Warden is a solid frontline character who is an excellent choice for carrying games. Even if his gun seems off-putting, it gets better once you level up and get past the Laning Phase. With misclicked, a top 5 Warden player, we’ll teach you how to play and use him to carry your games.
Warden is an excellent character who is great at getting clutch moments with his ultimate Last Stand. He excels in close to medium range, forcing enemies to use their stamina and abilities to avoid being jailed by Binding Word. Depending on how he's itemized, Warden thrives both in team fights or off doing his own thing. Together with the top 5 Warden player “misclicked,” we have created a guide teaching you how to play Warden. We’ll go over the ways to build, play and counter Warden.
Warden’s first ability is “Alchemical Flask,” a grenade that is quite heavy, and you’ll often want to look above where you are aiming to ensure it lands. It does 65 damage base with 0.8 Spirit Scaling on a 12-second cooldown. What makes the Flask special is that it does a decent amount of damage and lowers the weapon damage and movement speed of those it hits for 3 and 7 seconds, respectively. Levelling it up once makes the Flask now also drain one stamina bar from opponents, which you should keep in mind as it will be helpful in combination with your other abilities. Levelling it up again will add 50 damage, making it terrifying in the Laning Phase. The final upgrade lowers the cooldown by 6.5 seconds and makes the Flask apply an annoying 35% fire rate slow to those hit by it. This ability is excellent for farming jungle camps, and often, you’ll Imbue the item Quicksilver Reload, giving your flask extra damage and the ability to reload your gun instantly.
His second ability, “Willpower,” is a 42-second cooldown ability that gives him a +15% bonus movement speed and a 150 HP Spirit Shield that blocks Spirit Damage even if any shields you have are on cooldown. The first upgrade improves the movement speed bonus by +20%, making it now a +35% movement speed bonus. The second upgrade reduces the cooldown by 19 seconds, making it now a 23-second cooldown ability. The final upgrade is crazy as it adds 200 HP to the Spirit Shield and will add more HP based on your Spirit Power using a 3.9x multiplier. Activate this either when you’re rotating between lanes or during teamfights. In the late game, the Spirit Shield can get absurdly high, giving you an absurd amount of shield depending on your build.
Warden’s third ability, “Binding Word,” is a point-and-click 37-second cooldown pressure tool that places an area where the target has 2.8 seconds to leave or get rooted for 1.75 seconds and damaged for 120 Spirit Damage with 2.6x Spirit Scaling. This forces them to use their movement abilities and stamina or be trapped and killed. The first upgrade increases the root duration by 1 second, for 2.75 seconds total. The second upgrade reduces the cooldown by 19 seconds, making it only an 18-second cooldown. The final upgrade effectively makes getting caught an execution, as now Warden will deal 20% more bullet damage to people caught by it. Throw your upgraded Flask when you see them dash, and the Binding Word is almost guaranteed.
His ultimate ability, “Last Stand,” is a teamfight-winning ultimate that enemies usually must respect or risk death. Warden must stand still and charge his ultimate for 2 seconds before it's ready. The ult cooldown is 140 seconds, but if you’re stunned out of the charge, the cooldown is heavily reduced to 20 seconds. Avoid getting stunned out of the channel, but it’s not the end of the world.
During the channel, he becomes immobile but gains 30% Bullet and Spirit resistance. After the charge is complete, a 13m cone appears, and energy pulses will attack all enemies for 90 Spirit damage every 0.5 seconds with 1.4 Spirit Scaling. Aside from the significant damage, what makes this ult teamfight winning is that the pulses will also heal Warden for 80% of the damage it deals to players and 20% of the damage it deals to other entities like minions and jungle creeps.
The first upgrade improves the radius by 3m for a total of 16m. The second upgrade increases the damage per pulse by 70 (160 total) and reduces the cooldown by 35 seconds (now 105 seconds). The final upgrade gives you 50% Bullet and Spirit resistance during the channelling phase and adds 2.5 seconds to the pulse duration. Once the pulses have started, they won’t stop until the ult ends. Even if you’re stunned or displaced, the cone will follow your camera, lashing out even while you’re stunned. If you get shot at or stunned out of the channel often, try hiding behind corners or veils.
Warden is a character that can be built in various ways, either using mostly gun items or spirit items to run down his foes. As the names imply, gun Warden relies more on using his gun and then debuffing enemies so he can kill them. On the other hand, Spirit Warden relies more on using his abilities, especially his ultimate, at key moments. The build we’ll primarily be using is “misclicked spirit warden” which, as the name implies, is a Spirit build. But there’s also a “misclicked gun warden” if you prefer just to shoot people.
Warden generally likes cooldown reduction and duration increases as they let him use his abilities more often, as well as speed and spirit items, whatever lets him use his abilities constantly and stops the enemy from getting away from his wrath.
At first, his gun may seem very bad, but Warden’s is unique because its fire rate scales with Spirit Power at 0.22x. His gun starts weak but scales quite well, meaning you only have to suffer through it during the Laning Phase. High-Velocity Mag is a lovely gun item in the Laning Phase to alleviate this weakness, as it speeds up his projectiles while giving you more damage. You can also melee creeps, so you don’t have to worry about the slow projectile speed.
Despite your gun, you have pretty good laning as your flask has a big AoE and is very spammable, and Willpower helps against high-damage characters like Infernus or use it for some safety while taking a risk. On top of that, your ult is essentially a win button as you can charge it around a corner and run under their tower to parry it, leeching HP off of your opponent's minions, tower and them. Don’t be afraid to use it even if you’re a little low on HP, as it can quickly turn the tide of a fight.
Use your ult to turn the tide of teamfights. If you get the item Majestic Leap, you can cast it before using your ult so that the cast happens while you’re flying, charging into the middle of the action while your ult channels. Depending on where the teamfight occurs, you can also use the red jump pads scattered around the map.
If they have heroes with mobility options like Pocket and Mirage, Slowing Hex is often a must-buy to stop them from escaping your Binding Word. Don’t be afraid to take 1v1s or even use your ult to win them. As long as you get the objective/kill, it’s worth it, especially if you can get a Walker or Midboss out of it.
Warden can be very annoying as he forces you to use resources to avoid death. The most straightforward counter is to buy Extra Stamina, which is already in many builds as it improves your stamina regen while giving you an extra bar. Most newcomers struggle with Binding Word, which requires only one perfect jump to escape.
Aside from that, Debuff Reducer/Remover is also great for removing the debuffs from his flask and Binding Word. The most important thing you can do to counter Warden is kite his ult and put as much distance between you and him as possible when he starts channelling. Stuns and slows are solid options, too, as long as they are applied from a distance.
Warden is a powerful character with a solid kit and a fight-winning ult. I hope this guide and misclicked’s build win you your games. Remember, watch their stamina, jail them, and then kill them. Thanks to misclicked for helping with his tips. Good luck in your games, get out there and “change the world” (you’ll hear this line often).
