PTS Feedback Thread for Frost Staff Tanking

hydrocynus

I have some suggestions which could be useful

First off I think magickal based blocking should be viable to argue as a method of tanking. Take Meridia's shield in final build up to killing Molag Bal. That ain't no physical shield that someone holds that was saving your bacon in that sequence of the game. So why can't an ice staff put up a protective barrier up in front of you when you lift it up in a blocking motion?

Another example is Abner and Mannimarco's beams of destruction. A magical barrier shielding the others one from hurting him.

Now these things could help:

1) make elemental blockade into an actual blockade ie a wall of protection like some mage npcs can do in game.
2) ice tanking should be big on CC. It fits nicely. Maybe make elemental ring a freeze/slow of sorts
3) some sort of mitigation should be applied during heavy attack of it is going to be used as a taunt e.g apply minor/major (?) ward and resolve for the time taken to charge the heavy attack.
4) it would be awesome if class skills could be affected differently from a visual point of view should a frost staff be equipped. Eg volatile armour could show ice spikes and flame breath could show as frost breath and could be a cc rather than enhance fire damage etc. If ZoS can maker 500 different colored senches to ride then they can do this.
5) make a different "tell" for staff/Magick based blocking. One that looks magical instead of a gold shield. Again like the Meridia shield she puts up.

It could be fun, but what I have really wanted was a proper ice style tanking skill line with all ice related shields and CCs and de buffs but I guess tanking with an ice staff is a baby step in that direction. I just hope I am not blocking with ice staff and at same time using fire skills like flame breath and burning embers and inhale so most of my skills are fiery and only thing really that is icy is my staff.

Oh. Also. Ice Furnace set may become a thing for Dunmer tanks.

evedgebah

My main is specced for DPS, healing, and raid tanking. He is a Magicka Templar. When I tank, I use lots of magicka based mitigation and skills, but always slot Puncture and Heroic Slash. Those two skills and their benefits are simply too good to pass up. I spam Blazing Shield for mitigation, use Breath of Life, and other magicka skills heavily. I keep the undaunted taunt on my off-bar for ranged taunting only. In order for Frost Staff to be useful in a raid environment as a tanking weapon, we need alternative ways (for every class, or as part of the destruction tree) to provide Major Fracture AND Breach, and Minor Heroism. That's not even mentioning the loss of nearly 1,000 HP and Armor combined with the loss of the set-bonus slot.

Natas013

This may be a little off topic, or already brought up, but I think blocking with all staves should use magicka. You've shown this was possible and only makes sense that one would use magicka to block with a magic weapon. Doing this will help mag builds a lot in Cyrodill. Sure you lose the extra mitigation and cost reduction blocking with other destro and restro staves, but it would help mag builds a lot in pvp.

Personofsecrets

I can imagine the developers trying to come up with something fun for tanks. Considering that this patch will be a tremendous tanking nerf, I understand why they want to try to give us at least something back.

This frost staff tanking is just another example of the developers wasting their potential on a change that will be dead on arrival. There are just too many fundamental issues with such tanking. It doesn't feel cool, breaks 5-5-2, and, honestly, people don't even want to think about it.

How about fixing chains instead? That broken skill has aggravated tons of people and it would be so relieving to cast effectively. How about a change to bar swap and roll dodge non-blocking frames? I see that you claim to have fixed the Ebon set bar swap error. Are you going to fix entropy now too?

No, instead we get evasion nerfed and our war horn is nerfed multiple times this patch.

Personofsecrets

This ice staff tanking is a thinly veiled attempt at nerfing non-tank game play under the guise of a tanking change.

BlazingDynamo

Where does something like this come from? End game trial bosses hit too damn hard to be using a frost staff.. Plus try taunting the mantikora using that method. He's gonna slap your ass around real quick when you trying to charge that heavy

Armitas

The idea is cool but I'm not sure what the purpose is. Could you tell us what goal you are shooting for with this addition? @ZOS_GinaBruno

code65536

In almost a year of running vMA, I've gotten only three sharpened destro staves. Two of them are ice. So forgive me if I sound a bit salty over this...

• What purpose does this even serve? My tanks are "magicka" in the sense that they have a larger magicka pool than a stamina pool. I have zero issues with using sword-and-shield for tanking. There's nothing that I find lacking, and I see absolutely no reason to not continue to use 1-hand-and-shield for tanking. Even when I'm just doing a little bit of off-tanking while wearing light armor with a taunt on my back bar, I see no issues with sword-and-shield on my back bar.
• It's inferior. What about the other sword-and-shield passives that help with defense or mobility while blocking? What about debuffing both physical and spell resistance? What about the ultimate generation from Heroic Slash? Etc.
• It ruins DPS diversity. Frost has its niche--its CC effects are very useful in PvP. I enjoy using a frost staff and Winterborn in PvP. Now you've taken that away for something that absolutely nobody asked for or wants.

You are taking away existing use cases to add an inferior use case that nobody wants and nobody would use. This change is absolutely ridiculous.

covenant_merchant

Sharee wrote: »

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.

Uhm block with one hand and shield and do a heavy attack that restores a lot of stamina? I know I tank end-game PVE on my magicka sorc(vDSA, vet HM dungeons. Not 12man trials though on sorc because it's annoying), and I never have stamina regen issues?

And if you're talking about PVP, you have mistform, heavy attacks, and ultis. Also igneous shield. Really, out of all the problems that plague mana dk, blocking shouldn't be an issue.

Parafrost

Remove the taunt so ppl who use ice staff as dpsing can use it(never gonna get moondancer inferno destro so im using moondancer ice staff on my nb). I am not a fan of this mag tanking thing as it creates even more perma block builds than it should.

Parafrost

covenant_merchant wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

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.

Uhm block with one hand and shield and do a heavy attack that restores a lot of stamina? I know I tank end-game PVE on my magicka sorc(vDSA, vet HM dungeons. Not 12man trials though on sorc because it's annoying), and I never have stamina regen issues?

And if you're talking about PVP, you have mistform, heavy attacks, and ultis. Also igneous shield. Really, out of all the problems that plague mana dk, blocking shouldn't be an issue.

You have not tanked end-game then. Those are stepping stones to hard mode trials. You don't need a tank for 4 man dungeons and a tank can run black rose and have good healing and tank vdsa. Trials is another situation where ice tanks wont really play a role simply because it offers nothing to the team. A tanks job is to debuff, buff and take hits.

Personofsecrets

@ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel ,

@Wing and I stuck with magic tanking for a long time. We played a magic based tank for way longer than we should have. The truth is, especially after the thieves guild patch, magic tanking became insignificant. Not only did the meta call for stamina based tanking, but stamina based tanking is just easier and not as resource intensive.

Remember that stam regen while blocking nerf? Remember the bracing nerf? It turns out when you nerf something enough, such as stamina resource management, you cause people to play in extreme ways so that they can have good resource management.

Perhaps you tried to remedy the resource situation by buffing Constitution, but then you opened up a new can of worms.

People are literally complaining about heavy armor in PVP now. Of course this unrest will only last until you next nerf, but will you learn this lesson about game balance? You thought that you were doing something cool, interesting, and cute by Wrath/Constitution change, but you also created another meta problem that people hate.

What do you think Ice Staff tanking will be? It is certainly cute, but it will likely be another change that will have a neutral to negative impact on players perception of combat. You can try to revitalize magic tanking, which was only killed because of your own doing, but why continue down the same path that yields no results over and over? Isn't that crazy?

Were these changes really worth your time?

Are they worth ours?

paget4444

Tanking with a staff....makes about as much sense as having higher spell power while using swords than an actual "magical" weapon.

Say hello to perma-block again.

Wing

Personofsecrets wrote: »

~snip~

thanks for the shout out @Personofsecrets

the stam regen nerf hit all classes pretty hard to the point that ONLY DK's and NB's could do it because they had ways of generating stamina whilst blocking, the DK version required a VERY specific build path of maximizing stamina and magicka regen while forcing you to give up previous group benefit tools such as talons, as you had to save that magicka for yourself.

as well as forcing Templars further into support / heal rolls with requirements of having shards for stam recovery. that change was one of the worst in the history of the game as far as narrowing build diversity and group make up. DK's required as tanks (NB's if you know them personally, never trusted in pugs) Templars required as healers, and Sorc or NB DPS, they went from suggestions to requirements over night.

it never so much as nerfed perma blocking and tanking so much as narrowed the classes and builds that could do it, and that is fun for nobody.

staff tanking is a cool idea but is going to be full of problems, some of them being tanks rely on running 5/5/2 and staves don't allow for this. the inability to quickly taunt with a ice staff as its ONLY on a fully charged heavy attack and that is just not possible in most cases. especially as staves heavy attack slow and you removed the passive that sped it up.

also magicka has always had better heals then stamina and better defensive skills in form of shields. stamina was able to mitigate damage better through roll dodge and blocking.

ice staff blocking is of double benefit to magicka as not only do they block with magicka but they don't use stamina allowing them to actually roll dodge and break free more effectively then before.

also can you please nerf desert rose or put a cap on its proc, that alone would make cyrodil better.

on a side note I do like where heavy armor is at and feel that sets like desert rose in combination with other abilities are skewing perception, as well as its always been *** so people have never had to deal with it, think about it, its NEVER been good or viable. the day trial groups have more then 1-2 people in heavy I will change my opinion.

UltimaJoe777

Perused this stuff to inform a friend, found something outrageous.

"Chilled no longer snares but inflicts Minor Maim"

Zenimax, Ice is traditionally a speed reducer within the entire series. Or at least in Skyrim... This change breaks tradition, making it less of an Elder Scrolls game. I get the change is to support the shift to this whole tanking thing but the change to Chilled NEEDS to be reversed. Remove movement speed reduction from Ice and you remove the traditional Ice element of The Elder Scrolls itself.

That is all I intend to say. I still have no interest in this game to truly care beyond that. I say it more for your sake since being an Elder Scrolls game is why anyone plays this game at this point.

aLi3nZ

Why did someone say frost staff is ruined for pvp? This seems great. As a magika sourc I definitely want to test this out. I have been trialing amberplasm so I have near infinite stam for break free and a bit of blocking but it's hard to mix and match sets without the jelewery peices.

Lord_Eomer

MrGorv wrote: »

I don't really want to comment on frost staff tanking, as it is somewhat crazy. I don't even know who would like to do that.
But I want to outline, what terrible thing you did to the Ancient Knowledge passive.
+8% single target for fire. Look, stamina is already extinct from trials because of not enough survivability and utility. And now magicka is going to perform even better? Why are you doing this?
+8% AoE for lightning. So, you nerfed destroult for 5% which won't help as it should be just made blockable or have reduced radius. But then you buffed it for another 8%? GOOD JOB.

Lol stamina have no survivability, what are you talking about?

dsalter

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Perused this stuff to inform a friend, found something outrageous.

"Chilled no longer snares but inflicts Minor Maim"

Zenimax, Ice is traditionally a speed reducer within the entire series. Or at least in Skyrim... This change breaks tradition, making it less of an Elder Scrolls game. I get the change is to support the shift to this whole tanking thing but the change to Chilled NEEDS to be reversed. Remove movement speed reduction from Ice and you remove the traditional Ice element of The Elder Scrolls itself.

That is all I intend to say. I still have no interest in this game to truly care beyond that. I say it more for your sake since being an Elder Scrolls game is why anyone plays this game at this point.

true, and tbh making slows part of frost staffs specialisation is their unique way to control enemies since they lack traditional debuffs ransack offers

CaptainVenom

Ice Staff tanking looks cool (pun intended lol) but Heavy Attack taunting makes no sense. In fact this would be bad for ice dps. We have Inner Fire as a magicka taunt/provoke, there's no need of such (plus the required time to charge a heavy attack when tanking can be deadly for tanks). If you really want Ice Staves to be more defensive, give us Tri-Focus back and increase damage shield generated by ice heavy attacks.

Elloa

I'm not a theorycrafter, so my feedback wil be minimal. While I think to give the Frost staff the possibility to tank is a nice idea, I don't want the possibility of DPSing as frost staff user to be removed.

Like many suggested, make that taunt part of a MORPH, not a passive. This will allow players to choose if they want to DPS with a frost staff (which is very amusing) or to tank. Instead of removing the possibility of players to be DPSer with a frost staff

Surgee

I'm a tank and I think it's the worst idea ever because of perma-block. Block with staff - drain magicka. Once your magica is out, switch to shield and drain stamina while your magicka regenerates. How come ZOS didn't think about that??? Seriously?

dodgehopper_ESO

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

I would have suggested the same thing, but my thought was to simply use Inner Fire, and save the heavy attack taunt for initiating combat or use when combat is mild enough it is safe to do so. The biggest downside is lacking the enchantment, armor, and set bonus I'm getting on the build that would actually use this.

dodgehopper_ESO

Dyride wrote: »

If blocking on a Ice Staff allows you to regen Stamina, this game will be broken beyond belief.

I think Ice staff block costing Magicka may work but both regens needs to be zero.

This mechanic will already be border line broken with Desert Rose or Black Rose sets.

The complete loss in regen is terrible no matter what the resource - they should change this mechanic. There are better ways that many of us in the tanking community had posted.

UppGRAYxDD

so.....desert rose 5pc with 5 blackrose and a masters or maelstrom frost staff= permablocking magicka toon. Someone on PTS please test this

lucky_Sage

I think frost staff would improve more if it didn't give the blocking but instead gave spell pen. which would still make staff better in pve and pvp if it gave say 10% spell penetration instead.

then when a frost mage becomes in game you could actually be a frost mage in pve.

lucky_Sage

UppGRAYxDD wrote: »

so.....desert rose 5pc with 5 blackrose and a masters or maelstrom frost staff= permablocking magicka toon. Someone on PTS please test this

don't forget to add minor magickasteal on a Templar hitting a zerg which is 400 mana a sec per zerg member. so fighting a 30 man zerg prumablocking with ice staff and blazing shield 12000 magicka a sec aswell

Liofa

lucky_Sage wrote: »

UppGRAYxDD wrote: »

so.....desert rose 5pc with 5 blackrose and a masters or maelstrom frost staff= permablocking magicka toon. Someone on PTS please test this

don't forget to add minor magickasteal on a Templar hitting a zerg which is 400 mana a sec per zerg member. so fighting a 30 man zerg prumablocking with ice staff and blazing shield 12000 magicka a sec aswell

It doesn't matter how many people you hit with Minor Magickasteal . You can only get 400 magicka per second maximum . I don't even know how do you get this information . Don't believe in such important things until you test it yourself .

Personofsecrets

Surgee wrote: »

I'm a tank and I think it's the worst idea ever because of perma-block. Block with staff - drain magicka. Once your magica is out, switch to shield and drain stamina while your magicka regenerates. How come ZOS didn't think about that??? Seriously?

This is going to sound weird, but using magic as a way to restore stam already exists.

Maybe this staff tanking would make templar more viable, but 5-5-2 still seems very important.

Personofsecrets

Resto staff would make more sense.

Personofsecrets

but as I said earlier on. @ZOS_RichLambert , a wand and book line would be super cool.