Welcome to The Warden a Group PvP Healer for the Elder Scrolls Online.  This build is for Templars due to their amazing active and passive abilities.  The idea of this build is simple, heal others, do damage and be hard as hell to kill.  Ideally you’d play this in a four to eight man group, but generally it struggles in large groups of 12-16.  Let me show you some clips of gameplay and then explain how it works and why it’s effective.

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“Warden: a person responsible for the supervision of a particular place or thing or for ensuring that regulations associated with it are obeyed.”

Combat Video

Full Build Video

Table of Contents

• Skills
• Gear
• Champion Points
• Other

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Overview

This build centers on ultimate generation for the purpose of using Remembrance the healing ultimate for the Templar class.  A lot of people undervalue its power and utility.  Why?  Because Barrier was strong pre 2.3 patch, hitting a massive group giving them ridiculous shields, making it a must have ultimate for healers and DPS alike.  Factor that in along with the movement change on Retreating Maneuvers (healing takes you out of 30% speed), we now have even more trouble getting away and no longer a easy button ultimate (well until I show you this).  But like every build, it’s strengths and weaknesses here are some you should look at before playing the Warden:

+ Powerful damage and healing

+ Group utility with Transmutation critical resistance

+Good resource sustained

– Lacks the AoE healing and ease of a Healing Spring spammer

–  Prepare to getting beat on by 5 or more players constantly

Only play this if you DON’T have a problem with getting focused.  As a Templar PvP healer, you have to embrace people trying to kill you, stun you and piss you off every second.  If you can accept this and enjoy it, you’re DPS will absolutely mow everything down while you survive.

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Skills

Bar Two – Restoration Staff – I’m going to explain bar two first because its our pre-combat buff rotation prior to engagement.  Not easy, but I’ll show and explain how to do it.  Buffing and movement is the most important aspect of getting this right for you and your group.  Let me show you a picture to explain:

Ideally our first buff to cast is Proximity Detonation (major AoE Damage) so when we hit an opposing group, boom they go bye bye.  Key to group play is timing and movement.  With Retreating Maneuvers up, a Immovability Potion active and no sprinting you can reach the far structure in the picture above within eight seconds.  BUT you will be constantly avoiding other players damage, snares, stuns and obstacles so you most likely will end up at the six second mark in a real world scenario.  GOAL = Proxy first, buffs, bar swap soon as proxy has 1 second remain, go into healing mode, when safe, do the eight second buff phase and go again.

• Proximity Detonation (morph of Magicka Detonation | Alliance War Assault skill line) – The juggernaut AoE ability in the game.  It takes eight seconds to go off, but when it does, the more people it hits, the harder it hits.  This thing can single handily kill a player and or group.  Use in conjunction with other players in a coordinated countdown (3, 2, 1 “PROXY) and you will absolutely destroy everything.  Yes even as a healer.  Another thing people forget about proxy is it factors in your Spell Damage (SD) and such WHEN it hits.  So our Restoration Staff bar has lower SD then Sword and Shield so it’s ideal to be on that bar as soon as it explodes for even a stronger hit.  You want to keep this up nearly all the time, just remember when you are on Restoration Bar, you’ll be vulnerable to more stuns and more damage.
• Rapid Regeneration (morph of Regeneration | Restoration Staff skill line) – Combine this skill with the Thief Mundus (more crit) Focused Healing (major mending 25% more healing) and a Maelstrom Staff  for amazing group utility and healing.  The idea is to cast this two to three times during movement phase to maintain a strong heal over time (HoT) and resource regeneration for your group.  If you don’t have the Maelstrom Staff, I still find it very valuable though the Mutagen morph might be more advantageous for PvP.  Once applied, if Retreating Maneuver is cast, you will not exit the immunity.  Heals on the go is very important in this patch and a most have IMO.
• Channeled Focus (morph of Rune Focused | Restoring Light skill line) –  This is our flex spot that I generally use Channeled Focus for.  It cast a tiny little circle that you can stay in for a major spell/physical resistance and magicka regeneration but you still get the buff eight seconds after you move out of it.  Perfect for our rotation and build.  Something you’ll sub in here in the rare case you don’t have a Dragonknight running Igneous or Molten Weapons (major sorcery buff 20% SD) try Structured Entropy.
• Combat Pray (morph of Blessing of Protection | Restoration Staff skill line) – 8% damage bonus for 8 seconds….yep DPS dust.  This is going to be your LAST ability prior to bar swapping.  You want to hit every group member possible and usually us healers are in the back anyways so it works out well.  It’s even a strong heal combined with Major Mending so use it on yourself if you’re being attacked on Restoration Staff bar.  Just remember, this is in front of you not in a circular radius so aiming is important.
• Dark Flare (morph of Solar Flare | Dawn’s Wrath skill line) – Our one spammable single target attack that applies an AoE healing debuff to nearby enemies, empower (20% more damage next attack), ultimate generation via Prism and 5% SD via Illuminate.  Squeeze this into your rotation in between fights to maintain 100% up time on Illuminate.
• [Ultimate] Solar Prison (morph of Nova |Dawn’s Wrath skill line) – This is pretty open slot as I use a lot of different things but Nova is still a great offense and defensive ultimate with an AoE stun and damage reduction.  Want more damage? Use Meteor.  Want to be more offensive as a healer?  Use Devouring Swarm as a Vampire.  In a group of 6? Try Barrier.  Ideally we won’t be using this much because Remembrance is our primary ultimate.

Bar One – Sword and Shield – Used for Turtling while in the middle of a zerg fight.  After we’ve done our eight second buff rotation on the Restoration Bar, here we lock down, heal, cleanse, damage and survive.

• Purifying Ritual (morph of Cleansing Ritual | Restoring Light skill line) – a JUGGERNAUT ability now because of major mending via the Focused Healing passive.  This is considered a HoT (important for later Transmutation gear setup), it removes negate effects, can be synergized by teammates and you guessed it, Major Mending.  I use a combination of this and Purge for movement impairing effects.  Just me, use Purifying Ritual (like a DK Talons you).  Someone hit your group with a siege, use Purge.  With a radius of 12 meters, even if we cast this, keep running we will still get Major Mending for a very long time.
• Efficient Purge (morph of Cleanse | Alliance War Support skill line) – An AoE cleanse meaning removing negative effects from you and other party members (DoTs, flame damage, healing debuffs, etc).  Having it on the bar also gives us 10% more magicka recovery due to Alliance War Support Passive Magicka Aid.  Is it useful to cast this frequently?  Yes, but don’t be the mindless zerg drone that ONLY cast this.  Use your rotations not a one button ability.  NOTE: I have tried Cleanse which gives a small heal.  Since the health pool is 18%, cut that in half because of Battle Spirit and increase it with Major Mending, you end up with a 2-3k heal.  I don’t find it worth it with all the other healing we have and the magic cost is extreme.
• Repentance (morph of Restoring Aura | Restoring Light skill line) – What else can we say about Repentance that I haven’t already said?  A massive heal with corpses that is FREE, 10% regeneration across the board for having it slotted (stacks with 10% Magicka Aid, which also stacks with potion regeneration for 20% more magicka regen on bar one 🙂 The key to using this is not waiting for a 15 minute fight to be over and use it when everyone is full on stamina anyways.  Use it every 1-3 corpses.  Why? Because other opponents can use this on the same corpses.  See someone die, pop it.  See an Engine Guardian droid go down, pop it.  It allows me to constantly
• Blazing Spear (morph of Spear Shards | Aedric Spear skill line) – A stun, massive AoE damage and unlike Puncturing Sweeps, can be casted repeatedly WHILE blocking.  This is important because of the damage mitigation and reduction in CCs or stuns.  We get stunned, we die.  Cast for utility, stun and AoE damage.
• Breath of Life (morph of Rushed Ceremony | Restoring Light skill line) – Still a very powerful heal even though it’s only two people.  You just need to make sure to cast it when players are low health to get the max benefit.  You can still cheese this skill, healing behind pillars, walls because it does not require Line of Sight (LoS).  Other players may hate it, but it’s effect even in today’s game.
• [Ultimate] Remembrance (morph of Rite of Passage | Restoring Light skill line) – People have been bashing this skill for a long time and I’m here to tell you it rocks.  Why?  Well, by itself it’ procs Major Mending and for four seconds you get CC immunity, a 20 meter radius AoE heal, and a MASSIVE 23% damage reduction for every player within the radius and it only cost 120 ultimate. Oh and it procs extra critical resistance which you and your team can hit hard cap critical resistance with Impenetrable gear at 3300 with this build via our gear.  Now the Zergblade Proxy/Soul Tether builds will wonder why they are only hitting for 5k instead of 15k.  The trick to using this is knowing when and where you and your team will setup to fight.  Try to rush ahead the group with a movement speed potion or a dodge roll and pop this in the center of all the action.  After it’s done, BLOCK, recast Purifying Ritual for Major Mending and Repentance.  Someone surely will die in the ensuing head on collision.  If you’re pushing through, rebuff on bar two and start all over again.

This build/rotation is NOT easy so here are some things to keep in mind.

• Maintain HoTs like Rapid Regen
• Proxy/Combat Pray before combat
• Purifying Ritual for Major Mending
• Repentance every 1-3 corpses for easy healing
• Dark Flare in between action to get 5% spell damage
• Clap Remembrance in the center of chaos, Purify, Repentance and run

Below are some buffed stats using my gear setup (and that JUICY hard cap critical resistance).  Let me show you what I’ve come up with.

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Gear

I personally prefer 5 light armor and 2 medium due to the nature of PvP, CC breaking, dodge rolling, blocking, sneaking and sprinting.  I got the tip from Crown and have never looked back at 5 1/1.  The traits are pretty obvious here, Impenetrable on everything you can including shield and Undaunted Helm.  Impen makes an absolute tremendous difference in your survivability.  Remember this is for group play, not solo ganking, we need to be able to survive.  Yes we have less then 3k Spell Damage, but at least we won’t die the first Proxy/Soul Tether that hits us.

• Transmutation – A new set this patch that can be obtained from Rewards of the Worth or the weekly PvP Vendor at random.  The five pieces is a must for group play and what the game considers “Heal over Time” is almost everything we do (Remembrance, Rapid Regen, Purifying Ritual, and even Heavy Restoration attacks can proc this).  There’s no substitute, nothing in the game can give you this type of resistance. Find it fast before people realize just how powerful it is.
• Kagernac’s Hope – My favorite PvP five piece and really powerful on a Templar Healer.  Note that we only get the five piece bonus on Sword and Shield which is fine because that’s where most of the action is anyways.  You can get this crafted in the Fighters Guild final area.  You can use something different if you like, like Julinaos, Seducers or what not, but this was my favorite setup by far.
• Blood Spawn – An interesting choice, but mitigation, stamina regeneration and a boat load of Ultimate make it a must have.  Once Alliance War skill line 10, you will have Remembrance up nearly every major encounter.  You can get the helm in Spindleclutch and the shoulder via Undaunted keys.  I’ve tired other combinations such as Engine Guardian, even Molag Kena and just didn’t find it better than Blood Spawn.

As far as stats and enchants go, you want to hit some key numbers for max success.  23-25k health, 30k magicka and 15-18k stamina.  Prismatic Enchants on large pieces might be a good choice, just very expensive.  I also use VR 15 tri stat food and a combination of various potions depending on the encounters.

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Champion Points

I honestly have no idea what “the best” PvP Healer Champion Point setup is but let me explain what I’ve been using and why.

BLUE

I do a four way split between Blessed (healing done), Elfborn (spell critical), Elemental Expert (Magic damage) and Thaumaturge (DoT damage).  I’ve spec’d 100 points into Blessed and 67 into Elfborn and it didn’t feel effective.  EVERY person on the team needs to be able to do damage.  You just cannot simply heal someone to death.  Having a good split between these makes everything I do work better not just a couple of things.  Is this the best? No idea, but it works for me.  If you’re at the 501 cap, make sure to get the 120 point passive Arcane Well as it’ll help magicka supply.

RED

I use Crown’s CP Guide as a reference point and do 40/40/40 into Thick Skinned (DoT Damage), Elemental Defender and Hardy (physical damage).  With my remaining points I do 25 into Quick Recovery (self healing), 10 into Block Expertise (reduce block cost) and 12 into Resistant (crit resist).  I feel very sturdy with this setup, but I suggest you play around with what works for you.

GREEN

50 points into Magician (reduced magicka cost, 80 into Arcanist (magicka regeneration), 10 into Mooncalf (stamina regeneration) and 27 into Tumbling (cc break and dodge roll reduction).  It may seem odd to stack dodge roll reduction but it helps out tremendously in long battles I’m constantly getting pressured.

Once again, is this the best? Mathematically I’m sure not, but it works for me.  Experiment yourself, share ideas and ask others to improve on this.

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Other

Race – 1) Imperial.  Yep, seems weird but the extra health, stamina make me extremely survivable.  However, this sucks if you plan on doing PvE as a main healer because you miss out on max magicka and recovery. 2) Dunmer is a great balanced choice, works well in PvP and PvE and is still my favorite race overall. 3) Argonian because of the benefit to potions / resources and self healing plus an extra health pool is nice.  If you enjoy tanking 5 people at once, it’s a great race for you. 4) High Elf for extra regeneration and magicka pool.

Mundus Stone – I use the Thief primarily because the Maelstrom Staff criticals and Battle Spirit just limiting my healing.  Remember that players can resist critical hit damage, friendlies only benefit from critical heals.  If they have lower health, points into Quick Recovery and specific gear, they get healed more.  The other two options are Atronach for magicka recovery and Ritual for a flat 10% health increase.  I switch a lot depending on our group and always seeking improvement.  See what works for you, but 60% spell critical is very nice in PvP.

Vampire/WW – I’ve tried Vampire many times and it’s a tough choice.  On one side, you get more regen, a amazing low cost ultimate that does big damage but you could get blow up in one second with a Dawnbreaker or siege.  I prefer to go all natural and be tanky as possible.

 

Attributes – All magicka.

 

In summary I’ve really enjoyed making this build and love group PvP healing.  There’s something satisfying about helping your team, doing damage, and tanking a lot of other players.  I also made my character name Maximus after my newborn son on April 3, 2016.  I never realized I could love something so much until he was born.  Being a father is kind of like being a Warden, making sure everything is okay.  And for this, I dedicate the build to my son.  Maybe one day we will be a dynamic duo in Cyrodiil AS FATHER AND SON!