The Frostbite set and the problems it faces.

ESO_Nightingale

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Very true... but where exactly to draw the line?

IMO, it's a desirable goal to create niche sets that can compete with (and perhaps overthrow) MS/Medusa if you build to fully leverage it. If every class had such a set then build diversity at the high-end could flourish relative to where it is today.

We need to find out where to draw the line by comparing other sets that are used.

Right, but we should be aiming higher than a mediocre crafted set that only newbie players use (Julianos).

There's no divine law that says that Mother's Sorrow or Medusa have the right to reign supreme for all classes. That is the target we should be aiming for, a set to fully replace MS and Medusa for Frost Wardens.

Or one of them.

AlvaWolf

Hey y'all, lots of interesting stuff here. My thoughts on things going on here:

• Feral Guardian / Eternal Guardian. Imo, these should be frost/cold damage. Polar bear vibes. An easy place to shoehorn in some frost damage without having to re-do animations.
• Wild Guardian. Bleed damage here I think would solidify a theme to the Warden as a bleed class.
• Dive / Screaming Cliff Racer. Another good place to do frost/cold damage without having to re-do animations.
• Swarm / Fetcher Infection. I think this one would be easier to make frost/cold damage without re-doing animations. Scorch/Deep Fissure would have to have some animation work done to get them more frost-y, and may be trickier to pull off in the short term.

Wardens also desperately need a stamina-focused damage passive. Every class that provides passives to boost a magical or elemental damage type also boosts a stamina/physical damage type. Sorcerer provides flat bonuses to physical/shock damage. Dragonknights provide benefits to abilities that deal flame and poison damage. Wardens being frost/physical seems only appropriate.

• Glacial Presence. Being changed to Frost/Bleed damage here I think is an easy enough change (instead of Magic/Frost).
• Bond with Nature. Putting an additional rider effect (perhaps something that procs off a bleed effect) would balance this out with the frost rider effect for the bonus crit damage/healing from Glacial Presence.

ESO_Nightingale

AlvaWolf wrote: »

Hey y'all, lots of interesting stuff here. My thoughts on things going on here:

• Feral Guardian / Eternal Guardian. Imo, these should be frost/cold damage. Polar bear vibes. An easy place to shoehorn in some frost damage without having to re-do animations.
• Wild Guardian. Bleed damage here I think would solidify a theme to the Warden as a bleed class.
• Dive / Screaming Cliff Racer. Another good place to do frost/cold damage without having to re-do animations.
• Swarm / Fetcher Infection. I think this one would be easier to make frost/cold damage without re-doing animations. Scorch/Deep Fissure would have to have some animation work done to get them more frost-y, and may be trickier to pull off in the short term.

Wardens also desperately need a stamina-focused damage passive. Every class that provides passives to boost a magical or elemental damage type also boosts a stamina/physical damage type. Sorcerer provides flat bonuses to physical/shock damage. Dragonknights provide benefits to abilities that deal flame and poison damage. Wardens being frost/physical seems only appropriate.

• Glacial Presence. Being changed to Frost/Bleed damage here I think is an easy enough change (instead of Magic/Frost).
• Bond with Nature. Putting an additional rider effect (perhaps something that procs off a bleed effect) would balance this out with the frost rider effect for the bonus crit damage/healing from Glacial Presence.

I agree for the most part accept for the passives. I think that glacial presence should definitely include hemorrhaging for the crit buff, but i think piercing cold's magic damage should be replaced with more bleed damage over time duration. That would result in more damage and sort of help seperate the identity more than +10% bleed damage.

AlvaWolf

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

I agree for the most part accept for the passives. I think that glacial presence should definitely include hemorrhaging for the crit buff, but i think piercing cold's magic damage should be replaced with more bleed damage over time duration. That would result in more damage and sort of help seperate the identity more than +10% bleed damage.

A differentiated effect (such as increased duration for the bleed) would be nice to give some more identity to that class role, so I'll agree with you there. I was more looking at quick 'short-term' fixes for the class, but otherwise I agree with everything you've mentioned.

emilyhyoyeon

My opinion on brittle being a terrible addition to the game (due to the fact that it is a support debuff, not a way of adding validity to the ice aspect of the destruction school, but I digress) hasn't changed so I'd much rather not even entertain it as a part of this set, but yeah I think the frost damage component needs a substantial increase.

I'm really happy to see the frost part applies to light attacks and glyphs though. My ice mage uses the ice destro ult as well as ice impulse as an AOE spammable. I really want to make clear my appreciation to ZOS for adding this set.

ESO_Nightingale

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

My opinion on brittle being a terrible addition to the game (due to the fact that it is a support debuff, not a way of adding validity to the ice aspect of the destruction school, but I digress) hasn't changed so I'd much rather not even entertain it as a part of this set, but yeah I think the frost damage component needs a substantial increase.

I'm really happy to see the frost part applies to light attacks and glyphs though. My ice mage uses the ice destro ult as well as ice impulse as an AOE spammable. I really want to make clear my appreciation to ZOS for adding this set.

As would i. We have been waiting for a set like this for a while. It just needs more supporting skills and a little more strength.

LeHarrt91

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Very true... but where exactly to draw the line?

IMO, it's a desirable goal to create niche sets that can compete with (and perhaps overthrow) MS/Medusa if you build to fully leverage it. If every class had such a set then build diversity at the high-end could flourish relative to where it is today.

We need to find out where to draw the line by comparing other sets that are used.

Right, but we should be aiming higher than a mediocre crafted set that only newbie players use (Julianos).

There's no divine law that says that Mother's Sorrow or Medusa have the right to reign supreme for all classes. That is the target we should be aiming for, a set to fully replace MS and Medusa for Frost Wardens.

DK's were using Elf Bane in PvE for a long time. So ideally this could become that for wardens.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Make the bear active ability do major brittle

ESO_Nightingale

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Make the bear active ability do major brittle

that's very interesting. i've also heard people say (seperate to this pts cycle) that major brittle should be added to northern storm, and i think that's also an interesting idea but i'm unsure on how balanced it would be. It would need to mean that major protection would need to be removed from that ultimate morph. i'm overall just kinda iffy on it. i think major brittle would be interesting but i just don't know how to balance it.

MasterSpatula

I don't really play Warden, so I don't really 100% comprehend the issues, but that said:

I hope you get what you're looking for. I hope you get to make a Frost DPS Warden really and truly viable. I hope you win.

And I hope like hell it's a step in the direction of making a Lightning-focused Sorc truly viable, on-level with a pet Sorc and clearly better than a fire-stick Sorc.

ESO_Nightingale

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I don't really play Warden, so I don't really 100% comprehend the issues, but that said:

I hope you get what you're looking for. I hope you get to make a Frost DPS Warden really and truly viable. I hope you win.

And I hope like hell it's a step in the direction of making a Lightning-focused Sorc truly viable, on-level with a pet Sorc and clearly better than a fire-stick Sorc.

i hope so too, thank you for your support even though you don't play the class! that genuinely means a lot.

ESO_Nightingale

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Very true... but where exactly to draw the line?

IMO, it's a desirable goal to create niche sets that can compete with (and perhaps overthrow) MS/Medusa if you build to fully leverage it. If every class had such a set then build diversity at the high-end could flourish relative to where it is today.

We need to find out where to draw the line by comparing other sets that are used.

Right, but we should be aiming higher than a mediocre crafted set that only newbie players use (Julianos).

There's no divine law that says that Mother's Sorrow or Medusa have the right to reign supreme for all classes. That is the target we should be aiming for, a set to fully replace MS and Medusa for Frost Wardens.

DK's were using Elf Bane in PvE for a long time. So ideally this could become that for wardens.

yeah, i'm sick of using the same generic sets that every class uses. ideally i think every dps class should use at least one set that uniquely works with their subclass design

ANewHand

Why not just change Frozen Device to make it a viable damage-dealing option?

Device is only useful as a morph for bringing in Major Maim for a meager 4 sec, which is 70% less effective since the buff changes in Update 29, and the skill hasn't even been updated to compensate (despite it already being unappealing/too niche before the changes).

I don't know how I feel about putting frost damage in the animal companions tree, while Frozen Gate is sitting there like free real estate for an update.

ESO_Nightingale

ANewHand wrote: »

Why not just change Frozen Device to make it a viable damage-dealing option?

Device is only useful as a morph for bringing in Major Maim for a meager 4 sec, which is 70% less effective since the buff changes in Update 29, and the skill hasn't even been updated to compensate (despite it already being unappealing/too niche before the changes).

I don't know how I feel about putting frost damage in the animal companions tree, while Frozen Gate is sitting there like free real estate for an update.

because our main rotation doesn't deal anywhere near enough frost damage and has no real synergy with the rest of our kit. Frozen Gate's retreat morph being reworked would be nice, but it doesn't fix that problem when frost damage animal companions would, it would give us another skill which would be nice, but one skill is not enough.

LeHarrt91

I definitely wouldn't be opposed to Frozen Gate getting a Damage Morph. maybe the one that also has the ally synergy.

ESO_Nightingale

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

I definitely wouldn't be opposed to Frozen Gate getting a Damage Morph. maybe the one that also has the ally synergy.

yeah, it would be really nice. but it's also different than having frost damage shalks and animal companions skills (which will help to secure our identity through our rotation by increasing our inter-class synergy). We need both of these things together, not just one or the other.

ESO_Nightingale

ajkb78 wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Change the damage type of warden magicka morphs to frost. All of them.
While you're at it figure out what Necros are, frost, fire or magicka.
They figured this out finally for DKs.

Necros actually work as elementalist. Gives them a niche with succession and elemental catalyst and it fits their flavor as wizards who push the boundaries of moral magic. They are masters of destruction and conjuration in all its darkest forms.

I agree with this. But warden, dk and sorc should really specialise in their respective elements.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

ThoughtRaven wrote: »

I've been saying for years that generic "magic damage" abilities should just inherit the elemental damage of the staff you are weilding. You instantly get magdens to be proper frost mages, let sorcs use more lightning, etc.

i dunno man, just sounds like literally everything becomes fire damage at that point.

The other half of this is that the destro staff passives need addressing. With single target direct damage (ie spammables and light attacks) making up such a large part of dps it's inevitable that inferno staffs will be strongest on every class regardless of any elemental flavour provided by class passives. Obviously there would need to be a bit of balancing to ensure overall dps remained roughly constant but it would be nice to see a change to the destro staff passives so that other staffs were truly viable for dps and different ones were optimum for different classes.

I'd start by removing the current Ancient Knowledge passive and replacing it with "Equipping an inferno staff increases your damage done with flame and magic damage by x%. Equipping a Lightning Staff increases your damage done with shock and magic damage by x%. Equipping an Ice Staff increases your damage done with ice and magic damage by x%."

The frost staff tanking part of Ancient Knowledge would get added to one of the existing tanky blue CP slottables. The increased damage done by single target or AOE damage is already covered by existing blue CP so anyone can specialise into these as desired.

If done right this should result in a situation where inferno staves are optimum for dragonknights, shock staves are optimum for sorcerers, ice staves are optimum for wardens, NB and templar get quite a lot of flexibility because so much of their damage is magic damage, and necromancer probably opts for inferno staff because so much damage comes from skull and BB.

i definitely feel like the destro skills need to be addressed again. Icy Rage's immobilise is trash, Frost Impulse's minor protection aoe is genuinely worthless on a dps aoe damage skill and frost reach (along with the other variants of this skill) are just awful compared to degen and soul trap. they do less damage, cost more and have no secondary effects that help seperate them other than a tiny tick of additional damage which has a small chance to apply the native status effect.

SidraWillowsky

This is a fantastic idea

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I don't really play Warden, so I don't really 100% comprehend the issues, but that said:

I hope you get what you're looking for. I hope you get to make a Frost DPS Warden really and truly viable. I hope you win.

And I hope like hell it's a step in the direction of making a Lightning-focused Sorc truly viable, on-level with a pet Sorc and clearly better than a fire-stick Sorc.

This made me smile, thank you.

I agree with everything Nightingale said in his OP. The class would be even more of a blast to play if there were more frost/bleed skills for mag and stam DDs.

Just because who needs a job, I looked at the number of damaging elemental skills that the three elemental classes have available.

DKs have 12 flame skills that deal damage. Sorcs have 8. Wardens have 5, and that's being seriously generous (I'm counting Frozen Gate for god's sake). As someone else said, it would be great to let Templar and NB be the pure magic damage classes and give wardens and sorcs more frost/lightning skills.

Anyway, there are some great ideas out there about ways to convert more Animal Companion Warden skills to frost damage. Seriously where is our POLAR BEAR (and frost shalks and a spammable that does frost damage)?

ESO_Nightingale

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

This is a fantastic idea

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I don't really play Warden, so I don't really 100% comprehend the issues, but that said:

I hope you get what you're looking for. I hope you get to make a Frost DPS Warden really and truly viable. I hope you win.

And I hope like hell it's a step in the direction of making a Lightning-focused Sorc truly viable, on-level with a pet Sorc and clearly better than a fire-stick Sorc.

This made me smile, thank you.

I agree with everything Nightingale said in his OP. The class would be even more of a blast to play if there were more frost/bleed skills for mag and stam DDs.

Just because who needs a job, I looked at the number of damaging elemental skills that the three elemental classes have available.

DKs have 12 flame skills that deal damage. Sorcs have 8. Wardens have 5, and that's being seriously generous (I'm counting Frozen Gate for god's sake). As someone else said, it would be great to let Templar and NB be the pure magic damage classes and give wardens and sorcs more frost/lightning skills.

Anyway, there are some great ideas out there about ways to convert more Animal Companion Warden skills to frost damage. Seriously where is our POLAR BEAR (and frost shalks and a spammable that does frost damage)?

the number of sets and skills availiable to other classes when compared to frost always surprises me. it has consistently the lowest amount of everything from sets, monster sets and skills. Having 2-4 more frost damage skills via animal companions skills would be so genuinely helpful when it comes to utilising these sets for our builds. it's crazy that it we have to slowly get it implemented into the game when there should have been these options in the first place. but, at least ZOS is slowly starting to meet the demand that clearly exists.

ESO_Nightingale

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Even impacting Light Attacks and potentially proc sets (and glyphs?), the set is still stupendously underpowered.

The 12% Frost Damage mark should be the revised target for the devs... in addition, of course, to converting more Warden Animal Companions abilities into Frost Damage and fleshing out Winter's Embrace with additional Frost Damage skills.

yeah after reviewing the set and parsing, i fully agree with you, i actually think that 12% to frost damage skills, 2% to brittle and 4% to chilled would work to make it fair and not overpowered, it's not really better than julianos at all right now because it has a relatively difficult proc condition. buffing it up will require an extra 6% easily.

nalline96

Please beef this up! One of my main toons is a magden!

Andre_Noir

So the tread about new set become to a thread about frost gimp ?

ESO_Nightingale

Andre_Noir wrote: »

So the tread about new set become to a thread about frost gimp ?

We've tested it, it sounds good on paper, but in practice it's really not great at all. feel free to compare and test it yourself.

Decimus

As Blooddrinker is a 20% increase to all bleeds with no preconditions, I think Frostbite values should definitely be increased a bit to bring it in line with this different damage type, especially given that there aren't even high damage frost damage spammables, where as a build running Blooddrinker can get +20% on Master DW Rending Slashes, Bird, Master 2H Carve etc (along with +20% on sets like Crimson, Unleashed Terror, vMA 2H etc).

I do realize that Frostbite also provides +6% damage to other damage types, but I feel like this is a missed opportunity of a frost damage specialized set and still falls short of being good enough value for a more general build.

Best applications for Frostbite would probably be harmony magcro (buffing the synergy by 12% is not too bad, though you'd have to first apply chilled & minor brittle so it probably won't be used on magcro) or magden of course.


Given the preconditions required and the general usefulness of frost damage I'd say something like 12% frost damage & 8% damage overall (or just 20% frost damage) after all preconditions have been filled would be more appropriate and worth using.

Excelsus

The idea to rework Northern Storm into a true dps ult is a good one. Make it placeable. Remove major protection and the weird magicka burst. Have it apply major brittle with duration based on your max magicka to keep it from being dumped on tanks. Tada. A solid ice dps ult for magdens and a utility to keep them trial viable.

Rework frozen retreat. No longer teleports enemies. Enemies within the radius take 5-10% increased damage from frost skills, scales off your offensive stats.

YandereGirlfriend

Excelsus wrote: »

The idea to rework Northern Storm into a true dps ult is a good one. Make it placeable. Remove major protection and the weird magicka burst. Have it apply major brittle with duration based on your max magicka to keep it from being dumped on tanks. Tada. A solid ice dps ult for magdens and a utility to keep them trial viable.

Rework frozen retreat. No longer teleports enemies. Enemies within the radius take 5-10% increased damage from frost skills, scales off your offensive stats.

I actually really enjoy the increased Max Magicka from Northern Storm but I completely agree with dropping the Major Protection in favor of something like Major Brittle. Have the Brittle effect work like Permafrost, with the first tick of damage automatically applying the effect. It should remain as a mobile AoE though as otherwise it is limited to being a strictly PvE ultimate and that is undesirable given the overall very limited number of ultimate choices in the game.

I like that idea for Frozen Retreat as well. The other idea that I've like has been as a Frost Damage version of Fire Rune. But the game does need a unique source of +Frost Damage taken in order to begin competing with the Flame Damage PvE monopoly.

Excelsus

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

The idea to rework Northern Storm into a true dps ult is a good one. Make it placeable. Remove major protection and the weird magicka burst. Have it apply major brittle with duration based on your max magicka to keep it from being dumped on tanks. Tada. A solid ice dps ult for magdens and a utility to keep them trial viable.

Rework frozen retreat. No longer teleports enemies. Enemies within the radius take 5-10% increased damage from frost skills, scales off your offensive stats.

I actually really enjoy the increased Max Magicka from Northern Storm but I completely agree with dropping the Major Protection in favor of something like Major Brittle. Have the Brittle effect work like Permafrost, with the first tick of damage automatically applying the effect. It should remain as a mobile AoE though as otherwise it is limited to being a strictly PvE ultimate and that is undesirable given the overall very limited number of ultimate choices in the game.

I like that idea for Frozen Retreat as well. The other idea that I've like has been as a Frost Damage version of Fire Rune. But the game does need a unique source of +Frost Damage taken in order to begin competing with the Flame Damage PvE monopoly.

Eye of Frost and Permafrost are already solid pvp mobile ults imo and major brittle would be less effective where people stack crit res, plus in pve the short range of northern storm would invalidate it on many boss fights like vAS.

Making a frost rune skill or changing frozen retreat into frost rune is a good idea. Similar to scalding rune, a small but long term dot with the ice damage buff. Not sure anyone actually uses frozen retreat beyond Craglorn shenanigans but the synergy could just be stacked on to frozen device, its already the superior chaining option.

YandereGirlfriend

Excelsus wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

The idea to rework Northern Storm into a true dps ult is a good one. Make it placeable. Remove major protection and the weird magicka burst. Have it apply major brittle with duration based on your max magicka to keep it from being dumped on tanks. Tada. A solid ice dps ult for magdens and a utility to keep them trial viable.

Rework frozen retreat. No longer teleports enemies. Enemies within the radius take 5-10% increased damage from frost skills, scales off your offensive stats.

I actually really enjoy the increased Max Magicka from Northern Storm but I completely agree with dropping the Major Protection in favor of something like Major Brittle. Have the Brittle effect work like Permafrost, with the first tick of damage automatically applying the effect. It should remain as a mobile AoE though as otherwise it is limited to being a strictly PvE ultimate and that is undesirable given the overall very limited number of ultimate choices in the game.

I like that idea for Frozen Retreat as well. The other idea that I've like has been as a Frost Damage version of Fire Rune. But the game does need a unique source of +Frost Damage taken in order to begin competing with the Flame Damage PvE monopoly.

Eye of Frost and Permafrost are already solid pvp mobile ults imo and major brittle would be less effective where people stack crit res, plus in pve the short range of northern storm would invalidate it on many boss fights like vAS.

Making a frost rune skill or changing frozen retreat into frost rune is a good idea. Similar to scalding rune, a small but long term dot with the ice damage buff. Not sure anyone actually uses frozen retreat beyond Craglorn shenanigans but the synergy could just be stacked on to frozen device, its already the superior chaining option.

The issue is that Permafrost is a tank ultimate that's used primarily for defense in PvP as its damage output is quite poor. Northern Storm is already used by many magDens in group play and losing that would leave an enormous hole in their kit. Major Brittle (as with Minor Brittle) is also very useful in PvP if you pair it with something like Mechanical Acuity. Stacking Critical Damage definitely isn't only a PvE pastime.

ESO_Nightingale

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

The idea to rework Northern Storm into a true dps ult is a good one. Make it placeable. Remove major protection and the weird magicka burst. Have it apply major brittle with duration based on your max magicka to keep it from being dumped on tanks. Tada. A solid ice dps ult for magdens and a utility to keep them trial viable.

Rework frozen retreat. No longer teleports enemies. Enemies within the radius take 5-10% increased damage from frost skills, scales off your offensive stats.

I actually really enjoy the increased Max Magicka from Northern Storm but I completely agree with dropping the Major Protection in favor of something like Major Brittle. Have the Brittle effect work like Permafrost, with the first tick of damage automatically applying the effect. It should remain as a mobile AoE though as otherwise it is limited to being a strictly PvE ultimate and that is undesirable given the overall very limited number of ultimate choices in the game.

I like that idea for Frozen Retreat as well. The other idea that I've like has been as a Frost Damage version of Fire Rune. But the game does need a unique source of +Frost Damage taken in order to begin competing with the Flame Damage PvE monopoly.

Eye of Frost and Permafrost are already solid pvp mobile ults imo and major brittle would be less effective where people stack crit res, plus in pve the short range of northern storm would invalidate it on many boss fights like vAS.

Making a frost rune skill or changing frozen retreat into frost rune is a good idea. Similar to scalding rune, a small but long term dot with the ice damage buff. Not sure anyone actually uses frozen retreat beyond Craglorn shenanigans but the synergy could just be stacked on to frozen device, its already the superior chaining option.

The issue is that Permafrost is a tank ultimate that's used primarily for defense in PvP as its damage output is quite poor. Northern Storm is already used by many magDens in group play and losing that would leave an enormous hole in their kit. Major Brittle (as with Minor Brittle) is also very useful in PvP if you pair it with something like Mechanical Acuity. Stacking Critical Damage definitely isn't only a PvE pastime.

Exactly. We need to keep it centered on caster. If you want a ground casted aoe frost DoT, Icy Rage and Ice Comet are your options.

Runefang

Massive support for this. Classes lack identity at the moment in general so anything to hone in on that class fantasy for a class is a good idea.

I’d love the game to balance the damage types rather than fire pulling so far ahead. Consider that as soon as you start switching from fire to frost skills you lose the benefits of the MagDKs debuff and Encratis debuff so in PvE any buffs to frost (or lightning or magic) need to be more generous given there is no balance there currently.