PTS Feedback Thread for Sorcerer Balance Improvements

Thornen

Morgul667 wrote: »

Did someone test and confirm whether the ancient knowledge 8% bonus apply only to destruction staff skills or also to all skills?

As long as your on a fire staff when the abilities do damage they get the 8% buff.

STEVIL

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Torbschka

did read everything here and im playing on ps4 EU, so I cant really test it by myself.

I was theorycrafting with some of my guys and I had the following Idea:

Destro bar:

Cfrag, entropy/wrath, IL, CS, destructive reach, ulti "x"

Backbar:

Classic + surge (if wrath)

Combined with. Valkyn skoria.

Wouldnt the 8% DMG buff combined with destructive reach + skoria Meteor (unblockable and umdodgeable) made up for the loss of curse ? (Cfrag, Meteor, dot ticking, cs, overall 8% DMG buff)

Glad if someone would test that

Morgul667

Thornen wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

Did someone test and confirm whether the ancient knowledge 8% bonus apply only to destruction staff skills or also to all skills?

As long as your on a fire staff when the abilities do damage they get the 8% buff.

STEVIL wrote:

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Thanks both of you for taking the time to reply. I wish we could have some good confirmation from PTS testers. Anyway I guess time will tell.

Feel free to barge in if you have more data, i'd appreciate it.

TreeHugger1

@ZOS_RichLambert
I really hope that in the next pts builds you will reduce the gap between light,medium and heavy armor and won't allow to stack 3 proc sets.
However there are some "minor" changes that I want to address:
1.In the current pts build the scamp stuns only after 8 seconds,although you can time the stun,the enemy can easily avoid it(8 seconds..)and then you will have to wait additional 8 seconds to stun him...There are many more disadvantage,you cant immediately stun players who burst you and it is more hard for you to time a burst if the enemy knows the scamp's mechanic and avoids it.
I think the solution is that the first/second pulse of the scamp will stun the enemy.
2.Snares(30%,40%,50,60%,70% and even 75%) and roots are out of control,it is impossible to kite and LoS especially as a magica player when players perma root and snare you,fights should be mobile.
3.Pets,I really appreciate your intentions and acts to buff them though there are still many issues with them.
cp points don't affect them,they walk through aoe,mines,trap beast,they don't break free from stuns,can be snared and rooted forever and they even move very slowly,therefore any decent player can avoid their damage.
Unfortunately I don't have enough experience with pets,yet I wrote it because I think pets deserve more attention and a closer look.
If anyone wish to fix me or add to what I said please do.

Derra

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

Kas wrote: »

i didn't really have the opportunity to test it in open-world pvp, but imho the greatest change seems to be that setting pets to passive now ports them to you. if this works reliably in cyrodiil, it can be a dream for 1vX / 2vX players that would liek to use pets - even when around obstacles. velocious curse gone seems quite bad for non-pet builds, though. Ill test more when there are EU copies, but playing againt templars (stam and mag, especially stam with shuffle though) seems really bad and even against mag dks it felt way worse than on live.... unlessyou unleashed the pets, that is.

so far, i'm pretty optimistic from a magsorc perspective for both, pve and pvp. it is VERY hard to tell, though without char copies, EU ping and different situations (duels vs cyrodiil, target dummy vs trials with raidbuffs, etc)


PS: ice staff seems liek another potent tool, but it's impossible to test because I
1) certianly won't use it to tnak in pve and taunt with heavy attacks xD
2) think it's potential in pvp goes strongly in the direction of temporary situations when many players are able to focus you. it's a situation where damage shields really suck (compared to forms of defense like dodge roles) and I can really see myself block+streak through those and then weapon swap to another bar where I reg magicka and rely on shields again (and hopefully was able to move in a away that I'm not focused as much anymore). but those situations don't occur on pts.

FInally I am a bit afraid that you can now build extremely cancerous support sorcs in heavy armor + ice staff for large-scale pvp. but then again, who cares abotu the state of large-scale pvp in the face of eye of the storm?

Please give me a quote,didn't see this in the patch notes.

It used to work that way all up to either thieves guild or the patch before that.

It´s most likely just old code getting used again. Stray pets portet back instantly (even cced ones) from launch up to IC release (and after that i did not put points into them anymore so i wouldn´t know).

cellobuddy

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

The familiar's pulse is affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited for specificity

psychotic13

cellobuddy wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

Pets are affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited to clarify SPC affecting pets.

How did you check CP on pets exactly, as far as I know it doesn't effect them, did you have no CP spent in the Mage constellation when you checked the damage before you put them into ele expert, elfborn ect?

Each CP spent in the constellation gives you magicka, which in turn raises the damage of the pets anyway. For an accurate test you need to have the same amount of CP spent in the Mage constellation with each test, firstly put points into something which won't effect your damage (bow expert for example) check damage, then switch them to ele expert etc and see if it increases.

@Dracane I believe you said they still don't scale, is this something you checked?

Also pets scale from max magicka, not spell damage that's why SPC doesn't increase their damage

kvlou79

Will we be getting a free respec when the update goes live?

Birdovic

kvlou79 wrote: »

Will we be getting a free respec when the update goes live?

I highly expect it with so many changes.

Dracane

psychotic13 wrote: »

cellobuddy wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

Pets are affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited to clarify SPC affecting pets.

How did you check CP on pets exactly, as far as I know it doesn't effect them, did you have no CP spent in the Mage constellation when you checked the damage before you put them into ele expert, elfborn ect?

Each CP spent in the constellation gives you magicka, which in turn raises the damage of the pets anyway. For an accurate test you need to have the same amount of CP spent in the Mage constellation with each test, firstly put points into something which won't effect your damage (bow expert for example) check damage, then switch them to ele expert etc and see if it increases.

@Dracane I believe you said they still don't scale, is this something you checked?

Also pets scale from max magicka, not spell damage that's why SPC doesn't increase their damage

Only the volatile pulse scales with CP and some passives, because it counts as your ability.
But pet base attacks aren't affected by anything in the game besides max magicka.

This is especially lethal for the Twilight, who looses so much damage due to this.

TreeHugger1

Dracane wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

cellobuddy wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

Pets are affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited to clarify SPC affecting pets.

How did you check CP on pets exactly, as far as I know it doesn't effect them, did you have no CP spent in the Mage constellation when you checked the damage before you put them into ele expert, elfborn ect?

Each CP spent in the constellation gives you magicka, which in turn raises the damage of the pets anyway. For an accurate test you need to have the same amount of CP spent in the Mage constellation with each test, firstly put points into something which won't effect your damage (bow expert for example) check damage, then switch them to ele expert etc and see if it increases.

@Dracane I believe you said they still don't scale, is this something you checked?

Also pets scale from max magicka, not spell damage that's why SPC doesn't increase their damage

Only the volatile pulse scales with CP and some passives, because it counts as your ability.
But pet base attacks aren't affected by anything in the game besides max magicka.

This is especially lethal for the Twilight, who looses so much damage due to this.

The twilight's heal is also affected by cp if I remember correctly.

psychotic13

Dracane wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

cellobuddy wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

Pets are affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited to clarify SPC affecting pets.

How did you check CP on pets exactly, as far as I know it doesn't effect them, did you have no CP spent in the Mage constellation when you checked the damage before you put them into ele expert, elfborn ect?

Each CP spent in the constellation gives you magicka, which in turn raises the damage of the pets anyway. For an accurate test you need to have the same amount of CP spent in the Mage constellation with each test, firstly put points into something which won't effect your damage (bow expert for example) check damage, then switch them to ele expert etc and see if it increases.

@Dracane I believe you said they still don't scale, is this something you checked?

Also pets scale from max magicka, not spell damage that's why SPC doesn't increase their damage

Only the volatile pulse scales with CP and some passives, because it counts as your ability.
But pet base attacks aren't affected by anything in the game besides max magicka.

This is especially lethal for the Twilight, who looses so much damage due to this.

Yeah I wanted to try the twilight tormenter and figured it would do decent damage with daedric prey and the special ability, really need the CP to push that base attack though

Dracane

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

cellobuddy wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

Pets are affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited to clarify SPC affecting pets.

How did you check CP on pets exactly, as far as I know it doesn't effect them, did you have no CP spent in the Mage constellation when you checked the damage before you put them into ele expert, elfborn ect?

Each CP spent in the constellation gives you magicka, which in turn raises the damage of the pets anyway. For an accurate test you need to have the same amount of CP spent in the Mage constellation with each test, firstly put points into something which won't effect your damage (bow expert for example) check damage, then switch them to ele expert etc and see if it increases.

@Dracane I believe you said they still don't scale, is this something you checked?

Also pets scale from max magicka, not spell damage that's why SPC doesn't increase their damage

Only the volatile pulse scales with CP and some passives, because it counts as your ability.
But pet base attacks aren't affected by anything in the game besides max magicka.

This is especially lethal for the Twilight, who looses so much damage due to this.

The twilight's heal is also affected by cp if I remember correctly.

Because it counts as your ability. But I don't care for it too much, I'm more interested in the offensive part.

cellobuddy

psychotic13 wrote: »

cellobuddy wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

Pets are affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited to clarify SPC affecting pets.

How did you check CP on pets exactly, as far as I know it doesn't effect them, did you have no CP spent in the Mage constellation when you checked the damage before you put them into ele expert, elfborn ect?

Each CP spent in the constellation gives you magicka, which in turn raises the damage of the pets anyway. For an accurate test you need to have the same amount of CP spent in the Mage constellation with each test, firstly put points into something which won't effect your damage (bow expert for example) check damage, then switch them to ele expert etc and see if it increases.

@Dracane I believe you said they still don't scale, is this something you checked?

Also pets scale from max magicka, not spell damage that's why SPC doesn't increase their damage

Please read fully. I wrote how I did the test in the post. I only really tested the familiar's pulse since it's often mentioned that pet damage doesn't scale w/ CP and it's easy for people to think that this applies to the familiar's pulse, as well. That misconception didn't seem addressed, so I went ahead and addressed it.

Flak

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Flak wrote: »

I still can't get over the insane nerf on Stamina, stamsorc in particular. I'm talking from an endgame PvE perspective here and I am aware that things are different in PvP. Still I think there has to be a way to balance it in Cyro without ruining it in PvE.

Has anyone at ZOS looked at the trialleaderboards and checked how many Staminaplayers are in an average group?
It's already very rare, Staminachars have alot of disadvantages compared to Magicka, they have to stay melee, they are squishier, their rotations are harder, they have no shields and using the same pool for skills and defense.

So yes, Stamsorc and StamDK did a bit more damage than their Magicka Counterparts, but shouldn't there be some reward at least for playing a significantly harder class?
How can you compare a Class that can sit in 20m range from the fight with a 20k shield and effectively only uses 5 skills to a class that stays right at the boss and uses a channeled spammable that can't even be blockcasted?

If this patch goes live the sides will be flipped on damage aswell and Stamina will be banished from endgame.

Yeah you forgot stamblades. But i agree with you. Its not just stam sorcs though. Rearming Trap was the strongest DoT all stam builds had. Now its nerfed by almost a third. We won't be seeing stam builds in trials if they don't change anything.

Yes of course Stamblades will be even worse as their damage is lower already and they rely on crit even more than the other classes.
The same goes for stamplar which they said they would buff but instead nerfed again this patch.

psychotic13

Flak wrote: »

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Flak wrote: »

I still can't get over the insane nerf on Stamina, stamsorc in particular. I'm talking from an endgame PvE perspective here and I am aware that things are different in PvP. Still I think there has to be a way to balance it in Cyro without ruining it in PvE.

Has anyone at ZOS looked at the trialleaderboards and checked how many Staminaplayers are in an average group?
It's already very rare, Staminachars have alot of disadvantages compared to Magicka, they have to stay melee, they are squishier, their rotations are harder, they have no shields and using the same pool for skills and defense.

So yes, Stamsorc and StamDK did a bit more damage than their Magicka Counterparts, but shouldn't there be some reward at least for playing a significantly harder class?
How can you compare a Class that can sit in 20m range from the fight with a 20k shield and effectively only uses 5 skills to a class that stays right at the boss and uses a channeled spammable that can't even be blockcasted?

If this patch goes live the sides will be flipped on damage aswell and Stamina will be banished from endgame.

Yeah you forgot stamblades. But i agree with you. Its not just stam sorcs though. Rearming Trap was the strongest DoT all stam builds had. Now its nerfed by almost a third. We won't be seeing stam builds in trials if they don't change anything.

Yes of course Stamblades will be even worse as their damage is lower already and they rely on crit even more than the other classes.
The same goes for stamplar which they said they would buff but instead nerfed again this patch.

They said their will be more changes in PTS3, let's hope they're good ones

TreeHugger1

Dracane wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

cellobuddy wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

Pets are affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited to clarify SPC affecting pets.

How did you check CP on pets exactly, as far as I know it doesn't effect them, did you have no CP spent in the Mage constellation when you checked the damage before you put them into ele expert, elfborn ect?

Each CP spent in the constellation gives you magicka, which in turn raises the damage of the pets anyway. For an accurate test you need to have the same amount of CP spent in the Mage constellation with each test, firstly put points into something which won't effect your damage (bow expert for example) check damage, then switch them to ele expert etc and see if it increases.

@Dracane I believe you said they still don't scale, is this something you checked?

Also pets scale from max magicka, not spell damage that's why SPC doesn't increase their damage

Only the volatile pulse scales with CP and some passives, because it counts as your ability.
But pet base attacks aren't affected by anything in the game besides max magicka.

This is especially lethal for the Twilight, who looses so much damage due to this.

The twilight's heal is also affected by cp if I remember correctly.

Because it counts as your ability. But I don't care for it too much, I'm more interested in the offensive part.

Yea,I must ask you as a "pets' owner",isn't the new change to the scamp's stun annoying?

Dracane

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

cellobuddy wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

Pets are affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited to clarify SPC affecting pets.

How did you check CP on pets exactly, as far as I know it doesn't effect them, did you have no CP spent in the Mage constellation when you checked the damage before you put them into ele expert, elfborn ect?

Each CP spent in the constellation gives you magicka, which in turn raises the damage of the pets anyway. For an accurate test you need to have the same amount of CP spent in the Mage constellation with each test, firstly put points into something which won't effect your damage (bow expert for example) check damage, then switch them to ele expert etc and see if it increases.

@Dracane I believe you said they still don't scale, is this something you checked?

Also pets scale from max magicka, not spell damage that's why SPC doesn't increase their damage

Only the volatile pulse scales with CP and some passives, because it counts as your ability.
But pet base attacks aren't affected by anything in the game besides max magicka.

This is especially lethal for the Twilight, who looses so much damage due to this.

The twilight's heal is also affected by cp if I remember correctly.

Because it counts as your ability. But I don't care for it too much, I'm more interested in the offensive part.

Yea,I must ask you as a "pets' owner",isn't the new change to the scamp's stun annoying?

The opposite, it's beneficial. The current stun is very annoying, as it destroys burst rotations with its stun. You need to knock an enemy down with crystal shard in the right moment in order to kill it and the stun really interferes with that.

The stun safed my life more than just 1 time, but that's not too bad. The way it is on the pts is 10 times better.

Minalan

So now with the dual wield nerf and destro staff buff, there's zero reason to use dual wield:

* Increased the Dual Wield Weapon and Spell Damage penalty by roughly 3%. Weapon and Spell Damage while Dual Wielding (without modifiers) is now equal to using a Two Handed weapon.

Now you have to weigh the one extra set piece and 5% extra damage (single target and AOE) against 8% single target damage AND being able to use fire heavy attacks (which is kind of big with the 20% damage bonus to well... almost everyone)

STEVIL

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

cellobuddy wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

Pets are affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited to clarify SPC affecting pets.

How did you check CP on pets exactly, as far as I know it doesn't effect them, did you have no CP spent in the Mage constellation when you checked the damage before you put them into ele expert, elfborn ect?

Each CP spent in the constellation gives you magicka, which in turn raises the damage of the pets anyway. For an accurate test you need to have the same amount of CP spent in the Mage constellation with each test, firstly put points into something which won't effect your damage (bow expert for example) check damage, then switch them to ele expert etc and see if it increases.

@Dracane I believe you said they still don't scale, is this something you checked?

Also pets scale from max magicka, not spell damage that's why SPC doesn't increase their damage

Only the volatile pulse scales with CP and some passives, because it counts as your ability.
But pet base attacks aren't affected by anything in the game besides max magicka.

This is especially lethal for the Twilight, who looses so much damage due to this.

The twilight's heal is also affected by cp if I remember correctly.

Because it counts as your ability. But I don't care for it too much, I'm more interested in the offensive part.

Yea,I must ask you as a "pets' owner",isn't the new change to the scamp's stun annoying?

it is for me - the 8s stun was one of the first questions i posed to rich.

HOWEVER - did i read correctly that CC immunity was now 7s long?

if so and if that applies to the stun from "scampie" having the stun repeatable at 8s might make more sense than if it repeats after 4s against still CC immune targets.

But the stun is a key ingredient and if its not as often thats a big hit and a push toward clanfear but - likely not gonna change my setup on its own. (the aoe v single target passive is likely gonna change a lot of my builds.)

psychotic13

I've seen people say different things but don't know what's actually true, does destro increase ALL single target damage or just damage from the destruction staff?

Really don't want to give up duel wield as I need that extra slot, I wonder how the tooltip value of the Frags will compare

Akimbro

psychotic13 wrote: »

I've seen people say different things but don't know what's actually true, does destro increase ALL single target damage or just damage from the destruction staff?

Really don't want to give up duel wield as I need that extra slot, I wonder how the tooltip value of the Frags will compare

It's all single target damage as long as you have a destro ability on your bar.

psychotic13

Minalan wrote: »

So now with the dual wield nerf and destro staff buff, there's zero reason to use dual wield:

* Increased the Dual Wield Weapon and Spell Damage penalty by roughly 3%. Weapon and Spell Damage while Dual Wielding (without modifiers) is now equal to using a Two Handed weapon.

Now you have to weigh the one extra set piece and 5% extra damage (single target and AOE) against 8% single target damage AND being able to use fire heavy attacks (which is kind of big with the 20% damage bonus to well... almost everyone)

DW still gives more spell damage though?

Minalan

psychotic13 wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

So now with the dual wield nerf and destro staff buff, there's zero reason to use dual wield:

* Increased the Dual Wield Weapon and Spell Damage penalty by roughly 3%. Weapon and Spell Damage while Dual Wielding (without modifiers) is now equal to using a Two Handed weapon.

Now you have to weigh the one extra set piece and 5% extra damage (single target and AOE) against 8% single target damage AND being able to use fire heavy attacks (which is kind of big with the 20% damage bonus to well... almost everyone)

DW still gives more spell damage though?

It gives exactly as much as a 2H weapon, which I think is slightly higher than a staff. The 8% bonus however should make up for that.

I'll have to look at it tonight.

Dracane

Minalan wrote: »

So now with the dual wield nerf and destro staff buff, there's zero reason to use dual wield:

* Increased the Dual Wield Weapon and Spell Damage penalty by roughly 3%. Weapon and Spell Damage while Dual Wielding (without modifiers) is now equal to using a Two Handed weapon.

Now you have to weigh the one extra set piece and 5% extra damage (single target and AOE) against 8% single target damage AND being able to use fire heavy attacks (which is kind of big with the 20% damage bonus to well... almost everyone)

There are plenty of reasons to use dual wield.
It still offers way more base damage and still offers 1 more slot.

It's still not balanced in my opinion. Dual wield is too good. The only reason to even consider staff over dual wield, is because Sorc has no good spammable ability without D staff.

Dracane

STEVIL wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

cellobuddy wrote: »

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

cp points don't affect them

Pets are affected by CP. When I put all 200 in the atro tree, the familiar pulsed for 2.5k noncrit, 3.8k crit. When I followed my normal champ point allocation, the familiar's pulse hit for 3.5k noncrit, 5.8k crit. I also tested all of the stars you would expect to apply, and they all increased the damage of the familiar (elfborn, spell erosion, thaumaturge, ele expert).

That said, they are still unaffected by the player's spell damage. I gave myself the SPC buff and the familiar's damage remained the same. They also still get affected by SPC without any increased damage. i.e. a healer can apply SPC to the familiar, adding the SPC buff to the familiar's buffs, but the familiar(and its pulse) will do the exact same damage.

STEVIL wrote: »

Funny thing is i have sen i think three different "confirmed" reports

one said emphatically 8% only apply to destro staff abilities - no matter what.
one said it applies to all abilities IF and only if you have a destro staff ability slotted.
several have said it applies to all skills on the staff bar whether class or staff or guild or whatever.

So lots of different "double checked" going on.

either way thats something likely to be bugged at various times and changed as the playtest progresses.

but i believe the largest consensus is it applies to all abilities and like it has always been only when the staff is equipped.

Pets(and other skills) are affected by the new ancient knowledge passive as long as you have a destro staff skill on your bar. 3543 damage from volatile familiar against skele w/ minor vulnerability using maelstrom inferno.
3804 " " " using maelstrom lightning.
3543 " " " using maelstrom lightning w/ force pulse replaced with non-destro staff skill. Used rapids in my test to avoid other passives affecting the damage.

Abilities w/ a single target and AoE aspect (curse for example) are affected by both parts of the passive. The main single target is affected with the damage buff if you have an inferno equipped, and the nearby (AoE) targets are affected if you have a lightning staff equipped.

For the lightning staff heavy attack, I tested without the passive to get a 3404 AoE on a 2680 tick on the main target. When I put skill points into the passive, I got 3386 AoE on a 2484 tick. I wore 5 pieces of infal for both tests and alternated targets to ensure 100% uptime on minor vulnerability to ensure concuss did not affect results. (infal still procs on the first tic of lightning and resto staves in case anyone that's read this far didn't know.)

These results speak for themselves. Something is wrong with lightning heavy attacks when this passive is thrown in the mix. An 8% decrease to the primary target to ensure the same damage to AoE targets happens should not be happening.

Edited to clarify SPC affecting pets.

How did you check CP on pets exactly, as far as I know it doesn't effect them, did you have no CP spent in the Mage constellation when you checked the damage before you put them into ele expert, elfborn ect?

Each CP spent in the constellation gives you magicka, which in turn raises the damage of the pets anyway. For an accurate test you need to have the same amount of CP spent in the Mage constellation with each test, firstly put points into something which won't effect your damage (bow expert for example) check damage, then switch them to ele expert etc and see if it increases.

@Dracane I believe you said they still don't scale, is this something you checked?

Also pets scale from max magicka, not spell damage that's why SPC doesn't increase their damage

Only the volatile pulse scales with CP and some passives, because it counts as your ability.
But pet base attacks aren't affected by anything in the game besides max magicka.

This is especially lethal for the Twilight, who looses so much damage due to this.

The twilight's heal is also affected by cp if I remember correctly.

Because it counts as your ability. But I don't care for it too much, I'm more interested in the offensive part.

Yea,I must ask you as a "pets' owner",isn't the new change to the scamp's stun annoying?

it is for me - the 8s stun was one of the first questions i posed to rich.

HOWEVER - did i read correctly that CC immunity was now 7s long?

if so and if that applies to the stun from "scampie" having the stun repeatable at 8s might make more sense than if it repeats after 4s against still CC immune targets.

But the stun is a key ingredient and if its not as often thats a big hit and a push toward clanfear but - likely not gonna change my setup on its own. (the aoe v single target passive is likely gonna change a lot of my builds.)

No, CC immunity is the same. But the CC immunity for outlasting a cc (like I knock you down with crystal shard and you decide to endure it to get free immunity) this immunity has been increased.

Dymence

Lord_Hev wrote: »

I want SUMMONS. Not toggled pets, there is a huge difference between the two. We are Daedric Summoners, not zoo-mancers.

This all the way. Might actually get me to use pets then.

Nightblade shades already work this way, even retaining their active ability. Why is it such a problem to have sorc pets function in the same way?

Rusty_Blade

Just wanted to reiterate what others have said.

1: Curse is fine as it is, pls revert it back
2: Pls increase shield duration to at least 10s
3: There isn't really a problem with overload in pvp as it is. Not sure why this change has been made?
4: Sorcs could do with a spamable skill, webs used to be handy for that.

Every time it seems sorcs get nerfed.

psychotic13

Minalan wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

So now with the dual wield nerf and destro staff buff, there's zero reason to use dual wield:

* Increased the Dual Wield Weapon and Spell Damage penalty by roughly 3%. Weapon and Spell Damage while Dual Wielding (without modifiers) is now equal to using a Two Handed weapon.

Now you have to weigh the one extra set piece and 5% extra damage (single target and AOE) against 8% single target damage AND being able to use fire heavy attacks (which is kind of big with the 20% damage bonus to well... almost everyone)

DW still gives more spell damage though?

It gives exactly as much as a 2H weapon, which I think is slightly higher than a staff. The 8% bonus however should make up for that.

I'll have to look at it tonight.

iirc gold staff gives 1335 and gold 2h gives 1561. Someone put a screenshot up of difference in another thread you lose like 50 SD which isn't much

I think they said they nerfed the penalty by 3%, as of now on live the second sword gives 20% of its damage towards your stats, while now it gives 17%.

So 20% of 1335 is 267, so gold DW would give 1602
Now at 17% it would give 226.9 so DW gives 1562

So the comparison between DW and Destro is:

Destro
- +8% on single target damage
- Ability to weave and use destro abilities and other passives

DW
- +5% to all damage
- 226.9 spell damage
- Access to run 5/5/2

DW will still be superior at bursting, which is what makes it strong in pvp