Hypothermia
Cold Magic Redone in ESO
Right now Cold Magic in The Elder Scrolls Online lacks viability to be competitive to Fire and Lightning Magic. Fire is the damage element in Destruction Staff abilities. Lightning is good in damage as well but gives nice area attacks. Cold damage however gives a minor self-protection barrier, which goes down after getting hit by any half-hearted attack. The snare given by cold also has disadvantages compared to increased since players can easily break it by breaking-free and any mini-boss already has some freezing resistance. I'd like to present a rework for Cold damage in ESO I've thought up with some friends. Most ideas are simple skill changes. But there are also some changes in the freezing mechanic itself.
1st General Changes
Cold based attacks give a negative effect on any target it hits. For explaining, let's call it Cold Marker for now. Each Cold Marker has a duration of 6 seconds. If hitting an enemy who already has Cold Markers on it, the duration is reset.
There is a maximum of counters on each character. The maximum amount should be matter of balancing but I'd suggest 5-6. If not hitting an enemy with Cold-based attacks before the duration runs out, one Marker is removed. For each marker all status effects have a 10% increased chance to apply (e.g. Chilled) and all Cold Damage against the target is increased by 5%.

Why? Since Freezing is a slow process when being compared with being burned or being struck by lightning. I'd love it if the freezing in ESO has some build-up requirements to build up max efficiency.


2nd Destruction Staff Changes
Since Cold damage is one of three possible elements in Destruction Staffs, there is going to be some minor changes. Mostly those abilities will come up with some tweaks regarding the new general cold-damage mechanic mentioned above!

Destructive Touch and Destructive Reach:
The cold-based variant of this attack will not only immobilize the target but will also add two Cold Markers at once to all targets hit by it.

Destructive Clench:
The immobilization is increased but also the amount of Cold Markers added is increased to 3.

Wall of Elements and Elemental Blockade:
No changes, since with the Ice rework this ability works fine.

Unstable Wall of Elements:
The explosion distributes 2 Cold Markers to all enemies hit by it.

Force Shock, Crushing Shock and Force Pulse:
No changes, since this is always a triple-element attack.

Weakness to the Elements and Elemental Drain:
No Changes

Elemental Susceptibility:
While active, it reduces the degradation speed of Cold Markers by 50 percent.

Impulse and Pulsar:
All enemies hit by the area attack will get one Cold Marker since it is a cold-based attack.

Elemental Ring:
Each Damage over Time-tick has a 50% of giving another Cold Marker on the target.

Elemental Rage:
All enemies within the perimeter will get one Cold Marker each damage tick.

Tri-Focus
Fully charged Cold attacks will place 2/3 Cold markers on the target it and have an increased chance of instantly immobilizing or chilling it.


3rd Nightblade Changes
The Nightblade is the class of Dark Magic which lingers with death. In stories death is mostly some kind of cold, lingering feeling which approaches slowly but once it has you in their cold grip it refuses to let you go again? Feel any consensual similarities to the cold magic? Yes, great. I believe some of the Magic damage in the Nightblades skill tree are lacking punch because of their lack of elemental effect since it does not profit from the Champion Tree skill points as well. By changing some abilities a little bit we would also finally have a way to play with cold based attacks without Destruction Staffs. Sorcerers have Lightning Damage, Dragon Knights have Fire and Templars have pure magic and fire damage. So why not have the Nightblades gain the dark and cold magic.

Impale
Changes the magic damage to cold elemental damage.

Teleport Strike
Changes the magic damage to cold elemental damage.

Lotus Fan
Changes the initial and the over time magic damage to cold elemental damage.

Grim Focus and Merciless Resolve
The 'Assassins Will' attacks damage changes from Magic damage to cold damage.

Soul Harvest and Death Stroke
Changes the magic damage to cold damage and reduces it by 10 to 15 percent. The attack will stack 2/3/4/5 cold markers on the target depending on ability rank.

Veiled Strike and Concealed Weapon
Changes the magic damage to cold elemental damage. Hitting from Stealth will place three Cold Markers onto the target.