pull
• Signature Script
  • Hunter’s Snare
• Affix Script
  • Interrupt

Wield Soul (Leashing Soul)

Wield Soul turns into Leashing Soul by adding the following scripts below. With our Scribing Scripts, we taunt the enemy and pull them to us. We also restore resources and apply Major Cowardice on the enemy, reducing their damage by a large amount.

• Focus Script
  • Pull
• Signature Script
  • Druid’s Resurgence
• Affix Script
  • Cowardice

Ulfsild’s Contingency (Warding Contingency)

Ulfsild’s Contingency turns into Warding Contingency by adding the following scripts below. You apply a rune to yourself. When an enemy hits you the rune triggers and grants a damage shield to you and allies. It also reduces damage by 8% and grants you Minor Protection, reducing damage even further by 5%.

• Focus Script
  • Damage Shield
• Signature Script
  • Gladiator’s Tenacity
• Affix Script
  • Protection

Torchbearer (Heroic Torch)

Torchbearer turns into Heroic Torch by adding the following scripts below. It generates 1 Ultimate to you and your allies with every sweep. It also reduces damage taken by 30% for a short duration and grants Minor Heroism, generating 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds.

• Focus Script
  • Generate Ultimate
• Signature Script
  • Gladiator’s Tenacity
• Affix Script
  • Heroism

Champion Points for the Warden Tank Build in ESO

Below you can find the Champion Points setup for this build. Work your way from top to bottom in your allocation. For more information on Champion Points, please visit the Champion Points Overview Page on ESO-Hub.com.

Important:

• Warfare Tree: This tree gives you a mix between damage, healing and damage mitigation.
• Fitness Tree: This tree gives you extra health, sustain and defensive buffs.
• Craft Tree: This tree is mostly optional, nothing really “impacts” combat, therefore you can pick whatever you prefer, or use the preset below.
• Perks: Hovering over each perk will give you insights on what it does. Presets are also provided for each of the allocations below.

Click the tab below to open the allocation.

Important Info for Warden Tank Build PvE

Buff-food

In general, most Tanks like to go with max resource buff foods such as the Bewitched Sugar Skulls or the cheaper version Longfin pasty with Melon Sauce. However, you could also use Jewels of Misrule which provides Health and a lot of Magicka and Stamina recovery.

Longfin pasty with Melon Sauce
(Max Health+Max Stamina+Max Magicka)

Bewitched Sugar Skulls

The Bewitched Sugar Skulls is a slightly more advanced version that has a bit higher stats and also includes health recovery. Though it also costs more.

You can also visit the Buff Food and Drinks Overview Page for more information on all food and drinks.

Mundus Stone

The Lord is a good Mundus Stone to increase maximum Health. However, you can also use other available Mundus Stones if you don’t need the extra Health. For an overview of all the Mundus Stones in ESO you can check out the Mundus Stone Overview Page.

The Lord Mundus Stone (Max Health)

Race

You can find more about racial passives in the ESO Race Overview page.

Nord
Argonian
Imperial
Orc
Redguard
Dark Elf

Potions

For hard content I recommend using crafted or crown store Tri-Stat potions.

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

Passives

• Animal Companion: Bond with Nature, Savage Beast, Flourish, Advanced Species
• Green Balance: Accelerated Growth, Nature’s Gift, Emerald Moss, Maturation
• Winter’s Embrace: Glacial Presence, Frozen Armor, Icy Aura, Piercing Cold
• One Hand and Shield: Fortress, Sword and Board, Deadly Bash, Deflect Bolts, Battlefield Mobility
• Destruction Staff: Penetrating Magic, Elemental Force, Ancient Knowledge, Destruction Expert (Note: Do not activate Tri Focus passive)
• Heavy Armor: Resolve, Constitution, Juggernaut, Revitalize, Rapid Mending
• Medium Armor: If you have spare skillpoints, max out this skill line too.
• Light Armor: If you have spare skillpoints, max out this skill line too.
• Undaunted: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle
• Racial: All
• Alchemy: Medicinal Use

Attributes

You have to make sure to have a bit more Stamina than Magicka. Because of the Synergies you pick up give you back whatever stat is higher. You can change this to your liking, if you do not need that much health, get more stamina.

10 Magicka, 54 Health, 0 Stamina

Resource Management for the Warden Tank ESO

Bull Netch skill returns about 4800 Stamina over 24 seconds, the skill is free of cost and we still return stamina while blocking.

Nature’s Gift passive procs every time we heal someone and we get resources back.

Shimmering Shield also restores a bit of Magicka when you get hit by a projectile, on top of that you gain Major Heroism increasing your Ultimate regeneration like crazy.

Energy Orb is a skill that Healers use to throw into the group. You can use the synergy this skill provides to regain around 4000 resources. Our max Stamina is a bit higher than our Max Magicka, that is because you will get resources depending on your higher max Stamina or Magicka. And because we are a tank, Stamina is definitely more important.

Heavy Attacks restore a big amount of stamina, if you hit an off-balanced enemy it gives twice the amount back. You don’t need to permablock, try to find time to do Heavy Attacks in your rotation.

Potions are also a key to manage your resources well, I recommend using Tri-Stat potions to regain all three resources at the same time. Further below you will learn how to craft the right potions.

To increase our Magicka sustain, we want to make sure to use Spell Symmetry to manage our Magicka resources.

• Natures Gift passive
• Bull Netch
• Shimmering Shield
• Spell Symmetry
• Heavy Attacks
• Potions
• Orbs (Undaunted skill-line)

Choosing an Argonian as a race for your tank will also increase sustain due to the Resourceful racial passive.

ESO Warden Subclassing Build Options

ESO’s Subclassing offers a lot of variety, allowing you to swap, mix, and match different skill lines of various classes all on one character. Read our How does Subclassing work in ESO guide to get an understanding of how the subclass system works. We also have plenty of ESO Builds optimized for Subclassing.

Take a look at our ESO Warden Subclassing Build if you are interested in what you can all mix and match on a Warden build!

Outfit Style Showcase of the Warden Tank Build for ESO

Lets take a look at the outfit style of the Warden Tank Build for ESO. You can find a few images here and an image of the outfit editor dye station below.

• Pyandonean Motif: Helmet, Pauldrons, Gauntlets, Greaves, Cuirass, Girdle, Sabatons, Sword, Shield
• Dyes: Cardsharp Crimson, Stalhrim Chrome

Update Log for the Warden Tank Build

11.08.2019 Updated Build for the SCALEBREAKER DLC, Elsweyr Chapter, Warden Tank Build PvE.
20.10.2019 Updated the Build for the DRAGONHOLD DLC, Elsweyr Chapter.
20.02.2020 Updated the Build for the HARROWSTORM DLC, Greymoor Chapter.
08.05.2020 Updated the Build for the GREYMOOR CHAPTER.
20.08.2020 Updated the Build for the STONETHORN DLC, Greymoor Chapter.
29.10.2020 Updated the Build for the MARKARTH DLC, Greymoor Chapter.
03.03.2021 Updated the Build for the FLAMES OF AMBITION DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
26.05.2021 Updated the Build for the BLACKWOOD CHAPTER.
11.08.2021 Updated the Build for the WAKING FLAME DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
01.09.2021 Updated the Champion Points and Buff Food links, WAKING FLAME DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
18.10.2021 Updated the Build for the DEADLANDS DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
03.03.2022 Updated the Build for the ASCENDING TIDE DLC, High Isle Chapter.
11.05.2022 Updated the Build for the HIGH ISLE CHAPTER.
09.08.2022 Updated the Build for the LOST DEPTHS DLC, High Isle Chapter.
24.10.2022 Updated the Build for the FIRESONG DLC, High Isle Chapter.
09.03.2023 Updated the Build for the SCRIBES OF FATE DLC, Necrom Chapter.
30.05.2023 Updated the Build for the ESO NECROM CHAPTER.
25.10.2023 Updated the Build for Necrom Update 40.
08.03.2024 Updated the Build for the Scions of Ithelia DLC Update 41, Gold Road Chapter.
23.05.2024 Updated the Build for the Gold Road Chapter U42.
20.08.2024 Updated the Build for Update 43, Gold Road Chapter.
28.10.2024 Updated the Build for Update 44, Gold Road Chapter.
11.03.2025 Updated the Build for Update 45, Fallen Banners.
28.05.2025 Updated the Build for Update 46, Seasons of the Worm Cult Part 1.

Tags: Health Warden Tank, Warden Tank Build, Warden Tank Build PvE

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