[Bug] Staff Expert not applying to lightning heavy final tick

Panth141

For the life of me I can't get Staff Expert to buff the final tick of a lightning destruction staff heavy attack on PTS. Master-at-arms works; considering the final tick direct damage, but Staff Expert seems only to be buffing the channel DoT ticks. Someone else test please? I've not tested this on Live so I don't know if this is new.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Berenhir

I think this is working as intended as the final tick is an AOE impulse and technically does not belong to the staff attack itself. This is also okay from a balance point of view as the channeled ticks deal huge amounts of AOE damage that compensates for the loss of the empowerment of the final tick.

Panth141

Berenhir wrote: »

I think this is working as intended as the final tick is an AOE impulse and technically does not belong to the staff attack itself. This is also okay from a balance point of view as the channeled ticks deal huge amounts of AOE damage that compensates for the loss of the empowerment of the final tick.

@Berenhir

I'm not sure about that - the AoE effect only occurs with the Tri-Focus passive, but Staff Expert doesn't work with the final tick no matter whether you have points in this passive. Besides, given that the passive states that your 'fully charged heavy shock attacks damage nearby enemies...', it implies that the 'impulse' is part of the heavy attack. As Staff Expert says that it 'increases your damage done with light and heavy attacks for destruction and restoration staves', the game itself seems to indicate that the final tick should be buffed.

Berenhir

Panth141 wrote: »

Berenhir wrote: »

I think this is working as intended as the final tick is an AOE impulse and technically does not belong to the staff attack itself. This is also okay from a balance point of view as the channeled ticks deal huge amounts of AOE damage that compensates for the loss of the empowerment of the final tick.

@Berenhir

I'm not sure about that - the AoE effect only occurs with the Tri-Focus passive, but Staff Expert doesn't work with the final tick no matter whether you have points in this passive. Besides, given that the passive states that your 'fully charged heavy shock attacks damage nearby enemies...', it implies that the 'impulse' is part of the heavy attack. As Staff Expert says that it 'increases your damage done with light and heavy attacks for destruction and restoration staves', the game itself seems to indicate that the final tick should be buffed.

Exactly. The impulse belongs to the tri focus passive. I haven't ever tested the staff attacks without the passive so if the final attack is not buffed without the passive this might be a bug.

However, the AoE component of the channeled attack was not intended by the devs but a bug that they wanted to revert some patches ago. This was heavily opposed by the community, leading to trifocus again affecting the whole channel instead of only the final pulse.

So the heavy attack is in a good spot now, I fear tempering in any way with the mechanics will ultimately lead to a Nerf