Welcome to another installment of a segment where we dive into oneElder Scrolls Online’smanySets, and explore what sort ofBuildsyou can make. Not only will we show you how to get the most from these Sets, but we’ll explain where to get them, what requirements there are to obtain them (if any), and everything else you could possibly want to know about them. In this article we will take a look at theFrozen WatcherSet that deals Frost Damage and has a chance to inflict the Chilled status upon Blocking.
Introduction To Frozen Watcher
This set was added withWrathstone DLCwhich launches in February 2019 on PC and March on consoles. This DLC features new sets and two newDungeonsfor players to take on,FrostvaultandDepths of Malatar. The Frozen Watcher set drops from the Depths of Malatar dungeon. Weapons and Jewelry only drop from the last Boss or Chests. This Heavy Armor set comes in theMeridian Motif Style, which is currently not obtainable, but is expected to be added to the game in June.
Weapon and ArmorTraitsare random, meaning you are likely going to have to farm pieces for different Traits. This is a Heavy Set so enchantments on Armor and Weapon pieces areMax HealthandAbsorb Health. Jewelry comes with theHealthyTrait andHealth RecoveryEnchantments. Keep in mind that you can useTransmutationto change Traits if you wish, however theSummersetexpansion is needed to change Traits on Jewelry, along with 50 Transmute Crystals.
Frozen Watcher increases Stamina by2192and Health by1206with 4 Legendary pieces equipped. The 5 piece bonus summons a blizzard around the player when Blocking. The blizzard deals Frost Damage and has a 15% chance to inflict theChilledStatus Effect, which putsMinor Maimon enemies.
Reducing Your Block Cost
If you are a player focusing primarily on PvE, the first thing you’re going to want to do when using Frozen Watcher is reduce yourBlock Costsince you will need toBlocka lot in order to make full use of this Set. The cost ofBlockingis1730Staminaevery .25 seconds currently (assuming you are being hit) and you will need to reduce that number significantly or you will not be able toBlockmore than a couple of seconds tops. Luckily there are many ways to do this.
For PvE players (tanks) you’ll want to have theSturdyTrait on just about every piece of Armor you may. PvP players will want perhaps someImpenetrable, but Sturdy is still a great choice, since they will need to Block often to get the best use of this Set.
Secondly PvE and PvP players will want to invest heavily into theShadow Wardstar ofThe ShadowChampion Tree. There is no hard and fast rule here as to just how much you need to invest, but it is not difficult to get-20%Block Costreduction from this star. Players will also want to have the passive skill:Fortressin theOne-Handed and Shield Skill Line. Maxed out, it will reduce your Block Cost by36% when you have a Shield equipped.
Finally, and most importantly, players should putGlyph of Shieldingon your Jewelry. If you play around withBlockingat all, you’ll find there is no way to make it sustainable without them. You don’t need to put them on all your Jewelry, but at least 1 or 2. It isn’t necessary to go for a “perma-block” build, but you will need to reduceBlock Costsignificantly for thisBuildto work. Blocking effectiveness was nerfed withDragon Bones DLC, and with all factors affecting Block cost maximized it will cost around 250 Stamina more per block after the patch, which is quite a significant increase. For more information onBlockingplease seethisvideo.
What You Need To Know About This Set
How this set works is whenever Block is being held there will be a blizzard around you that damages and has a chance of inflicting enemies with the Chilled Status Effect. There is no cooldown for the blizzard, and whenever Block is held it is active. When Block is down the blizzard stops immediately.Note that this Set cannot proc theIce Furnace Set.
Tooltip damage can be increased to around1400at maximum level with 100 points inMaster-At-ArmsandElemental ExpertChampion Skills. Blizzard Damage cannot crit because it comes from a set, but the damage is done every second, and every tick has a 15% chance to put the Chilled Status Effect. The Chilled effect puts Minor Maim on enemies, reducing their damage done by 15%. The Minor Maim from Chilled lasts for 4 secs.
Notes for PvE Players
This set makes the most sense for Tanks because they are the ones who will be Blocking constantly. It does everything a Tank could want, regardless ofClasschoice, by increasing Stamina, Health and the chance to put Minor Maim, which reduces enemy damage. The problem is that the Chilled effect has only a 15% chance to occur, making it quite unreliable. However, the blizzard can affect many enemies at once, so if you are lucky then all could have Minor Maim on them all at the same time.
Although Minor Maim sounds great, it can be put on enemies by other means without relying on RNG.Low Slash, for example, can be used by any Tank and it puts Minor Maim for 12 secs. That is significantly higher than the 4 secs from Frozen Watcher, and it has 100% chance to be applied to the enemy. The trade off is that it uses quite a bit of Stamina, so you’ll have to gauge which is more important.
NightbladeandDragonknightTanks already have alternatives for applying Minor Maim besides Low Slash.Choking Talonsfrom Dragonknight applies it for 7 secs without RNG, but it requires a lot of Magicka, so spamming it is not possible. Nightblades have 2 ways to apply Minor Maim:Mass HysteriaandSummon Shade. Mass Hysteria has a high Magicka cost but Summon Shade has a very acceptable one. The point is that there are plenty of ways to apply Minor Maim with the upside of no RNG and downside of costing Magicka, at least for these 2 Classes.
There are ways to build upon this set by maximizing Maim’s effectiveness if you want to go down that road. The best thing to do is to combine Minor Maim from the Chilled effect with Major Maim, and we can do that in couple of ways:
To make this even more powerful, we can combine theInfusedTrait withGlyph of Weaknessto reduce Weapon Damage from enemies even further. There are also some sets that work nicely with Frozen Watcher. Tanks have to hold Block most of the time anyway which is even more emphasized with this Set. So good sets in combination with Frozen Watcher would be the ones that get benefits from blocking like:
Notes for PvP Players
Frozen Watcher’s stats are great for PvP because of added Stamina. It helps with Breaking Free for all types of builds and roles since there is huge emphasis on crowd controlling abilities in ESO PvP. The 5 piece bonus damage is irrelevant here because of it being reduced by half, making it too low to have much of an impact. The Chilled effect, however, is great if it procs. Especially the way blizzard works. By holding Block you can walk as Tank into group of players, Maiming some of them which is very helpful inCyrodiilwhen pushing and defending.
Holding Block all the time in PvP is a problem, however, even with so much added Stamina. Resource management is key in PvP, and if you may use Block efficiently, this is Set will really shine. Consider pairing this Set with others that help with this issue.Trappings of Invigoration,StonekeeperorSymphony of Bladesare all great choices.
Final Verdict
Frozen Watcher is Tanking set with upsides, but also and some downsides. It has Stats every tank would want, and has a 15% chance to apply Minor Maim to enemies around you in a decent AoE. It does not cost Magicka and does not take up ability slots as well, which gives you more possible options in Skill choice. However it is only a 15% chance and it lasts for 4 secs, which is significantly lower than Low Slash whose Minor Maim lasts for 12 secs. So it is better to just use Low Slash on bosses than hoping for a short Minor Maim duration from this Set. The damage, while nice in PvE, is next to useless in PvP.
I see this set used in PvP more than in PvE, and in PvE there are better alternatives as to how to apply Minor Maim. However,Sorcerer,WardenandTemplartanks are classes I could see this set being used on in PvE, because they have to rely only on Low Slash to apply Minor Maim, unless they use theThurokun Set. Overall this ismediocreset for PvE that is good only in some situations and for some Classes. For PvP it is agoodset that can be used to great effect when fighting large group of enemies.
Stay tuned as I’ll be covering moreESO Sets, and be sure to check out ourWrathstone Breakdown article, as well asthe Future of ESO!
