Extra Damage Vs. Extra Survivability

Kambo

I recently had a discussion with my friend about how extra survivability can be more valuable than extra damage on Damage Spec characters. Specifically it was in regards to Flames of Oblivion and Vigor. Flames of Oblivion when slotted gives you extra spell and weapon critical and vigor just straight up heals you and your allies. The general idea is that damage characters are supposed to get the most damage output they can. While I don't doubt that the extra crits will be more valuable in group content like dungeons and trials, I can't help but wonder when playing solo or even PvP.

I'm trying to get Vigor right now just so I can test it out and see if I would personally find it more valuable than Flames of Oblivion.

However this thread is not so much for advice and more for your opinions. Would you take extra damage over extra survivability or vice versa? I'm interested in hearing the different perspectives and reasons as to why you would pick what you do.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

What do you mean by playing solo? If you mean overland content, they use anything. It is not that hard.

FakeFox

Of course a dead DD doesn't do damage, but I never the less always try to run the minimum amount of defence possible. Sometimes that means having to replace the weakest DOT available with Vigor or some other heal, but for most content I think having some sort of passive heal, like Bloodcraze, is enough. You also have to keep in mind that some of the best defensive tools don't require a skills slot, I'm talking about block, dodge and correct positioning here.

Sixty5

Honestly it depends a lot on the situation and who is playing.

In proper endgame PVE stuff, the healer and tank are your survivability, they are there so that you can pump out the maximum amount of damage. That being said, abilities that are both defensive and offensive in nature are always a strong pick.

Blade Cloak will mitigate 25% of all AOE damage you get hit with, which is a massive survivability boost. Likewise, a shield will let you tank through some mechanics instead of having to block or roll, preserving stamina, and letting you keep up DPS.

In a solo situation, or in PVP, it becomes more of a balancing act. You need enough damage to kill what you are fighting, while being able to keep yourself alive at the same time.

Arkray

It depends in the situation and the people, I like to have some survivability when playing as a DD because you never know when *** is going to hit the fan.

If things go right you won't need it but I've found myself holding a boss or taking aoe damage while trying to revive the healer or the tank, or even the whole party, quite a few times, and having a shield plus embers, jabs or power surge to keep me alive allowed me to do it many times.

For a stamDK I think it's harder to achieve the same survivability without sacrificing too much? I've never played one so not sure, but anyways having vigor unlocked won't hurt even if you don't usually use it, if you see that your party is dying too much it might be a good idea to adjust your build for more survivability.

The last time I did vTempest Island it was a nightmare for example, the healer and the other DD were constantly dying to the last boss charge or ground AoE but the tank and me managed to survive without the healer the whole time and kept reviving them until we killed the boss.

Asardes

You do need to slot a heal even in end game PvE sometimes, especially in instances where the group splits up and you don't have a healer. Also in hard mode trials, where the group is not very experienced, slotting vigor instead of the lowest parsing ability is advisable. As stamina DD you will need caltrops anyway, so getting vigor is really a no brainer.

RABIDxWOLVERINE

On my Stam DK which is my endgame character I keep Vigor on my bar as a plan B. Most the time I don't need to worry about the heals when running dungeons or trials with my guild but anything is possible the healer could go down and for me its nice to have a self heal. Sometimes however if I need to push my DPS just a bit more I can slot Flames of Oblivion to increase my crit or throw on another DoT or AoE to add a little DPS. Also as someone stated deadly cloak is amazing for increasing survivability as it mitigates AoE damage as well as outputs decent DoT. That is definitely one way I would recommend bolstering your survivability.

I'm not sure what the DPS difference is with Flames vs Vigor and take this with a grain of salt I'm sure you could hit much higher but I have no issue hitting 30k+ DPS consistently with keeping Vigor slotted. I may test the difference between the two this weekend if I have time and would be happy to tell you my results.

kylewwefan

For goodness sake slot a Heal. Maybe even one on each bar if you do t know who you’re running with.

Kingslayer513

As others already said, it is completely situation dependent. I think it's important to have options available and to be flexible within the context of your group. Since you're on PC, I'd highly recommend getting something like the AlphaGear 2 addon to have a bunch of presets ready to go for any situation.

In general, if you're going into PUGs then prepare for the worst and you can always switch back to a glass cannon DD if you get lucky with good group members. For harder solo content like vMA you might need a wildly different setup so it's good to have that ready as well. For PVP you'll probably need yet another completely different setup. And so on. Really, flexibility is more useful than trying to find one specific build that'll work in all situations.

C0L0SSUS

Dead=0 dps

Asardes

Kingslayer513 wrote: »

As others already said, it is completely situation dependent. I think it's important to have options available and to be flexible within the context of your group. Since you're on PC, I'd highly recommend getting something like the AlphaGear 2 addon to have a bunch of presets ready to go for any situation.

In general, if you're going into PUGs then prepare for the worst and you can always switch back to a glass cannon DD if you get lucky with good group members. For harder solo content like vMA you might need a wildly different setup so it's good to have that ready as well. For PVP you'll probably need yet another completely different setup. And so on. Really, flexibility is more useful than trying to find one specific build that'll work in all situations.

The only thing you need in vMA or a bad PuG is sustain. You may go for higher recovery, cost reduction and/or resource return. 5p Vicious Ophidian is probably the best all around solution. With the sustain it gives you can hit Vigor more often, roll dodge, block, and keep doing damage.

SoLooney

i go full damage on all toons. some i wear valkyn for the health if needed. undaunted also helps a lot reaching the high 16k, 17k health.

i slot vigor on my stam toons if i feel like i need it. mag obviously have wards

tunepunk

I usually prefer morphs that has some kind of healing or defensive component to them or at least one slot with some kind of self heal. A dead DPS is no dps, and you can't always rely on healer.

For example:
For Twin slashes, I would probably go with blood craze instead of rending slashes. But depends if you have any other healing available already. I'd like to think that a little bit of self heal is good to keep stress off the healer even in group situations.