NB Magicka ST DPS (PvE)

helediron

I was thinking of having Funnel Health morph to be the stronger and costlier one. The cost would be unsustainable for builds without Siphoning Attacks. Healers could use it at slower rate to keep healing DoT running. And maybe before anything else, i'd like to see FH healed ally count increased to three to match four-man groups. Having strong FH doing both damage and heal is an important role for us.

The other, Swallow Soul, could stay cheap but have caster-only healing. If the healing amount is changed from % of damage done to % of max health, it would be equally good for stamina and magicka users. Magicka DD builds without SA could use SS as spammable.

To summarize, my idea is that FH is more group-oriented endgame-viable skill, SA, top DPS and healers. Swallow Soul is solo skill and usable for cheaper DPS or reliable self heal for stamina builds and tanks.

DeLindsay

helediron wrote: »

I was thinking of having Funnel Health morph to be the stronger and costlier one. The cost would be unsustainable for builds without Siphoning Attacks. Healers could use it at slower rate to keep healing DoT running. And maybe before anything else, i'd like to see FH healed ally count increased to three to match four-man groups. Having strong FH doing both damage and heal is an important role for us.

The other, Swallow Soul, could stay cheap but have caster-only healing. If the healing amount is changed from % of damage done to % of max health, it would be equally good for stamina and magicka users. Magicka DD builds without SA could use SS as spammable.

To summarize, my idea is that FH is more group-oriented endgame-viable skill, SA, top DPS and healers. Swallow Soul is solo skill and usable for cheaper DPS or reliable self heal for stamina builds and tanks.

You already can't run a FunnelBlade build without SA on for any sustained fight, even with Pot chugging and Healers already only use it every 8-10 seconds for the HoT. Swallow soul already is a self only Heal. There's no reason to boost the cost of Funnel Health, unless, they do as you suggested and increase it to self + 3 instead of self + 2 like it is now. And I can tell you right now SS is NOT a good alternative to SA for DPS, SA quite simply is stronger and makes for a higher sustained DPS than running with SS, even with the debuff.

Your idea of how Funnel Health and Swallow Soul should be is exactly what they are right now, although for a Stamina build Swallow Soul isn't as nice as it is for a Magicka Build.

Ysne58

I can't remember what CS stands for.

DeLindsay

Crushing Shock in the Destro tree.

Nihil

helediron wrote: »

Nihil wrote: »

helediron wrote: »

Funnel Health is the spam spell for siphoning and healer NBs and it *should* make big damage. I think it's cost and damage should be increased 50%. I would also like to see the ally cont increased to three to match four person groups.

50 % is extreme no matter how you cut it, the skills base damage is already above CS, and has a lower cost... spammable skills shouldn't even compete for raw damage in comparison to DoT's or cast time skills. Otherwise those skills would become useless (unless they have other uses : entropy). 50% would most likely push it above Destructive touch and into CF non proc damage category.

There was the cost increase for a reason: it makes it unsustainable unless used with Siphoning Attacks, which cuts the damage. With pure magicka build i can swap to 2H sword, open Wrecking Blow and it hits harder. Tested on PTS and verified by others. I compare DPS to top alternatives, not to second class ones.

If the spammable skill competes with DoTs, it's the problem of the DoT. E.g. Merciless Resolve needs two casts and does about 10K damage. That is 5K damage per cast, so it does not increase DPS at all. Because it's complex to use it is actually DPS loss. Cripple is a good DoT because it makes the 10K damage in one cast.

I understood why you wanted to put the cost increase in there, I still think it would be to much. Right now the base magicka for FH is just a little over half the cost of CS. increasing the cost by 50 % then give you a skill that hits 50 % harder, and cost 25 % less then CS. By also changing it they will have to look at the other skills to make sure they are balance. They have shown that they want melee range skills to be stronger, so then we are looking at an increase in concealed weapons damage. It would also put it above destructive touch damage, with quite a bit lower cost.

My post right above yours also mention the short comings of grim focus and morphs, and I think if they work on these then we could get some where. Make the skill a little less clunky (couple quick ideas which I don't know if they are balanced or not is have the 8 light attacks be when slotted instead of activated so you don't need to activate it till it can do damage, and you still leave the buff for solo players, or have after the 8th attack it automatically increases the next attack by x damage and can happen more then once per cast). Other areas would be to modify the shades crit, right now I can easily get over 10k damage from dark shade per cast, but they tend to not crit until I crit. If they were changed to be based off of the players crit (highest crit rating maybe?) this would increase their damage while not affecting the usefullness of other skills. I am personally for diversify skills to create more skills needed to increase dps as this gets rid of the repetitiveness of spamming x skill over and over again. With my tests I am currently up to 8.1k without ultimates, and on a template character, 70 cp (as I am testing in 30 second fights and ultimates would skew the results).

(side note: Wrecking blow, imo, is performing to well. As you don't even seem to need to weave in dots to increase its damage performance (might actually lower it, except for DK's). I don't think spamming one skill should ever produce more damage then mixing in a variety of skills.)

Ysne58

DeLindsay wrote: »

Crushing Shock in the Destro tree.

Thanks.

Ysne58

Since they changed the fighters guild shield skill so that it no longer protects the caster, are there any other options for a hybrid tank -- assuming for the moment that I can actually get that working?

Has anyone found a good combat starter to replace Volcanic Rune now that they completely nerfed that?

DeLindsay

Ysne58 wrote: »

Since they changed the fighters guild shield skill so that it no longer protects the caster, are there any other options for a hybrid tank -- assuming for the moment that I can actually get that working?

Has anyone found a good combat starter to replace Volcanic Rune now that they completely nerfed that?

Ring of Preservation does in fact effect the Caster on PTS for both the damage reduction and the Health regen. I see no noticeable difference with Volcanic Rune on PTS. The only issue with Ring of Preservation is ZoS halved the duration and doubled the cost, making it all but unusable for Healers now which is an absolutely stupid change.

EDIT: If you meant the Undaunted shield skill (Bone Shield) that also still effects the caster and the change was to the Bone Surge morph, it now gives 8% increased Healing to allies. I'm uncertain if the Healing portion (new in 1.6) effects the caster.

helediron

@DeLindsay , i can run FH with DoTs on PTS sustainably, with 3*cost reduction glyphs, 120 CP in use, of which there were 10 in spell cost reduction and 10 in mana regen. My test build is otherwise very close to yours, except three Torug's. Sustainability meant several solo one minute fights and few solo two minute fights with healer support in upper Craglorn. If i had to self heal i occasionally needed pots.

I am not suggesting cost increase only but cost and damage increase and ally 2->3 together for FH morph to have more choices. Now FH and SS have equal cost and damage. If i use SA with current FH, i have too much magicka and too little DPS...

But if ZOS decides to keep cost/damage unchanged, then at least i'd like to see ally count increased to three please?

@Ysne58 , CS is Crushing Shock.

DeLindsay

helediron wrote: »

@DeLindsay , i can run FH with DoTs on PTS sustainably, with 3*cost reduction glyphs, 120 CP in use, of which there were 10 in spell cost reduction and 10 in mana regen. My test build is otherwise very close to yours, except three Torug's. Sustainability meant several solo one minute fights and few solo two minute fights with healer support in upper Craglorn. If i had to self heal i occasionally needed pots.

Then the only question is, does (3) cost reduction Glyphs without SA exceed the sustained DPS of (3) Spell Damage Glyphs using SA. As absurdly important as SD/WD is in 1.6 scaling I have a hard time believing that the loss of (3) SD Glyphs is worth it to not have to use SA, but as I didn't test both ways I personally cannot say. It's certainly something I'd be interested looking into as I hate having to lose 2 spots for SA on both bars, though I'd probably still want SS on the alt bar just in case, time will tell.

PlagueMonk

Any magicka builds that DON'T rely on using sticks and wearing skirts?

helediron

@Nihil , i definitely agree that Grim Focus needs some rework. And I am not hanging religiously to that 50%. Having two good DoTs (Cripple, Grim Focus) would have been awesome and then FH wouldn't matter so much.

The easiest change to Grim Focus would be to allow "chain-casting". With that i mean that when the Assasin's Will is cast, it automatically starts next 20 second period for next Assassin's Will. Now the sequence is GS, stuff, AW, GS, stuff, AW, GS, stuff, AW, and so on. With that change it would be GS, stuff, AW, stuff, AW, stuff, AW, and so on. "stuff" is light attacks and spells until Assassin's Will is enabled.

Ysne58

DeLindsay wrote: »

Ysne58 wrote: »

Since they changed the fighters guild shield skill so that it no longer protects the caster, are there any other options for a hybrid tank -- assuming for the moment that I can actually get that working?

Has anyone found a good combat starter to replace Volcanic Rune now that they completely nerfed that?

Ring of Preservation does in fact effect the Caster on PTS for both the damage reduction and the Health regen. I see no noticeable difference with Volcanic Rune on PTS. The only issue with Ring of Preservation is ZoS halved the duration and doubled the cost, making it all but unusable for Healers now which is an absolutely stupid change.

EDIT: If you meant the Undaunted shield skill (Bone Shield) that also still effects the caster and the change was to the Bone Surge morph, it now gives 8% increased Healing to allies. I'm uncertain if the Healing portion (new in 1.6) effects the caster.

@DeLindsay Volcanic Rune used to explode when cast if npcs were inside it and was aoe. Now you have to get the enemy to run through it and it only effects one and doesn't always explode. Also if you look at the tool tip for Volcanic Rune on PTS that is what it is now supposed to do.

I tried both morphs of the fighters guild shield. Neither one provided me any extra protection on PTS, and extra ring around my health bar also did not appear and on top of that the tool tip on PTS says it protects allies, not yourself and allies.

DeLindsay

Ysne58 wrote: »

@DeLindsay Volcanic Rune used to explode when cast if npcs were inside it and was aoe. Now you have to get the enemy to run through it and it only effects one and doesn't always explode. Also if you look at the tool tip for Volcanic Rune on PTS that is what it is now supposed to do.

I tried both morphs of the fighters guild shield. Neither one provided me any extra protection on PTS, and extra ring around my health bar also did not appear and on top of that the tool tip on PTS says it protects allies, not yourself and allies.

I just tested Volcanic Rune again and it works exactly like it does on Live. You drop it on the ground under an enemy and after like 0.5s it knocks them up and stuns them, they don't have to travel through it for it to work. As far as Ring of Preservation I've tested it quite a bit and it definitely does effect the caster. It's a straight up damage reduction now, no longer just added Armor/Spell Resistance.

Ysne58

Weird, I've had the experience I've described. On live I get the protection along with allies, on PTS only the allies get the protection.

I'll recheck Volcanic Rune but my experience has been that I cast it, the npcs attack and don't get hit by it, sometimes it doesn't even go off.

Ysne58

OK, Volcanic Rune is back to normal in 1.6.4 so whatever was wrong with it in 1.6.3 has been fixed.

Neither the protection skill nor Turn Undead appear to provide any protection for the caster still. The other morph does and the tool tip specifically refers to the player for that one.

I still need to find a spell that provides protection for myself as well as allies, unless the devs revert that change to that skillset.

I thought I had tested in 1.6.4 but my character was still in Craglorn almost naked.

DeLindsay

Turn Undead is obvious as that's it's morph instead of damage reduction but Ring of Preservation I 100% guarantee is providing the damage reduction to the caster. I tested it on multiple mobs and checked their base damage without it and then with it, it was reduced by 8% (non-Daedra) and 12% (Daedra). But like I said ZoS destroyed that ability by halving the duration and more than doubling the cost, who knows what stupid reasoning they used for that change.

kaithuzar

REALLY???
I dont mind the theory-crafting, but please don't bring up things that are going to nerf nb's like"oh we need to change funnel health". That spell is our bread & butter. If they start changing it, we're going to be ****ed.
If you need a more costly spell, then use destructive clench, or force pulse, as stated previously. Either get a master's staff to use destructive clench or use force pulse (those are the 2 best morphs for dmg). Make sure both skills are leveled all the way (I think to 4) so that they do the maximum amount of dmg. Also remember to test with infallible aether, crit isn't dead!

-kai

Altyrann

kaithuzar wrote: »

REALLY???
I dont mind the theory-crafting, but please don't bring up things that are going to nerf nb's like"oh we need to change funnel health". That spell is our bread & butter. If they start changing it, we're going to be ****ed.
If you need a more costly spell, then use destructive clench, or force pulse, as stated previously. Either get a master's staff to use destructive clench or use force pulse (those are the 2 best morphs for dmg). Make sure both skills are leveled all the way (I think to 4) so that they do the maximum amount of dmg. Also remember to test with infallible aether, crit isn't dead!

-kai

I think the gist of it is that either FH needs to do more damage as a filler spell, not be nerfed, or that the alternatives (destro skills) need to provide enough damage as filler spells to keep magicka NB competitive.

I have focused on FH as I do not know well enough the state of other classes magicka DPS to know whether buffing Force Pulse would cause imbalance elsewhere, but if that is a viable answer, great (though requiring Master's Staff is a pain). If it is FH being changed, it could be just a damage increase, it might be a damage increase with an aligned cost increase, it could be a nice proc effect, or it could be that one morph does more damage for less healing (though simply upping damage for swallow soul given it only has self healing could also work). Of those, only the last would be a nerf to the healing aspect, and even then only to one morph. I love the style of solo play as magicka NB with funnel heals so absolutely don't want to lose that, but equally don't want to see magicka NBs a mile behind someone standing and spamming wrecking blow.

kaithuzar

Firstly, yes there are magic builds w/o sticks & skirts but it's hard to sustain dps while burst is nice. Previously I was using ambush & surprise attack but that's not really viable now so I'll have to test more. Infallible Aether & twilights embrace is still really strong. Don't forget about the Arch-Mage set either 3 piece or 5 are both good. Has anyone tried medium weave w/resto to get magic back? Personally I use spell sym instead of SA. Force pulse should do more dmg in theory, maybe it's still bugged? You don't need masters staff for that. I think destructive clench SHOULD be better in the long run but testing does not show that to be true =(
I switched cripple for struct entropy to keep the buff up but maybe it's possible to make an "all dot" build just using cripple & entropy & medium resto attacks??? Assassination ult is awesome but if you want ranged use meteor.
-kai

helediron

I've got best dps against upper Craglorn bosses with piercing mark, entropy, cripple, funnel. Cripple and 6-7*funnel as base rotation. On every second round put entropy and every third round put mark in front.

My testing shows that spell damage gear wins crit. Too early to be definitive, but i prepared a new VR14 set stacking spell power on EU live, hoping it gets copied over.

Altyrann

helediron wrote: »

I've got best dps against upper Craglorn bosses with piercing mark, entropy, cripple, funnel. Cripple and 6-7*funnel as base rotation. On every second round put entropy and every third round put mark in front.

My testing shows that spell damage gear wins crit. Too early to be definitive, but i prepared a new VR14 set stacking spell power on EU live, hoping it gets copied over.

How are you finding damage running that rotation compared to stamina builds if you have tested any?

F7sus4

The solution for the whole problem is simple: Make Funnel Health cost more and do more DPS.
Solved.

(@ZOS, thank you for being deaf - this is what Magicka NBs, including me, are screaming from the very beginning of 1.6!)

Father

Its really hard for magicka nb right now to farm trash like in 1.5 due to sap essence nerf with the cooldown on heals.
Got no problem with ult regen,its just staying alive what matters more.
The only viable option I tried and wasn't that impressive is using 1hs and secondary resto for healing ward.
I only tested this on a template..so I dunno how things turn out with some tanking sets like histbark or whitestrake.

kaithuzar

Personally, I've switched to using swallow soul, not sure if I will be able to stick with it for trials, but at least until we find out how our healers are doing. Luckily I think you can still block-cast, so lets pray they don't nerf that next.

Father

Block Casting is slower with staff I think there is an internal cooldown.

Critborn

I was able to hit 14k Dps on most bosses in craglorn using:
crippling grasp, funnel health, impale, structured entropy, magelight, soul harvest.
dark shades, twisting path, piercing mark, merciless resolve, magelight, veil of blades.
I keep all my DoT up and weave funnel health when there's a 3 sec + time gap.
At 25% I stop appling DoTs/buffs and Weave Impale.

Altyrann

Thanks, Critborn. Will give that a go. Which ultimate were you actually casting? Did you use the 20 percent bonus from soul harvest or was it just for the extra ultimate generation?

kaithuzar

It may be best to keep veil on main bar & off hand dominion sword & board w/soul harvest on back bar. You should be able to keep that extra buff up over long fights for higher sustained dps.
My question is does the buff from soul harvest & the buff from entropy stack? I'm not currently able to test but if anyone has the answer it would be appreciated.
-kai

DeLindsay

kaithuzar wrote: »

It may be best to keep veil on main bar & off hand dominion sword & board w/soul harvest on back bar. You should be able to keep that extra buff up over long fights for higher sustained dps.
My question is does the buff from soul harvest & the buff from entropy stack? I'm not currently able to test but if anyone has the answer it would be appreciated.
-kai

Yes because one is just damage done, the other is Spell Damage increase.