Ice Staff DPS: Drop the taunt and add a small, passive execute.

Savos_Saren

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Vines is there for sustain. Each time it heals you gain 500 magicka or stamina (whichever is lower). It also helps dps stay alive via minor lifesteal, and helps keep minor toughness from passives up.

The stamina return from bull netch alone isn't ebough to facilitate permablocking, and unlike dragon knights we can't just get a ton of resources back every time we pop an ultimate. I run a hybrid build with nearly 2k magicka recovery, so the cost of keeping vines active is minimal in comparison to the stamina return I get from it, especially on things like AA axes

Do you really need to run elemental blockade if you’re already running gripping shards? That’ll free up a slot for a Inner Fire that your party can synergize with (which would help return their resources).

The frost staff taunt doesn’t add major fracture or major breach... which you already get from your SnB taunt.

Lynx7386

Savos_Saren wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Vines is there for sustain. Each time it heals you gain 500 magicka or stamina (whichever is lower). It also helps dps stay alive via minor lifesteal, and helps keep minor toughness from passives up.

The stamina return from bull netch alone isn't ebough to facilitate permablocking, and unlike dragon knights we can't just get a ton of resources back every time we pop an ultimate. I run a hybrid build with nearly 2k magicka recovery, so the cost of keeping vines active is minimal in comparison to the stamina return I get from it, especially on things like AA axes

Do you really need to run elemental blockade if you’re already running gripping shards? That’ll free up a slot for a Inner Fire that your party can synergize with (which would help return their resources).

The frost staff taunt doesn’t add major fracture or major breach... which you already get from your SnB taunt.

Blockade is there for mainhand enchant (crusher) uptime. Shards only applies an initial 3 second root, while the continued damage from shards, arctic blast, and blockade all ensure that enemies stay chilled (and blockade re-roots enemies that are chilled each second it ticks).

With those 3 abilities going I can keep a mob rooted and debuffed far more efficiently than if I were to just keep spamming shards (or talons in the dk case). Without blockade your enchant uptime takes a dice. With blockade you can continue passively rooting enemies while on your front bar as well.

Ive been tanking on a warden for a long time. I've tried a ton of setups and this is the one that works best, so pardon if I get a little annoyed when some yankee dps come along wanting everything I use changed just so they can add blue to their arsenal of dps colors.

DocFrost72

Cost of block: 400 (less in full sturdy w/enchants, but we'll give botd)

Netch gives 160/s (again rounded down) in the aggregate making your cost 240.

A stamina potion restores 7k (rounded down) resources every 45 seconds, or roughly the equivalent of 155 stamina (rounded down) per second, if you need the whole potion when you consume it. This makes block cost 85 Stamina per second.

Receiving a shard or orb once every 30 seconds (ten seconds between cooldown and pop to and count for someone realizing, travel time etc) gives 3960 stam every 30 seconds, or in other words, 132 stam a second making your stamina loss -47 , or you would gain 47 stamina against one attacker attacking once every second.

Constitution gives 186 stamina (and it should be noted magicka) per heavy armor piece every 4 seconds. With a minimum of 5 pieces (unless you're in DSA and decide to run PA/Alkosh, in which case 1-2...but there's no need to permablock there barring hiath, and that is a lot shorter of a fight) you then have 930 stamina every 4 seconds, or 230 (rounded down) stamina back in that time, for a new grand total of -267 stamina per second drain.

This is being literally any race but argonian, this is without back bar stam return enchant, this is without summerset's infused (and yes not even the broken version) block cost reduction on infused.

Even if you were getting hit twice per second, your stamina drain is going to read 133 stamina per second, or about 150 seconds of continuous block (rounded down) on a 20k stamina pool (low).

Of course if at any time you bar swap to the frost staff, which by the way is a fantastic tanking weapon, your stamina is not only not going down, it is still going up and now you may add your regen. Oh, and anytime you pop trees you're getting that lovely 500 stam/s, for ten seconds. Unless no one took damage in which case why were you blocking?

The illusion that permablock is a dk thing is one I shattered first on my sorc.

Lynx7386

Your numbers for block cost are more than a little off. You're aware they were increased with dragon bones, right? Base block cost is closer to 1100 now. After passives for staff or shield youre looking at 700-800. Add in 75~ points in cp for block cost reduction and you're closer to 500-600.

I run infused armor with tristat glyphs, not sturdy. I tend to prefer recovery (mag) on jewelry over block cost reduction given the combination of potions, synergies, nature's gift, and netch. More recovery means more control, healing, debuffing, and damage - all block cost glyphs do for you is make you tankier (and as any eso tank knows, if you aren't buffing and supporting the group you aren't doing your job).

You also aren't taking into account the stamina drain, alongside blocking, that pierce and heroic slash bring into the equation.

Like I said, my system works and works well. You can theorycraft on paper all you want, but numbers rarely translate to gameplay as smoothly as theorycrafters would like to imply.

DocFrost72

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Your numbers for block cost are more than a little off. You're aware they were increased with dragon bones, right? Base block cost is closer to 1100 now. After passives for staff or shield youre looking at 700-800. Add in 75~ points in cp for block cost reduction and you're closer to 500-600.

***I run infused armor with tristat glyphs, not sturdy. I tend to prefer recovery (mag) on jewelry over block cost reduction given the combination of potions, synergies, nature's gift, and netch.*** More recovery means more control, healing, debuffing, and damage - *all block cost glyphs do for you is make you tankier (and as any eso tank knows, if you aren't buffing and supporting the group you aren't doing your job).*

$You also aren't taking into account the stamina drain, alongside blocking, that pierce and heroic slash bring into the equation.$

/Like I said, my system works and works well./ You can theorycraft on paper all you want, but numbers rarely translate to gameplay as smoothly as theorycrafters would like to imply.

Bold: Uhhh, yes? Before DrBo my cost was 88 lol. Now it's 370, maybe a little closer to 376.

*** To clarify, you went more mag regen to need more stamina management? It sound to me you're doing the same thing I am, with different enchants and ways to deal with sustain. You just need an extra skill slot.

*No, the block cost reduction glyphs allow me to free up a skill slot you have to use to get the same sustain.

$ In your example of the axes, you only need a taunt for an emergency. Gripping/blockade will hold them on you unless someone decides to throw random aoe at them, but I'll bite.

No fortress, no medium armor runs you at 308 (rounded up) stamina per second keeping them up 100% (once every 15 seconds).

This means that without being argonian, without factoring in regen while you're on your ice bar, you're losing a manageable 41 stamina drain per second given one attack per second. In a 2 hit scenario, it jumps to (with the math above) 441, or *slightly* above base block drain with no stamina management in play.

Btw, why are you using shimmer tanking the axes again?

Oh and as for the italics; say it, or stop baiting me to act on what you imply. I'd love that conversation.

Edited in the / to say I didn't once claim your system doesn't work. I'm not arguing that your strategy works. I'm not even arguing it isn't as good as another strategy. I'm arguing that taking the taunt off of heavy ice staff is such an insignificant change that you won't feel it. If you feel so strongly against that, then articulate it. Cause all it seems to me is "I need that spot for sustain". When given a build or some options that help sustain, it's

"numbers rarely translate to gameplay as smoothly as theorycrafters would like to imply."

JinMori

Marginis wrote: »

I actually use the frost staff taunt on a fairly often basis, and, since it's made to be a tanking weapon (to give the destro staff line some variety instead of three types of DPS), there shouldn't be any reason to get rid of the taunt. And like I've said before, if you need to heavy attack, use your other staff. There is bar swapping for a reason.

In summary:

Destruction Staff, do you realize what this means? It means it's a staff used for DESTRUCTION, not to protect yourself, it's ridiculous that a staff is used for tanking., and it's garbage at it anyway, so just make it a pure dps staff like the others, and instead make some other weapon skill line based around magic and protective magical weapon in particular.

Lynx7386

JinMori wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

I actually use the frost staff taunt on a fairly often basis, and, since it's made to be a tanking weapon (to give the destro staff line some variety instead of three types of DPS), there shouldn't be any reason to get rid of the taunt. And like I've said before, if you need to heavy attack, use your other staff. There is bar swapping for a reason.

In summary:

Destruction Staff, do you realize what this means? It means it's a staff used for DESTRUCTION, not to protect yourself, it's ridiculous that a staff is used for tanking., and it's garbage at it anyway, so just make it a pure dps staff like the others, and instead make some other weapon skill line based around magic and protective magical weapon in particular.

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.
In eso, stamina drain for frost (along side magicka drain for shock) would be completely overpowered in pvp, and completely useless in pve, so the developers at zenimax have adjusted the benefits of each damage type, choosing single target and burn dots for fire, area damage for lightning, and defensive utility (which in an mmorpg translates to tanking) for Frost.

Here's the real kicker to ruin your dreams of frost dps, though: there is not a single change that can be made to make frost competitive without displacing fire or lightning staves. If you buff frost to the point that it's a preferred dps weapon, you'll have all the fire and/or lightning staff users coming here crying that their meta is gone. The devs understood this caveat, and so they moved frost away from a damage role and towards a magicka tanking role. This kept the fire/lightning dpsers happy, and made those who wanted magicka tanking happy. The only people left out are those who wanted frost dps, all 10 of them that are now throwing a tantrum on the forums trying to make it seem like everyone wants what they do.

Savos_Saren

@Lynx7386

Hmmm... if frost DPS isn’t supposed to be a thing- I wonder why the passive “Piercing Cold” exists on a Warden?

Probably to keep frost DPS in line with fire and lighting DPS. Comparable to the passives “Energized” from Sorcs and “World in Ruin” from DKs.

Lynx7386

Savos_Saren wrote: »

@Lynx7386

Hmmm... if frost DPS isn’t supposed to be a thing- I wonder why the passive “Piercing Cold” exists on a Warden?

Probably to keep frost DPS in line with fire and lighting DPS. Comparable to the passives “Energized” from Sorcs and “World in Ruin” from DKs.

Because the devs like to tease people.

DocFrost72

Savos_Saren wrote: »

@Lynx7386

Hmmm... if frost DPS isn’t supposed to be a thing- I wonder why the passive “Piercing Cold” exists on a Warden?

Probably to keep frost DPS in line with fire and lighting DPS. Comparable to the passives “Energized” from Sorcs and “World in Ruin” from DKs.

Tbf, ice forms the middle ground. Fire does 8%more single target, shock gets 8% aoe. On wardens, ice gets 6% to all. In this way, it's meant to be a strong middle ground. The issue with ice is that it gives a buff the tank gives out like candy, whereas burning and concussed are always handy to have more uptime on.

My ice mage isn't bad, but the one thing it could use is honestly a slight bump in ice damage. Ice only, or it risks upping magicka a bit much. That's why I like that passive execute idea.

LeHarrt91

Could they make the Heavy Attack taunt its own singular passive? So that those ice DPS are not taunting by accident and Tanks that use Ice Staff on back bar still get use of it.

I would either like to see the shield from a heavy attack either greatly increase or changed to resistance debuff.

Lynx7386

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Savos_Saren wrote: »

@Lynx7386

Hmmm... if frost DPS isn’t supposed to be a thing- I wonder why the passive “Piercing Cold” exists on a Warden?

Probably to keep frost DPS in line with fire and lighting DPS. Comparable to the passives “Energized” from Sorcs and “World in Ruin” from DKs.

Tbf, ice forms the middle ground. Fire does 8%more single target, shock gets 8% aoe. On wardens, ice gets 6% to all. In this way, it's meant to be a strong middle ground. The issue with ice is that it gives a buff the tank gives out like candy, whereas burning and concussed are always handy to have more uptime on.

My ice mage isn't bad, but the one thing it could use is honestly a slight bump in ice damage. Ice only, or it risks upping magicka a bit much. That's why I like that passive execute idea.

Thing is, the piercing cold passive stacks with the 8% bonus from fire or lightning. Instead of just 6% more damage on winters revenge, you would be getting 14% if you had a lightning staff equipped

DocFrost72

Lynx7386 wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Savos_Saren wrote: »

@Lynx7386

Hmmm... if frost DPS isn’t supposed to be a thing- I wonder why the passive “Piercing Cold” exists on a Warden?

Probably to keep frost DPS in line with fire and lighting DPS. Comparable to the passives “Energized” from Sorcs and “World in Ruin” from DKs.

Tbf, ice forms the middle ground. Fire does 8%more single target, shock gets 8% aoe. On wardens, ice gets 6% to all. In this way, it's meant to be a strong middle ground. The issue with ice is that it gives a buff the tank gives out like candy, whereas burning and concussed are always handy to have more uptime on.

My ice mage isn't bad, but the one thing it could use is honestly a slight bump in ice damage. Ice only, or it risks upping magicka a bit much. That's why I like that passive execute idea.

Thing is, the piercing cold passive stacks with the 8% bonus from fire or lightning. Instead of just 6% more damage on winters revenge, you would be getting 14% if you had a lightning staff equipped

Yes, but then you're not using an ice staff for damage.

Froil

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.

You can't put too much emphasis on something that is solely made for damage since Arena. Destruction magic is all magic that rends defenses or harms an enemy. If that were the case, there should be damaging abilities in the Restoration Staff skill line, because that's just a name.


In case you need to look at the effects of destruction spells throughout the games...
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:The_Known_Spellbook
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Destruction_Spells
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Destruction_Spells
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Destruction_Spells
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Destruction_Spells
In no previous Elder Scrolls game was frost more defensive than fire or shock magics.
Only in Skyrim did frost spells damage stamina and slow.

For variety, ice staff tanking is fine, but thematically and regarding lore, it's bad. I like the idea of a magical tanking weapon, but if they want it to be a thing, they can make an Alteration or Illusion staff weapon line for it.

I don't want to sound rude or be mean, but I honestly don't think you know what you're talking about regarding magic in the Elder Scrolls universe...

Savos_Saren

Froil wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.

You can't put too much emphasis on something that is solely made for damage since Arena. Destruction magic is all magic that rends defenses or harms an enemy. If that were the case, there should be damaging abilities in the Restoration Staff skill line, because that's just a name.


In case you need to look at the effects of destruction spells throughout the games...
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:The_Known_Spellbook
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Destruction_Spells
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Destruction_Spells
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Destruction_Spells
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Destruction_Spells
In no previous Elder Scrolls game was frost more defensive than fire or shock magics.
Only in Skyrim did frost spells damage stamina and slow.

For variety, ice staff tanking is fine, but thematically and regarding lore, it's bad. I like the idea of a magical tanking weapon, but if they want it to be a thing, they can make an Alteration or Illusion staff weapon line for it.

I don't want to sound rude or be mean, but I honestly don't think you know what you're talking about regarding magic in the Elder Scrolls universe...

Exactly. And, if I recall correctly, Skyrim even had "spell bound" weapons. (swords, bows, etc) Why isn't there a "Spellbound Sword and Shield"?

Joshuagm1991

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Savos_Saren wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I think this dead horse needs to be allowed to rest in peace. Frost staff is fine.

I also see that you don't play a MagWarden...

I play a tank warden, and I rather like my frost staff tyvm.

If you want to use the frost staff for dps, just avoid tri-focus and concede to the fact that you're going to have poor results because you're trying to use a tanking weapon in a damage role. It's no different than stamina dps trying to use 1h&shield for damage.

Nobody cared about frost dps until the option was taken away.

I wouldn't say nobody because I use a frost staff for dps. I like the utility it adds and keeping my enemies rooted with elemental rage.

I think they did try to alleviate this but making heavy attacks deal 20% less and light 20% higher.

All I have to do now is avoid heavy attacks on my ice staff because I still wanted tri focus for the shield when I'm solo'ing.

My main character is a Warden and I don't think it's completely horrible. I need Zaans instead of Nerineths. I know I'm not as good as any other class in dps and even more so because I use an ice staff. The only thing I do is add utility of roots and minor maim.

And even then, sometimes its unnecessary and even annoying to have things become rooted.

I would like to add more ice dps options to Magicka Wardens. My goal has been to enjoy an ice dps character before Warden even came out.

One day you naysaying ***.

Kind regards

JinMori

Lynx7386 wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

I actually use the frost staff taunt on a fairly often basis, and, since it's made to be a tanking weapon (to give the destro staff line some variety instead of three types of DPS), there shouldn't be any reason to get rid of the taunt. And like I've said before, if you need to heavy attack, use your other staff. There is bar swapping for a reason.

In summary:

Destruction Staff, do you realize what this means? It means it's a staff used for DESTRUCTION, not to protect yourself, it's ridiculous that a staff is used for tanking., and it's garbage at it anyway, so just make it a pure dps staff like the others, and instead make some other weapon skill line based around magic and protective magical weapon in particular.

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.
In eso, stamina drain for frost (along side magicka drain for shock) would be completely overpowered in pvp, and completely useless in pve, so the developers at zenimax have adjusted the benefits of each damage type, choosing single target and burn dots for fire, area damage for lightning, and defensive utility (which in an mmorpg translates to tanking) for Frost.

Here's the real kicker to ruin your dreams of frost dps, though: there is not a single change that can be made to make frost competitive without displacing fire or lightning staves. If you buff frost to the point that it's a preferred dps weapon, you'll have all the fire and/or lightning staff users coming here crying that their meta is gone. The devs understood this caveat, and so they moved frost away from a damage role and towards a magicka tanking role. This kept the fire/lightning dpsers happy, and made those who wanted magicka tanking happy. The only people left out are those who wanted frost dps, all 10 of them that are now throwing a tantrum on the forums trying to make it seem like everyone wants what they do.

Slowing, rooting draining stamina, is an offensive effect not a defensive effect. You are not protecting yourself, you are draining the enemy, as a result you will kill him, this does not sound like defensive to me.

Let me say something that it's similar to what you've said, let's say that i cut off the arm of an enemy, as a result he cannot swing his sword anymore, would you say that this was a defensive move because now he can no longer attack, therefore there is nothing to defend against anymore? There is a clear line between defense and offense, defense is parrying, blocking, holding, but as soon as you counterattack, that is considered offense, not defense.

i don't agree, they could make frost staff better for something that lightning and fire are not as good at, that is not as ridiculous as taking, i mean, tanking with a stick when you can use a shield, that has larger area and is made of metal, how does that make any sense at all? Or just make it the go to choice for wardens since they are already frost based

JinMori

Savos_Saren wrote: »

Froil wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.

You can't put too much emphasis on something that is solely made for damage since Arena. Destruction magic is all magic that rends defenses or harms an enemy. If that were the case, there should be damaging abilities in the Restoration Staff skill line, because that's just a name.


In case you need to look at the effects of destruction spells throughout the games...
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:The_Known_Spellbook
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Destruction_Spells
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Destruction_Spells
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Destruction_Spells
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Destruction_Spells
In no previous Elder Scrolls game was frost more defensive than fire or shock magics.
Only in Skyrim did frost spells damage stamina and slow.

For variety, ice staff tanking is fine, but thematically and regarding lore, it's bad. I like the idea of a magical tanking weapon, but if they want it to be a thing, they can make an Alteration or Illusion staff weapon line for it.

I don't want to sound rude or be mean, but I honestly don't think you know what you're talking about regarding magic in the Elder Scrolls universe...

Exactly. And, if I recall correctly, Skyrim even had "spell bound" weapons. (swords, bows, etc) Why isn't there a "Spellbound Sword and Shield"?

Having a shield in the conjuration would make sense, because as conjuration implies, you are conjuring something, it doesn't really matter what it is.

esp1992

Savos_Saren wrote: »

I know that people consider Fire and Lightning damage to be the go-to for magicka-based DPS. And I know that a lot of people think that MagWardens are low on the totem pole for DPS. My suggestion is that they keep some of the aspects of Ice Staff tanking (the block mechanics passive) but remove the taunt. In my time as an Ice Warden tank- I've always had SnB on my front bar (with a taunt) and Ice Staff back barred.

If you remove the taunt from Ice Staves- it'll allow DPSers interested in ice abilities to have more meaningful gameplay without interrupting the Tank's taunt.

If you add a small execute (ie: light/heavy attacks do ##/##% more damage to low health enemies) it'll also make ice DPS more appealing.

What do you think, Wardens?

As a Mag Warden who favors the Ice Staff out of the 3 destruction staves, I couldn’t agree more!

It would be nice if they get rid of the taunt and made the heavy attack have a stronger Damage Shield and the Heavy Attack deals at least 20% more damage to chilled or Low-Health Enemies.

KanedaSyndrome

I'm a nord doing ice damage dps. I demand that you take me along as dps on your trial runs.

Lynx7386

JinMori wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

I actually use the frost staff taunt on a fairly often basis, and, since it's made to be a tanking weapon (to give the destro staff line some variety instead of three types of DPS), there shouldn't be any reason to get rid of the taunt. And like I've said before, if you need to heavy attack, use your other staff. There is bar swapping for a reason.

In summary:

Destruction Staff, do you realize what this means? It means it's a staff used for DESTRUCTION, not to protect yourself, it's ridiculous that a staff is used for tanking., and it's garbage at it anyway, so just make it a pure dps staff like the others, and instead make some other weapon skill line based around magic and protective magical weapon in particular.

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.
In eso, stamina drain for frost (along side magicka drain for shock) would be completely overpowered in pvp, and completely useless in pve, so the developers at zenimax have adjusted the benefits of each damage type, choosing single target and burn dots for fire, area damage for lightning, and defensive utility (which in an mmorpg translates to tanking) for Frost.

Here's the real kicker to ruin your dreams of frost dps, though: there is not a single change that can be made to make frost competitive without displacing fire or lightning staves. If you buff frost to the point that it's a preferred dps weapon, you'll have all the fire and/or lightning staff users coming here crying that their meta is gone. The devs understood this caveat, and so they moved frost away from a damage role and towards a magicka tanking role. This kept the fire/lightning dpsers happy, and made those who wanted magicka tanking happy. The only people left out are those who wanted frost dps, all 10 of them that are now throwing a tantrum on the forums trying to make it seem like everyone wants what they do.

Slowing, rooting draining stamina, is an offensive effect not a defensive effect. You are not protecting yourself, you are draining the enemy, as a result you will kill him, this does not sound like defensive to me.

Let me say something that it's similar to what you've said, let's say that i cut off the arm of an enemy, as a result he cannot swing his sword anymore, would you say that this was a defensive move because now he can no longer attack, therefore there is nothing to defend against anymore? There is a clear line between defense and offense, defense is parrying, blocking, holding, but as soon as you counterattack, that is considered offense, not defense.

i don't agree, they could make frost staff better for something that lightning and fire are not as good at, that is not as ridiculous as taking, i mean, tanking with a stick when you can use a shield, that has larger area and is made of metal, how does that make any sense at all? Or just make it the go to choice for wardens since they are already frost based

JinMori wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

I actually use the frost staff taunt on a fairly often basis, and, since it's made to be a tanking weapon (to give the destro staff line some variety instead of three types of DPS), there shouldn't be any reason to get rid of the taunt. And like I've said before, if you need to heavy attack, use your other staff. There is bar swapping for a reason.

In summary:

Destruction Staff, do you realize what this means? It means it's a staff used for DESTRUCTION, not to protect yourself, it's ridiculous that a staff is used for tanking., and it's garbage at it anyway, so just make it a pure dps staff like the others, and instead make some other weapon skill line based around magic and protective magical weapon in particular.

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.
In eso, stamina drain for frost (along side magicka drain for shock) would be completely overpowered in pvp, and completely useless in pve, so the developers at zenimax have adjusted the benefits of each damage type, choosing single target and burn dots for fire, area damage for lightning, and defensive utility (which in an mmorpg translates to tanking) for Frost.

Here's the real kicker to ruin your dreams of frost dps, though: there is not a single change that can be made to make frost competitive without displacing fire or lightning staves. If you buff frost to the point that it's a preferred dps weapon, you'll have all the fire and/or lightning staff users coming here crying that their meta is gone. The devs understood this caveat, and so they moved frost away from a damage role and towards a magicka tanking role. This kept the fire/lightning dpsers happy, and made those who wanted magicka tanking happy. The only people left out are those who wanted frost dps, all 10 of them that are now throwing a tantrum on the forums trying to make it seem like everyone wants what they do.

Slowing, rooting draining stamina, is an offensive effect not a defensive effect. You are not protecting yourself, you are draining the enemy, as a result you will kill him, this does not sound like defensive to me.

Let me say something that it's similar to what you've said, let's say that i cut off the arm of an enemy, as a result he cannot swing his sword anymore, would you say that this was a defensive move because now he can no longer attack, therefore there is nothing to defend against anymore? There is a clear line between defense and offense, defense is parrying, blocking, holding, but as soon as you counterattack, that is considered offense, not defense.

i don't agree, they could make frost staff better for something that lightning and fire are not as good at, that is not as ridiculous as taking, i mean, tanking with a stick when you can use a shield, that has larger area and is made of metal, how does that make any sense at all? Or just make it the go to choice for wardens since they are already frost based

So do you consider minor/major maim to be dps effects then? Because those, are literally the eso equivalent of cutting the bad guy's sword arm off.

Anything that reduces the damage you and your allies take is a defensive effect. Slowing an enemy so he can't get to you in order to attack: defensive. Draining stamina so your opponent can't use abilities against you: defensive. Rooting or stunning/freezing an enemy so it cannot attack: defensive.

I also take it you never used ward/spell shield in skyrim either. Magic based shields are a thing in elder scrolls lore. We may not have the animation to go with that, but that is literally what frost staff blocking does.

JinMori

Lynx7386 wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

I actually use the frost staff taunt on a fairly often basis, and, since it's made to be a tanking weapon (to give the destro staff line some variety instead of three types of DPS), there shouldn't be any reason to get rid of the taunt. And like I've said before, if you need to heavy attack, use your other staff. There is bar swapping for a reason.

In summary:

Destruction Staff, do you realize what this means? It means it's a staff used for DESTRUCTION, not to protect yourself, it's ridiculous that a staff is used for tanking., and it's garbage at it anyway, so just make it a pure dps staff like the others, and instead make some other weapon skill line based around magic and protective magical weapon in particular.

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.
In eso, stamina drain for frost (along side magicka drain for shock) would be completely overpowered in pvp, and completely useless in pve, so the developers at zenimax have adjusted the benefits of each damage type, choosing single target and burn dots for fire, area damage for lightning, and defensive utility (which in an mmorpg translates to tanking) for Frost.

Here's the real kicker to ruin your dreams of frost dps, though: there is not a single change that can be made to make frost competitive without displacing fire or lightning staves. If you buff frost to the point that it's a preferred dps weapon, you'll have all the fire and/or lightning staff users coming here crying that their meta is gone. The devs understood this caveat, and so they moved frost away from a damage role and towards a magicka tanking role. This kept the fire/lightning dpsers happy, and made those who wanted magicka tanking happy. The only people left out are those who wanted frost dps, all 10 of them that are now throwing a tantrum on the forums trying to make it seem like everyone wants what they do.

Slowing, rooting draining stamina, is an offensive effect not a defensive effect. You are not protecting yourself, you are draining the enemy, as a result you will kill him, this does not sound like defensive to me.

Let me say something that it's similar to what you've said, let's say that i cut off the arm of an enemy, as a result he cannot swing his sword anymore, would you say that this was a defensive move because now he can no longer attack, therefore there is nothing to defend against anymore? There is a clear line between defense and offense, defense is parrying, blocking, holding, but as soon as you counterattack, that is considered offense, not defense.

i don't agree, they could make frost staff better for something that lightning and fire are not as good at, that is not as ridiculous as taking, i mean, tanking with a stick when you can use a shield, that has larger area and is made of metal, how does that make any sense at all? Or just make it the go to choice for wardens since they are already frost based

JinMori wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

I actually use the frost staff taunt on a fairly often basis, and, since it's made to be a tanking weapon (to give the destro staff line some variety instead of three types of DPS), there shouldn't be any reason to get rid of the taunt. And like I've said before, if you need to heavy attack, use your other staff. There is bar swapping for a reason.

In summary:

Destruction Staff, do you realize what this means? It means it's a staff used for DESTRUCTION, not to protect yourself, it's ridiculous that a staff is used for tanking., and it's garbage at it anyway, so just make it a pure dps staff like the others, and instead make some other weapon skill line based around magic and protective magical weapon in particular.

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.
In eso, stamina drain for frost (along side magicka drain for shock) would be completely overpowered in pvp, and completely useless in pve, so the developers at zenimax have adjusted the benefits of each damage type, choosing single target and burn dots for fire, area damage for lightning, and defensive utility (which in an mmorpg translates to tanking) for Frost.

Here's the real kicker to ruin your dreams of frost dps, though: there is not a single change that can be made to make frost competitive without displacing fire or lightning staves. If you buff frost to the point that it's a preferred dps weapon, you'll have all the fire and/or lightning staff users coming here crying that their meta is gone. The devs understood this caveat, and so they moved frost away from a damage role and towards a magicka tanking role. This kept the fire/lightning dpsers happy, and made those who wanted magicka tanking happy. The only people left out are those who wanted frost dps, all 10 of them that are now throwing a tantrum on the forums trying to make it seem like everyone wants what they do.

Slowing, rooting draining stamina, is an offensive effect not a defensive effect. You are not protecting yourself, you are draining the enemy, as a result you will kill him, this does not sound like defensive to me.

Let me say something that it's similar to what you've said, let's say that i cut off the arm of an enemy, as a result he cannot swing his sword anymore, would you say that this was a defensive move because now he can no longer attack, therefore there is nothing to defend against anymore? There is a clear line between defense and offense, defense is parrying, blocking, holding, but as soon as you counterattack, that is considered offense, not defense.

i don't agree, they could make frost staff better for something that lightning and fire are not as good at, that is not as ridiculous as taking, i mean, tanking with a stick when you can use a shield, that has larger area and is made of metal, how does that make any sense at all? Or just make it the go to choice for wardens since they are already frost based

So do you consider minor/major maim to be dps effects then? Because those, are literally the eso equivalent of cutting the bad guy's sword arm off.

Anything that reduces the damage you and your allies take is a defensive effect. Slowing an enemy so he can't get to you in order to attack: defensive. Draining stamina so your opponent can't use abilities against you: defensive. Rooting or stunning/freezing an enemy so it cannot attack: defensive.

I also take it you never used ward/spell shield in skyrim either. Magic based shields are a thing in elder scrolls lore. We may not have the animation to go with that, but that is literally what frost staff blocking does.

Just like i said before, rooting, draining, maiming etc, are results of an offensive attack, not defense. The result is that the enemy will be less powerful/efficient, but by no standard they are defensive abilities.

As i said before, defense is blocking, parrying, etc.... that is defense, maim, etc... those are the result of an ATTACK, this is not very hard to understand, you attack someone you debilitate him, that is by no means the same thing as defending yourself by blocking or parrying, that is just an effect of your attack.

And i never talked about dps effect, i never tied dps to the definition of what constitutes an attack and what is defense, you used this word specifically, because the tank uses minor maim usually, therefore it's usually a low dps ability, but that does not change the definition of what's an attack, compared to defense, just because a tank is using it doesn't necessarily means that it's a defensive ability, a tank doesn't just block and parry.

Shields were never in the destruction skilline, what the hell are you even talking about there, you yourself said correctly that destro staff are tied to destruction magic, so why even bring up shields that are in the restoration magic? You are contradicting yourself a bit there.

And also, shields in resto magic make sense, because restoration implies that you are healing yourself, preventing damage can be also considered as such, although conjuration would also make sense for shields.

Lynx7386

I suppose that you disagree with past games using turn undead and holy damage spells as part of the restoration school too?

I swear this is like arguing with a brick wall. Go play morrowind, oblivion, and skyrim before trying to dictate what magic should and shouldn't do in this game

esp1992

JinMori wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

I actually use the frost staff taunt on a fairly often basis, and, since it's made to be a tanking weapon (to give the destro staff line some variety instead of three types of DPS), there shouldn't be any reason to get rid of the taunt. And like I've said before, if you need to heavy attack, use your other staff. There is bar swapping for a reason.

In summary:

Destruction Staff, do you realize what this means? It means it's a staff used for DESTRUCTION, not to protect yourself, it's ridiculous that a staff is used for tanking., and it's garbage at it anyway, so just make it a pure dps staff like the others, and instead make some other weapon skill line based around magic and protective magical weapon in particular.

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.
In eso, stamina drain for frost (along side magicka drain for shock) would be completely overpowered in pvp, and completely useless in pve, so the developers at zenimax have adjusted the benefits of each damage type, choosing single target and burn dots for fire, area damage for lightning, and defensive utility (which in an mmorpg translates to tanking) for Frost.

Here's the real kicker to ruin your dreams of frost dps, though: there is not a single change that can be made to make frost competitive without displacing fire or lightning staves. If you buff frost to the point that it's a preferred dps weapon, you'll have all the fire and/or lightning staff users coming here crying that their meta is gone. The devs understood this caveat, and so they moved frost away from a damage role and towards a magicka tanking role. This kept the fire/lightning dpsers happy, and made those who wanted magicka tanking happy. The only people left out are those who wanted frost dps, all 10 of them that are now throwing a tantrum on the forums trying to make it seem like everyone wants what they do.

Slowing, rooting draining stamina, is an offensive effect not a defensive effect. You are not protecting yourself, you are draining the enemy, as a result you will kill him, this does not sound like defensive to me.

Let me say something that it's similar to what you've said, let's say that i cut off the arm of an enemy, as a result he cannot swing his sword anymore, would you say that this was a defensive move because now he can no longer attack, therefore there is nothing to defend against anymore? There is a clear line between defense and offense, defense is parrying, blocking, holding, but as soon as you counterattack, that is considered offense, not defense.

i don't agree, they could make frost staff better for something that lightning and fire are not as good at, that is not as ridiculous as taking, i mean, tanking with a stick when you can use a shield, that has larger area and is made of metal, how does that make any sense at all? Or just make it the go to choice for wardens since they are already frost based

JinMori wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

I actually use the frost staff taunt on a fairly often basis, and, since it's made to be a tanking weapon (to give the destro staff line some variety instead of three types of DPS), there shouldn't be any reason to get rid of the taunt. And like I've said before, if you need to heavy attack, use your other staff. There is bar swapping for a reason.

In summary:

Destruction Staff, do you realize what this means? It means it's a staff used for DESTRUCTION, not to protect yourself, it's ridiculous that a staff is used for tanking., and it's garbage at it anyway, so just make it a pure dps staff like the others, and instead make some other weapon skill line based around magic and protective magical weapon in particular.

Youre putting entirely too much emphasis on the name. It isn't meant to be taken literally: destruction staff just refers to the destruction school of magic in elder scrolls more, which is composed of the three primary elemental types (fire, shock, and frost).

In previous iterations of the elder scrolls series, frost magic was certainly more defensive oriented than fire or lightning, primarily due to it slowing, rooting, and draining stamina.
In eso, stamina drain for frost (along side magicka drain for shock) would be completely overpowered in pvp, and completely useless in pve, so the developers at zenimax have adjusted the benefits of each damage type, choosing single target and burn dots for fire, area damage for lightning, and defensive utility (which in an mmorpg translates to tanking) for Frost.

Here's the real kicker to ruin your dreams of frost dps, though: there is not a single change that can be made to make frost competitive without displacing fire or lightning staves. If you buff frost to the point that it's a preferred dps weapon, you'll have all the fire and/or lightning staff users coming here crying that their meta is gone. The devs understood this caveat, and so they moved frost away from a damage role and towards a magicka tanking role. This kept the fire/lightning dpsers happy, and made those who wanted magicka tanking happy. The only people left out are those who wanted frost dps, all 10 of them that are now throwing a tantrum on the forums trying to make it seem like everyone wants what they do.

Slowing, rooting draining stamina, is an offensive effect not a defensive effect. You are not protecting yourself, you are draining the enemy, as a result you will kill him, this does not sound like defensive to me.

Let me say something that it's similar to what you've said, let's say that i cut off the arm of an enemy, as a result he cannot swing his sword anymore, would you say that this was a defensive move because now he can no longer attack, therefore there is nothing to defend against anymore? There is a clear line between defense and offense, defense is parrying, blocking, holding, but as soon as you counterattack, that is considered offense, not defense.

i don't agree, they could make frost staff better for something that lightning and fire are not as good at, that is not as ridiculous as taking, i mean, tanking with a stick when you can use a shield, that has larger area and is made of metal, how does that make any sense at all? Or just make it the go to choice for wardens since they are already frost based

So do you consider minor/major maim to be dps effects then? Because those, are literally the eso equivalent of cutting the bad guy's sword arm off.

Anything that reduces the damage you and your allies take is a defensive effect. Slowing an enemy so he can't get to you in order to attack: defensive. Draining stamina so your opponent can't use abilities against you: defensive. Rooting or stunning/freezing an enemy so it cannot attack: defensive.

I also take it you never used ward/spell shield in skyrim either. Magic based shields are a thing in elder scrolls lore. We may not have the animation to go with that, but that is literally what frost staff blocking does.

Just like i said before, rooting, draining, maiming etc, are results of an offensive attack, not defense. The result is that the enemy will be less powerful/efficient, but by no standard they are defensive abilities.

As i said before, defense is blocking, parrying, etc.... that is defense, maim, etc... those are the result of an ATTACK, this is not very hard to understand, you attack someone you debilitate him, that is by no means the same thing as defending yourself by blocking or parrying, that is just an effect of your attack.

And i never talked about dps effect, i never tied dps to the definition of what constitutes an attack and what is defense, you used this word specifically, because the tank uses minor maim usually, therefore it's usually a low dps ability, but that does not change the definition of what's an attack, compared to defense, just because a tank is using it doesn't necessarily means that it's a defensive ability, a tank doesn't just block and parry.

Shields were never in the destruction skilline, what the hell are you even talking about there, you yourself said correctly that destro staff are tied to destruction magic, so why even bring up shields that are in the restoration magic? You are contradicting yourself a bit there.

And also, shields in resto magic make sense, because restoration implies that you are healing yourself, preventing damage can be also considered as such, although conjuration would also make sense for shields.

Couldn’t have said it better myself!

JinMori

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I suppose that you disagree with past games using turn undead and holy damage spells as part of the restoration school too?

I swear this is like arguing with a brick wall. Go play morrowind, oblivion, and skyrim before trying to dictate what magic should and shouldn't do in this game

Holy damage spells, means using the power of the light to deal damage to unholy creatures, what's wrong with that, there is no contradiction at all.

In wow, you can even use holy to deal damage to living creatures, because holy/light is tied to radiation (sun), and radiation can damage someone and it's tied to heat, and would you look at that, even in fantasy rpgs, holy and fire sometimes are both in one sentance, take for example auriel's bow, no contradiction at all, If anything it's you who should reconsider the meaning of some words.

And honestly as i said before, using a destruction staff which is specifically used for destruction, havoc, damage, annihilation, to defend yourself like using a shield makes no sense at all, i would be all right with it if the staff was meant in general, like a magical staff that you can use to crate balls of fire, or a shield etc.. but since it's specifically a destruction staff, i want it to do specifically what it was told, which is destruction, not protection.

You are grasping at straws when you tried to shift the argument, and that's because deep down you knew i was right, and because of that you tried to shift the attention to something else, first with the contradiction where you stated that destro staffs are tied to destruction magic, and then made the argument that shields can be done with magic, but it comes from restoration magic, making your point completely redundant, and then by trying to shift the argument to holy spells, and assuming things which you don;t know about me, because you never heard from me.

KanedaSyndrome

ESO balancing team is broken.

DocFrost72

@JinMori

His point went over your head. There are exceptions to every school in magic, doubly so when considering that some forms of magic are very similar.

If I set an ice rune as a trap, it is part of my *defenses* in a siege. Btw, there are shock and fire runes. And before you repeat yourself that it doing damage makes it offensive, I ask a counter question: if you defend a facility from invasion, are you the attacker? No, doing damage does not always equate to offensive magic.

His second illustration is some thing in the restoration line did damage. The exact oposite of restore xD

Every game adds something new, skyrim added ice as a more defensive option under the destruction tree, and eso made it even more defensive. Not liking that is totally fine, but claiming this argument is baseless is just false.

Lynx7386

DocFrost72 wrote: »

@JinMori

His point went over your head. There are exceptions to every school in magic, doubly so when considering that some forms of magic are very similar.

If I set an ice rune as a trap, it is part of my *defenses* in a siege. Btw, there are shock and fire runes. And before you repeat yourself that it doing damage makes it offensive, I ask a counter question: if you defend a facility from invasion, are you the attacker? No, doing damage does not always equate to offensive magic.

His second illustration is some thing in the restoration line did damage. The exact oposite of restore xD

Every game adds something new, skyrim added ice as a more defensive option under the destruction tree, and eso made it even more defensive. Not liking that is totally fine, but claiming this argument is baseless is just false.

At least someone gets it.

Froil

DocFrost72 wrote: »

And before you repeat yourself that it doing damage makes it offensive, I ask a counter question: if you defend a facility from invasion, are you the attacker? No, doing damage does not always equate to offensive magic.

Honestly this is a nonsensical, backwards question.
If you defend a facility, do you just run away, hide and put up a wall hoping they'll just give up and go home? Or do you try to repel the invading force, take up arms, attack them, try to maim or kill? When magic is made to rend defenses or kill something, it's destruction magic. That's exactly what it is.

Turn Undead makes sense in Restoration as Restoration is mastery over life-forces, even unlife and "holy" damage isn't a thing, but Sunfire and Stendarr's Aura from Dawnguard also only dealt damage to undead and vampires, which again, go under "mastery over life-forces", but was mostly just thematic spells because you're the Dawnguard fighting against vampires with their known weakness to the sun.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Destruction
Since you can't seem to grasp that damage-dealing magics are destruction...

I swear neither of you know what you're talking about, what with these nearly contradictory statements and poor justifications of fallacies. Ice magic has always been destruction magic. It has never been defensive. It was always made to damage and kill enemies. Only in Skyrim did frost spells drain stamina and slow enemies. When you get rid of their stamina, they have no way of defending themselves physically, they cannot escape from your onslaught of spells. This is destruction, pure and simple. But with this insistence that ice magic can, and should, be defensive, where would you move it? Alteration? Illusion? Conjuration? Thaumaturgy? Mysticism? Restoration?
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Response_to_Bero's_Speech

Ice staves should return to being a weapon for DPS and if ZOS want a magical tanking weapon, they need to make a new one.

kylewwefan

Yes. They should do something better with it. I don’t know what, but my frost warden pretty much blows.

It is odd though that in game Frosty mobs are some of the hardest hitting pita and annoying ads.

But my ice damage build is generally poo.