DPS in Dungeons

Thoosa

Hi,

So my stats are: max magicka: 30794, spell damage 3330 (I think buffed) and 48% spell critical. I'm wearing julianos and willpower.

I was in Crypt Of Hearts 2 and someone said that the dps was low and it was, it also seemed for me to be taking longer for me to down mobs. The other players were all 500+ cp (higher than me at 427) and that seemed weird to me, that higher players had low dps.

Does group level dps also effect my own dps when I'm fighting a mob?

All previous runs where I've been with other people have been fine and I've killed at what I think is a normal speed.

Thanks!

Lukums1

Thoosa wrote: »

Hi,

So my stats are: max magicka: 30794, spell damage 3330 (I think buffed) and 48% spell critical. I'm wearing julianos and willpower.

I was in Crypt Of Hearts 2 and someone said that the dps was low and it was, it also seemed for me to be taking longer for me to down mobs. The other players were all 500+ cp (higher than me at 427) and that seemed weird to me, that higher players had low dps.

Does group level dps also effect my own dps when I'm fighting a mob?

All previous runs where I've been with other people have been fine and I've killed at what I think is a normal speed.

Thanks!

This is based... off

Warhorns from tank - you have of had none.
Combat Prayer 8% additional damage - healer may not have ran it
IA - Infalaether another 8% damage - no one may of been running it
No one ran ele drain or major breach 5280 spell pen

Heaps of reasons, almost endless.

At 3.3k SpellDamage and 31k ish magicka you generally should be ok.

It is low... but yeah still doing decent dps.

48% spell critical on a sorc should be up around 64% though, should get theif if you don't have it.

Thoosa

I turned on outgoing numbers I seem to get from 2800+ white and 4000+ yellow/orange (I think it's critical) in a fight - is this any good? I've seen up to 12k on white occasionally.

SolarCat02

Those numbers don't really help much unless you are comparing skill for skill. So you would have to say what skills were giving those numbers.

For example, a Sorcerer may be hitting for 20k crits with Crystal Fragments, while the player next to them is getting 3.5k crit ticks from Wall of Elements.
The 20k is bigger, sure, but Wall of Elements ticks 8 times, so those 3.5ks add up to 28k in damage.

Adding in cast times, if the Crystal Fragments was hard cast (meaning they took up the whole one second cast time rather than the instant cast), the Wall of Elements player had enough time to cast Wall, weave in a light/medium attack, and also cast something else, while the first player only has that 20k Crystal Fragment cast for the same amount of time.

So there is a lot more than just the size of the numbers at play. This is why the best measurement is DPS - Damage per Second. The speed things die is much more reliable a judge than the size of the numbers on the screen (although they are also very useful for self-comparisons).

Danksta

Thoosa wrote: »

I turned on outgoing numbers I seem to get from 2800+ white and 4000+ yellow/orange (I think it's critical) in a fight - is this any good? I've seen up to 12k on white occasionally.

Orange numbers just mean it's a DoT, if it has a ! at the end of the number that means it's a crit.

WarpigFunk

You're a sorc?

Thoosa

Yep.

BNOC

Thoosa wrote: »

Hi,

So my stats are: max magicka: 30794, spell damage 3330 (I think buffed) and 48% spell critical. I'm wearing julianos and willpower.

Does group level dps also effect my own dps when I'm fighting a mob?

Your dps is probably low - 30k max magicka is LOW, especially for a sorc (You're about 2k magicka down in missing champion points so you're missing at least another 8k magicka somewhere - try find out where and sort that asap)

Group dps doesn't affect you but like people have said, buffs and debuffs from the group will.

IMO, if you're running a healer with all these debuffs then you're probably killing stuff slower than you would running 3 dps 1 tank or 4 dps - They're only dungeons.

Thoosa

Hey all,

Thanks for the responses everyone.

Since the first post i readjusted my clothes and now have 35k magicka unbuffed (39k with food) and between 3000-3800 spell damage buffed.

shack80

Please note that some of those #2 dungeon monster seems to take more hits than the ones one #1 dungeons.

Drummerx04

Thoosa wrote: »

Hey all,

Thanks for the responses everyone.

Since the first post i readjusted my clothes and now have 35k magicka unbuffed (39k with food) and between 3000-3800 spell damage buffed.

I ran julianos and willpower on my sorc for quite a long time. I think you left off your CP, which isn't quite as important as a good rotation and gear, but CP definitely affects your damage potential so that would be a good thing to add as part of your build. Another "common" issue I run into is with tanks who shouldn't be tanks. If a tank is running around with all the mobs or boss chasing him (he has aggro so CLEARLY he's a good tank and doesn't need to hold them still!!!), then it is very hard to pull decent numbers since a very large chunk of your damage as a magsorc will come from ground placed AoE skills.

My sorc has ~43k mag, 2800 spell damage when buffed, about 64% crit, and 600cp wearing your gear (arcane willpower, julianos, ilambris). Running entirely self buffed (self ele drain too) I can pretty consistently pull around 32k dps on a single mostly stationary target.

Being a solid dps probably takes the most practice and experience out of all the roles, and basic advice is to always have your ground dots out and light weave all of your attacks.

t3hdubzy

IMO you need a deeper resource pool for magika. Ive noticed the tool tips on most of my spammables are a lot higher with 2500 spell dmg and 43k max magika than if i have 380p spell dmg and 30k max magika.

Also make sure you arent over pentrating and put more into crit if you have at least 10k spell penetration, 3800 from light armor plus 5k from sharpened should be mostly enough for dungeons. Id only put 20 or so pts in cp here for pve only.

Throwing out rough numbers dont quote me.

You may want to post your dps on a target dummy and rotation here for some of the more elite players to help you more.

Thoosa

Well I got a target dummy and my best number from taking it from 3 million health to 2.5 was 13k dps.

I started with 41k magicka.

I mainly did light attack, force pulse, light attack, some elemental blockade and bound aegis, plus some liquid lightning thrown in.

If I did a one second attack I got 19k dps but it appears to get worse over time. Is the target dummy ok?

My last attempt was 12264.2 over 1m 11s on the skeleton.

Skinzz

Might not be your gear and stats.. could be your rotation. Anybody can have 40k max stam and 4k weapon damage but have low dps if you spam one ability the entire time lol.

Thoosa

My rotation was: light attack, force pulse, light attack, force pulse, light attack, crystal frags, light attack, aegis, light attack, blockade, light attack lightning or pulse to start.

Force pulse was the only thing to keep dps above 10k apparently.

dpencil

If you don't have liquid lightning, Blockade of fire/storms, and Haunting Curse/Prey up all the time, there's no way you will dps well on a sorc. Damage over time is way more important than spamming force pulse. Focus on light attacking into each cast, including your dots. Cast the skill right after you press your light attack button like you're saying "ka-boom." This will cancel the light attack animation.

Rotation:
-Make sure you have Major Sorcery up either from Power Surge or a potion.
-Start with an ultimate if you have one ready
- LA (light attack), Haunting Curse, LA, Liquid Lightning, LA, Blockade, LA, Force Pulse (use Crystal Frags when it procs)
- When the second Haunting Curse explodes, start the rotation over

Magdalina

Thoosa wrote: »

My rotation was: light attack, force pulse, light attack, force pulse, light attack, crystal frags, light attack, aegis, light attack, blockade, light attack lightning or pulse to start.

Force pulse was the only thing to keep dps above 10k apparently.

I'm in no way a perfect sorc in the current meta but personally when I was testing on target dummy #1 source of my dps was Liquid Lightning. #2 was pet I think lol. You need to keep the dots up nonstop, Liquid, Blockade, Curse, pet if you have it.
I was pulling tad bit short of 30k self buffed in Julianos+Willpower+Illambris.

greylox

Just with both pets, maw set and light attacks i get 12k, add liquid lightning, daedric prey and elemental blockade and weaving etc and without any buffs it's just over 20k. 50k mag, 2150 spell damage 40% crit.



As said above, get those dots in!

Panth141

Thoosa wrote: »

My rotation was: light attack, force pulse, light attack, force pulse, light attack, crystal frags, light attack, aegis, light attack, blockade, light attack lightning or pulse to start.

Force pulse was the only thing to keep dps above 10k apparently.

Bound Aegis is a passive toggle - you should have it slotted on both bars and use the skill only once (pre-fight) to activate it. It will only deactivate if you press it again/switch to a bar that doesn't have it slotted/die etc. you should not ever be pressing it in combat.

Your main source of DPS will be with DoTs - Blockade, Liquid Lightning, Curse etc. - check out some guides on Tamriel Foundry for details of optimised rotations.

Thoosa

Oooh, thanks all. didn't realise I had to press once for aegis and have it on both bars.

I shall play around with dots and see what happens!

Thoosa

I tried a rotation last night and even after hitting the left attack then ability button very fast after one another and cycling through light attack - ability - light attack, and so on, I managed at best 15k.

If I casted a single crystal frag at the dummy, the outgoing number said 25k but the dummy reported 17k

In the majority of vet dungeons I've done, the boss has been killed fast and in the few vet trials I've done, so not sure what's happening.

It probably doesn't help that I don't fully kill the dummy and stop after 500k points, since it seems to take a while to show the calculation after I stop, so maybe that stop time is included in the figure?

Magdalina

Thoosa wrote: »

I tried a rotation last night and even after hitting the left attack then ability button very fast after one another and cycling through light attack - ability - light attack, and so on, I managed at best 15k.

If I casted a single crystal frag at the dummy, the outgoing number said 25k but the dummy reported 17k

Were the dots up? It's something like curse->liquid lightning->wall of elements->pet(if present)->crushing shock/frag weave til dots expire->liquid->wall->pet->curshing shock/frag weave(with curse renewed as it expires). This guide for exdample has a more proper explanation. It's an endgame build and you don't have to copy it, you should be just fine with something like Julianos/Willpower, at the very least that setup with that rotation should break 20k really easily. You could also drop pets and replace it with Bound Aegis or something if you prefer.

Also target dummy takes some times to deagro, especialy if the dots are still going(and if you have pet it won't leave it alone on its own) so it'll be dividing your total dps by "total" time, which won't equal the actual time you fought. So either kill the dummy or use addons and pay attention to the number they show before you stop fighting.

Thoosa

The problem is I run out of magicka from 40k, maybe I'm being too heavy on the force pulse and frags. It doesn't seem that dots take too much magicka.

psxfloh

Thoosa wrote: »

The problem is I run out of magicka from 40k, maybe I'm being too heavy on the force pulse and frags. It doesn't seem that dots take too much magicka.

Get someone to cast elemental drain on the dummy, or do it yourself.. helps a great deal with sustain as well as dps!
And/or hit the dummy down to 1.5 million hp (or even lower), stop until you're out of combat, and then start your actual dmg test where you actually kill the dummy to get a better result!

zaria

Thoosa wrote: »

The problem is I run out of magicka from 40k, maybe I'm being too heavy on the force pulse and frags. It doesn't seem that dots take too much magicka.

One tricks I use is to go to overload and do light attacks. This does good damage and restore magic.
An more advanced version is to change skills on overload bar and weave overload light attack and dots.

elemental drain is very nice in that it reduces the target spell resistance a lot and it restore magic.
In an group drain is supposed to be healers job but its smart to learn to use it.

WarpigFunk

OP ... heres a few things that will hopefully make you begin to evolve as a sorc.

1. Your DPS is low. Abysmally low. You dont have a rotation, or a full understanding of your skills. Getting better gear, more magic, higher spell damage, etc... will not solve your issue.

2. The reason bosses die quick for you in normal content is because, normal bosses are weak and squishy. The reason trial and vet content bosses are dieing quickly for you, is because the other DPSers are carrying you.

3. About 75% of putting out good DPS is rotational skills.

4. A good benchmark for you as you get started down the DPS rabbit hole is to kill the 3m health target skeleton and see at least 20,000 DPS. Work up to that first. You can easily manage that in your gear. For reference just light and heavy attacking the skelly to build ultimate I can pull 15-20k DPS....
From there you will then want to progress up into 25k, 30k, and eventually over 35k.

5. Practice light attack weaving. Practice it a lot. Practice it slowly, and build towards speed.
You should just automatically be light attack-canceling between every skill. And doing so with enough speed that you dont really see the animation.

Weave, weave, weave... That's your mantra. It takes time and practice to get the rotation and weaving down to where you are consistently getting light attacks to hit between every attack - and do so fast enough.

6. Your bars:
Without pets -
Bar 1: force pulse / haunting curse / crystal frags / bound aegis / inner light - shooting star or overload
Bar 2: liquid lightning / ele blockade / mage's wrath / bound aegis / inner light - destro ulti
Overload bar (if needed) liquid lightning / hardened ward / dark conversion / bound aegis / inner light

For DPS test/ practicing keep the bars like that - for trials or vet content, take out the execute and slot a ward.
For vet maelstrom, or spots where you need self healing - take out curse as well, and slot power surge.

For pet builds take out either Aegis or Inner Light and slot your volatile familiar, and use it in your rotation.


7. Potions and food -
ABP - Always Be Potioning. Get your alchemy leveled up and take that passive that buffs potion timers. Use potions to buff your stats, and regen magicka. If your dealing damage, your magicka bar is below 70%, and your potion is up - drink it. When I say potion I dont mean the trash magicka pots you find in your travels, I mean crafted pots - Essence of Spellpower being optimal, but not cheap. Essence of Spell Crit is fine if youre slotting surge or dont have inner light, Essence of magicka (crafted) for a cheap option.
Food: Always have blue cp150 Max Health/ Max Magicka food, as well as blue cp150 Max Health / Magicka Regen drink on you. For fights where you need max damage output - use the Max Mag food. For situations where sustain is an issue, use the regen drink.


8. Weapons - Sharpened is the trait you want. You should run 2 destro staffs - Inferno or Lightning or both depending on build. Both should be made Legendary (gold) - both should be sharpened.
Your front bar staff should have max level Weapon/ Spell damage enchant. Your back bar is optional, but either an elemental damage enchant or crusher or weapon damage, something along those lines is fine.

10. Here's a skelly rotation you can try: Have a friend keep elemental drain on the skelly for this - If you are solo, remove the execute and slot ele drain yourself and keep it up on the skelly. Use inner light before ultimates if you have the Mage's Guild passive that empowers your next attack.

Inner Light-Ultimate-light attack-Liquid Lightning-block cancel-light attack-elemental blockade-barswap-Potion-light attack-haunting curse-light attack-force pulse-light attack-frags (only when proc'd)-light attack-force pulse-light attack-force pulse-barswap-light attack-liquid lightning-block cancel--light attack-elemental blockade-barswap-light attack-force pulse-light attack-haunting curse-light attack-force pulse-light attack frags-Potion-Ultimate-[...Repeat until 20% hp...]-then, Execute-light attack-Execute-light attack-liquid lightning-light attack-elemental blockade-light attack-Execute-light attack-Execute... throw in a charged heavy if you get really low on resources prior to execute.

With enough speed and timing that comes from practice, you will kill that 3m health skelly - in under 1 minute and 40 seconds. From there you just need to get yourself kitted out in BiS gear, keep practicing, and you'll pull that to 80 seconds or less.


11. Watch sorc vids for build and rotation info. Theres so many beast sorcs out there putting out content -
Watch Alcast on the skelly here - and notice his light attack weaving is just automatic. That takes practice - the reason you see his arm twitching before every skill is because he is firing off an animation canceled light attack between everything.

Forward the video to 8:29 if it just links the whole thing here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXZcOjEhDio&t=8m29s


Hopefully some of this helped. I'm on this same journey to big dog deeps that you are, and this is the stuff I've picked up so far ... the rest is down to practice, practice, practice, and the will of almighty RNGesus.


DPS ain't as easy as it looks - at least at first. But it becomes automatic with practice.
Once you get the rotational mechanics and skills down - you can take those skills into any rotation and any situation - no trial boss is going to sit there like a dummy and let you kill it like the skelly (except maybe the top right side boss in Hel Ra when she bugs out) - so you'll be moving and warding and doing lots of other things- but the skills gained through practicing on the stationary target will dramatically enhance your DPS output in any context.

Cheers.

Thoosa

Wow, thanks for taking the time to write all that, very helpful. I'm kinda glad I got the dummy as it has opened my eyes to seeing my dps isn't up there.

Thoosa

I've got it up to 14473.1 by doing:

Haunting curse - blockade of fire - liquid lightning - swap bar - light attack - force pulse - light attack - entropy - crystal frags (if instant) - light attack - back to start.

Can I do this better to get higher dps?

Thanks

FrancisCrawford

Is there a reason not to relegate Mage's Wrath to your Overload bar?

dpencil

@Thoosa
- What gear are you wearing?
- What are your champ points in the Blue tree?
- Tell us exactly what skills you have on your bars.
- Light attack before your dots too.
- Did you use potions with spell power and spell crit?
- You need a source of Major Sorcery. Use Power Surge if you don't want to chug potions. This buff must be up 100%. Entropy is not the best choice for this.
- Don't reapplly curse until you see the 2nd explosion.

Edit (more questions):
- Are you using food or drink thay gives max magicka?
- Is all your gear at least purple (epic) quality?
- Are you seeing your light attack animation being cancelled by your next skill?
- Are you on PC or console? If PC, do you have any addons like FTC, S'rendarr, or Combat Metrics?

dpencil

@FrancisCrawford
You can do that. It become more tricky to keep dots up. You lose a global cool down switching back and forth. You also can't weave it with light attacks in the Overload bar. If all you want to do in execute phase is spam Wrath and let your dots fall off, then yeah, no reason not to have it there.