Frost Staff changes in Update 28 (unofficial suggestion)

Xebov

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Why should magicka DD even have to deal with gimmicky tank mechanics in one of their only 3 weapons. Just scrap anything tank related, please ZOS. And give us specific tanking staff, made for tanking, that isn't subpar.

Thats not as easy as it sounds. You need to think about new skilline that needs leveling or incorporation into the destruction staff line. You also have to think about what happens to existing frost staffs and researched frost staff traits?

Currently Tank players have Frost Staffs. They also have the traits researched that enable them to craft various sets and Transmute them. You also have a handful of DDs that do the exact same.
You now have 2 choices:
1.) You create the new weapon for Tanks. This would mean Tanks would have to refarm their staffs (i have 10+) and research the traits to be able to craft/transmute. Essentially destroying their current gear setups.
2.) You could create a new weapon but transfer all Frost Staffs and Traits to the new weapon. This would mean that DDs would have to refarm their staffs and research the traits to be able to craft/transmute. Essentially destroying their current gear setups.

No matter how you turn it, one side will get the shorter end of the stick. Only question is which part of the community you want to *** off. Thats also the reason why you will most likely not see this happen.

3) ZOS Duplicates Frost staff's research progress to the new staff type and creates a temporary NPC that transmutes frost staves to whatever new stave they created.

With new players complaining that they have to do researches veterans do not need to do and with returning players complaining when transmute is no longer possible. Sadly there is no simple and fair solution.

emilyhyoyeon

I don't wanna sound sassy and it's not really the point,

but if a tanking-specific magicka weapon was made originally, there would not have been investment from the players into frost staves as tanking weapons. And as someone who has invested into frost staves as tanking weapons, I wouldn't mind redoing and reorganizing everything if it means frost is dps as it should be with the addition of a mag tanking staff.
But we can't go back in time so this is kind of useless and off topic for me to bring up, but I'm just a little frustrated with it all so I kinda wanted to just say this. I don't want to derail or defocus the convo

Going back to the elemental storm stuff:

yeah I think I overlooked the unique effect theme. What spooked me about the reduce cost effect was my first thought being whether or not it's enough to hold up against fire and lightning. Fire obviously gets damage from, duh, increased damage. Lightning gets damage from the nature of being up longer by 2 seconds, resulting in 2 seconds more of damage.

Ele storm is a high cost skill, with some classes IIRC only casting it at the beginning of the fight and then swapping to a different ult, like magblade swapping to incap. There's also the issue of how many more casts of the frost storm a player would even get in a fight--are there enough long fights to make that worth it?

Thinking about it more though, I don't think it really matters, especially for most players and groups. Plus the cost decrease could always be buffed if underperforming too hard. And, if ice gets the crit damage passive, I think its damage will be fine regardless

Corellon Thromorin

Xebov wrote: »

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Why should magicka DD even have to deal with gimmicky tank mechanics in one of their only 3 weapons. Just scrap anything tank related, please ZOS. And give us specific tanking staff, made for tanking, that isn't subpar.

Thats not as easy as it sounds. You need to think about new skilline that needs leveling or incorporation into the destruction staff line. You also have to think about what happens to existing frost staffs and researched frost staff traits?

Currently Tank players have Frost Staffs. They also have the traits researched that enable them to craft various sets and Transmute them. You also have a handful of DDs that do the exact same.
You now have 2 choices:
1.) You create the new weapon for Tanks. This would mean Tanks would have to refarm their staffs (i have 10+) and research the traits to be able to craft/transmute. Essentially destroying their current gear setups.
2.) You could create a new weapon but transfer all Frost Staffs and Traits to the new weapon. This would mean that DDs would have to refarm their staffs and research the traits to be able to craft/transmute. Essentially destroying their current gear setups.

No matter how you turn it, one side will get the shorter end of the stick. Only question is which part of the community you want to *** off. Thats also the reason why you will most likely not see this happen.

3) ZOS Duplicates Frost staff's research progress to the new staff type and creates a temporary NPC that transmutes frost staves to whatever new stave they created.

With new players complaining that they have to do researches veterans do not need to do and with returning players complaining when transmute is no longer possible. Sadly there is no simple and fair solution.

Both of these, honestly, aren't real issues.

Xebov

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Why should magicka DD even have to deal with gimmicky tank mechanics in one of their only 3 weapons. Just scrap anything tank related, please ZOS. And give us specific tanking staff, made for tanking, that isn't subpar.

Thats not as easy as it sounds. You need to think about new skilline that needs leveling or incorporation into the destruction staff line. You also have to think about what happens to existing frost staffs and researched frost staff traits?

Currently Tank players have Frost Staffs. They also have the traits researched that enable them to craft various sets and Transmute them. You also have a handful of DDs that do the exact same.
You now have 2 choices:
1.) You create the new weapon for Tanks. This would mean Tanks would have to refarm their staffs (i have 10+) and research the traits to be able to craft/transmute. Essentially destroying their current gear setups.
2.) You could create a new weapon but transfer all Frost Staffs and Traits to the new weapon. This would mean that DDs would have to refarm their staffs and research the traits to be able to craft/transmute. Essentially destroying their current gear setups.

No matter how you turn it, one side will get the shorter end of the stick. Only question is which part of the community you want to *** off. Thats also the reason why you will most likely not see this happen.

3) ZOS Duplicates Frost staff's research progress to the new staff type and creates a temporary NPC that transmutes frost staves to whatever new stave they created.

With new players complaining that they have to do researches veterans do not need to do and with returning players complaining when transmute is no longer possible. Sadly there is no simple and fair solution.

Both of these, honestly, aren't real issues.

Not for you, from the perspective of the company they are. Because both situations create unfair situations that can have effects on the players.

Corellon Thromorin

Xebov wrote: »

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Why should magicka DD even have to deal with gimmicky tank mechanics in one of their only 3 weapons. Just scrap anything tank related, please ZOS. And give us specific tanking staff, made for tanking, that isn't subpar.

Thats not as easy as it sounds. You need to think about new skilline that needs leveling or incorporation into the destruction staff line. You also have to think about what happens to existing frost staffs and researched frost staff traits?

Currently Tank players have Frost Staffs. They also have the traits researched that enable them to craft various sets and Transmute them. You also have a handful of DDs that do the exact same.
You now have 2 choices:
1.) You create the new weapon for Tanks. This would mean Tanks would have to refarm their staffs (i have 10+) and research the traits to be able to craft/transmute. Essentially destroying their current gear setups.
2.) You could create a new weapon but transfer all Frost Staffs and Traits to the new weapon. This would mean that DDs would have to refarm their staffs and research the traits to be able to craft/transmute. Essentially destroying their current gear setups.

No matter how you turn it, one side will get the shorter end of the stick. Only question is which part of the community you want to *** off. Thats also the reason why you will most likely not see this happen.

3) ZOS Duplicates Frost staff's research progress to the new staff type and creates a temporary NPC that transmutes frost staves to whatever new stave they created.

With new players complaining that they have to do researches veterans do not need to do and with returning players complaining when transmute is no longer possible. Sadly there is no simple and fair solution.

Both of these, honestly, aren't real issues.

Not for you, from the perspective of the company they are. Because both situations create unfair situations that can have effects on the players.

If ZOS thought that new players requiring doing research was some kind of issue they would have decreased the research grind instead of introducing real-money consumables to decrease it. If the player wasn't here during the changes to use the temporary npc, pretty sure this player would still need to farm a new weapon or something because the meta changes so fast nowadays because ZOS can't not change it every new moon.

A new tanking staff is the only real solution to the frost staff being a proper dps weapons that is not held back by weird magicka tanks.

emilyhyoyeon

Xebov wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Corellon Thromorin wrote: »

Why should magicka DD even have to deal with gimmicky tank mechanics in one of their only 3 weapons. Just scrap anything tank related, please ZOS. And give us specific tanking staff, made for tanking, that isn't subpar.

Thats not as easy as it sounds. You need to think about new skilline that needs leveling or incorporation into the destruction staff line. You also have to think about what happens to existing frost staffs and researched frost staff traits?

Currently Tank players have Frost Staffs. They also have the traits researched that enable them to craft various sets and Transmute them. You also have a handful of DDs that do the exact same.
You now have 2 choices:
1.) You create the new weapon for Tanks. This would mean Tanks would have to refarm their staffs (i have 10+) and research the traits to be able to craft/transmute. Essentially destroying their current gear setups.
2.) You could create a new weapon but transfer all Frost Staffs and Traits to the new weapon. This would mean that DDs would have to refarm their staffs and research the traits to be able to craft/transmute. Essentially destroying their current gear setups.

No matter how you turn it, one side will get the shorter end of the stick. Only question is which part of the community you want to *** off. Thats also the reason why you will most likely not see this happen.

Yeah it's a lot of extra work for something you can fix similar to how I've suggested. I'd still prefer a new tanking weapon but you've just listed reasons why it's annoying to create a new one.

With that in mind its also very likely that the Frost staff will remain as a Tank weapon, which creates a problem. Some stuff that is usefull for Tanks is nearly useless for DDs and vice versa, which makes it problematic turning it into a weapon that both can use.

This thread is literally for discussing how to turn it into a weapon both can use. Platitudes don't really do anything for the discussion. Check out some of the suggestions already brought up from the OP and various players that keep its current tanking abilities while making it viable for DDs

ajkb78

The changes seem stupid to be. The stated goal is to improve frost staves for both tanking and DPS. But the changes don't involve any damage multiplier like shock and fire have, so no significant improvement for dps. A crit damage modifier might have been a unique option to add here. You've even nerfed the damage from wall of frost, making it even less attractive to DPS. About the only positive is the change to Tri focus to remove auto taunt.

Dojohoda

Elemental Susceptibility (as shown in which it applies both Major Fracture and Major Breach) is too strong if it can be placed on many enemies. It'd have to be either limited to being active on one enemy at a time or only apply Major Fracture.

The snare on frost wall is very thematic and I like it. I had an idea while thinking about what happens when walking on ice..
The idea is one morph of frost wall kept the snare while the other morph caused enemies to slide toward the player.

scorpius2k1

Dojohoda wrote: »

The snare on frost wall is very thematic and I like it. I had an idea while thinking about what happens when walking on ice..
The idea is one morph of frost wall kept the snare while the other morph caused enemies to slide toward the player.

Neat idea, really, but can you imagine for a moment how great this wouldn't work with how bad the desync and lag is in ESO. You would probably see enemies getting stuck in floors, walls, doors, etc and "teleporting" all over the place which would make a lot of "fun" for combat.

Combat desync/lag with Stonethorn U27 from my post here. Now just imagine enemies "sliding" on ice with this.
https://youtu.be/j_9c8ktGNVo
https://youtu.be/tgp3TduJRnw

Anhedonie

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Elemental Ring:


What changed?:
this ability no longer has to be aimed on the ground, instead it surrounds you in an elemental cloak which deals your staff's damage type to nearby enemies after you deal your initial tick of damage.

Thanks, I hate this.

FrancisCrawford

A new ranged magicka taunt available to all classes isn't needed; we already have one.

What we don't have is a magicka chain available to everbody. Without that, I don't see how a more-magicka-than-stamina tank could ever be good in trash fights. And while the DK's magicka chain is good, the warden's doesn't seem very popular, and the necro's substitute has limitations.

Or is there something I'm overlooking here?

FrancisCrawford

As for the crit point -- obviously, any numbers would have to be considered in light of the general crit rework. But the basic idea that an element whose power fantasy is shattering something is good for crit makes sense.

As for Wall of Elements' damage being slashed -- if Maelstrom staffs are still bis for non-frost builds, that's a problem for frost.

emilyhyoyeon

Minor Brittle debuff?

JohnOfMarkarth

@ESO_Nightingale Hey mayt... Can ye highlight that the pictures are just suggestions... It can read a bit... confusingly.

Dojohoda

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Minor Brittle debuff?

That causes enemy to take more damage from critical damage. I think it applies to chilled enemy. I'm hoping all of this will be on PTS Monday.

Miraslova

emilyhyoyeon

Dojohoda wrote: »

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Minor Brittle debuff?

That causes enemy to take more damage from critical damage. I think it applies to chilled enemy. I'm hoping all of this will be on PTS Monday.

From the sounds of it, it's essentially a debuff applied by frost staves that everyone benefits from, not a debuff that exclusively frost staff users benefit from. In other words, it's another change that reinforces the ice staff as a support weapon. I hope I'm wrong.

Luke_Flamesword

From the sounds of it, it's essentially a debuff applied by frost staves that everyone benefits from, not a debuff that exclusively frost staff users benefit from

At stream if I'm not wrong it was said that Minor Brittle comes from ice staff only so this is DPS buff for ice staves.

ManM

So, I think it boils down to this... Why would I slot the new ice staff taunt instead of the undaunted taunt? This seems pointless.

emilyhyoyeon

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

From the sounds of it, it's essentially a debuff applied by frost staves that everyone benefits from, not a debuff that exclusively frost staff users benefit from

At stream if I'm not wrong it was said that Minor Brittle comes from ice staff only so this is DPS buff for ice staves.

Yeah, that's what I mean. It's APPLIED by frost staves right? Does the enemy only take the extra damage from ice staves, then? Or does the enemy take damage from everyone after minor brittle is applied by an ice staff?

MrGhosty

The gameplay designer on stream mentioned that they're adding a new buff called "brittle" that will increase critical damage taken by the enemy but will only work if using a frost staff. So maybe the intent is to have inferno be more about power while frost takes advantage of crit?

I'm excited to see what they come out with as this gets me one step closer to making a true ice mage dps that isn't just a meme.

JohnOfMarkarth

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

From the sounds of it, it's essentially a debuff applied by frost staves that everyone benefits from, not a debuff that exclusively frost staff users benefit from

At stream if I'm not wrong it was said that Minor Brittle comes from ice staff only so this is DPS buff for ice staves.

in that statement, its support buff. It is applied ONLY BY ice staves. But It doesnt state that its ALSO ONLY ice staves that benefit from the crit dmg increase. Thus, if everyone benefits, only one ice staff needs to be ever present, which makes it support buff.

ESO_Nightingale

Hey guys so i see that brittle is a new effect applied by the frost staff. It's great to see. But once we know more then we can adapt suggestions to the new ideas. Honestly didn't think they'd give us crit damage in this way.

ESO_Nightingale

ajkb78 wrote: »

The changes seem stupid to be. The stated goal is to improve frost staves for both tanking and DPS. But the changes don't involve any damage multiplier like shock and fire have, so no significant improvement for dps. A crit damage modifier might have been a unique option to add here. You've even nerfed the damage from wall of frost, making it even less attractive to DPS. About the only positive is the change to Tri focus to remove auto taunt.

I did add a crit damage bonus and i made unstable wall better for frost dps?

ESO_Nightingale

Anhedonie wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Elemental Ring:


What changed?:
this ability no longer has to be aimed on the ground, instead it surrounds you in an elemental cloak which deals your staff's damage type to nearby enemies after you deal your initial tick of damage.

Thanks, I hate this.

Why do you hate it?

Styxius

No lie, these looked so good that I thought they were official. Fooled myself, however, I hope they highly take this into consideration.

ESO_Nightingale

Styxius wrote: »

No lie, these looked so good that I thought they were official. Fooled myself, however, I hope they highly take this into consideration.

yeah i should have made it more clear

Djennku

What you guys fail to understand, is that 1) we don't have any notes on how this is going to be implemented, 2) nothing has been tested yet, so no one can say either way how it is going to work out yet, and no one should really complain about something they know nothing about 3) when we DO get patch notes, NOTHING is set in stone until it goes live, as it can change at any given moment.

Cinbri

Djennku wrote: »

What you guys fail to understand, is that 1) we don't have any notes on how this is going to be implemented, 2) nothing has been tested yet, so no one can say either way how it is going to work out yet, and no one should really complain about something they know nothing about 3) when we DO get patch notes, NOTHING is set in stone until it goes live, as it can change at any given moment.

Ye, for now we can only speculate about 2 revealed changes. We still dont know damage shield of frost woe and % of new debuff however. Tho personally can say for sure those 2 changes wont make playing with frost staff in pvp even a bit better. Hopefully most of skills will be changed like was woe. Like get frost Impulse to work as magicka version of blade cloak as op suggested would be cool.
Also you have to keep in mind that previous pts was one of the longest, for 6 weeks, and had lot of controversial changes that were proved to be fail, yet literally nothing got changed apart of fixing couple bugs. Meanwhile zos saying that they have time limitations. So if 6 weeks is not enough to have even some small overhauls I afraid despite zos keep repeating that everything is subject of change on pts - defacto everything already set in stone.

ESO_Nightingale

Djennku wrote: »

What you guys fail to understand, is that 1) we don't have any notes on how this is going to be implemented, 2) nothing has been tested yet, so no one can say either way how it is going to work out yet, and no one should really complain about something they know nothing about 3) when we DO get patch notes, NOTHING is set in stone until it goes live, as it can change at any given moment.

We haven't failed to understand anything, the history of eso balance has told us that we need to immediately jump on issues as soon as miniscle details have been shared because a lot of the time, crap that no-one likes goes through. I'm glad to be proven a little wrong about them not doing anything to cater for dps.