Stx wrote: »

One the the biggest issues with the core game that I have is that they didn't make skill lines for schools of magic.. they tied them to specific weapons. Instead of learning the destruction staff or restoration staff tree.. you should have just been learning the destruction magic tree or restoration magic tree.

Not including the individual Schools of Magic (and the rest of the mainline TES skills) was the original sin of the game's design.

Not only does it contravene decades of previous lore and systems but it leads to design dead ends such as the current state of Frost DPS.

It would have been SO much better to simply have a Destruction School that uses Destruction Staves and then whatever elemental enchantment and abilities that you wanted to chose from that School.

Then use an Alteration Staff and Alteration School skills if you wanted to do Magicka tanking or defensive magic.

Could have had the Illusion School as the buffs and de-buffs skill line.

Restoration is basically fine as it is.

Conjuration would allow you to give basic summons to all classes and then replace or improve Sorcerer pets with something more thematically appropriate.

This approach would have been infinitely more "TES-like" in feeling and would have allowed for more interesting class specialization by outsourcing the generic "role skills" (DPS, Tank, Healing) to the ability skill lines.

Somber97866 wrote: »

Yeah but using ice staff as a defensive tool has never from what I can tell been a part of elder scrolls?

It's more complicated than that. In previous TES games staves each cast a single spell, they're more comparable to the glyphs placed on weapons (of all types) in ESO than the destruction staff skill line. Because the spell systems in previous TES games is more complicated it's possible you could create (or find) a staff which does ice damage and has tanking effects, like shielding or reducing the enemy damage (as mentioned taunting would be useless in a single player game), but it's not a specific type of item any more than a defensive fire or lightning staff.

The question just doesn't make sense in the context of the previous games' lore and mechanics. It's like someone who had only played Oblivion asking how the lore in ESO allows someone to use bladed and blunt weapons together or how they can use either without picking health as their major attribute.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Lore wise in terms of past (future) games: taunts fall in with illusion while wards/mage armor fall into alteration or restoration. ZOS didn't add an illusion or alteration staff to flesh out magicka tanking. They also didn't stick to parceling out the schools of magic the way the other games did - not surprisingly as the Mages Guild doesn't exactly have the same influence now as it did by the end of the 3rd era when the other games take place.

In short, magic isn't necessary defined by the "schools" of magic in the lore as evidenced by a number of spell effects moving to different schools from game to game. (RIP Mysticism). Trying to say that 2nd Era ice staffs can't possibly use an illusion effect just because they never did in the 3rd and 4th era doesn't actually prove anything about what's possible in the 2nd Era.

It's not just because the Mages Guild doesn't have as much influence, in the Second Era the idea of the 'schools' of magic are relatively new even to them. It's Gabrielle Benele (one of the reoccuring characters in the Covenant storyline) who proposes the idea of dividing magic into schools to the Mages Guild, as a way of simplifying it so it's easier to teach students.

It's possible that the types of spells used, even the types of spells believed to be possible, is influenced by the casters understanding of how magic works. So once the idea of splitting magic into schools caught on mages started to see those schools as seperate and were less likely to combine effects from different schools.

Tanking with a staff backbar has never sat well with me....Just feels so wrong

Ratzkifal wrote: »

What ZOS should do is change the Chilled status effect to be something that dps actually wants

Throw in some changes to Warden frost skills to allow them to be actual good DPS or morph into tanks if they want.

1: that was the point of the glacial presence change. At least for wardens.

2: That's what we are trying to push. 1dps and 1 tank morph on winter's embrace.