Couple of Questions about my PvE DPS Build (and Infallible Mage)

Ir0nB34r

Before we get into this, I just want to say I have only been playing DPS for like a month (I prefer support roles) and I absolutely suck at rotations and weaving. So my DPS is quite low because I do not have a handle on proper rotations. That being said...

Right now I run:
5x Netch
4x Julianos
2x Illambris

With my current setup I get between 15k and 20K on the 3m health target dummy. No debuffs or assistance from other players. I tried doing 5x scathing mage and 5x netch with 1x Kena and my DPS dropped by like 2k or 3k, using the same rotation as before. I have been thinking about doing 5x Infallible Mage, 5x Netch, and 1x Kena instead but I had a couple questions about the set before I do:

1: How often are other players already applying Minor Maim to enemies? Is this a pointless bonus for me to have?
2: One of the Destro Passives makes it so my heavy attacks with a lightning staff will damage other close by enemies. Can Minor Maim and the additional Heavy Attack damage provided by this set also be applied to those enemies affected by this?

I already have gold jewelry from this set so I would like to try it out.

FakeFox

5 pieces aether doesn't do much. Every lightning attack can apply off balance and off balance applies minor vulnerability. So minor vulnerability usually has high up times without aether. It's also not applied in AOE by this set, however it is by lightning AOE. There are only two bosses where this set should currently be played, due to immunity and that is AA first and second Boss.

Ir0nB34r

FakeFox wrote: »

5 pieces aether doesn't do much. Every lightning attack can apply off balance and off balance applies minor vulnerability. So minor vulnerability usually has high up times without aether. It's also not applied in AOE by this set, however it is by lightning AOE. There are only two bosses where this set should currently be played, due to immunity and that is AA first and second Boss.

I really appreciate the thorough response. So would you suggest it as a 4 piece set then?

Azurya

it doesn´t bring anything to discuss such matters, cauze after the next patch/downgrade, all is changed and you start all over once again!

Hav fun and start roleplaying or housing or fishing. There haven´t been nerfs and downgrades for a long time now, but you never know what the devs will do about that!!

Ir0nB34r

Azurya wrote: »

it doesn´t bring anything to discuss such matters, cauze after the next patch/downgrade, all is changed and you start all over once again!

Hav fun and start roleplaying or housing or fishing. There haven´t been nerfs and downgrades for a long time now, but you never know what the devs will do about that!!

No offense but I find your comment to not be helpful what so ever, and would delete it if I could. Please take your negativity to another thread.

Thank you.

Asardes

5 Aether is fine if you are playing solo or 4 man dungeons since the vulnerability uptime from just your blockade is not that much. Also the 5p adds damage to your light and heavy attacks. Combined with a Maelstrom backbar blockade that also buffs them your light and heavy attacks you can basically you can cast LL, blockade, swap bar and do 3 heavy attack and you are easily at 25K. If you are a sorc Maelstrom is easy to do so go get that lightning. Trait is not important as you will be able to change it so start using when you get it. Same goes for IA lightning staff. So for solo and 4 man content 5 Julianos 5/4 IA w Maelstrom backbar and 1 Kena or Iceheart is probably one of the best setups. For trials drop one of the IA body pieces and run 2 Ilambris. To proc it more often enchant IA lightning with a flame glyph. Even when running full 5 IA it would do good damage since you will have vulnerability from the set; people mostly enchant with shock for the vulnerability, but flame has better DPS due to the burning status if vulnerability is already present.

At first play without pet until you get used with the class. Pets have dumb AI and also in some fights they die often or trigger certain mechanics so the raid leader will most likely ask you to remove them. In Maelstrom they may end up attacking the wrong target unless you tightly control them, which takes extra concentration. When you are not familiar with the mechanics that may prove overwhelming.

Skill setup:
Mages Wrath | Force Pulse | Hardened Ward | Inner Light | Bound Aegis || Ice Comet
Lightning Blockade | Liquid Lightning | Haunting Curse | Power Surge | Bound Aegis || Thunderous Rage

A simple, infinitely sustainable rotation:
Buff with Power surge from back bar. Then Haunting Curse->LA->Liquid Lightning->LA->Lightning Blockade->bar swap->(HA->Force Pulse)x3->bar swap [repeat, refresh Power Surge every 2nd or 3rd rotation] For execute do instead LA->Mages Wrath from front bar after applying your DoTs from backbar. For group content when you run pots you can run Crystal Fragments on front bar instead of hardened ward, and move that to backbar instead of surge, and replace one your HA with LA since you will have orbs and Elemental Drain available.

FakeFox

Ir0nB34r wrote: »

FakeFox wrote: »

5 pieces aether doesn't do much. Every lightning attack can apply off balance and off balance applies minor vulnerability. So minor vulnerability usually has high up times without aether. It's also not applied in AOE by this set, however it is by lightning AOE. There are only two bosses where this set should currently be played, due to immunity and that is AA first and second Boss.

I really appreciate the thorough response. So would you suggest it as a 4 piece set then?

Yes.

Ir0nB34r

Asardes wrote: »

Skill setup:
Mages Wrath | Force Pulse | Hardened Ward | Inner Light | Bound Aegis || Ice Comet
Lightning Blockade | Liquid Lightning | Haunting Curse | Power Surge | Bound Aegis || Thunderous Rage

Thanks for the in depth response! It seems my current build pretty closely overlaps with your suggestion. I had a quick question about the rotation you described.. Whats the deal with Mage's Wrath? Its a single target spammable attack that is (in my opinion) outperformed by Force Pulse. Is there something about that ability that I do not understand? Right now I have the Destructive Touch ability loaded in its place because it provides a stun and a DOT. And Inner Light I have removed in favor of lightning form for another DOT and more resistances.

dpencil1

@Asardes
Solid advice bro. Well stated.

@Ir0nB34r
Mage's Wrath / Endless Fury is an execute skill. It is not meant to be used on targets that have most of their health. You wait to use it until they have 20% health. Then it will do an explosion for massive damage, outclassing any other skill you have available. One nice trick on trash mobs is to do a light attack into Endless Fury, then heavy attack. Most of the time, the heavy attack will push the mob below 20% and they will die from the explosion.

P.S. Inner Light is better than Lightning Form because it provides Major Prophesy. (Unless you are drinking potions with that.) Destructive Touch can work if you NEED a stun, but it is costly and not very strong. I would advise against it.

Ir0nB34r

dpencil1 wrote: »

@Asardes
Solid advice bro. Well stated.

@Ir0nB34r
Mage's Wrath / Endless Fury is an execute skill. It is not meant to be used on targets that have most of their health. You wait to use it until they have 20% health. Then it will do an explosion for massive damage, outclassing any other skill you have available. One nice trick on trash mobs is to do a light attack into Endless Fury, then heavy attack. Most of the time, the heavy attack will push the mob below 20% and they will die from the explosion.

P.S. Inner Light is better than Lightning Form because it provides Major Prophesy. (Unless you are drinking potions with that.) Destructive Touch can work if you NEED a stun, but it is costly and not very strong. I would advise against it.

Ah okay, yeah I guess Mages Wrath just does not seem as useful to me. According to the tooltip that explosion would only occur the first time they went below 20% health right? And only while Mages Wrath was active at the time?

And the potions I use give me both Prophecy AND Sorcery. I will experiment with Inner Light a bit more and see how I perform.

dpencil1

Yeah, you would spam Mage's Wrath once they drop to 20%. It will explode every time you cast it when they are below that HP %. If you are using potions, then feel free to drop Inner Light for something else if you want.

GrigorijMalahevich

Splash Heavy attack with Aether applies debuff to all enemies, aether debuff doesn't not stack with concussion, don't know about maim

Asardes

The reason you slot inner light even if you have spell power pots is the other passive, namely 5+2=7% maximum magicka. Since skills roughly scale on spell damage + maximum magicka/10.5 slotting that will buff your damage by ~3.4%. That's 1K for a 33K parse. Some full monster sets provide 1.5-1.8K by comparison and people do use them. If you use Boundless Storm instead of Inner light you gain 2% spell damage from class passive so the DPS loss is only about 2.4% in practice. But extra magicka helps you more since your shields scale only off maximum magicka. It's up to you if you want 5.3K more resistance (~8% mitigation) or 7% bigger shields.

Ir0nB34r

dpencil1 wrote: »

Yeah, you would spam Mage's Wrath once they drop to 20%. It will explode every time you cast it when they are below that HP %. If you are using potions, then feel free to drop Inner Light for something else if you want.

Whoa wait, so every attack with Mages Wrath below 20% will proc that explosion? The tooltip had me thinking it was only the first time they dropped below 20% health within a few seconds of being hit with Mages Wrath. That's game changing for me!

Mazbt

I've been running 5 aether on my magblade which i run for trials and harder dungeons. The 5 piece still gives some more crit which is really nice for the nb class. It's guarenteed minor vulnerability on heavy attacks so I still find it useful even if you can get that debuff in other ways. I guess it depends on the class you run as well as your group composition?

Asardes

I've in fact tested 5 Law or Julianos 5 Infallible Aether 1 Iceheart last night. The DPS on 6M dummy with a very relaxed rotation that basically keeps me at full magicka with no potions consumed - listed above, I only replaced the shield with elemental drain - the DPS hovers around 27K. Stats are about 43K magicka, 2.8K spell damage, 61% spell critical and 17.8K penetration which is almost the total resistance which is 18.1K for instanced group content: 0.1 by default, 3.3K from Spell Erosion CP, 5.3K from Elemental Drain, 4.9K from Concentration LA passive, 4.2K from Lover Mundus with 7 divines. For group content I will change to Apprentice since you can access stronger resistance debuffs ex. Crusher enchant from infused Torug is 2.7K, minor breach from Power of the Light is another 1.3K. We are also getting 10 more CP soon, which will most likely go in Spell erosion for another ~500 penetration probably, so even with Apprentice you will hit the cap with those debuffs up.

I could probably do much more if I drank potions and weaved some LA instead of HA on front bar, and changed the trait on my IA Lightning from charged to infused, which I will do in a few weeks when I would get those crystals. I put a flame glyph on it since I already have minor vulnerability from the 5p set and the off-balance time is not that important anymore; overall the flame glyph does more damage, because it applies the burning status effect that's a DoT, instead of a debuff and it will also proc Ilambris more often when I change gear to my trial setu. vMA was much quicker and cleaner than usual even if I was rather tired after a day's work, travel, normal game chores and my first vHRC HM (on another character). Ex. the Behemoth was well into execute at the end of the first shield phase. So the DPS and sustain is quite good. I will work on improving my rotation in the next days.

Ir0nB34r

I love the very insightful response everyone has provided so far.

What I think I will do is run two setups:

5x Julianos
5x Infallible
1x Iceheart

and

5x Julianos
4x Infallible
2x Illambris

And I will simply switch them out to fit different situations. I really, greatly appreciate everyone's feedback here.

Thank you!