Back bar on tank: Staves the only option, or can 2H work?

Hotdog_23 · July 2019

Akylles wrote: »

Just to put this out there as well, as I don't believe it was touched on in any of the replies (sorry if I just missed it, but it is actually in there somewhere!), but one reason for choosing the ice staff for your back bar is that the destro staff passives allow you to reduce the cost of block and to increase the amount of damage you can block while using an ice staff. This, in combo with the already-mentioned Wall of Ele skill putting your full-strength Crusher debuff on boss/mob, is why you see the ice staff as the back bar weapon for tanks so much.

I am all for not having every single char have to follow a specific meta, so by all means make whatever char you want! However, it's also good to know why the meta is what it is, so that you understand the costs/benefits of anything your tweaking for your own personal preference

The meta changes from time to time, anyways, so it's not crazy useful to be married to any one specific way of doing things on all your chars. I'm an altoholic, so I have variations on damn near everything.

BUT! As I said, the ice staff, other than the sword/shield, is really the only place you'll get weapon skill line passives that really beef up blocking amount and significantly reduce the cost. With the changes (a while back now) to how blocking will drain stamina (ticks once every quarter second, I believe, or half second), it's quite useful to have the reduction in cost, for those (probably many) times when you need to block and don't have the time to swap back to your main bar.

Just throwin that tidbit in there for (hopefully) useful pondering!

This good advice you don't see to often. Personally I have at times been caught on my back bar when I need to block and it is very nice to have a ice staff back barred just in case.

ATreeGnome · July 2019

As many people said, you want a backbar AoE DoT weapon ability to proc your weapon enchantment while you're on your main bar. However, if this were the only consideration then a bow backbar would make the most sense as endless hail has the longest duration of any skill that meets these criteria. Running a lightning staff specifically offers the bonus of setting concussed enemies off balance, which is a significant DPS boost for most stamina builds due to CP passives. Destruction staves in general offer the option to heavy attack to recover magicka, which can be very useful in many situations. These are the main reasons lightning destro backbar is so favored.

That said, if you just want to have a fun but effective build, a 2h with the new stampede will still be pretty good, especially if you have a healer running an infused + torugs crusher enchant on a lightning staff - which is becoming very common in trials. You could even run an Asylum 2h for extra ulti generation.