Necrotech_Master wrote: »as others noted, you basically can use the same gear as you would with oaken, except you could use a full monster set
or if you wanted to change it up a little you could drop the monster set entirely and go with an arena weapon
the easiest way i could think of to use a HA build without oaken
sergeant + (i think) undaunted infiltrator (the one that uses a magicka skill to grant the HA bonus)
then you could use a mages guild skill for empower and the HA bonus, you would have to cast the mages guild skill every 10 seconds anyway for empower, and the duration on the undaunted set is also 10 seconds, so 2 birds 1 stone
then you could use almost any monster set or arena weapon you want to fill in the slots
the maelstrom destro could give you decent dmg, and a visual indicator of your buffs, if you use unstable wall of elements that lasts for 10 sec so after that explodes you know its time to refresh your other empower buff with mages guild
markulrich1966 wrote: »Necrotech_Master wrote: »as others noted, you basically can use the same gear as you would with oaken, except you could use a full monster set
or if you wanted to change it up a little you could drop the monster set entirely and go with an arena weapon
the easiest way i could think of to use a HA build without oaken
sergeant + (i think) undaunted infiltrator (the one that uses a magicka skill to grant the HA bonus)
then you could use a mages guild skill for empower and the HA bonus, you would have to cast the mages guild skill every 10 seconds anyway for empower, and the duration on the undaunted set is also 10 seconds, so 2 birds 1 stone
then you could use almost any monster set or arena weapon you want to fill in the slots
the maelstrom destro could give you decent dmg, and a visual indicator of your buffs, if you use unstable wall of elements that lasts for 10 sec so after that explodes you know its time to refresh your other empower buff with mages guild
Good suggestion, as it goes in detail and is not simply a "Before listening to anyone not even playing endgame stuff", that ignores that without Oakensoul you have no empower.
I had the same thought as you, and indeed tried it a while ago. I was not satisfied enough though with undaunted inflitrator, so tried the other sets mentioned in my first reply. I guess the reason is the missing penetration, as it is medium armor. NMA and Torugs Pact are craftable, so you can equip 7 light armor pieces in total, though for harder fights I prefer 2 heavy + 5 light. This way I reach 7k pen, which seems to make the difference.
Another issue is, that it depends on the content. In a well setup group with a good tank, a DD can focus on keeping up the rotation, so he will be able to keep empower up. In solo worldboss fights, this can be far more difficult, as you often need to run or dodge. For this reason I prefer to get Empower from a set, or from a skill that lasts 20 seconds. My favourite setup currently is a dragonknight, who has molten armaments for this buff, and that adds major sorcery/brutality in addition.
Nevertheless I would recommend to try the setup you suggested, too, as in the end personal playstyle and content might be the deciding factor for the one or other choice.
@Auldwulfe had some posted here or there. I remember seeing an interesting one with queens elegance on one of the THOUSAND HA threads. Good luck on narrowing THAT down and finding it though. But perhaps they'll be kind enough to re-state it here.
Zodiarkslayer wrote: »Bah. Why the Oakenhate? It is totally unwarrented.
The advantage of the Oakensoul Ring is in that it allows you to reduce your rotation to a point where you can heavy attack weave. And compensates you with a plethora of buffs at the same time.
That's all because of the timers of your abilities! With a heavy attacking build, your one GC with Light attacks becomes a 3GC. That means, if you intend to use six abilities, all of your abilities need to have l 18s timers on average. So with some abilities/buffs having ten second timers and one a six second timer, you are going to have to light attack in between.
Or you accept incredibly high downtimes of your abilities and buffs.
You will reach a point where you will ask yourself why you only make three heavy attacks per 30s rotation.
I dont get it...
Zodiarkslayer wrote: »The advantage of the Oakensoul Ring is in that it allows you to reduce your rotation to a point where you can heavy attack weave...
YetAnotherLinuxUser wrote: »... This thread is not for that...
Zodiarkslayer wrote: »Zodiarkslayer wrote: »The advantage of the Oakensoul Ring is in that it allows you to reduce your rotation to a point where you can heavy attack weave...And I'd say not being able to heavy attack weave and being forced to juggle so many abilities, with light attacks in between, for no apparent advantage, is the equivalent of cutting into one's own flesh.YetAnotherLinuxUser wrote: »... This thread is not for that...
Maybe someone gets an idea on how to circumvent that?
This is what critical feedback is for, in my opinion. Inspiration for improvement.
With something like this (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=537062) you wouldn't have to spent a lot of time on the back bar light attack weaving to keep buffs up, and could instead spent most of your time heavy attacking on the front bar while keeping up the Empower buff (by casting Inner Light after switching to the front bar), Deadric Curse and Barbed Trap once every 20 seconds. Of course it's less optimal than just using Oakensoul, but it's not unworkable.
Zodiarkslayer wrote: »With something like this (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=537062) you wouldn't have to spent a lot of time on the back bar light attack weaving to keep buffs up, and could instead spent most of your time heavy attacking on the front bar while keeping up the Empower buff (by casting Inner Light after switching to the front bar), Deadric Curse and Barbed Trap once every 20 seconds. Of course it's less optimal than just using Oakensoul, but it's not unworkable.
Its not a bad idea. I have a couple ideas.
Using Elemental Blockade instead of Unstable Wall will improve frontbar uptime. And isnt too much of a dps letdown.
You probably have to use two pieces of Sergeant's Mail on the body, so that its five piece bonus is active all the time. If not, it will fall off on the backbar. Even just barswap, light attack plus one ability and then barswap back to frontbar will cost you two stacks of Sergeant's Focus, at least.
Two heavy armor pieces would coincidently be raising the armor value and serve as a boost to survivability. Also the Noble Duelist's buff has a long duration and will be up on the backbar, even if the 5piece bonus is not active on the backbar.
I would probably use Scalding Rune or Structured Entropy to proc Empower. They are cheaper and have more beneficial effects. Or not?
Zodiarkslayer wrote: »Zodiarkslayer wrote: »The advantage of the Oakensoul Ring is in that it allows you to reduce your rotation to a point where you can heavy attack weave...YetAnotherLinuxUser wrote: »... This thread is not for that...
Why not? An open discussion should always include both sides. Ideally all sides.
The Yea and the Nay.
The pro and the contra.
The for and the against.
And the middle ground.
If anything, one should know what one is giving up instead. And knowing the downsides of a build always helps improving one's gameplay with that build. The success and the fun, too.
And I'd say not being able to heavy attack weave and being forced to juggle so many abilities, with light attacks in between, for no apparent advantage, is the equivalent of cutting into one's own flesh.
Maybe someone gets an idea on how to circumvent that?
This is what critical feedback is for, in my opinion. Inspiration for improvement.
Zodiarkslayer wrote: »Zodiarkslayer wrote: »The advantage of the Oakensoul Ring is in that it allows you to reduce your rotation to a point where you can heavy attack weave...YetAnotherLinuxUser wrote: »... This thread is not for that...
Why not? An open discussion should always include both sides. Ideally all sides.
markulrich1966 wrote: »... because what you do is hijacking the thread for a completely different topic....
I thought about that too. My reasoning for suggesting Unstable Wall instead was that it's duration lined up better with the other back bar skills (10 seconds for Unstable, 20 for Hurricane and 33 for Crit Surge) so that it'd be a bit easier to keep them up all the time without needing to switch from the front bar to the back bar during the heavy attack phase of the rotation.Zodiarkslayer wrote: »Its not a bad idea. I have a couple ideas.
Using Elemental Blockade instead of Unstable Wall will improve frontbar uptime. And isnt too much of a dps letdown.
Zodiarkslayer wrote: »You probably have to use two pieces of Sergeant's Mail on the body, so that its five piece bonus is active all the time. If not, it will fall off on the backbar. Even just barswap, light attack plus one ability and then barswap back to frontbar will cost you two stacks of Sergeant's Focus, at least.
Zodiarkslayer wrote: »I would probably use Scalding Rune or Structured Entropy to proc Empower. They are cheaper and have more beneficial effects. Or not?
I thought about that too. My reasoning for suggesting Unstable Wall instead was that it's duration lined up better with the other back bar skills (10 seconds for Unstable, 20 for Hurricane and 33 for Crit Surge) so that it'd be a bit easier to keep them up all the time without needing to switch from the front bar to the back bar during the heavy attack phase of the rotation.Zodiarkslayer wrote: »Its not a bad idea. I have a couple ideas.
Using Elemental Blockade instead of Unstable Wall will improve frontbar uptime. And isnt too much of a dps letdown.
But I tested Elemental Blockade a couple of minutes ago and I did like it better (though I ended up overcasting Hurricane a couple of times).Zodiarkslayer wrote: »You probably have to use two pieces of Sergeant's Mail on the body, so that its five piece bonus is active all the time. If not, it will fall off on the backbar. Even just barswap, light attack plus one ability and then barswap back to frontbar will cost you two stacks of Sergeant's Focus, at least.
That's possible too, yeah. I did a quick test with that setup yesterday after reading your post and I ended up with a DPS loss when using heavy attacks on the back bar (though the uptime of Sergeant's Mail was better), mostly due to casting Daedric Prey less and having a worse uptime on Empower due to needing to activate that on the front bar. But there's of course a good chance it might've worked better if I had simply done more than one parse and worked on the rotation.Zodiarkslayer wrote: »I would probably use Scalding Rune or Structured Entropy to proc Empower. They are cheaper and have more beneficial effects. Or not?
Those would probably both be better. I only went with Inner Light because I already slotted it for the Major Prophecy buff so that the OP could potentially use Heroism pots, Armor pots, Tripots or no potions at all. But if the OP would use Essence of Spell Power pots, replacing Inner Light with either Scalding Rune or Structured Entropy would most likely be a DPS gain.
Anyways, I'm not much of a Sorc player (nor good at parses) and I just did another test on the PTS with a setup pretty similar to the one I linked to. I did use Elemental Blockade, as you suggested, and went with Pillar of Nirn instead of Noble Duelist. It did 84248 DPS, with a relatively decent uptime on both Empower and the Sergeant's Focus buff.
It's not great by any means and can definitely be improved (maybe just by using Harpooner's Wading Kilt and 1pc Slimecraw?), but it can perhaps serve as a starting point for the OP.
Edit: And 87693 DPS with Maw of the Infernal instead of Stormfist, and using Spell Power pots.
Edit 2: And, just because I was curious what the difference in DPS would be, I also did parse with Oakensoul (which does make things easier).
Zodiarkslayer wrote: »Thank you. Much appreciated.
I ddint think that One bar and Two bar are so close.
Guess I'll have to revise some of my assessments... 😎
Zodiarkslayer wrote: »Thank you. Much appreciated.
I ddint think that One bar and Two bar are so close.
Guess I'll have to revise some of my assessments... 😎
You're welcome! It's a shame that a two bar setup doesn't outparse a one bar setup considering it takes a bit more effort and you sacrifice quite a bit of tankiness, but oh well.
I thought it'd at least be nice to hit 90K so I swapped Inner Light for Structured Entropy and did a parse with Perfected Ansuul's Torment (for the Minor Slayer buff) instead of PoN and it did 90,806 DPS, so that goal was easily reached.
Anyways, I think OP could consider something like this a viable two bar build considering the difference with a one bar build (after the Storm Master nerf) doesn't seem to be that big.