Damage Types

Nyx2

Can anyone explain to me how damage actually works? I tried to look this whole stuff up myself but it did not really answer my questions.

Apparently max magicka / stamina adds magical / physical damage but there is no sign of that in my stats nor when I level up. Only when looking up the skills it shows a change in damage. This is definitely not highlighted enough in the game. That is to say it's not shown at all and people like me are left oblivious. What then is spelldamage? Because that stat won't change at all for me.

The second thing: what's the point of using a melee weapon for magicka builds?! I see no benefit in the passives whatsoever and clearly it's not for the actives since those all use physical damage. What stat do basic attacks derive their strength from? What's the difference between class spells and those in resto, destruction skill line? And last: does max health also have any "hidden" benefits?

psychotic13

Nyx2 wrote: »

Can anyone explain to me how damage actually works? I tried to look this whole stuff up myself but it did not really answer my questions.

Apparently max magicka / stamina adds magical / physical damage but there is no sign of that in my stats nor when I level up. Only when looking up the skills it shows a change in damage. This is definitely not highlighted enough in the game. That is to say it's not shown at all and people like me are left oblivious. What then is spelldamage? Because that stat won't change at all for me.

The second thing: what's the point of using a melee weapon for magicka builds?! I see no benefit in the passives whatsoever and clearly it's not for the actives since those all use physical damage. What stat do basic attacks derive their strength from? What's the difference between class spells and those in resto, destruction skill line? And last: does max health also have any "hidden" benefits?

Max Magicka makes your Magicka abilities stronger, also giving you a larger resource pool to cast from. It will show in your stats, not as spell damage but if you look at your ability damage before and after say you put a Magicka piece of jewellery on, the damage will increase with more max Magicka.

People use melee weapons as a Magicka user because you can get a higher spell damage, the damage value on the weapon is applied to both weapon damage and spell damage, and as some weapons have a higher damage value than staffs, people choose to run that.

Spell damage is increased by weapon level and quality, jewleley enchants, armor set bonuses, Mundus stones, Abilitys or passively.

For example some Passives that effect spell damage/weapon damage are things like the Templar passive that increases it by 6%, medium armor increases by 12% ect.

Some Abilitys that give you a 20% buff for a duration are:

Surge (Sorcerer)
Sap Essence (Nightblade)
Igneous Weapons (DragonKnight)
Entropy (Mage Guild)
Rally (2handed)

There are others too, but this should get you started.

psychotic13

Sorry forgot to mention, there is a formula for damage, and both spell damage and Magicka are part of the equation. Same for stamina and weapon damage.

Ni7eWa7ch

yeah dual wield(swords) for some reason give you more spell damage than staff.
some abilities that are morphed to stamina deliver magicka damage and there where some abilties that cost magicka that deliverded phis damage before TG (logic??)
you can see a difference in stats regarding max stamina / magicka pool in the abilities tooltip raising its damage each time you add stam or magik
if the percentage of spel/ weapon crit is actually crit damage or crit chance isn't clear for me in console

That's for what i know

Saint314Louis1985

magicka and spell damage increase tooltip for magicka/elemental based skills
stamina and weapon damage increase tooltip for stamina/physical dmg skills

the only melee weapon you would use for a magicka build is duel wield swords. it increases your overall spell damage and tooltip on certain skills. also the last passive in duel wield increases dmg done for using swords, which also increases the dmg of your magicka skills. simply put, as a magicka build you would not use the swords, just equip them then cast your spells.

the difference between class and weapon skills is not much. some provide different buffs and such based off the skill line passives, but other than that, it is simply just a different set of skills to choose from.

no, health really doesnt provide much other than a larger health pool.

EDIT: if you search on the forums you should be able to find the exact equation on how dmg is calculated.

psychotic13

The equations are here if you want to understand what's actually happening, although it's not all straight forward.

http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/pts-2-1-2-sorcerer-arithmagic/

Acsvf

1. Spell Power and Weapon Power do not change with maximum stamina/magicka. Maximum magicka and maximum stamina, however, are taken into damage calculation.
The basic formula(as in, not for actual theorycrafting) for general use of calculating magicka scaling abilities is AbilityCoefficient*(Spellpower+Magicka*10.46), and AbilityCoefficient*(WeaponPower+Stamina*10.46) for stamina scaling abilities. In other words, every 10.46 maximum magicka and stamina is roughly equivalent to one spell power or weapon power respectively.
Spell Power and Weapon Power are simply your weapon's damage, plus anything that says it will increase your spell or weapon power. As a rule of thumb, if it doesn't say that it increases your spell or weapon damage, and it's not a weapon, it does not increase your spell or weapon damage.

Magical and physical damage is another matter entirely. These are damage types, and do not show what they scale off of.

2. Generally, magicka users either use 1h/s or Dual Wield if they were to use a stamina weapon. The purpose of using sword and board is mainly for the ability Defensive Posture. The ability reflects spells, and as such is extremely powerful in PVP, and possibly leveling. Dual Wield is used a lot more for PVE, however. Dual Wield benefits magicka users in three ways. First, Twin Blade and Blunt when used with swords is a flat 5% increase to damage done. Second, the offhand weapon contributes a fraction of it's damage to your spell and weapon damage. Third, and this goes for 1h/S as well, you get an additional piece of equipment, allowing you another item for your set bonuses.

Bow, Dual Wield, 1h/S, and 2h attack's damage are derived from maximum stamina and weapon power. Restoration and Destruction staff derive their attack's damage from spell power and maximum magicka.

There are two main differences between class abilities and those in destruction and restoration staff skill lines that I can think of the top of my head, being that any class can use these abilities, and that you have to be using that type of weapon to use the ability in it's skill tree.

3. If I recall correctly, some abilities scale off of maximum health. They are few and far inbetween, however.

Nyx2

Ok, that made things much clearer to me.

Thanks, everyone!