Ice Staff Magblade Cyrodiil

Datthaw · December 2017

Hey there magblade community. I'm starting this thread because ice staffs are awesome and I would love to see some non meta build ideas here.

I started this because I found asylum ice staff and resto staff and started messing around. (also found I don't like crushing shock over soul swallow as spammable)

So how do yall play with ice staff if you do? Do you run dw/ice staff back bar for those magblocks? Do you run destructive reach and cripple for CCs galore? Ele blockade viable in the open world setting?

So far the setup I have been messing around with is 5 shackle 3 will power 2 skoria and the asylum staffs (even if I don't use force pulse)

Fb magharness, mercy bow, elemental drain, soul swallow, destructive reach, meteor

BB healing ward, fear, cloak, degeneration, combat prayer, resto ult

This build has been pretty fun and a nice break from the inferno staff build and playstyle I usually run

Love to see what kinda set and skill combos evertone else has tried

kylewwefan · December 2017

I got a masters ice staff sitting in the bank. I’ve been under the assumption it was trash, but you know. It’s a masters staff. Maybe I bust it out and give it a shot.

Tryxus · December 2017

I used Ice Staff all the time on my former MagBlade, until I rerolled to Warden. Now I do the same on him

My old setup was 5x Necropotence, 3x Willpower, 2x Pirate Skeleton, Master Ice Staff & Maelstrom Resto Staff. Clench + Crippling Grasp with Merciless Resolve, Swallow Soul and Mass Hysteria Front. Degeneration, Mirage, Shade, Siphoning & Healing Ward on backbar

Dong_Valentino · December 2017

I use a fire staff front bar and ice staff back bar. The reason is simple: when I first see staff in forecast style all I think is that I am gonna make one and it have to be an ice staff. The change i made is replacing healing ward with dampen and light's champion with siphoning ults. It won't differ much from a fire/restoration staff build but I can block with magicka. I can use my stamina bar for dodge roll as it still regenere while I hold block with ice staff. It is also worth mentioning that ice staff has a passive to reduce block cost and increase the damage you can block, though it is not as effective as sword and shield. I like to use Amber Plasm for this build as you can get a lot mag and steam regeneration from this set. Another set you can choose some offensive set like war maiden.

About your skill set up, I suggest adding crippling grasp as it immbolize the enemy and help you repositioning with major expedition. And I think combat prayer is not necessary since magblade as easy access to minor berserka. You can add siphoning strikes as it is in siphoning skill tree, which means adding it will grant you 8% magicka bonus and help your magicka sustain.

Datthaw · December 2017

***_Valentino wrote: »

I use a fire staff front bar and ice staff back bar. The reason is simple: when I first see staff in forecast style all I think is that I am gonna make one and it have to be an ice staff. The change i made is replacing healing ward with dampen and light's champion with siphoning ults. It won't differ much from a fire/restoration staff build but I can block with magicka. I can use my stamina bar for dodge roll as it still regenere while I hold block with ice staff. It is also worth mentioning that ice staff has a passive to reduce block cost and increase the damage you can block, though it is not as effective as sword and shield. I like to use Amber Plasm for this build as you can get a lot mag and steam regeneration from this set. Another set you can choose some offensive set like war maiden.

About your skill set up, I suggest adding crippling grasp as it immbolize the enemy and help you repositioning with major expedition. And I think combat prayer is not necessary since magblade as easy access to minor berserka. You can add siphoning strikes as it is in siphoning skill tree, which means adding it will grant you 8% magicka bonus and help your magicka sustain.

I normally would never use combat prayer but it works with asylum staff to reduce mag and stam cost by like 25%? For 3 seconds. Drawing a blank on if it's 25 or not but it's alot. So it's been nice testing it out. I use it as alot precursor to my shield stack to help save some mag.

I might drop ele drain for cripple and give that a test, would be sweet to have multiple people ccd at rhe same time

NyassaV · December 2017

Blocking slows me down. Otherwise I might use an icestaff

Metemsycosis · December 2017

I burned myself out on staff play but if you find a way to eek out damage ice staffs are awfully useful for controlling fights. Stopped using them totally after agony was removed.

Think of Iike this: Ice comet and spectral bow are hard to avoid if you're frozen in place.

And if you use 2 piece kena with both siphoning attacks and weakness to elements rolling you'll maintain various forms of pressure.

kaithuzar · December 2017

I would imagine ice staff + skoria is beastly.
Maybe run wall of elements & concealed strike for a spammable?

If you still want a resto bar.
If you don't want a resto bar then 100 pts into blessed & be argonian but imo that's fairly meta so meh

Subversus · December 2017

Frost damage builds are really suboptimal for magblade at the moment... however, if I were you I'd use 5 necro/shackle 2 skoria 3 willpower and 1 vMA staff.

I much prefer wall of elements over destructive reach when playing with frost, because you already have a single target root from crippling grasp - no need for another. The wall also roots enemies passively, instead of doing it with a GCD.

But as I said, it's really suboptimal. You give up a bar slot for reach/wall, slot that could be used for blur.

Koensol · December 2017

Subversus wrote: »

Frost damage builds are really suboptimal for magblade at the moment... however, if I were you I'd use 5 necro/shackle 2 skoria 3 willpower and 1 vMA staff.

I much prefer wall of elements over destructive reach when playing with frost, because you already have a single target root from crippling grasp - no need for another. The wall also roots enemies passively, instead of doing it with a GCD.

But as I said, it's really suboptimal. You give up a bar slot for reach/wall, slot that could be used for blur.

I'd have to agree. Magnb has enough cc. Fire staff is still optimal because it increases the damage, and thus the healing from swallow soul/funnel health.

Frost staff is really interesting though, but finds its place more in classes like magplar, that lack any consistent cc to be able to land their jabs. I have tested frost staff on magplar and I wasn't disappointed.

Datthaw · December 2017

I know ice staff isn't optimal, that wasn't exactly the point of the thread. I just know many people like me, get bored sometimes and like to play around.
Ice staff is just fun and since it's not the best staff to use I figured some people might have found a unique way to make them somewhat effective.
I way even thinking like a heavy armor shackle with Lich and run massive aoe might be fun. Will you be winning many high lvl duels? Hell no, but it might be fun in a cyrodiil keep fight.
It's like for a while when i was running in a group alot on my magblade in kyne. I slotted volcanic rune with elemental block and refreshing path. Was great to set up on breeches and get that an zoe stun in some oils on top of my dots

Dong_Valentino · December 2017

@Datthaw
Just want to let you know I tested asylum healing staff myself. After using combat prayer, it reduces the cost of healing abilities, not all abilities. And what is tricky here is what counts as a healing ability. On nightblade, I discovered siphoning strikes cost is reduced while funnel health is not. Also refreshing path is not a healing ability either. However, surprisingly, healthy offering is a healing ability and it gets a cost reduce to only needing about 4700 health, which I think is a bug since the staff specifies only magicka and stamina cost of healing skills is reduced. On templar, healing ritual is not a healing ability!
In conclusion, I still suggest not using combat prayer, what you can get the cost reduce skill.on nightblade is quite limited. And shield is not considered healing ability. You can try vma healing staff with regeneration to get some mag back. It is not bad from my experience.
Good luck !:)

Subversus · December 2017

Datthaw wrote: »

I know ice staff isn't optimal, that wasn't exactly the point of the thread. I just know many people like me, get bored sometimes and like to play around.
Ice staff is just fun and since it's not the best staff to use I figured some people might have found a unique way to make them somewhat effective.
I way even thinking like a heavy armor shackle with Lich and run massive aoe might be fun. Will you be winning many high lvl duels? Hell no, but it might be fun in a cyrodiil keep fight.
It's like for a while when i was running in a group alot on my magblade in kyne. I slotted volcanic rune with elemental block and refreshing path. Was great to set up on breeches and get that an zoe stun in some oils on top of my dots

Shackle+lich on destro/resto magblade duels is oversustaining. You have elemental drain and syphoning attacks, both of which are a must for heavy magblade duels imo.

This is what I run 1v1 atm. It's an old build pre heavy nerf and I'm working towards a new one (same build philosophy, different sets), but you're welcome to try it and replace the fire staff with an ice - it should work just as fine.

I run 2 skoria 5 julianos front 5 riposte back 5-2 heavy, 3 spell dmg glyphs and full max mag on armor.

Front bar I have ele drain, strife (both morphs work, I use the one that heals teammates for group play since I use the exact same build open world but with trans instead of riposte), double take, merciless resolve, fear or reach (usually use reach, slot fear if it's a permablock ***). Ult - incap (yes incap cause it's op)

Backbar I use syphoning attacks, crippling grasp, healing ward, refreshing path, entropy, resto ult.

Now the way you could play this with a frost staff is replace double take with wall of elements (I used to also run this, albeit wall of fire, back at morrowind launch when stam was more present than ranged mag builds) and slot fear on all fights instead of reach.

My suggestion when going for a frost build on magblade is to never use reach, it's a wasted slot. You don't need another dot and you already have a root and a dot in the same skill. Wall of elements is the niche part of the build.

If you wanna go for a heavy magblade frost build I can't think of anything better than juli/riposte/skoria 5-2 heavy tbf. Replace riposte with transmutation and use funnel health for group play (personal preference, riposte is fine as well).

Tell me if I missed something, I love magblade theorycrafting!

kaithuzar · December 2017

Subversus wrote: »

Datthaw wrote: »

I know ice staff isn't optimal, that wasn't exactly the point of the thread. I just know many people like me, get bored sometimes and like to play around.
Ice staff is just fun and since it's not the best staff to use I figured some people might have found a unique way to make them somewhat effective.
I way even thinking like a heavy armor shackle with Lich and run massive aoe might be fun. Will you be winning many high lvl duels? Hell no, but it might be fun in a cyrodiil keep fight.
It's like for a while when i was running in a group alot on my magblade in kyne. I slotted volcanic rune with elemental block and refreshing path. Was great to set up on breeches and get that an zoe stun in some oils on top of my dots

Shackle+lich on destro/resto magblade duels is oversustaining. You have elemental drain and syphoning attacks, both of which are a must for heavy magblade duels imo.

This is what I run 1v1 atm. It's an old build pre heavy nerf and I'm working towards a new one (same build philosophy, different sets), but you're welcome to try it and replace the fire staff with an ice - it should work just as fine.

I run 2 skoria 5 julianos front 5 riposte back 5-2 heavy, 3 spell dmg glyphs and full max mag on armor.

Front bar I have ele drain, strife (both morphs work, I use the one that heals teammates for group play since I use the exact same build open world but with trans instead of riposte), double take, merciless resolve, fear or reach (usually use reach, slot fear if it's a permablock ***). Ult - incap (yes incap cause it's op)

Backbar I use syphoning attacks, crippling grasp, healing ward, refreshing path, entropy, resto ult.

Now the way you could play this with a frost staff is replace double take with wall of elements (I used to also run this, albeit wall of fire, back at morrowind launch when stam was more present than ranged mag builds) and slot fear on all fights instead of reach.

My suggestion when going for a frost build on magblade is to never use reach, it's a wasted slot. You don't need another dot and you already have a root and a dot in the same skill. Wall of elements is the niche part of the build.

If you wanna go for a heavy magblade frost build I can't think of anything better than juli/riposte/skoria 5-2 heavy tbf. Replace riposte with transmutation and use funnel health for group play (personal preference, riposte is fine as well).

Tell me if I missed something, I love magblade theorycrafting!

IMO this is a really strong build & something I would run. I might change the bar setup, and would like to try with light armor (my scathing mage setup) first, but I may break out my heavy juli if I feel to squish

Can you or someone comment on how the mechanic works with freeze & fear? Can you basically double/chain CC?
Does cripple, entropy, funnel proc skoria?
Does frozen count as off balance?
I wonder if cripple is still needed to slow them if they are already frozen?

I favor open world rather than 1v1 so I wouldn't use entropy or refreshing path
I've never been good with siphoning attacks but it may be necessary.
I would use sap essence & maybe crushing shock over funnel, or maybe concealed strike.
I use ice comet over incap, but in a 1v1 I see your point how incap would be better.

I'm out of the country right now, as much as I would like to test myself, I have to wait until I get back.

Xsorus · December 2017

I still do wizards/trans/malubeth on my magicka nightblade with a fire staff... cause I wanna be super cheesey

Datthaw · December 2017

Now I have had some people say don't slot cripple and reach with ice staff. I get it, two soft ccs, however, have you ever 1vx with both skills? Have two people snared up in your elemental blockade then fear them both? Pretty damn funny.

Has anyone tried winterborn set yet? Would be sweet to run like winterborn/trans/skoria 5/5/2 or like winterborn/ripsote/do 5/5/1

@***_Valentino damn so asylum staff doesn't buff my healing ward cost? Weak. Guess it's going back to my pve healer.

@Subversus I would love to use a vma staff to buff up ele blockade however my sorry ass can't get past frozen rink. Boss always smashes the last platform at like 10-15% and I go floppy fish