A Competitive Guide to Templar Veteran Maelstrom Arena

Nifty2g

The Basics of Veteran Maelstrom Arena
I apologise my videos are low quality, when I run competitive I like to run with low graphics so I get high FPS because I run with pretty high ping.


As a magicka templar the highest score we will be able to achieve would be 465k at least that is what I was gathering from my time running. But the likihood of myself getting that with my ping and the RNG involved is very low. Hopefully someone is able to get it with this guide. I hope you guys enjoy.

As a Templar your main survival is from Puncturing Sweeps, and making sure you have enough Regeneration to be able to sustain the constant damage output, you need to make sure you keep your Channeled Focus up at all times and Harness Magicka for a Magicka Sustain, you will also really need the Maelstrom Restoration Staff (really doesn’t matter what trait), this adds a huge amount of sustain to your gameplay. If not I recommend using 1 Magicka Regeneration enchant on your jewelry. The basics of this is to only use 1 Shield – you do not need a melee shield to soak up melee damage (Healing Ward), however you can run it if you really feel like you need it. For attributes I recommend using 8 Health 56 in Magicka as this will avoid all the one shots from any power attacks and you shouldn’t run into any trouble with this amount of health, as long as you make sure Channeled Focus is down.

Champion Points

The Mage

The Warrior

The Thief

Gear Set Ups

I have 5 gear set ups for Maelstrom, but I will give you guys the top two strongest builds as there is really no point including the other builds to this, there is a slight progression but I believe you guys should work with these set ups as they provide very high damage and sustain.

I personally run the Arch Mage build because it offers more damage however obtaining Arch Mage in Divines is quite costly if you are not into minmaxing your damage grab the Seducer set up, it is almost the same it just offers more sustain for you and it is all crafted. These are the absolute strongest builds I can personally come up with for VMA and I have thought a lot about builds with sustaining and this offers the most for a Templar, we don’t have the burst other classes do however we have a pretty good heal.

Skills of Interest

Inner Light: A lot of people do not run this skill, I disagree you will need this skill to increase your Critical Chance and your Maximum Magicka. This skill is a must.

Breath of Life / Honor The Dead: Personally I switched to Honor The Dead for purely running Maelstrom, since the chance to this skill it offers a huge amount of
sustain if you are looking to focus on Maelstrom for a while I would suggest grabbing this morph, it also heals you for a lot more than what Breath of Life does.

Harness Magic: I put this on my main bar and always make sure this skill is up as it offers really high sustain, get used to sitting in AoE and taking damage for magic return. You won’t be too used to it but it definitely helps.

Puncturing Sweep: Your main heal for almost all of the damage inside VMA, remember positioning is key.

Toppling Charge: I do not run this ability because of its current bug, but it offers a very high amount of mobility for you if you are willing to run it.

Radiant Destruction: I’ve heard a lot of people say they don’t use this in VMA as you don’t have much chance to use it, but you do. This is your quick kill skill to move onto the next target, make sure you get used to switching to use this when you get the chance to.

Rapid Regeneration: Mixing this heal with Puncturing Sweep will be your main overall healing, and your magic sustain if you have the Maelstrom Restoration Staff, this staff is very useful I advise you trying to get it.

Shooting Star: This is useful on some boss fights and I prefer this morph over Ice Comet because of the Ultimate you gain back from it.

Channeled Focus: Because of the Semi low health you will be running with, making sure this is down all the time is needed as it reduced damage dealt to you by 8%.

Dawnbreaker of Smiting: I run this ultimate all the time because of the Magic Damage and low cost (Templar Passive), it’s quite easy to get this ability up and you can use it almost all the time for great burst.

Purifying Ritual: Good for when you need it at certain points for healing ontop of Rapid Regeneration and Puncturing Sweep, also removes up to 5 negative effects which is the main purpose, there are a lot of snares inside VMA and they tend to stack

Proximity Detonation or Repentance: IF you do not have Proximity Detonation go into Cyrodill and grind it, Proximity Detonation is Magic Damage which means it is a necessity to have in your Templar Toolkit, it is an extreme AoE damaging skill and allows you to do some very hard hitting damage.

Tips and Tricks

Work on your Positioning, you need to know where to stand otherwise you can be overwhelmed with damage and roll over dead.

All of the damage is avoidable, you just need to play smart and react fast, the RNG of mechanics is the tough part which can cause a silly death, prepare for this to happen a lot, VMA is not a forgiving place.

Try to bunch your enemies up if you are not running Toppling Charge

Learn when to use Proximity Detonation to make sure it gets its full damage off

On Round 2 you can mitigate the Blades with Harness Magic and have infinite resources

On Round 1 you can trigger both waves to come out before the boss as seen in my video by timing the Archer to die as it throws a flame ball

On Round 4 boss you can stand just outside of the bosses AoE and use a nova this will kill the boss in ~30 seconds, I haven’t gotten a video of this yet but I need to

Round 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--eTGZbfJV4
This is a very straight forward round, there isn’t much to give advice about for this other than positioning and trying to get both waves to spawn at once for maximum speed as I said in my tips and tricks you can trigger both waves to come out before the boss as seen in my video by timing the Archer to die as it throws a flame ball

Round 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgazRJ1e_pI
I mostly range the Clockwork sentries on this as they don’t have much health one cast of execute will kill them, always make sure you position yourself so Spheres travel to you and dash towards you, their wave attack will be absorbed my Harness Magic, as for the Centurions you don’t need to block their back hand attacks you can Sweep through the damage output. Just make sure no other damage is hitting you at this point.

Using Meteor on this boss is the only time I use it as you want to quickly push the first Centurion to <50% you do this because it will go straight back down on the second cycle so you can get them all to around 40-30% and not have to deal with them going down and wasting time. I believe this is the fastest way to do it on a Templar. As during the second phase you can execute and hopefully kill them.

Round 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3ojrBuR98k
Same thing again, you can mostly range the Stranglers and then Purify their snare if you get it. There are 3 types of Lamia’s in this stage (Lamia, Lamia C and Lamia D. Lamia comes towards you and will hit melee, Lama C will stay ranged it’s important to stay on their spawns and kill them so you don’t need to run around, and Lamia D, these are the orange Lamia’s I prioritize these as they can hit you with a knock back attack a very strong one this is the cause for all of my deaths on this stage, these Lamias are also ranged.)

The boss is very simple as a Templar you can ideally ignore all of the stranglers and just damage the boss, after killing the caster make sure you roll dodge to dodge the throwing dagger if you do not you will die. Drop a nova at around 40% of the bosses health when the Snake comes because this thing deals a lot of damage and 2 lamias will come to you also, you want them to die in the nova and to deal less damage with your channeled focus on as well. You won’t die and yes it is very risky but I have yet to die in a long time. Try to avoid the Poison AoE.

Round 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH6sAL6fx9g
Clockwork Sentries come out in a pattern, they will always follow the same pattern unless they get their mechanic off and do their shield. It’s important to remember their pattern so you can stack on them and kill them without a problem, they become a problem and it’s difficult to ignore them because they have enrage mechanics and it gets difficult to heal through the damage. This is really the only tip for this round, it’s a very basic round with not much to it at all. Apart from the wave before boss round there are 2 spheres that spawn after the first set of enemies, I always use an ultimate on them as they get difficult. Make sure Dwemer Spiders do not get super charged and they can one shot you.

This isn’t shown in my boss video but you can stand just outside of the bosses AoE after his first phase and put a Nova down, the enemies will come into it and die and you can still Puncturing Sweep the boss.

Round 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQvcFZzTuw0
My tactics are the exact same for this apart from not using sigils and the removal of Healing Ward. I always kill Archers first as they hit you with very hard attacks, Ogres have to die fast don’t leave them enraged or they will kill you, Trolls also have a set pattern on what platform they go to based on what platform you are standing on.

The boss on this stage I would say is easily one of the hardest bosses out there. For me anyway, platform destruction is something to remember, ignore the last set of enemies and Puncturing Sweep through the damage.

Round 6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrrY4yJiG8

This is a very hard round, you need to focus on the enemies that use Agony, as this ability is very stupid and goes through block and dodge it will mess you up quickly if you aren’t ready for it. Make sure to use Dawnbreaker as much as you can, when enemies are stunned I deals a lot more damage as. Spider swarms have set timer, they tend to come at the same spawns every time so it’s easy to prepare for them.

Always Dawnbreaker the mini bosses at 30% health then execute finish them off to kill them before the other set of enemies spawn, if you do not it’s very difficult and just adds extra chance of dying.

On the wave before boss, is the first time I use the mechanic stun, after I kill the lurcher and 2 enemies I unweb the last totem and stun the miniboss and finish it off then move straight onto the Dual Wielder who casts Agony (HATE THIS SKILL), then deal with the archers. With the two Lurchers they are not a problem just use dawnbreaker and proximity detonation on them and they will do their AoE and stand still and die.

On the boss round a lurcher spawns at 55%, try to stun the boss when the lurcher spawns, and use Dawnbreaker on them both then you can execute the boss and roll dodge attacks, if you miss the lurcher spawn and don’t want to die grab a defensive sigil so you don’t die. You can risk doing it without the sigil but it’s tough at this point.

Also, always use Dawnbreaker on the little Spider the boss things, you want this *** to die fast. You will have Dawnbreaker up in time for a boss stun as you are killing a lot of Daedra Webbers and weaving attacks in when you can.

Round 7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9YRhuRP-to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl--jh4Isy4

Possibly the hardest round, it is very hard to live if you get hit by poison as you risk not running a melee shield on this round, for the trolls try and burst them down as fast as you can, for the Wamasu round, get one archer to execute then kill the other archer first kill the execute archer and you should be fine for when the wamasu spawns, you can shield stack with harness through the damage if you have Rapid Regen applied and Purify down with Channeled Focus, at around 40% move back and execute the Wamasu as you risk chance of a VenomCaller spawning at the wrong time.

On the wave with 3 archers, this isn’t that hard, keep your heals up and channeled focus down, stand on an archer spawn and make sure you get the knock back with Puncturing Sweep on it, the other Archers will move into their AoE or charge up a focused aim (I normally avoid these and just roll dodge them there’s so you don’t stress out over the damage). Leave one Archer up and wait for the VenomCaller spawn to avoid getting it during the two troll phase.
For the two trolls try and use an ultimate on 1 troll and kill it fast, get the second troll to low health, if you feel like you are taking a long time leave the troll alive and wait for a VenomCaller to spawn so you don’t get bad spawns during the boss round.

During the boss wave you are able to use Harness to absorb his AoE knock back attack, when the boss hits you with wrecking bite if you CC it and move back quickly you can avoid the bleed, if you get hit by it, just purify it. It is a strong bleed. Always kill the far Shielder so you make the closest one stack with the boss so you can use Puncturing Sweep on the boss for a quick kill.

Round 8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGW1hrkwDHM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSF6YUHFELw

This isn’t too difficult however Lurchers can be a problem, just make sure you try and block their attacks and just Puncturing Sweep, at around 40% it is good to go ranged with execute, also make sure you have Harness up for the 3 lava wave AoE as this can sometimes one shot you.
Always stay close to the Flame Shapers, they can be a problem. Sweep normally interrupts their first AoE build up and they shouldn’t get a second one off.
The wave with a Lurcher and a Flame Shaper, make sure you use your ultimate on the Flame Shaper because you want that to die first and fast as you will die if you do not kill it fast.

During the wave before the boss, there are 2 healers and 2 flame shapers, position yourself on a healer to make the flame shapers run together, then move to the flame shapers and ideally you can dawnbreaker them both knocking them down and killing them fast. For the boss wave, this boss isn’t so scary, just make sure you roll dodge at the start to avoid the chain pull, smash the pillar then kill both healers first then attack the boss, make sure you keep harness up as you will get a lot of magic return, purify the deep slash the boss does for some reason, and then hold block when she drops her banner to chain pull her out of it then quickly kill her.
For the boss wave, this can be tricky but try and get the boss to 50-60% in the first stun and avoid the first flame shaper if you are able to. If not try to ignore it until the Pillars go back up, then kill the flame shaper then the pillars, when the boss is stunned drop an ultimate and then burn the boss. Fire Atronachs do barely any damage you can just ignore them. Make sure you ignore them and burn the boss.

Round 9 – Uploading Videos of Waves before boss

Always stay on the Dual Wielder spawns, ALWAYS. These have a very large attack kit in this arena and will mess you up fast, they traded their Agony with Soul Tether and Whirlwind. Try and time ghosts to spawns where you really need them, you can also sweep through all of the Crematorial Guard damage there is no need to stop and heal, if you need magic during the fire breath just shield stack through it.

Always kill Ogrims last if they spawn with other enemies, they are really weak and just because they are fat and ugly they are really not a threat, plus getting close to them causes a belly bounce. Don’t mistake the belly bounce for a heal though they have the same animation.

For the Ash Titan, get right up close to it, push it to 40% before it flings you back, shield stack their the fire damage and try to avoid it. After it is over go close to it and use Dawnbreaker then range it down with execute, it will die before the enemies spawn. If you are unable to do this, I would suggest grabbing a defensive sigil as it is really not worth it to die at this point unless you have the #1 score risk it, otherwise don’t.

Final Boss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnDUOhMfxHA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZWRvr2TsQc

Video 1 is risky, video 2 is the safe route.

This boss is the absolute most easiest thing inside VMA, once you get over your nerves you will see how easy it is, the boss has an attack pattern, save dawnbreaker for the start of the fight when the Guard spawns, run up to them both and kill them quickly, ignore the healer, do not touch the healer if you do it will cast Rite of Passage and give an ultra heal. Other than this the standard heal this enemy does is very weak. So kill it after the boss reaches 70% and the Guard is dead.

Top phase is easy, ultimate the first crystal and kill it before the first wall comes up, if you can’t manage to kill it you will have problems. While the wall is up, choose a crystal to use your range on to damage it before you get to it and then quickly destroy it before the next wall is up, repeat this process.

During the final phase of this boss, switch to speed potions, this isn’t needed but it’s good to quickly grab the ghosts before the Guard spawns, after you grab the first ghost, kill the summoner then go back onto the boss. If you are unable to stun the boss next to the Guard use the stun as the boss teleports away then burn the boss, you do this because you want to avoid the Guard hitting you and wasting time. If you stun the Guard next to the boss Dawnbreaker them both. (As seen in video two)

Nifty2g

Round 6 has been added in

Skiserony

Oh that's awesome. Had hard time on round 5.

I have a question though, you don't think structured entropy is necessary to use for increased spell damage or do you use potions for that?

Nifty2g

I use potions otherwise it's just a wasted slot on your bar imo

Nifty2g

Er @ZOS could you move this topic to player guides, just realised it's in General Discussion

Fat_Cat45

Stamina Templar guide:

Focus -> Vigor -> Steel Tornado -> Steel Tornado -> Steel Tornado -> Steel Tornado -> Steel Tornado -> Steel Tornado -> Steel Tornado -> Repentance

rez0055

Awesome post! I'm going to try the veteran arena with my templar when I finished my endgear. I've tried normal arena and had no issues, I reached stage 5 but had to quit. I use almost same skills. Good read!

Nifty2g

rez0055 wrote: »

Awesome post! I'm going to try the veteran arena with my templar when I finished my endgear. I've tried normal arena and had no issues, I reached stage 5 but had to quit. I use almost same skills. Good read!

I'll have to upload a newer stage 5 I'll do it in a bit, not sure if I should cut the deaths from it or not if it helps people on what to expect.

This was a really fast run I recorded some time ago and sucked on round 5 and 7 so meh

Sharmony

My setup seems stronger on stats with Lich, but as we've said before, is very hard to come by. Awesome guide though

Nifty2g

Sharmony wrote: »

My setup seems stronger on stats with Lich, but as we've said before, is very hard to come by. Awesome guide though

I've compared every set up there is, lich doesn't work for templar and you gain arch mage 2pc spell damage and molag Kena spell damage which comes out to be the strongest things to run.
On one of my images I didn't included buffed stats but I'll fix that up.

Sharmony

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

My setup seems stronger on stats with Lich, but as we've said before, is very hard to come by. Awesome guide though

I've compared every set up there is, lich doesn't work for templar and you gain arch mage 2pc spell damage and molag Kena spell damage which comes out to be the strongest things to run.
On one of my images I didn't included buffed stats but I'll fix that up.

Yet I am running tri stat glyphs on my Lich atm, and when I change those over I will be quite a bit higher than you on magicka (41-42k?) I believe, enough to counter the 200 odd spell damage behind I am, not the mention the sustain.

Sitting on 39971 Magicka with Tri Stat and and 250 sd behind... should be closer than you think I believe, considering I can't see where your sustain comes from? Guessing because you run harness?

Also isn't there a stronger link between Templar abilities and magicka increases to damage vs spell damage? I haven't done Templar damage theorycrafting as much as you so this could be utter bollocks, I just remember my friend who plays Templar telling me this before we began creating our spreadsheets (of which we still haven't got to Templar yet).

Shader_Shibes

How many cp's into, umm i forget which one, blessed or quick recovery?

Thanks.

Nifty2g

Sharmony wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

My setup seems stronger on stats with Lich, but as we've said before, is very hard to come by. Awesome guide though

I've compared every set up there is, lich doesn't work for templar and you gain arch mage 2pc spell damage and molag Kena spell damage which comes out to be the strongest things to run.
On one of my images I didn't included buffed stats but I'll fix that up.

Yet I am running tri stat glyphs on my Lich atm, and when I change those over I will be quite a bit higher than you on magicka (41-42k?) I believe, enough to counter the 200 odd spell damage behind I am, not the mention the sustain.

Sitting on 39971 Magicka with Tri Stat and and 250 sd behind... should be closer than you think I believe, considering I can't see where your sustain comes from? Guessing because you run harness?

@Sharmony Sustain comes from Arch Mage 3pc (2pc is spell damage 3pc is regen), you lose that with Lich which probably isn't the best choice believe me I've tried a lot of set ups with low regen and it's just really hard, I also keep potions up all the time.

I would get rid of the lich 2pc and only use the 1pc if you were going to use it but I think it defeats the purpose it is almost the same as my Torug's set up I had awhile ago but didn't include it. Lich 2pc does not proc from any Templar abilities. Replace the 2pc with 1pc Molag Kena.

In theory you're pretty much trading Regen for Max Health and a little bit less spell damage, max magicka also isn't the way to go anymore, spell damage gives us more.

Edit: sorry forgot torugs pact swords and bonus, also check the ability metric, it explains which is stronger btw if you didn't know

My set up


Your ideal set up


Lich with Molag Kena

Nifty2g

Shader_Shibes wrote: »

How many cp's into, umm i forget which one, blessed or quick recovery?

Thanks.

I included a screenshot of my champion points, sorry i forgot to put them in

Addihul

Learned a few things about strategy on the rounds. I appreciate the time you took to put this together, Nifty.

Nifty2g

Added in a new round 5 video

Flynnn

I'm just mind boggled at how you can get 40+k magicka and 3200ish spell dmg with a rehab that's that high. I just built my first v16 build and I'm hoping to be around 30k magicka with 2100 spell dmg and 1300 regen. I just don't get how you guys get these crazy numbers. I'm running 5 Ken 3 magnus 3 willpower. Destruction staff and resto. All magicka glyphs and increase magical harm in jewels. I thought about dual swords but I was reading the passives and it says it gives increased dmg, not spell dmg so I read that only my swords and there abilities with have more damage but this should effect my overall spell dmg.

Nifty2g

Flynnn wrote: »

I'm just mind boggled at how you can get 40+k magicka and 3200ish spell dmg with a rehab that's that high. I just built my first v16 build and I'm hoping to be around 30k magicka with 2100 spell dmg and 1300 regen. I just don't get how you guys get these crazy numbers. I'm running 5 Ken 3 magnus 3 willpower. Destruction staff and resto. All magicka glyphs and increase magical harm in jewels. I thought about dual swords but I was reading the passives and it says it gives increased dmg, not spell dmg so I read that only my swords and there abilities with have more damage but this should effect my overall spell dmg.

@Flynnn Dual Swords directly impact your spell damage as well as tooltip damage, the last passive twin blade and blunt is what is giving the high numbers you need to use that passive to make Dual Swords work. Take a look at the images they explain the list of damage I'll post here the amount of spell damage you get from each

1602 - Dual Swords
1571 - Greatsword
1335 - Staff

I'm not sure how your magicka is so low, are you running vr16 gear? You should be at 41,000 Magicka are you using Inner Light?

Flynnn

Its almost all v16, i haven't completed it quite yet but i did the math on the set bonuses and it should be around there, unless does the armor itself increase the stat too? So when you switch to your restoration staff your dorm dmg droid significantly? No inner light, I just hated how it was reducing me to 8 abilities. I could bring it back though. I specifically went with destruction because of that damn twin blade passive tool tip!

Sharmony

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

My setup seems stronger on stats with Lich, but as we've said before, is very hard to come by. Awesome guide though

I've compared every set up there is, lich doesn't work for templar and you gain arch mage 2pc spell damage and molag Kena spell damage which comes out to be the strongest things to run.
On one of my images I didn't included buffed stats but I'll fix that up.

Yet I am running tri stat glyphs on my Lich atm, and when I change those over I will be quite a bit higher than you on magicka (41-42k?) I believe, enough to counter the 200 odd spell damage behind I am, not the mention the sustain.

Sitting on 39971 Magicka with Tri Stat and and 250 sd behind... should be closer than you think I believe, considering I can't see where your sustain comes from? Guessing because you run harness?

@Sharmony Sustain comes from Arch Mage 3pc (2pc is spell damage 3pc is regen), you lose that with Lich which probably isn't the best choice believe me I've tried a lot of set ups with low regen and it's just really hard, I also keep potions up all the time.

I would get rid of the lich 2pc and only use the 1pc if you were going to use it but I think it defeats the purpose it is almost the same as my Torug's set up I had awhile ago but didn't include it. Lich 2pc does not proc from any Templar abilities. Replace the 2pc with 1pc Molag Kena.

In theory you're pretty much trading Regen for Max Health and a little bit less spell damage, max magicka also isn't the way to go anymore, spell damage gives us more.

Edit: sorry forgot torugs pact swords and bonus, also check the ability metric, it explains which is stronger btw if you didn't know

My set up


Your ideal set up


Lich with Molag Kena

Think you've made a serious error. Lich is a 5 piece set. It is not Nereinth as I think you believe it to be? I don't mean to question your integrity but this is straight up wrong man I am in fact trading 200 spell damage for 0 magicka issues due to the Lich 5 piece proc and the way (thanks to clever builds that I have been developing) to run two 5 piece sets at the same time as it were. As for spell damage and magicka, I know and agree, but still 2k more magicka is roughly equivollent to your spell damage gain I believe, most skill metrics work out at around 1 spell damage to 10 magicka.

Can't link Lich right now as I am on my phone but I guarantee it's a set you havn't considered due to it's rarity, as for nereinth, I know about the lack of procs - and it sucks

Edit: When I get home I will post my full buffed stats upon changing gear so you can see for yourself how potent the setup is.

Shader_Shibes

Nifty2g wrote: »

Shader_Shibes wrote: »

How many cp's into, umm i forget which one, blessed or quick recovery?

Thanks.

I included a screenshot of my champion points, sorry i forgot to put them in

Ahh, so none at all lol, interesting, thanks.

Nifty2g

Sharmony wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

My setup seems stronger on stats with Lich, but as we've said before, is very hard to come by. Awesome guide though

I've compared every set up there is, lich doesn't work for templar and you gain arch mage 2pc spell damage and molag Kena spell damage which comes out to be the strongest things to run.
On one of my images I didn't included buffed stats but I'll fix that up.

Yet I am running tri stat glyphs on my Lich atm, and when I change those over I will be quite a bit higher than you on magicka (41-42k?) I believe, enough to counter the 200 odd spell damage behind I am, not the mention the sustain.

Sitting on 39971 Magicka with Tri Stat and and 250 sd behind... should be closer than you think I believe, considering I can't see where your sustain comes from? Guessing because you run harness?

@Sharmony Sustain comes from Arch Mage 3pc (2pc is spell damage 3pc is regen), you lose that with Lich which probably isn't the best choice believe me I've tried a lot of set ups with low regen and it's just really hard, I also keep potions up all the time.

I would get rid of the lich 2pc and only use the 1pc if you were going to use it but I think it defeats the purpose it is almost the same as my Torug's set up I had awhile ago but didn't include it. Lich 2pc does not proc from any Templar abilities. Replace the 2pc with 1pc Molag Kena.

In theory you're pretty much trading Regen for Max Health and a little bit less spell damage, max magicka also isn't the way to go anymore, spell damage gives us more.

Edit: sorry forgot torugs pact swords and bonus, also check the ability metric, it explains which is stronger btw if you didn't know

My set up


Your ideal set up


Lich with Molag Kena

Think you've made a serious error. Lich is a 5 piece set. It is not Nereinth as I think you believe it to be? I don't mean to question your integrity but this is straight up wrong man I am in fact trading 200 spell damage for 0 magicka issues due to the Lich 5 piece proc and the way (thanks to clever builds that I have been developing) to run two 5 piece sets at the same time as it were. As for spell damage and magicka, I know and agree, but still 2k more magicka is roughly equivollent to your spell damage gain I believe, most skill metrics work out at around 1 spell damage to 10 magicka.

Can't link Lich right now as I am on my phone but I guarantee it's a set you havn't considered due to it's rarity, as for nereinth, I know about the lack of procs - and it sucks

Edit: When I get home I will post my full buffed stats upon changing gear so you can see for yourself how potent the setup is.

@Sharmony Oh Lich, lol yeah I've seen that set up it's essentially Seducer which would be this until you swap to your staff

It's still weaker in my opinion, well it shows it is, and it requires you to use a lich staff which removes the Maelstrom staff, so really I don't understand that set up, i really don't like the idea of people using lich set in there. I can write you up a character sheet of Lich I don't need your buffed stats, it's honestly just seducer until you swap bars, but you don't need that amount of regen it's really over kill for what VMA is

That is assuming you'll be wearing julianos with it.

Where are you gaining 2k magicka from?

Sharmony

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

My setup seems stronger on stats with Lich, but as we've said before, is very hard to come by. Awesome guide though

I've compared every set up there is, lich doesn't work for templar and you gain arch mage 2pc spell damage and molag Kena spell damage which comes out to be the strongest things to run.
On one of my images I didn't included buffed stats but I'll fix that up.

Yet I am running tri stat glyphs on my Lich atm, and when I change those over I will be quite a bit higher than you on magicka (41-42k?) I believe, enough to counter the 200 odd spell damage behind I am, not the mention the sustain.

Sitting on 39971 Magicka with Tri Stat and and 250 sd behind... should be closer than you think I believe, considering I can't see where your sustain comes from? Guessing because you run harness?

@Sharmony Sustain comes from Arch Mage 3pc (2pc is spell damage 3pc is regen), you lose that with Lich which probably isn't the best choice believe me I've tried a lot of set ups with low regen and it's just really hard, I also keep potions up all the time.

I would get rid of the lich 2pc and only use the 1pc if you were going to use it but I think it defeats the purpose it is almost the same as my Torug's set up I had awhile ago but didn't include it. Lich 2pc does not proc from any Templar abilities. Replace the 2pc with 1pc Molag Kena.

In theory you're pretty much trading Regen for Max Health and a little bit less spell damage, max magicka also isn't the way to go anymore, spell damage gives us more.

Edit: sorry forgot torugs pact swords and bonus, also check the ability metric, it explains which is stronger btw if you didn't know

My set up


Your ideal set up


Lich with Molag Kena

Think you've made a serious error. Lich is a 5 piece set. It is not Nereinth as I think you believe it to be? I don't mean to question your integrity but this is straight up wrong man I am in fact trading 200 spell damage for 0 magicka issues due to the Lich 5 piece proc and the way (thanks to clever builds that I have been developing) to run two 5 piece sets at the same time as it were. As for spell damage and magicka, I know and agree, but still 2k more magicka is roughly equivollent to your spell damage gain I believe, most skill metrics work out at around 1 spell damage to 10 magicka.

Can't link Lich right now as I am on my phone but I guarantee it's a set you havn't considered due to it's rarity, as for nereinth, I know about the lack of procs - and it sucks

Edit: When I get home I will post my full buffed stats upon changing gear so you can see for yourself how potent the setup is.

@Sharmony Oh Lich, lol yeah I've seen that set up it's essentially Seducer which would be this until you swap to your staff

It's still weaker in my opinion, well it shows it is, and it requires you to use a lich staff which removes the Maelstrom staff, so really I don't understand that set up, i really don't like the idea of people using lich set in there. I can write you up a character sheet of Lich I don't need your buffed stats, it's honestly just seducer until you swap bars, but you don't need that amount of regen it's really over kill for what VMA is

That is assuming you'll be wearing julianos with it.

Where are you gaining 2k magicka from?

I owe you an apology, basically the loss in spell damage despite the magicka gain is still too great. We calculated your spell damage buffed is around 3583 from the spreadsheet, a loss of 322 on my build compared to yours despite a gain of 2064 magicka. In fact I was so completely wrong as looking at jabs and doing a quick test it seems it has one of the worst magicka to damage correlations when compared to sd. However, my friend is hitting still a lot harder than you in Spell Power Cure, this would be better than your Julianos for sure (particularly on trash, less so on bosses due to increased execute time and therefore possibly less up time on spell power cure unless using radiant glory). He doesn't' even use Kena etc and is running 4 seducer and has no magicka issues.

Nifty2g

Sharmony wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

My setup seems stronger on stats with Lich, but as we've said before, is very hard to come by. Awesome guide though

I've compared every set up there is, lich doesn't work for templar and you gain arch mage 2pc spell damage and molag Kena spell damage which comes out to be the strongest things to run.
On one of my images I didn't included buffed stats but I'll fix that up.

Yet I am running tri stat glyphs on my Lich atm, and when I change those over I will be quite a bit higher than you on magicka (41-42k?) I believe, enough to counter the 200 odd spell damage behind I am, not the mention the sustain.

Sitting on 39971 Magicka with Tri Stat and and 250 sd behind... should be closer than you think I believe, considering I can't see where your sustain comes from? Guessing because you run harness?

@Sharmony Sustain comes from Arch Mage 3pc (2pc is spell damage 3pc is regen), you lose that with Lich which probably isn't the best choice believe me I've tried a lot of set ups with low regen and it's just really hard, I also keep potions up all the time.

I would get rid of the lich 2pc and only use the 1pc if you were going to use it but I think it defeats the purpose it is almost the same as my Torug's set up I had awhile ago but didn't include it. Lich 2pc does not proc from any Templar abilities. Replace the 2pc with 1pc Molag Kena.

In theory you're pretty much trading Regen for Max Health and a little bit less spell damage, max magicka also isn't the way to go anymore, spell damage gives us more.

Edit: sorry forgot torugs pact swords and bonus, also check the ability metric, it explains which is stronger btw if you didn't know

My set up


Your ideal set up


Lich with Molag Kena

Think you've made a serious error. Lich is a 5 piece set. It is not Nereinth as I think you believe it to be? I don't mean to question your integrity but this is straight up wrong man I am in fact trading 200 spell damage for 0 magicka issues due to the Lich 5 piece proc and the way (thanks to clever builds that I have been developing) to run two 5 piece sets at the same time as it were. As for spell damage and magicka, I know and agree, but still 2k more magicka is roughly equivollent to your spell damage gain I believe, most skill metrics work out at around 1 spell damage to 10 magicka.

Can't link Lich right now as I am on my phone but I guarantee it's a set you havn't considered due to it's rarity, as for nereinth, I know about the lack of procs - and it sucks

Edit: When I get home I will post my full buffed stats upon changing gear so you can see for yourself how potent the setup is.

@Sharmony Oh Lich, lol yeah I've seen that set up it's essentially Seducer which would be this until you swap to your staff

It's still weaker in my opinion, well it shows it is, and it requires you to use a lich staff which removes the Maelstrom staff, so really I don't understand that set up, i really don't like the idea of people using lich set in there. I can write you up a character sheet of Lich I don't need your buffed stats, it's honestly just seducer until you swap bars, but you don't need that amount of regen it's really over kill for what VMA is

That is assuming you'll be wearing julianos with it.

Where are you gaining 2k magicka from?

I owe you an apology, basically the loss in spell damage despite the magicka gain is still too great. We calculated your spell damage buffed is around 3583 from the spreadsheet, a loss of 322 on my build compared to yours despite a gain of 2064 magicka. In fact I was so completely wrong as looking at jabs and doing a quick test it seems it has one of the worst magicka to damage correlations when compared to sd. However, my friend is hitting still a lot harder than you in Spell Power Cure, this would be better than your Julianos for sure (particularly on trash, less so on bosses due to increased execute time and therefore possibly less up time on spell power cure unless using radiant glory). He doesn't' even use Kena etc and is running 4 seducer and has no magicka issues.

Spell Power Cure will hit harder because of how it is pretty strong actually, but the issue is the health while running it you'll be at ~16,800 unless you put points into health in your attributes in that case the builds will be identical but then you lose time based on the up time of your Spell Power Cure. And again, 4pc Seducer is overkill, you may as well do 3pc Seducer with 1 Kena

Lets assume you'll be able to run with these stats, which is unlikely because it's pretty difficult and the health is an issue. I've done it before and I have huge trouble on round 7, 8 and 9 but swapping to a healthy ring will lower your overall damage and increase your health by 924 making it 17976, which is still a slight issue.


Earlier I was testing this set up which was actually very decent, but again the health is the issue


My advice to you is to stop stacking regen, you don't need it it's way too overkill. It looks fancy but there is no point to it really

P.S when I say barely any difference there really is barely any difference, your friend isn't hitting a lot harder than me, this is the difference between sweeps with the two set ups and this is with kena by the way instead of seducer 4pc. If it were Seducer 4pc it would be probably the exact same (i don't have minor sorcery active)


Another thing I have to mention if you don't have at least 7/7 Divines in Spell Power Cure you're losing too much Crit Chance you'd otherwise get from Julianos and it lowers the overall strength of it by a lot. Your best bet would be to go with the set us I posted because just because a set up is stronger doesn't mean it's as well balanced. Believe me I've tested almost everything

Sharmony

Nifty2g wrote: »

My advice to you is to stop stacking regen, you don't need it it's way too overkill. It looks fancy but there is no point to it really

Agreed, I am noticing it more and more as I run, when I first ran this (the video on youtube is my second run), I was running this off the back of my magicka dk run, with the first templar run struggling heavily with sustain (completely different build) I thought I should use Lich for the second run and it worked out pretty nicely, but as you say, the set always seems to become overkill in certain situations.

Nifty2g wrote: »

Another thing I have to mention if you don't have at least 7/7 Divines in Spell Power Cure you're losing too much Crit Chance you'd otherwise get from Julianos and it lowers the overall strength of it by a lot. Your best bet would be to go with the set us I posted because just because a set up is stronger doesn't mean it's as well balanced. Believe me I've tested almost everything

Haha, don't you fret friend, I respect you and your work greatly and would never put it past either of us to have tested everything to the n'th degree. As for the divines, yes, I definitely agree for templar, but if you study some of the other classes magicka : spell damage : actual damage ratio's for individual skills; the line becomes far closer for the crit (divines) being the better, also dependent on content and circumstance too. One of my biggest frustrations is that I believe none of us theorycrafter's have covered is the idea of 'scale' in PvE builds, and what type of enemy(ies) we are hitting. Often it's a simple, oh these few armor sets are good instead of, in single target solo this is definitively the best setup, whereas in trials 12man AoE, this is the best setup. Hopefully we'll work on that in the future. Maybe the work me and a friend are doing plotting all the linear regressions for skills will help with this (the idea being you give us your stats and on a target with a flat armor and spell res (which we will be working out pens for in the future) we can predict how much you would hit, and then using a perfect rotation simulation see which setup would pull ahead).

eldermpsmithrwb17_ESO

Thanks Nifty...just thanks, i am running v16 julianos, 1pc kena, willpower and 2 x torugs swords and resto staff. I think it should be enough to pull me through, all that light armour though, round 2 hits hard.

Asayre

Sharmony wrote: »

As for the divines, yes, I definitely agree for templar, but if you study some of the other classes magicka : spell damage : actual damage ratio's for individual skills; the line becomes far closer for the crit (divines) being the better, also dependent on content and circumstance too.

Could you expand on this section a bit more? As far as I'm aware most people try fitting
Ability = a*Magicka + b*Spell Damage + c
They do a linear regression to find a, b and c. From @Zlater's data, for most skills the ratio b/a is around 10.5. I personally use
Ability = a'*(Magicka+10.5*Spell Damage)
as it gets close enough to the ability tooltip and makes subsequent calculations easier. I, specifically checked Puncturing Sweep and @Zlater puts a = 0.0146 and b = 0.155 for Puncturing Sweep.

Sharmony wrote: »

One of my biggest frustrations is that I believe none of us theorycrafter's have covered is the idea of 'scale' in PvE builds, and what type of enemy(ies) we are hitting. Often it's a simple, oh these few armor sets are good instead of, in single target solo this is definitively the best setup, whereas in trials 12man AoE, this is the best setup. Hopefully we'll work on that in the future. Maybe the work me and a friend are doing plotting all the linear regressions for skills will help with this (the idea being you give us your stats and on a target with a flat armor and spell res (which we will be working out pens for in the future) we can predict how much you would hit, and then using a perfect rotation simulation see which setup would pull ahead).

Could I ask how you plan to simulate rotations? At the moment, I'm simply timing a specific rotation and then calculating the average damage for the ability. An example of which I did for @Nifty2g is shown below (right hand side of the spreadsheet)

I'm encountering problems getting really good accuracy on the tooltip values unfortunately which is why I leave the option to specify the actual tooltip value. I'm thinking of maybe creating a few set timings for skills, weaves and bar swaps to automate the search for the optimum rotation. Of course, puncturing sweep will have to be a special case, as all other channelled spells.

If you have the time, I wouldn't mind listening to the concept of 'scale'. All I can glean from it is that perhaps in solo situations your optimisation function will include more regeneration that in a trial situation.

Whitebrad25

I'm thinking about actually giving VMA the time of day here soon...Tough with grinding Alts right now though.

I should be able to do it but I just have no incentive (the staff won't help me).


I would like the other weapons but aside from the Destro staff, it seems they favor stamina based builds pretty heavily.


At any rate, here is a range that I will use to make it work. I just worry about resistances to prevent the one shot.




or

ryanborror

@Nifty2g do you really feel you get more out of bastion than quick recovery?

Nifty2g

ryanborror wrote: »

@Nifty2g do you really feel you get more out of bastion than quick recovery?

Bastion makes your harness stronger which is your only shield and a source of magicka recovery, so yeah I think it's very important

Zlater

Asayre wrote: »

Sharmony wrote: »

As for the divines, yes, I definitely agree for templar, but if you study some of the other classes magicka : spell damage : actual damage ratio's for individual skills; the line becomes far closer for the crit (divines) being the better, also dependent on content and circumstance too.

Could you expand on this section a bit more? As far as I'm aware most people try fitting
Ability = a*Magicka + b*Spell Damage + c
They do a linear regression to find a, b and c. From @Zlater's data, for most skills the ratio b/a is around 10.5. I personally use
Ability = a'*(Magicka+10.5*Spell Damage)
as it gets close enough to the ability tooltip and makes subsequent calculations easier. I, specifically checked Puncturing Sweep and @Zlater puts a = 0.0146 and b = 0.155 for Puncturing Sweep.

Sharmony wrote: »

One of my biggest frustrations is that I believe none of us theorycrafter's have covered is the idea of 'scale' in PvE builds, and what type of enemy(ies) we are hitting. Often it's a simple, oh these few armor sets are good instead of, in single target solo this is definitively the best setup, whereas in trials 12man AoE, this is the best setup. Hopefully we'll work on that in the future. Maybe the work me and a friend are doing plotting all the linear regressions for skills will help with this (the idea being you give us your stats and on a target with a flat armor and spell res (which we will be working out pens for in the future) we can predict how much you would hit, and then using a perfect rotation simulation see which setup would pull ahead).

Could I ask how you plan to simulate rotations? At the moment, I'm simply timing a specific rotation and then calculating the average damage for the ability. An example of which I did for @Nifty2g is shown below (right hand side of the spreadsheet)

I'm encountering problems getting really good accuracy on the tooltip values unfortunately which is why I leave the option to specify the actual tooltip value. I'm thinking of maybe creating a few set timings for skills, weaves and bar swaps to automate the search for the optimum rotation. Of course, puncturing sweep will have to be a special case, as all other channelled spells.

If you have the time, I wouldn't mind listening to the concept of 'scale'. All I can glean from it is that perhaps in solo situations your optimisation function will include more regeneration that in a trial situation.

yay me

The coefficient difference between puncturing sweep and most other skills is 10.61 vs 10.51 in the favor of spell damage. I would say its negligible. Especially when considering that the little damage you lose is accounted for in improved resource management and improved shield strength.

@Asayre, I had previously thought of working backward from a FTC report of 'perfect rotations' to determine the best route for optimized DPS based on skill choice. I only imagine this would be on a player to player basis considering little things like how much weapon swapping and animation cancelling the player is doing.

@Nifty2g your build is pretty much perfect, there are a couple things I would like to ask about.

1. Stacking armor for defense, while it is popular, it is actually currently the least effective way of mitigating damage, especially considering it doesn't stack with harness magicka and other shields. I think you choose it because it allows you to move out of it, but have you considered running circle of protection instead?

I personally think its superior because it will keep your magicka topped up much better than channeled focus can, has a far bigger area, provides better overall defense and also gives you your major fortitude buff and its applied before harness. I also notice that in practice you tend to run channeled a lot more in those emergency situations instead of keeping to the theoretical goal of a 100% up-time.

2. Whats your take on reflective light +1 other skill vs inner light vs both?