Scathing/Julianos dps rotation help.

Brutusmax1mus

Current bar set up.

Front inferno: poisons
Inner light, force pulse, haunting curse, frags, mages wrath

Back bar infused lightning with spell damage glyph.
Blockade, liquid lightning, boundless storm, surge, dark conversion.

My uptime on dots and curse is awful due to rotation.

Brutusmax1mus

everyone's a pet sorc huh

MissBizz

What kind of content are you doing? And exactly what rotation are you using now?

dpencil1

I'd go with Shock enchant but w/e.

LA, Liquid, LA, Blockade, LA, Curse, HA, Pulse, LA, Pulse, LA, Pulse, LA Pulse
LA, Liquid, LA, Blockade, HA, Pulse, HA Pulse, LA Pulse
(Repeat)

Swap out Pulse for Frags any time it procs.

Vaoh

Honestly it is probably best as a non-pet Mag Sorc to just use this simple rotation: Liquid Lighting -> Blockade of Elements -> 6x Force Pulse -> repeat

Simple and also easy perform in lag.

Notes:
- Use Haunting Curse instead of Force Pulse when it runs out to maintain high uptime. If this is too difficult then replace the first Force Pulse of every other rotation with a Haunting Curse cast
- Use Crystal Frags instead of Force Pulse if it procs
- Use Mages' Wrath instead of Force Pulse when the target is in execute range
- Lightning Staff Heavy Attacks are equal to 2x skill casts in duration.... use a heavy attack in place of 2x Force Pulse casts when needed
- I don't believe in using an Inferno Staff for Mag Sorc PvE DPS. Highly recommend using two Lightning Staves

Bar Setup will look like this:
Frontbar
1. Crystal Frags
2. Mages' Fury
3. Bound Aegis
4. Force Pulse
5. Inner Light

Backbar:
1. Conjured Ward/Annulment
2. Liquid Lightning
3. Bound Aegis
4. Haunting Curse (replace with Power Surge if not using Potions that grant Major Sorcery)
5. Blockade of Elements

Might be worth using 5x Netches Touch instead of Scathing Mage btw.... I haven't actually tested these two sets against each other but the results are likely really close.

This is about as good as a non-pet Mag Sorc DPS can be. It is actually on the lower end for PvE DPS. If you want to deal good damage go with a Pet build! Also if you want to put out even better DPS than Pet Magicka Sorcs do and without using a pet then simply use a Magicka NB.

Brutusmax1mus

Well I'm trying to get a pve dps together for trials. I normally tank or heal in them. 80% of my time is spent on pvp, so I'm new to fixed rotations like this.

Mainly its the timing. I'm having trouble figuring out how an 8 second blockade fits with a 10 second and a 12 second curse. I understand they need to be up at all times. I'm on ps4 so only buffs and debuffs and visual ques/ experience help me know when dots are about to expire.

Also, should i prioritize a frag proc over blockade or liquid? I feel like that's wasteful as the damage per gcd on the dots is typically higher on average.

I normally start with (assuming light attacks inbetween) liquid, blockade, bar swap curse, force pulse/ frags for 6 gcds and repeat till i rebuff after the third round.

Brutusmax1mus

Any suggestions on bar set up would be great too.

dpencil1

It's an 8 second rotation. The extra 2 seconds of Liquid Lightning is inconsequential. Curse is reapplied every other rotation. You have to wait for the second explosion to go off or you will refresh it and lose that explosion.

You can put Overload on your back bar if you want to keep your buffs there:

1. Frags, Pulse, Curse, Inner Light, Bound Aegis, Shooting Star or Destro Ulti

2. Liquid Lightning, Blockade of Storms, Mage's Wrath, Empowered Ward, Bound Aegis, Overload

Overload: Power Surge, Boundless Storm, Dark Conversion, Empowered Ward, Bound Aegis

Brutusmax1mus

dpencil1 wrote: »

It's an 8 second rotation. The extra 2 seconds of Liquid Lightning is inconsequential. Curse is reapplied every other rotation. You have to wait for the second explosion to go off or you will refresh it and lose that explosion.

You can put Overload on your back bar if you want to keep your buffs there:

1. Frags, Pulse, Curse, Inner Light, Bound Aegis, Shooting Star or Destro Ulti

2. Liquid Lightning, Blockade of Storms, Mage's Wrath, Empowered Ward, Bound Aegis, Overload

Overload: Power Surge, Boundless Storm, Dark Conversion, Empowered Ward, Bound Aegis

curse can do 50k with that gcd, it isn't more of a priority over force pulse?

dpencil1

@Brutusmax1mus
Not sure I understand your question. Force Pulse is the lowest priority and should be replaced by buffs or Frags. Curse should be applied every other rotation because its timer is too long to reapply within the 8 second rotation window. If you want to reapply it more dynamically (immediately after the 2nd explosion) you can, it's just trickier to do because it won't always line up in the same place that way.

Brutusmax1mus

dpencil1 wrote: »

@Brutusmax1mus
Not sure I understand your question. Force Pulse is the lowest priority and should be replaced by buffs or Frags. Curse should be applied every other rotation because its timer is too long to reapply within the 8 second rotation window. If you want to reapply it more dynamically (immediately after the 2nd explosion) you can, it's just trickier to do because it won't always line up in the same place that way.

That was my question, force pulse does so much less on a gcd than curse, ill try reapplying it after. Ty

dpencil1

Remember that Force Pulse is listed as 3 seperate items in Combat Metrics, so you have to add them all up to see your total dps from it.

For example, in one parse I had:
Curse - 2636 dps
Force Pulse (Lightning) - 1050
Force Pulse (Fire) - 960
Force Pulse (Ice) - 960
1050 + 960 + 960 = 2970 total dps

So Force Pulse actually did about 340 more dps than Curse.

Brutusmax1mus

dpencil1 wrote: »

Remember that Force Pulse is listed as 3 seperate items in Combat Metrics, so you have to add them all up to see your total dps from it.

For example, in one parse I had:
Curse - 2636 dps
Force Pulse (Lightning) - 1050
Force Pulse (Fire) - 960
Force Pulse (Ice) - 960
1050 + 960 + 960 = 2970 total dps

So Force Pulse actually did about 340 more dps than Curse.

But don't you prioritize damage per global cool down for pve? I don't have the combat metrics so I'm really not sure how much each is doing.

dpencil1

@Brutusmax1mus
Honestly, I don't understand your question. Prioritizing damage per global cooldown...?
You maximize you total dps by keeping all dots ticking without any downtime and filling with your spammale and heavy attacks when in need of resources. Curse is just another dot like Liquid Lightning and Blockade of Storms, it just has 2 damage tick moments over 12 seconds as opposed to a tick every second. And because it's too long to fit into the length of one rotation, it is only applied every other rotation, though you can get slightly better uptime by reapplying it immediately after it does its second explosion, instead of always in the same spot every other rotation.

Brutusmax1mus

dpencil1 wrote: »

@Brutusmax1mus
Honestly, I don't understand your question. Prioritizing damage per global cooldown...?
You maximize you total dps by keeping all dots ticking without any downtime and filling with your spammale and heavy attacks when in need of resources. Curse is just another dot like Liquid Lightning and Blockade of Storms, it just has 2 damage tick moments over 12 seconds as opposed to a tick every second. And because it's too long to fit into the length of one rotation, it is only applied every other rotation, though you can get slightly better uptime by reapplying it immediately after it does its second explosion, instead of always in the same spot every other rotation.

My point is you only have 1 skill per gcd. Do your dps, in part, comes from maximizing damage per gcd. Dots generally do more damage per gcd then a burst damage skill like surprise attack. Its the reason refreshing dots ahead of schedule hinders dps so much and is the reason the pretty much every dps build runs dots.

Merlin13KAGL

Sounds like you're making this harder than it needs to be.

GCD is 1 second.

So "Damage per global cooldown" is DPS.

The point behind the rotation is to allow for consistency and repeatability. If you start trying to fire off skills early (to eliminate as much possible 'white space' in between), you're either going to end up with a more complex rotation or you are more likely to fumble somewhere (or flat out lose your place)

Do that a couple times, and the dps you gain from the immediate refresh will likely be countered by the dps lost from the fumble.

To expand on that, DoTs are the closest thing to 'free' dps after proc sets, because you fire them once and the keep ticking on subsequent cooldowns until they run out. So you're half right, in that you want the skills that produce the highest average DPS to be the ones you maintain, but only after your highest hitting DoTs are already running.

dpencil1

Brutusmax1mus wrote: »

dpencil1 wrote: »

@Brutusmax1mus
Honestly, I don't understand your question. Prioritizing damage per global cooldown...?
You maximize you total dps by keeping all dots ticking without any downtime and filling with your spammale and heavy attacks when in need of resources. Curse is just another dot like Liquid Lightning and Blockade of Storms, it just has 2 damage tick moments over 12 seconds as opposed to a tick every second. And because it's too long to fit into the length of one rotation, it is only applied every other rotation, though you can get slightly better uptime by reapplying it immediately after it does its second explosion, instead of always in the same spot every other rotation.

My point is you only have 1 skill per gcd. Do your dps, in part, comes from maximizing damage per gcd. Dots generally do more damage per gcd then a burst damage skill like surprise attack. Its the reason refreshing dots ahead of schedule hinders dps so much and is the reason the pretty much every dps build runs dots.

@Brutusmax1mus
So the issue you have is, for example, that we are refreshing Liquid Lightning every 8 seconds, even though it lasts for 10, sacrificing 2 gcds of potential damage. Look, if you want to build a totally dynamic rotation that guarantees 100% uptime on all dots, be my guest. It would be incredibly complicated. As Merlin said the dps loss that would occur from you messing up here and there would offset any potential gain.

For example, I actually tried this once with Daedric Prey. It only lasts 6 seconds, which sucks, because that means part of the time your pets are doing less damage. So I thought HARD about a rotation that would get me back to applying Prey every 6 seconds. I practied over and over. I got much better Prey uptime, but my overall dps went down. It was just too clunky. It slowed me down with extra bar swaps and generally just messed up the smooth flow of the rotation.

So the short answer is no, it's not worth it to maximize individual skills' gcd potential. The ease and smoothness of your rotation is far more important.