Sleet Storm
(Optional)
This skill grants Major Protection to your group, reducing incoming damage. While you can obtain Major Protection for yourself by slotting Revealing Flare, Sleet Storm’s group benefit is less impactful compared to Aggressive Horn, which boosts group damage significantly.

Expansive Frost Cloak → Morph of Frost Cloak
(Vital)
A key group buff providing Major Resolve, reducing damage taken. Its wide range ensures all group members benefit. Keep it active for continuous group protection.

Gripping Shards → Morph of Impaling Shards
(Vital)
This Warden skill immobilizes enemies, reduces their movement speed, and can proc Chilled and Minor Brittle if you use a Frost Staff. It also deals damage that scales with your Max Health, making it an effective tanking tool.

Winter’s Revenge → Morph of Impaling Shards
(Optional)
This morph is better for maintaining Minor Brittle in trials since it can be placed at a chosen location, unlike Gripping Shards which activates around you. However, there are now more effective ways to maintain Minor Brittle such as Frost Clench.

Polar Wind → Morph of Artic Blast
(Vital)
A potent burst heal that also heals one other person and scales with your Max Health, making it a significant heal. It can crit and be enhanced by modifiers like Major Mending from your Green Balance passives, turning it into a substantial heal when needed. Additionally, it provides a small heal over time.

Shimmering Shield → Morph of Crystallized Shield
(Vital)
Excellent for situations with projectile damage. It provides a large shield that can absorb up to three hits, grants Major Heroism, and boosts your Ultimate gain when it blocks a projectile, allowing you to regain your Ultimate quickly.

Crystallized Slab → Morph of Crystallized Shield
(Vital)
This alternative morph provides a much larger shield, which negates the need to block while it’s active as it absorbs all projectile damage. The shield can take up to three hits, making it extremely effective for projectile-heavy encounters.

Frozen Device → Morph of Frozen Gate
(Situational)
This Warden chain ability is useful but can be slower and less accurate compared to Silver Leash or Wield Soul. It excels in situations where adds spawn in specific locations, such as Blackrose Prison Arena and certain trials. Pre-place up to three devices where adds will appear. When an add triggers a device, it is teleported to you and Major Maimed. This ability shines in scenarios where precise control over add placement is crucial.

Glacial Presence
(Useful)
This passive isn’t extremely useful since the Chilled effect can be applied consistently using Frost Clench or Pulsar in AoE situations.

Frozen Armor
(Vital)
This passive boosts your resistances, though it’s tied to placed abilities which have become less frequent with better scribing skills. You’ll still get some extra armor from the abilities you use.

Icy Aura
(Useful)
Good for reducing the effects of snares, though this is infrequent and the passive is barely noticeable in most fights.

Piercing Cold
(Unnecessary)
Increases your damage, but not a priority for Tanking. Use it if you want to boost your DPS slightly.