Spell Crit, Weapon Crit & Class Skills

Maulkin · June 2014

So all class skills are spells, consuming magicka. However some of them crit with weapon crit, others with spell crit, others crit with a mixture of both.

DK Example
- Flame Whip, despite being a spell, crits with weapon crit I found.
- Searing Strike, is the most absurd because the initial strike crits with weapon crit while the DoT crits with spell crit. So to maximise the damage of one ability, I have to have to max two different types of crit.

Templar Example
- Puncturing Strikes crits with weapon crit
- Piercing Javelin crits with spell crit

The Sorc seems lucky in that respect because all the skills I tested crit with spell crit, meaning a Sorc can focus on maximising his/her spell crit. Spell crit also drives all staff skills so it's even easier for a pure Mage build that uses only staffs.

This is not a moan about the Sorcs, what I want is something as simple for the other classes. If a skill uses magicka, it should be driven by spell crit, if a skill uses stamina it should be driven by weapon crit. That leads me to make another suggestion.

Ideally some skills in the class lines should be driven by stamina instead of magicka. That would be killing two birds with one stone. What's the other bird? Well, the current dependence on magicka for class skills, coupled with the huge advantage of light armour over medium and heavy, has led people to roll builds with robes and staffs to be effective. Even if that wasn't their initial intention. Some skills being driven by stamina would help with this.

anakaki · June 2014

Agreed.

Malmai · June 2014

If it is melee than its weapon if it is ranged its spell. Did you see Sorcs have any melee skill ? you can do both in your build if you start thinking in the right way.

ForTheRealm · June 2014

Malmai wrote: »

If it is melee than its weapon if it is ranged its spell. Did you see Sorcs have any melee skill ? you can do both in your build if you start thinking in the right way.

So, according to you Bow is a Spell... cause it is ranged the last time I checked? LOL

Mephos · June 2014

deleted

Maulkin · June 2014

Malmai wrote: »

If it is melee than its weapon if it is ranged its spell. Did you see Sorcs have any melee skill ? you can do both in your build if you start thinking in the right way.

You can't really do both as you say, you have to sacrifice one for the other or you'll have both at small numbers. For example I can get my spell crit at 55% while leaving my weapon crit at 10%. If I want to push my weapon crit to ~30% I have to sacrifice about 25% in spell crit, leaving both at about 30%. I can't get both to 55% for example.

You do have a point that sorcs don't have melee skills. So it seems that all ranged magicka skills use spell crit. The problem lies with melee spells and DoTs. If melee spells are supposed to be driven by weapon crit then why do the DoTs they proc crit with spell crit? It surely has to be the same type of crit the skill uses or I have no hope of maximising my damage output.

Also from what range onwards are spells considered ranged? Fiery breath is 10 meters and it crits with spell crit.

The problem with heaving melee spells crit with weapon crit, is that light armour decreases their cost while medium armour (weapon crit) increases their dmg. So you have to make a choice between doing more damage at higher magicka cost, or the other way round.

That's a horrible decision to have to make and it's a problem Sorcs don't have. Because light armour both increases their damage and decreases the cost of their attacks.

It's an advantage Sorcs have due to stupid game mechanics. Again, I believe the Sorc class is fine. They just need to fix it for the other classes

SilverWF · June 2014

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

This is not a moan about the Sorcs,

So do not use our name then! Use "another class" or something.

Maulkin · June 2014

SilverWF wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

This is not a moan about the Sorcs,

So do not use our name then! Use "another class" or something.

It's amazing that from a wall of a post with many points about game mechanics, the only thing you cared about was the mention of your class.

My advice: Start to see past your own nose. There is no other class that has that benefit, it's only you, that's the only reason I'm bringing you up.

I want the other classes to enjoy the same benefit of clarity about crits too.

zgrssd · June 2014

piotreb17_ESO4 wrote: »

Malmai wrote: »

If it is melee than its weapon if it is ranged its spell. Did you see Sorcs have any melee skill ? you can do both in your build if you start thinking in the right way.

So, according to you Bow is a Spell... cause it is ranged the last time I checked? LOL

You propably needed less time to figure out this is not what he meant, then you needed to write this post where you faked not understanding what he meant.

I know with some certainty that NB Hidden Strike counts as melee skill. One reason it can use the "stealth attack" bonus (most spells cannot).

Also apparently healing spells use weapon damage, but spell crit (those that can crit at least).
Not sure how up to date my data is. Was 2-6 patches since I verfied that.

Malmai · June 2014

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Malmai wrote: »

If it is melee than its weapon if it is ranged its spell. Did you see Sorcs have any melee skill ? you can do both in your build if you start thinking in the right way.

You can't really do both as you say, you have to sacrifice one for the other or you'll have both at small numbers. For example I can get my spell crit at 55% while leaving my weapon crit at 10%. If I want to push my weapon crit to ~30% I have to sacrifice about 25% in spell crit, leaving both at about 30%. I can't get both to 55% for example.

You do have a point that sorcs don't have melee skills. So it seems that all ranged magicka skills use spell crit. The problem lies with melee spells and DoTs. If melee spells are supposed to be driven by weapon crit then why do the DoTs they proc crit with spell crit? It surely has to be the same type of crit the skill uses or I have no hope of maximising my damage output.

Also from what range onwards are spells considered ranged? Fiery breath is 10 meters and it crits with spell crit.

The problem with heaving melee spells crit with weapon crit, is that light armour decreases their cost while medium armour (weapon crit) increases their dmg. So you have to make a choice between doing more damage at higher magicka cost, or the other way round.

That's a horrible decision to have to make and it's a problem Sorcs don't have. Because light armour both increases their damage and decreases the cost of their attacks.

It's an advantage Sorcs have due to stupid game mechanics. Again, I believe the Sorc class is fine. They just need to fix it for the other classes

I was looking for somebody with this kinda post. Somebody started to think, now you can see the benefits of Light vs Medium vs Heavy Armor each type of Armor has its own benefits. Now its your choice how will you build your char.

Selstad · June 2014

Strange, because for restoration and destruction staff, your spells scales based on weapon power and not spell power. So if you're healing, Critical Surge is a very good self buff as the 56 weapon damage increases your restoration healing spells by around 15%. I then thought that the spells' crit would be based on weapon crit and not spell crit.

To be honest, I don't understand Zenimax' system and how they calculate things. I normally manage to theorycraft myself to what functions and what doesn't for my class and setup, but with ESO I'm floundering in the dark half the time.

Maulkin · June 2014

Malmai wrote: »

I was looking for somebody with this kinda post. Somebody started to think, now you can see the benefits of Light vs Medium vs Heavy Armor each type of Armor has its own benefits. Now its your choice how will you build your char.

You do have choice, but your real choice is limited a bit by the inefficiency of medium and heavy armours.

If you build a melee char with medium armour you'll get better weapon crit with melee spells but sacrifice the sustainability you get with light. You also lose the spell res which is very important, not to mention the fact that your non-melee spells won't crit.

If melee spells are to use weapon crit, maybe they shouldn't be "spells" and they should use stamina instead of magicka. In that case you'll also benefit from the stamina passives of the medium armour.

At the moment, robes + staff is the best choice by a country mile. And you can see that in the player population.

Selstad wrote: »

Strange, because for restoration and destruction staff, your spells scales based on weapon power and not spell power. So if you're healing, Critical Surge is a very good self buff as the 56 weapon damage increases your restoration healing spells by around 15%. I then thought that the spells' crit would be based on weapon crit and not spell crit.

To be honest, I don't understand Zenimax' system and how they calculate things. I normally manage to theorycraft myself to what functions and what doesn't for my class and setup, but with ESO I'm floundering in the dark half the time.

Weapons have very clear rules, unlike class skills. The damage of all weapon skills is dictated by weapon damage (the reading on your weapon). If the skill you use, requires stamina then you crit by weapon crit (all 2h, dw, bow skills). If the skill requires magicka, you crit by spell crit (all destro / resto skills).

It all gets muddy with class skills, where suddenly magicka consuming spells, are critting off weapon crit. Or even worse like searing strike, where the strike crits by weapon crit and the DoT crits by spell crit. No sense whatsoever

Malmai · June 2014

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Malmai wrote: »

I was looking for somebody with this kinda post. Somebody started to think, now you can see the benefits of Light vs Medium vs Heavy Armor each type of Armor has its own benefits. Now its your choice how will you build your char.

You do have choice, but your real choice is limited a bit by the inefficiency of medium and heavy armours.

If you build a melee char with medium armour you'll get better weapon crit with melee spells but sacrifice the sustainability you get with light. You also lose the spell res which is very important, not to mention the fact that your non-melee spells won't crit.

If melee spells are to use weapon crit, maybe they shouldn't be "spells" and they should use stamina instead of magicka. In that case you'll also benefit from the stamina passives of the medium armour.

At the moment, robes + staff is the best choice by a country mile. And you can see that in the player population.

Selstad wrote: »

Strange, because for restoration and destruction staff, your spells scales based on weapon power and not spell power. So if you're healing, Critical Surge is a very good self buff as the 56 weapon damage increases your restoration healing spells by around 15%. I then thought that the spells' crit would be based on weapon crit and not spell crit.

To be honest, I don't understand Zenimax' system and how they calculate things. I normally manage to theorycraft myself to what functions and what doesn't for my class and setup, but with ESO I'm floundering in the dark half the time.

Weapons have very clear rules, unlike class skills. The damage of all weapon skills is dictated by weapon damage (the reading on your weapon). If the skill you use, requires stamina then you crit by weapon crit (all 2h, dw, bow skills). If the skill requires magicka, you crit by spell crit (all destro / resto skills).

It all gets muddy with class skills, where suddenly magicka consuming spells, are critting off weapon crit. Or even worse like searing strike, where the strike crits by weapon crit and the DoT crits by spell crit. No sense whatsoever

You have to compensate you cant have it all.

Cimos · June 2014

If I am a melee sorc, I also have to stack both types of crits to utilize class and weapon abilities.

So I would say it depends on build. Every class has access to spell crit and weapon crit abilities. Why do you think Presice trait and Thief Mundus (if working) adds to both types of crit? The game is not designed to be: "Choose your spec: you can only be spell crit OR weapon crit."

Sure you are going to probably stack one or the other, maybe you should match up abilities with that.

Maulkin · June 2014

Malmai wrote: »

You have to compensate you cant have it all.

And what exactly is a 7/7 Light Sorc with a staff compensating? My sorc wears
5 pieces worms rainment, 3-pieces warlock , 3 pieces wrath of Imperium. I have Shadow Mundus Stone and Inner Light on my bar. Pretty standard setup for a Vet Sorc.

I have:
a) 29% cost reduction on everything on my bar (all magicka skills)
b) 56-58% crit on all critable skills on my bar ( don't remember the exact number)
c) Spell Res capped

I have high damage and high sustain AND high damage mitigation for spells.

In comparison, with medium armour + melee you get high dmg but low sustain on skills, plus terrible protection from other melee fighters or spell casters.

They're not even comparable. Don't take my word for it, look around in PvP and PvE. People are voting with their clothes and most are wearing robes.

dragnier · June 2014

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

And what exactly is a 7/7 Light Sorc with a staff compensating? My sorc wears
5 pieces worms rainment, 3-pieces warlock , 3 pieces wrath of Imperium. I have Shadow Mundus Stone and Inner Light on my bar. Pretty standard setup for a Vet Sorc.

I have:
a) 29% cost reduction on everything on my bar (all magicka skills)
b) 56-58% crit on all critable skills on my bar ( don't remember the exact number)
c) Spell Res capped

I have high damage and high sustain AND high damage mitigation for spells.

In comparison, with medium armour + melee you get high dmg but low sustain on skills, plus terrible protection from other melee fighters or spell casters.

They're not even comparable. Don't take my word for it, look around in PvP and PvE. People are voting with their clothes and most are wearing robes.

Actually, spell cost reduction eventually has diminishing returns and you'd probably be better off switching the 5 piece Worm Cult to something else unless it is more for your party than you.

You should test it by taking off one piece of Worm Cult to remove the set bonus and see what your costs are with and without it. If the number is small, it may not be worth it compared to 5% more spell crit from Willow's set or something.

Maulkin · June 2014

dragnier wrote: »

Actually, spell cost reduction eventually has diminishing returns and you'd probably be better off switching the 5 piece Worm Cult to something else unless it is more for your party than you.

I use my sorc for dungeon DPSing and since the worm cult helps everyone, it's not going anyhere

Not calling BS, but I'm genuinely interested in your source of info for diminishing returns of spell cost reduction? I'll admit I haven't number crunched the cost of my spells to see if I get the full 29% so you could as well be right, but could you please provide a source?

demonlkojipub19_ESO · June 2014

I think they shouldn't have separate spell and weapon crit, and just have crit.

dragnier · June 2014

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Not calling BS, but I'm genuinely interested in your source of info for diminishing returns of spell cost reduction? I'll admit I haven't number crunched the cost of my spells to see if I get the full 29% so you could as well be right, but could you please provide a source?

It was a Sorc that I happened to be talking to at the time. He put on a ring that was supposed to reduce spell cost by 19 but it only did like 15 for him when he checked the numbers. I don't remember his name, we were just discussing things while waiting for group members.

Maulkin · June 2014

dragnier wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Not calling BS, but I'm genuinely interested in your source of info for diminishing returns of spell cost reduction? I'll admit I haven't number crunched the cost of my spells to see if I get the full 29% so you could as well be right, but could you please provide a source?

It was a Sorc that I happened to be talking to at the time. He put on a ring that was supposed to reduce spell cost by 19 but it only did like 15 for him when he checked the numbers. I don't remember his name, we were just discussing things while waiting for group members.

Cool, I'll check this tonight if I get a chance and revert. Cheers