frost staff tanking viability improved?

GimpyPorcupine

I'm a console player, so I don't have the luxury of testing, so I'm asking here. How are frost staff tanks working now that the staff counts as two pieces towards the set? Being 5/4/2 on the frost staff bar was always the biggest limitation I found to this paradigm.

Moderators, please move if Combat Mechanics is the proper venue for this.

VaranisArano

My issue with frost staff was always that the debuff from One Hand and Shield's Pierce Armor is a better debuff with the taunt and the Inner Fire taunt is easier for me to use than the heavy attack from Frost Staff.

But the 2-piece bonus can only make it better if you are already comfortable with frost staff tanking, I suppose.

RoyJade

It work better for sure, but the lack of cheap instant taunt and armor/resistance debuff (and the defensive posture skill) make it still inferior. It would be good if it has something unique and useful in comparison, but I don't find the frozen debuff and the root on frozen trash worth the trade.
And the animation is still lackluster at best.

Lynx7386

Yes, frost staff is still the best back bar weapon for a tank, especially warden tanks. There's really no good reason to run double shields.

GimpyPorcupine

Have either of you tried 1H&S/Frost on the PTS, and compared that to double-barred sword & board? I get the limitations of pure staff tanking are still there, but where I see the most potential is having it on the back bar without losing a set bonus.

eso_nya

U can now retrait alkosh to healthy and use w/ a ice staff. \o/

Ralamil

Well, as expected they're going to work better than they do on live now, since you can run 5/5/2 like most tanks. I've been running a 5/4/2 setup on live, and will switch my 4 piece set for 5-piece Torrug's Pact. Or, you know, if I bother to save the pieces I could run Alkosh as well.

5-piece bonuses are almost always the deciding factor in what set to run, so that's going to allow more folks to run close-to-or-actually-meta sets instead of just looking for whatever 4-piece bonuses are going to give them the most stats/resistances.