Viable DPS Sets for Frosty Wardens - Buff Winterborn and Icy Conjurer?

BasP · October 2022

Considering that buffing Frost Wardens seems to be one of the goals of U36, I figured this would be a good a place as any to post this. My apologies if another part of the forum would've been more suited.

Yesternight I was thinking that it'd be cool if there were a few more decent Frost DPS sets in the game. Of course Frostbite is good, especially for an Overland set, and from what I've read Whorl of the Depths is good for specific encounters. That seems to be about it for PVE though? Hence I think that a Frost set that's comparable to the commonly used Pillar of Nirn would be welcome, especially for those players that don't do Trials (yet).

Instead of introducing a new set however, I'd say that two existing sets could be buffed a bit (possibly even during this PTS cycle): Winterborn and, to a lesser extent, Icy Conjurer. The damage of Winterborn's proc is terrible in comparison to that of Nirn. The DPS done by Icy's proc would also need to be increased by 33% to be the same as Nirn's. The difficulty of acquiring these three sets is about the same though.

For Icy Conjurer, adding like 800 damage to the DOT would be nice. It's damage would still be strictly Single Target, but then again, the radius of Nirn's proc is pretty small.

When it comes to Winterborn, the damage of the proc could easily be doubled and it wouldn't be overpowered. Perhaps another bonus could even be added to the fifth piece, like an increased chance to apply status effects (which would pair well with the increased Chilled damage for Wardens).

Opinions on these changes from those more knowledgeable of ESO than me are more than welcome of course!

Mr_Stach · October 2022

I would never consider myself more knowledgeable than someone. But I would say that the Frost Procs sets specifically are Hella Weak and should be buffed, especially Winterborn. I just love that set, but it's so bad.

Some ideas on how to make them better are of course increasing the proc damage. Also also something I would like to see is maybe with Winterborn the Ice Spike does bonus damage to Chilled Enemies. Or enemies damaged by Winterborn take increased Frost Damage for 10 seconds.

There are ways to buff things by making them more interesting.

Icy Conjuror is cool thematically but I think it could have an Impact from the Wraith Hitting, maybe with a guaranteed chilled proc, then the Dot goes. Just small tweaks to make it have a little more oomph.

Something to remember for Chilled Procs is they do not have a CD so even if you are laying into something with 100% uptime of chilled you will still get procs and the chilled explosions. Which with Warden are much better.

I hope this helps and gets some Ideas churning.

ESO_Nightingale · October 2022

winterborn should definitely be a frost version of pillar of nirn. it's so bad right now. it'll also need an adjustment of it's 2-4 piece bonuses as well. max magicka and magicka recovery are really bad for damage dealing compared to crit chance and wep/spell damage.

BasP · October 2022

Thank you both for your input! Yeah, my original idea was to add 800 upfront damage in a small radius to Icy Conjurer instead of simply increasing the DOT's damage, but then I figured that it'd be a bit of a Pillar clone. I'd prefer that, or the guaranteed Chilled proc on impact you mention, over just increasing the DOT like I ended up suggesting though.

Both of your ideas about Winterborn are nice too. It actually was the first frost set I tried on my Magden quite a while ago, and it'd be nice to be able to equip it again without gimping myself. The proc just looks cool.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

winterborn should definitely be a frost version of pillar of nirn. it's so bad right now. it'll also need an adjustment of it's 2-4 piece bonuses as well. max magicka and magicka recovery are really bad for damage dealing compared to crit chance and wep/spell damage.

That's definitely true. For the sake of simplicity I only mentioned the five piece bonus, but the thought of changing at least the magicka recovery to crit chance had crossed my mind.

Mr_Stach · October 2022

BasP wrote: »

Thank you both for your input! Yeah, my original idea was to add 800 upfront damage in a small radius to Icy Conjurer instead of simply increasing the DOT's damage, but then I figured that it'd be a bit of a Pillar clone. I'd prefer that, or the guaranteed Chilled proc on impact you mention, over just increasing the DOT like I ended up suggesting though.

Both of your ideas about Winterborn are nice too. It actually was the first frost set I tried on my Magden quite a while ago, and it'd be nice to be able to equip it again without gimping myself. The proc just looks cool.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

winterborn should definitely be a frost version of pillar of nirn. it's so bad right now. it'll also need an adjustment of it's 2-4 piece bonuses as well. max magicka and magicka recovery are really bad for damage dealing compared to crit chance and wep/spell damage.

That's definitely true. For the sake of simplicity I only mentioned the five piece bonus, but the thought of changing at least the magicka recovery to crit chance had crossed my mind.

Something to consider and it's an annoying pill to swallow, You could make Winterborn a carbon copy of Pillar of Nirn but in Frost but Pillar of Nirn might still win out because Medium Armor passives increase W/S Damage which will make our Chilled Procs bigger. That's if things stay as they are right now.

It's just a weird way to do things, if we got Zos to do the changes that we suggest than Winterborn would do more damage and that might edge out the difference. It's all very weird. But that's all just head theorizing and I could be off because that happens occasionally. But things to consider.

BasP · October 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Something to consider and it's an annoying pill to swallow, You could make Winterborn a carbon copy of Pillar of Nirn but in Frost but Pillar of Nirn might still win out because Medium Armor passives increase W/S Damage which will make our Chilled Procs bigger. That's if things stay as they are right now.

It's just a weird way to do things, if we got Zos to do the changes that we suggest than Winterborn would do more damage and that might edge out the difference. It's all very weird. But that's all just head theorizing and I could be off because that happens occasionally. But things to consider.

The different armor passives had crossed my mind and yeah, I agree. My own suggestions weren't really meant to make one of those sets BIS for Frost Wardens or anything (though I of course wouldn't mind if that would happen!), but merely make them a bit more viable for thematic Frost Wardens than they currently are. Considering ZOS releases quites a few sets every year, hopefully next year we'll see at least one good new Frost set for endgame activities too.

That said, if ZOS were to implement one of your suggestions for Winterborn (as well as some of the changes to the Warden's passives you've suggested in other threads) and it'd outperform Pillar of Nirn on my Frost Warden ever so slightly, I'd definitely reconstruct it.

Necrotech_Master · October 2022

one of the better dps sets right now is actually whorl of the depths from dreadsail, which actually does frost dmg

its kind of weird to see the dps because it has 2 components, the weak single target dot, and then the high dmg aoe dot

its certainly better than icy conjurer because of the aoe component although its on a bit longer cooldown, but because its also a trial set it has minor slayer

i would like them to revist the sets from maelstrom though because many of those arent great and its painful to farm them because its 72 runs of maelstrom due to how many weapons there are for those sets

stevenyaub16_ESO · October 2022

The procs on these sets are. Good for what they are suppose to do. The problem are the set bonuses that put them behind other sets.

ESO_Nightingale · October 2022

A simple lot of change they could to to winterborn right now is make it always proc chilled and make it's 2-4pc bonuses crit, wep/spell damage, crit instead of max mag, mag recovery, crit. And if the proc always procced chilled that'd help too for frosdens now that chilled is a nice source of damage. Even with these changes it'd probably still be a bit meh.

Also regarding icy conj, penetration is a terrible piece bonus in anything other than pvp

Necrotech_Master · October 2022

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

A simple lot of change they could to to winterborn right now is make it always proc chilled and make it's 2-4pc bonuses crit, wep/spell damage, crit instead of max mag, mag recovery, crit. And if the proc always procced chilled that'd help too for frosdens now that chilled is a nice source of damage. Even with these changes it'd probably still be a bit meh.

Also regarding icy conj, penetration is a terrible piece bonus in anything other than pvp

the pen bonus on icy conjurer was helpful when i was running my magden through like vet vateshran/vet maelstrom where you have to rely on your own bonuses and icy conjurer was great initially but got nerfed pretty hard

the problem i always had with it is that it was only single target, and not on a per target cooldown so it was only useful on bosses if it hit the right target

YandereGirlfriend · October 2022

Can we potentially get a re-work of the Mighty Glacier set from Frostvault? I have NEVER seen that set out in the wild and it is neither thematic to the dungeon nor useful in any type of content.

There are a bunch of cool Frost effects already in-game (and in use by enemies...) that the set could steal an animation from, particularly the Frost Shield that enemy mages/druids put up that act as damage shields and LOS for certain abilities.

Failing that, there is Frost animation that looks like one of the Skyrim Frost spells (it's a slow-moving blast of Frost) that would be amazing to have access to as a player.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

A simple lot of change they could to to winterborn right now is make it always proc chilled and make it's 2-4pc bonuses crit, wep/spell damage, crit instead of max mag, mag recovery, crit. And if the proc always procced chilled that'd help too for frosdens now that chilled is a nice source of damage. Even with these changes it'd probably still be a bit meh.

Also regarding icy conj, penetration is a terrible piece bonus in anything other than pvp

I agree, the fundamental issue with Icy Conjuror having the Pen bonus is that the set is still fairly awful in PvP due to its slow travel time and single-target nature. Those aspects are not generally problems in PvE but it is held back by the essentially lost set bonus from Pen. So the set is irrelevant in either type of content.

And then Winterborn... I want SO much for that set to be good. Your suggestions would certainly be welcome and would help the set in both PvE and PvP. I also would not mind a slight bump in the base proc damage in addition, though.

ESO_Nightingale · October 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

A simple lot of change they could to to winterborn right now is make it always proc chilled and make it's 2-4pc bonuses crit, wep/spell damage, crit instead of max mag, mag recovery, crit. And if the proc always procced chilled that'd help too for frosdens now that chilled is a nice source of damage. Even with these changes it'd probably still be a bit meh.

Also regarding icy conj, penetration is a terrible piece bonus in anything other than pvp

the pen bonus on icy conjurer was helpful when i was running my magden through like vet vateshran/vet maelstrom where you have to rely on your own bonuses and icy conjurer was great initially but got nerfed pretty hard

the problem i always had with it is that it was only single target, and not on a per target cooldown so it was only useful on bosses if it hit the right target

warden already gets a ton of penetration anyway. a stat that only provides benefit in some situations is just a bad stat because it hurts the set in other content. pvp sets get a pass because they're only obtainable in pvp and tend to have 5pc bonuses with some sort of pvp interaction.

ESO_Nightingale · October 2022

I hope winterborn gets some love, it's definitely my favourite item set in the game other than frostbite. The sound effect unique to it is really nice. It's just far too weak.

ESO_Nightingale · October 2022

compared to frostbite in it's place, winterborn lost like 8k dps.
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frostbite instead:
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warich · October 2022

Every set is good for frost den, that's the only part of warden getting buffed

BasP · October 2022

warich wrote: »

Every set is good for frost den, that's the only part of warden getting buffed

True, true. My original title mentioned "Frost DPS Sets" specifically, but I changed the title a few times and (accidentally) removed the "Frost" part apparently. It's too bad only Frostbite and one Trial set are good thematic options for Frostdens. Making Winterborn, an Arena set, a bit more viable instead of an 8K DPS loss compared to Frostbite, an Overland set, would definitely be nice.

To enhance class identity, it'd be cool if the passives of each class would incentivize using certain setups above others in my opinion, instead of seeing most builds getting the highest parses with Relequen and Pillar of Nirn. Though tying a specific weapon to passives and skills like ZOS is doing for Wardens at the moment isn't my preferred way to go about it of course.

ESO_Nightingale · October 2022

warich wrote: »

Every set is good for frost den, that's the only part of warden getting buffed

that's not true lol, there's many hilariously bad sets out there

Caribou77 · October 2022

MagWarden in PVP needs one class skill that is quick cast and does ok damage.

Is that asking too much?

I’ve run a Master’s Ice Staff with the Frostbite set using Frost Reach as my spammable and it does almost no damage (~2k?). With Deep Fissure I’m at 19.5k penetration.

Frost Reach just seems gimped on damage in PVP. Anyone else having success with it?

ESO_Nightingale · October 2022

Caribou77 wrote: »

MagWarden in PVP needs one class skill that is quick cast and does ok damage.

Is that asking too much?

I’ve run a Master’s Ice Staff with the Frostbite set using Frost Reach as my spammable and it does almost no damage (~2k?). With Deep Fissure I’m at 19.5k penetration.

Frost Reach just seems gimped on damage in PVP. Anyone else having success with it?

it's pretty strong by itself, the chilled damage increase next patch increases it's effective burst as well. it's also doing pretty well on live as well. i don't think there's any problem with it.

Caribou77 · October 2022

Thank you, that’s hopeful. I’m on Xbox so I can’t try the PTS. I will say that the stun on arctic blast provides very good utility for MagDen in pvp.