ZoS needs to be clear with Ice Staves. Tank or Damage?

idk

OP has a good point. However, vMA, vDSA and vAS S&B weapons are not really all that great. Yes, some niche build ideas probably exist but nothing really special, especially since the now require 2 pieces.

Retrofitting the ice staff to a tanking weapon was a mistake since it cannot truly do well because of constraints of it being part of a damage weapon line. Unless Zos separates it or does a complete redesign in a different weapon line ice staff tanking will remain very inferior to S&B.

Lynx7386

The problem here is everyone thinking that for something to be useful it has to be the best. That toxic mindset has trickled down from top level content pushers to every other part of the game. If it isn't good for endgame hardmode veteran trials, it shouldn't be used in normal dungeons either, right? /sarcasm

The fact is there are a lot of different areas people can focus on in this game, and every item doesn't have to be top dog for each and every one of them. Overland pve, leveling, normal dungeons, vet dungeons, vet hm dungeons, normal trials, vet trials, cyrodiil PvP, cyrodiil pvevp, battlegrounds, maelstrom arena and other solo endgame activities, the list goes on. Fact is that ice staves are perfectly acceptable as a mainhand tanking weapon for all but a couple of those, and still acceptable as a back bar weapon for even trials.

There is only one change I think needs to be made to make ice staves more viable as a front bar weapon for tanks, and that's making them count as two set items - but honestly that change should apply to other staves, bows, and 2h melee weapons as well, because not being able to run a 552 setup is far too limiting right now.

Yamenstein

Sinolai wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

They are tank weapons, the passives are all tank. The chilled status seffect is a tank debuff. You block with magic. Not sure how much more clear they need to be.

Master's Ice staff: (1 item) Reduces the cost of Destructive Touch by 30% and increases the direct damage it deals by 2000.

Maelstorm Ice staff: (1 Item) Your light and heavy attacks deal an additional 1341 to enemies in your Wall of Elements

Asylum perfect Ice staff: (1 Item) Every second cast of Force Shock will always apply the Burning, Concussion, and Chilled status effects. The Force Shock casts must be made within 10 seconds of each other for this effect to occur.

Does these sound like all tank passives? How many tanks are going to spam force pulses or Destructive touches? Most end game tanks prefer lightning staff becouse of off-blanace and they already give maims with low slash. Magicka is also better spent buffing than blocking.

I can see some value to these in PvP but they are still in a very odd place. I tried to use my perfect AS Ice staff in PvP but atleast I found undodgeable lightning staff and fire staff with more damage (especially on those vamps that run everywhere) to be more effective.

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I think it's pretty clear already: They're an offensive weapon with defensive applications that is not intended to compete with lightning or fire staves for raw damage.

The fact is that nobody used ice staves for dps prior to them being changed. Fire gave far better single target damage, lightning gave far better area damage. At the same time, tanks were begging ZOS for a way to use magicka as a primary tanking resource instead of stamina to facilitate magicka tanking builds. ZOS said "hey look, we've got a whole weapon type nobody is using because it's crap, why dont we give that to the tanks?". It wasnt until after the change that all of you whiners crawled out of the woodwork complaining that your ice mage dps builds (which were ENTIRELY nonexistent before) were being ruined by heavy attack taunting.

I am not whining. I am trying to be consturctive. I was one of the players excited to test magicka tanks but the implementation is poor. My MagSorc tanks much better with 1h+shield. I know ice staves were used only by roleplayers and "control builds" that always lost to pure dps. But atleast it didnt do any harm. Now roleplayers are still using it without knowing their heavy attack will cause every boss in dungeon to target them, resulting them kiting the boss around the room or an unnecessary death due to boss turning around and doing a sweep.

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Here's the bottom line: if you want to play an ice dps, play an ice dps, just dont put points into the tri-focus passive. Expect everyone to yell at you for using a weapon you shouldnt be, and expect to be entirely less effective than you would if you used a fire or lightning stave. That's a lot to sacrafice just so you can have pretty blue bolts instead of orange bolts.

I dont want to play DPS with ice staff. I want to be able to tank with it properly (well actually I could use it on my warden if it had an useful damage boosting effect. 8% increase to DoT damage?).

Edit: removed the damage bonus range on Staves. Nobody is interested what is the minium damage boost it gives at lvl 1.
Edit2: grammar and a couple of arguments

Just don't use those weapons. The passives for the destro skill lines basically confirms that the ice staff is for tanking. You can just go get other set pieces and use the ice staff to complete the set and get the bonuses from them. Saying that those items are made for DPS doesn't matter, because you're right they were but the game has so many sets! So many tanking sets! And you can easily complete a tanking set with the ice staff.

If DPS players can't read then it's not ZOSs fault.

If they want to use the ice staff as DPS then just take one less passive from that skill line and they can.

Sinolai

Yamenstein wrote: »

Sinolai wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

They are tank weapons, the passives are all tank. The chilled status seffect is a tank debuff. You block with magic. Not sure how much more clear they need to be.

Master's Ice staff: (1 item) Reduces the cost of Destructive Touch by 30% and increases the direct damage it deals by 2000.

Maelstorm Ice staff: (1 Item) Your light and heavy attacks deal an additional 1341 to enemies in your Wall of Elements

Asylum perfect Ice staff: (1 Item) Every second cast of Force Shock will always apply the Burning, Concussion, and Chilled status effects. The Force Shock casts must be made within 10 seconds of each other for this effect to occur.

Does these sound like all tank passives? How many tanks are going to spam force pulses or Destructive touches? Most end game tanks prefer lightning staff becouse of off-blanace and they already give maims with low slash. Magicka is also better spent buffing than blocking.

I can see some value to these in PvP but they are still in a very odd place. I tried to use my perfect AS Ice staff in PvP but atleast I found undodgeable lightning staff and fire staff with more damage (especially on those vamps that run everywhere) to be more effective.

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I think it's pretty clear already: They're an offensive weapon with defensive applications that is not intended to compete with lightning or fire staves for raw damage.

The fact is that nobody used ice staves for dps prior to them being changed. Fire gave far better single target damage, lightning gave far better area damage. At the same time, tanks were begging ZOS for a way to use magicka as a primary tanking resource instead of stamina to facilitate magicka tanking builds. ZOS said "hey look, we've got a whole weapon type nobody is using because it's crap, why dont we give that to the tanks?". It wasnt until after the change that all of you whiners crawled out of the woodwork complaining that your ice mage dps builds (which were ENTIRELY nonexistent before) were being ruined by heavy attack taunting.

I am not whining. I am trying to be consturctive. I was one of the players excited to test magicka tanks but the implementation is poor. My MagSorc tanks much better with 1h+shield. I know ice staves were used only by roleplayers and "control builds" that always lost to pure dps. But atleast it didnt do any harm. Now roleplayers are still using it without knowing their heavy attack will cause every boss in dungeon to target them, resulting them kiting the boss around the room or an unnecessary death due to boss turning around and doing a sweep.

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Here's the bottom line: if you want to play an ice dps, play an ice dps, just dont put points into the tri-focus passive. Expect everyone to yell at you for using a weapon you shouldnt be, and expect to be entirely less effective than you would if you used a fire or lightning stave. That's a lot to sacrafice just so you can have pretty blue bolts instead of orange bolts.

I dont want to play DPS with ice staff. I want to be able to tank with it properly (well actually I could use it on my warden if it had an useful damage boosting effect. 8% increase to DoT damage?).

Edit: removed the damage bonus range on Staves. Nobody is interested what is the minium damage boost it gives at lvl 1.
Edit2: grammar and a couple of arguments

Just don't use those weapons. The passives for the destro skill lines basically confirms that the ice staff is for tanking. You can just go get other set pieces and use the ice staff to complete the set and get the bonuses from them. Saying that those items are made for DPS doesn't matter, because you're right they were but the game has so many sets! So many tanking sets! And you can easily complete a tanking set with the ice staff.

If DPS players can't read then it's not ZOSs fault.

If they want to use the ice staff as DPS then just take one less passive from that skill line and they can.

Exactly. What is the point of a reward item that has no useful applications? Most people would like to feel rewarded when they finish weekly vDSA with a top score. Instead they are given a chance to win a rosin.

Sinolai

Lynx7386 wrote: »

The problem here is everyone thinking that for something to be useful it has to be the best. That toxic mindset has trickled down from top level content pushers to every other part of the game. If it isn't good for endgame hardmode veteran trials, it shouldn't be used in normal dungeons either, right? /sarcasm

The fact is there are a lot of different areas people can focus on in this game, and every item doesn't have to be top dog for each and every one of them. Overland pve, leveling, normal dungeons, vet dungeons, vet hm dungeons, normal trials, vet trials, cyrodiil PvP, cyrodiil pvevp, battlegrounds, maelstrom arena and other solo endgame activities, the list goes on. Fact is that ice staves are perfectly acceptable as a mainhand tanking weapon for all but a couple of those, and still acceptable as a back bar weapon for even trials.

There is only one change I think needs to be made to make ice staves more viable as a front bar weapon for tanks, and that's making them count as two set items - but honestly that change should apply to other staves, bows, and 2h melee weapons as well, because not being able to run a 552 setup is far too limiting right now.

I am not saying ice staff is bad tank weapon. I am saying the special designed 1 piece ice staves from vMA/vDSA/vAS/(Add any future content that drops 1 piece sets) are bad becouse they have been designed for a dd. Even when people run normal dungeons they dont run extra damage on ice tank. They either run full ice tank to have tanking experience or full dd for lots of extra damage and faster clearance. Since ice tank already loses 1 passive they want to run 5/4/2 or 5/5/1. There is no effective 1 piece ice staves for tank so the only option is to run 5/5/1 with 5 piece set weapons and 1 monseter piece, while benefits could be much higher with two 5 piece sets and a 1 piece staff (or 5/2/3/1).
Furthermore Ice damage sets like Ysgramor or Winterborn are also ineffective due to being dd sets that require ice damage to proc, which requires user to be a warden or wield an ice staff (that dds never use becouse of the taunt).

Lynx7386

The set issue could be resolved if zos would make a 2h weapons count as two items towards set bonuses. That's been needed for a long time but is always met with silence.

Ice damage sets may not be useful to tanks or dds in pve, but they're still an option for overworld, pvp, and solo events like MA. I repeat: pve endgame vet trials leaderboards are not the only aspect of this game, just like pvp is not the only aspect of this game. Every item or set doesn't have to be useful everywhere. Mect we might as well start complaining that its unfair for impenetrable gear or pvp specific hear like vanguard challenge or knightslayer to serve no use in trials.

Sinolai

Lynx7386 wrote: »

The set issue could be resolved if zos would make a 2h weapons count as two items towards set bonuses. That's been needed for a long time but is always met with silence.

Ice damage sets may not be useful to tanks or dds in pve, but they're still an option for overworld, pvp, and solo events like MA. I repeat: pve endgame vet trials leaderboards are not the only aspect of this game, just like pvp is not the only aspect of this game. Every item or set doesn't have to be useful everywhere. Mect we might as well start complaining that its unfair for impenetrable gear or pvp specific hear like vanguard challenge or knightslayer to serve no use in trials.

(Edit: Sorry, just noticed you were not talking about the staves but the sets instead. Yes, they are not BiS and have no useful applications for end game but I agree they are fitting for low level and overworld playing that doesnt require high damage and survivality. Their design also is not complete crap, some of the actually look quite interesting. These sets were just ruined by the ice staff changes or are otherwise outdated, like the Ice Furnace that gives weapon damage. I still leave my origian answer below)

People playing overworld have no need for vAS HM or vMaelstorm level items. Roleplaying can be done even with juliaons or Ysgramor items. Taunt is meaningless aspect for solo play (unless you run tremorscale and you would still do better without, apart from role play reasons) and any other type of passive would benefit solo play more.
In PvP you can make anything work with good tinkering so I am trying not to talk about pvp. PvP builds probably wont even notice if that destructive reach cost reduction and extra damage is swapped for Major Heroism or something and I am sure they will find lots of use for those staves after set bonus is chagned. vAS ice staff is really the only ice staff that has any noticeable benefit from the set effect, mainly in pvp though. It might be missed a little if it was changed but it is still on a wrong item. Most players doing vAS Hard Modes don't want a niche PvP weapon. They want useful PvE gear. Items like Perfected Ice Staff should drop from PvP content (Like Kinghtslayer that indeed doesnt have any use in PvE but it still has clear and effective design and players doing PvP will come across with this item while players who dont need it in PvE wont see it).