The Arctic Blast Nerf and You (A quick rundown on why the Arctic Blast Nerf is Bad)

Mr_Stach

But let's talk about the issue of Arctic Blast.

Nerf in Question:

- Arctic Blast (morph):
- This morph now requires enemies to be damaged 5 times in order to be stunned, up from 3.
- Reduced the duration of the stun to 3 seconds, down from 4.
- Increased the duration of the stack counter to 3 seconds, up from 1.
- Developer Comment: Right now, this ability is offering too much offensive nature for the Warden, allowing them to line up their burst perfectly with Scorch to remove counter play. By increasing the stack count required, there should be less of a guarantee with this combination and require more reactive play from the caster, while the increased duration of tracking helps also reduce the ease of counter play by backing off for 1 second from the Warden to completely avoid the stun.

Arctic Blast is an Overloaded skill, it Heals, it's an AoE DoT, and an AoE Stun, which is why time and time again, it get reworked. But here's the Issue, there's better stuns, better DoTs, and Better Heals.

First issue: 5s Build up for a stun on a 5 second duration skill. Why would this be considered a good Idea? Why is warden made to jump through hoops for what other classes do Instantly, why introduce counterplay to a stun when there's not really counterplay on other stuns. Fossilize is Instant, can't be blocked or dodged, but you can just disengage and Warden is just out of luck.

Follow-up Issue, if someone disengages, you need to recast. You need to burn 8k Mag for 1 STUN. Yes Arctic Blast is an AoE, but even Freeze Time is a better AoE Stun, twice as big and in 4 Seconds.

Enough about the terrible terrible stun.

The DoT. Once again 5s Duration. Nearly every AoE DoT Ability in the game is 10 seconds long. Why does Arctic Blast just not follow this standard? If Zos had the 5s Build up but increased the Skill Duration to 10s it would be at least useable as the DoT/HoT would be improved with that.

The Heal, Making the Heal scale off max health just incentivizes Health Tanks in PvP, no one likes to fight them and they are a slog to play with (in my opinion). Why not have this scale with Max Mag/Stam. It would be a better Heal overall and there would still be the Health Based Heal in Polar Wind.

At this Point, something needs to Give on Arctic Blast, trying to balance three effects on it is obviously problematic.

I would say Either Just Focus on the Heal/DoT aspect or the DoT/Stun Aspect, either way bring the Duration up to 10s. I would also reduce the cost down to match other AoE Dots, to 3780 down from the 4080 cost. If the Stun is Removed, then we'll still need a good stun, if the Heal is removed I hope Zos would feel it in their hearts to improve something in Green Balance to Compensate.

Thank you for attending my Ted Talk. Hopefully Zos listens to the Woes of someone who spent way too much time testing and giving feedback on the PTS for this ridiculous nerf to go through (Which at this point it probably will)

ESO_Nightingale

we need an on-demand, ranged stun instead of obnoxious delayed stuns that are both frustrating to use and to play against. and blast really just needs at least double the duration in order to be useful in pve. whether or not they remove the existing stun in order to buff the duration to 10 seconds, while also adding back the arctic blast 2.0 stun remains to be seen, but it would be an option that could work.