Frost Staff HA taunts even without Tri Focus passive

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

Was in Cradle for a No Death run, on Khephidaen the Spiderkith, I open the fight with Inner Rage to bring her into the light, bar swap and Pierce Armor to apply the debuffs. Right after the Pierce armor, the Warden DPS's Ice Staff Heavy Attack lands, and she turns to him while charging up her Heavy Attack. He back petals, and I try and get her back, only that's the 3rd Taunt and she is now immune. She of course gets the HA off and he dies. It takes us under 5 minutes to finish the fight and I hit record that (Xbox).

Now I have the chance to go back and watch it, try and figure out why I lost the taunt. Its that I see the Frost HA land a second after my own Pierce Armor. We give up on Cradle for the night, it wasn't the first No Death death of the night. Three of us head to a World Boss and test it out. The Warden DPS hadn't taken the Tri Focus passive, and I who have run a 1H& S front Frost Staff back Warden tank since release have also not taken the Tri Focus passive. While it isn't every Frost HA that bugs out and taunts, it's easy enough to get to Taunt immunity with just the HA.

The testing was using Frost HA and Inner Fire, so that I could be 100% sure the Immunity was to the taunt and not to Deep Freeze (the Immobilization from hitting a Chilled target with a Frost ability)
It also explains several incidents where I as the Off Tank in a trial on a boss with no one to off tank have ended up with agro. I had always assumed it was my fat fingering (more like long nails) my taunt. After all I only have 3 DoTs to lay down so I just fill the empty space with HA since I also have a Tanks regen rate.

I'll upload the video of both Cradle and the WB testing when I can get back on my Xbox

Cradle Run - just before the fight starts, I slot Crishing Sock, you can see the missing Tri Focus passive there

https://youtu.be/zWAoL0ymQ80

Skip to 2:25. You see I Pierce armor, then my buddy DPS until he has agro, which takes about 7 seconds to pull from me after my taunt wears off (the grey dragon scale looking buff) but with 1 HA I have I’m back

https://youtu.be/sgSTNl-eTbA

Mystrius_Archaion · December 2017

This is definitely bugged badly, or more likely, working as intended with a very badly implemented mechanic. Frost staff heavy attacks often pull aggro, especially when the dps is relatively strong on top of that taunt. It seems like a base effect of the frost staff now instead of just with the tri-focus passive.

I think they should revert the "frost staff tanking" change and instead wait until they can make a one-handed magic weapon that can be differentiated like dual wield vs 1hand and shield between damage and tanking. That seems like the only way to make that work as they built this game.

Frost staff attacks seem to be a more powerful taunt than Inner Fire also. That should not be that way. If you slot a specific taunting skill it should be more powerful than non-taunt skills.
This is the same problem with binary combat control mechanics. They either work or the target is immune.

Other games I have played that were much older had smarter designers that gave every control mechanic, including taunt, a magnitude number and a calculation to determine whether that effect would occur. It worked just like resistance in this game.

This did several great things:

1) Magnitude allowed higher rank enemies to "resist" control and taunt while lower rank enemies didn't resist it.

2) it allowed for more ranks of enemies who had varying levels of resistance to those effects.

3) It allowed players, especially groups, to stack the effects, instead of just overwriting each other making it useless, to actually control higher rank enemies up to even the most powerful enemies in the game. This was not overpowered because each application lasted a specific duration so that the full stacked overlap would only last a very short time, like an 8 second stun of magnitude 2 with 1 second cast against a boss with magnitude 8 stun resistance would need 4-5 applications of that stun to be stunned so that would take 4-5 players to get the full duration if used at the same time or a single player doing nothing but stunning to stun the boss after 4-5 seconds for 2 seconds and requiring constant refreshing to maintain.
This took a lot more skill than ESO without being too hard for players. It allowed tactical play.

4) Taunt had a magnitude that was measured against the damage per second of the dps so that dps could pull aggro if the tank wasn't taunting enough or the dps was built for too much burst and less sustain or was clearly outclassing everyone else in sustained damage(and maybe needing a nerf). It made building balanced very important and forced tanks to be better than mindless bots with timed taunts and holding block.

5) There were tank classes that had a passive that taunted enemies on every attack they made, just like the Tri-Focus passive with frost staff, that helped them be a tank without having to "waste a skill slot" to have a taunt. This allowed tanking to be as fun as anything else because they could use all the same skills that dps could. They just built for survival more than the dps did, allowing for gear swaps to switch between dps or tank.

6) A good tank using skills wouldn't have much to worry about dps pulling aggro because they could actually build up their taunt more than the dps, and there was no accidental dps taunting because they use a dps weapon that has a taunt added for no reason(dumb frost staff addition).

7) There would be a lot less need for random group member targeting, which doesn't make much sense over specific group member targeting like "healer aggro", because every ability had a taunt magnitude that would cause a boss to switch targets to "the greatest threat" or "the smartest target choice".

Guess which game was this smart? City of Heroes which launched on April 27th 2004 with all these mechanics. The same year as World of Warcraft and months ahead of it. 14 YEARS AND 8 MONTHS BEFORE TODAY!
This was also the game with the first example of and most powerful character customization to come for years, which no game has yet really topped. It even had ability color customization that they managed to update in after launch with hardly any bugs. Somehow things worked better even if it was still, like any MMO, a "cartoon tire patched so much that it was a lumpy rough ride" with many of the bugs. They even had less budget and fewer developers and did everything on a much shorter timescale than ESO has. They were just better.

It is very very sad and disappointing to me that the developers of today have nowhere near half the talent and creativity that the developers of City of Heroes had well over 14 years ago. I don't even know how anybody could explain that because games these days have technology that is 512 times more powerful(according to Moore's Law of processing power doubling every 18 months exponentially).
Has all this been wasted on just visual upgrades that have actually taken away from gameplay?

Why do I even bother? The developers of this game aren't willing to even try to make such a major change, probably won't even read this and likely aren't talented/smart enough to make it happen even with the benefit of hindsight and the example code necessary already being out there so that they can more easily make a similar system.
We would all be thrilled and overjoyed if they could prove me wrong.

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

This is definitely bugged badly.

I think they should revert the "frost staff tanking" change and instead wait until they can make a one-handed magic weapon that can be differentiated like dual wield vs 1hand and shield between damage and tanking. That seems like the only way to make that work as they built this game.

Frost staff attacks seem to be a more powerful taunt than Inner Fire also. That should not be that way. If you slot a specific taunting skill it should be more powerful than non-taunt skills.
This is the same problem with binary combat control mechanics. They either work or the target is immune.

Other games I have played that were much older had smarter designers that gave every control mechanic, including taunt, a magnitude number and a calculation to determine whether that effect would occur. It worked just like resistance in this game.

This did several great things:

1) Magnitude allowed higher rank enemies to "resist" control and taunt while lower rank enemies didn't resist it.

2) it allowed for more ranks of enemies who had varying levels of resistance to those effects.

3) It allowed players, especially groups, to stack the effects, instead of just overwriting each other making it useless, to actually control higher rank enemies up to even the most powerful enemies in the game. This was not overpowered because each application lasted a specific duration so that the full stacked overlap would only last a very short time, like an 8 second stun of magnitude 2 with 1 second cast against a boss with magnitude 8 stun resistance would need 4-5 applications of that stun to be stunned so that would take 4-5 players to get the full duration if used at the same time or a single player doing nothing but stunning to stun the boss after 4-5 seconds for 2 seconds and requiring constant refreshing to maintain.
This took a lot more skill than ESO without being too hard for players. It allowed tactical play.

4) Taunt had a magnitude that was measured against the damage per second of the dps so that dps could pull aggro if the tank wasn't taunting enough or the dps was built for too much burst and less sustain or was clearly outclassing everyone else in sustained damage(and maybe needing a nerf). It made building balanced very important and forced tanks to be better than mindless bots with timed taunts and holding block.

5) There were tank classes that had a passive that taunted enemies on every attack they made, just like the Tri-Focus passive with frost staff, that helped them be a tank without having to "waste a skill slot" to have a taunt. This allowed tanking to be as fun as anything else because they could use all the same skills that dps could. They just built for survival more than the dps did, allowing for gear swaps to switch between dps or tank.

6) A good tank using skills wouldn't have much to worry about dps pulling aggro because they could actually build up their taunt more than the dps, and there was no accidental dps taunting because they use a dps weapon that has a taunt added for no reason(dumb frost staff addition).

7) There would be a lot less need for random group member targeting, which doesn't make much sense over specific group member targeting like "healer aggro", because every ability had a taunt magnitude that would cause a boss to switch targets to "the greatest threat" or "the smartest target choice".

Guess which game was this smart? City of Heroes which launched on April 27th 2004 with all these mechanics. The same year as World of Warcraft and months ahead of it. 14 YEARS AND 8 MONTHS BEFORE TODAY!
This was also the game with the first example of and most powerful character customization to come for years, which no game has yet really topped. It even had ability color customization that they managed to update in after launch with hardly any bugs. Somehow things worked better even if it was still, like any MMO, a "cartoon tire patched so much that it was a lumpy rough ride" with many of the bugs. They even had less budget and fewer developers and did everything on a much shorter timescale than ESO has. They were just better.

It is very very sad and disappointing to me that the developers of today have nowhere near half the talent and creativity that the developers of City of Heroes had well over 14 years ago. I don't even know how anybody could explain that because games these days have technology that is 512 times more powerful(according to Moore's Law of processing power doubling every 18 months exponentially).
Has all this been wasted on just visual upgrades that have actually taken away from gameplay?

Why do I even bother? The developers of this game aren't willing to even try to make such a major change, probably won't even read this and likely aren't talented/smart enough to make it happen even with the benefit of hindsight and the example code necessary already being out there so that they can more easily make a similar system.
We would all be thrilled and overjoyed if they could prove me wrong.

Wow, No, absolutely frigging not.
Why change/make a new class, NOBODY used Frost Staves before this change, now tanks do

Every taunt is the same, doesn’t matter which one I use I’ll pull agro instantly - until taunt immunity (3 taunts in 15 seconds by 2 different people. Then nobody will pull taunt no matter which skill is used.

ESO tanking is better than any other MMO I’ve played, much more involved, that’s why there are so few tanks, it’s too complex for a lot of people.

The rest of the weighted factors are here. High HPS drawsit first, High DPS next

Any class any role is way better than class pigeon holes

So the whole post is because you miss your old game?

Mystrius_Archaion · December 2017

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

This is definitely bugged badly.

I think they should revert the "frost staff tanking" change and instead wait until they can make a one-handed magic weapon that can be differentiated like dual wield vs 1hand and shield between damage and tanking. That seems like the only way to make that work as they built this game.

Frost staff attacks seem to be a more powerful taunt than Inner Fire also. That should not be that way. If you slot a specific taunting skill it should be more powerful than non-taunt skills.
This is the same problem with binary combat control mechanics. They either work or the target is immune.

Other games I have played that were much older had smarter designers that gave every control mechanic, including taunt, a magnitude number and a calculation to determine whether that effect would occur. It worked just like resistance in this game.

This did several great things:

1) Magnitude allowed higher rank enemies to "resist" control and taunt while lower rank enemies didn't resist it.

2) it allowed for more ranks of enemies who had varying levels of resistance to those effects.

3) It allowed players, especially groups, to stack the effects, instead of just overwriting each other making it useless, to actually control higher rank enemies up to even the most powerful enemies in the game. This was not overpowered because each application lasted a specific duration so that the full stacked overlap would only last a very short time, like an 8 second stun of magnitude 2 with 1 second cast against a boss with magnitude 8 stun resistance would need 4-5 applications of that stun to be stunned so that would take 4-5 players to get the full duration if used at the same time or a single player doing nothing but stunning to stun the boss after 4-5 seconds for 2 seconds and requiring constant refreshing to maintain.
This took a lot more skill than ESO without being too hard for players. It allowed tactical play.

4) Taunt had a magnitude that was measured against the damage per second of the dps so that dps could pull aggro if the tank wasn't taunting enough or the dps was built for too much burst and less sustain or was clearly outclassing everyone else in sustained damage(and maybe needing a nerf). It made building balanced very important and forced tanks to be better than mindless bots with timed taunts and holding block.

5) There were tank classes that had a passive that taunted enemies on every attack they made, just like the Tri-Focus passive with frost staff, that helped them be a tank without having to "waste a skill slot" to have a taunt. This allowed tanking to be as fun as anything else because they could use all the same skills that dps could. They just built for survival more than the dps did, allowing for gear swaps to switch between dps or tank.

6) A good tank using skills wouldn't have much to worry about dps pulling aggro because they could actually build up their taunt more than the dps, and there was no accidental dps taunting because they use a dps weapon that has a taunt added for no reason(dumb frost staff addition).

7) There would be a lot less need for random group member targeting, which doesn't make much sense over specific group member targeting like "healer aggro", because every ability had a taunt magnitude that would cause a boss to switch targets to "the greatest threat" or "the smartest target choice".

Guess which game was this smart? City of Heroes which launched on April 27th 2004 with all these mechanics. The same year as World of Warcraft and months ahead of it. 14 YEARS AND 8 MONTHS BEFORE TODAY!
This was also the game with the first example of and most powerful character customization to come for years, which no game has yet really topped. It even had ability color customization that they managed to update in after launch with hardly any bugs. Somehow things worked better even if it was still, like any MMO, a "cartoon tire patched so much that it was a lumpy rough ride" with many of the bugs. They even had less budget and fewer developers and did everything on a much shorter timescale than ESO has. They were just better.

It is very very sad and disappointing to me that the developers of today have nowhere near half the talent and creativity that the developers of City of Heroes had well over 14 years ago. I don't even know how anybody could explain that because games these days have technology that is 512 times more powerful(according to Moore's Law of processing power doubling every 18 months exponentially).
Has all this been wasted on just visual upgrades that have actually taken away from gameplay?

Why do I even bother? The developers of this game aren't willing to even try to make such a major change, probably won't even read this and likely aren't talented/smart enough to make it happen even with the benefit of hindsight and the example code necessary already being out there so that they can more easily make a similar system.
We would all be thrilled and overjoyed if they could prove me wrong.

Wow, No, absolutely frigging not.
Why change/make a new class, NOBODY used Frost Staves before this change, now tanks do

Every taunt is the same, doesn’t matter which one I use I’ll pull agro instantly - until taunt immunity (3 taunts in 15 seconds by 2 different people. Then nobody will pull taunt no matter which skill is used.

1) Read it again, if you did the first time at all.
I never, NEVER, suggested adding another class. I just was saying what another game did(City of Heroes) that was only a different class because they had passives that made the same exact skills as other classes(Brutes and Tankers and Scrappers all got Super Strength and Invulnerability), that did melee dps at higher levels due to passives adjusting their strength as well, into more tank-centric strength. DPS had passive 25% more damage while tanks had passive 25% more defenses, for example as an approximate inexact number, applied to the base 100% damage and defense all classes got.

2) Taunt in this game is stupidly binary. That's why "anybody taunting in 15 seconds 3 times makes the boss go wild".
That's dumb amateur coding especially since they forced more common heavy attacking to restore resources so that you can actually use your skills more than a rotation or two every 30 seconds. It's "heavy attack or die".

3) Players have always used frost staff if they liked slowing/immobilizing the enemy or just the frost graphics. Your very first post proves some people use it for dps otherwise this thread wouldn't exist.
I, for one, like frost staff for that, but I don't use it for the same reason I don't use flame staff. I am not as good at making sure the heavy attack hits my intended target instead of the enemy right next to them, if it even fires when a simple knockback can interrupt it.
I manage to tank just fine using a restoration staff, which actually should have been what they added the taunt passive to since it buffs healing and heals on heavy attack completion from a passive which benefits a tank more than a dps oriented staff and passive do.

4) There are so few tanks because tanks kill stuff slowly and that doesn't feel good in solo or small group play. Tanks also run out of resources faster than dps builds because they sacrifice recovery of magicka/stamina for recovery of health. They also assume it relies on a healer in group play like other games, which it does for the most part. Tanking is boring and an already established role that is colored by previous game designs.

5) ESO tanking is worse than tanking in other games for the simple fact that every enemy can become taunt immune here in ESO while other games reserve that for special mechanics ONLY. Why should a boss be immune to all taunts if 3 taunts are used within 15 seconds? That means if you use a taunt with a 1 second cast time every second for 3 seconds then you have a wild rampaging boss for 12 seconds, 80% of the time. That means if you use a taunt and there are 2 frost staff users heavy attacking to restore resources in the group at the same time then essentially the boss will be wild for 14 seconds out of 15, 93% of the time. You can pretty much forget about taunting and replace the tank with a heal/dps hybrid then.
In fact, if the boss is taunt immune enough, or has random target abilities often, then why do we need a tank at all? They can't hold the boss attention and there are so many high damaging AoEs that it would be best to just let a boss run wild between far spread out dps, as they likely will anyway, and spread out the damage so that everybody can just bring shields and self-healing to more easily survive anyway.

My point was there are better options for making taunt work and whatever weapon they want viable for tanking if they would just get more creative and stop developing like assembly line robots.

You, @Maura_Neysa , should have paid more attention to the post your quoted and avoided a "knee-jerk" reflex action. I actually agree with you that frost staff heavy attack taunting doesn't work right, but it will never work right with the game as it is.
Why does a frost staff heavy attack taunt at all when 1hand and shield doesn't? It requires a skill choice and use for 1hand and shield. It seems they just wanted a quick fix that wouldn't involve adding another active skill to the destruction staff tree so that it wouldn't break the pattern of number of active skills and would fix the issue of magicka weapon builds needing to run dungeons for undaunted rank to unlock a taunt.
Stupid developer lazy fix of a big earlier mistake in design all because they were unwilling to rework the design enough to make it right.

Mystrius_Archaion · December 2017

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

This is definitely bugged badly.

I think they should revert the "frost staff tanking" change and instead wait until they can make a one-handed magic weapon that can be differentiated like dual wield vs 1hand and shield between damage and tanking. That seems like the only way to make that work as they built this game.

Frost staff attacks seem to be a more powerful taunt than Inner Fire also. That should not be that way. If you slot a specific taunting skill it should be more powerful than non-taunt skills.
This is the same problem with binary combat control mechanics. They either work or the target is immune.

Other games I have played that were much older had smarter designers that gave every control mechanic, including taunt, a magnitude number and a calculation to determine whether that effect would occur. It worked just like resistance in this game.

This did several great things:

1) Magnitude allowed higher rank enemies to "resist" control and taunt while lower rank enemies didn't resist it.

2) it allowed for more ranks of enemies who had varying levels of resistance to those effects.

3) It allowed players, especially groups, to stack the effects, instead of just overwriting each other making it useless, to actually control higher rank enemies up to even the most powerful enemies in the game. This was not overpowered because each application lasted a specific duration so that the full stacked overlap would only last a very short time, like an 8 second stun of magnitude 2 with 1 second cast against a boss with magnitude 8 stun resistance would need 4-5 applications of that stun to be stunned so that would take 4-5 players to get the full duration if used at the same time or a single player doing nothing but stunning to stun the boss after 4-5 seconds for 2 seconds and requiring constant refreshing to maintain.
This took a lot more skill than ESO without being too hard for players. It allowed tactical play.

4) Taunt had a magnitude that was measured against the damage per second of the dps so that dps could pull aggro if the tank wasn't taunting enough or the dps was built for too much burst and less sustain or was clearly outclassing everyone else in sustained damage(and maybe needing a nerf). It made building balanced very important and forced tanks to be better than mindless bots with timed taunts and holding block.

5) There were tank classes that had a passive that taunted enemies on every attack they made, just like the Tri-Focus passive with frost staff, that helped them be a tank without having to "waste a skill slot" to have a taunt. This allowed tanking to be as fun as anything else because they could use all the same skills that dps could. They just built for survival more than the dps did, allowing for gear swaps to switch between dps or tank.

6) A good tank using skills wouldn't have much to worry about dps pulling aggro because they could actually build up their taunt more than the dps, and there was no accidental dps taunting because they use a dps weapon that has a taunt added for no reason(dumb frost staff addition).

7) There would be a lot less need for random group member targeting, which doesn't make much sense over specific group member targeting like "healer aggro", because every ability had a taunt magnitude that would cause a boss to switch targets to "the greatest threat" or "the smartest target choice".

Guess which game was this smart? City of Heroes which launched on April 27th 2004 with all these mechanics. The same year as World of Warcraft and months ahead of it. 14 YEARS AND 8 MONTHS BEFORE TODAY!
This was also the game with the first example of and most powerful character customization to come for years, which no game has yet really topped. It even had ability color customization that they managed to update in after launch with hardly any bugs. Somehow things worked better even if it was still, like any MMO, a "cartoon tire patched so much that it was a lumpy rough ride" with many of the bugs. They even had less budget and fewer developers and did everything on a much shorter timescale than ESO has. They were just better.

It is very very sad and disappointing to me that the developers of today have nowhere near half the talent and creativity that the developers of City of Heroes had well over 14 years ago. I don't even know how anybody could explain that because games these days have technology that is 512 times more powerful(according to Moore's Law of processing power doubling every 18 months exponentially).
Has all this been wasted on just visual upgrades that have actually taken away from gameplay?

Why do I even bother? The developers of this game aren't willing to even try to make such a major change, probably won't even read this and likely aren't talented/smart enough to make it happen even with the benefit of hindsight and the example code necessary already being out there so that they can more easily make a similar system.
We would all be thrilled and overjoyed if they could prove me wrong.

So the whole post is because you miss your old game?

The whole post was because I miss smart design and maybe pointing out that smart design to newer developers, since I assume these developers are less experienced than the old developers of that other game, will help them to design better.

Yes, I miss that old game, but, more importantly, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana
Game development may be getting more amazing worlds and graphics, but gameplay and customization is going backwards. For example, we need addons to customize the user interface in ESO but City of Heroes had a fully resizable and customizable color and shape user interface by default implemented by the developers that never needed addon updating because it was playable after every patch. We have to rely on active devoted programmer fans of this game to keep it playable to the level we enjoy rather than the developers supporting "different players liking different interfaces".
They're repeating early game development history with gameplay worse than better ideas already implemented for older games simply because they haven't learned from both the mistakes and successes of older games.

"Once more, same as before."

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

This is definitely bugged badly.

I think they should revert the "frost staff tanking" change and instead wait until they can make a one-handed magic weapon that can be differentiated like dual wield vs 1hand and shield between damage and tanking. That seems like the only way to make that work as they built this game.

Frost staff attacks seem to be a more powerful taunt than Inner Fire also. That should not be that way. If you slot a specific taunting skill it should be more powerful than non-taunt skills.
This is the same problem with binary combat control mechanics. They either work or the target is immune.

Other games I have played that were much older had smarter designers that gave every control mechanic, including taunt, a magnitude number and a calculation to determine whether that effect would occur. It worked just like resistance in this game.

This did several great things:

1) Magnitude allowed higher rank enemies to "resist" control and taunt while lower rank enemies didn't resist it.

2) it allowed for more ranks of enemies who had varying levels of resistance to those effects.

3) It allowed players, especially groups, to stack the effects, instead of just overwriting each other making it useless, to actually control higher rank enemies up to even the most powerful enemies in the game. This was not overpowered because each application lasted a specific duration so that the full stacked overlap would only last a very short time, like an 8 second stun of magnitude 2 with 1 second cast against a boss with magnitude 8 stun resistance would need 4-5 applications of that stun to be stunned so that would take 4-5 players to get the full duration if used at the same time or a single player doing nothing but stunning to stun the boss after 4-5 seconds for 2 seconds and requiring constant refreshing to maintain.
This took a lot more skill than ESO without being too hard for players. It allowed tactical play.

4) Taunt had a magnitude that was measured against the damage per second of the dps so that dps could pull aggro if the tank wasn't taunting enough or the dps was built for too much burst and less sustain or was clearly outclassing everyone else in sustained damage(and maybe needing a nerf). It made building balanced very important and forced tanks to be better than mindless bots with timed taunts and holding block.

5) There were tank classes that had a passive that taunted enemies on every attack they made, just like the Tri-Focus passive with frost staff, that helped them be a tank without having to "waste a skill slot" to have a taunt. This allowed tanking to be as fun as anything else because they could use all the same skills that dps could. They just built for survival more than the dps did, allowing for gear swaps to switch between dps or tank.

6) A good tank using skills wouldn't have much to worry about dps pulling aggro because they could actually build up their taunt more than the dps, and there was no accidental dps taunting because they use a dps weapon that has a taunt added for no reason(dumb frost staff addition).

7) There would be a lot less need for random group member targeting, which doesn't make much sense over specific group member targeting like "healer aggro", because every ability had a taunt magnitude that would cause a boss to switch targets to "the greatest threat" or "the smartest target choice".

Guess which game was this smart? City of Heroes which launched on April 27th 2004 with all these mechanics. The same year as World of Warcraft and months ahead of it. 14 YEARS AND 8 MONTHS BEFORE TODAY!
This was also the game with the first example of and most powerful character customization to come for years, which no game has yet really topped. It even had ability color customization that they managed to update in after launch with hardly any bugs. Somehow things worked better even if it was still, like any MMO, a "cartoon tire patched so much that it was a lumpy rough ride" with many of the bugs. They even had less budget and fewer developers and did everything on a much shorter timescale than ESO has. They were just better.

It is very very sad and disappointing to me that the developers of today have nowhere near half the talent and creativity that the developers of City of Heroes had well over 14 years ago. I don't even know how anybody could explain that because games these days have technology that is 512 times more powerful(according to Moore's Law of processing power doubling every 18 months exponentially).
Has all this been wasted on just visual upgrades that have actually taken away from gameplay?

Why do I even bother? The developers of this game aren't willing to even try to make such a major change, probably won't even read this and likely aren't talented/smart enough to make it happen even with the benefit of hindsight and the example code necessary already being out there so that they can more easily make a similar system.
We would all be thrilled and overjoyed if they could prove me wrong.

Wow, No, absolutely frigging not.
Why change/make a new class, NOBODY used Frost Staves before this change, now tanks do

Every taunt is the same, doesn’t matter which one I use I’ll pull agro instantly - until taunt immunity (3 taunts in 15 seconds by 2 different people. Then nobody will pull taunt no matter which skill is used.

1) Read it again, if you did the first time at all.
I never, NEVER, suggested adding another class. I just was saying what another game did(City of Heroes) that was only a different class because they had passives that made the same exact skills as other classes(Brutes and Tankers and Scrappers all got Super Strength and Invulnerability), that did melee dps at higher levels due to passives adjusting their strength as well, into more tank-centric strength. DPS had passive 25% more damage while tanks had passive 25% more deenses, for example as an approximate inexact number, applied to the base 100% damage and defense all classes got.

2) Taunt in this game is stupidly binary. That's why "anybody taunting in 15 seconds 3 times makes the boss go wild".
That's dumb amateur coding especially since they forced more common heavy attacking to restore resources so that you can actually use your skills more than a rotation or two every 30 seconds. It's "heavy attack or die".

3) Players have always used frost staff if they liked slowing/immobilizing the enemy or just the frost graphics. Your very first post proves some people use it for dps otherwise this thread wouldn't exist.
I, for one, like frost staff for that, but I don't use it for the same reason I don't use flame staff. I am not as good at making sure the heavy attack hits my intended target instead of the enemy right next to them, if it even fires when a simple knockback can interrupt it.
I manage to tank just fine using a restoration staff, which actually should have been what they added the taunt passive to since it buffs healing and heals on heavy attack completion from a passive which benefits a tank more than a dps oriented staff and passive do.

4) There are so few tanks because tanks kill stuff slowly and that doesn't feel good in solo or small group play. Tanks also run out of resources faster than dps builds because they sacrifice recovery of magicka/stamina for recovery of health. They also assume it relies on a healer in group play like other games, which it does for the most part. Tanking is boring and an already established role that is colored by previous game designs.

5) ESO tanking is worse than tanking in other games for the simple fact that every enemy can become taunt immune here in ESO while other games reserve that for special mechanics ONLY. Why should a boss be immune to all taunts if 3 taunts are used within 15 seconds? That means if you use a taunt with a 1 second cast time every second for 3 seconds then you have a wild rampaging boss for 12 seconds, 80% of the time. That means if you use a taunt and there are 2 frost staff users heavy attacking to restore resources in the group at the same time then essentially the boss will be wild for 14 seconds out of 15, 93% of the time. You can pretty much forget about taunting and replace the tank with a heal/dps hybrid then.
In fact, if the boss is taunt immune enough, or has random target abilities often, then why do we need a tank at all? They can't hold the boss attention and there are so many high damaging AoEs that it would be best to just let a boss run wild between far spread out dps, as they likely will anyway, and spread out the damage so that everybody can just bring shields and self-healing to more easily survive anyway.

My point was there are better options for making taunt work and whatever weapon they want viable for tanking if they would just get more creative and stop developing like assembly line robots.

You, @Maura_Neysa , should have paid more attention to the post your quoted and avoided a "knee-jerk" reflex action. I actually agree with you that frost staff heavy attack taunting doesn't work right, but it will never work right with the game as it is.
Why does a frost staff heavy attack taunt at all when 1hand and shield doesn't? It requires a skill choice and use for 1hand and shield. It seems they just wanted a quick fix that wouldn't involve adding another active skill to the destruction staff tree so that it wouldn't break the pattern of number of active skills and would fix the issue of magicka weapon builds needing to run dungeons for undaunted rank to unlock a taunt.
Stupid developer lazy fix of a big earlier mistake in design all because they were unwilling to rework the design enough to make it right.

Well this explains a lot. You simply have no knowledge base for tanking. At least in ESO
- I can taunt as many times in a row as I want, personally I choose every 10seconds because that fits with 2 other skills, and gives me a buffer for a stun or something delaying my taunt.
- Taunt immunity only EVER applies when two different people taunt 3 times in 15 seconds
- Resto can’t hold a candle to Frost or 1H/S. 30% Block cost reduction and 20% Damage mitigation. % Damage Reduction I’ll be strong until you get to minuscule amounts of damage. There’s a reason why when the mechanic comes only the tanks make it. Even the Mag Sorcs with 20k health and 20k shields will die while the tank with 40k doesn’t.
- Sure you can get around the world without a tank. But you’re getting past the Warrior, Mage, Serpent, Rakat, shall I go on? Without a tank even on normal.
- Most mobs I don’t even need to bother to taunt to control, just CC them. 1 cost for 6 enmities instead of 1 for 1

And while I think the HA taunt and even the block on magic and damage shield is worthless, it’s not just a magic 1H/S. What would be the lazy dev way put. Instead they did something different.

The whole point of this thread is that something is not working the way it was designed too. It has nothing to do with the quality/viability of Frost Staff tanking.

Now unless you have some insight into the actually issue, we’ll dont let the door hit you.....

Mystrius_Archaion · December 2017

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

This is definitely bugged badly.

I think they should revert the "frost staff tanking" change and instead wait until they can make a one-handed magic weapon that can be differentiated like dual wield vs 1hand and shield between damage and tanking. That seems like the only way to make that work as they built this game.

Frost staff attacks seem to be a more powerful taunt than Inner Fire also. That should not be that way. If you slot a specific taunting skill it should be more powerful than non-taunt skills.
This is the same problem with binary combat control mechanics. They either work or the target is immune.

Other games I have played that were much older had smarter designers that gave every control mechanic, including taunt, a magnitude number and a calculation to determine whether that effect would occur. It worked just like resistance in this game.

This did several great things:

1) Magnitude allowed higher rank enemies to "resist" control and taunt while lower rank enemies didn't resist it.

2) it allowed for more ranks of enemies who had varying levels of resistance to those effects.

3) It allowed players, especially groups, to stack the effects, instead of just overwriting each other making it useless, to actually control higher rank enemies up to even the most powerful enemies in the game. This was not overpowered because each application lasted a specific duration so that the full stacked overlap would only last a very short time, like an 8 second stun of magnitude 2 with 1 second cast against a boss with magnitude 8 stun resistance would need 4-5 applications of that stun to be stunned so that would take 4-5 players to get the full duration if used at the same time or a single player doing nothing but stunning to stun the boss after 4-5 seconds for 2 seconds and requiring constant refreshing to maintain.
This took a lot more skill than ESO without being too hard for players. It allowed tactical play.

4) Taunt had a magnitude that was measured against the damage per second of the dps so that dps could pull aggro if the tank wasn't taunting enough or the dps was built for too much burst and less sustain or was clearly outclassing everyone else in sustained damage(and maybe needing a nerf). It made building balanced very important and forced tanks to be better than mindless bots with timed taunts and holding block.

5) There were tank classes that had a passive that taunted enemies on every attack they made, just like the Tri-Focus passive with frost staff, that helped them be a tank without having to "waste a skill slot" to have a taunt. This allowed tanking to be as fun as anything else because they could use all the same skills that dps could. They just built for survival more than the dps did, allowing for gear swaps to switch between dps or tank.

6) A good tank using skills wouldn't have much to worry about dps pulling aggro because they could actually build up their taunt more than the dps, and there was no accidental dps taunting because they use a dps weapon that has a taunt added for no reason(dumb frost staff addition).

7) There would be a lot less need for random group member targeting, which doesn't make much sense over specific group member targeting like "healer aggro", because every ability had a taunt magnitude that would cause a boss to switch targets to "the greatest threat" or "the smartest target choice".

Guess which game was this smart? City of Heroes which launched on April 27th 2004 with all these mechanics. The same year as World of Warcraft and months ahead of it. 14 YEARS AND 8 MONTHS BEFORE TODAY!
This was also the game with the first example of and most powerful character customization to come for years, which no game has yet really topped. It even had ability color customization that they managed to update in after launch with hardly any bugs. Somehow things worked better even if it was still, like any MMO, a "cartoon tire patched so much that it was a lumpy rough ride" with many of the bugs. They even had less budget and fewer developers and did everything on a much shorter timescale than ESO has. They were just better.

It is very very sad and disappointing to me that the developers of today have nowhere near half the talent and creativity that the developers of City of Heroes had well over 14 years ago. I don't even know how anybody could explain that because games these days have technology that is 512 times more powerful(according to Moore's Law of processing power doubling every 18 months exponentially).
Has all this been wasted on just visual upgrades that have actually taken away from gameplay?

Why do I even bother? The developers of this game aren't willing to even try to make such a major change, probably won't even read this and likely aren't talented/smart enough to make it happen even with the benefit of hindsight and the example code necessary already being out there so that they can more easily make a similar system.
We would all be thrilled and overjoyed if they could prove me wrong.

Wow, No, absolutely frigging not.
Why change/make a new class, NOBODY used Frost Staves before this change, now tanks do

Every taunt is the same, doesn’t matter which one I use I’ll pull agro instantly - until taunt immunity (3 taunts in 15 seconds by 2 different people. Then nobody will pull taunt no matter which skill is used.

1) Read it again, if you did the first time at all.
I never, NEVER, suggested adding another class. I just was saying what another game did(City of Heroes) that was only a different class because they had passives that made the same exact skills as other classes(Brutes and Tankers and Scrappers all got Super Strength and Invulnerability), that did melee dps at higher levels due to passives adjusting their strength as well, into more tank-centric strength. DPS had passive 25% more damage while tanks had passive 25% more deenses, for example as an approximate inexact number, applied to the base 100% damage and defense all classes got.

2) Taunt in this game is stupidly binary. That's why "anybody taunting in 15 seconds 3 times makes the boss go wild".
That's dumb amateur coding especially since they forced more common heavy attacking to restore resources so that you can actually use your skills more than a rotation or two every 30 seconds. It's "heavy attack or die".

3) Players have always used frost staff if they liked slowing/immobilizing the enemy or just the frost graphics. Your very first post proves some people use it for dps otherwise this thread wouldn't exist.
I, for one, like frost staff for that, but I don't use it for the same reason I don't use flame staff. I am not as good at making sure the heavy attack hits my intended target instead of the enemy right next to them, if it even fires when a simple knockback can interrupt it.
I manage to tank just fine using a restoration staff, which actually should have been what they added the taunt passive to since it buffs healing and heals on heavy attack completion from a passive which benefits a tank more than a dps oriented staff and passive do.

4) There are so few tanks because tanks kill stuff slowly and that doesn't feel good in solo or small group play. Tanks also run out of resources faster than dps builds because they sacrifice recovery of magicka/stamina for recovery of health. They also assume it relies on a healer in group play like other games, which it does for the most part. Tanking is boring and an already established role that is colored by previous game designs.

5) ESO tanking is worse than tanking in other games for the simple fact that every enemy can become taunt immune here in ESO while other games reserve that for special mechanics ONLY. Why should a boss be immune to all taunts if 3 taunts are used within 15 seconds? That means if you use a taunt with a 1 second cast time every second for 3 seconds then you have a wild rampaging boss for 12 seconds, 80% of the time. That means if you use a taunt and there are 2 frost staff users heavy attacking to restore resources in the group at the same time then essentially the boss will be wild for 14 seconds out of 15, 93% of the time. You can pretty much forget about taunting and replace the tank with a heal/dps hybrid then.
In fact, if the boss is taunt immune enough, or has random target abilities often, then why do we need a tank at all? They can't hold the boss attention and there are so many high damaging AoEs that it would be best to just let a boss run wild between far spread out dps, as they likely will anyway, and spread out the damage so that everybody can just bring shields and self-healing to more easily survive anyway.

My point was there are better options for making taunt work and whatever weapon they want viable for tanking if they would just get more creative and stop developing like assembly line robots.

You, @Maura_Neysa , should have paid more attention to the post your quoted and avoided a "knee-jerk" reflex action. I actually agree with you that frost staff heavy attack taunting doesn't work right, but it will never work right with the game as it is.
Why does a frost staff heavy attack taunt at all when 1hand and shield doesn't? It requires a skill choice and use for 1hand and shield. It seems they just wanted a quick fix that wouldn't involve adding another active skill to the destruction staff tree so that it wouldn't break the pattern of number of active skills and would fix the issue of magicka weapon builds needing to run dungeons for undaunted rank to unlock a taunt.
Stupid developer lazy fix of a big earlier mistake in design all because they were unwilling to rework the design enough to make it right.

Well this explains a lot. You simply have no knowledge base for tanking. At least in ESO
- I can taunt as many times in a row as I want, personally I choose every 10seconds because that fits with 2 other skills, and gives me a buffer for a stun or something delaying my taunt.
- Taunt immunity only EVER applies when two different people taunt 3 times in 15 seconds

Well then why do I lose aggro if I taunt 3 times in 15 seconds?
It's not too hard to test if you don't believe me, but I have seen it happen. I duo pledges on normal mode often with a friend who is straight dps with a fire staff. I run Inner Fire and sometimes I can't tell if it fired or not the first or second time so I end up accidentally using it 3 times in 15 seconds and the boss turns around and chases my friend down.
I don't think it matters who is doing the taunting.

Also even if it did matter if it was 2 separate people taunting only, that still makes frost staff taunting on a dps character a big problem, just because they took tri-focus for their back bar flame/lightning staff or because of other buffs or other gear for soloing and don't want to respec expensive every time they want to group or solo or maybe because it has become a base ability of the frost staff due to a bug.

Why the hell was a frost staff pigeon-holed into taunting and tanking? Why the hell wasn't it just made a skill you can pick and use when you want to like "Pierce Armor"?

I don't really care how tanking works in ESO beyond what I need to group and win, but it just sucks compared to every other game I have played with smarter AI and better designed mechanics. And, it suffers here in ESO for the same reason that people complain about stuns and other controls and control immunity being applied from non-control abilities like templar's Eclipse that doesn't stop a player yet makes them immune to stuns.
Maybe you do know tanking better here, but you don't seem to have ever played another game with tanking gameplay as an option. Almost every other game does it better.

Mystrius_Archaion · December 2017

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

- Resto can’t hold a candle to Frost or 1H/S. 30% Block cost reduction and 20% Damage mitigation. % Damage Reduction I’ll be strong until you get to minuscule amounts of damage. There’s a reason why when the mechanic comes only the tanks make it. Even the Mag Sorcs with 20k health and 20k shields will die while the tank with 40k doesn’t.
- Sure you can get around the world without a tank. But you’re getting past the Warrior, Mage, Serpent, Rakat, shall I go on? Without a tank even on normal.
- Most mobs I don’t even need to bother to taunt to control, just CC them. 1 cost for 6 enmities instead of 1 for 1

1) You can't even CC a troll. The CC argument does not support your point since you wouldn't even taunt anything but an elite/boss anyway which are CC immune.

2) Of course a magsorc with 20k health and 20k shield would die before a 40k health tank because the 20k shield has no resistances. You would need a 40k shield to be even close to the same value.
That's why I don't rely on shields and instead tank using self healing and high resistances. I turn most damage into small enough numbers and use block for the big hits.

3) Frost Staff does not increase passive damage resistance. It just increases amount of damage you can block by 20%.
Block reduces damage taken by half(50%) by default(unsure if this is affected by mitigation cap) which means 20% more than that would be 60% reduction to damage in best case calculations. That's not a super huge amount compared to normal block, even if it was 70% if it added to it directly. Also some attacks go through block like ground effects. It does make block cheaper which is great, but that's more of a necessity considering it costs magicka to block with a frost staff.

FYI, blocking stops resource recovery of the resource it uses. So if you block with a frost staff then you lose magicka recovery so no more skill to activate.
It's better to use stamina for blocking and keep magicka for active skills so you can heal/survive after that.

I'll continue using a restoration staff, especially since the heavy attack encouraging changes, due to extra magicka regen from heavy attacks(30% additional magicka from heavy attacks), major mending on completed heavy attack for 3 seconds(25% more healing done), healing to myself or lower health ally nearby for a heavy attack based on final damage tic(30% of the final damage returned as heal) and an additional 15% healing when I'm under 30% health. All of that stacks a little also making my self heals from heavy attacks stronger when I'm low health and giving me more magicka to survive.
This is especially good for a nightblade tank using Swallow Soul(heal every 2 seconds for 10 seconds based on 25% of damage done, passive minor vitality for 8% healing recieved) and Refreshing Path(easy 1000 health per second) and Siphoning Attacks(healing for 1500 per light/heavy attack) and Sap Essence(easily heals for 1000 plus 20% per enemy hit in a large AoE for me and allies).

All the healing done and received buffs increase all those numbers. I get some pretty great levels of survivability in heavy armor that dwarfs what my templar can even do, which I could solo most world bosses with the templar. The nightblade just does everything easier than my templar. I even tanked Ruins of Mazzatun first time I ever tried it without knowing the mechanics and seemingly beating the Mighty Chudan the hard way by not lining up the charge with the shielded guy and the behemoth boss not figuring out we had to wash the green stuff away for a very long fight that could have been much quicker.
Hell, I even resurrect my friend when he dies while still being focused by the boss and adds thanks to the HoTs of my nightblade.
(Edit: I even had to solo the Ash Titan in City of Ash 2 because my friend died early on. I couldn't just stand there but with the Dark Shades and Siphoning Attacks and Swallow Soul and a little Refreshing Path which was hard to stay in because I was circle strafing, I did it first try.)

Self-healing and restoration staff is a very viable tanking setup in this game.

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

Okay little eye opener on perspective here.
You Maz, and Solo Ash Titan
Me Dreadhorn Shaman skin and soloing Yokeda Kai in vet HRC

Here’s a little goofing off in vSO. You want to take about how to get here we can. And maybe I’ll come ask you if I ever decide to make a NB tank

https://youtu.be/So3A13kSefQ

Mystrius_Archaion · December 2017

You talk about perspective? Ok. You are better.

But...
I'm not very well geared. I've mostly just been using crap drops and completely indecisive about which sets I want to use. I've even avoided veteran content entirely because of that. I haven't ever given it a try to see how I would do.
I have soloed Shada's Tear and all of the Skyreach dungeons and Rahni'za in Craglorn on my templar, before I ever played a nightblade. I was using Whitestrake's Retribution, with prismatic enchants and gold quality including nirnhoned hardening enchant staff, and Bahraha's Curse for the other set with max magicka enchants. I don't even have any monster helm set or maelstrom weapon yet.
Sure, this was after the changes to Craglorn to make the main story soloable, but I was pretty surprised and proud of what I did on a balanced hybrid build. I especially like the Aetherion fight where I managed to burn the core down before he could reform the first time, but that fight was just cool how it looked.

I'm still not well geared since I'm using the same stuff, but the nightblade easily does the same things my templar could, only much easier.
Maybe someday I'll be as good as you, but I don't think a frost staff or sword and shield tanking is going to make that happen. I have my own style that has served me well in many games over more than 20 years of gaming I have done and 15+ years of MMO gaming. It seems in every game that the best way to survive solo is to have some self healing on top of lots of defenses. The best defenses will only get you so far with caps and no way to heal baked into those defenses.
I wish you could have played City of Heroes and seen what even better players than me could do. It was normal to pull a whole instance(dungeon) of enemies into one big pile and solo smash them all to pieces at the same time with the biggest flashiest effects, never holding block because that didn't exist. The only way to survive was to out-heal the damage and burn the enemy down.

Oh, I almost forgot.
I learned to never rely on very short term buffs or consumables, like potions, in games. My solo Shada's Tear and all craglorn and solo Ash Titan runs were with one skill bar, no back bar, and no potions. I actually even forgot to use food, which my friend laughed at me for after Ash Titan.
I just don't have a very easy time controlling the game, even using a gamepad to be easier on my hands, so I have trouble switching bars in combat and using potions when needed. If I could, I would be a LOT better than I am, but I'm just happy being "good enough" at what I want to do with my current physical capabilities. I just can't use a keyboard well enough to play like I used to in City of Heroes where I was regularly soloing Giant Monsters(stronger than World Bosses here) and participating in the toughest endgame content.

And yes, frost staff has been behaving weird lately.
I wish dps would never use it, but that's their choice. I would like to use it for dps myself if it didn't have other problems for me. It's really odd that the developers would make a 3 taunt per 15 second limit for aggro loss, when 2 or more are taunting or not, when we can't control other players. It is just guaranteed to happen far too often. Short-sighted design seems far too common here. They need a psychologist on the payroll to help design around player behavior.

VaranisArano · December 2017

If it looks like you are losing aggro, keep in mind that nearly every boss has a mechanic that they'll turn away from the tank and fire at another party member. I call it bosses that have a short attention span. If you have taunt, the boss should fire off the ability and then turn right back to you.

Examples:
Swarm Mother in Spindleclutch I and Kwama Worker in Darkshade Caverns I will leap onto the party member who is furthest away, then come back to the tank.
High Kinlord Rilis, Nerien'eth, and plenty of others will fire a projectile at a random party member, then turn back to the tank.
Untauntable bosses, like Drodda of Direfost Keep, Grobull in Darkshade Caverns II, Planar Inhibitor (pinion has the aggro) will do their own thing.

VaranisArano · December 2017

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

And yes, frost staff has been behaving weird lately.
I wish dps would never use it, but that's their choice. I would like to use it for dps myself if it didn't have other problems for me. It's really odd that the developers would make a 3 taunt per 15 second limit for aggro loss, when 2 or more are taunting or not, when we can't control other players. It is just guaranteed to happen far too often. Short-sighted design seems far too common here. They need a psychologist on the payroll to help design around player behavior.

The taunt limit is basically to prevent groups from cheesing content by having two tanks taunt the boss between them so that it bugs out the boss mechanics by forcing the boss to switch aggro constantly.

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

VaranisArano wrote: »

If it looks like you are losing aggro, keep in mind that nearly every boss has a mechanic that they'll turn away from the tank and fire at another party member. I call it bosses that have a short attention span. If you have taunt, the boss should fire off the ability and then turn right back to you.

Examples:
Swarm Mother in Spindleclutch I and Kwama Worker in Darkshade Caverns I will leap onto the party member who is furthest away, then come back to the tank.
High Kinlord Rilis, Nerien'eth, and plenty of others will fire a projectile at a random party member, then turn back to the tank.
Untauntable bosses, like Drodda of Direfost Keep, Grobull in Darkshade Caverns II, Planar Inhibitor (pinion has the aggro) will do their own thing.

Khephidaen the Spiderkith Has absolutely nothing like that except here teleport. Watch the video
By the way, the only one on that list that’s un tauntable is Planar Inhibitor (Engine Gaurdian). Drodda and Grobull both follow taunt just with mechanics that don’t. Just like Xal Nur charging someone randomly, then coming back to the taunt.

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

You talk about perspective? Ok. You are better.

But...
I'm not very well geared. I've mostly just been using crap drops and completely indecisive about which sets I want to use. I've even avoided veteran content entirely because of that. I haven't ever given it a try to see how I would do.
I have soloed Shada's Tear and all of the Skyreach dungeons and Rahni'za in Craglorn on my templar, before I ever played a nightblade. I was using Whitestrake's Retribution, with prismatic enchants and gold quality including nirnhoned hardening enchant staff, and Bahraha's Curse for the other set with max magicka enchants. I don't even have any monster helm set or maelstrom weapon yet.
Sure, this was after the changes to Craglorn to make the main story soloable, but I was pretty surprised and proud of what I did on a balanced hybrid build. I especially like the Aetherion fight where I managed to burn the core down before he could reform the first time, but that fight was just cool how it looked.

I'm still not well geared since I'm using the same stuff, but the nightblade easily does the same things my templar could, only much easier.
Maybe someday I'll be as good as you, but I don't think a frost staff or sword and shield tanking is going to make that happen. I have my own style that has served me well in many games over more than 20 years of gaming I have done and 15+ years of MMO gaming. It seems in every game that the best way to survive solo is to have some self healing on top of lots of defenses. The best defenses will only get you so far with caps and no way to heal baked into those defenses.
I wish you could have played City of Heroes and seen what even better players than me could do. It was normal to pull a whole instance(dungeon) of enemies into one big pile and solo smash them all to pieces at the same time with the biggest flashiest effects, never holding block because that didn't exist. The only way to survive was to out-heal the damage and burn the enemy down.

Oh, I almost forgot.
I learned to never rely on very short term buffs or consumables, like potions, in games. My solo Shada's Tear and all craglorn and solo Ash Titan runs were with one skill bar, no back bar, and no potions. I actually even forgot to use food, which my friend laughed at me for after Ash Titan.
I just don't have a very easy time controlling the game, even using a gamepad to be easier on my hands, so I have trouble switching bars in combat and using potions when needed. If I could, I would be a LOT better than I am, but I'm just happy being "good enough" at what I want to do with my current physical capabilities. I just can't use a keyboard well enough to play like I used to in City of Heroes where I was regularly soloing Giant Monsters(stronger than World Bosses here) and participating in the toughest endgame content.

And yes, frost staff has been behaving weird lately.
I wish dps would never use it, but that's their choice. I would like to use it for dps myself if it didn't have other problems for me. It's really odd that the developers would make a 3 taunt per 15 second limit for aggro loss, when 2 or more are taunting or not, when we can't control other players. It is just guaranteed to happen far too often. Short-sighted design seems far too common here. They need a psychologist on the payroll to help design around player behavior.

I’m not talking about better, I’m talking about a whole mother level. The Warrior - HRC, the Amalgamation - Bloodroot for example both have Heavy Attacks that even with capped resistance, 40 CP in every red tree damage reduction, and blocking still it for 20k. The Warrior does it 4 times in a row, and there are up to three Amalgimation HA all at the same time. If you never do that content than there’s no need to gear for it, but that’s the content that I gear for and the kind you have to have a full tank for

Tasear · December 2017

You are not keeping taunt active if that happens and they don't have passive. It's working fine here.

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

Tasear wrote: »

You are not keeping taunt active if that happens and they don't have passive. It's working fine here.

@Tasear Why did you waste your time commenting? Watch the videos;
- I taunted half a second before the ice heavy landed and pulled. You can hear the Pierce Armor land. And you can see the Buff timer taunt, and how much time was left.
- THEN on the WB I taunted with my Ice Staff, and I DONT have the passive which you can see in the Cradle video.

I was in chat with the other Ice Staff user, I already grilled him about that, and WE were doing Skin runs, so the skill level was clear high.

How about you go test it yourself. It’s not every HA but it only takes 1.

Apache_Kid · December 2017

Tasear wrote: »

You are not keeping taunt active if that happens and they don't have passive. It's working fine here.

You didn't even watch the video

Edit: only explanation I can determine from the video is the other ice staff guy lied to OP or there was a bug occurring.

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

You are not keeping taunt active if that happens and they don't have passive. It's working fine here.

You didn't even watch the video

Edit: only explanation I can determine from the video is the other ice staff guy lied to OP or there was a bug occurring.

That’s what I believed too, that he had taken the passive. But then we went to WB taunted him, waited 15 seconds without doing anything, then another 7 seconds more that it took for the WB to agro the the NB with a Fire Staff because WB agro to the highest DPS without a taunt. Then with 1 HA from me, without the Tri Focus passive, the WB insta agro’d to me again. You can then see I try it again later but he doesn’t agro, aka it’s bugged

Mystrius_Archaion · December 2017

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

You talk about perspective? Ok. You are better.

But...
I'm not very well geared. I've mostly just been using crap drops and completely indecisive about which sets I want to use. I've even avoided veteran content entirely because of that. I haven't ever given it a try to see how I would do.
I have soloed Shada's Tear and all of the Skyreach dungeons and Rahni'za in Craglorn on my templar, before I ever played a nightblade. I was using Whitestrake's Retribution, with prismatic enchants and gold quality including nirnhoned hardening enchant staff, and Bahraha's Curse for the other set with max magicka enchants. I don't even have any monster helm set or maelstrom weapon yet.
Sure, this was after the changes to Craglorn to make the main story soloable, but I was pretty surprised and proud of what I did on a balanced hybrid build. I especially like the Aetherion fight where I managed to burn the core down before he could reform the first time, but that fight was just cool how it looked.

I'm still not well geared since I'm using the same stuff, but the nightblade easily does the same things my templar could, only much easier.
Maybe someday I'll be as good as you, but I don't think a frost staff or sword and shield tanking is going to make that happen. I have my own style that has served me well in many games over more than 20 years of gaming I have done and 15+ years of MMO gaming. It seems in every game that the best way to survive solo is to have some self healing on top of lots of defenses. The best defenses will only get you so far with caps and no way to heal baked into those defenses.
I wish you could have played City of Heroes and seen what even better players than me could do. It was normal to pull a whole instance(dungeon) of enemies into one big pile and solo smash them all to pieces at the same time with the biggest flashiest effects, never holding block because that didn't exist. The only way to survive was to out-heal the damage and burn the enemy down.

Oh, I almost forgot.
I learned to never rely on very short term buffs or consumables, like potions, in games. My solo Shada's Tear and all craglorn and solo Ash Titan runs were with one skill bar, no back bar, and no potions. I actually even forgot to use food, which my friend laughed at me for after Ash Titan.
I just don't have a very easy time controlling the game, even using a gamepad to be easier on my hands, so I have trouble switching bars in combat and using potions when needed. If I could, I would be a LOT better than I am, but I'm just happy being "good enough" at what I want to do with my current physical capabilities. I just can't use a keyboard well enough to play like I used to in City of Heroes where I was regularly soloing Giant Monsters(stronger than World Bosses here) and participating in the toughest endgame content.

And yes, frost staff has been behaving weird lately.
I wish dps would never use it, but that's their choice. I would like to use it for dps myself if it didn't have other problems for me. It's really odd that the developers would make a 3 taunt per 15 second limit for aggro loss, when 2 or more are taunting or not, when we can't control other players. It is just guaranteed to happen far too often. Short-sighted design seems far too common here. They need a psychologist on the payroll to help design around player behavior.

I’m not talking about better, I’m talking about a whole mother level. The Warrior - HRC, the Amalgamation - Bloodroot for example both have Heavy Attacks that even with capped resistance, 40 CP in every red tree damage reduction, and blocking still it for 20k. The Warrior does it 4 times in a row, and there are up to three Amalgimation HA all at the same time. If you never do that content than there’s no need to gear for it, but that’s the content that I gear for and the kind you have to have a full tank for

Now you're just getting full of yourself.
What do you mean by "full tank" even? Do you mean a character that no recovery and no magicka or stamina for skills or blocking, just all into max health and health recovery(on jewelry) and can't do anything, even solo, without a healer and a dps with them? That's not a build that can solo anything without likely cheating or only against very very specific enemies. And if there are very specific enemies that encourage builds like that then that is bad design that should be corrected to allow all tanks to be useful.

One-shot mechanics like you seem to be mentioning for the warrior are a cheap lazy developer tactic to encourage having specific group composition but they fail miserably at it. They just aggravate and frustrate players. The worst are enarage mechanics if you don't do enough damage in a certain amount of time. Suddenly, the boss gets stronger after a long fight when it really should be weaker if it also had to worry about resources. Damn cheating NPCs!

Mystrius_Archaion · December 2017

VaranisArano wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

And yes, frost staff has been behaving weird lately.
I wish dps would never use it, but that's their choice. I would like to use it for dps myself if it didn't have other problems for me. It's really odd that the developers would make a 3 taunt per 15 second limit for aggro loss, when 2 or more are taunting or not, when we can't control other players. It is just guaranteed to happen far too often. Short-sighted design seems far too common here. They need a psychologist on the payroll to help design around player behavior.

The taunt limit is basically to prevent groups from cheesing content by having two tanks taunt the boss between them so that it bugs out the boss mechanics by forcing the boss to switch aggro constantly.

So, instead they force the boss to bug out anyway by having it automatically switch aggro for special attacks and, if nobody takes a taunt, just have the "dps-threat" make the boss ping-pong between targets?
The frost staff just taunts automatically also, guaranteeing that boss ping-pong aggro because they have to heavy attack for resources at some point and it's a guaranteed overwrite of all previous taunts.

It sure seems like they don't want anybody to tank or even take taunt by making taunt completely unreliable.

It's just stupid to have any taunt overwrite a specifically built tank's taunt. Other games gave tanks the ability to make their taunts "worth more" with magnitude numbers so that they could hold aggro by building to be a tank and hold aggro.
This is just a problem with all skills in this game. Everything seems to overwrite anything with a similar effect, especially if it is the same named skill. Even a similar named quest overwrites another similar named quest as we have seen with Razgurug's "Bitter Pill" quest and "Sela's Bitter Pill" quest from Deshaan where Razgurug's daily never shows again after the first time.
Amateur developers.

VaranisArano · December 2017

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

So, instead they force the boss to bug out anyway by having it automatically switch aggro for special attacks and, if nobody takes a taunt, just have the "dps-threat" make the boss ping-pong between targets?
The frost staff just taunts automatically also, guaranteeing that boss ping-pong aggro because they have to heavy attack for resources at some point and it's a guaranteed overwrite of all previous taunts.

The boss switching aggro for mechanics is not a bug, its a feature. This means that boss fights aren't interesting for only the tank but that the DPS and Healers also have to pay attention and be light on their feet. And Yes, if no one does a taunt, the boss does ping-pong between targets, it is annoying AF, and my top reason I hate dealing with "fake tank" DPS who refuse to slot a taunt because "its just a normal dungeon." But that's another discussion...

Anyway. I understand that you are apparently having a problem with ice staff heavy attacks vs pierce armor. That's something distinct from the normal game mechanics. Honestly, I haven't seen that problem (I don't run with enough ice staff users?) and I find using Pierce Armor to be pretty reliable. As long as only one person is taunting, taunt is very reliable. If more than one person is taunting or no one is taunting, boss aggro gets very interesting (the most recent taunt applies, but more than one taunt from a different person in a short period of time grants a short period of taunt immunity) . Your problem seems to be that the ice staff heavy attack is being counted as a taunt incorrectly when the passive is not selected, which is a problem with the game recognizing when to apply a taunt, not a problem with taunts in general.

Edited for formatting fails.

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

VaranisArano wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

So, instead they force the boss to bug out anyway by having it automatically switch aggro for special attacks and, if nobody takes a taunt, just have the "dps-threat" make the boss ping-pong between targets?
The frost staff just taunts automatically also, guaranteeing that boss ping-pong aggro because they have to heavy attack for resources at some point and it's a guaranteed overwrite of all previous taunts.

The boss switching aggro for mechanics is not a bug, its a feature. This means that boss fights aren't interesting for only the tank but that the DPS and Healers also have to pay attention and be light on their feet. And Yes, if no one does a taunt, the boss does ping-pong between targets, it is annoying AF, and my top reason I hate dealing with "fake tank" DPS who refuse to slot a taunt because "its just a normal dungeon." But that's another discussion...

Anyway. I understand that you are apparently having a problem with ice staff heavy attacks vs pierce armor. That's something distinct from the normal game mechanics. Honestly, I haven't seen that problem (I don't run with enough ice staff users?) and I find using Pierce Armor to be pretty reliable. As long as only one person is taunting, taunt is very reliable. If more than one person is taunting or no one is taunting, boss aggro gets very interesting (the most recent taunt applies, but more than one taunt from a different person in a short period of time grants a short period of taunt immunity) . Your problem seems to be that the ice staff heavy attack is being counted as a taunt incorrectly when the passive is not selected, which is a problem with the game recognizing when to apply a taunt, not a problem with taunts in general.

Edited for formatting fails.

@VaranisArano Watch the video, it has nothing to do with which taunt. That rule is always the same. Whoever taunted last unless taunt immunity is trigger. No taunt is stronger than another.
My point is, the Frost staff taunt comes with the Tri Focus passive. No Passive , no taunt... 90% of the time. But occasionally, as seen in the video, it does taunt when it shouldn't. I've been running this build since Morrowind. On the few times, in trails with two tanks, that I've mistakenly ended up with agro, l thought I just fat fingered a button. I'm a tank, thats a lot of HA to fill up the time when my DoTs are down and the only enimey around is the boss, which the other tank has taunted

@Mystrius_Archaion this post isn't about whats a good or bad or the right way of tanking. Its about something not working the way its advertised. So, unless you have some hidden knowledge about Frost Staves, the go frigging away. You are not adding substance to the conversation.

VaranisArano · December 2017

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

@VaranisArano Watch the video, it has nothing to do with which taunt. That rule is always the same. Whoever taunted last unless taunt immunity is trigger. No taunt is stronger than another.
My point is, the Frost staff taunt comes with the Tri Focus passive. No Passive , no taunt... 90% of the time. But occasionally, as seen in the video, it does taunt when it shouldn't. I've been running this build since Morrowind. On the few times, in trails with two tanks, that I've mistakenly ended up with agro, l thought I just fat fingered a button. I'm a tank, thats a lot of HA to fill up the time when my DoTs are down and the only enimey around is the boss, which the other tank has taunted

To re-quote myself:
"Anyway. I understand that you are apparently having a problem with ice staff heavy attacks vs pierce armor. That's something distinct from the normal game mechanics. Honestly, I haven't seen that problem (I don't run with enough ice staff users?) and I find using Pierce Armor to be pretty reliable. As long as only one person is taunting, taunt is very reliable. If more than one person is taunting or no one is taunting, boss aggro gets very interesting (the most recent taunt applies, but more than one taunt from a different person in a short period of time grants a short period of taunt immunity) . Your problem seems to be that the ice staff heavy attack is being counted as a taunt incorrectly when the passive is not selected, which is a problem with the game recognizing when to apply a taunt, not a problem with taunts in general."

I understand your problem. I disagree with your comments about the reliability of taunting in general. I agree that the ice staff heavy attack should only taunt when the passive is selected and that ZOS needs to fix it if it is taunting without the passives.

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

VaranisArano wrote: »

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

@VaranisArano Watch the video, it has nothing to do with which taunt. That rule is always the same. Whoever taunted last unless taunt immunity is trigger. No taunt is stronger than another.
My point is, the Frost staff taunt comes with the Tri Focus passive. No Passive , no taunt... 90% of the time. But occasionally, as seen in the video, it does taunt when it shouldn't. I've been running this build since Morrowind. On the few times, in trails with two tanks, that I've mistakenly ended up with agro, l thought I just fat fingered a button. I'm a tank, thats a lot of HA to fill up the time when my DoTs are down and the only enimey around is the boss, which the other tank has taunted

To re-quote myself:
"Anyway. I understand that you are apparently having a problem with ice staff heavy attacks vs pierce armor. That's something distinct from the normal game mechanics. Honestly, I haven't seen that problem (I don't run with enough ice staff users?) and I find using Pierce Armor to be pretty reliable. As long as only one person is taunting, taunt is very reliable. If more than one person is taunting or no one is taunting, boss aggro gets very interesting (the most recent taunt applies, but more than one taunt from a different person in a short period of time grants a short period of taunt immunity) . Your problem seems to be that the ice staff heavy attack is being counted as a taunt incorrectly when the passive is not selected, which is a problem with the game recognizing when to apply a taunt, not a problem with taunts in general."

I understand your problem. I disagree with your comments about the reliability of taunting in general. I agree that the ice staff heavy attack should only taunt when the passive is selected and that ZOS needs to fix it if it is taunting without the passives.

I have said abslutely nothing about taunts being buggy in general. Even when the Ice Staff taunts mistakenly, it behaves right, right down to triggering immunity if the conditions are met.
Yes I was baffled and confused in Cradle, so I went and tested it out. Low and behold everything made sense once we isolated it to the Frost Staff HA taunting when it shouldn't.

QuebraRegra · December 2017

was it two years ago we said that should be a toggle to taunt? Hey, but screw the community, what do they know? They only play the game.

Maura_Neysa · December 2017

QuebraRegra wrote: »

was it two years ago we said that should be a toggle to taunt? Hey, but screw the community, what do they know? They only play the game.

Wasn't around two years ago. Were they talking about an Ice Staff taunt that long ago? or do you mean taunts in general?