Frost damage for Warden

Oakiyo

I'm very exited for the changes on clench. Finally a spamable for frost users.

Since the goal here is to give some love to frost DD's, could you now pls switch the offensive abilities of warden to frost damage ? This class is supposed to the frost class, yet you have only 2 skills (3 with the ult) that deals frost damages. It would make sense to be able to fully build into frost damage on this class. Dk's already have a full fire damage kit. Why wardens wouldn't ?

@ZOS_GinaBruno

YandereGirlfriend

Quite right.

Frost Shalks would do wonders but at the very least we need an actual damage morph of Arctic Blast as well as some additional utility out of the never-used Frozen Retreat.

JoSePHRiNG

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

we need an actual damage morph of Arctic Blast as well as some additional utility out of the never-used Frozen Retreat.

Frozen Retreat really needs changes from that perspective.

MashmalloMan

Oakiyo wrote: »

I'm very exited for the changes on clench. Finally a spamable for frost users.

Since the goal here is to give some love to frost DD's, could you now pls switch the offensive abilities of warden to frost damage ? This class is supposed to the frost class, yet you have only 2 skills (3 with the ult) that deals frost damages. It would make sense to be able to fully build into frost damage on this class. Dk's already have a full fire damage kit. Why wardens wouldn't ?

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Can we add sorcs being the shock mage to this request? They have the same issue as Warden's in that regard.

They should really update all classes to have a major focus on the following to distinguish better build diversity:

• DK = Fire/Poison
• Sorc = Shock/Physical
• Templar = Magic/Physical
• NB = Magic/Disease
• Necro = Elementalist = Flame/Frost/Shock/Disease/Poison
• Warden = Frost/Bleed

Oakiyo

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Can we add sorcs being the shock mage to this request? They have the same issue as Warden's in that regard.

They should really update all classes to have a major focus on the following to distinguish better build diversity:

• DK = Fire/Poison
• Sorc = Shock/Physical
• Templar = Magic/Physical
• NB = Magic/Disease
• Necro = Elementalist = Flame/Frost/Shock/Disease/Poison
• Warden = Frost/Bleed

I really like this perspective

Excelsus

Agreed. Wardens need a decent Frost ult and a strong single target Frost dot which Frozen Retreat could become.

Ratzkifal

Turn the shalks into Frostbite spiders!

I love the Destructive Touch changes. I actually love them so much that I don't know if I want to be a frost DPS or a Frost tank next patch. Sadly I can't be both since I need to chose one morph or the other. But that's good and it certainly helped me figure out what to do with my shelved Warden!

WrathOfInnos

Excelsus wrote: »

Agreed. Wardens need a decent Frost ult and a strong single target Frost dot which Frozen Retreat could become.

Is Frost Reach keeping its single target DoT in addition to the spammable instant damage? That may fill the role well enough, hard to say until I try it.

Northern Storm is definitely underpowered. Maybe it could become purely offensive, and leave Permafrost as the defensive option.

ESO_Nightingale

I've honestly jumped to conclusions before a lot when it comes to changes for us and i feel stupid for doing so each time. But i can say that holy damn, i think this was the right thing to do.

this spammable feels awesome @ZOS_Gilliam

i just want to point out, that even though it took like 4 years+ for something like this to happen with actual skills, i'm really glad that it's finally come around.

the combat team finally acknowledged the one of the problems that we've been saying for a while now

we saw a lot of discussion on the viability of Frost damage sets and how their main drawback - regardless of their power - was there was no Frost damaging ability that could be used as a spammable attack.

this is the main problem, not specifically that we didn't have a spammable, (that was just a part of the problem), it was the lack of skills. and even now it still is a problem, though less so now that frost reach is so good. but just seeing that they took a genuine hit at trying to fix this blind spot in the game, is really great in my opinion.

there still needs to be work done on this playstyle though, and i'll list everything in a lot of detail here:

---

For magicka warden specifically, having deep fissure deal frost damage, would be immensely helpful. it would Increase aoe Chilled chance, and help a little with single target chilled uptime, along with interacting with said frost sets. at this point, this change really helps to secure frost magicka warden's place as the chilled application king, as if it's able to provide aoe chilled it'll definitely be wanted more in trial groups as it can specialise in that. this kind of change also helps the inter-class synergy even on a non frost magicka warden.

Another thing is the current state of the Arctic Blast morph.
This is problematic in both content spheres. in pve, the skill is just absurdly expensive and doesn't do much damage for the cost due to it's horrible duration. this is because it has a heal on it, one that really doesn't need to be there anymore. polar wind is a great morph for pve tanks and they never use blast, and in pvp, having healing, a stun and damage all concentrated on one skill is just not great for balance. not to mention that additionally, in pvp, the stun is just frustrating to use and play against. as a defensive stun it's just obnoxious to use offensively and it really has no place in our playstyle either. we need an offensive stun that goes to our enemy, not trying to micromanage keeping on top of an enemy to stun them after a little bit. this is why we suggest removing the heal from this morph to focus on the damage and an offensive stun. we have a healing tree that is currently in need of adjustment, that is where the dps specialisation's healing should be coming from. as a class, we inately have less damage skills than others, and in place of that we have access to more raw damage buffs this doesn't feel that great. since most of the time our skills feel not only lacking in quantity but also in quality, Dive as a spammable just mechanically has nothing to do with our class, only thematically. arctic blast is sort of another example, it's so spread in every direction that it can't focus on being solid at any one thing. it's just frustrating. we want it to be a defining magicka warden skill for damage. if it comboed well mechanically with deep fissure, that would be great for the gameplay of the class which currently just feels like deep fissure does all of the work. the removal of minor berserk from bird of prey and/or the magic damage component of piercing cold could serve as compensation if a change like this would be too overwhelming for damage.

Going back to the frost staff,
It also still has major problems. for one, the tri focus block cost, is still bizarre and forces us to take points out of it just to not be negitively impacted, this is the only passive in the game that is like this. and should be either put into cp or, maybe even scrapped entirely.

Unstable Wall Of Frost
Is the only other skill we use appart from the new and vastly improved frost reach, it's utility is interesting though, while i understand it being put on frost blockade, as tanks and healers like to use that morph, damage dealers feel out of place with the unstable morph also offering damage shields and especially a slightly worse version after it explodes for a higher cost. when compared to the highly used flame varients we can see the damage difference between the walls is just frankly too much, flame does so much more damage than the other 2, and shock wall lost it's off balance bonus damage utility, leaving the shock and frost walls feeling just left out in that department. for frost wall of elements, maybe unstable should lose it's utility, but gain back damage and the standardised cost. while shock wall is offered something more enticing for healers, tanks or even just dps to consider using.

Frost Impulse:
Is another skill that was given changes during markarth. but instead of a really useful frost specific effect, it was seemingly just given scraps that were related to tanking. the skill as a whole doesn't really have much to do with tanking, since the staff was originally designed for damage dealing. minor protection in a small aoe radius for a short amount of time just feels awful. it's unfortunately just wasted potential. i can't really say for sure what the best thing to do with the frost version of this skill is, but it would have been nice if the flame varient execute was made baseline at least, since the flame staff is the defacto best version for dps i just struggle to understand why it kept getting more than the others, even though the execute itself is conditional, overly convoluted and just bad. why not just make it a straight up execute, but with a lot lower scaling damage than say, whirling blades? that way, every version of the staff would have access to an execute. even if it was only situationally good in say pvp or something? i think this skill needs to be be revisited for all varients.

Icy Rage:
Has had a bad frost specific effect for a long time. an aoe immobilise just isn't comparable to the other 2 elemental varients. both of which increase damage through a direct buff, or just via uptime. i think it would at least be interesting and would increase uptime (therefore damage) if icy rage costed less than the other versions instead of doing a redundant effect that frost wall already provides through chilled, if not cost reduction, then major brittle is a possible effect to give to this ultimate, however, losing bear on a frost magicka warden is a lot of dps loss anyway, and there may just be other plans for that effect.

---

however, with all of that said this is a fantastic step to take with getting some more good frost damage abilities, and so not everything has to be rushed this patch. thanks!

ESO_Nightingale

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

Agreed. Wardens need a decent Frost ult and a strong single target Frost dot which Frozen Retreat could become.

Is Frost Reach keeping its single target DoT in addition to the spammable instant damage? That may fill the role well enough, hard to say until I try it.

Northern Storm is definitely underpowered. Maybe it could become purely offensive, and leave Permafrost as the defensive option.

this is on a medusa, frostbite, iceheart khajiit warden.

WrathOfInnos

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

Agreed. Wardens need a decent Frost ult and a strong single target Frost dot which Frozen Retreat could become.

Is Frost Reach keeping its single target DoT in addition to the spammable instant damage? That may fill the role well enough, hard to say until I try it.

Northern Storm is definitely underpowered. Maybe it could become purely offensive, and leave Permafrost as the defensive option.

this is on a medusa, frostbite, iceheart khajiit warden.

Awesome, so it appears to have a power budget similar to Scalding Rune, just without the arming delay, Mage’s Guild passives for Max Mag and Recovery, or Empower. Looks like you could spam it, never see a DoT tick and treat it as a replacement for Cliff Racer or Ele Weapon (an interesting comparison since both cause status effects). Or cast it once every 10s for something similar to Entropy in total damage per cast.

Now I just wish Shock Reach and Shock Clench got the same treatment.

ESO_Nightingale

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

Agreed. Wardens need a decent Frost ult and a strong single target Frost dot which Frozen Retreat could become.

Is Frost Reach keeping its single target DoT in addition to the spammable instant damage? That may fill the role well enough, hard to say until I try it.

Northern Storm is definitely underpowered. Maybe it could become purely offensive, and leave Permafrost as the defensive option.

this is on a medusa, frostbite, iceheart khajiit warden.

Awesome, so it appears to have a power budget similar to Scalding Rune, just without the arming delay, Mage’s Guild passives for Max Mag and Recovery, or Empower. Looks like you could spam it, never see a DoT tick and treat it as a replacement for Cliff Racer or Ele Weapon (an interesting comparison since both cause status effects). Or cast it once every 10s for something similar to Entropy in total damage per cast.

Now I just wish Shock Reach and Shock Clench got the same treatment.

with frostbite on, it deals more initial tick damage. dive does have a higher tooltip without but i mean, the fact that frost reach applies minor brittle, and has a decent DoT i think makes it worthwhile 100%.

YandereGirlfriend

I just hopped on the PTS and Frost Reach now does more damage than either Shock Reach or Shock Clench.

While that's great for Frost Wardens it's clear the Shock Mages need some serious help now.

ESO_Nightingale

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I just hopped on the PTS and Frost Reach now does more damage than either Shock Reach or Shock Clench.

While that's great for Frost Wardens it's clear the Shock Mages need some serious help now.

frost wardens still need some of that serious help even now. but shock clench could use some more initial damage for sure.

WrathOfInnos

I just noticed the cost. A little expensive. Strange they increased it from 2700 Mag base cost, which is the same as other spammables including Screaming Cliff Racer and Force Pulse, up to 2970. This will be difficult to sustain on Warden.

Maybe it’s to encourage the use of the Master Staff? That also has some issues though, since you’d need to give up either a 5 piece set or a Mythic item to use it. Maybe run Bahsei + Frostbite + Master + Maelstrom staves, but giving up the Kilt is significant, especially without a crit set like Medusa or Sorrow. I guess tough choices aren’t necessarily bad, False Gods would give more crit and help sustain, or just forget about Frostbite and use Sorrow.

ESO_Nightingale

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I just noticed the cost. A little expensive. Strange they increased it from 2700 Mag base cost, which is the same as other spammables including Screaming Cliff Racer and Force Pulse, up to 2970. This will be difficult to sustain on Warden.

Maybe it’s to encourage the use of the Master Staff? That also has some issues though, since you’d need to give up either a 5 piece set or a Mythic item to use it. Maybe run Bahsei + Frostbite + Master + Maelstrom staves, but giving up the Kilt is significant, especially without a crit set like Medusa or Sorrow. I guess tough choices aren’t necessarily bad, False Gods would give more crit and help sustain, or just forget about Frostbite and use Sorrow.

The cost is the exact same as screaming cliff racer when i checked it.

luen79rwb17_ESO

This is definately a step in the right direction! Can't wait to test it on my magden

LeHarrt91

Its going to be interesting to see what DPS parse results people will get with this change. Any testing it yet?

FrancisCrawford

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

Agreed. Wardens need a decent Frost ult and a strong single target Frost dot which Frozen Retreat could become.

Is Frost Reach keeping its single target DoT in addition to the spammable instant damage? That may fill the role well enough, hard to say until I try it.

Northern Storm is definitely underpowered. Maybe it could become purely offensive, and leave Permafrost as the defensive option.

this is on a medusa, frostbite, iceheart khajiit warden.

Awesome, so it appears to have a power budget similar to Scalding Rune, just without the arming delay, Mage’s Guild passives for Max Mag and Recovery, or Empower. Looks like you could spam it, never see a DoT tick and treat it as a replacement for Cliff Racer or Ele Weapon (an interesting comparison since both cause status effects). Or cast it once every 10s for something similar to Entropy in total damage per cast.

Now I just wish Shock Reach and Shock Clench got the same treatment.

with frostbite on, it deals more initial tick damage. dive does have a higher tooltip without but i mean, the fact that frost reach applies minor brittle, and has a decent DoT i think makes it worthwhile 100%.

But how good is Frostbite now? Chilled/Brittle can be assumed against bosses, but they're still pretty doubtful in AoE.

MashmalloMan

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

Agreed. Wardens need a decent Frost ult and a strong single target Frost dot which Frozen Retreat could become.

Is Frost Reach keeping its single target DoT in addition to the spammable instant damage? That may fill the role well enough, hard to say until I try it.

Northern Storm is definitely underpowered. Maybe it could become purely offensive, and leave Permafrost as the defensive option.

this is on a medusa, frostbite, iceheart khajiit warden.

Awesome, so it appears to have a power budget similar to Scalding Rune, just without the arming delay, Mage’s Guild passives for Max Mag and Recovery, or Empower. Looks like you could spam it, never see a DoT tick and treat it as a replacement for Cliff Racer or Ele Weapon (an interesting comparison since both cause status effects). Or cast it once every 10s for something similar to Entropy in total damage per cast.

Now I just wish Shock Reach and Shock Clench got the same treatment.

with frostbite on, it deals more initial tick damage. dive does have a higher tooltip without but i mean, the fact that frost reach applies minor brittle, and has a decent DoT i think makes it worthwhile 100%.

But how good is Frostbite now? Chilled/Brittle can be assumed against bosses, but they're still pretty doubtful in AoE.

In aoe, Winters revenge has you covered. In my tests before CP 2.0 introduced +60% status effect chance, just holding a destruction staff netted 55% chilled uptime. I imagine thats at least above 60% now.

60% for something you fire and forget for aoe is pretty dang good, plus now you can fire off a reach cast to get it guaranteed on specific mobs if you wanted to.

Edit: That test was also ONLY winters revenge for a 10 minute parse. Blockade will help a little, Ice Comet, Destro Ult and Wardens Ult would help too if you went those routes.

FrancisCrawford

MashmalloMan wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

Agreed. Wardens need a decent Frost ult and a strong single target Frost dot which Frozen Retreat could become.

Is Frost Reach keeping its single target DoT in addition to the spammable instant damage? That may fill the role well enough, hard to say until I try it.

Northern Storm is definitely underpowered. Maybe it could become purely offensive, and leave Permafrost as the defensive option.

this is on a medusa, frostbite, iceheart khajiit warden.

Awesome, so it appears to have a power budget similar to Scalding Rune, just without the arming delay, Mage’s Guild passives for Max Mag and Recovery, or Empower. Looks like you could spam it, never see a DoT tick and treat it as a replacement for Cliff Racer or Ele Weapon (an interesting comparison since both cause status effects). Or cast it once every 10s for something similar to Entropy in total damage per cast.

Now I just wish Shock Reach and Shock Clench got the same treatment.

with frostbite on, it deals more initial tick damage. dive does have a higher tooltip without but i mean, the fact that frost reach applies minor brittle, and has a decent DoT i think makes it worthwhile 100%.

But how good is Frostbite now? Chilled/Brittle can be assumed against bosses, but they're still pretty doubtful in AoE.

In aoe, Winters revenge has you covered. In my tests before CP 2.0 introduced +60% status effect chance, just holding a destruction staff netted 55% chilled uptime. I imagine thats at least above 60% now.

60% for something you fire and forget for aoe is pretty dang good, plus now you can fire off a reach cast to get it guaranteed on specific mobs if you wanted to.

Edit: That test was also ONLY winters revenge for a 10 minute parse. Blockade will help a little, Ice Comet, Destro Ult and Wardens Ult would help too if you went those routes.

60% chance at +6% damage (for those enemies who loiter in Winter's Revenge) isn't great.

FrancisCrawford

Changing Shalks' damage type to frost may be thematic, but it won't actually do much for DPS.

Ratzkifal

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Changing Shalks' damage type to frost may be thematic, but it won't actually do much for DPS.

Are you sure about that? Wardens have a 10% bonus to frost damage built into their passives. That means 10% more Shalk damage. It also means having a chance for AOE chilled for more crit damage and when wearing a frost staff even AOE brittle. Direct AOE damage has a higher chance of applying status effects than AOE damage over time effects, which is all that Wardens have right now.

LeHarrt91

Ratzkifal wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Changing Shalks' damage type to frost may be thematic, but it won't actually do much for DPS.

Are you sure about that? Wardens have a 10% bonus to frost damage built into their passives. That means 10% more Shalk damage. It also means having a chance for AOE chilled for more crit damage and when wearing a frost staff even AOE brittle. Direct AOE damage has a higher chance of applying status effects than AOE damage over time effects, which is all that Wardens have right now.

We also get 10% Magic Damage bonus so the damage of Shalk would remain the same in regards to Class Passives.

ArchMikem

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

For magicka warden specifically, having deep fissure deal frost damage, would be immensely helpful.

It's not a true Frost Mage ability if it's in the form of a creature dealing it. Now if it was like, a chilled quake, or a slightly different visual of Impaling Shards where they burst from the ground in a line, that'd be more suitable to the theme.

FrancisCrawford

Ratzkifal wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Changing Shalks' damage type to frost may be thematic, but it won't actually do much for DPS.

Are you sure about that? Wardens have a 10% bonus to frost damage built into their passives. That means 10% more Shalk damage. It also means having a chance for AOE chilled for more crit damage and when wearing a frost staff even AOE brittle. Direct AOE damage has a higher chance of applying status effects than AOE damage over time effects, which is all that Wardens have right now.

The point above about magic vs. frost damage was made more accurately than I would have.

Beyond that, the base chance of a status effect from a direct-damage AoE hit is -- 5%, correct? Likely we could multiply that by 3.6 (warden passive, destro passive, CP) to get 18%, every 3 seconds. So yes, that will help some for enemies who aren't standing in Winter's Revenge but are hit by Shalks, or who are hit by Shalks before Winter's Revenge is down.

That's nice, but not a huge deal.

ESO_Nightingale

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Changing Shalks' damage type to frost may be thematic, but it won't actually do much for DPS.

It's not purely about dps. It's about AoE chilled application, inter class synergy and set interaction.

ESO_Nightingale

ArchMikem wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

For magicka warden specifically, having deep fissure deal frost damage, would be immensely helpful.

It's not a true Frost Mage ability if it's in the form of a creature dealing it. Now if it was like, a chilled quake, or a slightly different visual of Impaling Shards where they burst from the ground in a line, that'd be more suitable to the theme.

Regardless of being a true frost mage ability it's still essential for achieving as much dps as possible on a frost warden.

Lughlongarm

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I just hopped on the PTS and Frost Reach now does more damage than either Shock Reach or Shock Clench.

While that's great for Frost Wardens it's clear the Shock Mages need some serious help now.

I think Shock clench also applies now AOE minor Vulnerability with 100% uptime, no? Also shock staff passive got buffed to 10% AOE damage, seems like Good value . Need to test.

ESO_Nightingale

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Changing Shalks' damage type to frost may be thematic, but it won't actually do much for DPS.

Are you sure about that? Wardens have a 10% bonus to frost damage built into their passives. That means 10% more Shalk damage. It also means having a chance for AOE chilled for more crit damage and when wearing a frost staff even AOE brittle. Direct AOE damage has a higher chance of applying status effects than AOE damage over time effects, which is all that Wardens have right now.

The point above about magic vs. frost damage was made more accurately than I would have.

Beyond that, the base chance of a status effect from a direct-damage AoE hit is -- 5%, correct? Likely we could multiply that by 3.6 (warden passive, destro passive, CP) to get 18%, every 3 seconds. So yes, that will help some for enemies who aren't standing in Winter's Revenge but are hit by Shalks, or who are hit by Shalks before Winter's Revenge is down.

That's nice, but not a huge deal.

It's more chances to proc chilled in aoe and the damage type change allows it to interact with more sets than only war maiden. It's a huge deal for carving frost warden a niche of being the defacto best brittle applicant possible.

Lughlongarm

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Excelsus wrote: »

Agreed. Wardens need a decent Frost ult and a strong single target Frost dot which Frozen Retreat could become.

Is Frost Reach keeping its single target DoT in addition to the spammable instant damage? That may fill the role well enough, hard to say until I try it.

Northern Storm is definitely underpowered. Maybe it could become purely offensive, and leave Permafrost as the defensive option.

this is on a medusa, frostbite, iceheart khajiit warden.

Based on our discussion few days ago, I was almost on the money. This is indeed a great buff to ice staves and frost builds in General. Even the buffed frost clench is great and now this skill is an awesome utility skill, both pvp and pve.
Wonder what will happen if you drop ice heart for master staff.