Alteration Staff Skill Line: Magicka Tanking

Vercingetorix

Several expansions have passed (with a new one on the way) and ice staves are still trash. Why? Trying to slap on a half-baked tanking mechanic to a DPS weapon skill line is BAD. The answer is to have a skill line for magic users DEDICATED to tanking, with passives to augment and support it. Alteration magic is defensive in nature, providing protection, altering defenses, and providing utility effects – tanking is natural fit for this school of magic. Any values presented in abilities listed below are subject to change and are only there for illustrative purposes.

- Alteration staff heavy attacks would restore magicka and blocking with Alteration staves consumes magicka. Alteration staff attack animation is similar to the Restoration staff.
- With Alteration staves taking over the role of magical tanking, Ice staves and their passives can be re-focused on damage.

Alteration Staff Skills:

Vex: Target an enemy with an energy blast up to 28m away, afflicting them with Major Breach and taunting them for 15 seconds.
- Morph 1: Target is also afflicted with Major Fracture for 15 seconds.
- Morph 2: You also gain Minor Heroism, granting you 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds for 9 seconds.

Transmute Flesh: Caster alters their flesh into a hardened metal, gaining Minor Resolve for 20 seconds.
- Morph 1: Enemies striking the caster are afflicted with Minor Maim for 12 seconds.
- Morph 2: Reduced cost and caster also gains Minor Expedition for 20 seconds.

Burden: Caster fires a blast of energy in a targeted 8m radius area, dealing X magic damage and snaring all enemies in the area by 30% for 4 seconds.
- Morph 1: Radius increased to 12m.
- Morph 2: Deals significantly less damage, but increases the snare to 70%.

Molt: Caster magically sheds off malignant effects, purging up to 2 negative effects.
- Morph 1: Caster also purges 1 negative effect from a nearby ally.
- Morph 2: Reduced cost and can purge an additional negative effect.

Illuminate: Caster summons a Magelight that occasionally attacks nearby enemies and provides Minor Protection for 25 seconds. Magelight attacks with small blasts of light, dealing X magic damage. (Counts as pet)
- Morph 1: Targets struck by the Magelight are afflicted with Minor Vulnerability for 10 seconds.
- Morph 2: Magelight no longer attacks enemies, but decreases the cost of your active abilities by 3%.

Ultimate (250) - Mass Transmogrify: Caster unleashes a large blast of energy, dealing X magic damage in a 12m radius. Enemies damaged by this ability are afflicted with Major Mangle, lowering their maximum health by 15% for 8 seconds. (Bosses immune to Major Mangle)
- Morph 1: Significantly increases damage dealt.
- Morph 2: The Major Mangle debuff can no longer be purged, but duration is decreased to 4 seconds.

*Just to be clear, the Major Mangle debuff is applied to enemies AFTER the initial damage is dealt.

Passives:

- Reduces the cost of blocking by 20%/36% while an Alteration staff is equipped. Fully-charged heavy attacks with an Alteration staff channel 10%/20% faster.
- Blocking an enemy's melee attack with an Alteration staff afflicts that enemy with Minor Magickasteal for 5/10 seconds.
- Decrease the duration of negative effects on you by 10%/20% while an Alteration staff is equipped.
- Blocked incoming enemy projectiles have a 5%/10% chance of being reflected back to the attacker.
- Attacking an enemy while affected by a negative effect has a 5%/10% chance to transfer the negative effect to the target.

Well, that's it. Let me know what you all think. I feel this a much better solution when the alternative is gimping an entire elemental damage type and giving aspiring cyromancers the shaft. Magical tanking is a neat thing - it was just poorly implemented with frost staves. Tanking NEEDS a skill line dedicated to it - magical tanking should be no different.

Tatanko

Unlike other ideas for adding weapons, this one strikes me as actually being plausible for one reason alone: a new staff requires no extra work with regard to weapon appearances.

exeeter702

A sound idea. But there really isnt a design space for frost as a damage dealing element without running into redundancies. It cant be as strong single target as fire or have the aoe potential as lighting. Fire covers the the damage over time aspect as well. Frankly, frost just needs to be as it was, as a crowd control element and maybe lean a little more into that strength with its version of clench being the true single target power stun (encased in frost makes more sense than a fire based stun) and have its passives tied to snares and roots in some way while leaving chilled as is.

A dedicated alteration staff skill line adopting the current frost staff block passives would be cool. Burden would conflict with frost wall of elements. Everything else seems reasonable. I'm a fan of the debuff reflect passive.

Vercingetorix

Tatanko wrote: »

Unlike other ideas for adding weapons, this one strikes me as actually being plausible for one reason alone: a new staff requires no extra work with regard to weapon appearances.

To be fair, that tends to be the most labor-intensive component of adding new things to a game. Animations and model assets for staves can be largely recycled from Restoration staves with a minor energy color change. Sure, new things can always cause unexpected bugs or interactions with existing content, but that's what playtesting is for and the same can be said of any newly added content.

Vercingetorix

exeeter702 wrote: »

A sound idea. But there really isnt a design space for frost as a damage dealing element without running into redundancies. It cant be as strong single target as fire or have the aoe potential as lighting. Fire covers the the damage over time aspect as well. Frankly, frost just needs to be as it was, as a crowd control element and maybe lean a little more into that strength with its version of clench being the true single target power stun (encased in frost makes more sense than a fire based stun) and have its passives tied to snares and roots in some way while leaving chilled as is.

A dedicated alteration staff skill line adopting the current frost staff block passives would be cool. Burden would conflict with frost wall of elements. Everything else seems reasonable. I'm a fan of the debuff reflect passive.

Ice staves can be focused on providing damage buffs based on debuffed enemies or a simple critical chance increase for having it equipped. Thematically, ice wears opponents down and makes them more susceptible to damage. An alteration staff user could use a Frost staff to compliment their actual tanking bar by using Frost Blockade to hinder foes. Stamina tanks mix other skill lines with their sword/board - why would an alteration staff user be any different?

I tried to focus my post on the alteration staff but I understand and agree that some existing overlap with Frost staves would need ot be addressed.

SilverIce58

exeeter702 wrote: »

A sound idea. But there really isnt a design space for frost as a damage dealing element without running into redundancies. It cant be as strong single target as fire or have the aoe potential as lighting. Fire covers the the damage over time aspect as well. Frankly, frost just needs to be as it was, as a crowd control element and maybe lean a little more into that strength with its version of clench being the true single target power stun (encased in frost makes more sense than a fire based stun) and have its passives tied to snares and roots in some way while leaving chilled as is.

A dedicated alteration staff skill line adopting the current frost staff block passives would be cool. Burden would conflict with frost wall of elements. Everything else seems reasonable. I'm a fan of the debuff reflect passive.

Make frost damage increase crit damage by like 7 or 8%.

TheShadowScout

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Alteration Staff Skill Line: Magicka Tanking

Good idea.
But I would say that, would I not, considering I posted one very much like it in my collected weapon thoughts:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/371862/additional-weapon-skill-ideas-mk-ii/p1

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Warding Staff
It seems somewhat clumsy to have a destruction staff as a main weapon as magica tank, so… why not give ice back to doing damage and slowing enemies, and make up a completely new weapon for tanky uses? One that uses magicka to block, obviously, and maybe has the taunt heavy attack, or maybe not (since it can get a skill for that).

Skills:
• Hex Bolt (magic projectile, does damage, taunt and physical defense)
- Morph1: Hex Volley (+ fires up to three bolts at nearby enemies)
- Morph2: Jinx Bolt (+ snare / duration)
• Empowered Ward (damage shield, recovers shield strength if blocking while active)
- Morph1: Enchanted Ward (+ spell resistance while active)
- Morph2: Empowered Barrier (+ physical resistance while active)
• Burdening Seal (AoE cast at location, snare and reduce spell defense / duration)
- Morph1: Enfeebling Seal (+ reduce physical damage wile in AoE)
- Morph2: Burdening Hex (+ magic DoT while in AoE)
• Warding Enchantment (increase spell resistance / duration)
- Morph1: Protective Enchantment (+ increase physical resistance)
- Morph2: Warding Aura (+ AoE around caster, affecting all allies in range)
• Guardian Wisp (summons a wisp pet that will increase magicka, and deny stealth to enemies)
- Morph1: Avenging Wisp (+ wisp will also launch magic attacks to nearby enemies)
- Morph2: Guardian Spirit (+ spell resistance, wisp is bigger and golden)
Ultimate: Warding Barrier (Large AoE, damage resistance to allies within, blocks enemy entry)
- Morph1: Imbued Barrier (+ resource recovery boots to allies within)
- Morph2: Warding Seal (+ blocks enemy movement out of the area as well, trapping them inside)
Passives:
• Enchantments: increase duration for taunts and debuffs
• Sanctuary: reduced skill cost and lowered blocking cost
• Mystic Power: increase magicka recovery / ward ability slotted
• Hardened Ward: allows to block more damage
• Mana Manipulation: blocked spells have a chance to reflect at the caster

CASP3R421

because pvp tanks need a way to be more unkillable

Bradyfjord

Frost staff could have more identity by elemental focus applying a debuff to resource sustain.

Alteration staff could buff the duration of the user's shield effects with passives.

Vercingetorix

Bradyfjord wrote: »

Frost staff could have more identity by elemental focus applying a debuff to resource sustain.

Alteration staff could buff the duration of the user's shield effects with passives.

It got taken down by the mods earlier, but my original suggestion for making Frost staff a DPS weapon again was to change these passives:

Tri-Focus: Fully-charged Frost Staff Heavy Attacks decrease an enemy's Spell Resistance by 1320 for 10 seconds.
Ancient Knowledge: Equipping a Frost Staff increases your spell critical by 7%.

Alteration becomes the dedicated tanking/utility skill line and Frost staves get a competitive bonus for DPS in line with what Fire and Lightning staves already give. Players looking to get extra penetration and critical can slot a Frost staff and take advantage of the CC that Frost Clench and Blockade can still provide. I'd imagine Frost would be more PvP-centric given these bonuses, but if a player wants to add more critical chance without using Mother's Sorrow or Precise, Frost staves can provide that option.

ESO_Nightingale

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Bradyfjord wrote: »

Frost staff could have more identity by elemental focus applying a debuff to resource sustain.

Alteration staff could buff the duration of the user's shield effects with passives.

It got taken down by the mods earlier, but my original suggestion for making Frost staff a DPS weapon again was to change these passives:

Tri-Focus: Fully-charged Frost Staff Heavy Attacks decrease an enemy's Spell Resistance by 1320 for 10 seconds.
Ancient Knowledge: Equipping a Frost Staff increases your spell critical by 7%.

Alteration becomes the dedicated tanking/utility skill line and Frost staves get a competitive bonus for DPS in line with what Fire and Lightning staves already give. Players looking to get extra penetration and critical can slot a Frost staff and take advantage of the CC that Frost Clench and Blockade can still provide. I'd imagine Frost would be more PvP-centric given these bonuses, but if a player wants to add more critical chance without using Mother's Sorrow or Precise, Frost staves can provide that option.

Either you can make an alteration staff. Or just make elemental susceptibility give fracture and taunt. And while slotted with a destruction staff equipped, frost's current ancient knowledge passive. The bonus can either be +8% spell crit damage or 6% spell crit chance. I think 7% might be a little much. But 6% should be fine.

Carespanker

I love this idea! I always hated the concept of tanking with a frost staff and eso does need some new magic abilities.

YandereGirlfriend

From your lips to God's ears (or keyboard to screen as it were).

Not only would this finally free FrostDPS to deal damage without shame but it's also FAR more lore-friendly than the current frost tanking scheme.

KillsAllElves

Get off the staff tanking idea and advocate for a Rune shield (spell) to repel attacks.

Vercingetorix

KillsAllElves wrote: »

Get off the staff tanking idea and advocate for a Rune shield (spell) to repel attacks.

An Alteration staff is far more lore-friendly than a rune shield. Alteration is the defense school of magic and the assets for staff animations already exist in the game, making it much easier for ZoS to implement. Adding a new skill line is already labor intensive - saving themselves a bit of work with staff assets while still respecting the lore is a win-win for ZoS and the players.

Chaos2088

ME WANTS ME WANTS!!!

Valenor

This would be a great addition. The more players ask for it, the more likely they are to add alteration staves to the game. Let's hope for the best

Vercingetorix

Valenor wrote: »

This would be a great addition. The more players ask for it, the more likely they are to add alteration staves to the game. Let's hope for the best

Agreed. Alteration staves are the most lore-friendly option for magic tanking and would be fairly easy to implement. Not only that, given the numerous utility effects ZoS could give the skill line, an Alteration staff could see use outside of tanking, especially in trials or pvp. Sure, many will argue that something like the "Mass Transmogrify" ultimate would never be slotted by the tank, but what about the off-tank or healer slotting it to quickly burn down trash pulls during trials? For competitive trial groups, that would be a legitimate option for them to consider.

xWarbrain

This is the greatest and best suggestion I've seen on here.

You win the forums.

emilyhyoyeon

yes. please. Just make frost do the same damage/function as fire and make the choice be cosmetic. who cares. please just make frost destruction magic a method of destruction, please

ESO_Nightingale

Wow this is a flurry of love @Vercingetorix. This might inspire ZOS to do something. Alteration Staff for tanking isn't a new concept by any means, but it seems like people are warming up to it.

SilverIce58

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Wow this is a flurry of love @Vercingetorix. This might inspire ZOS to do something. Alteration Staff for tanking isn't a new concept by any means, but it seems like people are warming up to it.

And then hopefully we can make frost staves do increased crit damage.

ESO_Nightingale

SilverIce58 wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Wow this is a flurry of love @Vercingetorix. This might inspire ZOS to do something. Alteration Staff for tanking isn't a new concept by any means, but it seems like people are warming up to it.

And then hopefully we can make frost staves do increased crit damage.

Hopefully so!

Taleof2Cities

So, where is the skill line dedicated to stamina users for healing ... ?

ESO_Nightingale

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

So, where is the skill line dedicated to stamina users for healing ... ?

Where is the skill line for bards or a melee magicka weapon?

It doesn't exist (yet) so come up with a concept to draw discussion to the topic.

Elusiin

@ZOS_GinaBruno please!!! : O

Noxavian

If we got one of these could we please get a conjuration staff? You have no idea how badly I want a pure summoner focused build to be a thing. That and I'd love to be able to summon an ice and fire atronach!!

It'd be more of a utility staff with skills that summon/buff summons.

KillsAllElves

Vercingetorix wrote: »

KillsAllElves wrote: »

Get off the staff tanking idea and advocate for a Rune shield (spell) to repel attacks.

An Alteration staff is far more lore-friendly than a rune shield. Alteration is the defense school of magic and the assets for staff animations already exist in the game, making it much easier for ZoS to implement. Adding a new skill line is already labor intensive - saving themselves a bit of work with staff assets while still respecting the lore is a win-win for ZoS and the players.

If thats the case than you should be tellin zos the psijic skill line was to labor intensive to create.
Youre advocating for developer laziness which should never be in the vocabulary of the gamer.

Lore? Lol the warden already takes a dump on lore!
(Oh but its hard for you guys to make, just give us reskinned pre existing assets so its easier on your part) 😂

Creating dungeon content is far more labor intensive than a single weapon skill line! Do you know what is involved when making weapon abilities and content? I do.

LACK OF IMAGINATION

KillsAllElves

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Alteration Staff Skill Line: Magicka Tanking

Good idea.
But I would say that, would I not, considering I posted one very much like it in my collected weapon thoughts:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/371862/additional-weapon-skill-ideas-mk-ii/p1

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Warding Staff
It seems somewhat clumsy to have a destruction staff as a main weapon as magica tank, so… why not give ice back to doing damage and slowing enemies, and make up a completely new weapon for tanky uses? One that uses magicka to block, obviously, and maybe has the taunt heavy attack, or maybe not (since it can get a skill for that).

Skills:
• Hex Bolt (magic projectile, does damage, taunt and physical defense)
- Morph1: Hex Volley (+ fires up to three bolts at nearby enemies)
- Morph2: Jinx Bolt (+ snare / duration)
• Empowered Ward (damage shield, recovers shield strength if blocking while active)
- Morph1: Enchanted Ward (+ spell resistance while active)
- Morph2: Empowered Barrier (+ physical resistance while active)
• Burdening Seal (AoE cast at location, snare and reduce spell defense / duration)
- Morph1: Enfeebling Seal (+ reduce physical damage wile in AoE)
- Morph2: Burdening Hex (+ magic DoT while in AoE)
• Warding Enchantment (increase spell resistance / duration)
- Morph1: Protective Enchantment (+ increase physical resistance)
- Morph2: Warding Aura (+ AoE around caster, affecting all allies in range)
• Guardian Wisp (summons a wisp pet that will increase magicka, and deny stealth to enemies)
- Morph1: Avenging Wisp (+ wisp will also launch magic attacks to nearby enemies)
- Morph2: Guardian Spirit (+ spell resistance, wisp is bigger and golden)
Ultimate: Warding Barrier (Large AoE, damage resistance to allies within, blocks enemy entry)
- Morph1: Imbued Barrier (+ resource recovery boots to allies within)
- Morph2: Warding Seal (+ blocks enemy movement out of the area as well, trapping them inside)
Passives:
• Enchantments: increase duration for taunts and debuffs
• Sanctuary: reduced skill cost and lowered blocking cost
• Mystic Power: increase magicka recovery / ward ability slotted
• Hardened Ward: allows to block more damage
• Mana Manipulation: blocked spells have a chance to reflect at the caster

She single?

xshatox

I would change one of my bar in pvp to this. This would be like christmas come early for ball group.

Faulgor

Suggested many times. New staffs would be the easiest weapons to add, but getting ZOS to add new skills is like pulling teeth.