Second best weapons

kalimar44

To maelstrom? Let's face it some people will never beat this. This is the first MMO I've played where the best weapons could only be gotten solo.

Bomber293

lmaoooo maelstrom are NOT the best weapons it depends on your build and how you play often another set is way better.

Waffennacht

Sharpened anything is second best, sharpened anything is actually better than non sharpened vMA weapon (for dps)

Asmael

Waffennacht wrote: »

Sharpened anything is second best, sharpened anything is actually better than non sharpened vMA weapon (for dps)

Careful with these statements, some traits have specific mechanics that are to be tested further and already performing on a similar level with specific builds.

I'll give you one: Sharpened carries over on weapon swap, Infused works on current bar.

Endless hail > swap to 2x infused daggers and your Endless Hail (which is the #1 ability on basically all sustained stamina parses) benefits from both sharpened and infused.

Masel

Waffennacht wrote: »

Sharpened anything is second best, sharpened anything is actually better than non sharpened vMA weapon (for dps)

I'm currently pulling more dps solo and on 4 man content with charged weapons than with sharpened weapons on my magplar and magblade, so yes, careful with those statements.

Jim_Pipp

@Masel92 I was just looking at your Vma builds and saw what you were doing with charged and it was like a lightbulb moment for me. Then I saw what @Asmael said about some weapon traits carrying over when you swap bars and I wondered if the charged trait carries over?

I want to go and do some testing now, but probably can't find the time till tomorrow, so I wonder if either of you have noticed if the charged trait carries over after a weapon swap - that would probably change the meta for mag sorcs.

Chilly-McFreeze

@Asmael

This is the first time I read that traits etc. are carried over on swap. I thought that everything is calculated based on the current bar. Really interesting. Can you plz give me some source so I can read further into this?

Asmael

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

@Asmael

This is the first time I read that traits etc. are carried over on swap. I thought that everything is calculated based on the current bar. Really interesting. Can you plz give me some source so I can read further into this?

I'm gonna quote the thread from @Jeckll on Tamriel Foundry:

How Dots work


What that means:

• Second bar trait IS IMPORTANT as Penetration carries over from the bar you are on when the dots hit the target. So your dots will do more damage from a sharpened bow compared to another trait even on the dual wield bar.
• Swap Canceling Poison Injection means the “Impact Bar” of Poison Injection is Dual Wield, which increases your dot damage for the whole duration.
• If you cast a Beast Trap on your Bow bar but it activates on the DW bar, DW is the Impact bar.
• If you cast a Poison Injection while Warhorn ran out and Warhorn gets applied afterwards, dot damage of PI will not increase.

FlyLionel

Master bow for pvp!

IronCrystal

Can you explain more about your build and what you are aiming for?

Also, when people say vMA weapons are BiS, they are usually referring to trials where fights are long on a boss with millions (like 80+million) hp.

If you are doing content with short bursts of damage, or fights were it doesn't last too long, or strange mechanics that prevent you from constantly doing dps, then vMA weapons may not be the best for you.

Another thing is it depends on how advanced you are in your rotation. Are you light attack weaving? If you aren't there is no reason to use a vMA staff. (I recommend learning how, but if you aren't, then just saying vMA staff is not that useful).

vMA daggers and axes are made for long duration fights, as they only increase the damage of DOTs. If the fight is short enough that you are simply steel tornado or rapid striking the whole time, its not really worth it. For example, vMA dual wield is actually not that useful to defeat vMA due to the fights being very short the vast majority of the time.

Just a few examples.

kylewwefan

Legendary weapons. Whatever it takes to make your set work. Like 5 BSW/5 Infallible Aether/ plain sharpened legendary Lightning staff still hits quite hard. VO/NMG/Veledrith with sharp NMG daggers...hard to beat really.

Ep1kMalware

Waffennacht wrote: »

Sharpened anything is second best, sharpened anything is actually better than non sharpened vMA weapon (for dps)

I disagree 100%. Having your endless hail ramp up/empowering your dots is a substantial dps gain. Sparp is nice but phys pen isn't extremely hard to come by either. A training vma bow will out perform any sharp bow you pickup or craft.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

For PVE, Maelstrom weapons are really only the best main bar weapon on mDK and well all Stamina, but PVE seems mostly magic these days at end game. VMA weapons are generally back bar weapons and in most circumstances are a 2-3k damage buff on a 40-50k parse. Important, but not game breaking. The best mainbar weapons at this point is Moondancer>Infal>Random but in any event, they all must be sharp or not even worth considering.

A very solid play that is often over looked is to simply craft julianos staffs, and get your 4 piece moondancer from jewlery and one armor piece. The BIS weapon grind is NOT limited to VMA as sharp is the only viable front bar weapon trait.