Giving Ice Staff a Chance

Metafae · April 2019

I have complained about the Ice Staff in the past many times, but never really gave it a solid go.
I want to discuss build ideas with the community to help me plan this Ice Staff tank.

Firstly, I'm not going to use the Warden or Dragonknight Class for this build. This is because I already have a tank in each class and would like to try on something else.
I also am not fond of using a Nightblade for this build due to having done that in the past too. I have also made a Sorcerer Tank before, but I enjoyed it, and I may want to do this with a Sorcerer.
However, I have never made a Templar tank before, so I am leaning towards building this as a Templar, but can be swayed to build as a Sorcerer.

I will be using an Ice Staff on both bars, and I would prefer to be in 7 heavy.

I've been slowly thinking about the skills that would need to be used to be the most effective, and I know I will need to use the Swarm Mother helm set. Chains and Portals too good for tanks, each class should really have an equivalent for this, until they do this any class without an active skill to pull in enemies will always be seen as undesirable for a tank. <- Take note Class Reps

Anyway. Please comment below if you have given Ice Staff tanking a solid try.
Also, please help me come up with skills to use and sets to use to make a Templar or Sorcerer Ice Staff tank viable.

Altyrann · April 2019

Metafae wrote: »

I have complained about the Ice Staff in the past many times, but never really gave it a solid go.
I want to discuss build ideas with the community to help me plan this Ice Staff tank.

Firstly, I'm not going to use the Warden or Dragonknight Class for this build. This is because I already have a tank in each class and would like to try on something else.
I also am not fond of using a Nightblade for this build due to having done that in the past too. I have also made a Sorcerer Tank before, but I enjoyed it, and I may want to do this with a Sorcerer.
However, I have never made a Templar tank before, so I am leaning towards building this as a Templar, but can be swayed to build as a Sorcerer.

I will be using an Ice Staff on both bars, and I would prefer to be in 7 heavy.

I've been slowly thinking about the skills that would need to be used to be the most effective, and I know I will need to use the Swarm Mother helm set. Chains and Portals too good for tanks, each class should really have an equivalent for this, until they do this any class without an active skill to pull in enemies will always be seen as undesirable for a tank. <- Take note Class Reps

Anyway. Please comment below if you have given Ice Staff tanking a solid try.
Also, please help me come up with skills to use and sets to use to make a Templar or Sorcerer Ice Staff tank viable.

I run an ice staff on the back bar of my Templar when tanking and have found it works quite well.

In terms of some useful skills/sets:

If you are keen to have a chain ability you can use Silver Leash from the Fighters' Guild line (as a bonus, this costs stamina, which you won't be using much elsewhere if using ice staff on both bars, and can be recharged with Repentance)
Per the above, Repentance is very handy as a fairly frequent free heal on trash and to recharge stamina for chaining things in with leash
An instant ranged taunt from the Undaunted line (morph choice will largely depend on which resource you have spare) will help when you don't want to charge up a heavy attack
Channeled Focus will give great resistances and help keep Magicka ticking, even when blocking
Ritual (benefits to either morph) will give healing, a self purge and has a very large radius
For content where you don't need to have block held down, Puncturing Sweeps, generates lots of AoE aggro between the damage and the healing and is a nice survivability tool (it is a channel so you will lose block when using it)
In addition to the usual meta tanking sets, Knightmare is very handy as an alternative to Thurvokun monster set for giving AoE Minor Maim

Hope that helps. Have fun!

Grianasteri · April 2019

My tank is a Magden Nord, using Sword n Shield front bar with a back bar Ice Staff.

I switch between the two in a skill rotation, or focus on one or the other depending on the boss/adds/situation.

Clearly as a Warden I have access to some good tanking skills/passives that other builds wont if you are avoiding Warden and DK. You have already identified the benefit Swarm mother can provide. Beyond that there is a huge range of armour sets available.

Personally I still run Ebon, and I often pair this with Brands of the Imperium, because its fun. My monster set does not need Swarm mother as I use the warden gates, so I use Earthgore or Lord Warden, as both support my team.

There are such a good range of skills available, but I do love the undaunted damage shield that scales off my tank health. Keeping this up (and with a psijic damage shield from blocking), along with gaining health back from light/heavy attacks with my warden skills, its a joy.

Id love to make a build that could use Iceheart, perhaps for an off tank... but my Warden crit is not good enough.

Anyway, I love using the Ice Staff, it feels right and works with my rotation and flexible approach and putting down another wall of elements is always a help.

Sorry for rambling!

darkblue5 · April 2019

Metafae wrote: »

I have complained about the Ice Staff in the past many times, but never really gave it a solid go.
I want to discuss build ideas with the community to help me plan this Ice Staff tank.

Firstly, I'm not going to use the Warden or Dragonknight Class for this build. This is because I already have a tank in each class and would like to try on something else.
I also am not fond of using a Nightblade for this build due to having done that in the past too. I have also made a Sorcerer Tank before, but I enjoyed it, and I may want to do this with a Sorcerer.
However, I have never made a Templar tank before, so I am leaning towards building this as a Templar, but can be swayed to build as a Sorcerer.

I will be using an Ice Staff on both bars, and I would prefer to be in 7 heavy.

I've been slowly thinking about the skills that would need to be used to be the most effective, and I know I will need to use the Swarm Mother helm set. Chains and Portals too good for tanks, each class should really have an equivalent for this, until they do this any class without an active skill to pull in enemies will always be seen as undesirable for a tank. <- Take note Class Reps

Anyway. Please comment below if you have given Ice Staff tanking a solid try.
Also, please help me come up with skills to use and sets to use to make a Templar or Sorcerer Ice Staff tank viable.

Most main tanks backbar staves rn either lightning or frost because they give full enchant value. I'm assuming what you mean is using magicka for blocking primarily and using stamina skill for utility?

Silver leash pulls all enemies now aka stamina Chains and pairs well with Silver Leash (morph of Silver Bolt in fighter's guild.)
Undaunted bone shield could be interesting, still using blazing shield.
Blockade of Frost could help root/CC mobs which is a huge Templar tank weakness, but more importantly procs Crusher enchants at full value.
Caltrops/Time Freeze/Volcanic Rune also work to CC mobs but would also be janky.
There isn't a health scaling heal so you'd likely be stuck with Honor the Dead. Just hope a dps doesn't steal it.
PoTL is an option if no healer's or dps are templars.
Extended Ritual is same.
Channeled Focus would help get your blocking RSS back.
Balance would mean permablocking at the cost of some nasty shield and healing cuts.
Ring of Preservation would help DPS survive.
Inner Beast would use stamina so you can block more when taunting.

But overall neither templar nor dual ice staff tanking is going to be easy as both have key parts missing.

VaranisArano · April 2019

I used ice staff on a nightblade tank in normal dungeons, as my back bar for main one hand and shield.

1. The CC was great.
2. I used Inner Fire as a backup ranged taunt for the Ice Staff because I didnt fully have the timing down and I hate losing aggro. Inner Fire is much faster, and I used it whenever I have more than one boss or miniboss to taunt.

Now, I personally didn't enjoy Swarm Mother when I used it. That might just he me, but the gameplay of "taunt mobs, hold block, proc the pull, rinse repeat" was really boring for me. For myself, I'd use stamina Silver Leash over Swarm Mother. I also used Inner Fire as my taunt with Swarm Mother because its fast - I don't know how well ice staff heavy attack would work for getting swarm mother to proc on a bunch of ranged adds.

If I were to make suggestions for improvement...
Ice Staff needs Major Fracture and Breach to be on par with One Hand and Shield.
The heavy attack taunt needs to be faster so I don't feel obligated to slot Inner Fire as a backup.

Metafae · April 2019

This is all great info! I forgot that they changed the silver leash to now pull in one shot and not two.
I understand that templar does miss key features, but this is just to challenge myself.
I have two tanks that are very good, so I just want to try one for funzies.

I'll get to building this and report my progress in days to come.

I don't have too much time to play during the week, but I'm sure I'll have something to share here by the weekend.

Chims · April 2019

I had a warden tank that used dual ice staffs. Warden works well as a ice tank due to all the other ice skills. I have since changed him to be DPS but its worth noting I was able to get through vet Ruins of Mazzatun tanking with an ice staff only.

I have never tried tanking trials or anything with it however so I can't comment on its viability in those. If thats not important to you I would say tanking vRoM means you can use it everywhere but trials successfully.

idk · April 2019

First, Undaunted Silver Leash is the chains accessible for every class. There is no need for every class to have specific skills like another class as that is just homogenization which is bad for any MMORPG.

Second, have fun with the frost staff tanking. it can be fun with 4 man dungeons. However, if you do tank more serious content do not expect a frost staff tank to be accepted into vet trials, especially non-Craglorn ones. It lacks in many ways since Zos half hazardly retrofitted the staff for tanking. But that does not mean you cannot have fun in other content.

Artim_X · April 2019

A necromancer ice staff tank might be thematically interesting, since the glacial colossus ult applies major vulnerability and the unnerving boneyard skill applies major fracture/breach.

kylewwefan · May 2019

I’ve been thinking about building a tank like this also.

Biggest difference is I think Light Armor might be the way to go. Heavy armor is not really needed to get the resistances you need, and light armor gives a whole lot more utility and value for tanking imo.

The stats you get from the Sanctuary set look perfect for tank. And maybe Desert Rose as second set.

Probably go Nord and use a 5 1 1 setup. That would probably actually work very well on a templar. Because standing in the focus gives you a massive resistance buff.

Metafae · May 2019

kylewwefan wrote: »

I’ve been thinking about building a tank like this also.

Biggest difference is I think Light Armor might be the way to go. Heavy armor is not really needed to get the resistances you need, and light armor gives a whole lot more utility and value for tanking imo.

The stats you get from the Sanctuary set look perfect for tank. And maybe Desert Rose as second set.

Probably go Nord and use a 5 1 1 setup. That would probably actually work very well on a templar. Because standing in the focus gives you a massive resistance buff.

I prefer going 7 heavy mostly because I like the extra health it provides. A lot of my tanking practices rely on having high max health so that I can do things like heavy attack a boss repeatedly and not worry about getting one shot.