Mag DK - Julianos vs Silks vs BSW

teladoy

Hi,

currently i'm almost finish to farm SOTS and BSW and taking the other day a better look of the things, i was not sure if i should craft Julianos instead farm SOTS.

SOTS gives me 400 spell damage to all my flame damage skills and 129 + 26 (20% major sorcery) 155 spell damage in general.
Julianos gives me 299 spell damage + 60 (20% major sorcery) 359 to ALL my skills that scales with spell damage.

Now if we do some maths we are comparing 555 spell damage for all my offensive skills where only 155 from those affects also some other skills, with 359 spell damage that are valid for everything that scales with spell damage. But there are more things to consider:

In terms of only offensive damage SOTS > Julianos wiht a difference of 196 spell damage, .
Julianos > SOTS with 204 spell damage for all the skill that use spell power .
Julianos gives also 1666 (7%) more spell critical while SOTS gives 1096 health.
Both sets gives 1096 max Magicka, which would let the things the same.

That would mean for me, that the difference is not really too big. With SOTS the rough damage is better and stable, pluss some more health. Julianos boost also more other skills that use spell power, but the things is, that DK in particular don't use many other skills that scales with spell power. Then we have another 7% in criticals which is not a lot but it is very considerable.

Then i would say that BSW + Julianos is a very good option and could perform better than SOTS in specific situations where that 7% triggers and critics comes out.
But BSW + SOTS would always do more damage, without change and also would be more effective vs enemies with damage shields.

Now if i would have to decide i would incline more for SOTS, but to be honest i don't see it also as a clear winner.

What are your opinions?


Burning Spellweave Set
LEVEL 50 CHAMPION 160
(2 items) Adds 1096 Max Magicka
(3 items) Adds 129 Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical
(5 items) When you deal damage with a Flame Damage ability, you have a 15% chance to apply the burning status effect to the enemy and gain 525 Spell Damage for 8 seconds. This effect can occur once every 12 seconds.

Law of Julianos Set
LEVEL 50 CHAMPION 160
(2 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical
(3 items) Adds 1096 Max Magicka
(4 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical
(5 items) Adds 299 Spell Damage.

Silks of the Sun Set
LEVEL 50 CHAMPION 160
(2 items) Adds 1206 Max Health
(3 items) Adds 1096 Max Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 400 Spell Damage to your Flame Damage abilities.

Flameheart

I don't use 5/5/1, but I use 5x BSW, 4x Moondancer (backbar staff), 2x Grothdarr, 1 x Mahlstrom Firestaff.

The uptime of BSW is still pretty good. I have SotS too, but I found that I don't need the 1k extra health in the raids I do (Craglorn vet, some in hm, vLoM, AS, no HoF yet). If you don't have those Julianos is still a very good set.

Last time I parced my dps in a raid environment on a 50 (60?) million target dummy centurio I was around 47k dps. It's under best conditions though, all buffs applied, no moving, just pulling the rotation.

Olupajmibanan

First of all, Silks of the Sun GET increased by both, Major and Minor sorcery buff for the 400 flame apell damage. So thanks to this, julianos is the worst option of the three mentioned.

Secondly, I still prefer to have Grothdarr. My combat metrics reports that 2/5/3/1 (Grothdarr, Sun, Moondancer, Maelstrom Flame staff, Moondancer Lightning) outperforms 5/5/1 setup in 90+% scenarios.

So the only question is. SotS vs BSW.
I run in an optimised trial group with 3-4 stamina DDs (which consume off balance a lot), 3-4 magicka sorcs (which also do a lot of HAs so they consume off balance as well) and a magDK. Off balance uptime is nice but with so many heavy attacks going on, I have very few Flame Lash procs. Without Power Lashes my sustain is a lot worse so I switched to Witchmother's Potent Brew drink (from classic bi-stat food). In this case SotS is a lot better for me as I have no need to balance my health pool.

So my conclusion would be:
- if you use Witchmother's, SotS is the best option
- if you use bi-stat food, BSW might be better than SotS
- 5/5/1 setup may be recommended by popular streamers, but you must make your own opinion, test it yourself and see if it works. For me wasn't working well so I don't use it.

With my setup (Grothdarr, Sun, Moondancer jewelry, infused Maelstrom Flame staff, nirnhoned Moondancer Lightning staff) my last dps parse on the target centurion with full group buffs was 49k.

josiahva

5/5/2 I personally use 5 silks/ 4 BSW on front bar and 5 silks/ 5 BSW on backbar. I proc BSW on back bar with a DOT, then swap to front bar. Its tricky to get the hang of, but leads to decent uptime for BSW. As to whether its the ''best'', probably not, but then I don't really care. I am of the opinion that there is no best...only the best for your particular play style.

Saint_Bud

The differant from the sets is very small. As moast players run a lightningstaff backbar for aoe damage, sots does not boost that damage. Also many play with a lightning blockade backbar and lightning glyph on front flame staff for some offbalance to prock falmelash for much better sustain. In a good raidgroup you will be able to play full fire damage depend on what trial the group are running, but in a 4 man dungeon, you will have problems to sustain fights without offbalance if the other dd doesnt have lightning damage and lightning blockade. Having a setup that makes you more flexable and boost all your damage makes it much easyer to get constant results. I would go for julianos with bsw, because it boost all the damage and not only flame damage. You can also take look on moondancer if you can get it, the 5 pice bonus will help in damage and sustain.

WrathOfInnos

If you use any lightning damage at all, then avoid silks of the sun. Silks also offers a health bonus, and unless you need the health this is a DPS loss.

Spell crit seems to be underrated, as it contributes a lot to your DPS. Julianos has 2 crit bonuses and Spellweave has 1, this should put your spell crit right around 53%. That's still a little low IMO, so consider an Iceheart or Slimecraw 1-piece with these 2 sets (with Spellweave staff on front bar and vMA staff on back). That should put your crit near 57%, and you can run the apprentice stone for even more spell damage.

If you end up stacking spell damage with any combination of these sets and end up below 50% crit, consider trying the Thief Mundus stone. It definitely took some hard nerfs, but with high spell damage and low crit it can outperform Apprentice.

Note this is all from a PVE perspective, in PVP you would care less about crit chance, and probably need more sustain and defense.

Jade1986

I use silk and Julianos : shrug : works extremely well for me.