Destro staff rework proposals

robpr

As long as passives and skills regarding ice staff are defensive oriented, frost damage will always be associated with tanking rather than damage, unfitting the "Destruction" part of destro staves. At the same time, Inferno is almost always a superior choice unless you play a specific sorc HA build. Here are my proposed changes how to reduce this problem, allowing for more diversity in stick choices. Suggestions here are mostly to turn Frost staff into proper dps weapon, while having an option to retain the defensive powers for all 5 of you that use frost staff for magicka tanking.

Skills
Wall of elements: Inferno wall deals 10% more damage to burning targets, shock wall sets enemies off-balance, frost wall applies minor breach and snare. The inferno obviously deals more damage, even if taking Exploiter CP into account when off-balance can be achieved with many other sources. AoE minor breach is nice but the Scribing system you can put breach into many skills, including very handy AoE Soul Burst pull.

Suggestion:
-Inferno wall deals 10% more damage to burning targets - this is fine.
-Shock wall makes enemies standing in the wall take 500% more damage from Concussed and sets them off-balance (the number is out of ass, so I trust devs to give proper value here)
-Frost wall have the minor breach removed (do not worry, it will return), instead it will cause enemies to take 15% more Frost damage if they also are affected by Minor Brittle. Snare stays. (again, needs a proper value). Frost Safeguard shield also stays with minor tweak (see Tri-focus)

Destructive Clench: while Frost Clench is tanking oriented, I think the morph is fine because of the major maim debuff. Clench morph is more of utility rather than damage.
Destructive Reach: I'd buff Fire and Shock Reach closer to the level of Frost Reach to give a chance to have other elemental spammables but its not necessary.

Impulse: fire impulse deals execute damage, shock impulse scales of amount of enemies, frost impulse gives minor protection and does nothing more. Clearly Frost Impulse needs something more than minor protection, that in itself is very common buff.

Suggestion:
-Fire impulse deals extra fire damage that has execute scaling, this is fine but needs to have numerical value increased to be worthwhile the magicka cost.
-Shock impulse deals extra damage based on amount of enemies hit, this is fine but need just a little bit more aggressive scaling
-Frost impulse guarantees Chilled status effect and increases its damage. Applies Minor Breach.

Elemental Rage: Fire rage deals more damage, Shock rage lasts longer, Frost rage immobilizes. Again, frost version is CC oriented, unfit for destruction ultimate.

Suggestion:
-Fiery rage deals more damage - fine
-Thunderous rage lasts longer - need extra 1-2s to be more equal to Fiery rage damage increase
-Icy rage no longer immobilizes, instead it either apply Major Brittle for the duration or has increased crit chance.

Passives
Tri-focus: inferno heavy applies a dot, shock heavy deals aoe, frost heavy gives a damage shield. Frost staff causes block to cost magicka instead of stamina. Fire and shock version adds damage while frost is not. Block cost conversion is more annoyance that it is useful.

Suggestion:
-Inferno heavy applies a dot - fine, but let this ability to trigger effects like on damage over time or on weapon damage, it currently does not.
-Shock heavy does an AoE - fine
-Frost heavy gives a damage shields, while damage shield holds or Frost Safeguard absorbs a projectile, you pulse with frost damage in 5m around you (like Iceheart). Block cost conversion removed, and instead moved to blue Bulwark CP node. Why I didn't remove the damage shield bit? To have it still synergize with Destruction Expert passive that gives magicka when destro sourced damage shield is hit.

Ancient Knowledge: Inferno increases dot damage by 12%, Shock increases direct and channel damage by 12%, Frost decreases block cost and increases block mitigation. Again, Frost version is less "destructive" than the other two.

Suggestion:
-Inferno increases dot damage by 12%
-Shock increases direct and channel damage by 12%
-Frost increases critical chance by 10%. Block cost and mitigation moved to red Fortification node.

AcadianPaladin

I've often said that a weapon for magicka tanks should be its own class of weapon. Just like we have a whole class of weapon for restoration, we should have a whole new staff weapon to support tanking. That removes the need to try and fit tank support into frost staves and allows the whole destruction set of skills to focus on, well, destruction. Currently, frost staves are suboptimal for either tanking or dps.

YandereGirlfriend

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I've often said that a weapon for magicka tanks should be its own class of weapon. Just like we have a whole class of weapon for restoration, we should have a whole new staff weapon to support tanking. That removes the need to try and fit tank support into frost staves and allows the whole destruction set of skills to focus on, well, destruction. Currently, frost staves are suboptimal for either tanking or dps.

Alteration Staff is the solution.

Don't even need new weapon models since it can share them with existing staves.

Benzux

Been theorycrafting Alteration and Illusion staves for tank/support staff skill lines for years, ever since they first started doing the "frost = tanking" thing. Illusion would IMO work better for tanking thematically, with a skill like Frenzy acting as a taunt and a charm skill being a (very slow) single-target pull, while Alteration could be generic support with defensive buffs.

SugaComa

One thing I find really annoying about some the destro staff skills is the lack of haptic feedback , in game a skill can hit hard but when it feels like throwing tissue I just can't use it

ESO_Nightingale

10% crit chance would instantly make the ice staff bis. I don't think that should be the goal but i like where your head is at. I think it should be comparable to the amount of crit offered by dual daggers.

w002exp

Benzux wrote: »

Been theorycrafting Alteration and Illusion staves for tank/support staff skill lines for years, ever since they first started doing the "frost = tanking" thing. Illusion would IMO work better for tanking thematically, with a skill like Frenzy acting as a taunt and a charm skill being a (very slow) single-target pull, while Alteration could be generic support with defensive buffs.

Yeah I've been thinking the same but the other way around. Alteration gets a pull through Telekinesis, and the heavy armor buffs are relevant to tanking, mage light a blinding stun....

Illusion Stave would be more support skills with a means for non NBs to apply a not as good version of cloak.

But I think you are in the right track with this. Make destro staves entirely about destroying things, let something else be the tank stave, has to be far easier to balance skills and open play styles like that.

They can balance the 3 destro forces by entitling each one a set of unique group benefits that would ensure you want at least one of each stave in group.

Faint_One

As we deals direct dmg in higher percentage more oftenly，fire staff should not share same value or width with lightning，consider skill what we combine, ancient knowledge passive can be:

inferno staff: increase damage by x% of your dot & channel skills ---which still better for Arcanists and Templars
lightning: increase damage by x% of your direct & cast time skills ---which still better for Sorcs、Cros and Blades
frost: (keep defensive part) and increase damage by x% of your status effect ---which more role choice for Ice Wardens

Also prefer Tri-focus add some slightly buff to deal like 3% increase damage of your same kind elemental damages
(Plus:I hope Dk can choose fire staff as they nearly deals pure fire damege, no direct boost but with dot and fire damage increase can also make them be compared.)

Elendir2am

I think that everybody who suggest changes for frost staff to be more destro should be marked in group in way, that their tank will know them like tank haters and could behave accordingly.

Why are tanks in queues so rare?
Because only small portion of ESO players value them so they prefer to stay with such players instead to go to random queues.

And some nuging for you to get explanation about my comment. Tanks need to have a lot of different sets (more than DDs). And they need frost staff for most if not all sets. A lot od worke, or buying such staffs on their side.
So last thing they wish for, is flushing all this staffs and go farm new ones.

the1andonlyskwex

They could just rename "destruction staff" to "elemental staff"...

Benzux

Elendir2am wrote: »

I think that everybody who suggest changes for frost staff to be more destro should be marked in group in way, that their tank will know them like tank haters and could behave accordingly.

Why are tanks in queues so rare?
Because only small portion of ESO players value them so they prefer to stay with such players instead to go to random queues.

And some nuging for you to get explanation about my comment. Tanks need to have a lot of different sets (more than DDs). And they need frost staff for most if not all sets. A lot od worke, or buying such staffs on their side.
So last thing they wish for, is flushing all this staffs and go farm new ones.

If I'm understanding your comment correctly, I can assure you that those of us who have been wishing for better availability and viability of frost DPS are certainly not "tank haters". I have a warden tank utilizing a frost staff and I think it's a fun build, but I also wish frost DPS was better. Also, how is what you're saying any different to what tons of people have to do already every other patch when the sets they were using were nerfed or something else got buffed so now you gotta use that instead?

Nerouyn

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Alteration Staff is the solution.

Don't even need new weapon models since it can share them with existing staves.

Another good thing about alteration is that it would also suit control spells.

MindOfTheSwarm

I agree Frost Staff needs sorting out a bit but I wouldn’t go with your suggestions.

Impulse already has a higher chance to apply the relative status effect. I’m also not certain Minor Breach would be welcome on this ability.

Instead I would recommend that Frost Impulse would instead summon an AoE DoT for 10 seconds. Enemies in the DoT area would take 5% increased damage from your Frost Damage skills. This would apply to Elemental Ring too.

I would keep Minor Breach on Wall. But I would flip the script and make Barricade the better choice for Frost builds by giving it increased Chill chance. While Unstable would keep its burst but have less Chill chance.

However, Frost should retain its defensive properties as the “Frost Bruiser” is a very popular way to play the ice mage fantasy.

I believe the solution here is Damage Shields. Giving a damage shield while bracing every 3 seconds for example. Or perhaps gain a damage shield every 3 seconds while standing inside your own Frost AoE effects etc.

I would also give fully charged heavy attacks another 20 second AoE DoT and Minor Protection while it is active as a passive.

I think Ice Mages are best represented as an AoE/aura caster. Putting themselves into the thick of battle.

Frozen Watcher should get reworked too. Bracing is boring to maintain such a cool set. It should have its effect last 20 seconds after a fully charged heavy.

I would also adjust Ice Heart to have its effect apply with any damage shield active. Perhaps even get creative and have its damage scale with the strength of your current damage shields. But this would need testing.