Pierce Armor and Frost clench

BohnT2

With the changes to Major and Minor Fracture and breach using pierce armor now offers 9k penetration while also taunting and only costing about 1.3k stam.

Frost clench on the other side doesn't offer any guaranteed debuff but only taunts.

This is a huge imbalance as there is not really a reason to ever run ice clench, inner rage also gives you a ranged taunt but also gives your team a synergy while frost clench has no useful secondary effect.

Move minor breach to clench (base ability) this way the skill is more than just a stun/ a weak Aoe/ a taunt but which makes Tanks and players in PvE and in PvP want to slot it.
Also it stops pierce armor from being this all powerful skill that gives you huge amounts of penetration with a single button click every 15 seconds.

AzurasCry

I’m currently not too fond of the frost clench change either. I share similar opinion as the original post, however, I have other issues as well.
Frost clench for most pvpers was one of the few or only option for immobilization outside of specific class skills, especially a long range immobilize. Dragon knights will now have access to close range immobilizes only outside of trap from fighter’s guild. So if there’s any magDK wanting to have a range immobilize is out of choice.
Additionally, the master’s destruction staff for frost clench will pretty much be useless for most builds. I imagine, the cost of frost clench + the low damage and only 4 sec of increased spell damage would not be viable for many more builds than currently. Of course some builds maybe utilize the changes well, but many will lost purpose.
They need to provide more utility to first clench but comparable to frame and shock clench in performance, may it be through damage, cost efficiency or effects*.

ESO_Nightingale

BohnT2 wrote: »

With the changes to Major and Minor Fracture and breach using pierce armor now offers 9k penetration while also taunting and only costing about 1.3k stam.

Frost clench on the other side doesn't offer any guaranteed debuff but only taunts.

This is a huge imbalance as there is not really a reason to ever run ice clench, inner rage also gives you a ranged taunt but also gives your team a synergy while frost clench has no useful secondary effect.

Move minor breach to clench (base ability) this way the skill is more than just a stun/ a weak Aoe/ a taunt but which makes Tanks and players in PvE and in PvP want to slot it.
Also it stops pierce armor from being this all powerful skill that gives you huge amounts of penetration with a single button click every 15 seconds.

I'd personally shift the taunt to elemental susceptibility to replace that skill's current useless effects. frost clench can probably stay unchanged. it's just kinda crap anyway but some people do use it.

FrancisCrawford

I'm trying to imagine a scenario in which Immobilize is useful enough on a taunt skill so as to use that skill over alternate taunts.

I'm failing.

FrancisCrawford

I say again -- a magicka chain would actually be useful, for most classes. Yet another ranged taunt? Not so much.

BohnT2

After 6.2.2 we haven't seen a single change to this issue, pierce armor is still the all powerful taunt while frost clench is heavily underperforming.
This really shouldn't make it to the live servers

ESO_Nightingale

BohnT2 wrote: »

After 6.2.2 we haven't seen a single change to this issue, pierce armor is still the all powerful taunt while frost clench is heavily underperforming.
This really shouldn't make it to the live servers

yeah they haven't addressed any of the legitimate feedback about the frost staff. they fixed 1 bug which they made in the second week. that's it.

Firstmep

I still dont understand why frost staff needs a taunt, inner fire is already there(and far better than clench).

Also wish they changed the frost staff damage shield to proc from blocking rather than a fully charged heavy attack, which is never going to be used.

olsborg

BohnT2 wrote: »

With the changes to Major and Minor Fracture and breach using pierce armor now offers 9k penetration while also taunting and only costing about 1.3k stam.

Frost clench on the other side doesn't offer any guaranteed debuff but only taunts.

This is a huge imbalance as there is not really a reason to ever run ice clench, inner rage also gives you a ranged taunt but also gives your team a synergy while frost clench has no useful secondary effect.

Move minor breach to clench (base ability) this way the skill is more than just a stun/ a weak Aoe/ a taunt but which makes Tanks and players in PvE and in PvP want to slot it.
Also it stops pierce armor from being this all powerful skill that gives you huge amounts of penetration with a single button click every 15 seconds.

Agreed. I tought we were over these skills that was, in zos' own words, overloaded with stuff. But we still have plenty of such skills and now they add another... meh

Noldornir

Clench could replace inner fire as ranged taunt but... not with such a short range.

I'd extend the range of clench in both morphs (if using an ice staff only maybe)

ESO_Nightingale

Noldornir wrote: »

Clench could replace inner fire as ranged taunt but... not with such a short range.

I'd extend the range of clench in both morphs (if using an ice staff only maybe)

the best thing to do is just to shift the taunt to elemental susceptibility. that morph is beyond worthless, best thing is, it makes that morph useful not just to frost tanks, but also to lightning staff tanks should they chose to use it.

Noldornir

I don't think that will happen because ele drain and related morphs are free to cast as all skill dedicated to resources only, embedding a taunt in it would make it costly so...

Clench COULD be better than inner rage since it will be a direct attack from a frost staff (better brittle proc then wall of elements) but a ranged taunt should be long not medium range.

After all Inner Rage is a skill that does not require a specific weapon equipped so should be weaker than the weapon-specific counterpart.

About lightning staff tanks don't think it will still be good; even now it grants a tad better off-balance uptime but not that much since healers providing it already; I assume tanks will go ice and healer lightning (but I'm just speculating)

Stinkyremy

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Noldornir wrote: »

Clench could replace inner fire as ranged taunt but... not with such a short range.

I'd extend the range of clench in both morphs (if using an ice staff only maybe)

the best thing to do is just to shift the taunt to elemental susceptibility. that morph is beyond worthless, best thing is, it makes that morph useful not just to frost tanks, but also to lightning staff tanks should they chose to use it.

I have to agree with this, there is no point of ever using that morph.
I like the idea of frost clench taunting and plan to use it over inner rage, though I will not only miss the immobilization of clench but I have a build based around the masters staff and that immobilization that I will have to abandon and rebuild. I am also pretty vexxed that they have completely got rid of wall of elements snare. This was part of my build.

I'm not on PTS so I will ask here instead of starting a new thread, have they changed the tri focus passive to allow us to get the heavy attack shield but not use magika to block?

Atherakhia

Firstmep wrote: »

I still dont understand why frost staff needs a taunt, inner fire is already there(and far better than clench).

Also wish they changed the frost staff damage shield to proc from blocking rather than a fully charged heavy attack, which is never going to be used.

I agree.

It's one thing to make staff a tanking weapon (a bad one) in general, but there's no reason to force a taunt on any of the skills if it's not needed. It's clearly not because there's a magicka taunt on the Undaunted line. If the concern is accessibility, swap it with altar so it's the first skill unlocked and ensure a player gets rank 1 when unlocking the quest (don't remember if they do or not). This way they'll have access to the skill when they can do their first dungeon anyway.

Now that said, Destruction staff does need improvement and magicka classes need a tanky option so every single caster in the game isn't running S+B from a PvP perspective. Forget about the taunt and worry about making Frost an actual useful tanky/defensive weapon.

Tannus15

Agreed. Why would anyone run frost clench instead of inner rage?

GoodFella146

I'm sure if this affected werewolves it would've already been fixed.

Wuuffyy

GoodFella146 wrote: »

I'm sure if this affected werewolves it would've already been fixed.

Lol what? Werewolves went 6 months with a major buff that didn’t allow them to get any tankiness, and 3 years for QoL improvements

thadjarvis

If I read it correctly, OP is talking about PvE tanking with a frost staff. Staff tanking gives up mobility, HA restore, and mitigation benefits (shield resists) of SnB.

I see only two places in which frost staff potentially tanking work?

1) You can build a somewhat tanky DD hybrid build. Reference Nahvi OOT builds. But in that case there is almost definitely a DD providing Major Breach; you would Inner Fire. The only exception would be if Minor Breach could be sourced on a taunt skill.

2) Next patch probably an OT using staff to apply Minor Brittle. Again that tank would use Inner FIre.


If you want to add something to a destruction staff taunt you want Minor breach not major as major breach is wildly common in groups. This is evidenced by most tanks using Ransack currently as there's simply no need to apply major breach.