PSA: Frost Staff on a Warden PvE healer is not necessarily bad

RiskyChalice863 · March 2020

I play a lot of dungeons on my Warden healer. This character has a frost staff on the front bar. Most of the time, people are fine with that. But, with some regularity, very early on a dungeon run, someone sends a group message saying to get off frost staff and to never use it in a group setting. This happens when I have absolutely not used a single frost heavy attack.

I do get why people say this. Obviously, we’ve all had dungeon runs where a non-tank kept pulling aggro using frost heavy attacks. That’s really bad, and it’s certainly worth telling someone who is doing that to stop.

However, it’s quite possible to use frost staff on your front bar, and never heavy attack with it. In fact, I run frost/resto, and there’d be no reason for me to ever want to heavy attack with the frost staff, because resto gives me more resource return anyways. And it’s not super difficult to avoid heavy attacking with the frost staff. If I get confused about what bar I am on and accidentally start a frost heavy attack, I can easily just release it before it becomes a full heavy attack—which therefore won’t taunt anything. It’s easy to tell if I’m accidentally doing that, since the resto staff heavy attack is a channel and the frost heavy attack isn’t.

Meanwhile, at least for a Warden healer, frost staff can actually provide quite a lot of value, compared to the standard lightning staff. A few things to consider on that:

- As a Warden healer, you do not need lightning damage to help proc minor vulnerability, because you have Fetcher Infection to do that.
- Lightning staff Wall of Elements does provide off balance, but there are other ways your team can get off balance. And, importantly, if you really want to provide it yourself, you can easily get it whenever you want just by slotting Cliff Racer. This will even proc it more reliably than Wall of Elements, since it doesn’t rely on concussing stuff first.
- The frost Wall of Elements gives you some pretty significant crowd control—particularly if combined with Winter’s Revenge.
- The frost Wall of Elements and frost light attacks will proc chilled a lot—giving enemies minor maim, an important debuff. Yes, a DK tank with Choking Talons can provide similar crowd control and minor maim. But, at least in pugs, you don’t always have a DK tank using Dark Talons. And, even if you did, extra snares and immobilizes are still useful.
- On a Warden, Wall of Elements actually does more damage on a frost staff than it does on a lightning staff, because the frost damage passive outweighs the extra AOE damage that a lightning staff provides. If you’re running other AOEs, then those will do more damage on a lightning staff still, but a frost staff is at least competitive in terms of damage on a Warden healer.
- The frost staff provides extra damage mitigation on block. This is usually not super relevant for a healer, but it is situationally incredibly important. There are certain mechanics in dungeons that I’ve encountered where, even if I or my team screw up and I can’t avoid it, instead of being one-shot, I can block through a damage spike on my frost staff and survive with a sliver of health (which I can then immediately burst heal up). Again, this is often irrelevant (as many one-shots are true one-shots no matter what, and many bosses don’t have any such mechanic like this anyways), but there are certain fights that are made significantly easier for me because of this, by essentially allowing me to live through a failed mechanic.

So here’s the way I see it, at least on the Warden. If I run the frost staff, I can guarantee my team gets lots of CC and minor maim, regardless of if they’re provided by the tank. I can block through certain mechanics if my group fails them. And I don’t really lose damage. Meanwhile, I have access to minor vulnerability and off balance anyways, so I’m not really losing much by forgoing the lightning staff.

So, for me, the frost staff is actually superior to the lightning staff on a Warden PvE healer (at least when pugging as opposed to being in a hyper organized group), as long as I don’t heavy attack on that bar—which is pretty easy not to do.

WrathOfInnos · March 2020

Sure you can do that, anything works if you build around it. I don’t think any aspect of a Frost Staff is going to be better than Lightning or even Inferno on your healer. Frost is more like running a Sword and Shield on a healer, it can be viable and help you tank a hit if necessary but people are going to question it because it’s unusual and suboptimal. Off Balance is also pretty important, and the tank may or may not provide it, but you can always slot the Cliff Racer for that if needed.

As far as Chill for Minor Maim, Frost Blockade adds very little uptime, with only a 2% chance per tick (1% while you’re on your Resto bar) and Light/Heavy attacks cannot proc Chilled at all. Winter’s Revenge is going to be responsible for most of the Chill/maim uptime because it’s morph effect is to have a higher status effect rate. If you slot Winter’s Revenge then the 8% AoE increase on that and Blockade will outweigh the 10% Frost passive on just Blockade. Inferno Staff may not receive an AoE increase, but Flame Blockade naturally hits 20% harder than other elements against Burning enemies, and both Blockade and your Light Attacks will gain another 10% if there is a Dragonknight with Engulfing Flames.

Anyway, Frost Staff isn’t enough of a loss to make clearing any content impossible, but it is not as good as Lightning or Inferno on a healer. It’s really a shame, because I would also like to be able to use Frost and be competitive on my Warden. Sadly it just isn’t designed to work very well, even with Warden passives. Frost tank remains one of the worst decisions in the history of this game, removing one of the 3 Magicka DPS weapons.

AcadianPaladin · March 2020

I agree with the OP. My magward is a dps with some heals who mostly solos and joins gaggles at WBs. She's not trying to meet anyone's 'approval' as a group healer since she is more about flexibility than healing.

I actually do like the taunt on occasion though. When a WB has gone rogue and chasing 5 squishies around, it is helpful sometimes to actually taunt the boss to bring him to my more durable warden and, more importantly, get him off the squishies and hold him in one place. That said, I have played a DK main tank, know how tanks operate and what pisses them off. My magward has never ever stolen a taunt from a tank who is holding the boss and doing fine. As OP mentioned, it is quite easy to learn how and when to frost heavy attack and when to avoid it. And when solo, using frost heavy attacks makes no difference. The bear doesn't mind.

zvavi · March 2020

I think the community is more afraid of healers with frost staves that don't know what they are doing, than the frost staves themselves. Just saying.

AcadianPaladin · April 2020

zvavi wrote: »

I think the community is more afraid of healers with frost staves that don't know what they are doing, than the frost staves themselves. Just saying.

That is very true. I've been irritated by 'frost mages' committing suicide by heavy attack many times. I think OP is simply pointing that some wardens with a frost staff really do know how to use it. The point being, don't kick or offer 'help' to frost mages until you see whether they do or don't know what they're doing. Lol.

Royaji · April 2020

Considering that responsible frost staff users like you are in the minority I'd stick to checking every ice staff DD/healer I see in my groups before the run. Way more often you get frost-mage-wannabes who will taunt that boss of you and then rage that you are a fake tank.

Sorry guys, nothing personal against you but I'd rather end up mistakenly questioning someones ice staff every once in a while than end up with aforementioned frost-staff-heroes most of the time.

RiskyChalice863 · April 2020

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Sure you can do that, anything works if you build around it. I don’t think any aspect of a Frost Staff is going to be better than Lightning or even Inferno on your healer. Frost is more like running a Sword and Shield on a healer, it can be viable and help you tank a hit if necessary but people are going to question it because it’s unusual and suboptimal. Off Balance is also pretty important, and the tank may or may not provide it, but you can always slot the Cliff Racer for that if needed.

As far as Chill for Minor Maim, Frost Blockade adds very little uptime, with only a 2% chance per tick (1% while you’re on your Resto bar) and Light/Heavy attacks cannot proc Chilled at all. Winter’s Revenge is going to be responsible for most of the Chill/maim uptime because it’s morph effect is to have a higher status effect rate. If you slot Winter’s Revenge then the 8% AoE increase on that and Blockade will outweigh the 10% Frost passive on just Blockade. Inferno Staff may not receive an AoE increase, but Flame Blockade naturally hits 20% harder than other elements against Burning enemies, and both Blockade and your Light Attacks will gain another 10% if there is a Dragonknight with Engulfing Flames.

Anyway, Frost Staff isn’t enough of a loss to make clearing any content impossible, but it is not as good as Lightning or Inferno on a healer. It’s really a shame, because I would also like to be able to use Frost and be competitive on my Warden. Sadly it just isn’t designed to work very well, even with Warden passives. Frost tank remains one of the worst decisions in the history of this game, removing one of the 3 Magicka DPS weapons.

As you mention, if the group isn’t getting off balance some other way, I can always slot Cliff Racer. Healers run lightning wall of elements for the minor vulnerability and off balance, and Warden can easily get both without it. This frees them to potentially look to a different weapon type to get other benefits as well.

I had forgotten about the fact that staff light and heavy attacks don’t proc the secondary effect, so yes you are right about them not helping to proc Chilled. And you’re also right that the frost wall of elements isn’t going to add a massive amount to minor maim uptime (particularly compared to Winter’s Revenge), but it is something. The bigger thing is that the combination of the wall of elements and winter’s revenge gives a lot of cc.

In terms of damage, I think there’s an element of this that you may be missing. Correct me if I’m wrong about this (it’s certainly possible I am), but I’m pretty sure you don’t keep that AOE damage buff from a lightning staff when you go to your resto bar—which you certainly will be doing while your DoTs are ticking. So that damage boost is basically only up about half the time, whereas the Warden buff to frost damage on wall of elements is up all the time. So even in the scenario where you’re slotting Winter’s Revenge (which I generally do), it’s basically a 10% boost on one AOE DoT vs. a ~4% boost on two AOE DoTs. That’s going to come out about even (taking into account that Winter’s Revenge does more damage than Wall of Elements, so buffing it is worth a bit more than buffing Wall of Elements). The damage does get slightly lower if we add the damaging morph of Necrotic Orb to the picture, but that’s just one option and even then the overall DPS difference would be quite small. As for flame staff, in terms of raw damage, flame staff will also end up competitive. It’ll give extra damage on Fetcher Infection, and also on Cliff Racer if you use that for off balance. And it’s possible for the flame wall of elements to add more damage if stuff is burning and if Engulfing Flames is being used, but I find that’s not really very common in pugs. So I guess my overall conclusion is just that I don’t think there’s really a meaningful DPS difference between the different staffs on a Warden healer. They’re all going to be very very close, whereas for other classes frost would definitely be behind.

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I agree with the OP. My magward is a dps with some heals who mostly solos and joins gaggles at WBs. She's not trying to meet anyone's 'approval' as a group healer since she is more about flexibility than healing.

I actually do like the taunt on occasion though. When a WB has gone rogue and chasing 5 squishies around, it is helpful sometimes to actually taunt the boss to bring him to my more durable warden and, more importantly, get him off the squishies and hold him in one place. That said, I have played a DK main tank, know how tanks operate and what pisses them off. My magward has never ever stolen a taunt from a tank who is holding the boss and doing fine. As OP mentioned, it is quite easy to learn how and when to frost heavy attack and when to avoid it. And when solo, using frost heavy attacks makes no difference. The bear doesn't mind.

Yes, I forgot to mention in the OP that it’s actually also true that the taunt can on rare occasions actually be quite helpful. For example, I ran March of Sacrifices a week or so ago, and my group was having a real difficult time with the Wyrd sisters fight where you are supposed to keep the Wyrd sisters apart. We wiped a couple times. I then decided to simply use the frost heavy attack to keep one of them occupied on me and away from where the other Wyrd sisters were, and we easily won the fight.

As you mention, another use is also when a squishy DPS has somehow caught the aggro of a dangerous add or something. My healer has more survivability than most DPS (particularly ones that would find themselves getting in trouble dealing with some add that the tank hadn’t taunted), so I have on rare occasion taunted things away from squishy DPS, because I know I won’t die to it and they could get one-shot (or even if they can’t get one-shot, it can be more efficient to taunt the thing away rather than get stuck pumping burst heals into someone again and again to keep them up).

Neither of those scenarios is very common, but it does actually come up every once in a while, and when it does it’s actually very valuable.

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

I think the community is more afraid of healers with frost staves that don't know what they are doing, than the frost staves themselves. Just saying.

That is very true. I've been irritated by 'frost mages' committing suicide by heavy attack many times. I think OP is simply pointing that some wardens with a frost staff really do know how to use it. The point being, don't kick or offer 'help' to frost mages until you see whether they do or don't know what they're doing. Lol.

Yes, that is a well-articulated synopsis of my point. There are people who know how a frost staff works, have consciously decided to use it for certain benefits it provides, and won’t screw fights up with it, so one should perhaps wait to see if the frost staff user taunts stuff before getting upset with them.

ESO_Nightingale · April 2020

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Sure you can do that, anything works if you build around it. I don’t think any aspect of a Frost Staff is going to be better than Lightning or even Inferno on your healer. Frost is more like running a Sword and Shield on a healer, it can be viable and help you tank a hit if necessary but people are going to question it because it’s unusual and suboptimal. Off Balance is also pretty important, and the tank may or may not provide it, but you can always slot the Cliff Racer for that if needed.

As far as Chill for Minor Maim, Frost Blockade adds very little uptime, with only a 2% chance per tick (1% while you’re on your Resto bar) and Light/Heavy attacks cannot proc Chilled at all. Winter’s Revenge is going to be responsible for most of the Chill/maim uptime because it’s morph effect is to have a higher status effect rate. If you slot Winter’s Revenge then the 8% AoE increase on that and Blockade will outweigh the 10% Frost passive on just Blockade. Inferno Staff may not receive an AoE increase, but Flame Blockade naturally hits 20% harder than other elements against Burning enemies, and both Blockade and your Light Attacks will gain another 10% if there is a Dragonknight with Engulfing Flames.

Anyway, Frost Staff isn’t enough of a loss to make clearing any content impossible, but it is not as good as Lightning or Inferno on a healer. It’s really a shame, because I would also like to be able to use Frost and be competitive on my Warden. Sadly it just isn’t designed to work very well, even with Warden passives. Frost tank remains one of the worst decisions in the history of this game, removing one of the 3 Magicka DPS weapons.

yep.

Yamenstein · April 2020

I have no problem with players using a frost staff. But if I'm tanking and I lose agro when I know I've been taunting. IT IS because of the player who is using the frost staff.

ESO_Nightingale · April 2020

Yamenstein wrote: »

I have no problem with players using a frost staff. But if I'm tanking and I lose agro when I know I've been taunting. IT IS because of the player who is using the frost staff.

it needs some changes really soon. even more so because of these really awful heavy and light attack changes which are most likely going through.

JinMori · April 2020

Frost staves should have never been a thing for tanking, what they should have done is make a new skilline for tanks rather than making a destruction staff for tanking, it really does not make sense, what frost staves should do, is 4 % more damage overall.

Maybe then it would actually be used on a mag warden.

Iskiab · April 2020

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Sure you can do that, anything works if you build around it. I don’t think any aspect of a Frost Staff is going to be better than Lightning or even Inferno on your healer. Frost is more like running a Sword and Shield on a healer, it can be viable and help you tank a hit if necessary but people are going to question it because it’s unusual and suboptimal. Off Balance is also pretty important, and the tank may or may not provide it, but you can always slot the Cliff Racer for that if needed.

As far as Chill for Minor Maim, Frost Blockade adds very little uptime, with only a 2% chance per tick (1% while you’re on your Resto bar) and Light/Heavy attacks cannot proc Chilled at all. Winter’s Revenge is going to be responsible for most of the Chill/maim uptime because it’s morph effect is to have a higher status effect rate. If you slot Winter’s Revenge then the 8% AoE increase on that and Blockade will outweigh the 10% Frost passive on just Blockade. Inferno Staff may not receive an AoE increase, but Flame Blockade naturally hits 20% harder than other elements against Burning enemies, and both Blockade and your Light Attacks will gain another 10% if there is a Dragonknight with Engulfing Flames.

Anyway, Frost Staff isn’t enough of a loss to make clearing any content impossible, but it is not as good as Lightning or Inferno on a healer. It’s really a shame, because I would also like to be able to use Frost and be competitive on my Warden. Sadly it just isn’t designed to work very well, even with Warden passives. Frost tank remains one of the worst decisions in the history of this game, removing one of the 3 Magicka DPS weapons.

Where are you getting these numbers from? They’re totally wrong.

WrathOfInnos · April 2020

@Iskiab Which numbers do you disagree with?

@RiskyChalice863 Yes, you’re right that the 8% AoE bonus from Lightning Staff only applies while on that bar and does not carry over to the Restoration Staff bar. If you spend much tine there then Frost Wall will do more damage than Shock.

Interestingly, Mystic Orb does not get buffed by either Inferno or Lightning Staff passives, so that one will be just as good with a Frost Staff. I’ve also heard that Orb is buffed by Master at Arms on PTS (direct damage) while on live it is affected by Thaumaturge (DoT) so I don’t think anyone really knows how to classify it.

Iskiab · April 2020

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Iskiab Which numbers do you disagree with?

@RiskyChalice863 Yes, you’re right that the 8% AoE bonus from Lightning Staff only applies while on that bar and does not carry over to the Restoration Staff bar. If you spend much tine there then Frost Wall will do more damage than Shock.

Interestingly, Mystic Orb does not get buffed by either Inferno or Lightning Staff passives, so that one will be just as good with a Frost Staff. I’ve also heard that Orb is buffed by Master at Arms on PTS (direct damage) while on live it is affected by Thaumaturge (DoT) so I don’t think anyone really knows how to classify it.

On the proc chance of applying chilled from wall of elements and light attacks.

I don’t have the numbers offhand, but ice WoE will have good uptime, similar numbers to lightning applying it’s status effect. Winter’s revenge will be good for applying chilled too because of passives, but WoE also procs enchants while winter’s revenge won’t. Depending on how you want to do it, Ice WoE on an infused staff with a frost glyph would work well.

ESO_Nightingale · April 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Iskiab Which numbers do you disagree with?

@RiskyChalice863 Yes, you’re right that the 8% AoE bonus from Lightning Staff only applies while on that bar and does not carry over to the Restoration Staff bar. If you spend much tine there then Frost Wall will do more damage than Shock.

Interestingly, Mystic Orb does not get buffed by either Inferno or Lightning Staff passives, so that one will be just as good with a Frost Staff. I’ve also heard that Orb is buffed by Master at Arms on PTS (direct damage) while on live it is affected by Thaumaturge (DoT) so I don’t think anyone really knows how to classify it.

On the proc chance of applying chilled from wall of elements and light attacks.

I don’t have the numbers offhand, but ice WoE will have good uptime, similar numbers to lightning applying it’s status effect. Winter’s revenge will be good for applying chilled too because of passives, but WoE also procs enchants while winter’s revenge won’t. Depending on how you want to do it, Ice WoE on an infused staff with a frost glyph would work well.

winter's revenge still has an insanely low chance to proc last time i checked. it's likely a better idea to use blockade since it has a better snare, and it procs enchants

gabriebe · April 2020

All the advantages you listed for the frost staff are pretty irrelevant since they will most likely be redundant as most tanks run a destro on their backbar. If you're running frost, the tank will have to run lightning to provide the off balance and a minor vulnerability chance. Most tanks also already provide minor maim as they normally use heroic slash on the s&b skill line for more horns.

Frost is nice for RP on healers but it doesn't bring anything to the table that lightning does not.

ESO_Nightingale · April 2020

gabriebe wrote: »

All the advantages you listed for the frost staff are pretty irrelevant since they will most likely be redundant as most tanks run a destro on their backbar. If you're running frost, the tank will have to run lightning to provide the off balance and a minor vulnerability chance. Most tanks also already provide minor maim as they normally use heroic slash on the s&b skill line for more horns.

Frost is nice for RP on healers but it doesn't bring anything to the table that lightning does not.

even tanks run the lightning staff.

WrathOfInnos · April 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Iskiab Which numbers do you disagree with?

@RiskyChalice863 Yes, you’re right that the 8% AoE bonus from Lightning Staff only applies while on that bar and does not carry over to the Restoration Staff bar. If you spend much tine there then Frost Wall will do more damage than Shock.

Interestingly, Mystic Orb does not get buffed by either Inferno or Lightning Staff passives, so that one will be just as good with a Frost Staff. I’ve also heard that Orb is buffed by Master at Arms on PTS (direct damage) while on live it is affected by Thaumaturge (DoT) so I don’t think anyone really knows how to classify it.

On the proc chance of applying chilled from wall of elements and light attacks.

I don’t have the numbers offhand, but ice WoE will have good uptime, similar numbers to lightning applying it’s status effect. Winter’s revenge will be good for applying chilled too because of passives, but WoE also procs enchants while winter’s revenge won’t. Depending on how you want to do it, Ice WoE on an infused staff with a frost glyph would work well.

I do have the numbers. A Frost Glyph will have a much higher chance to chill. Enchants have a 20% chance to proc status effects, and 40% with Destruction Staff passives. You can combine any enchant with any element of Wall though, there’s nothing tying Frost Staff to Frost Glyph.

All AoE DoT ticks have a 1% chance to proc status effects (Burning, Concussion, Chilled, Poisoned, etc.), and Destruction passives double this to 2%. This is outlined here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2074057/#Comment_2074057. Charged trait can increase this chance further, up to 4.2% chance per tick.

Lightning Wall is a different story, it’s unique effect is to apply off-balance to enemies that are already affected by concussion. There’s no % chance here, it will always work if the target is both concussed and not on off-balance cooldown. Lightning Wall itself is terrible at applying Concussion, again going back to the same 1-2% chance per tick. This doesn’t really matter though, since anyone using a Shock Glyph, Asylum Destruction Staff, or Elemental Weapon will be applying Concussion frequently enough for the Lightning Wall to generate off-balance within a couple seconds of the cooldown.

Iskiab · April 2020

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Iskiab Which numbers do you disagree with?

@RiskyChalice863 Yes, you’re right that the 8% AoE bonus from Lightning Staff only applies while on that bar and does not carry over to the Restoration Staff bar. If you spend much tine there then Frost Wall will do more damage than Shock.

Interestingly, Mystic Orb does not get buffed by either Inferno or Lightning Staff passives, so that one will be just as good with a Frost Staff. I’ve also heard that Orb is buffed by Master at Arms on PTS (direct damage) while on live it is affected by Thaumaturge (DoT) so I don’t think anyone really knows how to classify it.

On the proc chance of applying chilled from wall of elements and light attacks.

I don’t have the numbers offhand, but ice WoE will have good uptime, similar numbers to lightning applying it’s status effect. Winter’s revenge will be good for applying chilled too because of passives, but WoE also procs enchants while winter’s revenge won’t. Depending on how you want to do it, Ice WoE on an infused staff with a frost glyph would work well.

I do have the numbers. A Frost Glyph will have a much higher chance to chill. Enchants have a 20% chance to proc status effects, and 40% with Destruction Staff passives. You can combine any enchant with any element of Wall though, there’s nothing tying Frost Staff to Frost Glyph.

All AoE DoT ticks have a 1% chance to proc status effects (Burning, Concussion, Chilled, Poisoned, etc.), and Destruction passives double this to 2%. This is outlined here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2074057/#Comment_2074057. Charged trait can increase this chance further, up to 4.2% chance per tick.

Lightning Wall is a different story, it’s unique effect is to apply off-balance to enemies that are already affected by concussion. There’s no % chance here, it will always work if the target is both concussed and not on off-balance cooldown. Lightning Wall itself is terrible at applying Concussion, again going back to the same 1-2% chance per tick. This doesn’t really matter though, since anyone using a Shock Glyph, Asylum Destruction Staff, or Elemental Weapon will be applying Concussion frequently enough for the Lightning Wall to generate off-balance within a couple seconds of the cooldown.

Yea I guess. In practice though WoE is better at applying chilled because it’s a weapon ability so can proc enchants from your back bar. With infused it cuts the cooldown of the enchant by half and will proc off every WoE tick on cooldown.

You’re right that comparing just wall of elements for the proc chance is low, but it’s the procing of the glyph that makes it good.

If my goal was to put chilled on a mob, I’d choose an ice WoE over the warden ice aoe, just because WoE will proc the glyph from your back bar.

RiskyChalice863 · April 2020

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Iskiab Which numbers do you disagree with?

@RiskyChalice863 Yes, you’re right that the 8% AoE bonus from Lightning Staff only applies while on that bar and does not carry over to the Restoration Staff bar. If you spend much tine there then Frost Wall will do more damage than Shock.

Interestingly, Mystic Orb does not get buffed by either Inferno or Lightning Staff passives, so that one will be just as good with a Frost Staff. I’ve also heard that Orb is buffed by Master at Arms on PTS (direct damage) while on live it is affected by Thaumaturge (DoT) so I don’t think anyone really knows how to classify it.

That’s actually very interesting to know regarding Mystic Orb. Thanks for informing me of that! I tend to run Fetcher Infection, Wall of Elements, Winter’s Revenge, and Mystic Orb as my damage abilities on my Warden healer, and if Mystic Orb doesn’t get buffed by any Destro staff passives, then it really is almost certainly roughly completely even in terms of lightning staff and frost staff for damage.

gabriebe wrote: »

All the advantages you listed for the frost staff are pretty irrelevant since they will most likely be redundant as most tanks run a destro on their backbar. If you're running frost, the tank will have to run lightning to provide the off balance and a minor vulnerability chance. Most tanks also already provide minor maim as they normally use heroic slash on the s&b skill line for more horns.

Frost is nice for RP on healers but it doesn't bring anything to the table that lightning does not.

I don’t think it’s all really redundant. We’re talking about pugs here. Not all tanks already provide minor maim. And not all tanks provide the crowd control a frost staff provides, and even if they did, extra snares and immobilizations are always nice. And the situationally very helpful block mitigation off of the frost staff is obviously not redundant.

So yes, it is possible that the group already will have minor maim and immobilizes, and even snares as well. But extra immobilization and snares are always nice, and the extra block mitigation isn’t redundant (though it also isn’t always relevant). So even if a good bit of what the frost staff provides could possibly be redundant, there is at least some extra value no matter what, and it may not be redundant at all depending on what your random tank player is running.

The lightning staff on a Warden healer is simply more obviously redundant. This is because the value it provides—minor vulnerability and off balance—isn’t merely something that a tank might provide. Rather, it is actually something that the Warden healer themselves can otherwise provide using Warden abilities. Indeed, those Warden abilities are actually more consistent sources of minor vulnerability and off balance than a lightning staff would be.

So the options are really: (1) a frost staff that can be very helpful if the tank isn’t running immobilizes and minor maim, and otherwise would get you a bit of extra value through additional crowd control and some situationally useful block mitigation; or (2) a lightning staff that doesn’t provide anything that you can’t personally provide without it.

It’s hard for me to really think why one would run a lightning staff on a Warden healer, except maybe to clear up bar space by not running Fetcher Infection and/or Cliff Racer.

ESO_Nightingale · April 2020

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Iskiab Which numbers do you disagree with?

@RiskyChalice863 Yes, you’re right that the 8% AoE bonus from Lightning Staff only applies while on that bar and does not carry over to the Restoration Staff bar. If you spend much tine there then Frost Wall will do more damage than Shock.

Interestingly, Mystic Orb does not get buffed by either Inferno or Lightning Staff passives, so that one will be just as good with a Frost Staff. I’ve also heard that Orb is buffed by Master at Arms on PTS (direct damage) while on live it is affected by Thaumaturge (DoT) so I don’t think anyone really knows how to classify it.

That’s actually very interesting to know regarding Mystic Orb. Thanks for informing me of that! I tend to run Fetcher Infection, Wall of Elements, Winter’s Revenge, and Mystic Orb as my damage abilities on my Warden healer, and if Mystic Orb doesn’t get buffed by any Destro staff passives, then it really is almost certainly roughly completely even in terms of lightning staff and frost staff for damage.

gabriebe wrote: »

All the advantages you listed for the frost staff are pretty irrelevant since they will most likely be redundant as most tanks run a destro on their backbar. If you're running frost, the tank will have to run lightning to provide the off balance and a minor vulnerability chance. Most tanks also already provide minor maim as they normally use heroic slash on the s&b skill line for more horns.

Frost is nice for RP on healers but it doesn't bring anything to the table that lightning does not.

I don’t think it’s all really redundant. We’re talking about pugs here. Not all tanks already provide minor maim. And not all tanks provide the crowd control a frost staff provides, and even if they did, extra snares and immobilizations are always nice. And the situationally very helpful block mitigation off of the frost staff is obviously not redundant.

So yes, it is possible that the group already will have minor maim and immobilizes, and even snares as well. But extra immobilization and snares are always nice, and the extra block mitigation isn’t redundant (though it also isn’t always relevant). So even if a good bit of what the frost staff provides could possibly be redundant, there is at least some extra value no matter what, and it may not be redundant at all depending on what your random tank player is running.

The lightning staff on a Warden healer is simply more obviously redundant. This is because the value it provides—minor vulnerability and off balance—isn’t merely something that a tank might provide. Rather, it is actually something that the Warden healer themselves can otherwise provide using Warden abilities. Indeed, those Warden abilities are actually more consistent sources of minor vulnerability and off balance than a lightning staff would be.

So the options are really: (1) a frost staff that can be very helpful if the tank isn’t running immobilizes and minor maim, and otherwise would get you a bit of extra value through additional crowd control and some situationally useful block mitigation; or (2) a lightning staff that doesn’t provide anything that you can’t personally provide without it.

It’s hard for me to really think why one would run a lightning staff on a Warden healer, except maybe to clear up bar space by not running Fetcher Infection and/or Cliff Racer.

well you can potentially reduce a tanks ability to control the field by giving enemies an immobilisation cooldown. saving on bar space is also pretty huge on a tank. having your enchantment procs and Area of effect off balance on the same skill is very helpful. i don't see any reason to run birds on any character right now other than pve dps warden which can maximise the benefit from it. it's performance is also extremely shoddy in pvp.

RiskyChalice863 · April 2020

One other thing I didn’t mention yet about this:

If you run a lightning staff with the goal of using it to get off balance, you basically have to run a shock enchant, because otherwise you won’t reliably proc off balance, since Wall of Elements by itself won’t concuss stuff reliably. But running that shock enchant essentially amounts to lost value on a Warden, since you already provide its secondary effect—minor vulnerability—with Fetcher Infection.

A Warden with a Frost staff can run a different weapon enchantment—whether that’s a crusher enchant, a weakening enchant, an absorb magicka enchant, a berserker enchant, etc. Of course, a Warden with a lightning staff could run those same enchants, but then they would provide very little off balance uptime with wall of elements and would basically need to run Cliff Racer to reliably get off balance. In that scenario, the lightning staff would be strictly worse than the frost staff basically, since in both cases you’d be getting off balance and minor vulnerability from Warden skills and some other effect from a weapon enchantment, but the frost staff would provide extra value beyond those effects. If, on the other hand, you do run a shock enchant on the lightning staff, then you lose the ability to get that extra weapon enchantment effect.

The way I see it, this fact essentially counters the bar-space issue. It’s true that a Warden that runs a frost staff would need to slot Cliff Racer if they want to get off balance, while a Warden that runs a lightning staff with a shock enchant would save a bar slot because they wouldn’t need Cliff Racer. Having that extra bar slot would allow the lightning staff Warden to run some sort of extra ability that could give them significant value. But the way I see it, the frost staff Warden basically gets one less spot on its bar (assuming that the group isn’t getting off balance in other ways—if they are, then frost staff doesn’t eat up any more bar space) but also gets one extra enchant effect. This will essentially cancel out.

Another way to think of it is to neutralize the bar space issue and just assume the frost Warden doesn’t provide off balance. Then think of the example of a crusher enchant. Let’s assume for these purposes that the tank isn’t providing that (which is probably pretty safe to assume in most pugs, and certainly is no less plausible than assuming the group isn’t otherwise providing off balance). A crusher enchant is going to raise the group’s DPS more than the off balance uptime provided by a lightning staff would, even if every group member has the Exploiter passive (which they certainly may not). Off Balance also can help the group with resource return off heavy attacks and the shock enchant itself does damage while the crusher enchant doesn’t, but the point still stands: A Warden that uses a frost staff with a crusher enchant and doesn’t provide off balance can add to group DPS in a similar way to a Warden that uses a lightning staff with a shock enchant, while using the same number of bar slots and also providing snares, immobilizes, a bit more minor maim, and extra block mitigation. It’s definitely not objectively far worse, as long as you aren’t taunting.