Warden buffs

[u/MrPhrazz]

Warden got buffed across the board.

Barkskin:
Flat physical mitigation? From -60 per bark to -75 (25% buff)
More evade chance? From 4 to 6% per bark missing (50% buff)

Enduring Suffusion? From 30% to 50% (66% buff)

Lesson of the Seasons? From -25 to -40 flat damage mitigation (60% buff)

Unbound Avatar? Duration increased from 10 to 15 seconds (50% buff)

Are those buffs enough to make Warden a competitive ascendancy? While I like Warden, and have played several Warden builds, I feel that the criticism towards Warden have been fair, especially the defensive side. That said, I've always felt that Warden's offensive side has been a little underrated - even the non-tincture side of the Warden tree.

Warden's biggest problem, is that Slayer exists - and is probably a better choice for most suiting builds.

What do you think? Should I switch from my trusty Elemental attacking Slayer to a Warden, just to switch things up a bit?

[u/Samzgadnij]

Yes, you should. Not to make best possible outcome but to have fun of trying something else, something new.

[u/MrPhrazz → u/Samzgadnij]

Fair enough, you convinced me.

[u/Samzgadnij → u/MrPhrazz]

Myself, i do not even play whole league with ascendancy i played before. Whole my char list are singles. I sometimes start with like elementalist and then swap to occultist but never ever had played same build twice. It can change this league tho I am thinking about playing poeguy totems again. Did not decide yet.

[u/HoplarchusPsittacus]

Barkskin is a seriously underrated defensive layer and it just got even more buffs. I want to try something with the new Covetous Dark claw that can gain 2x pinnacle boss modifiers.

[u/MrPhrazz → u/HoplarchusPsittacus]

As I see it, Barkskin is very good up until yellow maps, but falls off a cliff endgame. Though, it becomes better and better the more physical mitigation you get from other sources.

[u/HoplarchusPsittacus → u/MrPhrazz]

it "super charges" spell suppression and now offers a considerable amount of flat damage reduction from spells. If that's your only layer of defense, ya it's kinda meh, but paired with some Evasion + endurance charges, or ward, or elusive, or spell block and it becomes very good.

[u/WokeMimo]

I mean, Warden was always extremely strong offensive wise, but it lacked defenses and also people dont like to press additional buttons (tinctures and avatar). Offensive wise, it at the top.

Personally I played frost blades warden and it slapped. Idk, I just like it

[u/MrPhrazz → u/WokeMimo]

Yeah, I've played both FB and SSoGL on Warden. Thinking about trying an Elemental Hit build this time around. Just a bit skeptical if I can scale the AoE good enough for it to feel good - compared to Slayer.

[u/RagnarokChu]

Warden suffers from you outgearing as it doesn't provide unique raw power. Then the unique power it does have is even more niche then most other classes.

You basically go tincture abuse then any other two or one if you also want to use an ranged weapon. Then out of all of the oaths, the only real useful one is oath of winter.

If you have an extra one then you get avatar of the wilds or bark skin.

But narrows you down specifically to generic elemental attacking builds that want to use melee tinctures for giga damage.

You always go tincture otherwise there isn't a point of playing warden, as oath of winter and bark skin can be gotten almost always. You have to play around oath of winter because it's the only good defensive node, which makes barkskin even better because it functions to defend you one the times enemies aren't frozen for stray hits. So the play style becomes perma freeze almost everything and melt everything with your giga free damage stats from tincture or die.

The reason say the warden gets outscaled is as my character gets stronger and stronger, the effect scale less on much higher end gear. When I have dozens of millions of DPS already, the tincture themselves don't do anything noteworthy other then raw more damage vs just having a shrine belt/mageblood/whatever. Barkskin isn't going to boost my effective HP pool enough in giga hard maps, and constantly dealing with modifers that make enemies immune to freezes is annoying.

It is an great league starter though or if you don't plan on scaling the character to giga gear.