https://xynodegaming.com/natures-bounty/
This is the new PVE tank build for the Warden class. He is built to do everything a tank should be able to do…It can taunt, hold agro, survive, control the enemy in mass numbers, heal, stun, immobilize, buff the group if needed with warhorns, and protect them with shields and protection buffs (including a group resistance buff)… BUT with a MASSIVE twist!

The tank has the usual traditional traits, high health, high magicka recovery (for buffs and/or application of magicka costing skills) but of course, you must heavy attack for sustain occasionally so be sure you do that between mechanics.

The high magicka recovery is primarily to keep up the vital warden buffs and have the freedom to throw out crowd control AND a bit of damage over time (usually that is not important on a tank but this one IS). However, we utilize our weapon trait and passive bonuses to allow recovery while we cannot recover normally! With the ice staff, you BLOCK with the magicka bar, so recovery is no good unless you are not blocking. BUT we allow ourselves to take advantage of a return glyph on the back bar along with the betty netch to constantly gain back resources even while blocking. IF you heavy attack between mechanics too, this is very easy to manage. Sustain is only an issue if you do too much spamming and not enough focusing on what you are doing!

Our healing passives/buffs grant minor toughness to whoever is healed by you (10% max HP) and also our ground-based ice attacks are amazing for pinning adds/mobs on the spot to control them while you get all the agro.

The main method of tanking is similar to other tanks and that is that you heavy attack for sustain and taunt of course to keep agro, while keeping a close eye on your buffs. Heavy attacks are VITAL but of course, they do come with a price. While heavy attacking, your shield is DOWN, so you take full damage. With this in mind, you must TIME your attacks. The fact you are taking more damage than if you were blocking means you need more health to take the punch to the face, hence why we have so much HP…BUT the trick with timing is, you MUST block the heavy attacks from a boss. Heavy attack through normal passive attacks etc and then block anything that would one-shot, knockdown, count as a heavy, etc.

In between those, you of course have the freedom to use Bone Shield to protect you and the group (if they take the synergy) if your sustain is at a high.

Blocking on THIS build, however, has MORE than just a damage mitigation bonus. Blocking actually activates one of our sets, which can apply, damage (over time specifically) and a huge amount of control and debuffing for damage incoming, so when you ARE blocking, you are gaining a bonus many usually do not for FREE, AND contributing to the overall setup to help add damage to the fight. There are a combination of many things that make this all work together but it starts with that blocking wind.

Frozen Watcher (while blocking the above happens) is a damage over time, our two ground-based AOEs, our bees/flies, our ultimate if using it, our HEAL (our heal has damage over time) and our monster set ALL add dots to surrounding targets. They are all very small damage over time per ability BUT, the combination of them all adds a huge amount of damage reduction, crowd control and each tick from EACH dot pushes Azureblight to explode. With update 32 and the Deadlands DLC Azureblight Reaper is so much STRONGER because ALL proc sets based on spell and weapon damage can now CRIT!

Every tick of damage adds a stack…when you reach 20, the target explodes in damage hitting surrounding targets. And this can happen PER enemy! That’s right, you are creating AOE BOMBS! (demonstrated towards the end of the video)… All you have to do, is stack the adds…who better to do that than the TANK?

Leeching Plate! Much like Frozen Watcher, this is also a TANK set that has basic tank bonuses (health+ healing received) however instead of blocking to apply the damage over time to stack Azureblight, all you have to do is take damage! And being a tank, you ALWAYS get hit! This set is going to give you the SAME uptime and effect to Azure, possibly more in some situations but each tick of poison it fires WILL heal you. Making you nearly impossible to kill in some situations!

The choice is yours! Frozen Watcher for more chill status (although we have incredibly high anyway) OR Leeching for that ultra-tough tank!

ICE STAFF.

Finally the big one, the frost staff works as a sword and board, meaning you can block with it and the passive destro skills actually reduce the amount of damage you take AND the cost of blocking while doing so on that bar…BUT..you block with “magicka!” instead of “stamina!”.

Some valuable points for the build:-

Your taunt counts also as an immobilize!

Heavy attack to keep your magicka up AND a nice damage shield!

Insanely HIGH uptime on minor brittle (10% critical damage taken for applying chilled)

Block the big stuff and time your heavies between mechanics if need be.

Really cheap ultimate oh SH*T buttons (block ulti, enchanted forest)

Keep your buffs up. Your buffs protect you, the group AND your heals from these keep up minor toughness, 10% max hps.

Caped resists with no effort

Lots of CC with the ground-based ice AOEs which immobilize and stun normal enemies and apply minor main reducing their damage done.

Group protection and/or group healing ultimates!

ALL of your damage over time effects that PUSH for cc, reduction to damage, and all-around tanking roles for this build, ADD to the Azureblight proc which can DEVASTATE enemies with damage!

MINOR BRITTLE! – Very simple. IF you are HOLDING an ICE STAFF…when you apply a CHILLED status effect. You will affect the target with Minor Brittle, causing all crit damage on that target to be 10% stronger!
This is VITAL!. You can NOT, apply minor brittle UNLESS you apply CHILLED status effects while HOLDING a staff (ice staff) on your current active bar.
^^^ pay very close attention to this.
Frozen watcher has its own chance to apply chilled, plus it is ice damage so the chance for the raw damage to do it outside of the 15% chance it already has for a set bonus.

All ice damage you do from your whole build can apply chilled. With 200% more chance with winter’s embrace skills and 100% more chance with destruction staff skills IF HOLDING an ice staff at the time.

And finally, pulsar has triple the chance of applying status effects to those targets, and yes, ALL of the above in their respective rule sets, combined STACK!

We can have 100% uptime on minor brittle boosting your entire group’s DPS!

Taunt it, hold it…and you will boost your group AND make explosions all at once! Making this one of the MOST desirable tanks available for control, damage mitigation, DPS boosting, damage application itself, and overall toughness all in one package 😉