Sword Could Use a Small Buff (Twin Blade and Blunt)

WrathOfInnos

Currently swords are pretty far behind the other 3 weapon types for damage potential. This is mostly due to the way damage bonuses are calculated. Allow me to demonstrate with some common values.

Each sword increases damage by 2.5%, however for a typical (best case) build this is in addition to Minor Berserk 8%, Mighty CP 12%, Thaum/MAA CP 20%. This means that you are not going from 100% to 102.5%, it is actually 140% to 142.5%. This damage increase works out to 1.8% per sword maximum.

For a more extreme, but still reasonable, worst case, look at a stam warden with 3 animal skills (3x2%=6%), Minor Slayer 5%, and Major Slayer 15% from War Machine. Now the sword increases damage from 166% to 168.5%, which is only a 1.5% increase.

To compare to daggers I will use 2 cases at opposite extremes.

Best Case for Dagger: Low crit chance 42%, with high crit multiplier 2.15. This results in each dagger increasing DPS by 3.8%. This is more than double the best case increase from a sword.

Worst Case for Dagger: High crit chance 70%, with low crit multiplier 1.7. This results in each dagger increasing DPS by 2.4%.

Now for maces, these are definitely situational, but I will again consider best and worst case for PVE.

Best Case Mace: No resistance debuffs, on an enemy with 18200 armor (think stam sorc in VMA). Each mace provides 1820 penetration, which results in a DPS increase of 5.7%.

Worst Case Mace: Full raid buffs/debuffs (Maj/Min Fracture, Alkosh, Torug Crusher, Sunderflame, Night Mothers) Target has no resistances left, so maces add 0% DPS.

Axes: Dependent on many factors, but I think most would agree that one axe is as good or better than a dagger. Two axes have DoT refreshing issues, but that's a topic for another day.

To summarize:
Daggers add 2.4% to 3.8% DPS each or average about 3.2%
Axes are on par with daggers
Maces add 0% to 5.7% DPS each or average about 2.8%
Swords add 1.5% to 1.8% each, far below the 3 other options

I would recommend bringing the damage increase for each sword from 2.5% up to 4.5%. Looking at the first 2 examples again, this would be a maximum 3.2% DPS (140 up to 144.5%) and a minimum 2.7% DPS (166% up to 170.5%) per sword.

I would be fine with the passive tooltip giving 4% or 5% per sword (resulting in 2.4%-2.8% or 3%-3.6% DPS per sword respectively), as they would still be best for some builds and worst for others, I just found 4.5% to be the most balanced with other weapon types. Any of these options would take swords from being worst-in-slot to a viable option, without becoming OP.

TLDR: Dual swords are on average a ~3% DPS loss over other weapon types, and can be up to a 10% DPS loss on some builds. Increasing the Twin Blade and Blunt Passive from 2.5% per sword up to 4.5% per sword would make them balanced, but not OP.

Note: All these calculations are from. PVE perspective assuming max CP. For PVP, maces have the potential to be better due to high armor builds, daggers are slightly worse due to crit resistance and shields, axes are about the same (purgeable, but bleeds ignore armor), and swords stay about the same (although no slayer bonuses, so closer to best case scenario above).

Edit: I suspect a lot of this carries over to greatsword as well for the 2 handed passive, but I have not looked into this as much.

Edit 2: Added TLDR

Beardimus

As a DW MagSorc I would love this change.

But surely doubt it will happen, they hating on DW of late.

WrathOfInnos

@Beardimus Thanks for the reply. I thought dual wield mag sorcs were extinct. Way to keep the species going, you deserve a buff.

I was mostly basing this post on stam builds, that currently avoid swords like the META plague. I am glad you brought up the point that magicka melee builds would like this change as well. There is not really a spot for magicka melee in end game content anymore, with stamina DPS being so much better. Maybe this change would be a slight step toward Mag DK and Mag Temp being worthy of precious melee spots.

Minno

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Beardimus Thanks for the reply. I thought dual wield mag sorcs were extinct. Way to keep the species going, you deserve a buff.

I was mostly basing this post on stam builds, that currently avoid swords like the META plague. I am glad you brought up the point that magicka melee builds would like this change as well. There is not really a spot for magicka melee in end game content anymore, with stamina DPS being so much better. Maybe this change would be a slight step toward Mag DK and Mag Temp being worthy of precious melee spots.

I can agree. Can you do a comparison between swords and staffs? Despite the diminishing returns for Stam builds looking to use swords, mag builds have to slot a destro ability and can only buff up one aspect of DMG versus swords that will buff both direct/dots.

Xvorg

Minno wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Beardimus Thanks for the reply. I thought dual wield mag sorcs were extinct. Way to keep the species going, you deserve a buff.

I was mostly basing this post on stam builds, that currently avoid swords like the META plague. I am glad you brought up the point that magicka melee builds would like this change as well. There is not really a spot for magicka melee in end game content anymore, with stamina DPS being so much better. Maybe this change would be a slight step toward Mag DK and Mag Temp being worthy of precious melee spots.

I can agree. Can you do a comparison between swords and staffs? Despite the diminishing returns for Stam builds looking to use swords, mag builds have to slot a destro ability and can only buff up one aspect of DMG versus swords that will buff both direct/dots.

Though staves are more focused on the dichotomy single target vs AoE.

In fact, DKs flame based aoe skills should get a big bonus running a lit staff (Standard, Engulging, Talons and Cinderstorm)

Ragnaroek93

I agree that swords deserve a buff.

Minno

Xvorg wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Beardimus Thanks for the reply. I thought dual wield mag sorcs were extinct. Way to keep the species going, you deserve a buff.

I was mostly basing this post on stam builds, that currently avoid swords like the META plague. I am glad you brought up the point that magicka melee builds would like this change as well. There is not really a spot for magicka melee in end game content anymore, with stamina DPS being so much better. Maybe this change would be a slight step toward Mag DK and Mag Temp being worthy of precious melee spots.

I can agree. Can you do a comparison between swords and staffs? Despite the diminishing returns for Stam builds looking to use swords, mag builds have to slot a destro ability and can only buff up one aspect of DMG versus swords that will buff both direct/dots.

Though staves are more focused on the dichotomy single target vs AoE.

In fact, DKs flame based aoe skills should get a big bonus running a lit staff (Standard, Engulging, Talons and Cinderstorm)

True. Though I'm still curious on how the 8% buffs actually are with the same percentage buffs mentioned above (ele expert+than or EE+master).

WrathOfInnos

Minno wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Beardimus Thanks for the reply. I thought dual wield mag sorcs were extinct. Way to keep the species going, you deserve a buff.

I was mostly basing this post on stam builds, that currently avoid swords like the META plague. I am glad you brought up the point that magicka melee builds would like this change as well. There is not really a spot for magicka melee in end game content anymore, with stamina DPS being so much better. Maybe this change would be a slight step toward Mag DK and Mag Temp being worthy of precious melee spots.

I can agree. Can you do a comparison between swords and staffs? Despite the diminishing returns for Stam builds looking to use swords, mag builds have to slot a destro ability and can only buff up one aspect of DMG versus swords that will buff both direct/dots.

@Minno It's a little tough to compare sword to staff, but I'll give it a shot.

Before the 8% bonus (ancient knowledge passive) was added to staves, swords were more competitive since it was 5% bonus damage (twin blade and blunt) vs 0% bonus damage. With the 8% single target (inferno) or 8% AoE damage (lightning), swords can't really compete. This combined with the need for magicka return heavy attacks are the main reasons you don't see many magicka builds with dual wield these days.

Passive Comparison:
Assuming 50% of damage is AoE and 50% is single target (which would make lightning and inferno staff equivalent), the bonus on either becomes about 4%. With minor berserk and CPs, the 4% drops down to 2.9%.

With my proposed 4.5% per sword, dual swords would give 9% tooltip, or 6.4% actual. This is increased from the current in game sword bonus of 5% tooltip, 3.6% actual.

This results in the sword passive having a 0.7% DPS advantage over the staff passive on live, and I'm proposing this would go up to a 3.5% DPS advantage.

Other factors to consider are...

Dual Swords:
- Have more base spell damage (a couple hundred IIRC, works out to roughly 3-4% DPS)
- Allow running 2x 5-piece sets with a monster helm (depends on gear, but usually around 5% DPS)
- Allows for an extra weapon enchant, but it will only proc on melee light attacks, and not very frequently
- Allows an off-hand weapon trait, which is usually chosen to be precise for 3.5% crit chance, adding about 2% DPS

Destruction Staves:
- Return magicka on kills
- Have a built in spell own passive that increases DPS by 2% to 6%
- Allow light attacks from range (~10% DPS)
- Light and heavy attacks scale on spell and magicka stats (maybe about 3% DPS? If 20% of your damage gets boosted 15% by CPs)
- Heavy attacks restore magicka
- Has many useful active skills
- Increased chance to cause status effects (burning, chilled, concussion -> off-balance)

Some of these are nearly impossible to quantify, but this list should allow a pretty good side-by-side comparison

Minno

@WrathOfInnos thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for.

WrathOfInnos

@Minno I added a couple more points to my last post.

Beardimus

@WrathOfInnos love the summary here, great thread and yeah I'm hanging on to them swords. In terms of end game that's my PvP / BG setup and I do ok, but I know I'm nerfing myself a touch.

My primary reasons for stubbornly remaining are - I like the committed burst playstyle, 5:5:2 setup, I like the image style (I.e. Battlemage rather than Wizard with wands) and rather sadly I originally went to it as the damn lag on bar swapping it was hard to tell what bar you were on lol. So all very woolly reasons from the get go rather than any meta chasing!

I also was a committed Overload build from the off, but the Ulti change to 500 wrecked than fun. And every patch they been nerfing DW, direct nerfs or indirect buffs to staves even killing off webs as a spammable etc.

Hence I'm bitter people say Sorcs haven't been nerfed, I have haha!!

Vet PvE etc I'm Destro/Restro sadly. I'd love 1h & Rune skill line to be announced! But for now remain DW in PvP. This change would just reduce the self Nerf!!!

So you have my vote!!

Bladerunner1

Totally 100% agree without a doubt. And don't forget Heavy Weapons. Greatswords may look cool, but their performance is lame for the same reason. Well that and many other reasons, but no need to get into that here.

WrathOfInnos

@ZOS_Wrobel Any chance of this making it into the next update? Do you agree that sword is underperforming?

SodanTok

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ZOS_Wrobel Any chance of this making it into the next update? Do you agree that sword is underperforming?

Get in the line, behind bow and warden buffs. Expected delivery around 2019

But regarding the post, swords are underperforming and will continue to do so unless ZoS stops putting additive % modifiers on things. Even if they buff them to match current damage, next year they will be underperforming again because you will have more CP. Same goes for bows and staves

WrathOfInnos

SodanTok wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ZOS_Wrobel Any chance of this making it into the next update? Do you agree that sword is underperforming?

Get in the line, behind bow and warden buffs. Expected delivery around 2019

But regarding the post, swords are underperforming and will continue to do so unless ZoS stops putting additive % modifiers on things. Even if they buff them to match current damage, next year they will be underperforming again because you will have more CP. Same goes for bows and staves

Good point, additive bonuses are the root cause of sword becoming weak. Even if it were multiplicative, it should be increased from 2.5% to 3% damage done per sword.

If keeping it additive, maybe jumping up to 5% would be best to slightly future-proof it as we get more CPs. Although 4.5% per sword seems the most balanced right now, once we get up into the ~800 CP range it woukd be falling behind other weapons again. With 75 points in mighty, and 72 points in Master at Arms and Thaumaturge, along with minor Berserk, 5% per sword would effectively be 3.4% DPS, so right in line with daggers. If you add Major and Minor Slayer then a 5% sword really only adds 3.0% DPS. This CP spread is actually possible right now, but would be neglecting Crit Damage (only 11 points left for this). It becomes more feasible with each CP increase.

SodanTok

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ZOS_Wrobel Any chance of this making it into the next update? Do you agree that sword is underperforming?

Get in the line, behind bow and warden buffs. Expected delivery around 2019

But regarding the post, swords are underperforming and will continue to do so unless ZoS stops putting additive % modifiers on things. Even if they buff them to match current damage, next year they will be underperforming again because you will have more CP. Same goes for bows and staves

Good point, additive bonuses are the root cause of sword becoming weak. Even if it were multiplicative, it should be increased from 2.5% to 3% damage done per sword.

If keeping it additive, maybe jumping up to 5% would be best to slightly future-proof it as we get more CPs. Although 4.5% per sword seems the most balanced right now, once we get up into the ~800 CP range it woukd be falling behind other weapons again. With 75 points in mighty, and 72 points in Master at Arms and Thaumaturge, along with minor Berserk, 5% per sword would effectively be 3.4% DPS, so right in line with daggers. If you add Major and Minor Slayer then a 5% sword really only adds 3.0% DPS. This CP spread is actually possible right now, but would be neglecting Crit Damage (only 11 points left for this). It becomes more feasible with each CP increase.

Yeah I dont think future proofing is way to go. Plus 5% per swords would be huge in PVP. Swords arent that bad at PVP even now, given access to 5/5/2 setup, tho that is obviously for more damage focused magicka builds. The only really effective way to buff them without either creating temporarily OP weapons or eventually weak (again) without changing how damage % buff works (like berserk or CP) is to change it from increasing your damage to increasing damage taken of enemies you hit (or smth like this) that would move it from overcrowded part of equation (where all cp, buffs are) to the least used part (where stuff like vulnerability, morag tong debuff are) which is multiplicative with all other. Tho not sure if these is case of some ability doing it without applying debuff.

NBrookus

Beardimus wrote: »

@WrathOfInnos love the summary here, great thread and yeah I'm hanging on to them swords. In terms of end game that's my PvP / BG setup and I do ok, but I know I'm nerfing myself a touch.

My primary reasons for stubbornly remaining are - I like the committed burst playstyle, 5:5:2 setup, I like the image style (I.e. Battlemage rather than Wizard with wands) and rather sadly I originally went to it as the damn lag on bar swapping it was hard to tell what bar you were on lol. So all very woolly reasons from the get go rather than any meta chasing!

I also was a committed Overload build from the off, but the Ulti change to 500 wrecked than fun. And every patch they been nerfing DW, direct nerfs or indirect buffs to staves even killing off webs as a spammable etc.

Hence I'm bitter people say Sorcs haven't been nerfed, I have haha!!

I'm trying destro sorc for the first time in PvP, and with my lousy ping I am finding it very hard to target people. It may send me back to DW.

WrathOfInnos

@SodanTok You make a good point about bows. If the Hawk Eye passive is additive as well (have not personally tested this), then it's claimed 25% increase really falls somewhere in the range of about 15-19%. This could be one of the reasons pure bow builds are not viable in PVE, along with the fact that Hawk Eye does not affect non-bow skills at all.

For your point about moving the sword bonus to be more like vulnerability, I'm not sure how that would work. It would be a timed debuff? If one person used a sword would the whole raid see the increased damage? If so swords would become a group buff weapon, and only 1 person in a group should use them. While an interesting concept, thats not exactly what I was going for here.

As for PVP, I don't really see a 3% damage increase to swords as being a problem. They will still not beat maces against tanky builds. They will still not beat daggers for burst builds (maybe if target has very high crit resistance). They will still not beat axes for DoT builds. The only place swords are preferred is against targets with damage shields, since pen and crit mean nothing here.

As a primarily magicka player, who depends on shields a lot, I would be ok with taking 3% more damage from someone dual wielding swords. They would have chosen that weapon type to counter my build, and would lose out against heavily armored builds as a result.

Balancing swords with other weapon types helps everyone, stam and magicka. Right now it seems like the only ones using swords are magicka builds (and still rarely), because the other weapon types are so much better for stam builds. Let's bring them back for stamina, I know my stam warden would like to be able to use his dual Briarheart swords without their unique bonus getting gutted by other buffs and passives.

ak_pvp

DW MDK with already OP damage.

Yis pls

WrathOfInnos

ak_pvp wrote: »

DW MDK with already OP damage.

Yis pls

Lol, we'd better watch out, your damage could become OP X 1.03!

TheYKcid

Swords definitely need a buff - the math speaks for itself. I much prefer using swords and would love to do so without knowingly gimping myself...

SodanTok

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@SodanTok You make a good point about bows. If the Hawk Eye passive is additive as well (have not personally tested this), then it's claimed 25% increase really falls somewhere in the range of about 15-19%. This could be one of the reasons pure bow builds are not viable in PVE, along with the fact that Hawk Eye does not affect non-bow skills at all.

For your point about moving the sword bonus to be more like vulnerability, I'm not sure how that would work. It would be a timed debuff? If one person used a sword would the whole raid see the increased damage? If so swords would become a group buff weapon, and only 1 person in a group should use them. While an interesting concept, thats not exactly what I was going for here.

As for PVP, I don't really see a 3% damage increase to swords as being a problem. They will still not beat maces against tanky builds. They will still not beat daggers for burst builds (maybe if target has very high crit resistance). They will still not beat axes for DoT builds. The only place swords are preferred is against targets with damage shields, since pen and crit mean nothing here.

As a primarily magicka player, who depends on shields a lot, I would be ok with taking 3% more damage from someone dual wielding swords. They would have chosen that weapon type to counter my build, and would lose out against heavily armored builds as a result.

Balancing swords with other weapon types helps everyone, stam and magicka. Right now it seems like the only ones using swords are magicka builds (and still rarely), because the other weapon types are so much better for stam builds. Let's bring them back for stamina, I know my stam warden would like to be able to use his dual Briarheart swords without their unique bonus getting gutted by other buffs and passives.

As magicka you arent going to use maul anyway, but DW magicka builds exist and are very strong when it comes to damage. The loss of light/heavy attacks and resources is turn off for most people, but some big buffs (which nearly doubling the value would be) could make them if not OP then at least very cancerous from safety of group.

As for bow, yeah, not sure if swords were always additive, but bow passives were made additive back with Morrowind I think, which with sustain changes and heavy attack meta resulted in dps loss of several thousands. I think I made some calculations for my build and both hawkeye and long shots resulted in 25% damage instead of 'promised' 37%. Thats simply huge.

NiclasFridholm

Think they should get their math together, remove all the addative buffs, balance it from there and we might actually have tooltips that are somewhat accurate! But that wont happen so yes, swords indeed need a buff!

Bobby_V_Rockit

So what I’m hearing is, in uncoordinated groups like pugs, maces are better?

kaithuzar

A few things to remember..
Swords previously gave more damage than they do now. Numbers may not be exact so feel free to correct, but instead of each sword giving the 2.5% it does now, I believe they previously gave 3% or maybe slightly more each. I do not recall why ZOS chose to nerf them but do hope they revert the change.

2ndly, if you are playing as a magic melee, remember that your light/heavy attacks with swords are still based off weapon damage & not spell damage. (Idk why they don't make weapons scale off max resource or max damage whether it be spell dmg or weapon dmg)

3rdly, is there any reason not to have stamina users utilize the resto skill line? Or magicka users not using two handers? What about bow skills? Never heard or a magical arrow?
My opinion is that to increase diversity, weapon skill lines should not only scale according to max stat but also provide passives that both magicka & stamina can benefit from.

Nox_Noir

Great post and nice calculations to back it up.
Totally agree with your suggestion. I've been hoping for a swords buff for a very long time.

Beardimus

Glad this thread has resurfaced, as DW needs a small buff. For stamina and Magika players alike

Viva la DWMag builds

Minno

It would be cool if the stamina cost for quick cloak was reduced significantly. Maybe drop the damage entirely to compensate, but for mag toons looking to use non-speed pots, having a cheap cast spell for mobilty would be great for the DW line buffs.

Especially since all but 2 passives+1 skill (ultimate is not good for PvP and isn't optimal for mag pve at all) can work for mag builds, compared to 2H which arguably can use 3 passives + 1 skill + 1 ultimate.

But yes I agree, review the DMG mentioned above!

kaithuzar

I vaguely remember ZOS making some comment when they previously nerfed swords, something about trying to bring the damage in line with a single two handed sword maybe? Does anyone remember the link, if their math was sound/checked for correctness?
Not sure why they would balance with a single two hander over the other duel wield types?

Masel

Just wanted to correct a couple of numbers here.

I made an excel sheet of these weapons that I actually verified with ingame testing on a dummy.

It is right that swords are definetely behind the other weapons in terms of damage, but keep in mind that their increase also applies to proc sets and monster sets, which critical chance from daggers does not. This is obviously not enough to close the gap.

Your calculation of penetration is definitely off, the maximum amount you'll get is 3.8%, with only the Base amount of 100 physical penetration. Your own penetration doesn't change the benefit, only debuffs will.

You can find the sheet to experiment here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uHlnv045iejo5WeYf0dYOXWnEEjUa0VE/view?usp=drivesdk

I'll just list likely scenarios here to show what the actual numbers are:

WrathOfInnos

Masel92 wrote: »

Just wanted to correct a couple of numbers here.

I made an excel sheet of these weapons that I actually verified with ingame testing on a dummy.

It is right that swords are definetely behind the other weapons in terms of damage, but keep in mind that their increase also applies to proc sets and monster sets, which critical chance from daggers does not. This is obviously not enough to close the gap.

Your calculation of penetration is definitely off, the maximum amount you'll get is 3.8%, with only the Base amount of 100 physical penetration. Your own penetration doesn't change the benefit, only debuffs will.

@masel92 You make a good point about swords and proc sets, daggers do nothing for damage that cannot crit. I would say that proc sets are a pretty small amount of damage for most end-game builds, maybe around 0 to 8% of DPS.

Thanks for the spreadsheet, that is certainly a useful tool.

As for Maces, against a target with 18200 armor and no debuffs, one mace reduces armor by 1820 to 16380. Considering the 100 base pen, the target initially has 18100/500 = 36.2% mitigation or 63.8% of your damage is dealt. With a mace this changes to 16280/500 = 32.56% mitigation or 67.44% of your damage is dealtt. 67.44% / 63.8% = 1.057 so the mace is a 5.7% damage increase best case.

This is much higher than your 3.8%. It is also much higher than anything a sword can offer, best case 2.5% without any CPs or buffs.

Edit: Just noticed where the difference in our values for mace DPS increase are coming from. Your spreadsheet is calculating for PVP, with mitigation % being Resistance/660. For PVE mitigation % is Resistance/500 (since enemies are considered level 50). Changing the "66" in column K of your spreadsheet to "50" should make our calculations agree. When I make that change your spreadsheet tells me 5.7% per mace.