PTS Feedback Thread for Frost Staff Tanking

Doctordarkspawn

Tryxus wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Tryxus wrote: »

Like Woeler said above: the taunt on the Heavy Attack has gotta go. It's way better to just apply the Undaunted taunt while blocking than to drop block and be vulnerable while charging a Heavy Attack.

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

The thing it's losing to Sword and Board on, is physical debuffs, and heroism. It needs a way to apply major fracture, and gain heroism. Otherwise, Sword and shield is objectively better.

How about instead of a taunt, a Heavy Attack grants the caster Minor Heroism? Would be nice for initiating combat

Wouldn't really work, I dont think. I mean yes you could weave but I dont think it'd work for high stress situations.

Leting ice staff augment other abilities, would likely solve this issue.

Well, it's not like a Heavy Attack passive is going to be incredibly useful for a tank anyway. But having it grant Minor Heroism or any other defensive buff would fit the playstyle ZOS is going for.

At this point I think it's in their best interest to just make a defensive staff line and leave it at that. Otherwise I think it's just going to be too half-arsed to function.

NBrookus

Cronopoly wrote: »

mihran.akopyan_ESO wrote: »

Has any one able to make Tremorscale work with the ice staff heavy attack ????

I tested it extensively. Had no problem proccing it over and over.

@Cronopoly I couldn't get it to proc even once *against another player.* (Inner Fire and Ransack still did.) Were you testing against a player or an NPC?

luxfreak

Ok, now imagine a Light Armor Wearing Frost Mage, completing a simple vet dungeon tanking.
Getting to tank while dealing like 30k or more dps, with only shielding sounds cool for me.
Or vMoL, imagine a DD with Frost Staff on second bar to taunt the bow guys in 2nd round to put it in a good position.
And now dont come to complain, that you either not come into 2nd round, or the offtank should do that.
Yes both possible. But now a another option is added that does not require a dd to put a usless inner beast onto his offbar.
Or vSanctum. no need for a 2nd tank in trash, just a dd that manages the trolls with ice heavys.
Maybe even add a mechanik in comming content where multiple dds need to taunt and position an add.

Current trial tanking cant be raplaced by frost tanks, but i still think its a fun and resourcefull idea.

Cronopoly

NBrookus wrote: »

Cronopoly wrote: »

mihran.akopyan_ESO wrote: »

Has any one able to make Tremorscale work with the ice staff heavy attack ????

I tested it extensively. Had no problem proccing it over and over.

@Cronopoly I couldn't get it to proc even once *against another player.* (Inner Fire and Ransack still did.) Were you testing against a player or an NPC?

NPC - Mob actually Orange Beetles. I procced it 3 separate times. I started from stealth held Heavy as long as I could then popped Ice Clench to pop the heavy attack as well. The brown boil came up from the ground immediately and the mob died almost instantly.

xXSilverDragonXx

I do not understand why you did not just go full in with this and put a new passive in resto and desto staff lines for taunting then give the player maximum freedom to create this if they want (hybrid tanks, templar resto back bar builds). It seems like an idea that was not thought through to its logical end.

germainp96b14_ESO

ALL I HAVE TO SAY: SERIOUSLY?! moronic is an understatement.

Iselin

Giving Frost Staves its own niche is a good thing and you were already heading in the right direction by making them defensive with snares and proccing shields but taunt?

You're just encouraging even more pretend tanking in 4-man dungeons than there already exists. It's annoying now and wil be even more so when any DPS who just wants to jump the queue over honest DPSers queues as a tank because he has a frost staff.

Acrolas

And now here's how intelligent design looks.

- Caster weapon line.
- No weapon - instead can equip two additional rings per weapon slot.
- Animated as two handed in attack and combat. Each slot represents one left hand and one right hand. You don't switch weapons. You activate the other two rings on your hands with a short animation instead.
- Rings for crafted sets drop in treasure maps from the zones they are crafted in (green, blue, purple).
- Gold crafted rings occasionally sold by Golden merchant.
- When you block, you create a magic shield that distributes each block cost 75% to magicka pool and 25% to stamina pool.
- If you want to theme it around ice, great. But you don't have to.

That's how you make a magic tank work. By putting tank skills in that weapon line.

I'm never going to use an ice staff to tank. It's an idea that is somehow simultaneously lazy and overthought.

Lord_Eomer

Change is really good, i like a lot to have magicka tank and finally frost staff will have some use.

But please give Armor Piercing like skill + minor Heroism.

This is going to open a new chapter for magicka DPS/Tanks build.

I underestimated this change before but its really good, also u need to add ultimate morph bonuss to be tank relevant.

Also change taunt passive to increaae Spell/physical resistance bonus to mitigate shield absence.
.

Mic1007

yake82 wrote: »

Mic1007 wrote: »

yake82 wrote: »

Im looking forward to the Frost tanks for sure.

But please, put the taunt on the Elemental Susceptibility?

It needs to be on an unmorphed skill and carry on to both taunts. The passives for Frost Staffs now pretty much force this.

What you mean?


Anyways... Elemental Susceptibility is not very useful skill and reworking this skill would not break anyones build, i'd wager. Healers are always going to use Elemental Drain so adding taunt in the whole Weakness to Elements-skill line would be disaster.

So maybe chance the Elemental Susceptibility into different skill. Staff being wield would affect the effect like it does with Elemental Blockade and Destructive Touch.
Wielding Frost staff would apply the 15sec taunt.

Also, i think Frost staff tank needs a skill equal to the Pierce Armor. So the new morph would need to have Major Breach+Fracture on it.

The basic function of a Tank is to taunt. So, if a Frost Staff is going to be a Tank weapon, taunting needs to be a basic function of a skill. I say make Frost Touch a taunt, and make Elemental Susceptibility apply Major Fracture and Major Breach. You can't leave the basic function of a Tank on a random morph or else the weapon, which now only serves a Tanking purpose, will be completely useless.

NBrookus

Cronopoly wrote: »

NBrookus wrote: »

Cronopoly wrote: »

mihran.akopyan_ESO wrote: »

Has any one able to make Tremorscale work with the ice staff heavy attack ????

I tested it extensively. Had no problem proccing it over and over.

@Cronopoly I couldn't get it to proc even once *against another player.* (Inner Fire and Ransack still did.) Were you testing against a player or an NPC?

NPC - Mob actually Orange Beetles. I procced it 3 separate times. I started from stealth held Heavy as long as I could then popped Ice Clench to pop the heavy attack as well. The brown boil came up from the ground immediately and the mob died almost instantly.

Well if it procs on NPCs but not players that's totally fine.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Is this intended behavior? And if so, can we pretty please have Tremorscale not proc on players regardless of which taunt they use?

Blackfyre20

NBrookus wrote: »

Well if it procs on NPCs but not players that's totally fine.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Is this intended behavior? And if so, can we pretty please have Tremorscale not proc on players regardless of which taunt they use?

And if it's not intended can we still please have Tremorscale not proc on players regardless of what taunt they use?

lucky_Sage

I do not like whats being done to the whole skill passives for any staff why do this to it making it worse
glad yall are trying to make ice staff better but this way will make purma blocking easier for magicka classes

maybe make frost staff for armor pen

lighting for crit

and fire for raw dmg


then took passive that makes heavy attack faster if gone and they have such a high cast which is one of the reasons stam has better sustain

Sharee

From a PvP perspective, this is a pretty revolutionary change. Being able to block on a magicka character without destroying my ability to break free is huge.

It allows me to work around the biggest vulnerability of a mDK: since you have no great heals like a templar and no great shields like a sorc, nor can you disengage with cloak like a NB, your basically have to block or die. But blocking for more than a couple of seconds always results in empty stamina bar due to stopped regen/block drain, which leads to a 4.5 second fear with you can not break out of, and death.

Blocking on a mDK: damned if you do, damned if you don't. Yay for ice staff change.

Domander

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Doesn't take a genius to figure out perma-block would be back with this so why did you put it in @Wrobel ?

Frost staff bar 1
Sword and Board bar 2

Perma block.

Which one of those are you going to use to do damage? heh

Domander

I tested it out at my little test spot, I like it.

I also agree that the taunt on heavy attack isn't needed and limits the frost staff in a pve dps capacity.

ninjaguyman

TANKING+taunting with a frost staff? well that might be a bit questionable.

using magicka to block if you have frost staff? well i guess thats also a bit questionable to some, but I guess it could be an interesting change. in pvp that is

also has anyone actually dueled a permablocking s&b+frost staff player in pts? i havent tbh. maybe people just using a frost staff front bar, but not people with the intention of permablocking between sword and board and frost staff. Im having trouble thinking of a good set up where that would be viable. I dont think it would be as simple as slapping a frost staff on a stamina block tank. of course maybe it is kinda simple, I havent tried personally

efster

This creates a fun way to tank for the light armour "tanks" running around in Armour Master and using DPS ultimates who think a tank's only job is to taunt things. In dungeons. Vet dungeons, if group DPS is high enough and there's a healer nearby taking a nap on the keyboard.

It is almost certainly useless in endgame content and I seriously can't believe you guys are coming up with this nonsense instead of, I don't know, fixing Swarm Mother to proc on taunt (not all aggro) so non-DK tanks can actually use the thing on the twin adds in vMoL.

can the devs please attempt to envision some kind of middle-ground between "DK tanks for all difficult content!" and "FROST STAFF TANKING!" ffs

pattyLtd

As i mostly tank recently and often with non optimal pug groups with just 1 sometimes 2 friends i have to admit it triggers my anxiety lol. I am not necessarily against it but please get it right. I think putting it in a passive is wrong personally.

Since this is my first MMO i had no clue what things like "taunt" and "aggro" meant and as i used my magsorc only till i was VR16 i actually didn't know it untill i asked my friends what they meant with it.

My point is people unaware will end up overtaunting bosses without knowing it. L2P issue i know but let's keep it reasonable nobody expects to be tanking because they use an ice staff they looted in a dungeon before (if they are still learning and all)

Flameheart

Waiting for the first "Frosttank" getting crushed to dust by Manticore or the Warrior in Hel Ra while loading up a heavy attack.

Contraptions

I like the intention behind making magicka tanking a bit more mainstream and the idea of making tanking not always require a one hand/shield is nice. However, the current implementation is rather confusing and seems really rushed.

If you look at the 1H/S line it's clear that the line was designed from the beginning to support tanking. All the skills and passives have something useful to the role, whether it be apply taunt, debuffing enemies, preventing damage, reducing damage, enhancements to block etc. This is why people laugh if someone wants to use 1H/S for say DPS or healing in PVE. Because it is clearly NOT meant to do those things.

Destro staff at this point only has one passive, or rather one particular version of it that has any use to tanking at all. And of course that's the Tri Focus which grants a taunt on full heavy attack and the new Ancient Knowledge. Um. Yeah. Considering we already have a ranged magicka taunt that is instant, why would anyone want this? Dropping block for a tank is pretty risky. If the staff heavy attack was as fast as say the dual wield heavy attack maybe this would be viable, but at this point it's just not fast or useful enough. On top of that I'm losing all the useful passives and skills that would otherwise be available if I had chosen 1H/S instead. And I'm losing a set bonus as well. What, pray tell, is the advantage of frost staff tanking vs. 1H/S tanking? Maybe if the staff was on your off bar and 1H/S on your main bar perhaps... but still I don't really see the point.

I honestly think the destro line should be split into three different stave lines each with their own skills and passives. Trying to shoehorn tanking abilities into an already crowded skill tree seems a bit silly. (Would also make the number of magicka weapons equal to the number of stamina weapons, but that's a separate point.) If that's not possible, perhaps some redesign of existing skills/morphs would help make frost staff a viable replacement for 1H/S for tanking.

Force Shock - as is. Crushing Shock would be a nice replacement for the bash passive on 1H/S. Ranged interrupts at a larger cost.

Impulse - make the frost version apply Minor Lifesteal to all enemies hit. Applies to base and morphs. Adds some small group utility, esp when most enemies are immune to immobilizes and Mangle anyway.

Wall of Elements - frost version applies Minor Maim to all enemies hit for both base and morphs instead. Adds some small group utility, esp when most enemies are immune to immobilizes and Mangle anyway.

Elemental Susceptibility (morph of Weakness to Elements) - applies Major Breach and taunt. Still costs no Magicka. Frost Staff doesn't have Sword and Board, Battlefield Mobility and Deflect Bolts passive so loses out in sheer mitigation and mobility, but this might help it win a bit in terms of resource management and aggro control. Moving the taunt to this one morph means that no more accidental taunting by others via the heavy attack as well. This skill is also instant, making taunting using this comparable to Puncture in terms of risk.

Destructive touch - frost version applies Major Breach and immobilize to enemies hit. adds group utility.

Ultimate - make the frost version apply taunt to all enemies damaged maybe. An AOE taunt as an ultimate sounds nice, but many people seem opposed to it. Not too sure what can be changed here.

Overall, frost staff would get the advantage of being able to apply more debuffs and taunts quickly, in exchange for smaller mitigation and sustain capabilities. Destro also has range in exchange for higher skill costs. Again, this is just brainstorming, and maybe Wrobel has more changes in store, but some changes are needed to make frost staff more viable as a main bar tank tool.

Sharee

One thing to keep in mind: nothing is stopping players from slotting a taunt just because they are tanking with a frost staff. If you look at it from this angle, the heavy attack is simply a little bonus that allows you to save some resources in situations where you need to taunt but not necessarily block at the same time.

Eas007

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Doesn't take a genius to figure out perma-block would be back with this so why did you put it in @Wrobel ?

Frost staff bar 1
Sword and Board bar 2

Perma block.

I feel a Blockplar meta coming...

KisoValley

Just no.

Tyrion87

I wonder what will be the use of frost versions of destro staff skills like impulse or elemental wall. If people wielding frost staves are to become magicka tanks, than they will be using defensive skills like dmg shields, not offensive ones. Especially if blocking is to drain magicka now when frost staff is equipped.

This change is not what the community wanted. We wanted to deal damage with frost that would be on pair with two other types of staves, not to become frosty tanks!

Valencer

This frost staff thing will single handedly destroy any sanity left in PvP.

There's some absolutely insane magicka sustain sets out there (that proc through block) and overpowered heavy armour passives in general. You will never run a properly built frost staff permablocker out of magicka. There's already plenty of heavy armour stamina permablockers out there right now that can still kill people just fine, and they dont have acccess to stamina versions of insane sets like Desert Rose.

Now youre going to let people permablock with an offensive weapon that offers you tools like Eye of Storm? I don't see the sense in this.
Magicka and stamina builds are not symmetrical. Magicka has sets and build options that stamina doesnt have, and vice versa. You seem to be forgetting fundamental things about your own game again and once again PvP will pay for it.

And for PvE tanking? Nobody was asking for this. Frost staff doesnt give you absorb magic, which you need to (for instance) survive rakkhat in vMOL. It also cheats you out of 5+5+2 build options on your frost staff bar. And the list goes on... sword and shield tanking is just plain more optimal. This is just going to be a fluff thing for RPers who really want to magicka permablock for some mystical reason.

The only use I see for this is people putting a frost staff on their back bar so they emergency switch to it if they messed up their stamina sustain while tanking a boss. This doesnt actually happen much because DK permablock sustain is trivial.

Wish I could be more positive about it, but this change makes no sense. If your goal is to give more classes the option to tank vet trials, then give classes besides DK ways to sustain stamina through block. This change just breaks more things than it can possibly fix.

bebynnag

i would make a constructive comment on this thread

but every time i see frost tank i start rolling on the floor laughing uncontrolably!

Cherryblossom

Not even sure why anyone is even humouring ZOS with this change.

We all know it useless, we all know it make absolutely no sense.

Trying to think of a way to make it work is just trying to polish a turd, it will still be a turd no one wants.

bebynnag

i have managed to stop laughing for a bit sooo

Cherryblossom wrote: »

Not even sure why anyone is even humouring ZOS with this change.

We all know it useless, we all know it make absolutely no sense.

Trying to think of a way to make it work is just trying to polish a turd, it will still be a turd no one wants.

i can see it being usefull in duel's fire front bar, ice back bar. control the enemy and block damage (using magic) on your back bar dps using fire on your front bar, i understand A LOT of the changes from a PvP/Duel perspective, and actually think they are pretty amazing for magic build survivability tbh

but adding a taunt on to a fully charged heavy attack!
presenting it as a viable alternative to S&B
making it useless in PvE

and to all the people who say just don't spend skill points on the passives - this is an impractical suggestion

the taunt should be a new passive separate from everything else, that changes one of the skills to a taunt
executing a fully charged heavy attack is impractical in most situations including over-world

now i have to go roll on the floor again! frost tanks ha... gets me every time!

Armitas

Two quick suggestions.

1)Make frost blockade into a circle so that it can act like talons and immobilize the enemy.

2)Make frost clench into a pull with a snare so that any tank can pull enemies...even DK's who took the gap closer morph of their chains. Being able to pull ranged enemies is very helpful, especially in CoS.