It would be amazing to have some more actual representation of frost damage skills, however we need to work there slowly with ZOS. While it would be great to throw countless frost damage suggestions at ZOS(as i have already done in the past) i think the best angle to approach this issue from, at this point, is to focus on the most necessary and impacting changes first. I'm currently updating my rework roadmap list to mirror this philosophy.

Let me address what you have said.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

But why has this not been addressed properly? Sure we got Minor Brittle and this was nice for a bit of support in group play but I feel it needs a bit more.

I think the reason why this was not addressed properly is because they realised that in order to somewhat apease the most amount of people possible, that they needed to split the focus of the staff 3 different ways. Minor Brittle seems to be an attempt to do this as, it theoretically gives DPS some group utility as dps are the best at applying Minor Brittle, makes the application of chilled twice as powerful on a frostden and indirectly increases the damage of the user while using the staff by giving it the debuff that we asked for in the first place. Additionally, they tried to make the staff better for support, as it was rarely ever used by the meta, as the damage increase is for everyone in the group, it also makes it useful for both healers and tanks, as chilled can also be applied to enemies with just wall, the charged trait and frost glyph, then, they changed wall to provide some group magic return, and some extra projectile damage reduction, while removing the snare which plagued PvP, as much as PvE tanks hated this nerf there was a reason for it. additionally, as they added secondary effects to impulse, frost got something tank related, despite it's performance being quite bad in practice. i don't think that the problem here is the lack of group support, we do actually offer a decent amount, even as dps, i think the problem is that too much is shared between the different supposed users of the staff, and thus, only the minimum amount required is used.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Frozen Gate really could have both morphs bottled into Frozen Retreat, with Frozen Device being a DoT with a snare that gets stronger the longer enemies stay in its area. Winter's Revenge is fine as is and does not need changing and Arctic Blast is 'ok' but it could use a duration increase. Also, why not have one of our Frost Cloak morphs deal minor damage over time.

all of these skills could have changes to have one morph tank, and the other morph dps. i think that's perfectly valid, however, not extremely neccesary at this point in time. i'll go through each of these suggestions.

• "Frozen Retreat should gain the same functionality as Frozen Device for compression purposes, while frozen device should be a dot with an increasing power snare."

I am of the same mind, that both morphs do not need to be for tanking, however, I'll argue that Frozen Retreat is not very useful in general, using it in PvP areas will show you that the range you can teleport to is extremely lacking, and the major expedition, while nice, isn't impactful enough to warrant it's use, barely anyone knows that this morph exists, and for good reason, it's just not better than frozen device. i'll argue, that it would be better to change this morph itself, and leave frozen device alone. as for the dot with an increasing snare, I mean, i guess that works. But if it still retains the semblence of the skill it once was, i can think of something possibly easier, or something more useful for a niche, a straight up DoT is a little boring for a skill like this, personally. But i would be happy to see this changed to be an actual damage skill nonetheless.

My idea for a possibly easier rework, include, changing this morph to no longer pull enemies and have an increased distance that it can pull allies on its synergy, along with increasing the burst damage by a decent amount, this would make it a trap skill in the same vein as sorc mines, but with the utility to help allies.

My idea for a useful niche, is a unique delayed gap closer type mechanic. This proposed idea is one for a Melee Magicka Warden, which is a niche playstyle i've been developing for the last couple of weeks. This new morph would be similar to dual wield's Flying Blade, but without the problems that that skill has. For one, applying this "gap closer mark" would be an instant cast, instant application type skill, such as mark target, elemental drain or sorc curse, then, you would simply recast the skill to gapclose to the target, possibly dealing some damage and/or some other effect like a snare. Rather than being required to aim at them again like Flying Blade. This skill would probably have a short duration of about 6-8 seconds before the instant application expires, but can be used for short term juking, and would make the playstyle of this magicka warden more interesting, but i fully understand that this type of rework might be considered contrary to warden's generic playstyle, would be too time/resource consuming to make and possibly unbalanced. That's fine, it's just a suggestion i'm throwing at the wall to see if it sticks.

• "Winter's Revenge is fine and does not need changing, Arctic Blast is "ok" but could use a duration increase"

Firstly, Winter's Revenge is alright at this point in time, However, I think in the long term, if the class recieves changes to the areas it needs, such as chilled application on frost damage animal companions skills, i think this skill could recieve some changes, as currently it is a huge chunk of chilled application, when it should rightfully be spread around the class more, as having it on winter's revenge restricts it's use to pve and gives room for warden healers and tanks to use it to proc chilled on groups without doing much work.

As for Arctic Blast, I know what you mean when you say the skill is ok, and i'm going to assume that you just refer to it's damage. Currently i know that this skill is not okay in PvP, as the health scaling healing is the defacto best burst heal for both magicka and stamina warden, when previously stamina wardens were fine, and magicka warden had some small issues, but could manage, now, you're actively incentivised to build max health using this heal when it's purpose is for pve tanks, the burst healing of living trellis should therefore be increased by roughly 55% to offset the loss of this healing. this may sound like a lot, and it is, but it will increase the burst heal from what it is, to roughly the same power as Blessing of Restoration. The stun that this skill provides is only useful defensively, or alright when you're always planning to be in melee range. something that stamina warden can abuse quite well, along with it being a huge heal. What this skill needs is to be reworked to be an offensive stun skill with better damage components. Increasing the duration is only one part to improve this skill to where it should be, the other part is adding the offensive stun component that can be used from range, the best example I can suggest is AB4.0:
Polar Wind and Arctic Wind can remain as is in pve, however, there should be some effort made to reduce their healing power in PvP in some form.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Also, why not have one of our Frost Cloak morphs deal minor damage over time.

I think this idea is fine, but currently it's quite a low priority compared to a lot of other things.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Also looking at Frost Staff changes, I feel they could have modified Elemental Ring to benefit DPS more. Giving it range and nothing else is not enough when Pulsar offers so much more. I propose having the Elemental Ring leave behind a lingering column of its respective element that deals damage over time, while removing its bonuses. This way it can be used in a rotation more effectively, with Pulsar offering more utility and immediate burst with Fire and Lightning.

• "They could have changed elemental ring, eg give an aoe DoT and removing bonuses from the morph"

I think that impulses changes were definitely lobsided towards fire and lighting, and especially the latter. minor protection is 5% mitigation on people in the ring, for a couple of seconds. This same effect with better tank utility can be obtained from ring of protection or necromancer's agony totem, i do not see any reason for a tank to use either frost pulsar or frost ring, as there are better skills to slot. Impulse was originally designed to be used for DPS, it costs a decent amount and does a decent amount of damage to targets in an aoe. a tank has no benefit from using this skill, so by pinning a small mitigation effect on it, it is completely wasted potential. a good alternative to this could have simply been giving it minor force for 16-20 seconds. this way frost dps don't have to rely on using channeled acceleration or barbed trap for their minor force, could have slightly more chance to apply chilled and brittle, and could also apply minor mangle.
I think a short duration AoE DoT on the location isn't the worst, but i think an AoE cloak type effect such as what deadly cloak has, would be better. it would stack very well with eye of ice/northern storm, arctic blast and iceheart, while also lifting this morph from the grave.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

My last suggestion might be a bit controversial, but if Zos want Frost mages to be up close and personal with enemies then why not change the way heavy attacks work?
Leave the Light Attack untouched but have the Heavy instead summon a 'mini' sleet storm that deals DoT damage while being channelled before bursting out like Impulse, the shield that we get from our passive could then build up over the duration of the channel instead of it just instantly appearing when the channel is finished. This would fit with skills such as Sleet Storm and Arctic Blast and really hit home the 'Eye of the Storm' feeling.

• "change the heavy attack to be a channeled AoE DoT in a short range to help playstyle and fit the eye of the storm feeling"

That's a really cool idea, however, i don't know if i particularly think it's necessary. the heavy frost staff attack is fine IMO as a ranged projectile, but it's got the same issues that the fire staff heavy attack has, and that is that it's way too slow and crippling to feel good to use. I think they need to make it's speed faster and remove the self snare that it once had.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

That's a really cool idea,...

Heh heh...

unintented pun

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

That's a really cool idea,...

Heh heh...

Also, i was wondering if you had any other responses to what i wrote?

Yeah I think we both want more damage options for Frost. I mean I like the whole 'eye of storm' kind of approach but I think ranged is not out of the question either. I dunno, I guess it is hard to balance, having a DPS that can also survive being in the think if it. But they do it just fine with melee Stam toons so I don't see why not unless they are going for Bruiser mage. Bruisers don't really have a role in PVE group content but it definitely is a lot of fun to play in PVP and is great for solo content such as arenas.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

That's a really cool idea,...

Heh heh...

Also, i was wondering if you had any other responses to what i wrote?

Yeah I think we both want more damage options for Frost. I mean I like the whole 'eye of storm' kind of approach but I think ranged is not out of the question either. I dunno, I guess it is hard to balance, having a DPS that can also survive being in the think if it. But they do it just fine with melee Stam toons so I don't see why not unless they are going for Bruiser mage. Bruisers don't really have a role in PVE group content but it definitely is a lot of fun to play in PVP and is great for solo content such as arenas.

I think it would have been much eaiser to balance it with defensive power of the staff concentrated on skill morphs, and the offensive power focused on passives and opposite skill morphs.