Why don't I see Engulfing Flames (Fiery Breath) in more DK builds?

Dao_Jones

I run a DK, and I've been running with Engulfing Flames in my build for as long as I've had it. It does great damage for its cost, has a wide area of effect, and buffs my other fire damage by ~10%.

But when I look at most every DK build online, it's strangely absent. Let's put aside the whole "DKs are teh overpowerdz, dood" line of crap for a moment, because I'm really just curious about how other DKs build for AoE without it.

I know Impulse spam is/was the hotness, but I even see stuff like Flames of Oblivion sitting in a lot of builds, and I feel like I'm missing something.

- My FoB ticks for 28 damage for 47 magicka/sec. In six seconds, it will cost me 282 magicka for 168 damage.
- In that same time, EF will cost me 264, and inflict 292 damage (out of an eventual 482). I get a 10% crit chance from FoB, and 10% guaranteed more damage from EF (which will actually buff the EF damage up to ~310 damage in that time).

Engulfing Flames, along with Unstable Flame and Molten Whip/Flame Lash are among the best attack skills DKs get. But while I see UF and MW/FL in many ST builds, I almost never see anyone use EF.

So... what am I missing?

Talmet

idk...because they are dumb?

I see many DKs use EF...

combined with molten whip, world in flame, kindling, and some racial abilities, all fire damage is increased by quite a bit.

ArRashid

That's because it scales with Spell Damage (which is absurdly hard to find) instead of Weapon Damage (like Blockade), which scales better with high-end gear and lots of buffs.

EDIT:
I don't have fully exped EF because I always found it extremely weak:

tested it at lvl 42, 39% crit, with +66% flame DoT damage passive

Blockade of Fire (IV) ticks for 79 (118 crit) every second, 4 times.
average 377 damage over 4 seconds

Engulfing Flames (II) 72 instant, then 57 (86 crit) every 2 seconds, 5 times.
average 414 damage over 12 seconds
over Blockade's 4 seconds it would deal instant damage + 2 ticks (average 208 dmg)

So, on my level and stats:
Blockade has 94.25 dps
EF has 34.5 dps

Conclusion: EF is not even worth considering into your build... unless you REALLY REALLY want that +10% fire dmg taken.

Talmet

ArRashid wrote: »

That's because it scales with Spell Damage (which is absurdly hard to find) instead of Weapon Damage (like Blockade), which scales better with high-end gear and lots of buffs.

EDIT:
I don't have fully exped EF because I always found it extremely weak:

tested it at lvl 42, 39% crit, with +66% flame DoT damage passive

Blockade of Fire (IV) ticks for 79 (118 crit) every second, 4 times.
average 377 damage over 4 seconds

Engulfing Flames (II) 72 instant, then 57 (86 crit) every 2 seconds, 5 times.
average 414 damage over 12 seconds
over Blockade's 4 seconds it would deal instant damage + 2 ticks (average 208 dmg)

So, on my level and stats:
Blockade has 94.25 dps
EF has 34.5 dps

Conclusion: EF is not even worth considering into your build... unless you REALLY REALLY want that +10% fire dmg taken.

....you should find out how the game works before posting things btw....

Yes, spell power is harder to find than weapon power.

BUT:
weapon power is divided by 1.9, while spellpower isn't divided at all, so the difference between those two is not as large as it appears.

At max lvl with decent gear, EF deals 92 damage with 414 over the next 8 seconds. The DoT is affected by the +10% fire damage making it 455.4, add in searing heat (passive), and the skill deals 681.1 over 10 seconds, which is 68.11 DPS. The skill has a base cost of 280, so it has an efficiency of 2.42

Elemental blockade deals damage every .95 seconds over 3.5 seconds. Which means it deals at most 3 ticks of damage, at max lvl with decent gear each tick deals 85 damage. That means it deals 89.4 DPS, but it costs 364 so it's efficiency is only 0.70.

Which skill is better depends on what you are trying to do with it. EF is a good skill to start a fight with, as the debuff will help your other fire skills & it has a long duration. Elemental blockade is a good AoE skill, but if you tried to keep it going on a boss or something, you'd run out of magicka pretty fast.

The best guess at the formulas (they give the correct results for skills).
wpn_skill = (max_stamina or max_magicka/ 20 + wpn_dmg / 1.9) * skill_coef * rank_coef
spell_skill= (max_magicka / 20 + spell_dmg) * skill_coef * rank_coef

ArRashid

Talmet wrote: »

ArRashid wrote: »

That's because it scales with Spell Damage (which is absurdly hard to find) instead of Weapon Damage (like Blockade), which scales better with high-end gear and lots of buffs.

EDIT:
I don't have fully exped EF because I always found it extremely weak:

tested it at lvl 42, 39% crit, with +66% flame DoT damage passive

Blockade of Fire (IV) ticks for 79 (118 crit) every second, 4 times.
average 377 damage over 4 seconds

Engulfing Flames (II) 72 instant, then 57 (86 crit) every 2 seconds, 5 times.
average 414 damage over 12 seconds
over Blockade's 4 seconds it would deal instant damage + 2 ticks (average 208 dmg)

So, on my level and stats:
Blockade has 94.25 dps
EF has 34.5 dps

Conclusion: EF is not even worth considering into your build... unless you REALLY REALLY want that +10% fire dmg taken.

....you should find out how the game works before posting things btw....

Yes, spell power is harder to find than weapon power.

BUT:
weapon power is divided by 1.9, while spellpower isn't divided at all, so the difference between those two is not as large as it appears.

At max lvl with decent gear, EF deals 92 damage with 414 over the next 8 seconds. The DoT is affected by the +10% fire damage making it 455.4, add in searing heat (passive), and the skill deals 681.1 over 10 seconds, which is 68.11 DPS. The skill has a base cost of 280, so it has an efficiency of 2.42

Elemental blockade deals damage every .95 seconds over 3.5 seconds. Which means it deals at most 3 ticks of damage, at max lvl with decent gear each tick deals 85 damage. That means it deals 89.4 DPS, but it costs 364 so it's efficiency is only 0.70.

Which skill is better depends on what you are trying to do with it. EF is a good skill to start a fight with, as the debuff will help your other fire skills & it has a long duration. Elemental blockade is a good AoE skill, but if you tried to keep it going on a boss or something, you'd run out of magicka pretty fast.

The best guess at the formulas (they give the correct results for skills).
wpn_skill = (max_stamina or max_magicka/ 20 + wpn_dmg / 1.9) * skill_coef * rank_coef
spell_skill= (max_magicka / 20 + spell_dmg) * skill_coef * rank_coef

You, sir, should play the game more and theoretize less.

If you can count up to 4, you'd see that despite tooltips, Blockade DOES hit 4 times.

From my tests you can clearly see all those bonuses (+10% dmg, +66% damage) go to waste on REALLY weak DoT. So either that +66% passive doesn't work at all, or the base damage of EF is THAT *** WEAK.

Magicka efficiency is great and all, but it doesn't help much if you're dead - in VR you need DAMAGE and you need it FAST. Especially after nerfs to talons which makes us pyjama guys absurdly vulnerable (forcing us to use Coagulating Blood or Razor Armor.. or at least Ash Cloud to dodge some)

It still MIGHT be worth it (purely for that 10% fire dmg taken) if you ONLY use fire skills and have a free place on bars for it. But the damage of the skill is really, really bad.

Monkeyshoeslive

Maybe the EF you were using was broken. Mine melts faces quite convincingly

thorspark

Here's the reason why I don't use EF anymore (used to though)

First of all, we got only five active spells per skill bar so you have to choose wisely.

EF has a poor starting dps and a rather good dot dps BUT it's a dot. So, if mixed with Elemental Drain (destro staff) and Siphon Spirit, you get the refund of health/magicka only once.
(I also don't use Elemental Drain anymore as the magick return is now inexistant.)

In opposition, Flames of Oblivion will get you the refund every second since it's not a dot but a continuous effect and will also give you the crit boost.

Let's say we go for an aoe pve build, some spells are just mandatory :

1st bar with destro staff
Draw Essence - For the dps, life steal and magicka refund
Talons or Cinder burst - For the snare/immobilize and the extra dps ( I prefer Cinder Burst as it lasts longer and adds 30% miss chance)
Impulse - Main dps (and life/mana regen from resto)
Flames of oblivion - dps, crit up and constant life/mana from resto)
Inner Light : 20% crit up, making it 33% with flames of oblivion

2nd bar with resto staff
Siphon spirit - Keep up on one or 2 mobs
Flames of oblivion - So you don't have to activate it each time you switch
Inner light - Same as above
Volatile armor - Good to get extra armor for physical attacks
Dragon blood - If things go bad.

Oh, and I forgot, with all the spells above, you just run in between mobs and they get damaged, don't have to make sure they're all in your EF area.

In this configuration, you get at least 12% life refund every second if you keep Siphon spirit up on one mob (6% from FOO, 6% from Impulse).

You could change Inner light for EF of course BUT, 20% crit chance making a 50% more dmg is equivalent to 10% up on all spell damage without having to cast it in combat so it works fine with your Draw Essence, which won't be affected by EF.

At this point, there is just no point in using EF instead of the others

Obscure

thorspark wrote: »

First of all, we got only five active spells per skill bar so you have to choose wisely.

-snip-

At this point, there is just no point in using EF instead of the others

That's all that needs to be said on the subject. Engulfing Flames isn't bad, there's just better things to use.

Talmet

ArRashid wrote: »

Talmet wrote: »

ArRashid wrote: »

That's because it scales with Spell Damage (which is absurdly hard to find) instead of Weapon Damage (like Blockade), which scales better with high-end gear and lots of buffs.

EDIT:
I don't have fully exped EF because I always found it extremely weak:

tested it at lvl 42, 39% crit, with +66% flame DoT damage passive

Blockade of Fire (IV) ticks for 79 (118 crit) every second, 4 times.
average 377 damage over 4 seconds

Engulfing Flames (II) 72 instant, then 57 (86 crit) every 2 seconds, 5 times.
average 414 damage over 12 seconds
over Blockade's 4 seconds it would deal instant damage + 2 ticks (average 208 dmg)

So, on my level and stats:
Blockade has 94.25 dps
EF has 34.5 dps

Conclusion: EF is not even worth considering into your build... unless you REALLY REALLY want that +10% fire dmg taken.

....you should find out how the game works before posting things btw....

Yes, spell power is harder to find than weapon power.

BUT:
weapon power is divided by 1.9, while spellpower isn't divided at all, so the difference between those two is not as large as it appears.

At max lvl with decent gear, EF deals 92 damage with 414 over the next 8 seconds. The DoT is affected by the +10% fire damage making it 455.4, add in searing heat (passive), and the skill deals 681.1 over 10 seconds, which is 68.11 DPS. The skill has a base cost of 280, so it has an efficiency of 2.42

Elemental blockade deals damage every .95 seconds over 3.5 seconds. Which means it deals at most 3 ticks of damage, at max lvl with decent gear each tick deals 85 damage. That means it deals 89.4 DPS, but it costs 364 so it's efficiency is only 0.70.

Which skill is better depends on what you are trying to do with it. EF is a good skill to start a fight with, as the debuff will help your other fire skills & it has a long duration. Elemental blockade is a good AoE skill, but if you tried to keep it going on a boss or something, you'd run out of magicka pretty fast.

The best guess at the formulas (they give the correct results for skills).
wpn_skill = (max_stamina or max_magicka/ 20 + wpn_dmg / 1.9) * skill_coef * rank_coef
spell_skill= (max_magicka / 20 + spell_dmg) * skill_coef * rank_coef

You, sir, should play the game more and theoretize less.

If you can count up to 4, you'd see that despite tooltips, Blockade DOES hit 4 times.

From my tests you can clearly see all those bonuses (+10% dmg, +66% damage) go to waste on REALLY weak DoT. So either that +66% passive doesn't work at all, or the base damage of EF is THAT *** WEAK.

Magicka efficiency is great and all, but it doesn't help much if you're dead - in VR you need DAMAGE and you need it FAST. Especially after nerfs to talons which makes us pyjama guys absurdly vulnerable (forcing us to use Coagulating Blood or Razor Armor.. or at least Ash Cloud to dodge some)

It still MIGHT be worth it (purely for that 10% fire dmg taken) if you ONLY use fire skills and have a free place on bars for it. But the damage of the skill is really, really bad.

the +66% burning passive is for BURNING affects, not for the EF dot. Burning effects are what fire damage applies sometimes...like if you attack with your fire staff and sometimes the mob goes on fire. Fire does burning, lightning does concussed, and frost does chilled. So yes, kindling (the name of that passive) does nothing for EF....so, way to show you know your stuff.

EB ticks 4 times? hmm...I respec'd after the patch, and didn't put points into it (elemental ring spam does way better AoE DPS & 40% chance for burning) So I can't test that atm, but even if true it's DPS wouldn't change (as each tick is the same amount, and once per second), it's efficiency would increase to 0.93

As for the importance of magicka efficiency...come back to me when you are doing VR dungeons & craglorn...magicka efficiency is not a big thing when you are soloing and can just blow up a group of mobs and then sit around waiting for regen for 10 seconds....but it turns out that bosses have a lot of HP & running out of magicka after the 15-20 seconds you'd have if you maintained EB on them for the entire fight is a bad thing (16 seconds of EB straight would cost about 1500 magicka + other skills you are using). Or you can just look at the forum posts for sorcs who are complaining that sorcs suck because their highest burst DPS rotation (shards, spell symmetry, light attack spam) is extremely magicka inefficient & leads them to go oom very quickly.

IceDread

Yeah the aoe area is small and damage not enough compared to destro staff...