Does damage listed on weapons have any effect on skills?

sutasafaia

I see a lot of recommendations for leveling templar with dual wielding, but I wasn't sure why. From level 1-15 wouldn't using a staff be better since it scales with magicka and also restores some of your magicka pool? As far as I understand dual wielding is used later on for passives to make your spells stronger, and I get that, but is there any advantage to starting with dual wield from level 1? Does the damage listed on the weapons have an effect on your spell damage so having two weapons gives your puncturing sweep more damage? If not, I don't understand the reasoning behind dual wielding from level 1 on a magicka character.

dday3six

DW by default gives higher spell damage. Spell damage scales Magicka skills. Starting with it ultimately just means it will be leveled faster. The only thing used from the skill line is the Twin Blade and Blunt passive, and the last rank unlocks at 50.

However end of the day you likely want DW, Resto, and Destro leveled for a Magicka Templar and it doesn't matter when you do that.

sutasafaia

So using DW, even without a single passive, will make my spells stronger than using a staff, also without passives?

CaptainPocky

The damage your spells do is calculated by this equation:

Damage = (M+10.4*P)*b*r*x
M = Maximum magicka
P = Spell Damage
b = Base modifier (This is the factor that decides how much damage the specific ability does)
r = Rank modifier (1.01 for rank 1, then 1.04 for rank 4)
x = Other modifiers

Likewise, for stamina abilities, the equation is:
Damage = (S+10.4*W)*b*r*x
S = Maximum stamina
W = Weapon damage

So the damage listed on the weapon contributes to both your spell damage P and your weapon damage W, though obviously you only care about P. In addition, swords then give an extra damage contribution of 5%, or x = 1.05.

So if swords give higher P and x, what is the point then of running a staff? You can medium weave with them. This is when, in-between abilities, you toss in a quick, not-completely-charged heavy attack. With a staff, these attacks scale using the first equation, but with a sword, they follow the second equation. As you, being magicka-based, would have a much higher M+10.4P than S+10.4W, the sword's medium attacks would do next to nothing. If you go through the calculations then, you will actually find that (except in a few rare cases), that a staff will give much higher DPS.

TL;DR: Train up both skill lines just in case, but use a staff. Fire will give highest DPS.

Acsvf

Yes. Damage on weapons adds to your spell damage and weapon damage.

sutasafaia

Thanks for the replies. Mostly I was trying to figure out if it was worthwhile to level dual wielding from level one.I fully plan to level both staves along with dw, I was just wondering about leveling dw from 1 since it wasn't obvious if weapons had any actual impact on skills, at least to me. Fairly sure it's never mentioned in game even once, that might be a nice thing to add to one of the million tutorials that love to constantly pop up. Thanks again for the info.

As far as weaving goes, that is a skill I have not mastered yet. It's something to think about though, although I personally dislike animation canceling in games, already feels like I'm exploiting something.

CaptainPocky

Haha yeah, that's definitely one thing you'll find with this game is that they tend not to tell you fairly important information. You get used to weaving after a while though and it actually looks pretty natural with a staff. Swords... ehh not so much.

DjKahun

What I did is leveled up my Destro/Healing Staff til I hit VR14 just to make the game easier for myself then I have gone for DW, but that's on my sorc not a templar