Best re-trait for Infallible Mage Lightning Staff?

Asardes

I'm running the following equipment setup on my Magicka sorcerer:
5 Law of Julianos, 5/4 Infallible Mage with Lightning staff front bar and Malestrom Lightning on back bar, 1 Iceheart
I do 2-3 attacks from the front bar with force pulse every rotation to activate the Infallible Mage bonuses and restore resources
The staff I'm using is charged since it's the only trait I was able to find one but I plan to re-trait it. I don't know whether to choose:
- infused, for more enchant procs - I'm using fire enchant since I get higher damage as minor vulnerability already applies from heavy attacks
- nirnhoned, for more overall damage to my skills and heavy attacks, since the latter mostly scale off spell damage
This is mostly a solo setup used for Maelstrom arena.

Narvuntien

Charged is the best for solo.

GrigorijMalahevich

Infallible heavy attack debuff doesn't stack with concussion debuff from lightning attacks...

Asardes

Valera Progib wrote: »

Infallible heavy attack debuff doesn't stack with concussion debuff from lightning attacks...

I wasn't implying that, just explaining why I'm using fire instead of lightning enchant. People use lightning only for applying concussed status so enemies can be set off balance, but since minor vulnerability is basically the same debuff it would be redundant.

GrigorijMalahevich

Asardes wrote: »

Valera Progib wrote: »

Infallible heavy attack debuff doesn't stack with concussion debuff from lightning attacks...

I wasn't implying that, just explaining why I'm using fire instead of lightning enchant. People use lightning only for applying concussed status so enemies can be set off balance, but since minor vulnerability is basically the same debuff it would be redundant.

No, it is on the same. Concussion allows for next heavy attack to do extra damage 50% or smth, minir vulnerability just adds 8% damage all the time. Infallible heavy attack overwrites and doesn't allow concussion.

Probably a bug... I already creates a post about it, but nobody from ZoS cares to reply.

Logic tells us that concussion should overwrite minor vulnerability from IA...

Dusho_Edin

For vma you what infused staff.

SoLooney

infused will def be the best trait, nirn a close second

Masel

Infused or charged are the two best options. If you wanna guarantee concussion, go with charged, especially on a magsorc and mag dk you're gonna see it everywhere. In dragonstar arena and vMA for example I used charged for my top score runs. In DSA I reached 47.2k (47 Minutes Time) with a charged lightning staff. The team was great of course, but off-balance is such a strong debuff...

You're gonna apply concussion to everything you hit with that.

Infused is for single target only and only applies to the enchant. Charged amplifies the chance ofall elemental damage. It depends on the group. If you are a mag dk or magsorc and want to apply concussion and off-balance and not rely on others, go for charged.

Asardes

Aerithone wrote: »

Narvuntien wrote: »

Charged is the best for solo.

Sharpened is the best for solo.
Charged - trait for group support.

I have about 3K penetration from CP and 5K from Concentration passive. So about 8K. For vMA I use Lover mundus that adds about 4.2K. So around 12.2K penetration. Most mobs in vMA are at about that. So the 2.75K from sharpened will be a bit overkill. I have used sharpened on a Julianos staff and went with Apprentice, but the DPS was slightly lower, so it's not optimal. Also sharpened trait woudn't be that good in group content where reaching the cap is quite easy.

Since I only have this staff for the time being and I have no certitude about new drops, though I run the Craglorn trials quite regularly, I want a trait that also functions well for group content. At this moment I'm considering Infused, but I don't know if it's really worth doing it, since as @Masel92 pointed out, I would lose both the extra off balance from heavy attacks and burning status from the enchant - as I said that procs almost on every hit unless the enchant is on cooldown and it does very good DPS. If I'm not mistaken enchants have a 30% chance to apply status effects, and charged buffs that by 220%. In effect my chance of applying burning status is either 66% if it's multiplicative (not sure about that), so 2 out of every 3 enchant procs should apply the burning status. It's quite close to an ... Asylum staff

In group content my gear is slightly different: 5 Julianos 4 IA 2 Ilambris, so the burning also helps proc the monster set. I have moved this staff to the back of my conversion priority list for the time being since it seems that the difference between charged and infused seems to be very small.

Asardes

Qbiken wrote: »

I use Masel92´s magicka DK build for vMA, where the Charged trait comes into really good use. Without it I don´t think I would be able to complete vMA on my magDK. Only time I swap my charged IA staff out is at the boss fight on stage 6, since that boss can´t be set off-balance. So I just swap out for an infused or sharpened IA staff.

Love those powerlash procs in vMA

Sorcerer works a bit differently, since it has no specific ability that depends strongly on off-balance, but benefits from the Exploiter CP passive, just like other classes. However, I use the whole 5p IA set and I'm still not very sure how this interacts with the concussed/off-balanced status, more specifically if an enemy affected by minor vulnerability from heavy attacks can be also concussed and set off balance by other effects. At some point the minor vulnerability status granted immunity to other status effects and IA was not wanted in trials as a result.

Masel

IA and concussion do not stack. It's the same debuff.

So 5-piece has become a complete waste on everything except the 6-th boss in vMA and the first two in vAA. On the 6-th boss however, you can aim at adds next to the spider boss that can be concussed and still get the same damage on the boss as the trifocus scales with the original damage dealt to the target you aim at. Same works on the ground atronach in vAA. If adds stand close to the boss aim your heavy attacks at them and you'll see your boss damage skyrocket as no-one else will take the off-balance away on them and you'll enjoy a constant 70% buff to heavy attacks.

Stamina dds and other mag dks constantly consume your off-balance, but this way, no more. On a sorcerer, everything is aoe so the dpa on the boss won't even be lower.

You can use this trick with all heavy attack based builds on all bosses, E.g. Rakkhat, aim at hulks.

Edit: With infused, a lot of the time your enchant will proc on adds and not bosses itself. That's also why I stick with charged,.because you don't have to rely on the enchant.

Asardes

Masel92 wrote: »

IA and concussion do not stack. It's the same debuff.

So 5-piece has become a complete waste on everything except the 6-th boss in vMA and the first two in vAA. On the 6-th boss however, you can aim at adds next to the spider boss that can be concussed and still get the same damage on the boss. Same works on the ground atronach in vAA. If adds stand close to the boss aim your heavy attacks at them and you'll see your boss damage skyrocket as no-one else will take the off-balance away on them.

So for the other rounds I'm simply better off using 2 Ilambris instead of the 5th IA body piece? In this case the charged trait has an even bigger advantage over infused or nirnhoned, since it increases the chance of applying concussed/off-balance from the lightning attacks - LA, HA the lightning portion of FP - in addition to burning status from enchant and flame part of FP. I'm not sure if the increased chance to apply concussed/off-balance off the front bar staff also affects effects cast from the back bar like blockade and LL.

Masel

Asardes wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

IA and concussion do not stack. It's the same debuff.

So 5-piece has become a complete waste on everything except the 6-th boss in vMA and the first two in vAA. On the 6-th boss however, you can aim at adds next to the spider boss that can be concussed and still get the same damage on the boss. Same works on the ground atronach in vAA. If adds stand close to the boss aim your heavy attacks at them and you'll see your boss damage skyrocket as no-one else will take the off-balance away on them.

So for the other rounds I'm simply better off using 2 Ilambris instead of the 5th IA body piece? In this case the charged trait has an even bigger advantage over infused or nirnhoned, since it increases the chance of applying concussed/off-balance from the lightning attacks - LA, HA the lightning portion of FP - in addition to burning status from enchant and flame part of FP. I'm not sure if the increased chance to apply concussed/off-balance off the front bar staff also affects effects cast from the back bar like blockade and LL.

It does. Every elemental damage caused while on that bar.

Light and heavy attacks do not have a chance to apply status effects for whatever reason though.

And an enchant has 20% Base. So with destro it is 40%, and with charged 84%.

kylewwefan

Where did charged come from as a desirable trait all a sudden? Have you been hiding these well known facts from us?

Asardes

Masel92 wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

IA and concussion do not stack. It's the same debuff.

So 5-piece has become a complete waste on everything except the 6-th boss in vMA and the first two in vAA. On the 6-th boss however, you can aim at adds next to the spider boss that can be concussed and still get the same damage on the boss. Same works on the ground atronach in vAA. If adds stand close to the boss aim your heavy attacks at them and you'll see your boss damage skyrocket as no-one else will take the off-balance away on them.

So for the other rounds I'm simply better off using 2 Ilambris instead of the 5th IA body piece? In this case the charged trait has an even bigger advantage over infused or nirnhoned, since it increases the chance of applying concussed/off-balance from the lightning attacks - LA, HA the lightning portion of FP - in addition to burning status from enchant and flame part of FP. I'm not sure if the increased chance to apply concussed/off-balance off the front bar staff also affects effects cast from the back bar like blockade and LL.

It does. Every elemental damage caused while on that bar.

Light and heavy attacks do not have a chance to apply status effects for whatever reason though.

And an enchant has 20% Base. So with destro it is 40%, and with charged 84%.

Very interesting. Thanks for the feedback. I am now convinced that the staff will stay charged. The longer cool-down and smaller initial hit value of the enchant are probably compensated to a large degree by the higher uptime on burning status effect even against single targets. I'm not a very experienced DD so in my case the difference will be even smaller.

Masel

kylewwefan wrote: »

Where did charged come from as a desirable trait all a sudden? Have you been hiding these well known facts from us?

I made four builds with it. And posted them on here and tamrielfoundry. Guess it doesn't spread as much because I'm not alcast or gilliam (which I both like, but I think people need to theorycraft more themselves so we find this stuff out).

Asardes

And talking of the Magicka DK I have just leveled one but I won't play her for months due to time reasons. But when I do I plan to use a similar build 5 BSW body, Grothdarr or Skoria medium/heavy head/shoulders, IA jewels and flame staff on front bar, and charged Maelstrom lightning back bar. I don't think there's much of a difference between IA and Moondancer 2-3-4p bonuses, and my calculations show that the former actually becomes stronger in a well coordinated group due to increased critical multipliers, since it has extra spell critical.

Asardes

Narvuntien wrote: »

Charged is the best for solo.

With the yet unmodified I can see the burning status applied almost every time the enchant procs in the S'rendarr addon. Also Combat Metrics lists it pretty high on the damage report. So I was wondering if infused will get a higher chance of applying it due to reduced cooldown and also get higher damage from the initial hit resulting in higher damage overall as the online guides still list infused as ideal this patch.

Qbiken

@Masel92 your knowledge is needed here ;D

Narvuntien

Oh wait I know the 5 piece of Infallible aethermage did sorry.
If you were using Netch's touch and were a full on Lightning mage it would be best.

Depending on your CP set up Sharpended or Infused.

Asardes

Valera Progib wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

Valera Progib wrote: »

Infallible heavy attack debuff doesn't stack with concussion debuff from lightning attacks...

I wasn't implying that, just explaining why I'm using fire instead of lightning enchant. People use lightning only for applying concussed status so enemies can be set off balance, but since minor vulnerability is basically the same debuff it would be redundant.

No, it is on the same. Concussion allows for next heavy attack to do extra damage 50% or smth, minir vulnerability just adds 8% damage all the time. Infallible heavy attack overwrites and doesn't allow concussion.

Probably a bug... I already creates a post about it, but nobody from ZoS cares to reply.

Logic tells us that concussion should overwrite minor vulnerability from IA...

From what I remember that was the case around Homestead patch when the destro staff passives were changed but has been fixed since at least Morrowind. An enemy that already has minor vulnerability applied will not be set off-balance for some time, but an enemy that has been set off-balance by lightning blockade or other means and gets hit by IA heavy will not get the de-buff twice, but will still receive the bonus damage from the heavy attack. Also some bosses in vMA (and also some trial ones) are immune to off-balance so IA is the only way to de-buff them.

Asardes

Well, then infused it is. The crystals are piling up fast, 70-100 per week on average, so I will need to use them soon anyway.

Aerithone

Narvuntien wrote: »

Charged is the best for solo.

Sharpened is the best for solo.
Charged - trait for group support.

Qbiken

I use Masel92´s magicka DK build for vMA, where the Charged trait comes into really good use. Without it I don´t think I would be able to complete vMA on my magDK. Only time I swap my charged IA staff out is at the boss fight on stage 6, since that boss can´t be set off-balance. So I just swap out for an infused or sharpened IA staff.

Love those powerlash procs in vMA