Grim Focus solely for damage buff?

akray21

In an effort to make my magicka NB worth a hoot in PvP I am trying to find any and all ways to buff my damage output to help burst down a target. Would it be beneficial to use grim focus simply for the 8% damage increase, or is is not worth the time and resources to cast? Anyone given this ability a shot without the intention of using the spectral bow?

Wreuntzylla

akray21 wrote: »

In an effort to make my magicka NB worth a hoot in PvP I am trying to find any and all ways to buff my damage output to help burst down a target. Would it be beneficial to use grim focus simply for the 8% damage increase, or is is not worth the time and resources to cast? Anyone given this ability a shot without the intention of using the spectral bow?

Yeah, it can be useful. It is a debate whether it's worth a spot on the bar with how useless the active ability is. They need to change it so that it counts every time you hit a player regardless of damage shield, etc. Then you could build a spec around the armor sets that increase light/heavy attack as well.

Xeniph

I use it simply for the damage buff and the stam regen.

It's 8% damage and 10% stam regen for a realatively low cost, yes please.

Fatalyis

The damage increase is a nice boost if you can find a spot for it on your bar. The active ability (Spectral Bow), though, not so much.

Draehl

It can be useful for a stam build especially to set up your burst beforehand. If you're magicka I'd suggestion Structured Entropy instead though.

akray21

Draehl wrote: »

It can be useful for a stam build especially to set up your burst beforehand. If you're magicka I'd suggestion Structured Entropy instead though.

Right now I use sap essence as I usuallu start off with a teleport strike or concealed weapon, then my 2nd attack is a sap.

Draxys

I think it's worth it, on top of the 20% spell dmg (entropy) that someone else mentioned. Not the easiest to manage keeping it up at all times in long fights but 8% dmg and some stam regen to boot is usually worth it.

AssaultLemming

From a PvE sustain perspective it is worth it to cast this spell and use the bow.

Basically instead of casting 9 funnel health you cast this at the start, 7 funnels, and this again you end up getting a net dps increase of over 8%, because the spectral bow is slightly more damage than the two funnel health you didn't get to cast. It also boosts your light attacks in between funnels, so definitely worth it to use it as designed, but it's fiddly to use properly.

It's worth casting your entropy before the spectral bow also I think for the might of the guild passive.

Think the rotation looks like this.

Entropy, grim, funnel, light/funnel weave times 7, entropy, spectral, grim, light/funnel times 7.

Could probably put cripple or Mark in there too.

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO

You sure about that damage buff (yes it's in the tooltip), but is it really there?!

Trying it out with no other skill in the bar and no equipment whatsoever, except a single dagger, this one does only see a buff to the stamina regeneration with the skill active, but no buff to the damage (weapon or spell)
This is also true after 7 light/heavy attacks, that is when the skill icon changes.

Looks like it is broken and even if it were not - as it is a magicka based skill - the damage for a stamina build is underwhelming to say the least.

In it's current state its not only not worth it to be on the bar (any bar); it's not worth putting skill points in it, at all!

To make it worthwhile, it should not have an expiration time (that is mostly acts as a passive, see magelight, dawn breaker etc.). Any time 7 normal (light/heavy) attacks have been made, that is the active part has been "charged up", you can fire the spectral bow or get a spell/weapon damage buff until you do for the morphs.

In short:
The skill should still give 8% stamina regeneration, but as a passive, i.e. without any need of activation. It just has to be on the currently active bar.

One morph should then provide then 10% weapon damage increase as a passive, but if and only if the skill has been charged up, while the other morph should provide 10% extra spell damage under the same conditions.

Last but not least, if you instead choose to fire the spectral bow, damage should be based on stamina (weapon damage morph) or magicka (spell damage morph) and both (added) for the base skill (but then without either damage buff!), so that there is even some love to the few struggling hybrid builds still out there.

One final note, as even the calculation for the stamina regeneration seems to be slightly off: 8% on 689 is not only just 742, but 745. Even when accounting for rounding errors, i.e. assuming a value of 688, you still would get 743, unless those 8% aren't eight percent, but more closer to 7.5% or something.

akray21

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO wrote: »

You sure about that damage buff (yes it's in the tooltip), but is it really there?!

Trying it out with no other skill in the bar and no equipment whatsoever, except a single dagger, this one does only see a buff to the stamina regeneration with the skill active, but no buff to the damage (weapon or spell)
This is also true after 7 light/heavy attacks, that is when the skill icon changes.

Looks like it is broken and even if it were not - as it is a magicka based skill - the damage for a stamina build is underwhelming to say the least.

In it's current state its not only not worth it to be on the bar (any bar); it's not worth putting skill points in it, at all!

To make it worthwhile, it should not have an expiration time (that is mostly acts as a passive, see magelight, dawn breaker etc.). Any time 7 normal (light/heavy) attacks have been made, that is the active part has been "charged up", you can fire the spectral bow or get a spell/weapon damage buff until you do for the morphs.

In short:
The skill should still give 8% stamina regeneration, but as a passive, i.e. without any need of activation. It just has to be on the currently active bar.

One morph should then provide then 10% weapon damage increase as a passive, but if and only if the skill has been charged up, while the other morph should provide 10% extra spell damage under the same conditions.

Last but not least, if you instead choose to fire the spectral bow, damage should be based on stamina (weapon damage morph) or magicka (spell damage morph) and both (added) for the base skill (but then without either damage buff!), so that there is even some love to the few struggling hybrid builds still out there.

One final note, as even the calculation for the stamina regeneration seems to be slightly off: 8% on 689 is not only just 742, but 745. Even when accounting for rounding errors, i.e. assuming a value of 688, you still would get 743, unless those 8% aren't eight percent, but more closer to 7.5% or something.

I like the ideas, and I am not sure myself how the ability should exactly work. I do know that this ability should be one of the biggest nukes in the game if you can get it to proc, because in PvP you are usually dead if you are spamming light attacks for that long.

Even as a magicka based NB, this ability is underwhelming.

Nivzruo_ESO

akray21 wrote: »

In an effort to make my magicka NB worth a hoot in PvP I am trying to find any and all ways to buff my damage output to help burst down a target. Would it be beneficial to use grim focus simply for the 8% damage increase, or is is not worth the time and resources to cast? Anyone given this ability a shot without the intention of using the spectral bow?

You got it backwards lol, everyone that uses it does so for the damage buff, there is 0 people in cyrodiil using the spec bow thing it procs.

akray21

Nivzruo_ESO wrote: »

akray21 wrote: »

In an effort to make my magicka NB worth a hoot in PvP I am trying to find any and all ways to buff my damage output to help burst down a target. Would it be beneficial to use grim focus simply for the 8% damage increase, or is is not worth the time and resources to cast? Anyone given this ability a shot without the intention of using the spectral bow?

You got it backwards lol, everyone that uses it does so for the damage buff, there is 0 people in cyrodiil using the spec bow thing it procs.

That is exactly what I was saying. The spec bow is not worth using, I was asking if the damage buff was worth the slot. I almost feel like it should be a 45 second buff, not 20.

TheBucket

Xeniph wrote: »

I use it simply for the damage buff and the stam regen.

It's 8% damage and 10% stam regen for a realatively low cost, yes please.

You also get the crit bonus for the assasination passive

Draxys

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO wrote: »

You sure about that damage buff (yes it's in the tooltip), but is it really there?!

Trying it out with no other skill in the bar and no equipment whatsoever, except a single dagger, this one does only see a buff to the stamina regeneration with the skill active, but no buff to the damage (weapon or spell)
This is also true after 7 light/heavy attacks, that is when the skill icon changes.

Looks like it is broken and even if it were not - as it is a magicka based skill - the damage for a stamina build is underwhelming to say the least.

In it's current state its not only not worth it to be on the bar (any bar); it's not worth putting skill points in it, at all!

To make it worthwhile, it should not have an expiration time (that is mostly acts as a passive, see magelight, dawn breaker etc.). Any time 7 normal (light/heavy) attacks have been made, that is the active part has been "charged up", you can fire the spectral bow or get a spell/weapon damage buff until you do for the morphs.

In short:
The skill should still give 8% stamina regeneration, but as a passive, i.e. without any need of activation. It just has to be on the currently active bar.

One morph should then provide then 10% weapon damage increase as a passive, but if and only if the skill has been charged up, while the other morph should provide 10% extra spell damage under the same conditions.

Last but not least, if you instead choose to fire the spectral bow, damage should be based on stamina (weapon damage morph) or magicka (spell damage morph) and both (added) for the base skill (but then without either damage buff!), so that there is even some love to the few struggling hybrid builds still out there.

One final note, as even the calculation for the stamina regeneration seems to be slightly off: 8% on 689 is not only just 742, but 745. Even when accounting for rounding errors, i.e. assuming a value of 688, you still would get 743, unless those 8% aren't eight percent, but more closer to 7.5% or something.

Seriously people, haven't you learned by now? Never base things off the character sheet. First of all, some things aren't actually reflected there (whether intended or not), and second, you should always test with actual numbers from combat anyway.

*had a theory here but not even going to bother*

Xeniph

The damage buff doesn't add to weapon or spell power. It adds 8% to base damage on the skill bar.

Example:

Surprise Attack- 5400 (Base) + 8%

It shows in the tooltip of abilities.

TheBucket

Xeniph wrote: »

The damage buff doesn't add to weapon or spell power. It adds 8% to base damage on the skill bar.

Example:

Surprise Attack- 5400 (Base) + 8%

It shows in the tooltip of abilities.

This

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO

Draxys wrote: »

...
Seriously people, haven't you learned by now? Never base things off the character sheet. First of all, some things aren't actually reflected there (whether intended or not), and second, you should always test with actual numbers from combat anyway.

*had a theory here but not even going to bother*

It were exactly the results from testing (in PvE) in the first place that had this one have a closer look at the sheet.
Unfortunately, both tell a similar story. From testing, a damage buff is there, sort of, but not by the full amount...
Furthermore, the two minor buffs should show, but neither is there...

Helluin

I rarely use this skill and only for the minor buffs.
Unfortunately the Spectral Bow is quite useless and hard to proc.
The idea of the skill is nice but it can be reworked/tweaked to make it more interesting.

ToRelax

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO wrote: »

Draxys wrote: »

...
Seriously people, haven't you learned by now? Never base things off the character sheet. First of all, some things aren't actually reflected there (whether intended or not), and second, you should always test with actual numbers from combat anyway.

*had a theory here but not even going to bother*

It were exactly the results from testing (in PvE) in the first place that had this one have a closer look at the sheet.
Unfortunately, both tell a similar story. From testing, a damage buff is there, sort of, but not by the full amount...
Furthermore, the two minor buffs should show, but neither is there...

Major/Minor buffs aren't shown in the list of active buffs and the damage buff directly, not to weapon or spell damage.
I didn't test wether it does increase the damage as much as it says but a weapon/spell damage buff would be rather underwhelming.

coolermh

Seems like it is a bug that it doesnt show stamina regen

deepseamk20b14_ESO

It needs some fixing and some changes but I use it in PvP and I like it a lot.