I don't understand the issue with people raging about this change . It literally doesn't affect anything . Frost staff is not viable is PvE , won't be , never was . ''My Frost Mage PvE DPS build is useless now'' . Well , surprise . It was useless before too . Even though passives and actives say that ''Flame version does more damage'' , you chose Frost . Well , here is your punishment for not reading passives . If you want to use Frost Staff even though you know that it does less DPS , you can't do Heavy Attacks now . GZ .

Frost Staff tanking will never be as good as 1h/s tanking unless they change something . I don't understand why people care about this too . I can't even count the comments like ''A shield is used for defence , why would I use a wooden stick instead ?'' Yeah , thanks Sherlock .

It was mainly done for PvP . Magicka Tank builds . And some occasionally different builds who want to tank only pledges as a Magicka character .

Liofa wrote: »

I don't understand the issue with people raging about this change . It literally doesn't affect anything . Frost staff is not viable is PvE , won't be , never was . ''My Frost Mage PvE DPS build is useless now'' . Well , surprise . It was useless before too . Even though passives and actives say that ''Flame version does more damage'' , you chose Frost . Well , here is your punishment for not reading passives . If you want to use Frost Staff even though you know that it does less DPS , you can't do Heavy Attacks now . GZ .

Frost Staff tanking will never be as good as 1h/s tanking unless they change something . I don't understand why people care about this too . I can't even count the comments like ''A shield is used for defence , why would I use a wooden stick instead ?'' Yeah , thanks Sherlock .

It was mainly done for PvP . Magicka Tank builds . And some occasionally different builds who want to tank only pledges as a Magicka character .

Because it was poorly implemented. It relegates one staff that some people do happen to use to being a taunt and takes away their bonus from tri focus. If they wanted to make ice staves relevant they need to look at classes and see which can benefit from ice, which they can add ice bonuses too. They need to build some ice power into the classes instead of only thinking fire/shock. That was their failure. Meanwhile, ppl who have chosen to use ice staves, often magblades, have lost their trifocus.

Also, it was poorly implemented because why not put it on all staves in a separate passive? Why not make it so that back bar resto/desto tanks now have some benefit for it? One type of staff is a half measure attempt to make a type of staff that they completely ignored more relevant in some strange way. It's like they just don't know what the heck to do with ice staves but they have them littered throughout the game and feel they have to do something with them so in some half hearted attempt to make them relevant in some unique way they decide to make them taunt, but they don't consider the ppl that might be using them, might have wisely put point into tri focus and have zero desire to be tanks on that toon ever.

Giving all staves a passive to taunt that is new and separate would have been a bold move that harmed noone. This however, shows no boldness, shows no consideration for those that use ice staves, like the ppl who got them on vma but have zero desire to be tanks. It's really sad how much potential this idea if done well could have had and how it fails because they didn't go full on with it.

Honestly this can be good and bad.

examples:
for pvp I am sure it will be viable and possible for magic tanks as well?

vDSA last boss; healer can now use an ice staff to taunt boss; instead of using magicka from inner fire or putting on a S&B.

In normal or Vet trials; insure that no one has an ice staff; as it will wipe the team if in fact someone does use it.

Trolls will now wipe teams inside dungeons and trials pugging will no longer be viable because you don't know who is using this. as is; I have run into people running termerscale and then blame me for not taunting and keeping agro.

over all it has some goods some bad.

Royaji 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.

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.

Very well written. I'm see it this way too.

I'm definately going to use it to tank as magic and ditch the sword and board for randoms.

From there we'll see what makes the most sense but ideally what's occurring is for the magic based tank, they have ranged dps while tanking without the need of a weapon swap and the ability to taunt which is awesome.

Then on top of that, there's this BIg ol ice flying across the screen so it's pretty obvious whose being targeted.

The only decisions now are what sets to play around with. I'm definately picking ice furnace as one

I foresee the sorc, DK and Templar as very likely to fit this but I can't remove the NB totally as they are more of a DD class.

CosmicSoul wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

CosmicSoul wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

CosmicSoul 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.

I am sorry but are you a twit sir? Dps and healing does in fact get agro, that does not mean the tank can do such a good job that dps and healing does not get agro but there has been plenty of times I have seen my dps or healing pull agro off a tank.

You only get aggro if the tank misses refreshing his taunt, or if it's a mechanic that ignores taunts, or if 2 or more people taunt the same target. That's it.

Those things happen, and when they do you can get aggro from your DPS or your healing. But if the tank keeps taunt up, and there's no mechanic that ignores taunt, and nobody else is taunting, then you'll never draw aggro from that target.

Believe what you want dude it literally makes no difference to me, I know my experience and guess what its litetally the same in nearly every other mmorpg I have played.

And you know that the devs have explicitly said it doesn't work the same in ESO as in other MMOs right?

And where does it say agro mechanics do not work the same? It is also my experiences and others that show this.

The reason people get aggro is because it is scripted that way in a trash pull certain mobs are designated to attack healers and some to attack dps. Devs have specifically stated there is no aggro table in ESO. its all AI in other MMO's a taunt just raised your level of priority on the mob thats why in games you used multiple taunts to keep raising your threat lvl. aggro tables in a rudimentary explanation were who ever in the group or raid had the highest dps was the next priority meaning top of the list or if you had been healing more numbers then a dps was putting out you got threat. there were also certain buffs and abilites that would put you to the top of the table as well thats why they were cordinated with tanks and classes that could mem wipe if the tank could not re establish his priority. Tanking in this enviroment at end game was challenging and absloutely fun, but stressful.My memory is foggy so some of the details maybe off but it generaly what i remember.

Also certain mechanics could be in play some encounters would have what was called a Memory wipe meaning they reset their agro table to zero and it started fresh. everyone would need to stop dps and let the tank restablish his threat level. there were also certain utility classes that could do this as well to get the table reset if the tank could not keep his threat lvl up and dps was over producing. Most of this i am refering to games like pre 2008 EQ2 and games in that AOC had a complex aggro system too it worked a bit differently then eq 2 though. I cant speak for WOW i never played it at that type of group play.Other MMO's rift and such worked on a table as well but less complex.

ESO has none of these mechanincs its why CC is non existent and true uitility and buffing are all secondary and insignifcant in its group combat mechanics. ESO aggro is hard taunt either its on or its off , and if its off the mob just follows its script and attacks who it is scripted to Bosses will have different priorties and different scripts.

It's a joke. If people wanted to staff tank, they could have already with inner fire. Instead of making the frost staves more competitive with flame and lightning, I guess they just decided to remove it as an option completely.

Since flame staff deals more damage, and lightning more aoe, it was suggested frost should penetrate armor with the snares. Makes sense because cold right? Maybe too much sense.

Liofa wrote: »

It was mainly done for PvP . Magicka Tank builds

Wrong. Taunt's have no effect in PVP. Also surely you're not suggesting ZOS thought magicka tanks in PVP needed buffing??????? lol back to the drawing board son. The ice stick taunt is inexplicable.

Tryxus 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.

So you don't see the benefits of regenerating stamina while blocking with your staff, and then swapping to S&B so you can regenerate magicka while blocking with your S&B? Or the benefits of a ranged taunt that replenishes resources instead of costing resources?

Tanking with only staves will be garbage if you want to do anything higher than normal dungeons. Tanking with S&B on one bar and a frost staff on the other will likely become the new tanking meta.

That taunt is the one thing I don't agree with.

I love the changes they made to Frost Staves, and they open up a lot of new possibilities in Cyro.

But in PvE, Frost Staff DPSers are now at risk of taunting the boss. I'm currently using a Master's Ice Staff for both PvP and PvE, since I haven't been lucky enough to obtain a Fire Staff from either arena or an Aether Staff. And now I'm at risk for using it in vet trials due to the taunt they added to it.

Personally, I think they should get rid of the taunt and revert back to the Damage Shield we had (make it stronger maybe?) or have Frost Heavy attacks snare (or remove snares from the caster?) so that the weapon still has useful tanking abilities without compromising the DPSers

First thing I thought of when hearing about this was that it's just watering down the vMA loot tables even further.

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.

Re the bold - add "that recovers while blocking"

UrQuan wrote: »

Artis wrote: »

puffytheslayer wrote: »

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!

why would you use a fully charged heavy attack as a dps in pve?

There are lots of things that proc off a fully charged heavy attack.

I hope they're just pointing out a frost staff heavy attack wouldn't be the best use of a staff heavy attack compared to fire and light.

Even compared to a healing staff for mana regen or healing bonus

At least I hope that's their thought