Impulse: Pulsar and Elemental ring comparison

Dracane

I wanted to know people's opinion on this. I can't decide which morph I should use in the long run.
Impulse is the AoE of the destruction staff skill line.

Impulse reduces the max health of trash mobs by 10%, which can be alot since many have 60k or even 90k health. This is like 6k damage+ the spells damage on the first hit.
Elemental ring provides a very weak DoT over 10 seconds. On my current tooltip it's 3410 damage over 10 seconds. it ticks every 2 seconds.
Is there any soloplay scenario, were elemental ring is more usefull than Impulse ?

I know when I'm in a big group and more people are spamming Pulsar, then only one Pulsar is needed and the rest should run elemental ring. But for solo play ?

EDIT: I've just recognized, that the Dot of elemental ring is replaced when you cast another elemental ring on your own. Since the first tirck occurs after 2 seconds, no tick occurs at all when I spam elemental ring.

Flaminir

An interesting point... especially when many people are considering builds for Maelstrom at the minute....

Seems in a group that elemental ring is the best choice, but Pulsar would be far far stronger in the Arena.

SkylarkAU

Food for thought.. the DoT tick is subject to mitigation whereas the 10% reduction is not. The DoT tick will stick to any mob/players whereas the 10% reduction will work on any enemy except tier 3 bosses (and maybe tier 2 I can't remember).

Dracane

I've also tested, that the first attack with pulsar will apply the 10% debuff first and then deal damage. So my first hit with Pulsar will deal a lot of damage. And the dot of elemental ring definately resets when I cast another elemental ring (because the first tick occurs after 2 seconds)

And since I am usually spamming it in groups, the dot never even deals damage. Even if I wanted elemental ring to be good, it's not
They should make it so, that its damage ticks over 5 seconds instead of 10 seconds and that the dot is not canceled when you cast another elemental ring. Which seems to be a bug.

myrrrorb14_ESO

Depends on how you use it really.

I prefer elemental ring. I don't spam it. Apply DoT, switch to other attacks depending on situation.

Pulsar is nice and I've used it. It doesn't stack with itself or other players and it wears off so you have to watch to reapply.

FriedEggSandwich

I've never really understood the advantage of pulsar. I mean I know it reduces the targets health pool for a set period, but what happens when the effect wears off? They just get the 10% back right? Meaning you have to kill them with the debuff active to have actually done any extra damage. This has always put me off using it, preferring a dot to a debuff timer for guaranteed extra damage. I also didn't know that spamming impulse prevented the dot from kicking in. Good to know.

Flaminir

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I've never really understood the advantage of pulsar. I mean I know it reduces the targets health pool for a set period, but what happens when the effect wears off? They just get the 10% back right? Meaning you have to kill them with the debuff active to have actually done any extra damage. This has always put me off using it, preferring a dot to a debuff timer for guaranteed extra damage. I also didn't know that spamming impulse prevented the dot from kicking in. Good to know.

In reality this isn't a problem....

The effect only works on normal/mid strength mobs... and these sure as hell don't last 30 seconds

hardcore_gmr

Only reason to use a destro staff is Weakness to Elements....

Dracane

Flaminir wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I've never really understood the advantage of pulsar. I mean I know it reduces the targets health pool for a set period, but what happens when the effect wears off? They just get the 10% back right? Meaning you have to kill them with the debuff active to have actually done any extra damage. This has always put me off using it, preferring a dot to a debuff timer for guaranteed extra damage. I also didn't know that spamming impulse prevented the dot from kicking in. Good to know.

In reality this isn't a problem....

The effect only works on normal/mid strength mobs... and these sure as hell don't last 30 seconds

I mean, who isn't able to kill its target within 30 seconds ?

MrDerrikk

I only see Elemental Ring being most useful when used to proc Skoria when stacked with DK DOT's. That said, I still prefer it to Pulsar.

Dracane

MrDerrikk wrote: »

I only see Elemental Ring being most useful when used to proc Skoria when stacked with DK DOT's. That said, I still prefer it to Pulsar.

But it seems like the DoT is reset everytime you use another ring. So when you spam it, the DoT will never apply at all.

Reverb

I like elemental ring. Single target, its DoT works best as part of a rotation. I like ele drain then ring then switch to crushing shock weaving and other skills, and it's usually time for a finisher before the DoT needs reapplied.

In trash mobs, it's cheap and effective to spam, without regard to the fact that the dot refreshes and doesn't get applied.

By contrast, pulsar never seems to work when I most need it. The tier 1 mobs it does work against are easy enough to kill without the reduction, and it doesn't work on those where it would be the biggest help.

MrDerrikk

Dracane wrote: »

MrDerrikk wrote: »

I only see Elemental Ring being most useful when used to proc Skoria when stacked with DK DOT's. That said, I still prefer it to Pulsar.

But it seems like the DoT is reset everytime you use another ring. So when you spam it, the DoT will never apply at all.

You don't need to spam it; just use it once and it stacks with the other unrelated DOT's. Granted when using it for taking out groups it's worse than Pulsar, but I use it in conjunction with Draw Essence to let the DOT do its thing for at least some of the time.

Zlater

I was under the impression that DK's use Ele, sorcs use Pulsar and Nb's and temps both use class skills. As a rule of thumb.

Gorilla

Zlater wrote: »

I was under the impression that DK's use Ele, sorcs use Pulsar and Nb's and temps both use class skills. As a rule of thumb.

Elemental blockad is tough to pass up for any class As a magblade thats my only detro need in addiion to the ulti which is almost spammable on a NB

Birdovic

Oh man, that ability went from must have Aoe spammable to almost ignored/forgotten.

I wish they at least didn't ninja nerf it even more with removing the great 40% elemental effect proc chance, I'd love using that now, with all the new sets availaible.

The_Lex

Nice Necro post!

Izaki

Wow that necro though. Funny to see that Pulsar is still pretty much a must have for any trials group, but only for the debuff, lightning staff heavy attack is the new magicka spammable lol

Reverb

Nice necro. I haven't even bothered to unlock impulse on my last 2 mag toons, created after this thread died, and only keep it in the rotation on one. Now it's blockade and heavy lightning or gtfo.