Vicious Ophidian 1h weapons

SoLooney

vo daggers are nice to have but not recommended as you lose it on the back bar.

idk why ppl go so crazy over them, maybe cause its rare

Runefang

SoLooney wrote: »

vo daggers are nice to have but not recommended as you lose it on the back bar.

idk why ppl go so crazy over them, maybe cause its rare

VO isn't even BiS, so yeah it's strange.

krachall

Runefang wrote: »

SoLooney wrote: »

vo daggers are nice to have but not recommended as you lose it on the back bar.

idk why ppl go so crazy over them, maybe cause its rare

VO isn't even BiS, so yeah it's strange.

Realizing a lot depends on your group, but what exactly is BIS for a stamblade if not Hundings/VO? Hundings/TFS?

krachall

krachall wrote: »

Runefang wrote: »

SoLooney wrote: »

vo daggers are nice to have but not recommended as you lose it on the back bar.

idk why ppl go so crazy over them, maybe cause its rare

VO isn't even BiS, so yeah it's strange.

Realizing a lot depends on your group, but what exactly is BIS for a stamblade if not Hundings/VO? Hundings/TFS?

Another question I asked above but didn't see an answer to (I may have missed it...reading on my phone):

When is TFS preferred over VO? I keep going back to VO because I have a full gold set of jewelry and don't want to take off!

LiquidPony

krachall wrote: »

Realizing a lot depends on your group, but what exactly is BIS for a stamblade if not Hundings/VO? Hundings/TFS?

@krachall War Machine is the BiS set for stamblades in raids. Run it with NMG/Hunding's/Briarheart.

Glaiceana

So much amazing advice in this thread! Its really helpful! I have been getting confused with what sets to bring in groups and which ones I should combine and what situations they are for, etc!

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with hundings/VO for straight damage, but it is extremely selfish. If you are asked to run straight damage sets, then knock yourself out, but you arent bringing much to the table for your group. Unless you are hitting 55-60K single target on your DK, you should probably work on some support. The most obvious thing to do would just be to craft a set of Nightmothers for the same pieces as your Hundings. Then you can swap back and forth. The next step would probably be to farm Sunderflame to replace your VO. That would give 4 possible combos, which is more than most people bring to the table.

I very recently just did exactly this, so I am happy it was the right choice! The two sunderflame body pieces I have are the wrong traits, but that's ok for now, I will get divines eventually!
@Oreyn_Bearclaw You have always been really amazing with advice, remember you helping me with my main in a thread ages ago and you're still doing it now, so thank you

idk

krachall wrote: »

krachall wrote: »

Runefang wrote: »

SoLooney wrote: »

vo daggers are nice to have but not recommended as you lose it on the back bar.

idk why ppl go so crazy over them, maybe cause its rare

VO isn't even BiS, so yeah it's strange.

Realizing a lot depends on your group, but what exactly is BIS for a stamblade if not Hundings/VO? Hundings/TFS?

Another question I asked above but didn't see an answer to (I may have missed it...reading on my phone):

When is TFS preferred over VO? I keep going back to VO because I have a full gold set of jewelry and don't want to take off!

The only time TFS would be considered is if your group is not running with coordinated debuffs such as alkosh/NMG/Sunder/Tank with infused crusher and torugs, to name a few. Together they stack up and really increase stam DPS significantly.

VO is fine anytime.

As someone else mentioned, War Machine is a solid set since all stam have access to a fairly low cost ultimate they will be using often.

NMG, one of the sets mentioned for debufs is craftable and great for one stam to wear it, but only one needs to wear it and it should never be your DW bar. It should always be armor pieces since you would not want to lose the debuff on the targets when on your bow bar. Probably still best with Caltrops since I think that is still larger than endless hail to help get the debuff on adds and all mobs.

Izaki

jkolb2030 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Never saw the point of running VO on the DW bar unless you absolutely have to. I wouldn't want to lose the stamina cost reduction on my bow bar.

In most cases, you're using a heavy attack build on the DW bar and your bow bar is all light attack weaves for your typical DoTs. So with how much sustain you get with the heavy attacks people run DW VO so they can push more dps by pairing sets like VO with TFS; and with TFS stacks resetting if you use it on your DW bar, it makes it more optimal to run VO weapons and a 2pc monster.

To the OP -
I think TFS and Hundings w/ daggers will still be your best bet for most cases. However, if absolute maximum dps is not an issue, you can use either setup and see little difference between the dps results.

Note - TFS will always inflate your dummy skeleton parses.

Hunding's is more DPS than VO.

TheNorthernDragon

@Oreyn_Bearclaw and @Danksta, you guys are giving some masterclass advice here, many thanks!

I'd like to ask you both, what do you think of Spriggan's in place of TFS?

Yubarius

Denyiir wrote: »

RNGesus didn't bless me with VO daggers yet, but I managed to get sword/mace with good traits, so:

Which would be better option TFS + Hunding (with daggers), or TFS + VO (sword/mace) ?

I just got infused VO dagger 2 days ago, and the ONLY thing I need to be 100% BIS is another 1H VO weapon /kappa

O_LYKOS

Hundings (with daggers) with VO

Danksta

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw and @Danksta yall should start a stam DPS class haha Ill sign up right now.

CLASS ROSTER

1.RABIDxWOLVERINE

Haha! I'm really not that good and still learn new things quite often. I just do my research and am fortunate to play with some really good players that are willing to help out.

Where do you get your research? I would love to learn about this more.

I've learned a lot from watching Gilliam and Alcast, but I've also been pretty fortunate to play with some really awesome, helpful players. I know Gilliam's videos can get pretty long, but I legit feel like I'm in class when I watch some of them, there's a lot of information in there. I've also spent quite a bit of time in front of a test dummy to see what works best for me. It's definitely not something that came without a lot of work and it's not always fun and at times can be frustrating but worth putting in the time if you're interested in pushing for high scores.

Danksta

TheNorthernDragon wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw and @Danksta, you guys are giving some masterclass advice here, many thanks!

I'd like to ask you both, what do you think of Spriggan's in place of TFS?

In situations where you'd use TFS, Spriggans is a good substitute but you will be losing some penetration and crit chance for some stam. That's not a trade off I'd willingly make but if you don't have TFS, Spriggans works.

@TheNorthernDragon

jkolb2030

If you are going to the stamina DPS route you should probably make the following sets available :
- Night Mothers Gaze
- Sunderflame - Weapons/Jewelry
- Hundings
- TFS / Spriggans
- VO

Obviously, the set combination you use will vary depending on the group comp - and Hundings will likely be your go to for solo content. If you can get these sets and keep yourself situational, i think you will be better off than trying to say "this is my set layout and thats that."

Mettaricana

jkolb2030 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Never saw the point of running VO on the DW bar unless you absolutely have to. I wouldn't want to lose the stamina cost reduction on my bow bar.

In most cases, you're using a heavy attack build on the DW bar and your bow bar is all light attack weaves for your typical DoTs. So with how much sustain you get with the heavy attacks people run DW VO so they can push more dps by pairing sets like VO with TFS; and with TFS stacks resetting if you use it on your DW bar, it makes it more optimal to run VO weapons and a 2pc monster.

To the OP -
I think TFS and Hundings w/ daggers will still be your best bet for most cases. However, if absolute maximum dps is not an issue, you can use either setup and see little difference between the dps results.

Note - TFS will always inflate your dummy skeleton parses.

So is tfs and vo still a top dps combo?

Oreyn_Bearclaw

TheNorthernDragon wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw and @Danksta, you guys are giving some masterclass advice here, many thanks!

I'd like to ask you both, what do you think of Spriggan's in place of TFS?

TFS is a stronger set than spriggans for sustained DPS. Spriggans is a stronger set than TFS for burst DPS. Both are pen sets, that do roughly the same thing. TFS has a higher ceiling and a lower floor. For PVP or perhaps a place like VMA, I might give the edge to spriggans. For any other group PVE content, TFS wins. On any fight longer than a few seconds, you will have TFS at max strength with a very high uptime.

Spriggans can be bought, so it is easier to acquire. You could argue it is really nice entry gear, as you could craft hundings/NM and buy spriggans, so you could get setup for decent damage with no grind other than monster sets. The weapons are also significantly easier to acquire than TFS. I would not recommend using TFS weapons because you will lose up time when on your back bar, but I suppose the same thing holds true for spriggans now that I think about it. I dont know anyone in a competitive raid using spriggans.

Edit: Put it another way, I have more gold than I know what to do with and I havent bothered to buy any spriggans stuff. haha

OutLaw_Nynx

Wish I could just give this thread a giant insightful. I’m very much struggling with my Stam DK so I’ll be looking at this later to read.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw,

I was just glancing through Alcast’s Stam DK pve build. He suggests using a redguard. My main is currently an Imperial. Am I hurting myself by not race changing?

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Runefang wrote: »

SoLooney wrote: »

vo daggers are nice to have but not recommended as you lose it on the back bar.

idk why ppl go so crazy over them, maybe cause its rare

VO isn't even BiS, so yeah it's strange.

Actually, I think it arguably can be on some builds if asked to go straight damage. Now most raids will only have one stamina toon at most going full damage, but in that scenario, it's worth looking at. Other than sorcs, Hundings is arguably the best damage set. VO is in second place for straight damage.

So if you want to pair them together, then the question becomes does it make sense to run VO weapons or hundings weapons. Well, at first glance, since you can craft hundings weapons in about 3 seconds, it seems silly to spend hours, days, weeks, months, years, grinding the perfect VO weapons. I kid, but I literally just got my second dagger on Sunday and have been after them forever.

But let's think for a second. Hundings 5 piece bonus is 299 weapon damage. VO 5 pieces gives stamina reduction, major expedition and stamina return on kills, and 129 weapon damage (4 piece is identical). Whatever weapons you chose will mean you dont get that bonus on the back bar. Assuming you can sustain in single target fights without VO (you should be able to), then the Stamina reduction/return and major expedition arent really relevant for damage. From a damage perspective, you would rather have the hundings buff active at all times because end of the day you are comparing 299 WD to 129. In other words, if pairing hundings and VO for a pure damage build, you want 5 hundings on the body.

The other thing to consider if choosing between the two (not pairing them together) which is especially important in trash fights where you might be using an expensive spammable, or CC intensive fights where you need to block, break free, etc., is that the Damage Difference between VO and Hundings is VERY small. So if it comes down to choosing between the two, even though hundings might give a touch more damage, if VO potentially allows you to use your spammable more often, it could actually come out ahead in damage, and certainly comes out ahead in utility. On my sorc if asked to go straight damage, I will be using VO/Automaton from this point forward.

TLDR: Do I think people need to kill themselves for VO weapons (which I think is what started this convo)? No. Are there scenarios where they could be considered BIS, or at the very least, highly useful? Absolutely.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

OutLaw_Nynx wrote: »

Wish I could just give this thread a giant insightful. I’m very much struggling with my Stam DK so I’ll be looking at this later to read.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw,

I was just glancing through Alcast’s Stam DK pve build. He suggests using a redguard. My main is currently an Imperial. Am I hurting myself by not race changing?

From a pure damage standpoint, Redgaurd and Imperial are identical. Both give the same bonus to max stamina. Redguards have better sustain, and Imperials have more health. I would certainly argue that sustain is more important than max health, but from a pure DPS perspective, no you are not hurting yourself necessarily.

If you are having sustain issues, changing to redguard is certainly an easy fix. Most of my stamina toons actually started as khajiit, but I have made the switch to redguard for most of them. I think it is the BIS race for the vast majority of content, but imperial is not a deal breaker. My stamblade is still imperial, but only because she was my first toon, she is pretty, and I dont use her in trials. If I actually started raiding with her, I would personally make the change immediately.

RABIDxWOLVERINE

@Oreyn_Bearclaw I wish I was on PC/NA I would definitely be at your manor learning from you lol. Ive learnt more in this thread than I had known previously. I was so hyped that I finally had my 5TFS pieces and thought I was done farming sets but now I know what I'm doing this weekend. haha

Have you ever thought about starting a youtube channel or anything like that? You seem to have a vast amount of knowledge and an amazing understanding of how everything works. I know I'd hit that like and subscribe button if your videos had 1/10th the info you have put out there in this thread.

I think I might work on my rotation a little more as well it sounds like I'm nowhere near my ceiling. I might be hitting 20-22k on the dummy, but apparently I still have some learning to do and some practice to complete.

Thanks for all the info. Also big thanks to @Danksta you have given me a ton of info to check out as well and I appreciate both of your help!

Oreyn_Bearclaw

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw I wish I was on PC/NA I would definitely be at your manor learning from you lol. Ive learnt more in this thread than I had known previously. I was so hyped that I finally had my 5TFS pieces and thought I was done farming sets but now I know what I'm doing this weekend. haha

Have you ever thought about starting a youtube channel or anything like that? You seem to have a vast amount of knowledge and an amazing understanding of how everything works. I know I'd hit that like and subscribe button if your videos had 1/10th the info you have put out there in this thread.

I think I might work on my rotation a little more as well it sounds like I'm nowhere near my ceiling. I might be hitting 20-22k on the dummy, but apparently I still have some learning to do and some practice to complete.

Thanks for all the info. Also big thanks to @Danksta you have given me a ton of info to check out as well and I appreciate both of your help!

This is an MMO, you are never done farming. Haha. I am still after a handful of Automaton, Sunder, and TFS armor pieces in divines, but I have the jewelry and enough divines to make any of them work. You efforts are certainly not wasted. TFS is still a very useful set. We all love to sit here and talk about what to run in a perfect raid, but the reality is most of us dont live in that world full time. TFS is BIS in a lot of situations.

As to the youtube thing, it would be cool if I had the time, but I work a lot of hours and would rather play in the evenings than make videos. Fortunately, my work has downtime, so I am able to stalk the forums during the day.

As to 20-22k, I would say you honestly have a rotation issue. No shame in that, just means you need some practice. If it makes you feel any better, I decided last week I was going to learn to mage blade. My first parse was like 18.5K and I wanted to give up. A week and a lot of dummy hours later, and I am flirting with 38k. It just takes practice.

Remember, other than stamblade, stamina rotations are very circular. I am a big fan of not worrying about parses and just practicing the rotation for a while. I used to practice my sorc rotation on the trial dummies wearing worm cult. No need to use potions or anything. Break it into pieces if you have to, especially the bar swaps. Most back bars are going to use light weaves, and cast Hail, injection, Caltrops (Perhaps trap in their somewhere), and most front bar rotations are going to simply go through all your buffs with heavy attack weaves. The biggest thing is to keep the order consistent.

OutLaw_Nynx

@Oreyn_Bearclaw,

I’m currently rocking;

5 VO
2 Veli
5 hundings (dual wield)
Random bow (Maelstrom is hard )

I can get like 22k dps and it’s frustrating. The rotation alcast has on his website is simple enough but my hands can’t seem to remember the rotation.


Ps

You should totally make a channel for this type of stuff if you haven’t already.

RABIDxWOLVERINE

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw I wish I was on PC/NA I would definitely be at your manor learning from you lol. Ive learnt more in this thread than I had known previously. I was so hyped that I finally had my 5TFS pieces and thought I was done farming sets but now I know what I'm doing this weekend. haha

Have you ever thought about starting a youtube channel or anything like that? You seem to have a vast amount of knowledge and an amazing understanding of how everything works. I know I'd hit that like and subscribe button if your videos had 1/10th the info you have put out there in this thread.

I think I might work on my rotation a little more as well it sounds like I'm nowhere near my ceiling. I might be hitting 20-22k on the dummy, but apparently I still have some learning to do and some practice to complete.

Thanks for all the info. Also big thanks to @Danksta you have given me a ton of info to check out as well and I appreciate both of your help!

This is an MMO, you are never done farming. Haha. I am still after a handful of Automaton, Sunder, and TFS armor pieces in divines, but I have the jewelry and enough divines to make any of them work. You efforts are certainly not wasted. TFS is still a very useful set. We all love to sit here and talk about what to run in a perfect raid, but the reality is most of us dont live in that world full time. TFS is BIS in a lot of situations.

As to the youtube thing, it would be cool if I had the time, but I work a lot of hours and would rather play in the evenings than make videos. Fortunately, my work has downtime, so I am able to stalk the forums during the day.

As to 20-22k, I would say you honestly have a rotation issue. No shame in that, just means you need some practice. If it makes you feel any better, I decided last week I was going to learn to mage blade. My first parse was like 18.5K and I wanted to give up. A week and a lot of dummy hours later, and I am flirting with 38k. It just takes practice.

Remember, other than stamblade, stamina rotations are very circular. I am a big fan of not worrying about parses and just practicing the rotation for a while. I used to practice my sorc rotation on the trial dummies wearing worm cult. No need to use potions or anything. Break it into pieces if you have to, especially the bar swaps. Most back bars are going to use light weaves, and cast Hail, injection, Caltrops (Perhaps trap in their somewhere), and most front bar rotations are going to simply go through all your buffs with heavy attack weaves. The biggest thing is to keep the order consistent.

I definitely have a rotation problem. I started out around 14K DPS just playing how I play. I then got TFS did it again and was at like 16k. Since then I have really been focusing on my rotation and ive definitely improved but still have a lot of work to do. Since starting to work on my rotation I have steadily seen an increase in overall DPS. My biggest problem is knowing when to swap to back bar and reapply all my DoTs. I tend to get caught up in swinging my swords at enemy faces.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

One of the classic mistakes that people make is to spend way too much time on their front bar. They cast their back bar dots, swap to their front bar, and dont swap back until long after their DOTs have stopped ticking. The beautiful thing about stam is that you really dont need any fancy buff trackers. Every thing is a big circle and there are no spam skills (like force pulse) to worry about. Let's take alcasts stated rotation and call it meta for the time being (it's certainly close).

Copied from his website:
Back Bar: Rearming Trap > Light Attack > Endless Hail > Light Attack > Poison Injection > Light Attack > Razor Caltrops > Weapon Swap

Front Bar: Heavy Attack > Noxious Breath > Heavy Attack > Venomous Claw > Heavy Attack > Rending Slashes > Heavy Attack Deadly Cloak > Weapon Swap > restart rotation

Sounds complicated, but its really not. Think of your back bar as 5 skills and your front bar as 5 skills. The fifth skill on your back bar is molten armaments and on your front bar its Flames of Oblivon (not mentioned in the rotation). These are the only two that will be cast outside of your normal rotation, so do yourself a favor and ignore them for the time being (you will need to use weapon power potions on cooldown, but you should do that anyway). With the remaining 8 skills, you are going to cast them all once and repeat. You should never be lost as to what to do because the rotation simply repeats itself. A very helpful trick is to slot your skills in the right order on your bars.

So if you back bar is 1. Trap, 2 Hail, 3 PI, 4 Caltrops, and your front bar is 1. Noxious, 2. Claw, 3. Slashes, 4 Cloak. Then, put trap and breath, hail and claw, PI and Slashes, and Caltrops and Cloak in the same spots on your bars. Then whether you are on your back bar or your front bar, its just 1, 2, 3, 4. Dont think of the skill, think of the order. Like counting music, 1234 swap 1234 swap 1234 Swap and so on.

As to your back bar, you want to use light attacks with each skill. This is not that important, but it does help the dps a bit. I would definitely turn the ground AOE autocast to to on, so caltrops and hail just need a button press. Caltrops also has a very long cast time (why we cast it last), so be sure to practice swap canceling it. Basically once you start the cast, you can hit bar swap earlier than you might think. It's just something you will need to play with.

As to your front bar, this is just a heavy attack weave which is the easiest weave their is. You can literally hold down your Heavy Attack button the entire time you are on your front bar without letting it go. Once you see your hands go back, press the 1 button (you can actually spam it a few times), and the skill will fire as soon as the heavy attack hits. Then keep your finger on the HA button, once you see your arms go back again, press button 2, and so on and so forth. Once you hit button 4 (always in order), press your swap button once you see the beginning of the skill animation and repeat.

Once you can do that with your eyes closed, you can look to add 4 things that are on independent cooldowns. Potions, Ultimates, Molten Armaments, and Flames of Oblivion, should be cast independently. Potions and ultiamtes are easy, they are very long to build, and its obvious when they are ready. MA and FOO are a little trickier, but like I said, ignore them for the time being. You could do something like slotting vigor on the back bar and steal tornado on the front bar. Master the basic rotation, then look to add the proverbial icing to the cake.

Glaiceana

OutLaw_Nynx wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw,

I’m currently rocking;

5 VO
2 Veli
5 hundings (dual wield)
Random bow (Maelstrom is hard )

I can get like 22k dps and it’s frustrating. The rotation alcast has on his website is simple enough but my hands can’t seem to remember the rotation.


Ps

You should totally make a channel for this type of stuff if you haven’t already.

@OutLaw_Nynx
Oreyn will probably be able to help more, but my default set up is exactly the same as yours, except I do have the maelstrom bow. I am a Dragonknight as well, not sure if you are but:
The best way I improved my rotation was to place the skills in the order I press them.

So front bar is claw, rending, trap, blade cloak, caltrops. I literally press 1 to 5, doing heavy attacks between them.
Bow bar is Endless Hail, Poison Injection, Nox Breath, Flames of Oblivion, Molten Armaments, again press one skill after the other, but with light attacks between this time.

Then you simple repeat this, the idea is to make sure that all your DOTS are on as much as possible, try not to let them run out, at the same time, don't press them too soon causing yourself to run out of resources.
Simplify it for yourself.

Before I just had skills I liked to spam at the front, and just guessed a rotation. When I changed my skill layout and actually tried to work on a consistent rotation, my dps shot up from around 25k to 32k all of a sudden! Now I can get 35k sometimes at my very best, I am still practising to make sure I can get it every time, rather than by luck when I do "something" right

Oreyn_Bearclaw

OutLaw_Nynx wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw,

I’m currently rocking;

5 VO
2 Veli
5 hundings (dual wield)
Random bow (Maelstrom is hard )

I can get like 22k dps and it’s frustrating. The rotation alcast has on his website is simple enough but my hands can’t seem to remember the rotation.


Ps

You should totally make a channel for this type of stuff if you haven’t already.

It's a wonderful pure damage build, but you are going to lack penetration on a dummy. Some things you can do (other than working on your rotation) to pad your dummy parse a bit: Use Krags over veli. Veli is better in a trial, but krags is better pen so you will do better on a dummy. You could swap Hundings for NM, and you could swap VO for TFS or spriggans. You could also increase your CP a bit into physical penetration and definitely use Lover over Warrior when solo. Stacking weapon damage and crit only makes sense once you hit the penetration cap. It does have diminishing returns once you get close to 18.2k, but you want to get in the same ballpark. With that build solo, you are nowhere near it.

Edit: I play stam sorc more than stam DK, but on my sorc if I go with straight damage VO/Automaton/Veli/ Warrior, I get in the low 30s. If I swap to penetration gear, NM/TFS/Krags/Lover it jumps to 37-38. It can be a big difference. In a raid, I get the penetration from my group, so a low 30s parse can turn to 50k+ if your group is on point and you can stay on boss.

Ultimately, dummys are far more useful for practicing a rotation than cheesing parses, but I get wanting the numbers to look good. Stacking penetration helps.

OutLaw_Nynx

Good info to know. Thanks both of you!

jkolb2030

[/quote]

So is tfs and vo still a top dps combo?[/quote]

I honestly think that it depends on what you are doing, and with whom..

TFS will still skyrocket your penetration, where VO gives you crit and sustain. TFS has turned into more of a situational dps set compared to a BiS, and with the emergence of HA stam builds TFS is getting beat out by Sunder because, as mentioned above, it is a group wide effect.

VO will always be an amazing set imo, the sustain, cost reduction, wep dmg, and crit are all super valuable..However, with all of the changes to crit and such in the last couple patches, Hundings is giving better numbers than VO when paired with some of the debuff sets like TFS and Sunder.

There is a lot of really great information in this thread. I'm merely giving my personal opinions based on the content I've played with the 12 man groups I've played with.

Glaiceana

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Once you can do that with your eyes closed, you can look to add 4 things that are on independent cooldowns. Potions, Ultimates, Molten Armaments, and Flames of Oblivion, should be cast independently. Potions and ultiamtes are easy, they are very long to build, and its obvious when they are ready. MA and FOO are a little trickier, but like I said, ignore them for the time being. You could do something like slotting vigor on the back bar and steal tornado on the front bar. Master the basic rotation, then look to add the proverbial icing to the cake.

Knew you would reply with something more useful than mine haha, I was still typing my reply up when you posted yours @Oreyn_Bearclaw
But while we are on that subject, how would you actually go about FOO and MA in the rotation?
What I do now is start on bow bar usually, go through all my skills, FOO and MA are on that bar too so they will be applied at this time. Then I will go through my DW bar, and once back to bow, I will only apply FOO, because hopefully MA is still up. And then I will apply it on the next time I get back to the bow bar instead.
Sometimes it isn't up for a few seconds, and unfortunately sometimes I run out of magicka, I have only 10k of it being stam of course. But I think that is sometimes from over applying the skill.
So yes, struggle with those two quite often...

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Glaiceana wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Once you can do that with your eyes closed, you can look to add 4 things that are on independent cooldowns. Potions, Ultimates, Molten Armaments, and Flames of Oblivion, should be cast independently. Potions and ultiamtes are easy, they are very long to build, and its obvious when they are ready. MA and FOO are a little trickier, but like I said, ignore them for the time being. You could do something like slotting vigor on the back bar and steal tornado on the front bar. Master the basic rotation, then look to add the proverbial icing to the cake.

Knew you would reply with something more useful than mine haha, I was still typing my reply up when you posted yours @Oreyn_Bearclaw
But while we are on that subject, how would you actually go about FOO and MA in the rotation?
What I do now is start on bow bar usually, go through all my skills, FOO and MA are on that bar too so they will be applied at this time. Then I will go through my DW bar, and once back to bow, I will only apply FOO, because hopefully MA is still up. And then I will apply it on the next time I get back to the bow bar instead.
Sometimes it isn't up for a few seconds, and unfortunately sometimes I run out of magicka, I have only 10k of it being stam of course. But I think that is sometimes from over applying the skill.
So yes, struggle with those two quite often...

Well the best way is to simply have a buff timer, and break your rotation for a half a second or so to cast them when up. Another thing to do is go the every other rotation route. It will have downtime, but it still adds a bit of DPS.

With FOO in particular, you could also just add it in your rotation, you are going to be missing a few ticks each cast, but its perhaps the simplest way to include it. I find if you have more than one skill that is outside of your rotation, you should put them on opposite bars. Then whenever you need to cast it, you just add it last on whatever bar you are on and quickly swap cancel it. I dont like having two such skills on the same bar, because you tend to run into times where you need to cast both and its a longer break in your rotation.

FOO is a nice DOT, but it aint the difference between 30k and 50k in a trial. It gives major savagery, but you should get that from potions anyways. If you are serious about DPS, you run potions, period. Never rely on getting major Sorcery, Prophecy, Brutality, Savagry from a skill, unless it is a passive from merely being slotted like inner light. Its fine to do so when solo or in small man, but never in a trial setting. Potions have their own cooldown and can be cast independently of your global skill cool downs at any time unless you are charging a heavy attack. When I play stam DK, I usually just cast FOO every rotation for simplicity.

MA, is a skill that is barely worth slotting in my opinion. It is going to buff your heavy attacks by 40%. So even if you get 5k DPS from HA damage (you probably arent), this skill is adding less than 2K DPS. I say less than, because you lose one global cooldown out of your rotation. The major sorcery is totally irrelevant. I know a lot of stam DKs that pull really good numbers that dont even bother with it. They slot vigor there so they arent as squishy. It's what I do 95% of the time.