20K+ DPS: How?

Ghanima_Atreides

I've been playing the game for a long time, although never truly competitively; the only group dungeons I've completed were duo'd with my boyfriend on Normal, and I don't PvP. This is partly because I keep seeing the kind of DPS numbers people say a decent DD must pull, usually in the 20-25K range. Everything below that, and certainly below 15K is considered poor and the person is told they must L2P.

I don't consider myself a terrible player; I'm not the best either, nor do I have the absolute best sets, but I like to think I know what I'm doing. For example, my CP200something Sorc uses Netch's Touch and Julianos; I apply Elemental Drain, Liquid Lightning, Elemental Blockade, Haunting Curse, then use Force Pulse as my spammable and Crystal Shard when it procs. I weave - not perfectly- but still, I do that too. I use the Destro ultimate and Endless Fury as my execute.

Despite all this, the most I can pull is about 10K DPS on the target skeleton, sometimes 11K if I do my rotation especially well. I simply don't know how people manage twice that; even if their rotations are more optimised and their gear better, we're talking a huge difference here. Are a few extra light attacks and absolute BiS gear going to make THAT much of a difference? My instinct says no.

Therefore, having exhausted my options, I decided to ask the community, those of you who do manage to reach those DPS numbers: how do you do it? What am I doing wrong?

Wreuntzylla

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

I've been playing the game for a long time, although never truly competitively; the only group dungeons I've completed were duo'd with my boyfriend on Normal, and I don't PvP. This is partly because I keep seeing the kind of DPS numbers people say a decent DD must pull, usually in the 20-25K range. Everything below that, and certainly below 15K is considered poor and the person is told they must L2P.

I don't consider myself a terrible player; I'm not the best either, nor do I have the absolute best sets, but I like to think I know what I'm doing. For example, my CP200something Sorc uses Netch's Touch and Julianos; I apply Elemental Drain, Liquid Lightning, Elemental Blockade, Haunting Curse, then use Force Pulse as my spammable and Crystal Shard when it procs. I weave - not perfectly- but still, I do that too. I use the Destro ultimate and Endless Fury as my execute.

Despite all this, the most I can pull is about 10K DPS on the target skeleton, sometimes 11K if I do my rotation especially well. I simply don't know how people manage twice that; even if their rotations are more optimised and their gear better, we're talking a huge difference here. Are a few extra light attacks and absolute BiS gear going to make THAT much of a difference? My instinct says no.

Therefore, having exhausted my options, I decided to ask the community, those of you who do manage to reach those DPS numbers: how do you do it? What am I doing wrong?

You should be able to exceed 10k just hard casting frags... Something is very off at a fundamental level.

Before anything else, I would check to make sure the dps calculation is being performed accurately. If you are using a low health dummy and an addon that doesn't stop the timer until well after the dummy is dead, you can get these sorts of results.

If that isn't the problem, post a screenshot of your stats and CP allocation (or write them out). Magicka, spell damage, penetration, crit, +crit damage, etc.

After all that, realize that 200 CP is a big disadvantage, although not that big.

Wreuntzylla

Sunah wrote: »

Well many issues can affect this. 1st, are you spell pen capped? Im not 100% sure on the number but getting spell pen cap can increase your dps by quite a bit. Also making your weapons gold will net even more. Get on those dummies and really tighten up that rotation, that in itself will be the biggest increase in dps. Check out some of the famous guide makers such as Alcast, they provide very in depth info on rotation and what gear to go with and so on.

link for alcast - https://alcasthq.com/eso-magicka-sorcerer-build-pve/

That's a good point. Are the 20-25k dps quotes on a target dummy or in actual PvE?

Target dummies have boss level resistances and when you group, the resistances are usually debuffed by not only your sharpened but also alkosh/nmg/etc. In a group someone is also buffing group dps using warhorn, etc.

code65536

A good way to determine how much of the problem is a stats problem vs. a skill problem, take skill out of the equation.

For example, when I just spam my spammable (Funnel Health on a magblade), I get around 11-12K DPS (at least, until my magicka runs out). No potions, no ele, just spamming "1" on my keyboard. This is purely a measure of basic stats like gear and CP and is what I get on a CP-capped character with golden gear.

Next, you can start adding more skillful play and seeing if you are getting the kinds of benefit that you'd expect.

If I light-attack-weave my spammable, that increases to around 16K (that is, until I run out of magicka).

Once I add DoTs to my rotation (just Grasp, Blockade, Path; no Merciless), it increases to around 22-23K. Again, that's what I see until I run out of magicka and without potions, Ele, or ultimates.

Proper skeleton tests will have you running spell power potions and someone else helping you with applying Elemental Drain, and there will also be the question of whether or not you could sustain through the parse. But for now, don't worry about those extra variables. Simplify the test, reduce the variables, and it'll be easier to see where the areas for improvement are.

A few things to keep in mind:

1. When people toss out high DPS numbers, they are talking in the context of what they'd expect from a CP-capped player with endgame gear, and they are talking about the kinds of DPS numbers needed to complete difficult endgame content. I really wouldn't worry too much about hitting those kinds of numbers at this point.
2. If you can hit 10-15K DPS single-target, you are already doing much better than the vast majority of the people you'd encounter in a normal Group Finder dungeon.
3. The amount of DPS needed to complete normal dungeons is very low. You're perfectly fine for normals. That amount of DPS will probably get you through many of the non-DLC vet dungeons, too.
4. Higher DPS will come with CP, gear, and lots of experience. In short, it'll come with time. Play the content, try out some of the easier vet dungeons, and get that play experience.

Sunah

Well many issues can affect this. 1st, are you spell pen capped? Im not 100% sure on the number but getting spell pen cap can increase your dps by quite a bit. Also making your weapons gold will net even more. Get on those dummies and really tighten up that rotation, that in itself will be the biggest increase in dps. Check out some of the famous guide makers such as Alcast, they provide very in depth info on rotation and what gear to go with and so on.

link for alcast - https://alcasthq.com/eso-magicka-sorcerer-build-pve/

W0lf_z13

are u running any buffs like structured entropy ( major sorcery ) or rearming trap ( fighters guild skill for minor force ) ? Divines on your gear? and what mundus do you run?

seedubsrun

As mentioned already a higher CP will greatly improve your damage so where you are right now for your CP is pretty good. I assume that since you're running Julianos with Netch, you have 2 crafted lightning staves. They should both be lightning and both gold level. You'll get about 200 more spell damage with gold weapons compared to purple. Sharpened currently is about a 12% damage increase in PvE. I'd put a lightning glyph on my back bar staff and a weapon/spell damage enchant on the front. Just doing that will give you a really solid DPS numbers.

Next would be look at your armor trait/mundus choice. For now divines+thief mundus wins. I prefer divines on my small armor pieces and infused on my big but that's just preference. Gold level will improve that but it's not as important on armor as it is with weapons.

Next would be looking at the way your skills are set up and making sure you're optimizing their use. Are there better skill options than what you have now? What should be the better rotation? etc. Taking into account the skills you said you like to use, this seems like an ideal setup:

Bar 1: Sharpened lightning staff w/ damage enchant
Inner Light
Endless fury
Bound Aegis
Destructive Clench
Ward (Elemental Drain for testing)
Ultimate: Shooting Star

Bar 2: Sharpened lightning staff w/lightning damage enchant
Power Surge (Inner Light for testing)
Haunting Curse
Bound Aegis
Elemental Blockade
Liquid Lightning
Ultimate: Destro Ulti

Ok, so force pulse+frags is super strong and totally useable if that's your jam. I only pulled it from my suggestion to optimize the bars to what might work better and because with the new importance of resource sustain, that combination can be hard to keep up. I also put on Bound Aegis (not sure if you already use it). The boost to magic will be great on your main attack bar.

Here's my reasoning: With Netch's Touch the Clench (or Reach) attack does about as much damage as a frag without needing to spam another skill to proc it. Also, since you're running Netch you'll get a bonus to your light and heavy attacks which are free and give you back resources. Also, Clench will still give you the passive bonus to AOE from the destro line and allow you to slot Shooting Star on your front bar for extra magic. Finally, Clench is a lightning attack and frags isn't so synergizes with your build better. I put the AoE/DoTs on the back bar to help with the rotation (You may have em already like that, not sure).

Then it's just getting your rotation down solid and learning how to light attack cancel for a DPS bump. With this setup I'd do a test rotation like this:

Start with a spell power potion, apply elemental drain, drop destro ulti
LA (light attack) Liquid Lightning, LA Ele Blockade, LA Curse (Bar Swap)
HA (heavy attack) HA, LA Clench (Bar Swap) start over

When down to around 22% health start to drop Endless Fury. Keep your dots up and LA Endless Fury till dead

I like to start with a destro ulti and then use Shooting Star as it becomes available for testing and actual dungeons/trials. Many others will suggest just using the Destro ulti. I think it's situational. Since SS gives you back ultimate based on enemies hit then being in an area with a lot of enemies makes SS more desirable since you'll be able to cast 2 Shooting Stars in about the time it would take to cast just one destro ulti.

So that was a lot. Maybe useful maybe not. You asked what someone that can hit high DPS would do and that's what I'd do. I hope it helps

SirAndy

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

This is partly because I keep seeing the kind of DPS numbers people say a decent DD must pull, usually in the 20-25K range.

Keep in mind that people usually use group buff/debuff DPS numbers to inflate their ego advertise their usefulness for a group.
If you are measuring your DPS solo with no other players around, you will pull lower numbers.

With that being said, 10k for a normal solo rotation is definitively on the low end, a CP200 Sorc should be able to comfortably pull 15k+ solo DPS.

Nestor

Yes, Group Buffs can add 25% or more to your Spell or Weapon Damage.

Thing is, are the Mobs dead before you are? Then your running enough DPS.

Probably more important is, can you maintain damage out put over a long boss fight? Stacking damage to the exclusion of resource management means you are soon doing 0 DPS while you wait for resource pools to recover. I would rather run with someone who does 8K to 12K DPS and never runs out of resources in a boss fight.

Ghanima_Atreides

Thank you for your information and suggestions I cannot do a proper test right now, not having access to my computer (the perils of going on the forums even while on vacation ) but I did manage to log in on a laptop to check her stats:



Those are using Witchmother's Brew. I forgot to mention earlier that she does use Critical Surge for Major Sorcery and her gear is Divines, purple, with gold sharpened staves. The Mundus stone is Mage; I am aware that Thief is the recommended choice but with sustain being as it is I didn't dare deprive myself of that magicka boost. As you can see, it is already not very high.

Regarding the DPS test: I am not sure whether the reading is accurate or not, but both Combat Metrics and the game itself gave similar readings; I did notice it took a while for the values to show up after finishing a parse, but I don't know if that means the reading was inaccurate or not. I did kill the skeleton each time (regular, not sturdy, but in my case I felt that's good enough for a test).

I wish I could say I never run out of magicka, but unless I use heavy attacks that does happen. Unfortunately, those HAs also lower my DPS I guess.

I'd prefer sticking to Pulse+Shards because it's a combination I've been using for a long time and it feels really natural, so I'd rather not change it right now. Everything else I am open to experimenting with. I don't have Bound Aegis on, I can try that.

Ghanima_Atreides

code65536 wrote: »

A good way to determine how much of the problem is a stats problem vs. a skill problem, take skill out of the equation.

For example, when I just spam my spammable (Funnel Health on a magblade), I get around 11-12K DPS (at least, until my magicka runs out). No potions, no ele, just spamming "1" on my keyboard. This is purely a measure of basic stats like gear and CP and is what I get on a CP-capped character with golden gear.

From the very simple testing I could do on my boyfriend's laptop without a mouse, just spamming Force Pulse nets me about 8K DPS. No weaving, since I don't have a mouse.

Sunah

@Ghanima_Atreides Based on that screen shot, you are lacking in spell damage. Max magicka as well but that can be because of your lack in CP. Also your spell crit is really low. Toss in a full set of divine trait gear (or your big pieces infused , head, pants, chest) and run the Thief Mundus stone for increase in crit.

And if it helps, run max magicka/health food instead. 16-17k is the health you want to hit in vet dungeon/trial envrioment if that is your thing.

Grimhallow

Based on your stats I have a few observations and suggestions:

1. As a Breton you trade damage for sustain, but in PvE you won't be able to take advantage of that sustain because you shouldn't be running sustain at all in a PvE environment. This means that you will always be gimped if you compare yourself to High Elf Sorcs (it won't be a big difference, but you should expect yourself to be about 4% behind a High elf of equal skill).
2. Your Max stats are too low, even at that CP. Drop witchmothers and use max health max magicka food. Your sustain won't matter if all the enemies are dead (it takes a leap of faith but trust me- you'll run out of magicka either way, the difference between 700 and 1400 mag recovery isn't as bad as it sounds. Instead, put dark conversion on your overload bar and use it in between fights.
3. Along the same line of thought- your crit is too low. You want it to be at 50%. You'll almost certainly use the thief mundus. If you can get it there without the thief mundus, then use the shadow.
4. Your spell damage is also low- you should be over 2200 while buffed with major sorcery. Make sure all of your jewelry is spell damage. On jewelry specifically, you get huge diminishing returns for using recovery instead of damage.


I know it's hard to ditch recovery, but your damage *would be soooo much better. And honestly, you'll run out of magicka anyways if you can't kill your enemies fast enough. I hope this helps you get to that next level!

If you play PC NA feel free to send me a message and I would be happy to run a dungeon with you to watch and give some better-informed suggestions.

Ghanima_Atreides

Grimick wrote: »

Based on your stats I have a few observations and suggestions:

1. As a Breton you trade damage for sustain, but in PvE you won't be able to take advantage of that sustain because you shouldn't be running sustain at all in a PvE environment. This means that you will always be gimped if you compare yourself to High Elf Sorcs (it won't be a big difference, but you should expect yourself to be about 4% behind a High elf of equal skill).
2. Your Max stats are too low, even at that CP. Drop witchmothers and use max health max magicka food. Your sustain won't matter if all the enemies are dead (it takes a leap of faith but trust me- you'll run out of magicka either way, the difference between 700 and 1400 mag recovery isn't as bad as it sounds. Instead, put dark conversion on your overload bar and use it in between fights.
3. Along the same line of thought- your crit is too low. You want it to be at 50%. You'll almost certainly use the thief mundus. If you can get it there without the thief mundus, then use the shadow.
4. Your spell damage is also low- you should be over 2200 while buffed with major sorcery. Make sure all of your jewelry is spell damage. On jewelry specifically, you get huge diminishing returns for using recovery instead of damage.


I know it's hard to ditch recovery, but your damage should be soooo much better. And honestly, you'll run out of magicka anyways if you can't kill your enemies fast enough. I hope this helps you get to that next level!

If you play PC NA feel free to send me a message and I would be happy to run a dungeon with you to watch and give some better-informed suggestions.

To be fair those stats were without Major Sorcery up; with that, spell damage is 2162, which I guess is still a bit short but not extremely so. I am very reluctant to ditch Witchmother's brew, because I have tried playing with poor sustain before and it went badly, especially in long boss fights (granted this was solo or with just one other person, not a group, but whatever DPS I gained was not enough to offset the fact that I quickly ran out of magicka and my DPS became 0, as @Nestor pointed out as well. I am willing to try the Thief and attempt to make up the magicka loss some other way though. Jewellery is enchanted for damage, yes.

Also, unfortunately I am on the EU server.

Grimhallow

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

To be fair those stats were without Major Sorcery up; with that, spell damage is 2162...

Good to hear!

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

I am very reluctant to ditch Witchmother's brew, because I have tried playing with poor sustain before and it went badly

I knew you would be. It was hard for me too. But trust me, there is a reason (pretty much) all end game players use max stat food instead of witchmothers. Keep in mind that everything stacks with increasing returns. For instance the 20% increased spell damage you get is worth more the higher your base damage is. (ex. if you have 1500 spell damage you'll get a 300 spell damage boost, but if you have 2200 spell damage you'll get a 440 damage buff).

The same works for your race passives etc. The increased 10% max magicka you get as a Breton is going to do a lot more for you if you use max magicka food. Same goes for skills like Bound Aegis, as well as passives from having mage's guild skills slotted.

The more you split between recovery and damage the worse both become. You're a damage dealer first- put it all in damage. When you fully jump in you'll feel the difference (there is a reason players are pulling such crazy high numbers after all). But if you inch in you'll just lose some sustain without gaining significant damage.

Carefully allocate the CP you do have, and weave in those heavy attacks (they do pretty decent damage too).

One more thing- solo and duo you'll run out of magicka much faster anyways because you'll have to spend more resources on costly shields, and self heals. But the more enemies that die quickly, the less often you'll have to waste time and resources on costly defensive skills.

If you are making your own potions (and not using trash pots) you'll get an immediate sustain boost. It's absolutely not necessary, but it can help if you're struggling.

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

Also, unfortunately I am on the EU server.

Sad day

P.S. I love your "Beauty of Tamriel" screenshots. Sometimes I forget what a pretty game this is.

Oh and just for context, since I realize there isn't much on a forum like this- but I am one of those "Flawless Conqueror" players who hits 45k DPS. I'm certainly not the best- not by a long shot (I mostly PvP haha). But I've been doing this for awhile and I've grown through the stage that you are at now.

Ghanima_Atreides

All right, fair enough, I'll give it a go. I can certainly make some blue food to test with. I appreciate the help! Congratulations on the Flawless Conqueror title, I didn't want to mention I couldn't even get past the 2nd stage in that (one issue at a time though).

P.S. I love your "Beauty of Tamriel" screenshots. Sometimes I forget what a pretty game this is.

Thanks! I enjoy screenshotting interesting scenery as I play.

Vapirko

At capped cp with not BiS gear (no trials gear) blue jewlery and purple weapons with one off trait monster piece I can pull 25-28k on a target skele applying self buffs/debuffs.

craftycarper73

hi all
im a ps4 player but have some issues also regarding the dps numbers, different charachter though.

i found all this to be interesting enough, especially about the numbers being put out are from group play mostly.

Ok

I am a MagDk dunmer, damage, ive noticed that when i do the test dummy(robust) i can spam and hit whip for about 12400 unbuffed, but when running in a group either 4 or 12 man(dung & trials) i can hit my whip for over 17k.

I also run witchmothers brew, which is what i changed to after the changes in the last patch.

Gear is, 5 Mothers sorrow 5 Julianos 2 grothdar or skoria(depends on what im doing) all gear is gold. Same gear apart from it drops to 4 julianos on back restro bar.

duel wield front bar skills are: whip, flames of oblivion, engulfing flames, burning embers, eruption(damage health glyphs on both swords)
restro back bar skills are: talons, coagulating blood, draw essence, ignious shield, molten armaments

Stats are:

max mag 35000 Recovery 1500
max health 17.7k

spellcrit 81.1%
spell damage 2045

I use the restro bar for weaving to keep sustained although i use no restro bar skills, i have thought about changing the restro staff to a flame staff or lighting staff? thoughts are welcome with this.

i can do the robust dummy in just over 6 mins and get just shy of 15k dps..

any thoughts or changes anyone would make to improve my numbers even slightly.?

StrawberryKitsune

seedubsrun wrote: »

As mentioned already a higher CP will greatly improve your damage so where you are right now for your CP is pretty good. I assume that since you're running Julianos with Netch, you have 2 crafted lightning staves. They should both be lightning and both gold level. You'll get about 200 more spell damage with gold weapons compared to purple. Sharpened currently is about a 12% damage increase in PvE. I'd put a lightning glyph on my back bar staff and a weapon/spell damage enchant on the front. Just doing that will give you a really solid DPS numbers.

Next would be look at your armor trait/mundus choice. For now divines+thief mundus wins. I prefer divines on my small armor pieces and infused on my big but that's just preference. Gold level will improve that but it's not as important on armor as it is with weapons.

Next would be looking at the way your skills are set up and making sure you're optimizing their use. Are there better skill options than what you have now? What should be the better rotation? etc. Taking into account the skills you said you like to use, this seems like an ideal setup:

Bar 1: Sharpened lightning staff w/ damage enchant
Inner Light
Endless fury
Bound Aegis
Destructive Clench
Ward (Elemental Drain for testing)
Ultimate: Shooting Star

Bar 2: Sharpened lightning staff w/lightning damage enchant
Power Surge (Inner Light for testing)
Haunting Curse
Bound Aegis
Elemental Blockade
Liquid Lightning
Ultimate: Destro Ulti

Ok, so force pulse+frags is super strong and totally useable if that's your jam. I only pulled it from my suggestion to optimize the bars to what might work better and because with the new importance of resource sustain, that combination can be hard to keep up. I also put on Bound Aegis (not sure if you already use it). The boost to magic will be great on your main attack bar.

Here's my reasoning: With Netch's Touch the Clench (or Reach) attack does about as much damage as a frag without needing to spam another skill to proc it. Also, since you're running Netch you'll get a bonus to your light and heavy attacks which are free and give you back resources. Also, Clench will still give you the passive bonus to AOE from the destro line and allow you to slot Shooting Star on your front bar for extra magic. Finally, Clench is a lightning attack and frags isn't so synergizes with your build better. I put the AoE/DoTs on the back bar to help with the rotation (You may have em already like that, not sure).

Then it's just getting your rotation down solid and learning how to light attack cancel for a DPS bump. With this setup I'd do a test rotation like this:

Start with a spell power potion, apply elemental drain, drop destro ulti
LA (light attack) Liquid Lightning, LA Ele Blockade, LA Curse (Bar Swap)
HA (heavy attack) HA, LA Clench (Bar Swap) start over

When down to around 22% health start to drop Endless Fury. Keep your dots up and LA Endless Fury till dead

I like to start with a destro ulti and then use Shooting Star as it becomes available for testing and actual dungeons/trials. Many others will suggest just using the Destro ulti. I think it's situational. Since SS gives you back ultimate based on enemies hit then being in an area with a lot of enemies makes SS more desirable since you'll be able to cast 2 Shooting Stars in about the time it would take to cast just one destro ulti.

So that was a lot. Maybe useful maybe not. You asked what someone that can hit high DPS would do and that's what I'd do. I hope it helps

Pretty much this. I run a mostly similar build with netch and can reach upwards of 27k and I'm not maxed out on champion points nor correctly traited on everything so there is defo room to grow. Its all about weaving and finding a rotation of button presses that work for you. Then its down to practice and eventually your rotation becomes a muscle memory.

I run Ilambris monster set too and have a fire glyph on my front lightening staff and a shock glyph on my back lightening staff to maximise the fire and shock procs. I was running purple willpower jewellery with two spell damage glyphs and one recovery though if you're running trials you may want Infallible Aether though that's a little further down the line. Purple everything out as your set will only be as powerful as your lowest coloured item.

Last thing before I stop boring you, is practice. It will takw time but you will get there.

Massive_Stain

I have about 850 CP, and the best I get self buffed is 30k. I'm on PS4 NA, and wearing 5 necro, 3 moondancer, 2 Ilambris with vma staves. Trial CP allotments as well, so to not "cheese the dps dummy" with all Thaumaturge points in spell penetration.

(I have moondancer lightning but its infused) will only be good for next patch, but will switch to Julianos more than likely.

My dps rotation involves shock clench instead of force pulse, and no spammable ability. I'm also running a pet build, so there's that. For you a suggested rotation would be;

Ele drain(every other rotation), la, liquid lightning, la, elemental blockade la, elemental rage bar swap,

La, haunting curse, la, force pulse, la, force pulse, fully charged heavy attack, bar swap repeat. Cast second ultimate at 20-25% and continue rotation. If needed, sacrifice inner light on back bar for execute and stay on back bar at 20%.

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

I've been playing the game for a long time, although never truly competitively; the only group dungeons I've completed were duo'd with my boyfriend on Normal, and I don't PvP. This is partly because I keep seeing the kind of DPS numbers people say a decent DD must pull, usually in the 20-25K range. Everything below that, and certainly below 15K is considered poor and the person is told they must L2P.

I don't consider myself a terrible player; I'm not the best either, nor do I have the absolute best sets, but I like to think I know what I'm doing. For example, my CP200something Sorc uses Netch's Touch and Julianos; I apply Elemental Drain, Liquid Lightning, Elemental Blockade, Haunting Curse, then use Force Pulse as my spammable and Crystal Shard when it procs. I weave - not perfectly- but still, I do that too. I use the Destro ultimate and Endless Fury as my execute.

Despite all this, the most I can pull is about 10K DPS on the target skeleton, sometimes 11K if I do my rotation especially well. I simply don't know how people manage twice that; even if their rotations are more optimised and their gear better, we're talking a huge difference here. Are a few extra light attacks and absolute BiS gear going to make THAT much of a difference? My instinct says no.

Therefore, having exhausted my options, I decided to ask the community, those of you who do manage to reach those DPS numbers: how do you do it? What am I doing wrong?

Hope that helps

Massive_Stain

Massive_Stain wrote: »

I have about 850 CP, and the best I get self buffed is 30k. I'm on PS4 NA, and wearing 5 necro, 3 moondancer, 2 Ilambris with vma staves. Trial CP allotments as well, so to not "cheese the dps dummy" with all Thaumaturge points in spell penetration.

(I have moondancer lightning but its infused) will only be good for next patch, but will switch to Julianos more than likely.

My dps rotation involves shock clench instead of force pulse, and no spammable ability. I'm also running a pet build, so there's that. For you a suggested rotation would be;

Ele drain(every other rotation), la, liquid lightning, la, elemental blockade la, elemental rage bar swap,

La, haunting curse, la, force pulse, la, force pulse, fully charged heavy attack, bar swap repeat. Cast second ultimate at 20-25% and continue rotation. If needed, sacrifice inner light on back bar for execute and stay on back bar at 20%.

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

I've been playing the game for a long time, although never truly competitively; the only group dungeons I've completed were duo'd with my boyfriend on Normal, and I don't PvP. This is partly because I keep seeing the kind of DPS numbers people say a decent DD must pull, usually in the 20-25K range. Everything below that, and certainly below 15K is considered poor and the person is told they must L2P.

I don't consider myself a terrible player; I'm not the best either, nor do I have the absolute best sets, but I like to think I know what I'm doing. For example, my CP200something Sorc uses Netch's Touch and Julianos; I apply Elemental Drain, Liquid Lightning, Elemental Blockade, Haunting Curse, then use Force Pulse as my spammable and Crystal Shard when it procs. I weave - not perfectly- but still, I do that too. I use the Destro ultimate and Endless Fury as my execute.

Despite all this, the most I can pull is about 10K DPS on the target skeleton, sometimes 11K if I do my rotation especially well. I simply don't know how people manage twice that; even if their rotations are more optimised and their gear better, we're talking a huge difference here. Are a few extra light attacks and absolute BiS gear going to make THAT much of a difference? My instinct says no.

Therefore, having exhausted my options, I decided to ask the community, those of you who do manage to reach those DPS numbers: how do you do it? What am I doing wrong?

Hope that helps

Also, to note my actual bar set ups are as follows;

Front bar: shock clench, Daedric prey, volatile familiar, inner light, bound aegis, shooting star.

Back bar: elemental blockade, bound aegis, liquid lightning, volatile familiar, hardened ward, elemental rage.

My max magicka is 54k with this set up on front bar, and 19k health on both bars.

DeathHouseInc

Just want to give a big thanks to people willing to contribute so much thought to a thread.

Ghanima_Atreides

I'm going home today, so I am looking forward to trying out some of your suggestions. Thanks again, everybody!

Ghanima_Atreides

Okay, back at my regular computer. I made some blue food instead of Witchmother's Brew, changed the Mage for the Thief, and added Bound Armor to my bar (unfortunately I had never used it so it isn't morphed yet; plus, I don't know if I'll be able to fit it on my bar in a real combat situation since it would deprive me of my ward).

But anyway, having done all that, my DPS has gone from around 10K to around 12-13K which is an improvement. I know my rotation could be better, so if I managed to tighten that up it could get even better.

The downside is that my sustain has gone from 1400something to about 900something, which I genuinely dislike. Running out of magicka is a big problem now.

Azurya

Yes, cauze you still lack CP in a painfull way.
Grind for CP, get it up, you will experience the difference!

Ghanima_Atreides

Azurya wrote: »

Yes, cauze you still lack CP in a painfull way.
Grind for CP, get it up, you will experience the difference!

I know...but grinding is the most boring experience I can think of in this game though. The character I've been talking about is actually on my second account. I am still not CP capped on my main account despite playing the game since beta... Well, the fact that I'm a complete altaholic with more characters than I can count also has something to do with that.

I suppose the summer when I'm away from uni is the best time to get some extra CP though.

Azurya

Yes, just jump Darkanchors, public delves and such, while you are still that low, you should have a bonus to get it up that way real fast.
Kill all and everything on the way^^

Saint314Louis1985

i have no clue what dps im pulling but i spend alot of time running vet dungeons and this setup works good for me. it uses the force pulse weave that you said you like. i get alot of praise when running dungeons for my dps and stuff dies pretty dam fast.

5pc julianos 2pc llambris 3pc willpower + flame/lightning desto staves, thief mundus, blue food, 500cp

i also run 2x sp enchants and 1 mag recovery on jewelry

this gives me about 45k magicka, 2900ish spell power buffed, 1030ish regen, 62% crit

bar 1: flame desto

crushing shock
bound aegis
frags
magelight
hardened ward
ult - meteor

bar 2: lightning desto

elemental blockade
bound aegis
liquid lightning
elemental drain
power surge
ult - elemental rage

rotation on bosses is:

liquid lightning, blockade, lightning HA, barswap, crushing shock weave 3-4x (cast frags when procd), repeat

pop ults immediately when ready and every 2 rotations reapply drain and surge. pop magicka potions as you see fit

i dont use curse because i would rather use the magicka/time on crushing shock weave

on trash pulls i usually just stick to back bar and use aoes + lightning staff heavies

hope you find something that helps. good luck

Ghanima_Atreides

@Saint314Louis1985 That's actually fairly similar to my rotation, except I don't have Aegis (yet) and I haven't been able to fit Elemental Drain anywhere (I slot my ward on both bars because I'm quite squishy and hey, when soloing/duoing without healers and tanks it's necessary)

I have made some progress though - together with @adriant1978 I managed to complete Veteran Crypt of Hearts I, which I believe is the first vet dungeon I've managed to complete. Came *really* close to completing Darkshade Caverns too but the final boss fight was too much.

The reward? Ilambris mask, Divines...my heart nearly skipped a beat until I realised it was medium armour.

Thank you all for the help once again, picking your collective brains I've started to improve some.

Grimhallow

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

@Saint314Louis1985 That's actually fairly similar to my rotation, except I don't have Aegis (yet) and I haven't been able to fit Elemental Drain anywhere (I slot my ward on both bars because I'm quite squishy and hey, when soloing/duoing without healers and tanks it's necessary)

I have made some progress though - together with @adriant1978 I managed to complete Veteran Crypt of Hearts I, which I believe is the first vet dungeon I've managed to complete. Came *really* close to completing Darkshade Caverns too but the final boss fight was too much.

The reward? Ilambris mask, Divines...my heart nearly skipped a beat until I realised it was medium armour.

Thank you all for the help once again, picking your collective brains I've started to improve some.

I'm glad to hear you're making progress! A few things to note as I am reading through your comments:

First of all congrats- Divine Medium Illambris is going to be best in slot for a while. (You want a medium head and heavy shoulders so that you can wear 5 light-1 heavy- 1 medium and benefit from the undaunted passives that will boost your max stats by 6%. So yay! Excellent drop!

(you have to double bar bound aegis or the effect goes away when you weapon swap- it's a toggle, like a pet)

Bound Aegis should not replace your hardened ward! You'll still need that in a pinch. Your bar setup will probably look something like this:

Crystal Frags, Bound Aegis, Hardened Ward, Force Pulse, Mages Fury (or Inner Light)
Power Surge, Bound Aegis, Haunting Curse (or Mages Fury, or Dark Conversion), Liquid Lightning, Wall of Elements.

I'll send you a link later today or early tomorrow which will help you figure it out!

SquareSausage

You are running a build that is pretty much bis for lightning heavy attacks, you should never run out of magicka, remember you should always pop a potion when its off cooldown, just use trash ones you pick up from bosses etc. If you are still going low on magicka do 2 heavy attacks instead of force pulse on a rotation. then start again. You should honestly never ever go out of magicka with this build.

Use empowered ward instead of hardened, its much cheaper and grants magicka recovery when cast, this will help your sustain.

get your mages guild to level 3 and learn mage light and morph to inner light, slot this on your front bar. increases magicka by 5% and gives crit chance.

Bar set up.

Crystal Frags or mages wrath, Bound Aegis, Empowered Ward, Force Pulse, inner light, Shooting Star ultimate (mages guild) (two mages guild skills on front bar for extra magicka via mages guild passives.
Power Surge, Bound Aegis, Haunting Curse, Liquid Lightning, Wall of Elements. destro staff ultimate



You're welcome.