All Light, Medium, and Heavy Attacks now dynamically scale with your highest offensive stats

YandereGirlfriend

There is every reason to imagine that build distinctions such as Stamina vs. Magicka pool and Weapon vs. Spell Damage will persist after the Critical Chance/Damage and Penetration unifications as well as the looming CP reformation.

Those will drive a differential in performance between your Main Stat Weapons and Off-Stat Weapons but at that point the gap should be close enough such as to make it at least an interesting build choice.

For example, using a Nirnhoned / Precise Dual Sword setup would give you a significantly higher base Weapon and Spell Damage than running, say, a Precise Flame Staff. After you take into account 3x Spell Damage Glyphs (and perhaps eventually we will get a Prismatic Weapon/Spell Damage enchantment?) the two setups would likely be very close to one another and it would be left to Main Stat pool and the interaction of various passives to determine which performs better for your build.

MashmalloMan

idk wrote: »

ExistingRug61 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

ExistingRug61 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

@Mobius0

Using a 2H sword I can confirm that using a spell damage pot increased the damage. However, the HAs were significantly less with a 2H sword vs a frost staff. I used the frost staff to eliminate the damage boost to fire staff HA from the skill lines passives since Fire staves do more HA damage due to tri-focus and then ancient knowledge will depend on what type of staff one was using.

2H
4309 no crit
6464 w/crit
4653 w/spell power potion

Frost
7727 no crit
123594 w/crit
8328 w/spell power potion.

While the damage for the 2H is hitting for significantly more than it is on live, it still pales greatly to the staff on a magicka based character. I expect the weapon is still doing physical damage.

BTW, this character has old gear on. I used it because I knew it did not have any special weapons or mythic and the weapons I used in testing did not match any equipped sets. In other words, there is nothing in this build to skew the results for a magicka based character.

Edit: I am guessing as to why the damage is still much lower. I just wanted to be clear.

Thanks for posting values.

Out of interest, do you know what CP you had for this?
And what your physical vs spell penetration were?
Given you have eliminated crit as a variable by posting both crit and non crit values, the only things I can think of that should cause a difference in the result (assuming weapons still do their normal damage types) are penetration, elemental expert vs mighty, staff expert vs physical weapons expert, and elfborn vs precise strikes for the crits. I just wanted to try to establish if these are the cause of the difference or if something else is at play.

Sorry for all the questions, I would test this myself but am on xbox.

Also, is there a typo in your value for frost HA crit -123k seems just a little high, I assume this is meant to be ~12k?

@ExistingRug61

Ugh, forgot about CP effect. I have 40 pts into spell pen and 35 into staff expert. I did remove both this morning and did not redistribute them and the frost staff HA was still 6221 without crit and 10140 with crit. I have nothing added to physical penetration. I also used a standard dummy that does not provide any buffs or debuffs.

I removed all blue CP. Frost HA was 4547. So it was closer, but still slightly higher than with the 2H. However, the entire set of numbers do show that a HA is still doing the same type of damage that is native to the weapon and as such using a weapon that does not match the build leads to a significantly lower HA.

I am wearing magicka gear which also boosts the HA some and that is likely the little bit of difference left.

In other words, the HA might not be hitting like a wet noodle anymore but it is still super weak. Only a pure hybrid build, which is still weaker than a pure build, will benefit from this change.

Thanks for testing that. That confirms what I expected. So while they are now better there is still a reasonable gap. This will close somewhat if crit/pen is combined in a future update as that will eliminate some of the difference due to the weapons still using their native damage type. But even then there will still be a gap due to cp unless you split between staff expert/physical weapons expert and elemental expert/mighty and even if crit is unified there’s still different crit damage from elf born/precise strikes. And such a split certainly isn’t optimal under the current cp system. Although I guess you could only use melee weapons and only invest in physical weapons expert on a mag build, but then you can’t HA for magicka. Maybe a different story in nocp though.

Yes, everything would need to be combined, stam/mag, crit, WD/SP, penetration/resistance, for it to be the same and then CP would not be an issue. That would mean getting rid of the mag vs stam build and I do not think Zos wants to open that can of worms as it means another complete overhaul of the combat system.

CP is scheduled to be entirely reworked anyway, if we use their current design decisions as any indication of how the new CP system would look (new dynamic scaling skills/ults/light/heavy attacks, combining crit/penetration), it's logical to assume if it's anywhere close to the current design of CP, stars like crit damage/healing, light/heavy attack damage, penetration and finally the 3% crit chance nodes would eventually be combined too which would drastically alleviate the problems with dynamic scaling in this game.

For example, stam sorcs and stam dks rely on shock/fire based class ultimates to reach their highest single target dps potential in pve, yet they're currently missing out on the CP benefits of what a magicka counterpart may have. Possibly 4k pen, 20% crit dmg and 10% magic based damgage. This is how a system like CP actually kills build diversity in the current design of the game, more so as the years go on.

We've seen ZOS become more and more flexible on opening up build diversity with sets that double dip bonuses without drawbacks to their power budget or class skills that dynamically scale too, where previously it was really only ultimates and sets like Pelinal's/Shacklebreaker for what felt like years. I think it's clear to me what the new combat team aims to do with the combat system, they've been talking about redesigning it from the ground up as soon as they came in early 2019 and were finally starting to see the end goal of that this patch.

Talk again about this subject when pen/crit is combined and CP is reworked and I guarantee you there will be very little negatives between choosing to use a Destruction Staff or DW/2H on a melee magicka class like Templar/DK. I'm willing to bet on it.

Due to the above reasons, Stamina/Magicka and Weapon/Spell damage do not need to be combined as they don't actually have any effect on situations involving dynamic scaling. I believe thats where they need to draw the line and it's kind of obvious when you look at how mundus stones behave too. Theif/Lover mundus stones have always been 1 option while resource and damage mundus are seperated into 2 each.

Mobius0

From what I have seen, no one has proved a dang thing about what damage type it is.

I appreciate the test that was done, but comparing different weapon heavy attacks shows nothing about the damage type, because BASE heavy attack damage is not the same between weapon types.

MashmalloMan

Did some tests on light attacks and what exactly does "dynamic scaling" mean. This may be common knowledge for some, but I thought it was worth testing specifically for weapons now. Below you will find confirmation that weapon light/heavy attacks behave the exact same way ultimates do.

Context: Removed all my gear and class damage passives (sorc). Dark Elf. Removed all weapon passives. Emptied out my skill bar. No cp investment. No character stat investment. Sugar Skulls food was active (equal bonuses). Only recorded non crit damage, crit trait on weapons.

1h weapon vs destruction staff vs bow. Same tooltips of 1335 damage + 258 from Dark Elf.

• 1h = 881 (1593 Spell/Weapon Damage)
• Destruction staff = 793 (1593 Spell/Weapon Damage)
• Bow = 793 (1593 Spell/Weapon Damage)

This confirms an 11% damage bonus for melee weapons vs ranged weapons.

2H vs DW vs destruction staff. 2H weapons have a tooltip of 1571 vs the 1335 on all other weapons in the game.

• DW = 952 (1829 Spell/Weapon Damage)
• 2H = 952 (1829 Spell/Weapon Damage)
• Destruction Staff = 793 (1593 Spell/Weapon Damage)

This confirms the hidden 17.6% weapon/spell damage bonus from your offhand weapon was actually designed to match the 1571 tooltip damage 2H weapons offer. (This hidden bonus was mentioned earlier in the thread, the 6% DW passive only benefits weapon damage, not spell damage).

Without passives or cp, DW and 2H have about 20% more damage than Destruction staff light attacks.

Testing spell damage vs weapon damage by swapping mundus stones between Apprentice and Warrior.

• Apprentice = 1023
• Warrior = 1023

Found the same results when swapping max resource mundus stones, exact same numbers, meaning this part of dynamic scaling is correctly copying highest offensive damage and resources.

Testing crit chance: 5pc Medusa, 1pc Zaan and 1pc Illambris - all 7 heavy armor. Major prophecy via unmorphed Magelight, no guild passives, precise weapons. 52.3% spell crit vs 17.2% weapon crit.

• 98 light attack hits = 56 hits crit resulting in 57% of 98.

This confirms that dynamic scaling does inherit your highest crit chance. I could of continued light attacking forever, but I got a quick idea within the first 10 hits. I did 100 to be safe. The reverse should be true when having high weapon crit and using a destruction staff.

Testing penetration by swapping 1pc Kragh vs 1pc Valkyn Skoria, 2H.

• Kragh = 1086
• Valkyn Skoria = 1038

This confims that dynamic scaling does NOT inherit your penetration values. Since 2H does not change damage type from physical damage to magicka damage, it continues to search for physical penetration.

Axes and the bleed passive.

• Warrior = 5316 physical damage over 6s.
• Apprentice = 4734 physical damage over 6s.

I did not find it relevant to test max resources, crit or penetration beyond this test as I feel like this was enough evidence to make a conclusion that the axe bleed does not dynamically scale, it only looks for stamina related damage bonuses and physical penetration because it's physical damage.

MashmalloMan

Mobius0 wrote: »

From what I have seen, no one has proved a dang thing about what damage type it is.

I appreciate the test that was done, but comparing different weapon heavy attacks shows nothing about the damage type, because BASE heavy attack damage is not the same between weapon types.

@Mobius0 Multiple people have confirmed that the damage type does not change in this thread, they do not dynamically change damage types the same way something like Soul Trap does. In fact, I think thats the only version of dynamic damage scaling in the game that actually updates the damage type.

• Physical Weapon = Physical Damage
• Bashing = Physical Damage
• Restoration Staff = Magicka Damage
• Element of Destruction Staff = Fire/Shock/Frost damage. (These do not proc status effects)

ExistingRug61

[edit] completely ninja'd by the above posts which actually answer this more conclusively, but I'll leave this comment here anyway

Mobius0 wrote: »

From what I have seen, no one has proved a dang thing about what damage type it is.

I appreciate the test that was done, but comparing different weapon heavy attacks shows nothing about the damage type, because BASE heavy attack damage is not the same between weapon types.

I would say the tests done by @idk do supports that the the weapons keep their normal damage type. (although I am making a couple of assumptions about what CP he had during the first test)
ie:
in his first test, 2H damage was significantly less that frost staff.
At this point he still had blue CP, which I assume was set to be of benefit to a mag build, so things like elemental expert, spell erosion etc which would have been buffing any magic damage types.
In the second test in a later post with these removed the frost staff damage was noticeably less as expected due to the removal of these CP.
Thus it was concluded that it was this CP that was causing the significant difference in damage between the 2H and frost staff in the first test. Thus the 2H must have still been doing its normal damage type of physical, as if it had been changed to magic or elemental damage, it would also have benefitted from the CP.

A more specific test where only something like elemental expert/mighty or penetration is varied would be the most conclusive way to verify this.

Also, logically speaking, I would have thought it was very unlikely that the weapons damage type would have been changed anyway, as
1) All other skills that benefit from dual scaling, ie: Ultimates and certain skills like Streak etc always use a specific damage type as described in the skill (except for soul trap which explicitly describes the two damage types). I would expect that with LA/HA to also follow this precedent, and use their normal damage type.
2) Even if they were to somehow be changed, how is it decided what it changes to? ie: if using a 2H scaling with spell damage/magicka and the damage type changes, does it become magic, fire, frost or lightning? If it did change there would have to be some system to this, which would have had to have been explained in the patch notes if it was the case

So yes, while I admit it hasn't been conclusively proven to be case, all the evidence would suggest that the damage types are unchanged.

ExistingRug61

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Testing crit chance: 5pc Medusa, 1pc Zaan and 1pc Illambris - all 7 heavy armor. Major prophecy via unmorphed Magelight, no guild passives, precise weapons. 52.3% spell crit vs 17.2% weapon crit.

• 98 light attack hits = 56 hits crit resulting in 57% of 98.

This confirms that dynamic scaling does inherit your highest crit chance. I could of continued light attacking forever, but I got a quick idea within the first 10 hits. I did 100 to be safe. The reverse should be true when having high weapon crit and using a destruction staff.

Thanks for testing this specifically - that result is very cool.
Given this, crit chance isn't actually something holding back using off-type weapons (so crit chance potentially becoming unified doesn't actually matter for this case)

So that leaves the differences being penetration and CP.

Mobius0

Thanks for the results. That answers most of what I wanted to know.

Sounds like you can easily work around it to get essentually the same damage results, since at least your spell damage and crit affect it.

The unfortunate thing is the DW 6% passive doesn't seem to affect it. Perhaps if they unify the penetration stats, then Maces would then be of optimal benefit.

Honestly, the way it seems to be implemented seems strange and unintuitive to me. I don't know why they can't just have it convert to magic damage.

MashmalloMan

Mobius0 wrote: »

Thanks for the results. That answers most of what I wanted to know.

Sounds like you can easily work around it to get essentually the same damage results, since at least your spell damage and crit affect it.

The unfortunate thing is the DW 6% passive doesn't seem to affect it. Perhaps if they unify the penetration stats, then Maces would then be of optimal benefit.

Honestly, the way it seems to be implemented seems strange and unintuitive to me. I don't know why they can't just have it convert to magic damage.

I know this isn't real life or w.e and we also don't use stamina to cast magic spells in most fantasy games so this may sound silly.. but I don't think they should update damage type imo.

I think it's fair that melee weapons, pointed arrows and bashing does physical damage while returning stamina from a heavy attack. I also think it's fair that a magical fire staff that shoots out balls of fire, does fire damage.

The issue can easily be resolved once they finalize what they meant by "combining crit and penetration" into singular stats. They havn't actually followed through with this yet. They still need to audit every skill, every passive and every set in the game to meet that standard. They would need to address CP, but were so close to a CP rework that we may see it for update 29 or udpate 30, so what exactly would they put in the place of those relevant stars in the mean time if they don't plan to keep it long term anyway.

The only examples of the proposed changes to crit/pen are in these 2, new crafted sets:

Red Eagle’s Fury

• 2 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
• 3 – Adds 833 Critical Chance
• 4 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
• 5 – Adds 469 Weapon and Spell Power to your Weapon Skill abilities. Increases the cost of your non-Weapon Skill abilities by 5%.

Legacy of Karth

• 2 – Adds 833 Critical Chance
• 3 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
• 4 – Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
• 5 – Enemies affected by your Alchemic Poisons take 1973 Disease Damage every 1 second.

Testing them on the PTS does show that they grant both values from the terms "critical chance" or "offensive penetration" where normally we would find spell crit, weapon penetration, etc.. When they do update all sources, maces would just be 20% "penetration", daggers would be +10% "critical chance", bow would be +5% "critical chance", axe bleeds they'd have to make dynamic, destruction staves would be 10% "penetration". Sets like Kragh would buff destruction staff light attacks and sets like Valkyn would buff stamina weapon attacks.

After all thats finished, there is little to no reason for your weapons damage type to change at all beyond a specific passive like sorcs +5% physical damage and at that point it just seems like build variety and optimization to me. I think it would be more unintuitive to say your melee weapons do fire damage, just because your magicka is higher.

idk

Mobius0 wrote: »

Thanks for the results. That answers most of what I wanted to know.

Sounds like you can easily work around it to get essentually the same damage results, since at least your spell damage and crit affect it.

The unfortunate thing is the DW 6% passive doesn't seem to affect it. Perhaps if they unify the penetration stats, then Maces would then be of optimal benefit.

Honestly, the way it seems to be implemented seems strange and unintuitive to me. I don't know why they can't just have it convert to magic damage.

@Mobius0

Anything that increases the damage for Magicka attacks boost the staff on the PTS but do not boost the sword damage. Either Zos has to have the damage type change based on the largest resource pool or eliminate having different stam and mag builds to have the basic attack damage be the same regardless of the weapon we use and build we have.

Hybrid builds, which are already not optimal, are probably the only builds that will benefit from this change.

Mobius0

I thought that Major Sorcery was boosting the damage?

universal_wrath

Mobius0 wrote: »

I thought that Major Sorcery was boosting the damage?

It does, it increases your spell damage, thus your highest offensive stat if you are a magicka.

MashmalloMan

idk wrote: »

Mobius0 wrote: »

Thanks for the results. That answers most of what I wanted to know.

Sounds like you can easily work around it to get essentually the same damage results, since at least your spell damage and crit affect it.

The unfortunate thing is the DW 6% passive doesn't seem to affect it. Perhaps if they unify the penetration stats, then Maces would then be of optimal benefit.

Honestly, the way it seems to be implemented seems strange and unintuitive to me. I don't know why they can't just have it convert to magic damage.

@Mobius0

Anything that increases the damage for Magicka attacks boost the staff on the PTS but do not boost the sword damage. Either Zos has to have the damage type change based on the largest resource pool or eliminate having different stam and mag builds to have the basic attack damage be the same regardless of the weapon we use and build we have.

Hybrid builds, which are already not optimal, are probably the only builds that will benefit from this change.

Mobius0 wrote: »

I thought that Major Sorcery was boosting the damage?

@Mobius0 He's referring to bonuses like CP and passives that specifically boost the damage type "magicka damage". Since melee weapons only do physical damage, bonuses to magicka damage do not apply.

d0e1ow

I'm so confused reading this thread. So does the damage of your LA or HA scale regardless of highest offensive stat or not? If my templar's highest offensive stat is spell damage would using a 2 hand sword pull its damage off of spell damage?

YandereGirlfriend

@MashmalloMan Fantastic work testing that! I wonder if it is reported as a bug if they might be able to be cajoled into grabbing the highest Penetration value as well?

@d0e1ow Yes, it grabs your highest of Spell/Weapon damage and your highest Critical Chance. It does not grab your highest Penetration value though and it will instead use the Penetration value that is native to the weapon type that you are using. It also won't use your highest CP values and will instead use the values that apply to the weapon type that you are using.

MashmalloMan

d0e1ow wrote: »

I'm so confused reading this thread. So does the damage of your LA or HA scale regardless of highest offensive stat or not? If my templar's highest offensive stat is spell damage would using a 2 hand sword pull its damage off of spell damage?

Read any of my above tests. I confirmed they behave exactly like ultimates.

TLDR:

It will dynamically scale from highest weapon/spell damage, highest weapon/spell crit, and highest max stam/magicka.

Penetration does not dynamically scale, instead following the rules of the damage type. Eg, physical damage = physical penetration needed. This point is not that big of a drawback because ZOS has claimed they want to combine sources of physical and spell pentration into 1 value, maybe called "offensive penetration" as seen listed on the new set "Legacy of Karth".. we have yet to see this happen yet on week 1, but it doesn't mean it can't happen before U28 finally launches.

Stamina weapons and bashing = physical damage and stamina return
Restoration staff = magicka damage and magicka return
Destruction fire/shock/frost = fire/shock/frost damage and magicka return

Damage types decide what CP they inherit from as well. Eg. Destruction staves only scale from the stars "Spell Erosion", "Elemental Expert", "Elfborn" and "Staff Expert". Vise versa for stamina weapons and their CP counterparts.

If crit and penetration is not combined by the launch of U28, you can still use the "wrong" weapon, but you'll miss out on penetration from light armor for stamina weapons for example. Until crit and penetration is combined, stamina weapon passives for Daggers and Maces do nothing for magicka builds.

MashmalloMan

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

@MashmalloMan Fantastic work testing that! I wonder if it is reported as a bug if they might be able to be cajoled into grabbing the highest Penetration value as well?

I don't think this is a bug and just maybe an oversight from a coding perspective. Either way, if cirt and pen is combined this patch, it won't matter and only CP which is also scheduled to be reworked will be the last main factor of confliction. This has always been something that has held back stam sorc and stam dk's with their magicka damage based ultimates, which is why we've wanted an "air atronach" or "posion standard". Every other class gets much more benefits to their class ultimates because they scale well with CP.

In no CP, it doesn't matter too much unless you're a pure penetration build, but I doubt you're running those ultimates anyway.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

@d0e1ow Yes, it grabs your highest of Spell/Weapon damage and your highest Critical Chance. It does not grab your highest Penetration value though and it will instead use the Penetration value that is native to the weapon type that you are using. It also won't use your highest CP values and will instead use the values that apply to the weapon type that you are using.

Ah you answered them Either way, TLDR might help.

d0e1ow

@MashmalloMan @YandereGirlfriend

Thank y'all.

idk

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

@MashmalloMan Fantastic work testing that! I wonder if it is reported as a bug if they might be able to be cajoled into grabbing the highest Penetration value as well?

@YandereGirlfriend

The testing I did, which is in two different posts in this thread, shows that the damage type has to change for the basic attack damage for off-spec weapons to be on equal footing. There is just too much that boosts the damage even after penetration from Elemental Expert to crit chance.

Lord_Nikon

PLEASE, Please, please ZOS... Let the heavy attack of whatever weapon we use also restore the highest resource.

I so badly want to play a Flame based DK that uses a Two hander or S&B.

It wouldn't be hard to let this happen. Heck, You've already completed the hardest part by letting the damage scale off our highest resource. Just flip the switch for heavy attack to give back the same.

FoolishOptimist

How nice would it be the Fire, Frost, Shock enchants placed on DW and 2H also adapted their base weapon damage type?

DT-ARR

FoolishOptimist wrote: »

How nice would it be the Fire, Frost, Shock enchants placed on DW and 2H also adapted their base weapon damage type?

Unfortunately ZOS doesn’t allow nice things.

Vevvev

FoolishOptimist wrote: »

How nice would it be the Fire, Frost, Shock enchants placed on DW and 2H also adapted their base weapon damage type?

Hmmmm.... if the same applied to Destruction staves imagine going full Morrowind and shooting poison spells at werewolves!

HoyaCarnosa

Lord_Nikon wrote: »

PLEASE, Please, please ZOS... Let the heavy attack of whatever weapon we use also restore the highest resource.

I so badly want to play a Flame based DK that uses a Two hander or S&B.

It wouldn't be hard to let this happen. Heck, You've already completed the hardest part by letting the damage scale off our highest resource. Just flip the switch for heavy attack to give back the same.

That so much, it is really good that it now scales with the highest offensive stat (i love that change), but casting abilities cost the main resource, so what use has a sword as magicka char/ staff as stamina char in a fight for me if i run out of my main resource and i need to swap back to the main resource restoring weapon (means even if i like to play with the other weapon type i need to carry my type of weapon to restore my needed resource).