Heavy Attack Warden DPS Build - ESO Guide

DPS Two Bar Magicka Heavy Attack Pure Class Warden

Up to date for: Update 45 - 24th April 2025

Last changed: Update 45 - 24th April 2025

This build focuses on amplifying Heavy Attacks with the Sergeant's Mail item set and the Empower buff, sourced from the Might of the Guild passive, procced by constantly using Ulfsild's Contingency. Warden is the perfect class for that because of passives like Piercing Cold which straight up boosts all damage done by 8% and Glacial Presence which buffs the Chilled status effect, which makes long duration skills like Elemental Susceptibility worth it, which gives us more time to channel Heavy Attacks.

Works in normal and veteran dungeons, trials, hard modes, Dragonstar Arena, and Blackrose Prison.

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Skill Setups

Base Setup

A base setup that will work for most situations and which should be your starting point when making situational setups

This is the regular skill setup

Front Bar	Back Bar
Slot 1: Ulfsild's Contingency	Slot 1: Bull Netch
Slot 2: Deep Fissure	Slot 2: Arctic Blast
Slot 3: Barbed Trap	Slot 3: Elemental Susceptibility
Slot 4: Inner Light	Slot 4: Elemental Blockade
Slot 5: Banner Bearer	Slot 5: Banner Bearer
Ultimate: Wild Guardian	Ultimate: Wild Guardian

Ulfsild's Contingency - Frost , Lingering Torment , Force . Use Scalding Rune instead if you don't have access to Scribing
Banner Bearer - Magic , Cavalier's Charge , Berserk . You can change Berserk to Heroism if you can rely on your Healer to provide the Minor Berserk buff. Use Camouflaged Hunter on frontbar and Winter's Revenge on backbar instead if you don't have access to Scribing

Ulfsild's Contingency - your source of crucial Empower buff, which increases damage done by Heavy Attacks by 70%. Since Ulfsild's Contingency is a Mages Guild skill, it will trigger the Might of the Guild passive, which grants you Empower for 10 seconds. It also deals decent damage in an AoE and grants you Minor Force buff, increasing your Critical Damage by 10%. Ulfsild's Contingency is delayed until the next skill cast but whenever it's needed you can activate it early by bashing your enemy. If you cast this ability as you're finishing your Heavy Attack, the Empower you gain from it will start working just in time to boost the final tick of that Heavy Attack you just finished
Deep Fissure - deals a lot of damage per cast and provides 4% Critical Damage through the Advanced Species passive
Barbed Trap - a DoT that will also apply Hemorrhage status effect at the start and grant you Minor Force buff, increasing your Critical Damage by 10%. It will also trigger the Slayer passive
Inner Light - passively provides 7% Max Magicka - 5% from the skill itself and 2% from the Magicka Controller passive
Banner Bearer - increases your Magical damage done by 6%, grants 60 Weapon Damage thanks to the Celerity Champion Point and grants Minor Berserk or Minor Heroism, depending on the script you used. It also severely decreases your sustain but it's not an issue on a Heavy Attack build
Wild Guardian - a free ultimate that has to be double-barred that summons a permanent Bear pet, that deals decent damage to your enemies. While the Bear is summoned, you can activate this ability for 75 Ultimate to command the Bear to maul an enemy. Deals 100% more damage to enemies below 25% Health. It's also going to trigger the Advanced Species passive, increasing our Critical Damage by 4%
Bull Netch - gives Stamina back over time, grants Major Brutality and Major Sorcery, and every 5 seconds either removes one negative effect or, if none is removed, increases your damage done by 5% for 5 seconds. You can recast it early if you need to cleanse an important debuff. The skill's duration is 25 seconds, but the final 5% damage done buff lasts until 30 seconds, so you only have to recast it every 30 seconds.
Arctic Blast - an ability witha higher chance to proc the Chilled status effect, which deals increased damage thanks tothe Glacial Presence passive
Elemental Susceptibility - an ability which procs Burning, Concussed and Chilled status effects at the start and every 7.5 seconds for 30 seconds. It will deal a lot of damage per cast thanks to the Glacial Presence passive
Elemental Blockade - a ground DoT that will constantly re-apply your backbar weapon enchantment. It will also deal increased damage thanks to the Crushing Wall set and proc Off Balance if your supports aren't already doing it

Whenever you need to slot situational skills, replace Inner Light
Resolving Vigor - Stamina-costing heal over time which also grants you Minor Resolve which reduces your damage taken. Use it when you need a self-heal
Living Trellis - Magicka-costing ability that heals you when you take damage and at the end, which means you can spam it to constantly re-proc the direct heal. Use it when you need a self-heal you can spam under pressure. This ability can also target allies which can be either a good or a bad thing depending on the situation
Winter's Revenge - replacement for Barbed Trap for trash fights and boss fights which require more AoE damage

Priority List

This is just a list of priorities. Simply recast abilities when they run out and follow this list of priorities when there are multiple things to refresh.

For maximum DPS, it's more optimal to switch from Heavy Attack weaving to Light Attack weaving when you have many DoTs to refresh, though it's not mandatory and you can do massive DPS even while sticking to just Heavy Attacks

Always start a Heavy Attack roughly a second before Off Balance immunity ends, this way you'll be able to fit 3 Heavy Attacks within an Off Balance window
Use Ulfsild's Contingency if your Empower is out or if it's going to run out by the end of the Heavy Attack you're channeling
Use Wild Guardian if it's ready
Use Elemental Blockade
Use Deep Fissure
Use Barbed Trap
Use Bull Netch
Use Elemental Susceptibility
Use Arctic Blast
Use Ulfsild's Contingency

Pre-buff

These abilities can be pre-cast before entering combat

Passives

There are no passives you need to skip with this build.

Class

Weapon

Armor

Guild

Alliance War

Racial

Craft

Class - Animal Companions

Bond with Nature - Medium Priority

Savage Beast - Medium Priority

Flourish - Low Priority

Advanced Species - High Priority

Gear

Base Setup

A base setup that will work for most situations and which should be your starting point when making situational setups

Default setup for dungeons and trials

Gear Slot	Set	Weight/Type	Trait	Enchantment
Head	Anthelmir's Construct	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Shoulders	Anthelmir's Construct	Light	Divines	Magicka
Chest	Ansuul's Torment	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Hands	Ansuul's Torment	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Belt	Ansuul's Torment	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Legs	Ansuul's Torment	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Boots	Ansuul's Torment	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Necklace	Sergeant's Mail	Jewelry	Bloodthirsty	Increase Physical Harm
Ring	Sergeant's Mail	Jewelry	Bloodthirsty	Increase Physical Harm
Ring	Sergeant's Mail	Jewelry	Bloodthirsty	Increase Physical Harm
Frontbar Main Hand	Sergeant's Mail	Lightning Staff	Charged	Poison
Backbar Main Hand	Crushing Wall	Lightning Staff	Infused	Weapon Damage

When choosing different situational sets you can only replace Ansuul's Torment, Crushing Wall and Anthelmir’s Construct. Sergeant's Mail is too strong and too crucial for this build to ever be replaced. Ideally you want your 2nd 5-piece set to be Medium weight, but choosing a Light set is also an option in dungeons if none of your group members are providing any penetration

For example, a default setup for trash packs would replace Ansuul's Torment with Sul-Xan's Torment

Gear that can be stronger than the setup from the table in specific situations or when specific circumstances are present

Mora’s Whispers - combined with 1 piece of Slimecraw it's an alternative to Anthelmir’s Construct in fights where you can't retrieve the Anthelmir axe
Domihaus - alternative to Anthelmir’s Construct if you don't have enough lorebooks to make use of Mora’s Whispers
Sul-Xan's Torment - the best set for trash packs and for bosses that regularly spawn smaller adds
Highland Sentinel - the strongest set if you are able to stand still in a certain encounter. Usually when using it you should also change Anthelmir’s Construct to Mora’s Whispers or Domihaus, as Anthelmir’s Construct requires you to stand very close to the boss, which means they'll be pushing you around, which will cause you to lose Highland Sentinel stacks
Roar of Alkosh - a support set that allows you to provide 6000 penetration for your team, as long as they provide you with at least 1 synergy every 10 seconds. It's extremely beneficial to have at least 1 Alkosh user in groups. If your team isn't providing any penetration your two most efficient options for getting it yourself are Alkosh and the Light Armor Concentration passive, and you'll get better DPS with Alkosh even though it's a support set, because Medium Armor passives are just that good
Noble Duelist - the best option for dungeons if you can't rely on your team to provide penetration and they're not providing you with synergies, which means you can't use Roar of Alkosh

Gear that is easier to obtain and can be used while you work towards the best gear

Crafted:

All of these are tradable and can be bought from other players

Overland:

All of these are tradable and can be bought from other players

Mother’s Sorrow (Light) - Deshaan
Back-Alley Gourmand (Light) - Galen and Y'ffelon
Dragonguard Elite (Medium) - Southern Elsweyr

PvP:

All of these are tradable and can be bought from other players

Deadly Strike (Medium) - Bruma Elite Gear Vendor

Dungeons:

Storm Master (Medium) - Tempest Island
Undaunted Infiltrator (Medium) - Arx Corinium
Undaunted Unweaver (Light) - Blackheart Haven
Tzogvin’s Warband (Medium) - Frostvault

Some additional tips

If you can rely on your supports to provide Off Balance you can replace backbar Lightning Staff with an Inferno Staff
For purely Single Target fights with no adds that could accidentally "eat" your backbar enchant proc, you can change Weapon Damage enchant to Frost

Final Setups

A few examples of final setups you could end up with after applying situational rules to the base setup

Setup for parsing on the practice dummy

Gear Slot	Set	Weight/Type	Trait	Enchantment
Head	Anthelmir's Construct	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Shoulders	Anthelmir's Construct	Light	Divines	Magicka
Chest	Highland Sentinel	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Hands	Highland Sentinel	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Belt	Highland Sentinel	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Legs	Highland Sentinel	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Boots	Highland Sentinel	Medium	Divines	Magicka
Necklace	Sergeant's Mail	Jewelry	Bloodthirsty	Increase Physical Harm
Ring	Sergeant's Mail	Jewelry	Bloodthirsty	Increase Physical Harm
Ring	Sergeant's Mail	Jewelry	Bloodthirsty	Increase Physical Harm
Frontbar Main Hand	Sergeant's Mail	Lightning Staff	Charged	Poison
Backbar Main Hand	Crushing Wall	Inferno Staff	Infused	Frost

Champion Points

Warfare

Weapons Expert

20% Light and Heavy Attack Damage

Deadly Aim

6% Single Target Damage

Master-at-Arms

6% Direct Damage

Exploiter

10% Damage against Off Balance enemies

AoE Fights

Replace Deadly Aim with Biting Aura in AoE fights.

Fitness

1400 Max Health

1731 Armor

10% Movement Speed

90 Health, Stamina and Magicka Recovery

Craft

Steed's Blessing

20% Movement Speed out of combat

Extremely useful utility

Quality of Life

Green Champion Points don't affect Combat, choose whatever Quality of Life you prefer

Race

The difference between best and worst race is about 5% of DPS and there is no content in the entire game that you'd be blocked from completing because of choosing a bad race.

Why pick this

Provides Max Magicka and Weapon/Spell Damage. In Trials that's usually stronger than Khajiit's Critical Damage racial, because with 4 supports your team will (usually) provide enough Critical Damage buffs for you to reach the cap regardless

Spell Recharge ≈104 lower resource per second, 5% less damage taken while channeling

Syrabane's Boon 2000 Max Magicka

Elemental Talent 258 Weapon & Spell Damage

Why pick this

Dynamic 1910 Max Stamina & Magicka

Resist Flame 4620 Flame Resistance

Ruination 258 Weapon & Spell Damage

Why pick this

Khajiit's Critical Damage is more valuable than High Elf/Dark Elf's Weapon/Spell Damage in 4-man content, because it's unlikely your two supports (or in many cases a single support) will be able to provide enough Critical Damage buffs for you to reach the 125% Critical Damage cap

Feline Ambush 12% Critical Damage

Lunar Blessings 915 Max Health, Stamina and Magicka

Robustness 90 Health, Stamina, Magicka Recovery

Brawny 1000 Max Stamina

Unflinching Rage 1000 Max Health, ≈531 Healing per Second

Swift Warrior 258 Weapon & Spell Damage, -12% Sprint Cost, +10% Sprint Speed

Gift of Magnus 2000 Max Magicka

Spell Attunement 2310 Spell Resistance (doubled when Burning, Concussed or Chilled), 130 Magicka Recovery

Magicka Mastery -7% Magicka Cost

Mundus

Default

The Thief

5.53% Critical Chance(9.04% with 7 Divines)

Use most of the time
Instanced

The Lover

2744 Penetration(4489 with 7 Divines)

Use in 4-man dungeons if your group is not providing enough penetration

Attributes

You should always put all 64 attribute points into Magicka.

Health

Stamina

Magicka

All points into Magicka

Food

Default

Artaeum Pickled Fish Bowl

Max Health +5,414 Max Magicka +4,938

Use for most content.

Cheaper alternative Solitude Salmon-Millet Soup

Difference Max Health +5,395 −19 Max Magicka +4,936 −2
Full Damage

Tomato Garlic Chutney

Max Magicka +6,048

Use for practice dummy parsing.

Potions

Default

Spell Power Potion

Restore Magicka Major Sorcery Major Prophecy

Use the Spell Power potions. They'll provide Major Sorcery and Major Prophecy which are crucial buffs.

Craft with: Lady's Smock Namira's Rot Corn Flower
Situational

Armor Potion

Restore Health Spell Resistance Physical Resistance

If you need more damage mitigation you can use Armor potions.

Craft with: Bugloss Mountain Flower Mudcrab Chitin