In this Wolcen Builds Guide we’re going to be covering an advanced Staff mage Build that focuses on the use of Lightning auto attacks and spells, while imbuing their attack and cast speed to quickly bring down tough enemies. Wolcen has quite a complex Passive Skill tree (Gate of Fates) that can be difficult to figure out, and many mechanics are not always easy to min/max. In this Warden of Wind Build Guide I’ll explain how to get the most from this Build, so if wanted to play Lightening themed Caster Build, then this Guide is for you.

Wolcen Build Guide: Warden of Wind

Similar to Oracles Of Flames , Wardens of the Wind are pure mage archetype. Relying on staves as sole weapon, using Consuming Embers as spammable spell, using long cooldown AOE spells to setup for high damage, and have Livor Mortis for added layer of defense. However, wardens build their attributes, passive tree, and equipment in very unique way to get the most out of lightening damage, and speeding themselves up, while slowing enemies down.

Wardens of the wind combine  Ranger  and  Alastor techniques with Arms Maester, gaining a strong default weapon attack, which builds up lightening and damage buffs for the next lightening spell. This way, they can utilize long cooldown spells such as Anomaly, Bulwark of Dawn, and Plagueburst. This means they will deal a good amount of damage while auto attacking enemies with a staff. Using Cabalist and Warlock allows for their spells to buff their auto attacks in return, to deal more Lightening, aether and sacred damage. Meanwhile, using Exorcist, siegebreaker, and Time Weaver to build up their defense in the process.

Wolcen Build: Warden of Wind Strengths

Warden’s strongest aspect is the ability to engage large groups of enemies at once, and get stronger by each additional enemy who enters the battle. At start of fight, wardens of the wind they prioritize gathering up enemies, slowing them all down, and buffs their own attack speed.

Laying down Anomaly and Plagueburst would be a great start, then spam Lightening Consuming Embers a few times. Do this until Sparking Dart starts to drop, then continue to spam Auto attacks from your staff, to regain the lost stacks of power charges from Sparking Dart and replenish willpower. Repeat this cycle as much needed.

Notice that auto attacks in this build are strong due to:

• Each projectile deals 120% additional damage after 1.5 second.
• Have huge attack speed once you do critical hits, allowing quick DPS and fast recovery for sparking dart.
• Buffed by all instances of Immortal Offering
• Buffed by Residual Energy which scale with spell damage and spell levels!
• Unlike catalyst, a Staff will auto attack to allow you to regain willpower in no time, because it has a positive transfer of time between willpower and rage.
• Auto attacks allow Wardens of Wind to ditch willpower flask, they don’t need Willpower reduction mods/nodes either.
• You can hold left and right click together to alternate between auto attack and Consuming Ember. Making full use of huge lightning buff from Sparking Dart

When each enemy dies while affected by Plagueburst, they explode, dealing some damage, and leaving behind a thick cloud which deals massive non-ailment damage over time. The more enemies present, the greater the chain reaction from this spell, that’s why wardens love to ‘lure’ huge packs of enemies around bosses to obliterate them with the chain reaction.

Wolcen Builds: Warden of Wind Attributes

Warden of Thunder and Wind uses the unusual combination of Ferocity and Agility. Critical hits are the main source of damage for this Build, while attack and cast speed allows for spamming of both auto attack and Consuming Embers at lightening speed, making Agility a perfect fit for this playstyle.

At endgame I’d prefer getting critical chance to 55-60% (Including all buffs from gear) and then put everything else into Agility. The likely ratio would be 7:3 Ferocity to Agility, but if you have good critical chance bonus on gear, you can modify it to 6:4 or even 5:5. This offersa much smoother experience while dealing more damage per second against higher level content. You will always regain willpower from auto attacks faster than you spend it with Consuming Embers. But don’t spam Consuming Embers so much that you lose all your power charges.

Add Toughness only if you are in dire need for survival, but usually bonus toughness from Armor would be enough to get you a decent effective life pool.

We can reach 10-12% Ailment chance from gear without investing any attribute points in Wisdom, and that’s all we need to get max stacks from Immortal Offering. We will apply shock from two of our spells, and from auto attack. And we will Apply Stasis reliably enough from Anomaly early on, until we convert it to lightening later, and get Stasis from Plagueburst with added Aether damage to spells.

Wolcen Builds: Warden of the Wind Active Skills

Below you will find the Active Skills I’d recommend for this build:

Consuming Embers

This is our main spammable spell, and it has everything we need. It’s a projectile, has built-in additional projectiles, can AOE. It also can be used as a kind of shotgun, and scale with cast speed. It can also be converted to Lightening, to benefit from the huge multiplier from Sparking Dart.

Go for Fratricidal Reunification, Engulfing Desires, Object of Desire, and Meteor Shower. I would prefer if there were more points to take increased critical chance and critical damage, but this is already very strong for bosses plus larger sized enemies this way. All 3 projectiles can collide and damage the same enemy with their AOE which is pretty neat.

You can easily balance your spamming of Consuming Embers by watching Sparking Dart wheel in middle of your bottom UI, if the blue bar drops so much that it comes near the middle (zero), you know you have overdone it, and its time to start focusing more on auto attacks to build up stacks again. If it’s higher than three quarters (50 positive points), you can alternate between Consuming Embers and auto attacks. If it’s almost full (75 points and higher), you can hold right click and don’t let go until you empty your willpower (which would be fast, but does substantial damage burst damage).

Anomaly

There’s a reason why Anomaly exists in most caster builds, it’s a very strong, versatile spell which can be built on in different ways. Either it can be used as a damage skill, or as a support skill. We will use it for dual purpose, and I’ll tell you how.

We take Echo Wave Pattern, Echoes of Infinity, Event Horizon, and Rending Of Matter

So we can convert damage to lightning, pull enemies multiple times, damage enemies when they are pulled, and cast two vortexes. That allows skill to keep pulling enemies and damage them every time, on top of the damage over time it does naturally, all of that twice as much, because we have two vortexes. Then all of that damage repeats every 1.5 at 120% effect, causing insane numbers to float over your enemies head that your eyes will never keep up with.

It’s a pretty good combination on its own, and also allows us to inflict ailments with no investment in wisdom.

Now the damage part is even more interesting, we add flat Aether damage to our spells in our staff sockets to allow other weaker spells to inflict stasis. But this flat damage also adds Aether to Anomaly before it converts to lightning. This way this added damage benefits both our Aether damage and Anomaly total lightning damage, which is very good. It also gets buffed from Sparking Dart, so make sure to keep your power charges as high as possible.

The only downside for Anomaly is bosses with “Unstoppable” modifier, as it will not pull them, and not force them to stay in AOE. It gets worse with super mobile bosses that tend to move quite frequently. But that’s why we pick the next spell Plagueburst.

Plagueburst

This is a utility skill, but with a Noxious Smog modifier. It’s like a lesser version of “Mark of Impurity” in which it lets enemies explode upon death, leaving poison clouds that damages anything in its path. The poison damage is not that great on this skill alone, both Lightening and Aether damage can overtake it for better effects. But it still creates a strong chain reaction, and we have ways to scale it without any additional investment. That’s why we take Vitiation to increase damage depending on how many Ailments are on dying enemies. Pair this with increased Ailment chance from Cutaneous Infection, as well as Blades of Pestilence, and we’ve got ourselves a nice chance to inflict Ailments.

Now top that with Added Aether damage to spells to make Aether damage higher than poison, which allow Plagueburst to inflict Stasis, slowing enemies and set them up for repeated damage from “Which Time Can’t Heal”. But that’s not the end of it, as smaller enemies die, and spread a poison cloud, this will deal non-Ailment damage over time. The DoT gets affected by all damage and critical hit modifiers. It also scales with the number of enemies dying inside Plagueburst area of effect. It encourages a playstyle where you can gather numerous enemies at one spot to maximize damage dealt from this spell.

Note: Make sure to grab Disgrace, and Swarm of Corpuscules for better coverage.

Livor Mortis

Wardens of the wind are not summoners, and only use this summons for increased survivability. That’s why we take Generational Grief and Foul Guardian, and then all health, movement speed, and threat generation modifiers all at the time, while leveling.

However, in endgame when we get our dodge chance high enough and can simply face tank most content, I tend to switch to Ravenous Reach to have the ability of Shadow Warrior to leap where my mouse directs. That way, he doesn’t aggro some monsters outside of my AOE spells, reducing clouds effectiveness.

Finally, your shadow warrior can generate a threat for more enemies than you would alone, while luring them to bosses. This results in much larger packs around the boss, and stronger clouds to work with. It works like some “hunter/off tank” classes in group play seen in classic MMORPGs, where someone with a pet will go out to aggro monsters, then lure them to the party’s chosen farming spot for more kills/experience per second.

Bulwark of Dawn

Bulwark of Dawn is one of the few healing spells in the game, making it a great tool for any build that has room for it. We take Divine Omnipresence to always have the effect follow us, and buff our auto attack with Blade of Truth to guarantee added sacred damage and weakness ailment, which in turn triggers another instance of Immortal Offering. We also maximize duration of skill by picking both Everlasting Aurora and Extended Protection to have Bulwark of Dawn on us permanently

Sacred Grounds ensures melee attacking enemies are weakened, and is just to be safe. Its damage over time is a nice addition, but since it was nerfed in patch 1.0.5.0, we don’t rely on it as a main damage spell anymore.

Aegis of Hope and Burning Balm are very nice free buffs to have, pick one depending on which status your character is lacking. However, you will need to sacrifice one of the duration modifiers to get Burning Balm as it costs 2 points rather than 1.

Note: Cast the spell before engaging with enemies, and re-cast it once out of cooldown.

Light-bringer

We choose Light-bringer as our movement spell because it has a clear indicator of where we will precisely land, which is very important for luring large groups of enemies without being overwhelmed or surrounded.

The easiest way to build this spell is as a defensive tool with the following:

Insuppressible Rhapsody, Proud Rider, Hope’s Arrival, Sheen of Hope, Noble Rider, and Blinding Lights.

Note: If you would rather build around the Holy Ground modifier, I’d suggest taking increased chance to cause ailments, faster charging speed, and add additional charging level to maximize damage and ailment chance.

Wolcen Builds: Warden of the Wind Passive Skills

Figuring out how to align your Gate of Fates is one of, if not the hardest part of making a Build in Wolcen, and generally takes a respec or two before getting it right. In this section, I want to show you how I’ve set this up for maximum performance.

Build Planner Link:

I’ve gone through multiple iterations of the passive skill tree to figure out the optimum setup for this complex build. I’ve settled for this skill tree at level 64: Wolcen universe lvl 64 Warden of the wind build.

To push content over level 110, you have to rush towards Salvatory Anchor and Elevated Gain in the Siege Breaker tree. Also the Covert Operative in Sentinel tree. That could carry you to content over around level 130 (with the right equipment), and needs further investment in the tree for higher level content.

An ideal finalized tree would look like this: Wolcen Universe complete warden of the wind build.

Soldier

We will start here to pick some very important critical nodes, that go straight to The Wild Card, then take the second Zealous Might node and head straight to Warlock.

Warlock

Start at Dominator which is a very nice node to have for any spellcaster in Wolcen, as Willpower’s recovery rate is a good initial one to have.

Early on in the game where we have very few skill modifiers, small stat pools, and poor equipment, our staff auto attack can be very strong. We don’t want to waste any points so go straight for Residual Energy It will help a lot during the campaign. Then we go for Duty to Exterminate and finally Self-Preservation Instinct before leaving for next tree.

Alastor

We come here to dramatically increase both our staff attack damage and spell damage. So if you feel your damage is lacking before this point, it will noticeably improve once you fulfil this tree.

Your priority is getting Intravenous Neural Cord and Cautious Effort first, and it will increase your attack speed by a lot, making good DPS and quicken the recovery of willpower for your spells. We path through middle route via Shock Invasion because critical damage > crit chance score.

Afterwards get to Electric Power Redirection and get the massive lightning spell damage multiplier from Sparking Dart. This node’s numbers alone is bigger than most of other nodes in tree. It’s an additive multiplier, so it doesn’t double the damage straight away, but it could be around 20% more total damage for Consuming Embers and Anomaly at endgame, which is huge. Notice that we have no use for Stunning Presence node behind it so we move on.

We have a choice here whether to take Static Transferral or not. It has a small 36% increased spell damage for one spell after 6 attacks, and it could trigger off a non-damaging spell resulting in it going to waste. It is far better to skip it for something with higher impact.

Ranger

Ranger have very nice projectiles nodes, but we are not building pure projectiles builds, so we travel quickly and pick only the best major node Archion’s Teachings, and the following minor node Bullseye. Skip everything else possible on the way to warmonger.

At endgame, we can come back to grab Persistence Hunting and Crippling Assault.

Warmonger

Same as the Ranger, we use this tree to travel, and only pick Feast for the Crows and Blood Offering, which help sustain life after being hit. You need this for the Act II boss fight.

Exorcist

• Rotate the outer ring 4 times to the right, so that the Alastor tree meets Warmonger at Blood Rush
• Now Exorcist meets Ranger at Swiftness and Time Weaver meets Warlock at Self-Preservation Instinct
• Take Aloof Hunter –> Profane Of Body –> Arcane Dissolution –> Branded Burst
• We will come back to this later after the campaign to pick up Indifference.

Tenet points are an easy way to increase your survivability for minimum investment. It also scales very well with flat dodge chance score from gear, and % increased dodge chance score from the tree. Every passive dodge your character performs, the longer your tenet points last, and the less damage you take. Combine this with active dodge as necessary, and you can keep damage mitigation on extremely high levels.

We can take Blessed Silver and Eagerness immediately, or we can come back to this later to pick up Exorcist.

Time weaver

If you haven’t taken Blessed silver from Exorcist, you will be able to fill this tree before the Final boss. It adds a nice universal defense and offense, as well as you will always need to fit Time Weaver in any build that can reach it.

Path to Which Time Cannot Heal through Temporal Shift to take more dodge chance, and get 120% more damage Multiplier. Then go for Impossible Soul towards Dire Juncture. This will split the damage you take into smaller parts, which would be easier to negate and recover from.

Make sure to get enough flat “# to # added Aether damage to spells” mods on your Weapon, Accessories and Weapon Sockets. This is so Aether damage becomes the highest damage type, on at least one spell, so you will be able to inflict stasis Ailment on an enemy for Which Time Cannot Heal to work. You can use small bonuses to Ailment chance  from skill modifiers and wisdom from mods on gear, to get a minimum of 9-12% chance to inflict Ailment to reliably inflict stasis.

Finally, grab Practiced Stamina and Deferential Wounds, then you’ll be ready ready to move to endgame content.

Cabalist

Another great choice for damage multipliers is the Cabalist tree. We start at Enfeebling Energy then travel through Focused towards Grievous Afflictions. Applying two different ailments is a very strong mechanism, and allowd for strong buffs to most damage types we inflict with minimum investment. Tormentor is optional, pick if you got very low Ailment chance.

We take Power of the First Men next, then Strong-Willed and Tenacious Afflictions. Now that the way to Immortal Offering is open, and it’s a huge jump in damage. At the beginning of fight, make sure to use the spells where your Aether is highest or second highest first, to inflict enough stasis before enemies die. So when immortal offering triggers and buffs your damage types, Aether damage gets buffed as well and doesn’t fall behind.

Grab Clarity of Mind on the way to the Sentinel tree.

Sentinel

By this time, we should have accumulated enough “dodge chance score” on gear. You can check your total dodge chance in the Character screen by pressing “Show details”, it’s located under Survivability section. Our dodge chance should grow as we level up and as you get better gear, and when we get around 40-50%, it’s time to push it even further with Covert Operative. We will spend 4 points reaching it, then we move on.

Backline Raider is very good node to take, but it’s optional at this stage. It’s better to build more defenses so  you can push towards the higher level content more comfortably. I’d certainly recommend taking it in the finalized build though.

Siege Breaker

We start with the good node Inexorable Vitality, then have to travel through two useless nodes Futile Endeavour, and Monolith, but they are required to reach Salvatory Anchor and Elevated Gain. Both work wonders with dodge chance alongside a Rogue helmet and chest armour. If you have 80% dodge chance then you will be hit once, and evade 4 times. In each of these evades, you will gain health equal to 2 times the Health given by your equipped Rogue Helmet and chest. That’s a very good way to scale health recovery with your armour. It ensures you can’t die as long as you don’t get one shot, that’s why Dire Juncture becomes handy.

Another good option is Bruiser armour, because you can get a normal (passive) life recovery to reach numbers in the thousands, while pushing your resistances higher as well.

Oracle of the Trinity

As we use only lightening spells, it’s 4 points for 50% global critical chance and small additive damage as well as resistances. Second only to Assassin nodes, but doesn’t take a lot of traveling, so it’s the most efficient minor tree.

Of Squalls And Fires –> Spiralling Field –> Sparked Repulsion –> Ancient Fervour

Assassin

To reach Assassin efficiently, we better take Backline Raider then Precise Strikes from the Sentinel first. Then we will head for our final major node in the build Merciless Lethality.

Wolcen Builds: Warden of the Wind Equipment

In this section we’ll be covering the type of equipment that you want for the Warden of the Wind build. You will need a staff as a weapon, and armour with flat “# chance to dodge score”

Flat added damage on equipment (Weapon – weapon sockets – jewelry):

• (prefix) Added Aether damage to spells: It ensure applying Stasis with Plagueburst, and increase Anomaly lightening damage.
• (prefix) Added Lightening damage to spells: General damage buff.
• (prefix) Added Fire damage to spells: it buffs Consuming Ember lightening damage, and generally any flat added damage is increase in total damage, in condition it doesn’t bypass Aether damage to not mess with stasis ailment.

What other stats warden of wind weapon may have

In order of importance: Critical Hit Damage – % Life Leech from Spell Damage – Life Leech from Lightning Damage – Spell Damage –  Spells Critical Hit Chance Score – Spell Casting Speed Score – Status Ailment Chance Score

Stats for Armour

• (prefix) Dodge Chance Score: you can get up to 340 on a single piece. Focus on getting dodge on gloves and shoulders as these don’t have other big stats to worry about.
• (suffix) Cooldown Reduction for all Skills: you don’t need much, just get them as needed to get Anomaly to 8~8.5 seconds. This is because spamming so much Anomaly will make you lose power charges fast.
• (suffix) Movespeed: very important on boots
• (prefix) Resistances: resistance is a good way to mitigate damage and not get one shot. It’s better than health as it makes you take smaller hits, resulting in an easier way to recover lost life.
• (suffix) Toughness: generally high Toughness rolls gives more health than flat health rolls, while also buffing damage slightly. Remember you can get both on the same item!
• (prefix) Health on this item: get on helmet and chest whether you use Bruiser or Rogue pieces, it helps increase life recovery immensely.
• (prefix) Critical Hit Chance Score: critical can gain good numbers on armour, and is a nice damage boost.
• (suffix) Ferocity: it increases critical chance and damage, it’s not much worse than Toughness because you can get health as a prefix.
• (suffix) Attack/Cast Speed Score: nice bonus to have, better than Agility.

Stats for Armour Sockets

• % Dodge Chance Score: Simply use all your Defensive (III) for that as it is better than anything else at this point. You can gain a chance to avoid damage, increased damage reduction when you get hit, and receive more health recovered all in a single stat! It’s best in slot.
  • You will need to socket one of these gems: Sapphire, Ruby, or Diamond gems, so make sure you save them for defensive (III) sockets.
• One Amethyst on Defensive (III) will give you global life leech, which could be all you need to push life recovery further if you find yourself dying a lot.
• If you can’t roll three Defensive (III) sockets, then you can use Defensive (I) for poison (toxic) or burn (fire), these two are the most dangerous, bleeding (rend) is the third.
• Defensive (II) is good for whichever your resistance type is highest, to get it even higher.

Stats for Jewelry

• (implicit on rings) % Dodge Chance Score
• (implicit on rings) Critical Hit Damage
• (implicit on Amulet) All attributes
• (Suffix) Critical Hit Damage
• (prefix) % to All Resistances Score
• (prefix) Flat added Aether/lightening to spells
• (Special suffix) Attacks gain damage from the last spell cast. The type of damage is the same as the last spell cast
• (Suffix) Life Leech from Lightning Damage

Stats for Jewelry Sockets

• Amethyst on Support (II) gives nice willpower per staff attack
• Lapis Lazuli on Support (I) for massive life leech
• Alexandrite on Support (II) for spell critical chance, or Support (III) for attack and spell critical chance.
• Amber on Support (III) if you struggle to keep stasis ailment on enemies.

Final Tips

It’s easy to get carried away with spamming Consuming Embers, as it’s a very fast shotgun type damage to enemies, and it feels very good to cast. However, in doing so you will drop power charges dramatically and reduce DPS for the rest of the fight. Same applies to cooldown reduction. If we have too much of it, we will spam all our spells and neglect staff attack, and we end up with less damage.

If bosses don’t have much area of movement, make sure to cast Anomaly under their feet, so it pulls monsters to die at point blank range. Poison cloud stacks over the boss for an easier time killing the boss.

High Level Content

When bosses have millions and millions of health, luring one pack of enemies wouldn’t be enough to get through half the fight. Clouds from Plagueburst have a duration, and then will expire. This is why you will still have millions and millions of health to go through. A good solution here is to lure the boss into another pack of enemies, to generate new clouds and stack damage over head. That requires some smart planning though while clearing the map. You will want to kill all monsters near the start, even in side areas, until you get monster bar filled, and leave all the enemies near the boss alive, as to fight them alongside.

 

When it comes to defense, Passive dodge chance can encourage a passive playstyle, in which you just stand still and face tank everything. That’s fine as long as it works. However, some bosses in higher level content with some specific modifiers suddenly pose a great threat, especially the mobile bosses who tend to move around, and you can’t hold them to one place. This doesn’t mean the build is falling short, it just means you need to learn the boss moves and actively avoid them. Use movement, active dodge, or using Light-bringer to tackle more mobile bosses.

I sometimes place myself in a corner so the boss ends up facing the wall, and once he starts a telegraphed dangerous attack, I use Light-bringer to teleport behind him. Unlike active dodges and normal movement, it has no down-time, so I can resume DPS without a fuss, while the boss nukes the wall. It also leaves huge free areas for me to move around.

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If you enjoyed this Wolcen Build Guide be sure to check out more on our Wolcen Lords of Mayhem Wiki. You can also try out more of our builds in Wolcen Build Guide: Voodoo Queen.