Warden: Cold Damage DPS?

Vaoh

So recently I've acquired a Sharpened Moondancer Ice Staff. I hope that one day I can use it for a great Magicka Warden DPS, since they are Cold-based.

Currently Cold Damage is very weak in ESO. You will never find a damage dealer using Cold Damage for a lot of reasons. Here is what Fire and Shock provide for DPS:

- Fire -

• Inferno Staves buff all single target damage by 8%.
• Dragonknights have a powerful cone-AoE skill called Engulfing Flames, which buffs the damage of all fire damage applied (including from other players) to affected enemies by 10% for the DoT's duration.*In essence, all fire damage you deal gains 10% bonus damage.*
• Dragonknights deal more damage with Fire effects because of their passives. They deal 66% more damage with the burning status effect and 6% more damage with flame-based AoEs than other classes.
• Burning Spellweave, arguably the most powerful DPS set for all magicka damage dealers, procs from flame damage only
• Blockade of Fire has a secondary effect that causes it to deal 20% additional damage that doesn't apply to the other Blockade elements

- Shock -

• Inferno Staves buff all AoE target damage by 8%.
• Sorcerers deal more damage with Shock effects because of their passives. They deal 5% more damage to all Shock damage dealt, and can proc Implosion when attacking enemies at 15% health
• Blockade of Shock has a secondary effect that makes it easy to set enemies off balance - this can be paired with the Exploiter CP passive to gain very high uptime (around a 10% increase to all damage)
• Shock Staff heavy attack is very good as an AoE

Cold Damage has no damage benefits at all -_- ..... yet we know Wardens will be the Cold-based class.

Since it is absolutely best for Dragonknights, Sorcerers, Nightblades, and Templars alike to use Fire/Shock staves, I suggest allowing the Warden class to use an Ice staff over a Fire staff for DPS. It allows Cold damage to be present in trial settings and would create a bit of diversity amongst Magicka DPS builds in general since Wardens would be different. Plus it'd be awesome to look at imo

Something like a flat 10% damage boost to Cold Damage mimicking Engulfing Flames would not be enough. Maybe a longtime, compounding Cold damage debuff for the Warden via reapplying certain skills would work, stacking up to something crazy like 30% increased Cold Damage to make up for all the other lost DPS from not using a Fire/Shock staff. It'd be unique in that Wardens would start off with lower DPS but after maybe 20-45sec they would be able to put out a ton more damage.

I feel Wardens should be the viable Ice-based DPS, similar to how DKs are to Fire and Sorcs are to Shock. Those are my thoughts on this

Does anyone else think Magicka Wardens should be able to wield Ice Staves for high DPS?

Koolio

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao. Everyone knows this. In all games

starkerealm

Last I checked, the ice tree would be for tanking. You might want to hold onto the staff anyway, see how the class actually shakes out.

Seraphayel

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao. Everyone knows this. In all games

I think they implemented this because the Ice / Frost skill line from Wardens seems to be like the Aedric Spear skill line rather dedicated for tanking or defensive magic.

starkerealm

Unrelated, I was about to go into a discussion of mechanics for Lightning and Flame, and how they interface with the classes, then noticed you were @vaoh, and probably don't need my help there.

Mic1007

As of this patch, the Ice DPS pipe dream is completely killed. As much as the idea sounds awesome - as it rightly should, because Frost Magic is awesome - ZOS seems to disagree, and sees Frost as a tanking element.

Warden Ice Warden Tank Meta approaching!

So, to answer your final question, I agree that a Magicka Warden Ice Staff DPS should be a strong DPS build. It's likely that won't be the case at all though.

Vaoh

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao

Yeah but that's kinda lame....

If Wardens cannot DPS with Ice staves, they're going backbar a Fire staff like everyone else for Blockade of Fire, slot Burning Spellweave+Moondancer, and have a similar rotation to other Magicka DPS.

Was hoping they might have a shot at being unique and deal nice Cold Damage DPS

starkerealm

Seraphayel wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao. Everyone knows this. In all games

I think they implemented this because the Ice / Frost skill line from Wardens seems to be like the Aedric Spear skill line rather dedicated for tanking or defensive magic.

For what it's worth, we really don't know how the Warden will tank, at this point. So, there could be some DPS application to their frost tree, we really don't know.

DocFrost72

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao. Everyone knows this. In all games

Wow, that was so insightful. Gold star.

@Vaoh there is one thing I like quite a bit from your post. The idea that Wardens are slow to spool up, but high damage in later fights. Assuming wardens have some manner of managing magicka, it would DEFINATELY feel great in PvE. Less burst, but more stacking buffs.

That said, that would put them at a distinct disadvantage in pvp, maybe in ways similar to dragonknight with lack of burst. As long as it managed to tackle that, I'd love to see smething like this.

idk

Seraphayel wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao. Everyone knows this. In all games

I think they implemented this because the Ice / Frost skill line from Wardens seems to be like the Aedric Spear skill line rather dedicated for tanking or defensive magic.

@Seraphayel how is aedric spear line dedicated to tanking when it has 2 great skills for dps and one average skill for tanking. Multiple passives for dps and one passive that helps tanking.

starkerealm

Vaoh wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao

Yeah but that's kinda lame....

If Wardens cannot DPS with Ice staves, they're going backbar a Fire staff like everyone else for Blockade of Fire, slot Burning Spellweave+Moondancer, and have a similar rotation to other Magicka DPS.

Was hoping they might have a shot at being unique and deal nice Cold Damage DPS

To be fair, this does give them a really unique identity from the other staff types.

Seraphayel

If the Templar has a skill line made rather for tanking its Aedric's Spear. That's what I wanted to say. Most class skill lines in ESO aren't dedicated to a specific kind of playstyle but some are. That doesn't mean they're entirely devoted for that one role.

I see Wardens and Templars as pretty similar in many design aspects (that's a reason why they did not launch with the Warden class):

Winter's Embrace = Aedric's Spear = “tanking“
Nature's Balance = Restoring Light = “healing“
Animal Companions = Dawn's Wrath = “DPS“

billp_ESO

One of my favorite MMO's, a comic book based one, had a great set up for cold and ice. Although it did somewhat less damage than fire, it added a slow component. Stacking multiple cold spells caused the mobs to move at a crawl, allowing AOE DoTs to affect them for longer. It also added a lot of CC to the cold/ice line.

Vaoh

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao. Everyone knows this. In all games

Wow, that was so insightful. Gold star.

@Vaoh there is one thing I like quite a bit from your post. The idea that Wardens are slow to spool up, but high damage in later fights. Assuming wardens have some manner of managing magicka, it would DEFINATELY feel great in PvE. Less burst, but more stacking buffs.

That said, that would put them at a distinct disadvantage in pvp, maybe in ways similar to dragonknight with lack of burst. As long as it managed to tackle that, I'd love to see smething like this.

Yeah it wouldn't be much of a PvP thing. You can kinda do anything in PvP though so it's not really important.

PvE requires you to run very similar setups/rotations no matter your class to put out really high DPS. If Wardens had the ability to gradually grow in power until they could gain huge damage buffs, it'd add a new element (literally) into endgame PvE. I can see a lot of people liking the idea as well. Something new

Vaoh

starkerealm wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao

Yeah but that's kinda lame....

If Wardens cannot DPS with Ice staves, they're going backbar a Fire staff like everyone else for Blockade of Fire, slot Burning Spellweave+Moondancer, and have a similar rotation to other Magicka DPS.

Was hoping they might have a shot at being unique and deal nice Cold Damage DPS

To be fair, this does give them a really unique identity from the other staff types.

True it does, but only from a single role which already had plenty of diversity tbh - Tanking

Then you have to actually convince yourself that it'd be more beneficial for your group to use an Ice Staff over 1H/Shield. You lose the ability to slot two group buffing sets and a monster set because of this, and can't really slot sets like Alkosh without gimping your build.

I'm hoping Wardens may be unique and have a shot at DPSing with Ice staves. I'd never play my Sorc anymore if it were effective.

Faulgor

Seraphayel wrote: »

If the Templar has a skill line made rather for tanking its Aedric's Spear. That's what I wanted to say. Most class skill lines in ESO aren't dedicated to a specific kind of playstyle but some are. That doesn't mean they're entirely devoted for that one role.

I see Wardens and Templars as pretty similar in many design aspects (that's a reason why they did not launch with the Warden class):

Winter's Embrace = Aedric's Spear = “tanking“
Nature's Balance = Restoring Light = “healing“
Animal Companions = Dawn's Wrath = “DPS“

If pets are the Warden's sole DPS source, and it seems like it, the class will be totally lost for that role.
No judgement at this point of course, but it seems to be more of a tanking/support class than anything else.

Seraphayel

Faulgor wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

If the Templar has a skill line made rather for tanking its Aedric's Spear. That's what I wanted to say. Most class skill lines in ESO aren't dedicated to a specific kind of playstyle but some are. That doesn't mean they're entirely devoted for that one role.

I see Wardens and Templars as pretty similar in many design aspects (that's a reason why they did not launch with the Warden class):

Winter's Embrace = Aedric's Spear = “tanking“
Nature's Balance = Restoring Light = “healing“
Animal Companions = Dawn's Wrath = “DPS“

If pets are the Warden's sole DPS source, and it seems like it, the class will be totally lost for that role.
No judgement at this point of course, but it seems to be more of a tanking/support class than anything else.

There could be DPS skills in the Winter's Embrace or Nature's Balance lines as well (I'd rather say in the Winter's Embrace skill line). We don't even know how the “animal“ skills work. Maybe they're not even pets but only animated as a pet I mean if my Nightblades Cripple has its recent animation or if the Warden gets the same skill where bees are flying around the target and deal damage they still use animals but not in form of a companion but an animation.

Lynx7386

Vaoh wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao

Yeah but that's kinda lame....

If Wardens cannot DPS with Ice staves, they're going backbar a Fire staff like everyone else for Blockade of Fire, slot Burning Spellweave+Moondancer, and have a similar rotation to other Magicka DPS.

Was hoping they might have a shot at being unique and deal nice Cold Damage DPS

To be fair, this does give them a really unique identity from the other staff types.

True it does, but only from a single role which already had plenty of diversity tbh - Tanking

Then you have to actually convince yourself that it'd be more beneficial for your group to use an Ice Staff over 1H/Shield. You lose the ability to slot two group buffing sets and a monster set because of this, and can't really slot sets like Alkosh without gimping your build.

I'm hoping Wardens may be unique and have a shot at DPSing with Ice staves. I'd never play my Sorc anymore if it were effective.

I keep seeing people say things like this, about using the frost staff for tanking instead of a shield. Have you considered what might happen if you use a frost staff -in addition- to 1h/shield?

That gives you two resource pools to block with, and allows you to regenerate whichever one you're not using without letting off block.

That's my plan for my warden, at any rate - tank with shield until stamina is low, swap to staff to continue tanking via magicka while my stamina bar regenerates, then switch back. Endless blocking, lots of defense, amazing opportunity for resource management.

Chadak

Seems like a rubbish move to me. I quite enjoyed keeping an ice staff on my sorc's back bar, because I got a lot of mileage out of all the slows and freezes it could provide.

Not anymore! Probably never again!

So, my magicka sorcs wealth of magicka weapon options are now...

Fire staff
Lightning staff

God, I am just drowning in weapon proliferation here. Can someone please turn Lightning staff into a housing item buff staff? Perhaps that spawns a vendor that sells housing items that don't suck at prices that aren't liable to leave anyone sane rolling on the floor laughing until they vomit?

I feel that I have entirely too many options here and I don't know what to do with my life.

Vaoh

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao

Yeah but that's kinda lame....

If Wardens cannot DPS with Ice staves, they're going backbar a Fire staff like everyone else for Blockade of Fire, slot Burning Spellweave+Moondancer, and have a similar rotation to other Magicka DPS.

Was hoping they might have a shot at being unique and deal nice Cold Damage DPS

To be fair, this does give them a really unique identity from the other staff types.

True it does, but only from a single role which already had plenty of diversity tbh - Tanking

Then you have to actually convince yourself that it'd be more beneficial for your group to use an Ice Staff over 1H/Shield. You lose the ability to slot two group buffing sets and a monster set because of this, and can't really slot sets like Alkosh without gimping your build.

I'm hoping Wardens may be unique and have a shot at DPSing with Ice staves. I'd never play my Sorc anymore if it were effective.

I keep seeing people say things like this, about using the frost staff for tanking instead of a shield. Have you considered what might happen if you use a frost staff -in addition- to 1h/shield?

That gives you two resource pools to block with, and allows you to regenerate whichever one you're not using without letting off block.

That's my plan for my warden, at any rate - tank with shield until stamina is low, swap to staff to continue tanking via magicka while my stamina bar regenerates, then switch back. Endless blocking, lots of defense, amazing opportunity for resource management.

Well yeah you can do that, but you're missing the secondary goal of tanking which is group support.

You need to buff/heal/shield groupmates and debuff enemies as a tank. This requires you to build with sets you normally would not run (like Alkosh).

Surviving is easy. Surviving AND rdebuffing the enemy a lot is not nearly as easy

Lynx7386

Vaoh wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

Nope. Ice staffs are for tanking. Lmao

Yeah but that's kinda lame....

If Wardens cannot DPS with Ice staves, they're going backbar a Fire staff like everyone else for Blockade of Fire, slot Burning Spellweave+Moondancer, and have a similar rotation to other Magicka DPS.

Was hoping they might have a shot at being unique and deal nice Cold Damage DPS

To be fair, this does give them a really unique identity from the other staff types.

True it does, but only from a single role which already had plenty of diversity tbh - Tanking

Then you have to actually convince yourself that it'd be more beneficial for your group to use an Ice Staff over 1H/Shield. You lose the ability to slot two group buffing sets and a monster set because of this, and can't really slot sets like Alkosh without gimping your build.

I'm hoping Wardens may be unique and have a shot at DPSing with Ice staves. I'd never play my Sorc anymore if it were effective.

I keep seeing people say things like this, about using the frost staff for tanking instead of a shield. Have you considered what might happen if you use a frost staff -in addition- to 1h/shield?

That gives you two resource pools to block with, and allows you to regenerate whichever one you're not using without letting off block.

That's my plan for my warden, at any rate - tank with shield until stamina is low, swap to staff to continue tanking via magicka while my stamina bar regenerates, then switch back. Endless blocking, lots of defense, amazing opportunity for resource management.

Well yeah you can do that, but you're missing the secondary goal of tanking which is group support.

You need to buff/heal/shield groupmates and debuff enemies as a tank. This requires you to build with sets you normally would not run (like Alkosh).

Surviving is easy. Surviving AND rdebuffing the enemy a lot is not nearly as easy

I figure a lot of that will be ties up in warden abilities. You'll already be able to debuff enemy resistances and armor with the staff/1h (puncture, weakness to elements, etc).
The warden has at least one ability we know of (sleet storm) that reduces damage taken by allies. He'll probably also have at least one or two support heals in the nature tree, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for an aoe root spell like talons or the sorc equivalent to control enemies.

And all the while you have the option to keep the dps morph of the bear ultimate out to add damage for the group while you tank.

Baconlad

I accually agree with the concept of different destruction line magicks having different effects. For example fire staff having the best single target DPS, lightning being AOE. The only thing that trips me out is the use of ice staff, it doesnt really fit anywhere in the dps realm right now.

I think ZOS NEEDS TO just bite the damn bullet and separate the three destruction staves into three seperate trees. Each with their own effects/ passives. I still want the ice staff to be a good damage weapon, and not turned into a support weapon. I REALLY do not like the heavy attack change. Maybe they should change/ add a skill in the destro line to be an accual taunt only usable by ice staff users. I dont know...

BuggeX

Faulgor wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

If the Templar has a skill line made rather for tanking its Aedric's Spear. That's what I wanted to say. Most class skill lines in ESO aren't dedicated to a specific kind of playstyle but some are. That doesn't mean they're entirely devoted for that one role.

I see Wardens and Templars as pretty similar in many design aspects (that's a reason why they did not launch with the Warden class):

Winter's Embrace = Aedric's Spear = “tanking“
Nature's Balance = Restoring Light = “healing“
Animal Companions = Dawn's Wrath = “DPS“

If pets are the Warden's sole DPS source, and it seems like it, the class will be totally lost for that role.
No judgement at this point of course, but it seems to be more of a tanking/support class than anything else.

mby zos also Change the current petsystem?, mby a few skills are not for the warden but for the pet itself? like Charge and knockdown or whatever

it could aslo be the case that the pet its self has a taunt and is able to tank, the pets allready got 100% more def, and thats a big as bear not a Little twighlight, i bet he has tons of health and def, and warden will have lot of skills to Support the pets dmg or shields or whatever.

Vaoh

Baconlad wrote: »

I accually agree with the concept of different destruction line magicks having different effects. For example fire staff having the best single target DPS, lightning being AOE. The only thing that trips me out is the use of ice staff, it doesnt really fit anywhere in the dps realm right now.

I think ZOS NEEDS TO just bite the damn bullet and separate the three destruction staves into three seperate trees. Each with their own effects/ passives. I still want the ice staff to be a good damage weapon, and not turned into a support weapon. I REALLY do not like the heavy attack change. Maybe they should change/ add a skill in the destro line to be an accual taunt only usable by ice staff users. I dont know...

Yeah the heavy attack taunt is not something I'm a fan of.... also ruins Ice staves completely for non-optimal builds alike.

olsborg

At sometime in the presentation vid of morrowind, rich (i think it was rich) said that ice magic was for defence. So who knows how many offence spells there is/isnt.

s7732425ub17_ESO

There's nothing stopping you from using a fire destro staff with the Warden class.

Just because its class abilities are going to do cold damage doesn't mean you have to use a frost destro. I do NOT think that they should rebalance ice staff to have higher DPS just because of the introduction of the Warden class. Ice staff is designed for crowd control, not the highest DPS.

olsborg

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

There's nothing stopping you from using a fire destro staff with the Warden class.

Just because its class abilities are going to do cold damage doesn't mean you have to use a frost destro. I do NOT think that they should rebalance ice staff to have higher DPS just because of the introduction of the Warden class. Ice staff is designed for crowd control, not the highest DPS.

Thats true, but its fun to follow a theme is it not?

Lynx7386

Following a theme is fine, just understand that you have to play to the theme's strengths. In this case, frost's strengths are not (and have never been) damage. Frost is for defense and control. If you want to follow a frosty theme, build your character with defense and control in mind, not damage.

Yea, it might suck for those that want to do frost dps, but I'd be honestly surprised if more than 1% of staff users in this game have a build that relies or focuses on the frost staff as a damage-dealing weapon. There are two other staff types for damage, and variety/options are good.

I agree that having different skill trees for each staff type would be interesting, but that's not likely to happen.

JinMori

I would like to see a frost dps build

JinMori

Maybe they could make a passive that increased frost damage, hopefully in an interesting way

Vaoh

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Following a theme is fine, just understand that you have to play to the theme's strengths. In this case, frost's strengths are not (and have never been) damage. Frost is for defense and control. If you want to follow a frosty theme, build your character with defense and control in mind, not damage.

Yea, it might suck for those that want to do frost dps, but I'd be honestly surprised if more than 1% of staff users in this game have a build that relies or focuses on the frost staff as a damage-dealing weapon. There are two other staff types for damage, and variety/options are good.

I agree that having different skill trees for each staff type would be interesting, but that's not likely to happen.

That's cause Cold damage is completely terrible though for damage lol. We also have never had a class that ficused on Cold like Sorcs do forshock and DKs for fire. Ofc no one uses it.

The Warden can easily introduce ways of passively skyrocketing their Cold Damage modifier so it can be a viable element type for damage dealing for them. Would provide diversity and fit their theme very well.