Double Frost Staff Tanking?

Vaerth

Is it any good for a Magicka focused tank?

cheifsoap

Double staff? No. Back bar staff? Sure!

Iskiab

Agreed. You need a sword and board, and you need to block. I think an ice back bar is a good idea but haven’t tied it.

VaranisArano

The main reason to slot One Hand and Shield even on a magicka-focused tank is for the debuffs you get from the skill line. So most of the time you see a frost staff, its paired with One Hand and Shield for anything harder than a normal dungeon just because the tank gives better group support that way.

If I were going to double-bar a frost staff for flavor reasons, I'd make sure I also used Inner Fire from the Undaunted line. When I used the Ice staff for tanking on a leveling magblade, sometimes the timing of mechanics and my ice staff heavy attack didn't quite work out and so I was glad to have a quicker taunt as a backup so I didn't lose boss aggro.

Iskiab

Agreed, the only time an ice heavy attack should be seen is in pvp.

Itzmichi

I recommend the combination of s&b and ice staff.

drjokepu

Frost staff heavy attacks are somewhat slow, it will really limit the number of enemies you can keep taunted. Also you don’t debuff.

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO

only if ur DK...otherwise u play on the edge and besides that there I no actual benefit

ESO_Nightingale

No. We've tried it. Long story short, it needs a rework.

EpicRekkoning

The main problem with double ice staff is pierce armor is too good for tanking. Its cheap, you get both major debuffs, and a taunt. The only other ways to taunt are inner fire, but it costs 3 times what pierce armor costs without the debuffs, or a heavy attack with the frost staff. The problem with the heavy attack is it takes too long to cast and you lose block.

Personally, I think they need to rework elemental suppression to make it a taunt skill. Give it a magicka cost similar to pierce armor, give it major breech, a taunt, and keep it a range skill.

Vaerth

cheifsoap wrote: »

Double staff? No. Back bar staff? Sure!

cheifsoap wrote: »

Double staff? No. Back bar staff? Sure!

That is what I figured

Oh well, I do like 1H&S so maybe a combo of Frost Staff and 1H&S would be fun. Not sure, as I do not tank yet but wanted a tank that can dish out damage as well as take damage lol. NB is the class I would roll

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

The main problem with double ice staff is pierce armor is too good for tanking. Its cheap, you get both major debuffs, and a taunt. The only other ways to taunt are inner fire, but it costs 3 times what pierce armor costs without the debuffs, or a heavy attack with the frost staff. The problem with the heavy attack is it takes too long to cast and you lose block.

Personally, I think they need to rework elemental suppression to make it a taunt skill. Give it a magicka cost similar to pierce armor, give it major breech, a taunt, and keep it a range skill.

That you for the explanation! Much appreciated!

Ysbriel

Vaerth wrote: »

Is it any good for a Magicka focused tank?

I tried it for about a Month in my Warden cause it seemed fun at first until it was not, inner rage is a better ranged taunt than a slow ice staff hit and also unless you mean one occasional damage skill, you really don’t want to think about Tanking and Damage at the same time since you want to manage those resources to support yourself. People think that Tanking is hold block and stand there and don’t die otherwise trash, but you would be surprised the amount of DoTs you get in a dungeon that don’t care about your resistances or shields.

Grianasteri

Vaerth wrote: »

Is it any good for a Magicka focused tank?

To effectively tank the more difficult content, I think most will agree that a sword and shield are rather important for the block/damage mitigation etc.

I use sword n shield front bar with an ice staff back bar, on my Warden tank.

One main issue is having to split attributes between stamina and magica, which does not make for an optimal build. But it is fun and it does work, I've done plenty of vet dungeons with him, but not tackled any "end game" content with him yet.

_Ahala_

Frost staff is a fail for tanking and a fail for dps... they should just return frost to dps as a mag crit weapon and give us alteration staff as a magicka tanking weapon

Anhedonie

Please, just don't do this if you queue for random dungeons.

Grianasteri

_Ahala_ wrote: »

Frost staff is a fail for tanking and a fail for dps... they should just return frost to dps as a mag crit weapon and give us alteration staff as a magicka tanking weapon

I do not think it is a fail, though double baring staffs for tanking I do think is very sub optimal & will limit the content one can effectively tank through.

Frost staff tanking requires effective play styles and builds to make it work, like most things. But it provides a perfectly good ranged taunt, meaning one does not require the Undaunted ranged taunt. Some boss fights or add fights benefit from the use of ranged taunt, in my experience anyway.

Using sword n shield with a frost staff one can tank most of the content in the game perfectly well

Megatto

The frost staff doesn't get enough love

Aragorn79

I understand what you are saying but kind of need more explanation of your experiences with this. I build myself a double frost staff tank but haven't tried it yet, so was interested in the OP's question and answers. I have compared the skill lines from S&B and frost staff and do see the lack of the debuff by not having puncture. BUT, that seems to be about it. With the frost staff you could have a full magicka build with the attributes, because blocking costs mag instead. So ppl saying you need to block, sure you do, and you do it with magicka. You also get reduced block cost from frost staff passives and mitigation comparable to S&B skill line. I understand the problem with timing with heavy attack, so using inner fire from undaunted skill line also seems viable. So, my point is, for ppl saying you need S&B due to group support and skill line, I only see the debuff from puncture missing. Am I missing something else? I am interested because if it is viable, you can manage your attributes a lot better this way having a full mag tank. Thanks, and please consider I am not trolling, just really interested in the topic because I want to learn to tank and am looking for ways of getting it.

VaranisArano

Aragorn79 wrote: »

I understand what you are saying but kind of need more explanation of your experiences with this. I build myself a double frost staff tank but haven't tried it yet, so was interested in the OP's question and answers. I have compared the skill lines from S&B and frost staff and do see the lack of the debuff by not having puncture. BUT, that seems to be about it. With the frost staff you could have a full magicka build with the attributes, because blocking costs mag instead. So ppl saying you need to block, sure you do, and you do it with magicka. You also get reduced block cost from frost staff passives and mitigation comparable to S&B skill line. I understand the problem with timing with heavy attack, so using inner fire from undaunted skill line also seems viable. So, my point is, for ppl saying you need S&B due to group support and skill line, I only see the debuff from puncture missing. Am I missing something else? I am interested because if it is viable, you can manage your attributes a lot better this way having a full mag tank. Thanks, and please consider I am not trolling, just really interested in the topic because I want to learn to tank and am looking for ways of getting it.

Some of the differences come in with the level of content you are playing.

If you want to just do basic tanking, i.e. hold aggro on the boss and don't die, double frost staff is fine.

However, the harder the content, the more important it becomes that the tank be able to buff the group and debuff the boss as part of providing support to the whole group. At the level of trials, you see this with tanks wearing specific sets that allow the group to min-max around those added buffs and debuffs.

The debuffs from Pierce Armor are particularly important for a min-maxed group. For the cost of one skill, the tank provides Major Fracture and Major Breach. Without that, you either have to use other skills in combination to get those debuffs or you have to make up the missing penetration some other way.

So its not that you can't do a double frost staff build. I've never tried it myself, but I know I've met one poster who's done it for trials on one of the past threads we had discussing frost staves.

Its just that its not optimal for harder group content. And when you start getting 11 other people together to do challenging content, optimal becomes important for most groups. Being able to provide Major Fracture and Major Breach for the cost of the tank using one skill is the best use of the of the group's resources.

Now, if you can tank the content you want to do with a double frost staff and your group doesn't care about min-maxing to that extent, sure, you can run a double frost staff. That's true of most of the content in ESO - you don't have to run the meta as long as you can complete the content and your group is okay with running a non-min-maxed build.

Hope that helps!

Aragorn79

Thanks for the explanation, really appreciate it.

WoppaBoem

For sure can be good with inner fire and all mag dd's. If stam dd's you need to reduce also fysical armor which you cannot do with ice staff

firedrgn

Ice staff is sooooooooooo slooooooooow when it comes to taunting. Really have to know what u have time to taunt like that. It works really well in vet cos where u can taunt faster than running and the interrupt on the destro bar is awsome .

Revokus

Frost staff also has less resistances and armor than one hand shield among other things..like loosing an enchant and not restoring stamina. Really sub par compared to one hand and shield.

alexj4596b14_ESO

firedrgn wrote: »

Ice staff is sooooooooooo slooooooooow when it comes to taunting. Really have to know what u have time to taunt like that. It works really well in vet cos where u can taunt faster than running and the interrupt on the destro bar is awsome .

They need to make elemental drain = S&B move. This would solve everything.