Frost Staff Rework Idea?

Sayaka

Hello everyone. Lately, i was trying to create some tank builds by looking others builds and asking others about tanking, they consider Frost Staff to be unpractical and not good for tanking. I tried to do some Frost Staff builds, and i noticed that, Frost Staves usually lack. They cant offer what a S&S can offer, they offer immobilization and taunts only. I also rarely, and i mean very rarely see a frost staff user. I also noticed this game has literally no diversity between abilities and skill-lines, hence why every healer/tank/dps is using the same build with 1 or 2 stuff changed. I want more diversity in ESO, because its an amazing game and most importantly, it has a LOT of potential to be diverse and unique. I had a Frost staff concept in my head, and id like to share it with you and discuss it maybe. The changes are mainly to the passives and not that big, very simple additions that might help to bring Frost Staff a new life, use in this game. I have 2 versions of changes, with one being 1 simple change and the other probably too outrageous but i thought it is creative and a new interesting playstyle.

-Tri Focus: Heavy attacks taunt for 15 seconds and grant you a damage shield. Blocking costs magicka.
People complain usually for its time consuming taunt. In my opinion, because its a ranged and non-resource consuming taunt it balances itself.
-New Tri Focus: Heavy attacks taunt for 15 seconds and grants 2 allies damage shields. Blocking costs magicka.

This one change i think could make heavy attacking more rewarding and maybe a more fun frost staff experience. I think with this Frost Staff could easily be an off-tank that focuses more on protecting allies.

This new change, wont be probably liked but i still want to share;

-Tri Focus: Heavy attacks taunt for 15 seconds and grant you a damage shield. Blocking costs magicka.
-New Tri Focus: Heavy attacks forces the enemy to attack the ally with the highest maximum hp and grants damage shields to 2 allies, with one being always the ally with highest maximum hp and the other one the ally with lowest current health. If the ally that enemy is forced to attack is below 40% health, the enemy is taunted towards you instead.

-Ancient Knowledge: Reduce blocking cost and increase the amount you block.
-New Ancient Knowledge: Increase the power of your damage shields. When one of your shields are broken, grant Major Protection to the ally, reducing their damage taken by 30% for 2 seconds.

This might be off, maybe a lot off but i think this Frost Staff would bring something unique no other weapon brings. It would be fun to play with this Frost Staff.

What are your thoughts? Are you using or have used Frost Staff? Did you enjoy the staff, or not? I think ESO needs new weapons/classes with new playstyles.

ESO_Nightingale

The heavy attack taunting an enemy is a massive issue, because new players don't know that taking tri focus with a frost staff will steal agro from tanks. your changes do not eliminate the issue. the passives that the staff give should not be for tanking. rather, i think the current frost ancient knowledge passive, taunt and major fracture should be shifted to elemental susceptibility, a morph of weakness to elements. then the passives should be reworked to be focused on either critical damage or chance. this then means that frost mages have a viable weapon, and that tanks would have access to multiple staves for tanking and new players wouldn't be stealing taunt from tanks. elemental susceptibility would also be de-incentivised in pvp as it would require a skill slot and for a destruction staff to be slotted to gain the benefit. everyone wins.

as it currently stands, how the staff is currently configured is just plain awful. and magic classes only have 2 effective weapons to chose from.

i made a post about this exact topic on the pts portion of the forums. i have actual images which can give you a better view of what i mean.

Gnortranermara

Heavy attack taunt must die. Worst mechanic in the entire game.

Tessitura

I think two taunts in the game is enough, but I like that you are keeping the defensive and supportive role of the staff in mind while you think about it. I don't think ice need to be re-rolled into a damage staff, but the taunt should go since the two we have are more then good enough.

Now that said, I don't like the Major protection idea for ancient knowledge, as that would be way too strong I think, I do like the idea of you putting damage shield on other and yourself though, very nice for group play, both healer's tanks, and even dps can make use of that in both game types. Obviously works best in the hands of tanks and healers, but it's always nice to have dps that can add extra when it's needed.

ESO_Nightingale

Tessitura wrote: »

I think two taunts in the game is enough, but I like that you are keeping the defensive and supportive role of the staff in mind while you think about it. I don't think ice need to be re-rolled into a damage staff, but the taunt should go since the two we have are more then good enough.

Now that said, I don't like the Major protection idea for ancient knowledge, as that would be way too strong I think, I do like the idea of you putting damage shield on other and yourself though, very nice for group play, both healer's tanks, and even dps can make use of that in both game types. Obviously works best in the hands of tanks and healers, but it's always nice to have dps that can add extra when it's needed.

why don't you think it needs to be re-rolled into a damage staff? there are ways to keep the defensive aspects of it, such as making it a slotted passive on a tanking skill. instead of it blocking a damage staff from having damage related passives.

Tessitura

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Tessitura wrote: »

I think two taunts in the game is enough, but I like that you are keeping the defensive and supportive role of the staff in mind while you think about it. I don't think ice need to be re-rolled into a damage staff, but the taunt should go since the two we have are more then good enough.

Now that said, I don't like the Major protection idea for ancient knowledge, as that would be way too strong I think, I do like the idea of you putting damage shield on other and yourself though, very nice for group play, both healer's tanks, and even dps can make use of that in both game types. Obviously works best in the hands of tanks and healers, but it's always nice to have dps that can add extra when it's needed.

why don't you think it needs to be re-rolled into a damage staff? there are ways to keep the defensive aspects of it, such as making it a slotted passive on a tanking skill. instead of it blocking a damage staff from having damage related passives.

You said it's blocking a damage staff from doing damage but it's not a damage staff, they made that clear with they way they built it's passives. And, it's always been a heavy control related staff, it was never a good pick for damage but people used it for the debuffs it brought to the table.

Look dude, the destruction weapon tree should not have rolled three staff types into one tree, it was a lazy way for them to do it, but thats how it was done, so thats what we got, it's not a damage weapon and if it got it's own tree it would work better for what it is, but we have what we have.

Sayaka

I'm very suprised with yall thoughts. I dont think we need another dps weapon. Frost Staff conceptually is good, offering tanks to focus on Magicka rather on Stamina. When both weapons are used (S&S and Frost Staff), it kind of helps a good tank manage their resource way better.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

The heavy attack taunting an enemy is a massive issue, because new players don't know that taking tri focus with a frost staff will steal agro from tanks. your changes do not eliminate the issue.

Yes, my changes weren't about eliminating those "issues". It's not the Frost Staff's fault that a player fails to recognize it is a weapon designed for tanking rather than dps. A player (good and bad) that has read passives will understand that it is a weapon for tanking and therefore wont use it unless tanking. Those are not Frost Staff issues, those are player issues. The only problem i see with Heavy Attack taunt is that it is very time consuming and not rewarding at all when done.

Tessitura wrote: »

I think two taunts in the game is enough, but I like that you are keeping the defensive and supportive role of the staff in mind while you think about it. I don't think ice need to be re-rolled into a damage staff, but the taunt should go since the two we have are more then good enough.

Now that said, I don't like the Major protection idea for ancient knowledge, as that would be way too strong I think, I do like the idea of you putting damage shield on other and yourself though, very nice for group play, both healer's tanks, and even dps can make use of that in both game types. Obviously works best in the hands of tanks and healers, but it's always nice to have dps that can add extra when it's needed.

Yes, that is exactly what i aimed for. I also do not think we need another dps weapon, we have many of them already. I think we need a weapon that utilizes something else than healing or dealing damage. I imagined Frost Staff would be used to protect allies with shields while stopping enemies to harm allies by freezing them. I must add the Major Protection is only when a shield breaks, so that doesnt include a shield ending. I thought it would be kind of like an alarm, "The shield is broken, the ally is taking a lot of damage!" kind of alarm that activates Major Protection so they have more chances in survival if they really take so much damage. But I agree, maybe reducing it to Minor Protection would be better or making the Major Protection last only 1 second.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Tessitura wrote: »

I think two taunts in the game is enough, but I like that you are keeping the defensive and supportive role of the staff in mind while you think about it. I don't think ice need to be re-rolled into a damage staff, but the taunt should go since the two we have are more then good enough.

Now that said, I don't like the Major protection idea for ancient knowledge, as that would be way too strong I think, I do like the idea of you putting damage shield on other and yourself though, very nice for group play, both healer's tanks, and even dps can make use of that in both game types. Obviously works best in the hands of tanks and healers, but it's always nice to have dps that can add extra when it's needed.

why don't you think it needs to be re-rolled into a damage staff? there are ways to keep the defensive aspects of it, such as making it a slotted passive on a tanking skill. instead of it blocking a damage staff from having damage related passives.

I think you fail to realize Frost Staff was not meant to deal damage. It was meant to be another weapon option for tank playstyle to choose and utilize. I dont think they should make it a damage staff either. We have 4 staves that each utilize an aspect. Fire Staff utilizes single target dps, Lightning Staff utilizes area of effect dps, Restoration Staff utilizes healing allies and Frost Staff utilizes tanking. But I thought the tanking passives wasnt enough for Frost Staff. So i tried to make it utilize protecting allies.

Sayaka

Tessitura wrote: »

Look dude, the destruction weapon tree should not have rolled three staff types into one tree, it was a lazy way for them to do it, but thats how it was done, so thats what we got, it's not a damage weapon and if it got it's own tree it would work better for what it is, but we have what we have.

I agree with this so much ^.

It was lazy to make 3 staves use 1 line. In my opinion, destruction staves shouldnt be seperated into elements but rather just "Destruction Staff", which uses all elements to help the battle. They could've made an "Alteration Staff" that utilized immobilizing, stunning and protecting allies. It suits the style of Alteration since the Alteration Magic is primarily used for utilities to ease a situation with Detect, Magelight, Paralyze and Mage Armor spells. They couldve easily made a protective staff from Alteration but they have missed the chance.

Royaji

First of all, your initial premise that ice staff is rarely used and does not offer anything beyond taunts and immobilization is just plain incorrect.

If you were to take a look at any high end tank and their loadout (for example using esologs) you would be hard pressed to find anyone using double sword & shield. The vast majority of serious tanks are using a destruction staff (lightning or ice) back bar. For the sake of this argument I will ignore lightning staff since it is just a fancier and more risky choice (esentially tanking with a non-tanking weapon) which allows your group to squeeze out that last drop of extra damage. If you are not going for number one leaderboards spot or Godslayer there is very little reason to use lightning over ice on a tank.

Ice staves might not offer cheap and fast taunt and easy access to debuffs like sword & shield does but it does already bring a number of things sword & shield can only dream of. Ground AoE DoT which allows you to maintain enchants while blocking, range interrupt which can be crucial in many fights, ability to get a quick burst of magicka with a heavy attack. None of those should be overlooked. Some might also list ability to utilize both resources for blocking allowing you to swap bars and reduce resource strain as a unique advantage of ice staff. Not my opinion but this point has some merit.

To summarize, ice staff does not offer everything. But neither does sword & shield. If you opt out to use only one there is always something you will be leaving on the table. And this system is fine, this is what makes both ice staff and sword & shield unique. You don't actually have to choose either! Some of the best tanks just take both. With one bar of each you get to enjoy the advantages of both worlds.

To adress your proposed changes:

Tri-Focus: Heavy Attack taunt is just meh. It's not great but it's not terrible and entirely useless either. I'll adress your first idea together with Ancient Knowledge. The second one just looks like an entirely unnecessary convoluted mess. Since its function stays essentially the same - heavy attack taunts an enemy to your tank - you might as well keep the passive without changes.

Definitely a personal opinion thing (as I have aluded earlier) but much bigger problem with this passive is "blocking costs magicka" part. This little tidbit is the reason why I never put any skill-points in Tri-Focus. I want my blocking to cost stamina on both bars, same as all other "tanking" functions like taunts. This allows me to treat magicka as a pure "support" pool and be a bit more "trigger happy" with support without risking being caught with no resources to block a one-shot.

Ancient Knowledge (and "shield 2 allies" part of Tri-Focus): you've made the same mistake so many people coming up with these re-work ideas make. You've entirely ignored PvP consequences of your proposition. Heavy attack spamming healbot who can provide essentially 100% uptime on Major Protection to two allies is the last thing PvP with its current "tank" meta needs. This is just a really bad idea.

At the same time I do not see how this will add a whole lot to PvE side of things. Shields have fairly short duration. And when a heavy attack is incoming sneaking in a quick (not) heavy attack to protect your DDs is probably the last thing your average tank wants to be doing. This idea requires high risk and skill to pull off but offers a reward which is actually most needed for players of low skill. A tank who has enough boss patterns knowledge to pull this off is surely capable of dealing with any mechanic without any extra shields or Major Protection and is likely to be playing with allies who can manage as it is too. But someone who has just picked tanking up is much more likely to turtle up during dangerous mechanics and waste this shield during low intensity phases when they get to perform a heavy attack in a much safer way.

If I were to make you a counter-offer:

Even though I also disagree with ESO_Nightingale's crusade to turn ice staff into just another DPS weapon I will agree that their idea about moving taunt part of Tri-Foucs from heavy attack to one of the active skills has merit. Then, Tri-Focus can be freed for something simple and actually useful. For example a variaton on Concentrated Barrier passive from Psijic which provides you with a damage shield while blocking. And Ancient Knowledge should just stay the same since it mirrors essential tanking passives "Fortress" and "Sword and Board" from one-handed & shield line.

Sayaka

Royaji, the first part you deny is... i dont know. I didnt say it based off of myself but rather other people. By the way, yes they use a Frost Staff back bar but it is only usually for immobilization, not tanking. For tanking itself ask people, they will almost always prefer S&S.

And you are correct, that was my mistake. I completely forgot pvp. I'm not a pvper myself so that might be because i never thought about it. And yeah, you are correct on Major Protection. It is a bit too much. I kept it "taunting" to not revamp the staff into a completely different thing and make it stay as a tanking weapon. I just tried to stick on what its current playstyle is by adding additional effects rather than changing the gameplay but i might brainstorm that and maybe make a "Complete Frost Staff Rework" off of my thoughts, this time also considering pvp.

I want to add on the "blocking costs magicka" i think it has to stay if Frost Staff is used to tank. While your playstyle might involve around using Magicka as a support pool, not every tanks is. That simple change brings full-magicka tanks that only use stamina for support. A magicka tank might also say that they want S&S to use magicka for blocking as well since they treat Stamina as support pool. "Blocking costs magicka" brings a new perspective to tanking, so i would not absolutely remove it unless Frost Staff is completely changed to not be Frontline anymore.

I dislike how you adress shields as "low-skill player thing". While you are correct, Heavy Attacking might not be the best way to save someone, ill say again, i tried to stick how Frost now is. If it was for me, it would be a completely different staff with different abilities. I didnt want to take away chills and immobilizations it gave. I didnt imagine Frost being tank, hence why i added the Second Optional Change part. I imagine Frost Staff to shield allies to prevent them from taking damage, while not being the center of damage. Shields are definitely useful, even when you are high-skill player. Shields not only can save you from dangerous scenarios, they also allow other members to multi task and manage their resources better. If you just shield to save yourself from big damage, then of course it wont help you other than that. But because this game has no lines/classes/weapons that devote themselves to shielding, it is hard to notice importance of consistent shields and will be hard to explain. Shielding improves over-all performance by letting your group act more aggressive or defensive depending on the situation. In other games where you could devote yourself to shielding, i could easily improve all my teammates performance by letting them trust me to protect them so they could risk themselves for more rewards.

Other games aside, of course just shielding isn't going to take you or your team anywhere. Just like how healers are in this game. "High-end" players (and probably everyone reading this right now) always prefer their healers with various buffs to support, not only big heals. That is why a shield devoted class/weapon/line also has utilitic abilities. In Frost's case, its debuffing enemies and dealing magic/dot/aoe damage (but id definitely add some more variety). In general case, shielding builds are combined with buffing and debuffing making them valuable to place them in your team.

Edit: I edited out the new reworks i did here which i highly disliked inside.

LegendaryOaks

Sayaka wrote: »

-New Tri Focus: Heavy attacks forces the enemy to attack the ally with the highest maximum hp and grants damage shields to 2 allies, with one being always the ally with highest maximum hp and the other one the ally with lowest current health. If the ally that enemy is forced to attack is below 40% health, the enemy is taunted towards you instead.

i like this idea a ton, taunting enemies for the tank and giving damage shield to allies (maybe a 3-4k shield without bastion) is pretty unique i havent seen it before. they should also give crit damage to ice staff users to make it viable for dps as well

i only see this becoming an issue for trials and over taunting, which can possibly be fixed by replenishing the taunt timer of the person who currently has taunt instead

BXR_Lonestar

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

Royaji

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

Do I have to go into details why two highly sought after Major debuffs on a free "ability" is not a feasible idea? Same thing as I've mentioned before, you have to think about both PvE and PvP consequences of your ideas.

BXR_Lonestar

Royaji wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

Do I have to go into details why two highly sought after Major debuffs on a free "ability" is not a feasible idea? Same thing as I've mentioned before, you have to think about both PvE and PvP consequences of your ideas.

If its PVP you are concerned about, I'm really not sure what your issue is. Ice staff has a pretty large windup - which is one of the reasons why ice staff taunt is not necessarily feasible or practical. I don't imagine that an ice staff heavy attack is going to be any more feasible in a high-pace environment such as PVP. Furthermore, basically every class has access to a self-cleanse if it becomes an issue (class purge or through support Purge skill).

But if you have specific objections then perhaps you should state them rather than putting out a statement that amounts to "Do I really have to explain to you why you are wrong?"

The long and the short of it is that both of the debuffs involved are also easily and readily available in both modes through the pierce armor skill on the S/B tree. I see no reason why something similar shouldn't also be available for the ice staff if the ice staff is truly intended for tanking purposes.

Sayaka

LegendaryOaks wrote: »

Sayaka wrote: »

-New Tri Focus: Heavy attacks forces the enemy to attack the ally with the highest maximum hp and grants damage shields to 2 allies, with one being always the ally with highest maximum hp and the other one the ally with lowest current health. If the ally that enemy is forced to attack is below 40% health, the enemy is taunted towards you instead.

i like this idea a ton, taunting enemies for the tank and giving damage shield to allies (maybe a 3-4k shield without bastion) is pretty unique i havent seen it before. they should also give crit damage to ice staff users to make it viable for dps as well

i only see this becoming an issue for trials and over taunting, which can possibly be fixed by replenishing the taunt timer of the person who currently has taunt instead

Yes i tried to make it as supportive as possible without the traditional ways of buffing dps. Im thinking of starting another thread based on a new weapon Alteration Staff or a complete Rework to Frost Staff.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

I see and agree with your perspective, however i think Major buffs on heavy attack could be, and will be so over powered. I would expect everyone that arent neccessarily tanks running frost backbar. We should avoid creating "metas" at all costs imo. This leads us to uncreative and boring healers, dps and even tanks and also close minded people. These close minded people are everywhere in mmos nowadays. They brag about nothing but dps boost, any build that isnt fitting to tank/dps/healer isnt a thing for them.

tunepunk

I never use tri focus on my frost staff char. Mainly because if I'm blocking resources don't increase. So even as frost staffer char I leave that off, and let stamina drain when blocking instead.

Most of my tankier chars has their main skill usuage resource to be opposite of the blocking/defensive resource.

For example:
If most of your skills are Magicka based use stamina for defense. (ie frost staff without tri focus)
If most of your skills are Stamina based use Magicka for defense (ie using stamina as main resource but magicka for blocking)

U can use a frost staff and still be stamina oriented. You'll be surprised how well you can for example block and pull enemies with silver leach while blocking, and using the stamina version inner beast for taunting while blocking.

It's just find it stupid to put all eggs in the same basket. If you're blocking that means you don't regenerate of that resource, so getting hit will drain you and using skills drain the same resource.

The opposite goes for sword and shoeld as well. When using stamina for blocking, I make sure most my skills are magicka based, so they don't drain the same resource. So on 1hs you use the magicka version (inner rage for taunting)

Some combinations i find particularly useful.
Warden frost staff, tri focus off - high magicka & regen, and using mainly magicka skills. Bull netch to regain stamina while blocking.

Warden frost staff, tri focus on - high stamina & regen, and using mainly stamina skills. Betty netch to regain magicka while blocking.

Sorc Tank: 1HS, blocking cost stamina so, high magicka, and magicka regen, and using Dark deal to replenish stamina for more blocking.

It's an odd concept but it works surprisingly well. You don't really need very high resource for blocking if you invested some in cost reduction instead, and have some utility skill or potions to replenish your blocking resource. Then you can pretty much perma block and use skills without draining yourself, as the other resource still replenishes while you're blocking.

JinMori

Forget is, a destruction stuff should have never been for tanking.

It should just provide 4 % on all damage done.

Maybe then it would actually be used, at least by wardens.

It's in the name, destruction staff.

Come up with a new skilline if you wanna make a tanking weapon.

Cinbri

Thing is - unless zos fully overhaul this mechanic manablocking wont be actual thing. Unlike people claim it wont get any better just by heavy chest Relic that return mana on blocking. Should just get rid of it and add to future skilline of "Sword & Rune".
It is easily anyway to grant feeling of defensive destroy type just by changing passives into granting defensive buffs or restore stamina. For example make so light/heavy attacks restore small portion of stamina in addition to mana - and voila, we have tanking staff for magicka builds.
But zos knows it anyway given that pts templates now has only 1 passive that wasn't auto-enabled - Tri-Focus, just coz manablocking in current state is thing that almost noone needs.

MashmalloMan

Remove heavy attack taunt. Worst passive in the game.

BXR_Lonestar

Sayaka wrote: »

LegendaryOaks wrote: »

Sayaka wrote: »

-New Tri Focus: Heavy attacks forces the enemy to attack the ally with the highest maximum hp and grants damage shields to 2 allies, with one being always the ally with highest maximum hp and the other one the ally with lowest current health. If the ally that enemy is forced to attack is below 40% health, the enemy is taunted towards you instead.

i like this idea a ton, taunting enemies for the tank and giving damage shield to allies (maybe a 3-4k shield without bastion) is pretty unique i havent seen it before. they should also give crit damage to ice staff users to make it viable for dps as well

i only see this becoming an issue for trials and over taunting, which can possibly be fixed by replenishing the taunt timer of the person who currently has taunt instead

Yes i tried to make it as supportive as possible without the traditional ways of buffing dps. Im thinking of starting another thread based on a new weapon Alteration Staff or a complete Rework to Frost Staff.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

I see and agree with your perspective, however i think Major buffs on heavy attack could be, and will be so over powered. I would expect everyone that arent neccessarily tanks running frost backbar. We should avoid creating "metas" at all costs imo. This leads us to uncreative and boring healers, dps and even tanks and also close minded people. These close minded people are everywhere in mmos nowadays. They brag about nothing but dps boost, any build that isnt fitting to tank/dps/healer isnt a thing for them.

Honestly, I don't think it would be OP. The passive for an inferno staff on the tri-focus is a straight 12% damage increase for single target. Fully charged lightning attack deals 100% of the damage as an AoE. Those are already incredibly strong buffs, so Frost needs a strong buff to put it on an even playing field with the others in terms of DPS. I think granting it BOTH major fracture and breech is about right because ONE of those bonuses is already available to anyone who uses a Desto staff by simply slotting a skill (Elemental Drain or its morphs). This would allow frost staff users - who COULD be either tank or DPS - to get access to both without slotting a skill - which frees up an extra skill slot. Seems like an even exchange to me.

In terms of boring meta? I don't buy the argument that it would become the new meta. Could it create more flexibility in terms of build options for tanks, healers, and DPS? sure. But I don't see it as being so strong that it replaces the current meta. Current tanks can already give both major bonuses to their group without overhauling their current builds and to throw it on a healer without coordinating with your tank would be redundant. I think it may increase options, build variety, and viable strategies for endgame content, but that would be a refreshing change for this game.

Xvorg

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

Do I have to go into details why two highly sought after Major debuffs on a free "ability" is not a feasible idea? Same thing as I've mentioned before, you have to think about both PvE and PvP consequences of your ideas.

If its PVP you are concerned about, I'm really not sure what your issue is. Ice staff has a pretty large windup - which is one of the reasons why ice staff taunt is not necessarily feasible or practical. I don't imagine that an ice staff heavy attack is going to be any more feasible in a high-pace environment such as PVP. Furthermore, basically every class has access to a self-cleanse if it becomes an issue (class purge or through support Purge skill).

But if you have specific objections then perhaps you should state them rather than putting out a statement that amounts to "Do I really have to explain to you why you are wrong?"

The long and the short of it is that both of the debuffs involved are also easily and readily available in both modes through the pierce armor skill on the S/B tree. I see no reason why something similar shouldn't also be available for the ice staff if the ice staff is truly intended for tanking purposes.

So I can go up a wall and spam heavy attacks to the blob at 0 magicka cost, not even bothering to slot weakness to elements and doing extra dmg at the same time?

As a mDK that sounds like an mega powerful build, I just need 5 pieces elegance + 5 pieces destructive mage + slimecraw/Daedroth/Kena and Molten Armaments...

cool

BXR_Lonestar

Xvorg wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

Do I have to go into details why two highly sought after Major debuffs on a free "ability" is not a feasible idea? Same thing as I've mentioned before, you have to think about both PvE and PvP consequences of your ideas.

If its PVP you are concerned about, I'm really not sure what your issue is. Ice staff has a pretty large windup - which is one of the reasons why ice staff taunt is not necessarily feasible or practical. I don't imagine that an ice staff heavy attack is going to be any more feasible in a high-pace environment such as PVP. Furthermore, basically every class has access to a self-cleanse if it becomes an issue (class purge or through support Purge skill).

But if you have specific objections then perhaps you should state them rather than putting out a statement that amounts to "Do I really have to explain to you why you are wrong?"

The long and the short of it is that both of the debuffs involved are also easily and readily available in both modes through the pierce armor skill on the S/B tree. I see no reason why something similar shouldn't also be available for the ice staff if the ice staff is truly intended for tanking purposes.

So I can go up a wall and spam heavy attacks to the blob at 0 magicka cost, not even bothering to slot weakness to elements and doing extra dmg at the same time?

As a mDK that sounds like an mega powerful build, I just need 5 pieces elegance + 5 pieces destructive mage + slimecraw/Daedroth/Kena and Molten Armaments...

cool

As I indicated before - every class has access to a purge skill and the frost staff has a heavy wind up. There are many sets out there that offer additional benefits for purging negative effects or that purge on heal. I don't see this as being a problem because it would take you some time to debuff every single individual in a zerg - which, by the way people are always complaining about, so I'm not sure why people would complain that there is something that makes it easier to combat zergs. It would also help combat the heavy armor meta which - by the way - everyone constantly complains about as well.

Royaji

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

Do I have to go into details why two highly sought after Major debuffs on a free "ability" is not a feasible idea? Same thing as I've mentioned before, you have to think about both PvE and PvP consequences of your ideas.

If its PVP you are concerned about, I'm really not sure what your issue is. Ice staff has a pretty large windup - which is one of the reasons why ice staff taunt is not necessarily feasible or practical. I don't imagine that an ice staff heavy attack is going to be any more feasible in a high-pace environment such as PVP. Furthermore, basically every class has access to a self-cleanse if it becomes an issue (class purge or through support Purge skill).

But if you have specific objections then perhaps you should state them rather than putting out a statement that amounts to "Do I really have to explain to you why you are wrong?"

The long and the short of it is that both of the debuffs involved are also easily and readily available in both modes through the pierce armor skill on the S/B tree. I see no reason why something similar shouldn't also be available for the ice staff if the ice staff is truly intended for tanking purposes.

So I can go up a wall and spam heavy attacks to the blob at 0 magicka cost, not even bothering to slot weakness to elements and doing extra dmg at the same time?

As a mDK that sounds like an mega powerful build, I just need 5 pieces elegance + 5 pieces destructive mage + slimecraw/Daedroth/Kena and Molten Armaments...

cool

As I indicated before - every class has access to a purge skill and the frost staff has a heavy wind up. There are many sets out there that offer additional benefits for purging negative effects or that purge on heal. I don't see this as being a problem because it would take you some time to debuff every single individual in a zerg - which, by the way people are always complaining about, so I'm not sure why people would complain that there is something that makes it easier to combat zergs. It would also help combat the heavy armor meta which - by the way - everyone constantly complains about as well.

A 5400 magicka base cost skill which only removes three negative effects (take a moment to count how many negative effects including DoTs you have on you during an average PvP engagement) and takes a very valuable bar slot is very far from "every class has access to a purge skill". In the world of PvP the cast time on frost heavy is really not that big of a deal either.

And once again you do not consider the consequences that this "tank" now has cost-free and bar slot-free access to both Major Breach and Major Fracture too. And guess which kind of build has the least problem with winding up a heavy in the middle of a fight? Now put a couple of those tanks in the middle of a zerg. Still don't see a problem?

BXR_Lonestar

Royaji wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

Do I have to go into details why two highly sought after Major debuffs on a free "ability" is not a feasible idea? Same thing as I've mentioned before, you have to think about both PvE and PvP consequences of your ideas.

If its PVP you are concerned about, I'm really not sure what your issue is. Ice staff has a pretty large windup - which is one of the reasons why ice staff taunt is not necessarily feasible or practical. I don't imagine that an ice staff heavy attack is going to be any more feasible in a high-pace environment such as PVP. Furthermore, basically every class has access to a self-cleanse if it becomes an issue (class purge or through support Purge skill).

But if you have specific objections then perhaps you should state them rather than putting out a statement that amounts to "Do I really have to explain to you why you are wrong?"

The long and the short of it is that both of the debuffs involved are also easily and readily available in both modes through the pierce armor skill on the S/B tree. I see no reason why something similar shouldn't also be available for the ice staff if the ice staff is truly intended for tanking purposes.

So I can go up a wall and spam heavy attacks to the blob at 0 magicka cost, not even bothering to slot weakness to elements and doing extra dmg at the same time?

As a mDK that sounds like an mega powerful build, I just need 5 pieces elegance + 5 pieces destructive mage + slimecraw/Daedroth/Kena and Molten Armaments...

cool

As I indicated before - every class has access to a purge skill and the frost staff has a heavy wind up. There are many sets out there that offer additional benefits for purging negative effects or that purge on heal. I don't see this as being a problem because it would take you some time to debuff every single individual in a zerg - which, by the way people are always complaining about, so I'm not sure why people would complain that there is something that makes it easier to combat zergs. It would also help combat the heavy armor meta which - by the way - everyone constantly complains about as well.

A 5400 magicka base cost skill which only removes three negative effects (take a moment to count how many negative effects including DoTs you have on you during an average PvP engagement) and takes a very valuable bar slot is very far from "every class has access to a purge skill". In the world of PvP the cast time on frost heavy is really not that big of a deal either.

And once again you do not consider the consequences that this "tank" now has cost-free and bar slot-free access to both Major Breach and Major Fracture too. And guess which kind of build has the least problem with winding up a heavy in the middle of a fight? Now put a couple of those tanks in the middle of a zerg. Still don't see a problem?

No I don't. Because purge effects more than one person, so its not 5400 Magika to remove negative effects ONLY from yourself, but also from a number of individuals around you. Not to mention that many coordinated zergs already have dedicated support (ie, healers) running around purging their teammates as well. And as you pointed out - look at all the potential negative effects that could be put on you in a single engagement. If you get all of those on you, you are likely going to die anyways.

If there is a problem in all of this, it is the tank meta where people can dawn heavy armor and STILL sustain AND have enough damage output to kill squishier characters who focus more on damage output. But guess what? Troll builds are always going to be a thing until they nerf heavy armor - which they can't do without harming PVE. So something like this that would allow other players to add additional pressure to players using these builds? Don't really see it as a problem.

Xvorg

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

Do I have to go into details why two highly sought after Major debuffs on a free "ability" is not a feasible idea? Same thing as I've mentioned before, you have to think about both PvE and PvP consequences of your ideas.

If its PVP you are concerned about, I'm really not sure what your issue is. Ice staff has a pretty large windup - which is one of the reasons why ice staff taunt is not necessarily feasible or practical. I don't imagine that an ice staff heavy attack is going to be any more feasible in a high-pace environment such as PVP. Furthermore, basically every class has access to a self-cleanse if it becomes an issue (class purge or through support Purge skill).

But if you have specific objections then perhaps you should state them rather than putting out a statement that amounts to "Do I really have to explain to you why you are wrong?"

The long and the short of it is that both of the debuffs involved are also easily and readily available in both modes through the pierce armor skill on the S/B tree. I see no reason why something similar shouldn't also be available for the ice staff if the ice staff is truly intended for tanking purposes.

So I can go up a wall and spam heavy attacks to the blob at 0 magicka cost, not even bothering to slot weakness to elements and doing extra dmg at the same time?

As a mDK that sounds like an mega powerful build, I just need 5 pieces elegance + 5 pieces destructive mage + slimecraw/Daedroth/Kena and Molten Armaments...

cool

As I indicated before - every class has access to a purge skill and the frost staff has a heavy wind up. There are many sets out there that offer additional benefits for purging negative effects or that purge on heal. I don't see this as being a problem because it would take you some time to debuff every single individual in a zerg - which, by the way people are always complaining about, so I'm not sure why people would complain that there is something that makes it easier to combat zergs. It would also help combat the heavy armor meta which - by the way - everyone constantly complains about as well.

A 5400 magicka base cost skill which only removes three negative effects (take a moment to count how many negative effects including DoTs you have on you during an average PvP engagement) and takes a very valuable bar slot is very far from "every class has access to a purge skill". In the world of PvP the cast time on frost heavy is really not that big of a deal either.

And once again you do not consider the consequences that this "tank" now has cost-free and bar slot-free access to both Major Breach and Major Fracture too. And guess which kind of build has the least problem with winding up a heavy in the middle of a fight? Now put a couple of those tanks in the middle of a zerg. Still don't see a problem?

No I don't. Because purge effects more than one person, so its not 5400 Magika to remove negative effects ONLY from yourself, but also from a number of individuals around you. Not to mention that many coordinated zergs already have dedicated support (ie, healers) running around purging their teammates as well. And as you pointed out - look at all the potential negative effects that could be put on you in a single engagement. If you get all of those on you, you are likely going to die anyways.

If there is a problem in all of this, it is the tank meta where people can dawn heavy armor and STILL sustain AND have enough damage output to kill squishier characters who focus more on damage output. But guess what? Troll builds are always going to be a thing until they nerf heavy armor - which they can't do without harming PVE. So something like this that would allow other players to add additional pressure to players using these builds? Don't really see it as a problem.

Purge is crap. The reason why Templars ar great is because they have a cheaper purge.

Now consider this: stam classes have to spend 6k on one purge... is that a solution?

Try to use purge in PvP and you will see why most dedicated purgers are templars

BXR_Lonestar

Xvorg wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

My idea for a frost staff rework that fixes the heavy attack= taunt issue:

Make it so that heavy attack grants major fracture and major breach rather than a taunt.

This helps ice staves from a DPS perspective by making it easier to lower resistances which help increase damage. It also helps from a tanking perspective because an ice tank no longer has to find a way to slot skills that grant major fracture and major breach - they need only equip the undaunted range taunt and they have all the tools they need to be a legitimate tank readily available to them.

Do I have to go into details why two highly sought after Major debuffs on a free "ability" is not a feasible idea? Same thing as I've mentioned before, you have to think about both PvE and PvP consequences of your ideas.

If its PVP you are concerned about, I'm really not sure what your issue is. Ice staff has a pretty large windup - which is one of the reasons why ice staff taunt is not necessarily feasible or practical. I don't imagine that an ice staff heavy attack is going to be any more feasible in a high-pace environment such as PVP. Furthermore, basically every class has access to a self-cleanse if it becomes an issue (class purge or through support Purge skill).

But if you have specific objections then perhaps you should state them rather than putting out a statement that amounts to "Do I really have to explain to you why you are wrong?"

The long and the short of it is that both of the debuffs involved are also easily and readily available in both modes through the pierce armor skill on the S/B tree. I see no reason why something similar shouldn't also be available for the ice staff if the ice staff is truly intended for tanking purposes.

So I can go up a wall and spam heavy attacks to the blob at 0 magicka cost, not even bothering to slot weakness to elements and doing extra dmg at the same time?

As a mDK that sounds like an mega powerful build, I just need 5 pieces elegance + 5 pieces destructive mage + slimecraw/Daedroth/Kena and Molten Armaments...

cool

As I indicated before - every class has access to a purge skill and the frost staff has a heavy wind up. There are many sets out there that offer additional benefits for purging negative effects or that purge on heal. I don't see this as being a problem because it would take you some time to debuff every single individual in a zerg - which, by the way people are always complaining about, so I'm not sure why people would complain that there is something that makes it easier to combat zergs. It would also help combat the heavy armor meta which - by the way - everyone constantly complains about as well.

A 5400 magicka base cost skill which only removes three negative effects (take a moment to count how many negative effects including DoTs you have on you during an average PvP engagement) and takes a very valuable bar slot is very far from "every class has access to a purge skill". In the world of PvP the cast time on frost heavy is really not that big of a deal either.

And once again you do not consider the consequences that this "tank" now has cost-free and bar slot-free access to both Major Breach and Major Fracture too. And guess which kind of build has the least problem with winding up a heavy in the middle of a fight? Now put a couple of those tanks in the middle of a zerg. Still don't see a problem?

No I don't. Because purge effects more than one person, so its not 5400 Magika to remove negative effects ONLY from yourself, but also from a number of individuals around you. Not to mention that many coordinated zergs already have dedicated support (ie, healers) running around purging their teammates as well. And as you pointed out - look at all the potential negative effects that could be put on you in a single engagement. If you get all of those on you, you are likely going to die anyways.

If there is a problem in all of this, it is the tank meta where people can dawn heavy armor and STILL sustain AND have enough damage output to kill squishier characters who focus more on damage output. But guess what? Troll builds are always going to be a thing until they nerf heavy armor - which they can't do without harming PVE. So something like this that would allow other players to add additional pressure to players using these builds? Don't really see it as a problem.

Purge is crap. The reason why Templars ar great is because they have a cheaper purge.

Now consider this: stam classes have to spend 6k on one purge... is that a solution?

Try to use purge in PvP and you will see why most dedicated purgers are templars

I use purge in PVP all the time - on my healer. And the templar purge requires a synergy. I prefer it over cleansing ritual because allies don't have to synergize in order to cleanse themselves.

Even if stamina specs are at a disadvantage, I'm fine with that. Stam right now has an advantage in damage output overall, but mag specs are seen as more survivable. That's called a tradeoff, and I'm perfectly comfortable with that.

Overall, I don't really see this as being so OP that it would break the game. A magblade could apply both debuffs (Marked for death + Elemental drain) in the same time it takes to complete a heavy attack, so I really don't see the problem here. Moving those two debuffs to the heavy attack in replace of taunt simply offers an incentive to use a frost staff vs. other types of staves and it offers more flexibility for all types of builds. Its "cost free" in terms of not costing magika to activate the debuff or the need to slot different skills, but it does come at the opportunity cost of additional AOE damage (lightning staff) or single target damage (fire staff) and damage output in general since ice abilities are more for crowd control than damage anyways.

CaptainVenom

I'd remove taunt from heavy attacks and add it to destructive touch instead. Can't use ice staves for dps unless I remove Tri-focus

BXR_Lonestar

CaptainVenom wrote: »

I'd remove taunt from heavy attacks and add it to destructive touch instead. Can't use ice staves for dps unless I remove Tri-focus

I'd be okay with that, but it still wouldn't make frost staff tanking in my mind on par with s/b tanking. S/b has the ability to proc major fracture/breech and taunt all with one skill, so you only use up one bar slot. If a tank is using a frost staff instead of S/B, and ice destructive touch becomes the taunt, the frost tank now has to slot destructive touch and elemental drain to get 2/3rds of the effects that are available through just one skill on the s/b slot.

That is why I proposed to make frost staff heavy attack proc major breach/fracture instead of taunt. This would allow the frost staff tank to commit only one slot (Undaunted ranged taunt), but still have all the tools available to it that a s/b tank has. This would put frost tanks more on par with s/b tanks and make them a more viable option.

It also creates flexibility for DPS (frost DPS freeing up an additional skill slot) or healers (ability to debuff), and creates more viable mixes of characters for high-level endgame content.

ESO_Nightingale

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

CaptainVenom wrote: »

I'd remove taunt from heavy attacks and add it to destructive touch instead. Can't use ice staves for dps unless I remove Tri-focus

I'd be okay with that, but it still wouldn't make frost staff tanking in my mind on par with s/b tanking. S/b has the ability to proc major fracture/breech and taunt all with one skill, so you only use up one bar slot. If a tank is using a frost staff instead of S/B, and ice destructive touch becomes the taunt, the frost tank now has to slot destructive touch and elemental drain to get 2/3rds of the effects that are available through just one skill on the s/b slot.

That is why I proposed to make frost staff heavy attack proc major breach/fracture instead of taunt. This would allow the frost staff tank to commit only one slot (Undaunted ranged taunt), but still have all the tools available to it that a s/b tank has. This would put frost tanks more on par with s/b tanks and make them a more viable option.

It also creates flexibility for DPS (frost DPS freeing up an additional skill slot) or healers (ability to debuff), and creates more viable mixes of characters for high-level endgame content.

This wouldn't free up a slot for frost dps because frost dps use deep fissure and that morph of boneyard with the major breach and fracture. Besides i don't think putting a powerful debuff like major breach and fracture on something like a heavy attack is a good idea.