Why is a staff getting a taunt added in? New garbage staff tank builds?

darthsithis · January 2017

Ppl raised an eyebrow when I said I sorc tanked, but wgt and icp were my jam! It'd be cool to have an destro ability instead of inner fire, but it doesn't really matter.

Don't bash the sorc tank!

Silver_Strider · January 2017

Good luck getting those Heavy attacks in on those Trial bosses, all I have to say.

Didaco · January 2017

Don't put the skill point into it.
You're a cryomancer? Don't invest in the passive.

As for new comers: noobs gonna noob.

The staff won't change things up or make them worse, the issue is always the same: people don't bother reading tooltips/learning mechanics and that's what gets them kicked from group.

It's nothing new, we currently have the same issue now, as a newbie can use 1H&S and Puncture.
And to be honest, I'm playing since console launch and I've happen to see it once, maybe twice. Even less the times I've seen a frost staff being used in a dungeon.

Riejael · January 2017

Patchnotes have done one thing. They've identified a lot of players who have no idea how to deal with new metas. In games like ESO where you have literally dozens if not hundreds of different ways to build a character. There's always a few things that just stand out. Its the devs job to change that from patch to patch to ensure builds do not stagnant.

Part of the challenge of the game is to figure out how to work with new metas. That's just as important as grinding your stuff to purple/gold, just as important as mastering rotations, and just as important at working at getting a balanced synergized group of players for hard content.

Alot of you complaining about ice staffs (as well as other buffs and nerfs in other threads) are basically admitting that you're failing at that aspect of the game.

ZOS has decided to convert a weapon to a tanking weapon. We now have two tanking weapons. Figure it out. Adjust. Adapt. Overcome.

FriedEggSandwich · January 2017

Riejael wrote: »

Patchnotes have done one thing. They've identified a lot of players who have no idea how to deal with new metas. In games like ESO where you have literally dozens if not hundreds of different ways to build a character. There's always a few things that just stand out. Its the devs job to change that from patch to patch to ensure builds do not stagnant.

Part of the challenge of the game is to figure out how to work with new metas. That's just as important as grinding your stuff to purple/gold, just as important as mastering rotations, and just as important at working at getting a balanced synergized group of players for hard content.

Alot of you complaining about ice staffs (as well as other buffs and nerfs in other threads) are basically admitting that you're failing at that aspect of the game.

ZOS has decided to convert a weapon to a tanking weapon. We now have two tanking weapons. Figure it out. Adjust. Adapt. Overcome.

You're ultimately right, apart from the failing bit, but from my perspective I've been using a vma ice staff as a one piece spell damage bonus in pvp because it's the only sharpened vma staff I have. It did the job and took the pressure off farming for an inferno/lightening (I've done over 100 runs). Now unless I want to take more of a tanky role in pvp I do have to find a new staff which I wasn't expecting, and it's a little bit annoying tbh. The change to velocious curse is also out of the blue and doesn't look good on paper. I reserve the right to be annoyed about these things, even if I will adapt.

Royaji · January 2017

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

You're ultimately right, apart from the failing bit, but from my perspective I've been using a vma ice staff as a one piece spell damage bonus in pvp because it's the only sharpened vma staff I have. It did the job and took the pressure off farming for an inferno/lightening (I've done over 100 runs). Now unless I want to take more of a tanky role in pvp I do have to find a new staff which I wasn't expecting, and it's a little bit annoying tbh. The change to velocious curse is also out of the blue and doesn't look good on paper. I reserve the right to be annoyed about these things, even if I will adapt.

But there is an easy solution. They actually made a clever decision - ice staff will taunt only if you have the respective passive. Respec skills and don't put points in this passive. It gives nothing to you if you use ice staff anyway.

Carbonised · January 2017

@UrQuan
Wow, that discussion was surreal. I appreciate you trying to explain the mechanics regarding taunts, too bad everyone got aggressive and continued to spred their misinformation.

You'd think none of them ever did a vet trial, or they would know for a fact that the "healing draws aggro through tank taunts" is laughable and outright wrong. Some people never learn, eh.

Dasovaruilos · January 2017

Well, this change is a little bit odd, but I think it can be interesting, specially for healers on end game content.

I don't think the taunt is THAT big of a deal because the Frost Heavy Attack is hard to aim, specially at a distance AND it will have increased time to be charged due to the change in that passive. A knowledge player should fairly easily avoid that.

But, I can imagine that fight on the last boss on Vet Hel Ra, for example... Just switch to Frost Staff bar, block and still have stamina to dodge if we jumps on you after that attack that aims everyone in the group.

Last boss on vet DSA also comes to mind... A healer will probably be able to taunt and hold him without needing to switch to S+B and will be able to use Max Health / Max Magicka food instead of switching to something else.

Another good use can be the healer taking emergency aggro in some situations if the tank dies. Rare, but can happen.

I'd also probably use this ALL THE TIME with random dailies with the fake tanks.

On paper, this seems very interesting to me, specially since I think the taunt thing is completely controllable. Let's see how it works on the game, though.

Teridaxus · January 2017

Well looks like my tank who is also a crafter need to craft inferno and lighting staffs for all those dps who don't bother to read patch notes before doing dungeons.
I never cared about numbers as long the healer got atleast a single healing ability equipped and the dps hit the enemy, even if it just light attacks and nobody interferes with the roles of each other in some negative ways.

bebynnag · January 2017

the changes to ice staff leave me confused

having always wanted an IceBlade i finally found a workable build (Just for pledges but mainly for fun)
necropotence /lich/iceheart
now my heavy attacks are going to taunt things.... damn it im mNightblade in 7 light i cant be taunting a mudcrab let alone a dungeon boss!

Tan9oSuccka · January 2017

That was my first thought as well.

More crappy Hybrid builds incoming!

FriedEggSandwich · January 2017

Royaji wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

You're ultimately right, apart from the failing bit, but from my perspective I've been using a vma ice staff as a one piece spell damage bonus in pvp because it's the only sharpened vma staff I have. It did the job and took the pressure off farming for an inferno/lightening (I've done over 100 runs). Now unless I want to take more of a tanky role in pvp I do have to find a new staff which I wasn't expecting, and it's a little bit annoying tbh. The change to velocious curse is also out of the blue and doesn't look good on paper. I reserve the right to be annoyed about these things, even if I will adapt.

But there is an easy solution. They actually made a clever decision - ice staff weill taunt only if you have the respective passive. Respec skills and don't put points in this passive. It gives nothing to you if you use ice staff anyway.

Then you miss out on a passive that you didn't used to. Taunts are meaningless in pvp anyway, unless you use tremorscale which is a stam set. This just means that if I want to continue using my vma ice staff as a dps weapon in pvp I'll be stuck with a load of useless passives. It's not just the taunt passive that I won't make use of, I hardly block in pvp either. The ice staff will be great for all those tank/sustain builds in pvp but as a magsorc it will gimp me unless I completely change my playstyle to be a magicka block tank with desert rose or something. I don't want to do that so I have to find a new staff. It's not the end of the world, I realise I was in the minority using the ice staff, I just feel meh about the farming involved. 8% single target damage from fire staff is too good to miss though.

I understand the need for magicka tank diversity, but from a design perspective it's a bit weird to be able to block a load of damage with a stick. I suppose the ice aspect could add some toughness to the stick. It would be cool if they added a block animation that showed the staff icing up and getting bigger, or at least some ice shatter particle effects when you block something.

bebynnag · January 2017

Clarkieson wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

DoccEff wrote: »

- Gives no debuff on the boss.
- Can't be performed while blocking.
- Will result in newbies taunting away bosses.
- Will result in froststaffs being even worse for PvE.
-> Complete garbage if you want to do anything higher than normal dungeons.

The whole patch is just ridiculous but this change tops everything.

Mind you, the bold part is a potentially big issue.

That just comes down to educating newbies, though, and really it's no different from newbies not knowing that S&B isn't good for DPS and that the first skill in that skill line is a bad one for them to be using as a DPS because it takes aggro from the tank.

How is it a problem?

Healing pulls aggro, a lot of dps pulls aggro and some tanks don't even taunt.

Now the use of the staff allows a ping pong effect.
At worse when ppl are trying to taunt or kite and slow adds.

umm no Blacksmurf. Healing and dps do not pull aggro here is how it works Taunt is a hard ability it works for as long as that counter is going. once it disapates the mob is open to target anyone. you can make the boss immune to taunting by having multiple people apply the taunt. then the boss gain an immunity and will not be tauntable until the taunts are off .

There are no aggro tables in ESO per the devs this has been discussed and answered by the dev team.

@UrQuan and @Wifeaggro13

Guys....healing definately pulls aggro.

Do you all heal as your main spec in PvE dungeons and trials?

If it doesn't pull aggro then please detail exactly why as a healer I'm being targeted by NPCs after a tank taunts. And this isn't occurring due to a 12 second timer or less depending upon the taunt used.

Do u guys remember when the taunt was changed where u would have adverse taunts for using it prior to 12 seconds?

You're wrong. Period. No ifs ands or buts. I do all 3 roles (although only 1 at a time) in virtually all PVE content. You don't ever get aggro from a taunted boss unless it's a mechanic (or boss) that specifically ignores taunts, or unless you apply your own taunt. Edit: I shouldn't just say "unless you apply your own taunt" because if any 2 or more people apply taunts to the same target a total of 3 or more times within 12 seconds then the target becomes temporarily immune to taunts. It takes at least 2 people taunting to do that though, and if only 1 person is taunting it will never happen - it's been that way since Imperial City dropped.

And yes, I remember when over-taunting was a thing. As a tank it took me a while to get used to not having to wait to apply my next taunt.

@UrQuan

Well if I'm wrong then the Xbox one version has been broken since release and before then, I guess when I was on PC, everyone was taunting causing the issue by multiple players.

No.....bud, healing cause aggro. It's not due to bad players or what not. It's cause the game doesn't have an aggro table like some other MMOs but as a healer I get aggro.

That's not debatable.

Of course we are wrong we dont play on PC

I am an Xbox player - I have DPS characters, but my main trial characters are a healer & a tank.
i have never taunted anything from healing i have been attacked because of the mechanics of the boss, or because tank has lost agro through bad timing or the DPS taunting
if i as a healer were to throw my shards on a group of adds when there is no one taunting or the tank was busy then yes i would pull agro - because i attacked them, but i am not taunting them i am simply annoying them!

ZOS_JohanaB · January 2017

Several comments have been removed and edited for flaming, and baiting. It is important to remember that in life everyone is not going to agree with you all the time and it is okay to let it go. Try to be civil even if it's with someone you don't agree with and make sure to follow the community rules.

Royaji · January 2017

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

You're ultimately right, apart from the failing bit, but from my perspective I've been using a vma ice staff as a one piece spell damage bonus in pvp because it's the only sharpened vma staff I have. It did the job and took the pressure off farming for an inferno/lightening (I've done over 100 runs). Now unless I want to take more of a tanky role in pvp I do have to find a new staff which I wasn't expecting, and it's a little bit annoying tbh. The change to velocious curse is also out of the blue and doesn't look good on paper. I reserve the right to be annoyed about these things, even if I will adapt.

But there is an easy solution. They actually made a clever decision - ice staff weill taunt only if you have the respective passive. Respec skills and don't put points in this passive. It gives nothing to you if you use ice staff anyway.

Then you miss out on a passive that you didn't used to. Taunts are meaningless in pvp anyway, unless you use tremorscale which is a stam set. This just means that if I want to continue using my vma ice staff as a dps weapon in pvp I'll be stuck with a load of useless passives. It's not just the taunt passive that I won't make use of, I hardly block in pvp either. The ice staff will be great for all those tank/sustain builds in pvp but as a magsorc it will gimp me unless I completely change my playstyle to be a magicka block tank with desert rose or something. I don't want to do that so I have to find a new staff. It's not the end of the world, I realise I was in the minority using the ice staff, I just feel meh about the farming involved. 8% single target damage from fire staff is too good to miss though.

I understand the need for magicka tank diversity, but from a design perspective it's a bit weird to be able to block a load of damage with a stick. I suppose the ice aspect could add some toughness to the stick. It would be cool if they added a block animation that showed the staff icing up and getting bigger, or at least some ice shatter particle effects when you block something.

Well let's look at the list of changes:

Tri Focus:
This passive ability now taunts the enemy after you use a fully-charged Frost Heavy Attack.
This passive ability now causes your block to drain Magicka (instead of Stamina) and stops your Magicka Recovery (instead of Stamina Recovery) while blocking when you have a Frost Destruction Staff equipped.

Ancient Knowledge: This passive ability no longer decreases the cast time of your Destruction Staff Heavy Attacks by 5/10%. Instead, it grants you a bonus as long as you have one Destruction Staff ability slotted. This bonus depends on your staff type:
Flame Staves: Increases your single-target damage dealt by 4/8%.
Frost Staves: Increases the amount of damage you Block by 10/20%, and reduces the cost of Block by 15/30%.
Lightning Staves: Increases your Area of Effect damage dealt by 4/8%.

So you will have to get rid of those two passives. Tri Focus gives you a very small shield that noone cares about anyway and Ancient Knowledge reduces heavy attacks cast time by 10%. Even though I do agree that this is still a nerf, most people don't heavy attack with ice staff anyway, meduim attack weaving is still a better way to go and it's not going to be affected that much. So is this a nerf to ice staff DDs? Yes, it is. Is it that big of a deal? Not so sure about that. In my opinion giving tanks a magicka option kinda outweighs this little nerf to DDs. But I might be a little biased since my main is a tank.

And immersion/lore wise - sorcs and light armor users already have invisible magicka shields that absorb tons of damage, so I can definitely agree with "stick" blocking damage. But it really would be cool to change the magical kinda shield thingy (I really don't know how to describe it better) into an icy shield in front of the character when you block with ice staff.

Kutsuu · January 2017

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

You're ultimately right, apart from the failing bit, but from my perspective I've been using a vma ice staff as a one piece spell damage bonus in pvp because it's the only sharpened vma staff I have. It did the job and took the pressure off farming for an inferno/lightening (I've done over 100 runs). Now unless I want to take more of a tanky role in pvp I do have to find a new staff which I wasn't expecting, and it's a little bit annoying tbh. The change to velocious curse is also out of the blue and doesn't look good on paper. I reserve the right to be annoyed about these things, even if I will adapt.

But there is an easy solution. They actually made a clever decision - ice staff weill taunt only if you have the respective passive. Respec skills and don't put points in this passive. It gives nothing to you if you use ice staff anyway.

Then you miss out on a passive that you didn't used to. Taunts are meaningless in pvp anyway, unless you use tremorscale which is a stam set. This just means that if I want to continue using my vma ice staff as a dps weapon in pvp I'll be stuck with a load of useless passives. It's not just the taunt passive that I won't make use of, I hardly block in pvp either. The ice staff will be great for all those tank/sustain builds in pvp but as a magsorc it will gimp me unless I completely change my playstyle to be a magicka block tank with desert rose or something. I don't want to do that so I have to find a new staff. It's not the end of the world, I realise I was in the minority using the ice staff, I just feel meh about the farming involved. 8% single target damage from fire staff is too good to miss though.

I understand the need for magicka tank diversity, but from a design perspective it's a bit weird to be able to block a load of damage with a stick. I suppose the ice aspect could add some toughness to the stick. It would be cool if they added a block animation that showed the staff icing up and getting bigger, or at least some ice shatter particle effects when you block something.

I have to say you must to be smoking something if you don't think that 20%/30% block passive won't be useful in PVP, even to a DPS. I have a 1h/shield bar on almost all of my PVP builds BECAUSE of that passive, to use for blocking soul assault, meteors, and gank attempts. This gives a magicka based option with some great abilities (new elemental drain is equivalent to ~800 magicka regen). I will be changing my magicka templar's back bar from a 1h/shield to a ice destro for sure. Elemental drain + eye of the storm ftw.

Wifeaggro13 · January 2017

Riejael wrote: »

Patchnotes have done one thing. They've identified a lot of players who have no idea how to deal with new metas. In games like ESO where you have literally dozens if not hundreds of different ways to build a character. There's always a few things that just stand out. Its the devs job to change that from patch to patch to ensure builds do not stagnant.

Part of the challenge of the game is to figure out how to work with new metas. That's just as important as grinding your stuff to purple/gold, just as important as mastering rotations, and just as important at working at getting a balanced synergized group of players for hard content.

Alot of you complaining about ice staffs (as well as other buffs and nerfs in other threads) are basically admitting that you're failing at that aspect of the game.

ZOS has decided to convert a weapon to a tanking weapon. We now have two tanking weapons. Figure it out. Adjust. Adapt. Overcome.

My problem is it now just encourages not having a tank at all.

Wifeaggro13 · January 2017

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

DoccEff wrote: »

- Gives no debuff on the boss.
- Can't be performed while blocking.
- Will result in newbies taunting away bosses.
- Will result in froststaffs being even worse for PvE.
-> Complete garbage if you want to do anything higher than normal dungeons.

The whole patch is just ridiculous but this change tops everything.

Mind you, the bold part is a potentially big issue.

That just comes down to educating newbies, though, and really it's no different from newbies not knowing that S&B isn't good for DPS and that the first skill in that skill line is a bad one for them to be using as a DPS because it takes aggro from the tank.

How is it a problem?

Healing pulls aggro, a lot of dps pulls aggro and some tanks don't even taunt.

Now the use of the staff allows a ping pong effect.
At worse when ppl are trying to taunt or kite and slow adds.

umm no Blacksmurf. Healing and dps do not pull aggro here is how it works Taunt is a hard ability it works for as long as that counter is going. once it disapates the mob is open to target anyone. you can make the boss immune to taunting by having multiple people apply the taunt. then the boss gain an immunity and will not be tauntable until the taunts are off .

There are no aggro tables in ESO per the devs this has been discussed and answered by the dev team.

@UrQuan and @Wifeaggro13

Guys....healing definately pulls aggro.

Do you all heal as your main spec in PvE dungeons and trials?

If it doesn't pull aggro then please detail exactly why as a healer I'm being targeted by NPCs after a tank taunts. And this isn't occurring due to a 12 second timer or less depending upon the taunt used.

Do u guys remember when the taunt was changed where u would have adverse taunts for using it prior to 12 seconds?

You're wrong. Period. No ifs ands or buts. I do all 3 roles (although only 1 at a time) in virtually all PVE content. You don't ever get aggro from a taunted boss unless it's a mechanic (or boss) that specifically ignores taunts, or unless you apply your own taunt. Edit: I shouldn't just say "unless you apply your own taunt" because if any 2 or more people apply taunts to the same target a total of 3 or more times within 12 seconds then the target becomes temporarily immune to taunts. It takes at least 2 people taunting to do that though, and if only 1 person is taunting it will never happen - it's been that way since Imperial City dropped.

And yes, I remember when over-taunting was a thing. As a tank it took me a while to get used to not having to wait to apply my next taunt.

@UrQuan

Well if I'm wrong then the Xbox one version has been broken since release and before then, I guess when I was on PC, everyone was taunting causing the issue by multiple players.

No.....bud, healing cause aggro. It's not due to bad players or what not. It's cause the game doesn't have an aggro table like some other MMOs but as a healer I get aggro.

That's not debatable.

You're wrong period. That's not debatable. The only reason you (whether on Xbox or any other platform) will ever get aggro from a taunted boss is if it's a mechanic that specifically ignores taunts, or if 2 or more people apply too many taunts within 12 seconds, giving it temporary taunt immunity. You can't magically get aggro from a taunted target by healing. It doesn't happen.

Also I guess you're not aware of when the Xbox version of the game came out. It was before Imperial City, so it was back when a tank could be the only one taunting and still over-taunt. And if you were back on PC before that, that also would have been back when a single person could over-taunt.

The fact of the matter is you simply don't understand the taunt mechanics in ESO. And apparently you never have.

@UrQuan

Whaaat are you even talking about.

Man here's the ESO live - https://youtu.be/At1pt88wa6s

That was prior to console release.
The taunting changes prior were that a tank could overtaunt and it was changed so that a single player couldn't overtaunt but multiple players could still overtaunt.

None of that changed the aggro that a healer would get. The whole reason why overtaunting was occurring is as result of this weird taunt table so to speak.

I've definately been around a or longer than you and definately understand some thing a lot better than you just from keeping on top of things that matter.

Specifically, being a healer in terms of aggro.

Geez man....why do you think ppl complain about the tank not taunting. It's due to the aggro table which is wonky that does draw aggro to the healer and dps.

That's why they removed the overtaunt.
So to get back on topic....

This staff feature helps the magic based builds and also can help in other cases but Ta not a problem because the tank isn't loosing their taunt effectiveness.

The change to not allow a single player to over-taunt came in with patch 2.1.4 for PC in August of 2015:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/212035/pc-mac-patch-notes-v2-1-4#latest

Patch Notes wrote:

Taunt immunity can no longer be triggered by a single player character taunting the same target.

Two or more player characters who taunt a single target a total of three times among them will still cause the target to become immune.
Taunts from combat pets do not count toward the limit, and pets will no longer taunt targets already taunted by a player character.

That was patch 1.1.0.0 for Xbox:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/216413/xbox-one-patch-notes-v1-1-0-0#latest

But, but, how could it be in a patch for Xbox if it happened before the Xbox version came out? Well, that's because like I said that change was made after the Xbox version came out.

It's simple. You don't ever get aggro on a taunted (but not over-taunted, and not with the taunt expired) target from healing. Ever.

If you're getting aggro, then either the target isn't taunted, or it's a mechanic that ignores taunts, or 2 or more people have taunted it a total of 3 or more times to give it taunt immunity. That's all. By all means though, keep believing that healing magically overrides a taunt (even though it only happens to you), just like you should keep believing that the change to make it so a single player can't over-taunt came before the Xbox version came out. I mean, I probably hacked the forums to add in those patch notes I just linked right?

@UrQuan

So then why even taunt if the dps and healer aren't drawing aggro?

Or as I'm asking in terms of this discussion.....how does this frost staff change hurt anything?

The frost staff doesn't taunt automatically. It taunt if the passive is selected so.....knowing this....ZOS is extending the taunting opportunities for someone.

Either it's read as DPS needs and taunt or that some tanks may use the frost staff to taunt.

Neither are healers

Who is everyone else ranting away from danger? And why do they need to taunt away from the third role.....if the healer doesn't draw aggro?

They draw aggro there just is no table. It's not like other MMO'S . A aggro table the mob is scripted to go after the person who has either the highest total damage on the mob or the person that has the highest healing done most of the time which ever number is greater. That's how healers would draw aggro in like ever quest 2 .I'm sorry i was not clear earlier in my statement. They will also go after the person that CC them after they have been damged. This is what I meant by aggro table. The development team stated early on that eso does not work on those tearms. The ai for aggro works differently . Different mobs have different scripts to attack healers. It's why you hear humanoids say kill the healer.

DocFrost72 · January 2017

I'm actually excited to try a tank with sword and board plus ice staff. Something tells me being able to use BOTH pools will be pretty handy!

Abeille · January 2017

Well, back to Maelstrom with me. I deconned the Permafrost stuff I dropped while I was farming Winterborn xD

Wifeaggro13 · January 2017

Abeille wrote: »

Oh, oh wait, nobody said it yet?

They are making Ice Staff into a defensive weapon because Warden is coming, and it is a defensive class with frost skills

Possible , this is possible. Warden be coming by summer.

Wifeaggro13 · January 2017

Vaoh wrote: »

*group finder forms a group*

Player 1: "Wait, where's your Sword n Board? You queued as a tank."

Player 2: "Oh yeah I am! See my Ice Staff? "

*kicked*

Unless it's you then they say we will wait here while you clear the dungeon.

xXSilverDragonXx · January 2017

I will post it one more time:

If they are going to seriously consider giving any staff of any kind of taunt they need to put on their big boy pants and do it across the board by adding a separate taunt passive that is brand spanking new to both res and desto skill lines. Then they will in one swift move make tanks have a truly viable second/back bar to be hybrids or temptanks that roll with restos on the back bar. This sort of half committed tacked onto one staff in the tri focus passive is like they really didn't want to do it wholeheartedly and really didn't test it to see how back bar staves on tanks would work and really didn't think about users who have ice staves at all. They relegated ice staves to some special kind of strangeness and took away their tri focus entirely by making them a taunt. All those magpblade that roll with ice staves now can either pay up to 11k or more to remove those few passive skill points or they can retire to not using it all or be forced to switch to fire. It's a failure to implement this right. It's a finger in the face to all ice staff users, especially the ones who got ice staff drops in vma.

I don't even have an ice staff toon but a friend of mine does and he grinded his but off in vma, got the ice sharpened and stuck it on his magblade and was doing quite well with it. He brought it in trials and dungeons nearly daily and now he has to toss his vma staff to the wind because this was poorly implemented. Meanwhile he has a hybrid dark elf tank that could have really benefited from a full implementation of staves as taunting weapons and rolled with a fire stave to make a viable option he could test out to see if he really liked and tweak to see if he could make it truly viable.

It is IMO a half baked plan where they just lacked balls to do it full on so they picked one staff that not too many players use and gave them the shaft by taking away their trifocus. No courage. No brains. Well done ZOS.

DocFrost72 · January 2017

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

*group finder forms a group*

Player 1: "Wait, where's your Sword n Board? You queued as a tank."

Player 2: "Oh yeah I am! See my Ice Staff? "

*kicked*

Unless it's you then they say we will wait here while you clear the dungeon.

"Dude, @Vaoh has this. It's only vet CoA, he could do it in his sleep."

brandonv516 · January 2017

Maybe weakness to elements should have been the taunt for staffs.

It doesn't cost resources, it applies the same debuff as s&b taunt, and it solves the major complaint of dps ice staff users pulling unwanted aggro with heavy attacks.

Then they can make the undaunted an aoe taunt and we are good to go.

Wifeaggro13 · January 2017

xXSilverDragonXx wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

It's simple. You don't ever get aggro on a taunted (but not over-taunted, and not with the taunt expired) target from healing. Ever.

Actually, I've got to say on this one that I always get aggro from the blackheart haven final boss with my res staff. No matter how long I wait, I get it. If he is taunted or not. He comes after me then turns me into a skeleton and I hope I get back to my healer before everyone dies. The only way I can avoid it is to never use my res staff on the boss. So as a healer I do pull aggro. You here are saying from 'healing' so if you are talking about tossing out heals, then I have never gotten a taunt as I heal but that res staff, bosses like that.

That is a random mechanic

Wifeaggro13 · January 2017

Riejael wrote: »

Patchnotes have done one thing. They've identified a lot of players who have no idea how to deal with new metas. In games like ESO where you have literally dozens if not hundreds of different ways to build a character. There's always a few things that just stand out. Its the devs job to change that from patch to patch to ensure builds do not stagnant.

Part of the challenge of the game is to figure out how to work with new metas. That's just as important as grinding your stuff to purple/gold, just as important as mastering rotations, and just as important at working at getting a balanced synergized group of players for hard content.

Alot of you complaining about ice staffs (as well as other buffs and nerfs in other threads) are basically admitting that you're failing at that aspect of the game.

ZOS has decided to convert a weapon to a tanking weapon. We now have two tanking weapons. Figure it out. Adjust. Adapt. Overcome.

There is one meta it's dps . There is no ETA for tanks because you don't actually need one until your in vet trials. Then it's very specific. Tava's , war horn, vigor, and personal survival. All the other content theta is all dps

FriedEggSandwich · January 2017

Kutsuu wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

You're ultimately right, apart from the failing bit, but from my perspective I've been using a vma ice staff as a one piece spell damage bonus in pvp because it's the only sharpened vma staff I have. It did the job and took the pressure off farming for an inferno/lightening (I've done over 100 runs). Now unless I want to take more of a tanky role in pvp I do have to find a new staff which I wasn't expecting, and it's a little bit annoying tbh. The change to velocious curse is also out of the blue and doesn't look good on paper. I reserve the right to be annoyed about these things, even if I will adapt.

But there is an easy solution. They actually made a clever decision - ice staff weill taunt only if you have the respective passive. Respec skills and don't put points in this passive. It gives nothing to you if you use ice staff anyway.

Then you miss out on a passive that you didn't used to. Taunts are meaningless in pvp anyway, unless you use tremorscale which is a stam set. This just means that if I want to continue using my vma ice staff as a dps weapon in pvp I'll be stuck with a load of useless passives. It's not just the taunt passive that I won't make use of, I hardly block in pvp either. The ice staff will be great for all those tank/sustain builds in pvp but as a magsorc it will gimp me unless I completely change my playstyle to be a magicka block tank with desert rose or something. I don't want to do that so I have to find a new staff. It's not the end of the world, I realise I was in the minority using the ice staff, I just feel meh about the farming involved. 8% single target damage from fire staff is too good to miss though.

I understand the need for magicka tank diversity, but from a design perspective it's a bit weird to be able to block a load of damage with a stick. I suppose the ice aspect could add some toughness to the stick. It would be cool if they added a block animation that showed the staff icing up and getting bigger, or at least some ice shatter particle effects when you block something.

I have to say you must to be smoking something if you don't think that 20%/30% block passive won't be useful in PVP, even to a DPS. I have a 1h/shield bar on almost all of my PVP builds BECAUSE of that passive, to use for blocking soul assault, meteors, and gank attempts. This gives a magicka based option with some great abilities (new elemental drain is equivalent to ~800 magicka regen). I will be changing my magicka templar's back bar from a 1h/shield to a ice destro for sure. Elemental drain + eye of the storm ftw.

As opposed to 8% more damage? Don't think you need to have smoked anything to prefer damage over more blocking when I mostly use damage shields for my mitigation.

xXSilverDragonXx · January 2017

brandonv516 wrote: »

Maybe weakness to elements should have been the taunt for staffs.

It doesn't cost resources, it applies the same debuff as s&b taunt, and it solves the major complaint of dps ice staff users pulling unwanted aggro with heavy attacks.

Then they can make the undaunted an aoe taunt and we are good to go.

Even then though, people would have to pay however many thousands of gold just to remove that passive if they don't want to taunt. And I didn't here anything about dirt cheap respecs for this update though I might be wrong and they have offered it.

They have said over and over that they won't make any aoe taunt, so we can give up on that entirely. But really, how they did this is just an epic fail. Just make a new passive for all staves. How hard can that be? If you don't want to taunt, don't do it. If you do then tick the point in it. And then nobody loses their trifocus.

Joy_Division · January 2017

Vaoh wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Because everyone who tanks as magic, doesn't want to be forced to use sword and board. It's pretty dumb if they didn't do this.

Undaunted was the magic taunt but it's not accessible until after many undaunted progression

Because not every Ice Staff build wants to become a tank?

Not even to mention that all Ice Staff PvE DPS builds just became useless. Heavy Attack will taunt the boss and possibly get your whole trial group killed.

Why should a stick of wood provide as much defense passively as a giant shield? If you want big defense, grab a shield. That's how things have always worked in most all games, not just ESO.

Very stupid change.

Are you trying to use logic in a game where two swords made by a blacksmith are superior magical healing weapons than a restoration staff made for the specific purpose of healing?