Few suggestions to make Shock and Frost damage comparable to annoying and perennial Flame meta

lQrukl · November 2021

1. Deep Fissure: this morf applies "Earth Coldness" debuff to enemies instead of Major Breach. Based on your offensive stats Coldness increases frost damage taken by enemy (10% at max).

2. Lightning Splash: Conduit synergy can be taken by any player in group, not only singe ally per skill cast, just like Necrotic Orb. Each time while allies activate it, affected enemies get debuff for 20 seconds that increases incoming shock damage by 5% (10% at max).

Community comment: That changes could be a honorable alternative to Engulfing for other type of elemental damage. Also they make "magica" morph of Scorch viable again, since ZoS made everyone a hybrid and Subterranean Assault became better in all respects.

3. Frostbite set: Increases your damage done with Frost abilities by 10% (up from 8%).
Community comment: This set has to be adjusted to Ancient Knowledge passive, since it got a buff in U31.

4. Energized: Increases your Physical and Shock Damage by 5% and while Shock Staff equipped, your single target class abilities deal 10% more damage against concussed enemies.
Community comment: Could at least sorcerer be honorable user of shock staff?

5. Tri Focus: Shock Heavy Attacks damage nearby enemies for 100% of the damage done and Shock Light Attacks damage closest to target enemies for 30% (decreased AoE range and damage compared to Heavy)
Community comment: This change is nessesary to classify shock light attacks as AoE, so passives of Shock Staff can increase damage of its own light attacks. It's very important in weaving meta.

6. Wall of Storms affectes concussed enemies to get 10% more damage from your AoE abilities (skills, including Tri Focus lighting HA passive skill, but not basic mecanics, like light attacks), instead sets them off balance.

7. Encratis's Behemoth: Dealing Flame Damage to an enemy grants you Behemoth's Aura for 12 seconds that reaches up to 12 meters. You and up to 11 group members in the aura reduce Flame Damage taken by 5%. Enemies in the aura increase their Flame, Shock and Frost Damage taken by 3%.

Dear ZoS, are these points really so unfair, unbalanced or difficult to implement?

I play the game for 1.5 years, I have 4 different fully-researched classes. Probably I'm not as experienced as the players who play from the release.
But probably just that fact do not allow me to come to terms the complete lack of variability in magica builds.

Okay, flame staff domination has been diluted... by daggers. Praise hybridization! But what about 2 other destruction staves?
Could we get relatable way to play as a mage with a bit different style then inferno slave?

People have to lobby frost damage dealer's thematic for years just to get viable frost spamable. How long should community wait to get primitive standardizated & balanced revisions like was written above? One year more? Three? Five?

I really do not understand ; _ ;

skinnycheeks · November 2021

some pretty good stuff here! thanks for sharing your ideas

ESO_Nightingale · November 2021

lQrukl wrote: »

1. Deep Fissure: this morf applies "Earth Coldness" debuff to enemies instead of Major Breach. Based on your offensive stats Coldness increases frost damage taken by enemy (10% at max).

2. Lightning Splash: Conduit synergy can be taken by any player in group, not only singe ally per skill cast, just like Necrotic Orb. Each time while allies activate it, affected enemies get debuff for 20 seconds that increases incoming shock damage by 5% (10% at max).

Community comment: That changes could be a honorable alternative to Engulfing for other type of elemental damage. Also they make "magica" morph of Scorch viable again, since ZoS made everyone a hybrid and Subterranean Assault became better in all respects.

3. Frostbite set: Increases your damage done with Frost abilities by 10% (up from 8%).
Community comment: This set has to be adjusted to Ancient Knowledge passive, since it got a buff in U31.

4. Energized: Increases your Physical and Shock Damage by 5% and while Shock Staff equipped, your single target class abilities deal 10% more damage against concussed enemies.
Community comment: Could at least sorcerer be honorable user of shock staff?

5. Tri Focus: Shock Heavy Attacks damage nearby enemies for 100% of the damage done and Shock Light Attacks damage closest to target enemies for 30% (decreased AoE range and damage compared to Heavy)
Community comment: This change is nessesary to classify shock light attacks as AoE, so passives of Shock Staff can increase damage of its own light attacks. It's very important in weaving meta.

6. Wall of Storms affectes concussed enemies to get 10% more damage from your AoE abilities, instead sets them off balance.

7. Encratis's Behemoth: Dealing Flame Damage to an enemy grants you Behemoth's Aura for 12 seconds that reaches up to 12 meters. You and up to 11 group members in the aura reduce Flame Damage taken by 5%. Enemies in the aura increase their Flame, Shock and Frost Damage taken by 3%.

Dear ZoS, are these points really so unfair, unbalanced or difficult to implement?

I play the game for 1.5 years, I have 4 different fully-researched classes. Probably I'm not as experienced as the players who play from the release.
But probably just that fact do not allow me to come to terms the complete lack of variability in magica builds.

Okay, flame staff domination has been diluted... by daggers. Praise hybridization! But what about 2 other destruction staves?
Could we get relatable way to play as a mage with a bit different style then inferno slave?

People have to lobby frost damage dealer's thematic for years just to get viable frost spamable. How long should community wait to get primitive standardizated & balanced revisions like was written above? One year more? Three? Five?

I really do not understand ; _ ;

some alright ideas, personally as a pvp and pve player i think that fissure's major breach is great for pvp, not so much for pve. something small could be added to that but only generally useful for pve, maybe a short but small DoT for 3 seconds after it pops? but generally it's damage type, magic, is really bad. it should be frost damage. i don't think we should be adding more and more raw frost damage. because that's what warden already has exessive amounts of. raw damage. we need frost damage skills and specifically a new viable frost damage skill on the winter's embrace line. most probably a reworked arctic blast. frostbite getting 2% more damage is nice and all, but we have like no skills for that bonus.

the other massive problems are the unstable wall of frost morph still being supportive, icy rage being generally awful, and frost impulse's effect doing literally nothing for DDs while fire gets great benefits for all of those. and frost tri focus mag block is absolutely awful. we don't take the passive.

lolo_01b16_ESO · November 2021

Quite nice suggestions. The only thing you seem to be forgetting is magic damage.
If you buff shock and ice damage by 13%, then there will be even less reasons to use e.g. your magic damage class spammable instead of force pulse.

lQrukl · November 2021

If you buff shock and ice damage by 13%, then there will be even less reasons to use e.g. your magic damage class spammable instead of force pulse.

You are right! It could hurt nb's, plar's, warden's and vampire's smabable.

Probably Screaming Cliff Racer morf should make frost damage instead of dealing more damage based on how far away the enemy is, templar's sweeps should make more burning light procs. etc. Or just nerf Force pulse by 10% :^D

not 13%, because its already weaker as single target spamable, then e.g. Elemental Weapon

the other massive problems are the unstable wall of frost morph still being supportive, icy rage being generally awful, and frost impulse's effect doing literally nothing for DDs while fire gets great benefits for all of those

I thought it would be pretty enough to Unstable Wall having 10% from Warden passive and 10% from Frostbite. It would gives same +20% buff that Fire Wall has. Just like Storm Wall would have 10% from Ancient Knowlage and 10% from concussing enemies. And BOOM that abilities could be finally equal.
I agree with that Impulse and Icy Rage have also big problems being used by damage dealers and need reworks, I really forgot about them while writing this post.

ESO_Nightingale · November 2021

lQrukl wrote: »

If you buff shock and ice damage by 13%, then there will be even less reasons to use e.g. your magic damage class spammable instead of force pulse.

You are right! It could hurt nb's, plar's, warden's and vampire's smabable.

Probably Screaming Cliff Racer morf should make frost damage instead of dealing more damage based on how far away the enemy is, templar's sweeps should make more burning light procs. etc. Or just nerf Force pulse by 10% :^D
not 13%, because its already weaker as single target spamable, then e.g. Elemental Weapon

the other massive problems are the unstable wall of frost morph still being supportive, icy rage being generally awful, and frost impulse's effect doing literally nothing for DDs while fire gets great benefits for all of those

I thought it would be pretty enough to Unstable Wall having 10% from Warden passive and 10% from Frostbite. It would gives same +20% buff that Fire Wall has. Just like Storm Wall would have 10% from Ancient Knowlage and 10% from concussing enemies. And BOOM that abilities could be finally equal.
I agree with that Impulse and Icy Rage have also big problems being used by damage dealers and need reworks, I really forgot about them while writing this post.

unstable wall of fire does 20% more damage to burning targets and gets buffed by 10% from engulfing and 5% from encratis. unstable wall of frost does no specific damage boosts and is buffed by 18% from combined piercing cold and frostbite. it's far worse.

lQrukl · November 2021

unstable wall of fire does 20% more damage to burning targets and gets buffed by 10% from engulfing and 5% from encratis. unstable wall of frost does no specific damage boosts and is buffed by 18% from combined piercing cold and frostbite. it's far worse.

Yep, I know. Thats why i suggested to make Encratis debuff multi-elemental and give people alternative debuffs to Engulfing from e.g. Deep Fissure and Conduit (Frost and Shock respectively). Please re-read the original post.

ESO_Nightingale · November 2021

lQrukl wrote: »

unstable wall of fire does 20% more damage to burning targets and gets buffed by 10% from engulfing and 5% from encratis. unstable wall of frost does no specific damage boosts and is buffed by 18% from combined piercing cold and frostbite. it's far worse.

Yep, I know. Thats why i suggested to make Encratis debuff multi-elemental and give people alternative debuffs to Engulfing from e.g. Deep Fissure and Conduit (Frost and Shock respectively). Please re-read the original post.

i think a combined 28% damage boost to frost damage is excessive. especially given warden's current state of being more about a ton of raw damage boosts and less about the quality/quantity of skills.

lQrukl · November 2021

i think a combined 28% damage boost to frost damage is excessive

23%. 10% Piercing Cold + 10% Engulfing alternative + 3% Encratis. 33% with Frostbite, that is not even stronger then Kinras (6% vs 10%), so everything is fair. And all this are exclusively for Warden.

Almost every flame damage ability in ESO partially or completely single target, even non-DK abilities like Scalding Rune or Flame Reach. Even light atacks - damage base for every dd - is single target.

And if not (like Fire Storm or Wall or Pulsar), it has a unic modifer that makes it anyway better then other elemental alternatives.

So it gets them at least 10% Ancient Knowledge + 10% Engulfing + 5% Encratis = 25% additional damage!

More than you are afraid to give to frost spells for some reason :^)

Syrpynt · November 2021

It's not about being afraid of frost spells, it's about twisting the abilities to suit Frost magic users because they want more.

I agree with the Frost Wind idea people have passed around, to match that of the NPC's version we've always seen.

The problem is that the Animal Summons class is magic damage, and should stay magic damage.

There are no Frost Shalks. There are Flame Shalks and Thunderbugs and Assassin beetles. There are no "Frost Cliff Racers" either.

Wardens are basically druids, not "Mages that cast elemental spells to look like animals." Tbh, they just threw Ice Magic into wardens to fix the lack of a class having ice magic! I don't want them breaking the lore and integrity of the gameplay further just to satisfy some lack of Ice-Magic sets.

What players should be asking for instead:

2 "class skill ability lines", and only 2 "class passives" chosen at the start of a character creation. Choose Frost Magic Skill Line, and Necro's Living Death.

(Sure, someone may find a meta combination, but they always do, even with the current class system)

But isn't this the freedom people wanted? I think people are more frustrated that they can't be a decent "Shock and Flame mage" because the half the Shock magic is under sorc and half Flame Magic is under Dragonknight.

I say only 2 class skill lines because 3 is too much to balance and you can't even use that many skills, unless you don't need weapon/world skills (big doubt).

TES fans get their freedom, MMO fans get their freedom, ability combinations increases, and players have to rebuild their favorite characters. This would be the dawn of a class-change token as well.

Amottica · November 2021

There was a time the lighting staff was meta first PvE

Stx · November 2021

I think lightning splash for sorc is an excellent place to put a 10% boost. It's an undertuned skill damage wise and it won't disturb anything pvp wise.

For frost, out of all the warden skills I guess arctic winds make the most sense. Winter's revenge is already so good.

ESO_Nightingale · November 2021

Syrpynt wrote: »

The problem is that the Animal Summons class is magic damage, and should stay magic damage.

There are no Frost Shalks. There are Flame Shalks and Thunderbugs and Assassin beetles. There are no "Frost Cliff Racers" either.

Wardens are basically druids, not "Mages that cast elemental spells to look like animals." Tbh, they just threw Ice Magic into wardens to fix the lack of a class having ice magic! I don't want them breaking the lore and integrity of the gameplay further just to satisfy some lack of Ice-Magic sets.

This line of logic ignores things zos has already done, like with existing warden shalks, cliff racer, fetcher flies and bears as well as shock scamp and twilight, and frost flesh atro.

if everything was supposed to be realistic and fit the lore exactly, sorcs would deal fire damage with their class skills, there would be no frost damage flesh atro ultimate and warden's only source of magic based damage would be from flame damage shalks. But that isn't the case.

there's no reason to be upset at the concept of frost shalks because if you're upset at lore breaking damage types why aren't you mad at the existing shalks? it's just following zos's own logic while making the class more synergistic with itself. It doesn't break existing lore. Most of these aren't real breathing animals, they ARE spells. the fact that shalks and cliff racer are see-through is easy enough to see. they're "nature tales that become magical reality" as the class itself tells you. Bear and betty are the only ones that are permanant enough, and realistic enough where i'd say frost damage on them is a bit weird, but the line has been crossed before, and it's not like betty even does damage anyway.

there's a need for more viable frost SKILLS. not just sets. frost DPS only use frost reach and winter's revenge at the moment because every other frost skill is just bad and still a dps loss compared to fire. Warden as the frost class is in need of more synergy with it's own kit. frost shalks is a great start.

Syrpynt · November 2021

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

This line of logic ignores things zos has already done, like with existing warden shalks, cliff racer, fetcher flies and bears as well as shock scamp and twilight, and frost flesh atro.

if everything was supposed to be realistic and fit the lore exactly, sorcs would deal fire damage with their class skills, there would be no frost damage flesh atro ultimate and warden's only source of magic based damage would be from flame damage shalks. But that isn't the case.

there's no reason to be upset at the concept of frost shalks because if you're upset at lore breaking damage types why aren't you mad at the existing shalks? it's just following zos's own logic while making the class more synergistic with itself. It doesn't break existing lore. Most of these aren't real breathing animals, they ARE spells. the fact that shalks and cliff racer are see-through is easy enough to see. they're "nature tales that become magical reality" as the class itself tells you. Bear and betty are the only ones that are permanant enough, and realistic enough where i'd say frost damage on them is a bit weird, but the line has been crossed before, and it's not like betty even does damage anyway.

there's a need for more viable frost SKILLS. not just sets. frost DPS only use frost reach and winter's revenge at the moment because every other frost skill is just bad and still a dps loss compared to fire. Warden as the frost class is in need of more synergy with it's own kit. frost shalks is a great start.

No, I haven't ignored what they've done. In fact I've been requesting that they give us alternative skins to reflect more "druid" type magic that hasn't been focused on Morrowind-specific creatures.

And again, I disagree with set classes at all, I'd like ZoS to reset most of the damage to lore that they've done for hype and interest in the MMO crowd. Either way, it doesn't mean we should continue adding lore damaging changes moving forward.

Firemen don't come to a burning house to douse it in Gasoline.

YandereGirlfriend · November 2021

Syrpynt wrote: »

It's not about being afraid of frost spells, it's about twisting the abilities to suit Frost magic users because they want more.

I agree with the Frost Wind idea people have passed around, to match that of the NPC's version we've always seen.

The problem is that the Animal Summons class is magic damage, and should stay magic damage.

There are no Frost Shalks. There are Flame Shalks and Thunderbugs and Assassin beetles. There are no "Frost Cliff Racers" either.

Wardens are basically druids, not "Mages that cast elemental spells to look like animals." Tbh, they just threw Ice Magic into wardens to fix the lack of a class having ice magic! I don't want them breaking the lore and integrity of the gameplay further just to satisfy some lack of Ice-Magic sets.

What players should be asking for instead:

2 "class skill ability lines", and only 2 "class passives" chosen at the start of a character creation. Choose Frost Magic Skill Line, and Necro's Living Death.

(Sure, someone may find a meta combination, but they always do, even with the current class system)

But isn't this the freedom people wanted? I think people are more frustrated that they can't be a decent "Shock and Flame mage" because the half the Shock magic is under sorc and half Flame Magic is under Dragonknight.

I say only 2 class skill lines because 3 is too much to balance and you can't even use that many skills, unless you don't need weapon/world skills (big doubt).

TES fans get their freedom, MMO fans get their freedom, ability combinations increases, and players have to rebuild their favorite characters. This would be the dawn of a class-change token as well.

The inconvenient truth facing your argument, though, is that 'druid' is not a thing historically in the TES series, so trying to maintain the 'druid' purity of the Warden is as ahistorical as any drive to convert more skills to Frost Damage.

Sure, there are 'druids' in the lore of various places but that has never existed as a playable class in the series. And if the argument is simply, "Well, that's okay because ESO is doing its own thing with classes and a Warden must be some strange cousin of the Glenmoril Wyrd or something" then a Frost Warden is equally within their rights to say, "And I say that Wardens are actually the prototypical Frost Mages that have existed in the TES lore and in every game that has ever existed in the series." IMO, the Frost Warden holds the trump card in that exchange because you can at least play as an actual Frost Mage in every TES game whereas you've never been able to play as a 'druid' or 'beastmaster' in a game.

TLDR; Most classes in ESO are an abomination from a lore perspective but at least the Frost Mage achetype is something that has existed as a playable role in TES games in the past.

BXR_Lonestar · November 2021

Amottica wrote: »

There was a time the lighting staff was meta first PvE

And I still prefer lightning staff vs. inferno staff due to HA mechanics...

Syrpynt · November 2021

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

The inconvenient truth facing your argument, though, is that 'druid' is not a thing historically in the TES series, so trying to maintain the 'druid' purity of the Warden is as ahistorical as any drive to convert more skills to Frost Damage.

Sure, there are 'druids' in the lore of various places but that has never existed as a playable class in the series. And if the argument is simply, "Well, that's okay because ESO is doing its own thing with classes and a Warden must be some strange cousin of the Glenmoril Wyrd or something" then a Frost Warden is equally within their rights to say, "And I say that Wardens are actually the prototypical Frost Mages that have existed in the TES lore and in every game that has ever existed in the series." IMO, the Frost Warden holds the trump card in that exchange because you can at least play as an actual Frost Mage in every TES game whereas you've never been able to play as a 'druid' or 'beastmaster' in a game.

TLDR; Most classes in ESO are an abomination from a lore perspective but at least the Frost Mage achetype is something that has existed as a playable role in TES games in the past.

Oh sure, we couldn't do it before. but if Wardens are as the lore states: Protectors of nature--and it's the first they are really mentioning them in TES in detail.

Ice magic already existed as staves since the beginning of ESO, and Vampires should have had more access to it as well. So it's not like they completely ignored it. It's simply that they forced ESO into the MMO cookie cutter so whales would "nom it up" instead of relying on TES fans for input/playstyle.

[ inb4 a rando commenter says "What do you think ESO should be, Skyrim Online?" ha ha ha. So funny, your point brings so much value to the discussion. /sarcasm ]

I'm still holding out on 1H & Spell for next years chapter, because of this years hybridization attempts.

To me, that puts us one step closer to splitting classes into skill lines for players to pick. And that's the ultimate/absolute freedom that this game could offer. They wouldn't need additional classes if they did that, maybe just expansions of the current ones to add 1-2 more abilities/spells to the skill lines. The combinations for things would be magnificent.

(Don't get me wrong, that's my fantasy for how this game evolves, I doubt it will happen, but I'll be hawking the news in PTS for the next 7 months to see if I should quit ESO completely for a year)