Magicka Tanking needs its own dedicated Weapon Skill Tree

Mr_Stach · February 2023

I thought I would move the conversation for Magicka Tanking here and stop hijacking the Destro Skill Tree post.

I think in order for there to be a true Magicka option for Tanking, it needs to be decoupled from Destro Staff and I know people may or may not care, but Destro Staff should primarily be for DPS in my opinion. So in my efforts to push the topic along, here's my quick shot at a weapon Skill Tree that I already know that will probably never come, but it's always fun to talk about anyways.

RaptorRodeoGod · February 2023

It's a cool idea, but if we want new weapons to be added, they would almost absolutely have to re-use current motifs in order to reduce development time.

I'm definitely all for Alteration, Conjuration and Illusion staff weapon lines, all of which could have tank elements to them, with Alteration being the most dedicated tanking staff.

I also think a One Handed and Spell skill line would be pretty good too for damage dealers specifically.

Artim_X · February 2023

Nah, magicka tanking with an ice staff is fun.

ESO_Nightingale · February 2023

Artim_X wrote: »

Nah, magicka tanking with an ice staff is fun.

Magicka tanking with a weapon designed for it from the get-go would be even better i bet, instead of a hastily repurposed ranged magic damage weapon

remosito · February 2023

as a player who has 6 tanks. My vote goes to first new weapon since launch to be something that is of use to more than 1% of the player base..

techprince · February 2023

Skyrim already has 1H staves and Wards. They can simply introduce 1H Staff + Ward for Magicka tanking. 1H staff using 2H staff's design and Wards using Shields design + translucent magic effect.

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ESO_Nightingale · February 2023

techprince wrote: »

Skyrim already has 1H staves and Wards. They can simply introduce 1H Staff + Ward for Magicka tanking. 1H staff using 2H staff's design and Wards using Shields design + translucent magic effect.

i'd be down for a 1h magic weapon, that makes a bunch of new skill lines. if it's a rune it'd be

1h+ rune
dual rune
and
rune/shield.

robpr · February 2023

Just move all tanking-related stuff to another staff type, no need to create new motifs. Magic gauntlets can also just use Heavy gloves motif with some rune effect overlay (like when your weapon turns into lava texture when using Molten Armaments)

There was an idea somewhere to add Alternation Staff with tanking skills there, I don't remember who made it.

Mr_Stach · February 2023

I get your point and the only reason I put a non-staff weapon is just variety. I think with Resto, and 3 types of Destro, there's enough staff weapons in my opinion, so having something new would be nice.

But also new art assets = more development time

remosito · February 2023

robpr wrote: »

Just move all tanking-related stuff to another staff type, no need to create new motifs. Magic gauntlets can also just use Heavy gloves motif with some rune effect overlay (like when your weapon turns into lava texture when using Molten Armaments)

There was an idea somewhere to add Alternation Staff with tanking skills there, I don't remember who made it.

How does that really solve anything?

Some people who want to dps with new staff type will just complain that this new staff type is bad dps the same the I wanna frost dps complain about frost staff not keeping up....

Turtle_Bot · February 2023

remosito wrote: »

robpr wrote: »

Just move all tanking-related stuff to another staff type, no need to create new motifs. Magic gauntlets can also just use Heavy gloves motif with some rune effect overlay (like when your weapon turns into lava texture when using Molten Armaments)

There was an idea somewhere to add Alternation Staff with tanking skills there, I don't remember who made it.

How does that really solve anything?

Some people who want to dps with new staff type will just complain that this new staff type is bad dps the same the I wanna frost dps complain about frost staff not keeping up....

As long as its set up similar to sword and board where its a tanking line first and foremost, but with options for dps, it can still work as dps option for easier content.
The main issue with frost staff being tied into tanking (at least as I see it from the complaints about it) is because it's a destruction staff first which is by nature/lore is supposed to be dps based.
A new line that is built as a tanking line (like sword and shield) would not really have this issue because everyone would know that that's what its intended purpose is.

OBJnoob · February 2023

I very much want a new weapon... Just to have something new. I don't really agree that there's a problem with how Destro elements are set up-- there's AoE, there's single target, and there's tanking. What's the problem?

We hear people wanting to do damage with a frost staff and we entertain that. Would we be so kind if someone were complaining that they wanted to do AoE with a fire staff? Or would we just say "don't be silly there's already something for that." I truly wonder.

But still... Yes, a new weapon would be nice. There are two tanking weapons, for those of us that don't mind how things currently are, but only one healing weapon. If we do something like suggested above with a rune/relic thing being split between shield and relic, relic and relic, and relic and dagger (or whatever,) one of them should definitely be for healers I think. And yes, one for tanking as well.

But there's only so much difference one heal can have from another... Or blocking with one thing can have from blocking with another. So the skill-line will have to offer something unique. And I think that unique thing should be a reliance on wards/shields. The healer variant will have max rss or max damage scaling team shields and the tank variant will have HP scaling shields only for themselves. The dps variant (relic and dagger,) would follow the relic ward theme but be more DPSy (having skills like Brawler in it, for example,) and perhaps become a decent PvP weapon for sorcs.

That's the best solution I can think of anyway.

tomofhyrule · February 2023

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

remosito wrote: »

robpr wrote: »

Just move all tanking-related stuff to another staff type, no need to create new motifs. Magic gauntlets can also just use Heavy gloves motif with some rune effect overlay (like when your weapon turns into lava texture when using Molten Armaments)

There was an idea somewhere to add Alternation Staff with tanking skills there, I don't remember who made it.

How does that really solve anything?

Some people who want to dps with new staff type will just complain that this new staff type is bad dps the same the I wanna frost dps complain about frost staff not keeping up....

As long as its set up similar to sword and board where its a tanking line first and foremost, but with options for dps, it can still work as dps option for easier content.
The main issue with frost staff being tied into tanking (at least as I see it from the complaints about it) is because it's a destruction staff first which is by nature/lore is supposed to be dps based.
A new line that is built as a tanking line (like sword and shield) would not really have this issue because everyone would know that that's what its intended purpose is.

And yet you still have players who use sword and board as a damage line and then complain that they don't have as much damage and then they wonder why the boss keeps looking at them.

I'll admit, I hate as a tank that I'm railroaded into using an ice stick. It doesn't fit with my character, who should be dual SnB, but since SnB forces me to have half-power enchants and no ranged interrupt means I have to use a staff on my utterly non-magical character just because.

I'd much rather one of the SnB passives doubled the enchant value of my weapon so I could still put out full power crushers or if Inner Rage's morph included an interrupt (Inner Fire should just have no 'chance' of a synergy. In all of its morphs, it should be 100% like the other Undaunted synergies)

But if we had any new weapon style, I want spears first and foremost. Ice has always been the 'support' setup in ESO, and it seems like the answer to "let's make frost DPS viable" was "let's make every Warden who doesn't use frost unviable!" As long as Inferno staves have a damage bonus for single target, fire staves will still be king. What would help would be frost- (or even lightning-) equivalents of Encratis's Behemoth that a support could wear as well.

The_Titan_Tim · February 2023

An easy way to approach adding another skill line would be to simply add other variants of staves.

There are six major schools of magic and we only have two of them represented with staves.

ZOS are not going to want to have to go back to previous motifs and create new artwork for every style we have in the game.

Edit; Also want to add that I agree Ice Staves should not be tanking tools, Destruction is all about taking things apart, not building them up.

One rather simple way to add a damage functionality to Ice Staff would be to give them a 10% damage-over-time increase while equipped, as that’s not a weapon passive in the game currently.

Darkstorne · February 2023

I still think 1H+Spell is the easiest (and therefore most likely) weapon addition.

It re-uses existing assets for all motifs, past present and future.
It provides a melee/mid-range option for magicka builds to HA resource-restore with, when currently they have to use a staff for that.
It doesn't require a separate item table for the spell/rune portion of the weapon style. The game is already able to turn 1H items into either 1H+shield or Dual Wield, depending on what's equipped in your off-hand. Simply tweak that code to add a third option: if nothing is equipped in the off-hand, then the weapon style is 1H+Spell, and the main-hand weapon counts as 2 items for set piece bonuses.

I love the idea of more tank weapon options, and I think this item set could definitely fit with some skills/morphs tailored towards that. I think it could fill all three roles nicely, and utilize all three core elements via skills/morphs to be suitable for all three elemental classes too (Sorcs, DKs, Wardens) and obviously fitting in well with Necros who already have that tri-element design.

Urvoth · February 2023

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

An easy way to approach adding another skill line would be to simply add other variants of staves.

There are six major schools of magic and we only have two of them represented with staves.

ZOS are not going to want to have to go back to previous motifs and create new artwork for every style we have in the game.

Edit; Also want to add that I agree Ice Staves should not be tanking tools, Destruction is all about taking things apart, not building them up.

One rather simple way to add a damage functionality to Ice Staff would be to give them a 10% damage-over-time increase while equipped, as that’s not a weapon passive in the game currently.

That's exactly why the ZOS response about new weapons has been so poor. They've said multiple times how they don't want to do them because of motifs, but there are multiple magic schools that could have a weapon designed around them and new staff lines would fit perfectly without having to redo any cosmetics.