Make frost staves useful again

Daemonai · January 2021

selig_fay wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

DonGodJoe wrote: »

I dont know you people, im pretty easily tanking with my magicka tank build with frost staff .. i got even more resist and shield absorbs than my main tank toon lol

Ofcourse its not a build maybe for vSS or not following your "meta" build but with all the sets/crafting sets possibilities its a solid magtank build i could make since the frost staff been reworked

We are talking about actively making the staff better for damage dealing like it originally was in the first place. Not tanking as it's fine for that. Right now dps that use frost staves struggle to be viable because tanks and healers can make it redundant by applying brittle a good amount of the time. Having to compete by needing enough damage to not be immediately dropped, and having that damage effectively taken away by your competition (tanks and healers) is really awful. If you don't know what i mean, brittle in it's nature as a group buff only needs to be applied by 1 person to have a good uptime for the group. Any more than that is wasting dps, because you can think of brittle as a damage buff for self if you're the only one applying it.

I think that many tanks will perceive this topic negatively. And I think it's obvious that the frost staff won't get good dps until its defensive stats are nerfed.
So there is a conflict of interest between tanks and dps. (the healers will go with those who remain, as it has always been). Therefore, until the tanks get an alternative, I think any change to the frost staff towards dps will be dangerous.

On the other hand, stamina dps has 3 weapon tree, magic dps has 1 weapon tree, like tanks and healers. And I think there is a problem here. If mageDPS gets a frost staff I don't think that will solve the problem of choice, because it is still a staff of destruction. The same wall of elemets, only with a different effect. I think it can be compared to the one-handed or two-handed weapons trees, only here the effects are less different, but still.

As a tank, I agree. Sure, we can theorycraft about a new tanking staff, but until one is created, tanks deserve a Magicka option for tanking. It can't all be about DPS all the time.

Frost staff is already useful when it's used as intended - for tanking.

ESO_Nightingale · January 2021

Daemonai wrote: »

selig_fay wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

DonGodJoe wrote: »

I dont know you people, im pretty easily tanking with my magicka tank build with frost staff .. i got even more resist and shield absorbs than my main tank toon lol

Ofcourse its not a build maybe for vSS or not following your "meta" build but with all the sets/crafting sets possibilities its a solid magtank build i could make since the frost staff been reworked

We are talking about actively making the staff better for damage dealing like it originally was in the first place. Not tanking as it's fine for that. Right now dps that use frost staves struggle to be viable because tanks and healers can make it redundant by applying brittle a good amount of the time. Having to compete by needing enough damage to not be immediately dropped, and having that damage effectively taken away by your competition (tanks and healers) is really awful. If you don't know what i mean, brittle in it's nature as a group buff only needs to be applied by 1 person to have a good uptime for the group. Any more than that is wasting dps, because you can think of brittle as a damage buff for self if you're the only one applying it.

I think that many tanks will perceive this topic negatively. And I think it's obvious that the frost staff won't get good dps until its defensive stats are nerfed.
So there is a conflict of interest between tanks and dps. (the healers will go with those who remain, as it has always been). Therefore, until the tanks get an alternative, I think any change to the frost staff towards dps will be dangerous.

On the other hand, stamina dps has 3 weapon tree, magic dps has 1 weapon tree, like tanks and healers. And I think there is a problem here. If mageDPS gets a frost staff I don't think that will solve the problem of choice, because it is still a staff of destruction. The same wall of elemets, only with a different effect. I think it can be compared to the one-handed or two-handed weapons trees, only here the effects are less different, but still.

As a tank, I agree. Sure, we can theorycraft about a new tanking staff, but until one is created, tanks deserve a Magicka option for tanking. It can't all be about DPS all the time.

Frost staff is already useful when it's used as intended - for tanking.

We can still have both in one as I've stated before. Creating a new weapon is something that proposes many issues that i won't get into unless you want me to. However, It's not currently necessary to fix this issue, though it is not unwelcome as a complete fix. As it would allow frost staff effects to be focused back into damage as opposed to support while tanks would receive actual skills built from the ground up to do what tanks need.

Ratzkifal · January 2021

Wow, putting that into the CP as slottables is a really good idea. It's perfect actually! You could probably put the taunt in there too. Just need to make sure that frost staff tanks still have CP slot space left for useful CP slottables that normal tanks don't want to miss.

Benoftheflies · January 2021

My suggestion would be to make shields, frost staves, and 2h mauls tanking weapons. Give mauls the same damage mitigation and block cost reduction instead of 20% pen, and make some changes to skills such as rally/momentum heal based off max health, brawler give larger shields, reverse slash do additional damage based off your health, stampede give minor breech, maybe give dizzying swing 3 seconds of major protection.

Give balanced blade reduced stam ability costs and block cost for all types of 2h, not just maces (doesn't 2h weapons in other elder scrolls games have slightly better blocking than other weapon types?)

Heavy weapons: while you have a mace equipped, you have 20% more block mitigation and all attacks have a 10% chance to give an unnamed 1000 armor shred for allies.

This will give a little more flexibility for tanks without saying you have to have a frost staff or something. I personally really like frost staff tanking, IMO.

Another suggestion I hear tossed out is have a CP perk or mythic item that makes blocking cost mag, and remove that entirely from trifocus.

thadjarvis · January 2021

I don't disagree with some of the things raised, but it is false imo to say that ESO is all about fire as in the current patch all staffs are used extensively.

Fire: most DPS on most bosses
Frost: can be used by someone in trash and is used on any of a Tank, DD, or heal/support on bosses
Light: used on trash and by supports on bosses

In fact fire is the only staff that has little use in a scenario: trash.

ESO_Nightingale · January 2021

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Wow, putting that into the CP as slottables is a really good idea. It's perfect actually! You could probably put the taunt in there too. Just need to make sure that frost staff tanks still have CP slot space left for useful CP slottables that normal tanks don't want to miss.

I believe that the taunt should have been put on elemental susceptibility. Not clench. I knew what would happen. And i relayed it. However. The concern was either not seen or ignored. Thus the change was undertaken and we got exactly what i wanted to avoid.

ESO_Nightingale · January 2021

thadjarvis wrote: »

I don't disagree with some of the things raised, but it is false imo to say that ESO is all about fire as in the current patch all staffs are used extensively.

Fire: most DPS on most bosses
Frost: can be used by someone in trash and is used on any of a Tank, DD, or heal/support on bosses
Light: used on trash and by supports on bosses

In fact fire is the only staff that has little use in a scenario: trash.

The problem with frost specifically is you don't want a dps running it whatsoever if you have any single other group member running it for brittle. It completely invalidates the use of the weapon when it shouldn't be that way, it's a very flimsy platform to stand on when it comes to it's dps viability. us saying it's 100% about fire might technically be false. But there's no freedom of weapon choice when the odds are stacked this hard against us, even moreso when they introduce new monster sets like the one from villa. Zenimax knows how much people wanted the weapon for DPS but the condition they gave it is extremely restrictive in groups. It however, can fortunately be solved because of their new cp system update.

thadjarvis · January 2021

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

thadjarvis wrote: »

I don't disagree with some of the things raised, but it is false imo to say that ESO is all about fire as in the current patch all staffs are used extensively.

Fire: most DPS on most bosses
Frost: can be used by someone in trash and is used on any of a Tank, DD, or heal/support on bosses
Light: used on trash and by supports on bosses

In fact fire is the only staff that has little use in a scenario: trash.

The problem with frost specifically is you don't want a dps running it whatsoever if you have any single other group member running it for brittle. It completely invalidates the use of the weapon when it shouldn't be that way, it's a very flimsy platform to stand on when it comes to it's dps viability. us saying it's 100% about fire might technically be false. But there's no freedom of weapon choice when the odds are stacked this hard against us, even moreso when they introduce new monster sets like the one from villa. Zenimax knows how much people wanted the weapon for DPS but the condition they gave it is extremely restrictive in groups. It however, can fortunately be solved because of their new cp system update.

Likewise you don't want all supports running lightning staffs on bosses either. A healer or two depending could be better off with fire.

There are 3 staffs. For pure DPS one will be best on bosses, one will be best on trash (glad it's not the same), and the other won't be best on either (for pure DPS). That's just built in the design of ESO and it happens to be frost.

Having it be a debuff staff helps it's usage. Take MagDK. They are not a top half parser right now. However, because engulfing is hard to run on a tank 99% of groups want one becuase of their debuff. Likewise very very few groups have a tank run a frost staff. A frost staff DD is wanted in 99% of groups. What you are saying is that you don't want two. By the same standard you don't want two of the lower half parsing classes. That's just how it is if you want to go that far into min/maxing.

However, I can't think of an achievement in which you have to min/max that far.

Vevvev · January 2021

I never understood the ice staff being a tanking weapon either. In Lore and alteration staff would be better since that school comes with crowd control, group buffs, magical armor, enemy debuffs, and other spells to make you incredibly hard to kill or make your opponent's lives miserable.

ESO_Nightingale · January 2021

thadjarvis wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

thadjarvis wrote: »

I don't disagree with some of the things raised, but it is false imo to say that ESO is all about fire as in the current patch all staffs are used extensively.

Fire: most DPS on most bosses
Frost: can be used by someone in trash and is used on any of a Tank, DD, or heal/support on bosses
Light: used on trash and by supports on bosses

In fact fire is the only staff that has little use in a scenario: trash.

The problem with frost specifically is you don't want a dps running it whatsoever if you have any single other group member running it for brittle. It completely invalidates the use of the weapon when it shouldn't be that way, it's a very flimsy platform to stand on when it comes to it's dps viability. us saying it's 100% about fire might technically be false. But there's no freedom of weapon choice when the odds are stacked this hard against us, even moreso when they introduce new monster sets like the one from villa. Zenimax knows how much people wanted the weapon for DPS but the condition they gave it is extremely restrictive in groups. It however, can fortunately be solved because of their new cp system update.

Likewise you don't want all supports running lightning staffs on bosses either. A healer or two depending could be better off with fire.

There are 3 staffs. For pure DPS one will be best on bosses, one will be best on trash (glad it's not the same), and the other won't be best on either (for pure DPS). That's just built in the design of ESO and it happens to be frost.

Having it be a debuff staff helps it's usage. Take MagDK. They are not a top half parser right now. However, because engulfing is hard to run on a tank 99% of groups want one becuase of their debuff. Likewise very very few groups have a tank run a frost staff. A frost staff DD is wanted in 99% of groups. What you are saying is that you don't want two. By the same standard you don't want two of the lower half parsing classes. That's just how it is if you want to go that far into min/maxing.

However, I can't think of an achievement in which you have to min/max that far.

While you make fair points i think the volatile nature of the staff due to brittle being applicable by all classes is still something to be fixed. Because you still have an extremely low representation of the weapon. Sure classes can be bad, but this is like another layer. If you have a necromancer dd running frost for example. Then you absolutely leave out the magden dd running frost. Where as the other 2 are universally useful in their own situations. Frost is potentially up to 1 dd only before you sacrifice power that you wouldn't otherwise lose. I don't believe that is fair.

luen79rwb17_ESO · January 2021

Frost destruction staves (alas DPS weapon) has never been useful in ESO.

So I'm all in to make it useful for what it's supposed to be: A DPS weapon.

thadjarvis · January 2021

You don't need to mind this if not min/maxing. If min/maxing it's similar to many things. Eg many would say right now if you are min/maxing and already have a MagDK you don't want another and don't really want a MagPlar if you have a templar in support etc. For that matter many would say you don't want a stam. Basically once debuffs/buffs are accounted for there's only maybe 3 of the 12 builds people really want and some may narrow that down to one. If you take min/maxing to the extreme you will exclude a lot. Loosen your min/maxing. What are the achievements/clears you're going for that you are worried about?

Re: "...sacrifice power that you wouldn't otherwise lose."
Roughly half the group runs gear that reduces their ability to do their classical trinity role in order to support the group. Typically 4 supports and then up to 4 "DPS" run gear that reduces their damage to improve the group's.

In summary: you may be min/maxing beyond the needs of your goals and loosing personal DPS to increase the group's is a core aspect of eso trials.

I don't disagree with the idea of Brittle being more exclusive for magden would give them a group damage buff which 4 other mag classes have (NB does not either).

ESO_Nightingale · January 2021

thadjarvis wrote: »

Re: "...sacrifice power that you wouldn't otherwise lose."
Roughly half the group runs gear that reduces their ability to do their classical trinity role in order to support the group. Typically 4 supports and then up to 4 "DPS" run gear that reduces their damage to improve the group's.

let me put this another way. I don't believe that a frost staff should be relegated to set buff status. As a magicka damaging weapon i believe it should be viable on a couple of dps at at time like the other staves since there are only 2 viable mag damage weapons, which are also roughly equateable to like an axe vs a sword given the already garbage option selection however, stam has several playstyles through different weapons entirely. where as the destro staves have a different damage type and magic animation+various little bonuses to skills.
I don't want to be forced to swap to fire or shock because there is a tank in my trial dungeon. i want to play with a frost staff given my class's natural synergy with it, but i do not want to be completely and undeniably penalized for doing so even though i am using a destruction staff. However. Outside of one brittle applicant i am. This is not about me needing to clear specific achievements. This is about playing the game with some semblence of a choice of weapon that is not punishing due to a factor i cannot myself control. Additionally, improving the staff to be similar to other staves may potentially mean that different classes may prefer to use different staves for their most viable one in min maxing. This change also has impacts in pvp such as having a reliable critical damage bonus. that allows magicka classes that need destruction staff skills and want to focus on critical, to not need to apply chilled in order to get their bonus. This is about providing a magicka damage weapon as an option not only to magicka warden but to magcro, magdk, magblade, magplar and magsorc. We don't have many options and I'm trying to get at least one back because we cannot guarentee that they'll ever make a new weapon skill line. The changes i have suggested also do not remove magicka tanking. They merely shift the bonus to cp. Where that actually matters in pve content.

YandereGirlfriend · January 2021

Imagine how much more interesting ESO would be if it obeyed normal RPG mechanics and had elemental weaknesses and strengths, where, for example:

Fire Staves were strongest against Frost and Undead mobs;

Lightning Staves were strongest against Mechanical mobs and Constructs;

Frost Staves were strongest against Flame mobs and Humanoids.

Instead we get mindless "Flame for single-target" which just so happens to be basically every fight that actually matters.

Twohothardware · January 2021

They need to just stop with the frost staff magicka tanking idea and make frost staves do similar damage to fire and shock so there’s more variety for the 90% plus players in the game who are all dps and not tanks.

You want to tank you use a sword and board. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.

selig_fay · January 2021

Twohothardware wrote: »

They need to just stop with the frost staff magicka tanking idea and make frost staves do similar damage to fire and shock so there’s more variety for the 90% plus players in the game who are all dps and not tanks.

You want to tank you use a sword and board. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.

You're talking about player variety, but you're actually depriving a group of players of thatdiversity variety.

Also, I don't know the statistics of the distribution of roles, but if 90% of people play DPS, then something went wrong.

Perhaps champion points, as people suggest above, will help this, but I would still prefer the new weapon tree. For example, use enchanting to turn 1 dagger into a two-handed weapon that is associated with the Conjuration weapon tree.

thadjarvis · January 2021

I think you're asking for a frost wieling magden to always be great. That's not unlike many's desire for a bow/bow NB. Both are viable and in fact the fost warden is very much desired.

"I don't want to be forced to swap to fire or shock because there is a tank in my trial dungeon."
-in a dungeon the tank will be giving up other debuffs; it would make little sense for the tank to run over a magden
-similar in a trial; only groups that care about score have the need to put brittle on a tank; if you're in a group like that you wouldn't care what color your weapon is bc you'll likely be jammed in a stack unable to see it and/or everyone in those groups (the successful one's) just do what's best for the group. Those groups are more like a sports team trying to win rather than RP. At that extreme min/max level ESO is an MMO not an mmorpg.

"This is about playing the game with some semblence of a choice of weapon that is not punishing due to a factor i cannot myself control."
One using frost is good. Magden's are the best at applying it and benefit from the higher uptime the most. Are you running into many other magdens in trials that also prefer to keep ice staffs on?

You keep referring to being in groups with a support using brittle setup. How many times has that actually happened to you? Did you offer to the RL to run Brittle beforehand? I want to be specific because it seems to be thought of as a common thing, and it absolutely is not.

Have you parse tested frost staff magden vs fire on LIVE this patch? How much is the loss? Until we figure out CP and they fix the dummy it's hard to even know the delta on PTS.

StarOfElyon · January 2021

I think changes to ice status effects are still being worked on. There's not a major brittle yet, right? So maybe they're just easing into damaging status effects from frost.

emilyhyoyeon · January 2021

thadjarvis wrote: »

Have you parse tested frost staff magden vs fire on LIVE this patch? How much is the loss? Until we figure out CP and they fix the dummy it's hard to even know the delta on PTS.

Fire staves always give 8% more damage to single target abilities, whereas frost staves give nothing. That passive is unchanged at the moment. AFAIK, there are no CP passives right now that give ice mages a damage boost, yet also don't give the same boost to the other two destruction elements.

We're asking for respective damage passives for frost, since fire and lightning both have damage boosting passives. Ice doesn't.

Mettaricana · January 2021

I got a fix make a single staff just destruction and allow us to choose which skills are which elements and slot them allowing us to have say wall of fire, forst clench and lightning storm ult all on same bar then turn the 2 other former elemental staves into illusion and conjiration staves and give them appropriate roles and skills no more single element meta.

emilyhyoyeon · January 2021

also @ the point of ''ice-tanking, lightning-healing, damage-fire''

Lightning isn't intended to be for ''healing'' use in the same way that ZOS changed ice to be for tanking use. It's used on healers to proc weapon enchantments and off balance.

It has damage passives. It wasn't changed from a damage weapon into a healing weapon with healing passives because players wanted an alternative to restoration staff.

Lightning is most of the time put on healer for minmaxing/optimizing debuff purposes. Optimized tanks run it as well unless they're running ice for brittle specifically, and DDs run it in trash for the AOE damage boost.

My point is that the ''each role gets an element'' makes no sense both lore-wise and game mechanic-wise.

YandereGirlfriend · January 2021

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I think changes to ice status effects are still being worked on. There's not a major brittle yet, right? So maybe they're just easing into damaging status effects from frost.

If I had to guess, they're either going to give Major Brittle to one of the Warden ultimates (e.g. drop Major Protection from Northern Storm and replace with Major Brittle for X seconds when you take damage from it) or else are saving it for their next class addition.

While that's (potentially) good for Wardens, it would still be a situation where they're included as token members used for group-buff purposes rather than because dealing damage with a Frost Staff is desirable in its own right.

thadjarvis · January 2021

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

While that's (potentially) good for Wardens, it would still be a situation where they're included as token members used for group-buff purposes rather than because dealing damage with a Frost Staff is desirable in its own right.

If you are min/maxing, there are two primary reasons to select a class over another. A "group-buff purpose" or being the absolute highest damage DPS which only 1 of 12 can be. You're asking for a Magden using one of 3 staffs. That's really narrow, and maybe it'll be in vogue once out of 36 patches.

You guys have been noting passives and tooltips, but what are the quantified actual losses of using a frost staff? I've tested it on magden solo parsing and there is almost no loss. Has anyone tested the % loss in group content or the 21 dummy with chilled on it? If it's not much people play builds, classes, races a few % off all the time even in high end groups. You don't need frost to be full on max meta to use it.

And above it was mentioned that if a necro is using a frost staff the warden would have to use fire. If that is the group composition, the group would be better off as a whole if the warden used frost and necro fire...

YandereGirlfriend · January 2021

@thadjarvis The Iron Atronach wouldn't tell the full story though.

Flame Damage will always win due to ZOS randomly anointing it as their golden child and providing unique buffs for it in the form of Engulfing Flames and now the new monster set. There is simply no way that Frost (or Shock) can compete with an extra 15% Flame Damage taken.

Of course, that is a larger problem that touches not only on the Destro Staff passives but also on third-party classes and their approach to set design, but the point remains that ZOS has pigeon-holed these weapons in ways that are highly unsatisfying.

thadjarvis · January 2021

That is true about fire being the strongest single target. But what I am driving at is to quantify it.

You can model it on LIVE at least as we still don't know how to be optimal on PTS.

Test 1: 21mil dummy with warden in standard fire staff mag setup with a chilled being applied by a friend. (use weapon damage glyph backbar instead of frost enchant). This will be higher than 100k parses you see out there.

Test 2: 21mil with same chilled being applied by friend. This time run a regular DPS setup but with frost staffs; not a brittle setup. IE use Precise frost bar with fire enchant (bc we are measuring fire vs frost staff not enchants) and backbar infused with weapon damage glyphs.

Engulfing is on the dummy so that's not a variable.

Without quantifying this, we can't weigh the issue objectively. Why not take the 15minutes to show ZoS how these tooltips play out in practice.

If you're on PC NA I'd be happy help out as it's takes two to test it.

ESO_Nightingale · January 2021

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I think changes to ice status effects are still being worked on. There's not a major brittle yet, right? So maybe they're just easing into damaging status effects from frost.

If I had to guess, they're either going to give Major Brittle to one of the Warden ultimates (e.g. drop Major Protection from Northern Storm and replace with Major Brittle for X seconds when you take damage from it) or else are saving it for their next class addition.

While that's (potentially) good for Wardens, it would still be a situation where they're included as token members used for group-buff purposes rather than because dealing damage with a Frost Staff is desirable in its own right.

Yeah i think major brittle is probably going to be reserved for northern storm or icy rage.

ESO_Nightingale · January 2021

Mettaricana wrote: »

I got a fix make a single staff just destruction and allow us to choose which skills are which elements and slot them allowing us to have say wall of fire, forst clench and lightning storm ult all on same bar then turn the 2 other former elemental staves into illusion and conjiration staves and give them appropriate roles and skills no more single element meta.

That is a lot harder to do than zos has the time for right now.

Lephrel · January 2021

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Lightning is most of the time put on healer for minmaxing/optimizing debuff purposes. Optimized tanks run it as well unless they're running ice for brittle specifically, and DDs run it in trash for the AOE damage boost. My point is that the ''each role gets an element'' makes no sense both lore-wise and game mechanic-wise.

Exactly! It literally makes no sense lore-wise, or mechanic-wise.
In lore destruction staves were purely used to deal damage, never to block or to heal. I can't stress this enough, you can't mitigate damage with a stick lol.
And with regard to mechanics, magicka dps is already the most restricted in terms of weapon choice. In most cases, there is only one viable option - inferno staves.

selig_fay · January 2021

Lephrel wrote: »

And with regard to mechanics, magicka dps is already the most restricted in terms of weapon choice. In most cases, there is only one viable option - inferno staves.

The most limited are the healers. They only have a staff of restoration and they have to use dps weapons to debuff enemies. There is no other weapon that only focuses on support or debuffs. If you remove the frost staff from the tank, then the tanks will also find themselves in this situation, because they will only have a shield.
Now magic dps has 2 types of staves for different situations. Only stam dps now have the most diverse selection. And I see a lot of dps with the lightning staff, so I don't think magic dps is just fire.
While we have few magic weapons, we cannot talk about any kind of choice, because, you know, we have few magic weapons. We cannot say that a magic tank is impossible, because it reduces the choice of players.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Mettaricana wrote: »

I got a fix make a single staff just destruction and allow us to choose which skills are which elements and slot them allowing us to have say wall of fire, forst clench and lightning storm ult all on same bar then turn the 2 other former elemental staves into illusion and conjiration staves and give them appropriate roles and skills no more single element meta.

That is a lot harder to do than zos has the time for right now.

Well, considering that you can copy staff skins and some animations, a quarter of the work has already been done. But I think that the weapon system is important and need to allocate time for it. In any case, we create a request. Whether it is possible or not, how difficult is not our problem.

emilyhyoyeon · January 2021

Lephrel wrote: »

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Lightning is most of the time put on healer for minmaxing/optimizing debuff purposes. Optimized tanks run it as well unless they're running ice for brittle specifically, and DDs run it in trash for the AOE damage boost. My point is that the ''each role gets an element'' makes no sense both lore-wise and game mechanic-wise.

But it literally makes no sense lore-wise, or mechanic-wise.
In lore destruction staves were purely used to deal damage, never to block or to heal. I can't stress this enough, you can't mitigate damage with a stick lol.
And with regard to mechanics, magicka dps is already the most restricted in terms of weapon choice. In most cases, there is only one viable option - inferno staves.

Yeah I'm agreeing with that. I'm confused did it sound like I was disagreeing?