stamsorc dps help

Lynx7386 · February 2018

So ive finally turned my stamsorc from a tank into a dps character (at least until I get enough skill points to build for both).
Here's the setup I'm using atm:

5x twice fanged serpent (sword, axe, bow ,gloves, legs, boots, only 4x on back bar)
5x strength of the automaton (ex jewelry, belt, chest)
1x kra'gh (helm)
1x kena (shoulder)
14 points into health
50 points into stam
Jewelry is all weapon damage enchants. Armor is all stamina enchants
Crusher and weapon power enchants on the dual wield weapons, default stamina steal enchant on the bow still
Shadow mundus

Front bar (dual wield):
Rapid strikes
Deadly cloak
Rearming trap
Bound armaments
Expert hunter
Rend

Back bar (bow):
Endless hail
Hurricane
Poison injection
Bound armaments
Critical surge
Ballista

With food and crit surge up, I'm at:
18.5k health
35.5k stamina
2700 weapon damage
58% crit chance

With all that, my dps tests are around 25k max, but that's with no other buffs or anything like fracture. Average dps is closer to 23k.

My rotation is pretty simple: buff with crit surge and hurricane, lay down endless hail, trap, and deadly cloak, and heavy attack weave rapid strikes. The build is pretty sustainable compared to other stam builds ive tried.

Some things to note:
-I want to replace rend with flawless dawnbreaker but haven't unlocked it yet. Expect that will probably give me a solid dps boost from the extra 8% weapon damage.
-also need to unlock caltrops still, so that would probably replace poison injection as a physical skill and help with aoe.
-I'm still working on getting a kra'gh heavy shoulder (helm is light) to get the set 2pc bonus and the extra undaunted passive benefits. Currently running 6 medium 1 light.

Any suggestions on how I could squeeze out more damage from the build? Its already doing better than most dps builds ive tried and is relatively simple to use, probably tough too considering it always has major and minor ward and resolve active.

erlewine · February 2018

drop rapid strikes for twin slashes. rapid strikes is really awful. even if for some reason you want to slot a spammable, even shrouded daggers is superior.

drop expert hunter for caltrops. you can get major savagery from potions. even with them, caltrops will be dramatically superior.

drop ballista for storm atronach. even prior to the buff in the last patch, atro did more damage than ballista, not counting the synergy. of course, dont use atro in situatiosn where you know it wont be able to stay alive.

VonNelson · February 2018

Is rapid strikes really so bad?

Illurian · February 2018

erlewine wrote: »

drop rapid strikes for twin slashes. rapid strikes is really awful. even if for some reason you want to slot a spammable, even shrouded daggers is superior.

Since when was this a thing?

Harrdarrzarr · February 2018

Illurian wrote: »

show previous quotes

erlewine wrote: »

drop rapid strikes for twin slashes. rapid strikes is really awful. even if for some reason you want to slot a spammable, even shrouded daggers is superior.

Since when was this a thing?

Since they discovered the aoe-potential of shrouded daggers I think

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · February 2018

Illurian wrote: »

show previous quotes

erlewine wrote: »

drop rapid strikes for twin slashes. rapid strikes is really awful. even if for some reason you want to slot a spammable, even shrouded daggers is superior.

Since when was this a thing?

Shrouded daggers hits 3 mobs. Rapids only one. Keep in mind that shrouded daggers does not proc the ax bleed and rapid strikes does.

Check this thread for good amount of help, https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/393319/stam-sorc-help/p1

Illurian · February 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

Illurian wrote: »

erlewine wrote: »

drop rapid strikes for twin slashes. rapid strikes is really awful. even if for some reason you want to slot a spammable, even shrouded daggers is superior.

Since when was this a thing?

Shrouded daggers hits 3 mobs. Rapids only one. Keep in mind that shrouded daggers does not proc the ax bleed and rapid strikes does.

Check this thread for good amount of help, https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/393319/stam-sorc-help/p1

Right, but in single target fights, which skill provides higher dps? The arguments I've read on Shrouded Dagger seem to only be because it hits multiple targets.

sudaki_eso · February 2018

Add a weapon crit potion and maybe use poison on your bow, this will affect your dps quite a bit. You could also try sword/dagger or dagger/dagger combination to get a better crit chance and/or weapon damage.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · February 2018

Illurian wrote: »

show previous quotes

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Illurian wrote: »

erlewine wrote: »

drop rapid strikes for twin slashes. rapid strikes is really awful. even if for some reason you want to slot a spammable, even shrouded daggers is superior.

Since when was this a thing?

Shrouded daggers hits 3 mobs. Rapids only one. Keep in mind that shrouded daggers does not proc the ax bleed and rapid strikes does.

Check this thread for good amount of help, https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/393319/stam-sorc-help/p1

Right, but in single target fights, which skill provides higher dps? The arguments I've read on Shrouded Dagger seem to only be because it hits multiple targets.

honestly, as a sorc, prolly just heavy attacking as a spammable and using rending slashs/blood craze will be the best dps. you get 11% more damage after all.

Illurian · February 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

Illurian wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Illurian wrote: »

erlewine wrote: »

drop rapid strikes for twin slashes. rapid strikes is really awful. even if for some reason you want to slot a spammable, even shrouded daggers is superior.

Since when was this a thing?

Shrouded daggers hits 3 mobs. Rapids only one. Keep in mind that shrouded daggers does not proc the ax bleed and rapid strikes does.

Check this thread for good amount of help, https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/393319/stam-sorc-help/p1

Right, but in single target fights, which skill provides higher dps? The arguments I've read on Shrouded Dagger seem to only be because it hits multiple targets.

honestly, as a sorc, prolly just heavy attacking as a spammable and using rending slashs/blood craze will be the best dps. you get 11% more damage after all.

Well I mean heavy weaving is already done on the front bar. I pretty much exclusively heavy weave on the front bar.

I can't believe that going from heavy weaves to only heavy attacks would be a nett increase in dps.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

I tried using shrouded daggers instead as a spammable to weave heavy attacks with- it consistently did 3-4k less dps than rapid strikes single target. In any aoe situation id be using steel tornado over shrouded anyways. Shrouded is terrible.

Similar results using blood craze in its place and just heavy attack spamming - ended up being a dps loss in tests. I originally had blood craze in place of beast trap, but beast trap does slightly more damage and gives minor force boosting damage overall.

In situations where it really matters, I could drop expert hunter for crit potions and slot something else, but for most content that will just be an unnecessary waste of money.

Ill give the poison enchant on the bow a shot. Normally I wouldn't run crusher on a mainhand either but right now this character is mostly doing pug daily pledges and I can't count on other tanks to know their job.

Illurian · February 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I tried using shrouded daggers instead as a spammable to weave heavy attacks with- it consistently did 3-4k less dps than rapid strikes single target. In any aoe situation id be using steel tornado over shrouded anyways. Shrouded is terrible.

Similar results using blood craze in its place and just heavy attack spamming - ended up being a dps loss in tests. I originally had blood craze in place of beast trap, but beast trap does slightly more damage and gives minor force boosting damage overall.

In situations where it really matters, I could drop expert hunter for crit potions and slot something else, but for most content that will just be an unnecessary waste of money.

Ill give the poison enchant on the bow a shot. Normally I wouldn't run crusher on a mainhand either but right now this character is mostly doing pug daily pledges and I can't count on other tanks to know their job.

Have you tried replacing expert hunter with Rending Slashes?

Lynx7386 · February 2018

Illurian wrote: »

show previous quotes

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I tried using shrouded daggers instead as a spammable to weave heavy attacks with- it consistently did 3-4k less dps than rapid strikes single target. In any aoe situation id be using steel tornado over shrouded anyways. Shrouded is terrible.

Similar results using blood craze in its place and just heavy attack spamming - ended up being a dps loss in tests. I originally had blood craze in place of beast trap, but beast trap does slightly more damage and gives minor force boosting damage overall.

In situations where it really matters, I could drop expert hunter for crit potions and slot something else, but for most content that will just be an unnecessary waste of money.

Ill give the poison enchant on the bow a shot. Normally I wouldn't run crusher on a mainhand either but right now this character is mostly doing pug daily pledges and I can't count on other tanks to know their job.

Have you tried replacing expert hunter with Rending Slashes?

Ill give it a try.

Funny thing is, doing dps tests lasts night I tried using nothing but critical surge, endless hail, and snipe at range on the dummy, weaving light attacks with the snipe. Only 3 abilities and I was still doing 22k dps.. So there's gotta be something else that's hindering my dual wield bar.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2018

It's been said, but rapid strikes is the meta from like a year ago. I still think it is situationally useful, but competitive and sustained end game damage is not one of those situations. I strongly advise you drop this skill.

First question, are you okay to run potions (weapon pots are cheap). Second question, are you okay with giving up the crit surge heal.

If the answer to both of those is yes, then I will suggest what most people will say is the meta build.

Front Bar: Shrouded daggers, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloack, Hurricane, Bound Armaments, Flawless Dawnbreaker
Back Bar: Endless hail, Poison Injection, Rearming Trap, Caltrops, Bound Armamanets, Balista

The rotation is very ciruclar: Weave your back bar skills with light attacks, weave your front bar skills with a mix of light and heavy attacks depending on sustain. My back rotation never changes, just light weave all your skills. I usually go Hail, PI, Trap, Caltrops, Swap Cancel, but order honestly isnt that important here, just be consistent. On my Front Bar, when i am high on resources, I will typically go LA>Rending, LA>Daggers (X2), HA, Cloak, HA Hurricane. When i am medium on resources, I might throw an extra heavy attack in there. If I am really low on resources (really should only be the case if you just died), I will HA every skill and only do one daggers. In trash, I just keep up Cloak, Hurricane, Trap, Hail Caltrops, and then go to a full on dagger spam. The AOE is nuts. You will break 100k on most trash pulls if you are on top of it, and 50K ST should be a very real target in a good raid, 35K+ plus self buffed on a dummy with no fracture.

If you dont want to drop surge (believe me, I get it), then you have a few choices. For 4 man stuff, I honestly just drop rending slashes for it. I can deal with a slight ST loss for a ton of heals.

If you really want to min/max your damage and run surge, then i actually suggest this build:

https://tamrielfoundry.com/articles/hatchetharos-rising-storm-stamina-sorcerer-pve-d/

It uses the other morph of trap, and you lose the spammable (daggers) to make room for surge. With light weight trap, you actually cast it twice per rotation. So your front bar rotation looks like this: Trap, Rending, Cloak, Hurricane, Trap, and again, 2-3 Heavy attacks on average, with the rest being light attacks, depending on resources.

As to your gear, there is nothing wrong with it for four man content. Automaton is the best damage set for a stam sorc, and TFS is the best pen set for solo play. If really trying to optimize for a trial, you will want to drop TFS in place of a group pen set (NM, Sunder, Alkosh) or if those are all covered, a second pure damage set (hundings, VO). Also, I personally prefer a 2 piece monster set, Stormfist is my fav for stam sorc, but veli is also really strong. On a dummy, krags is your best bet if you want that parse.

Few other little tricks, most stamina are going with warrior mundus in a good raid group, lover if solo, 4-man or bad group. A VMA bow is a pretty nice little DPS boost if you are up to the grind, and most people are actually running back bar poisons (double damage health). Dont run a crusher enchant!!! Your tank should be doing that. Front bar traits and glyphs: Nirn/infused, Weapon damage/Poison. Back bar nirn is ideal.

Brrrofski · February 2018

If you are using dawnbreajer as your ult, smiting is better. The extra damage it does and the knockdown is much better than the passive 5%.

Are you light weaving with your bow in between skills on back bar?

Light
Surge
Light
Hurricane
Light
Endless hail
Light
Poison injection
Light
Weapon swap
Then go about front bar rotation

Belive it or not, it adds a decent amount of dps as well as increased ult gain and more uptime on poisons/weapon enchants.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

Thanks for the response. The problem I was having with trap back bar is that it only gives minor force for 6 seconds, so unless I cut my rotation short its only going to have like 60% uptime. I try to only swap every 10 seconds to keep endless hail going, and even then I usually end up losing 2-3 seconds from it to get the most out of my front bar.

Also still not seeing the benefit of shrouded daggers over rapid strikes. It lets me lose crit surge I suppose, but seems harder to weave and does less damage in my tests.

Other than being able to apply it at range, is there any benefit to lightweight trap vs rearming trap? Rearming does double the damage for half the resource cost and both give minor force for the same amount of time (slightly longer for rearming).

I really need to get caltrops and flawless dawnbreaker unlocked on this character though, I think those alone would bump me to near 30k from the 25 I'm at.

Last thing: why lover mundus? It gives spell resistance from what I recall?

Icy_Waffles · February 2018

Put flawless dawnbreaker on front bar. Use ballista as dmg ult. Then front bar has a lot mpre wpn dmg.

Illurian · February 2018

@Lynx7386 Lover Mundus adds spell and weapon penetration. Lady adds resistance.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw could you elaborate on why Rapid Strikes is no longer a good spammable? Does Shrouded Daggers out-perform it even on single target?

Illurian · February 2018

Brrrofski wrote: »

If you are using dawnbreajer as your ult, smiting is better. The extra damage it does and the knockdown is much better than the passive 5%.

No one uses Dawnbreaker as the active ult. Ballista is used and further buffed when you swap to your front bar while it's active from Flawless Dawnbreaker.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

Illurian wrote: »

@Lynx7386 Lover Mundus adds spell and weapon penetration. Lady adds resistance.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw could you elaborate on why Rapid Strikes is no longer a good spammable? Does Shrouded Daggers out-perform it even on single target?

Ok guess i was getting the two mixed up, never really used either. I'm not sure that the extra penetration from lover would outweight the 10%+ critical damage shadow is giving me right now though, especially since i'm already stacking a good amount of penetration.

Illurian · February 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

show previous quotes

Illurian wrote: »

@Lynx7386 Lover Mundus adds spell and weapon penetration. Lady adds resistance.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw could you elaborate on why Rapid Strikes is no longer a good spammable? Does Shrouded Daggers out-perform it even on single target?

Ok guess i was getting the two mixed up, never really used either. I'm not sure that the extra penetration from lover would outweight the 10%+ critical damage shadow is giving me right now though, especially since i'm already stacking a good amount of penetration.

Actually Warrior out-damages Shadow even on crits, on top of adding damage to non-crits. It also increases the self healing from Critical Surge, for when you need it (vMA for instance). I'd definitely swap to Warrior.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

Will do. I'm rank 9 and 9/10ths with fighters guild so dawnbreaker is right around the corner, I just need to suffer through endless PvP grinding to get caltrops. With those I think ill hit an acceptable level for most content.

Illurian · February 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Will do. I'm rank 9 and 9/10ths with fighters guild so dawnbreaker is right around the corner, I just need to suffer through endless PvP grinding to get caltrops. With those I think ill hit an acceptable level for most content.

To be quite honest with you, I don't have Caltrops on my StamSorc either, so I'm in the same boat of needing to suffer through the PvP grind for it. I also don't have his Alchemy maxed out, so he doesn't get the full benefit from weapon damage pots. Still parse an average of 32.5k on the skeleton dummy self buffed (without major fracture), though.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2018

Illurian wrote: »

@Lynx7386 Lover Mundus adds spell and weapon penetration. Lady adds resistance.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw could you elaborate on why Rapid Strikes is no longer a good spammable? Does Shrouded Daggers out-perform it even on single target?

@Illurian
Honestly, it comes down to rotation and sustain. The old meta was to use DW VMA weapons which give buffs to DOTs after rapid strikes. So rotations became, rapid, DOT, rapid, DOT, etc. A few things have changed since then.

One, sustain is way down causing us to need to heavy attack much more often. If you try to run the pre-morrowind rapid strikes rotation, you will not make it through a 5 minute trial fight without having to need to break the rotation and start heavy attacking. Your DOT downtime suffers, and your damage falls off a cliff at that point. Modern stam rotations build the HAs into the rotation, so you passively sustain pretty much infinitely as long as you dont die.

DKs, who have the most DOTs at their disposal, actually went away from a RS build even before morrowind. Ultimately, they found that more DOTs was better damage than fewer DOTs that were buffed by RS.

Second, most people are running 1-2 more DOTS than they used to. Caltrops is now run by everyone instead of one person (used to not stack), and Deadly Cloak is required to survive for most end game trial content. What this means is that if you want to run all the possible DOTs, AND put a rapid strikes in front of all them, your rotation becomes too long and you end up with poor uptimes on your hardest hitting skills.

Modern stamina rotations (save NB) are very circular (8-10 skills and repeat). Typically, 4 back bar Skills, and 4-5 front bar skills. With 2-3 heavy attacks thrown in there (front bar only), you typically end up casting Endless hail (your Strongest DOT) a second or 2 at most after it expires. Throw in 5 rapid strikes on top of that rotation, and now your Hail (and other back bar DOT) uptime is falling off a cliff.

Lastly, lets compare the spammables. One is a single target, channel that most be used in melee range. The other is a ranged insta cast skill that hits 2 additional enemies, providing excellent cleave damage, and gives you weapon damage to boot (not that your really need it). Its a pretty short analysis to realize which is better. With a Daggers build, I dont need to touch my bars for AOE fights. Stam Sorcs with daggers do ungodly AOE damage. With a RS build, I need to make room for steel tornado for trash or add heavy fights.

Sorry, that was long winded, but I think I covered most of it.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2018

Illurian wrote: »

show previous quotes

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Will do. I'm rank 9 and 9/10ths with fighters guild so dawnbreaker is right around the corner, I just need to suffer through endless PvP grinding to get caltrops. With those I think ill hit an acceptable level for most content.

To be quite honest with you, I don't have Caltrops on my StamSorc either, so I'm in the same boat of needing to suffer through the PvP grind for it. I also don't have his Alchemy maxed out, so he doesn't get the full benefit from weapon damage pots. Still parse an average of 32.5k on the skeleton dummy self buffed (without major fracture), though.

Sorry for double post.

You can grind caltrops in a few hours. On a stam sorc, just stack AOE and zerg surf for an evening.

Alchemy can be leveled in about 15 minutes. Just buy a stack each of White Cap and Blue Entoloma (will give a 2 trait potion/poison and are dirt cheap), and about 75 each of the first few tiers of either poison or potion solvent (doesnt matter which). Make potions until you can spend the next skill point in the tree, change your solvent level and repeat. Its the first thing I do on character once I see they have a handful of spare skill points to spend.

Your damage really isnt bad, but caltrops will certainly give you a few K more and better potion uptime is probably another 1-2k as well.

Illurian · February 2018

Thanks for your detailed response! I'll try to make my questions on your points more readable:

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

show previous quotes

Illurian wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw could you elaborate on why Rapid Strikes is no longer a good spammable? Does Shrouded Daggers out-perform it even on single target?

@Illurian
Honestly, it comes down to rotation and sustain. The old meta was to use DW VMA weapons which give buffs to DOTs after rapid strikes. So rotations became, rapid, DOT, rapid, DOT, etc. A few things have changed since then.

One, sustain is way down causing us to need to heavy attack much more often. If you try to run the pre-morrowind rapid strikes rotation, you will not make it through a 5 minute trial fight without having to need to break the rotation and start heavy attacking. Your DOT downtime suffers, and your damage falls off a cliff at that point. Modern stam rotations build the HAs into the rotation, so you passively sustain pretty much infinitely as long as you dont die.

DKs, who have the most DOTs at their disposal, actually went away from a RS build even before morrowind. Ultimately, they found that more DOTs was better damage than fewer DOTs that were buffed by RS.

I understand that the skill and set ups may have changed since Morrowdind, but so have play styles. As you said, current stam rotations heavy weave, which provides a ton of sustain. I'm able to sustain my rotation (with Rapid Strikes) indefinitely purely because of the heavy-weave heavy (what a sentence!) play style.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Second, most people are running 1-2 more DOTS than they used to. Caltrops is now run by everyone instead of one person (used to not stack), and Deadly Cloak is required to survive for most end game trial content. What this means is that if you want to run all the possible DOTs, AND put a rapid strikes in front of all them, your rotation becomes too long and you end up with poor uptimes on your hardest hitting skills.

Modern stamina rotations (save NB) are very circular (8-10 skills and repeat). Typically, 4 back bar Skills, and 4-5 front bar skills. With 2-3 heavy attacks thrown in there (front bar only), you typically end up casting Endless hail (your Strongest DOT) a second or 2 at most after it expires. Throw in 5 rapid strikes on top of that rotation, and now your Hail (and other back bar DOT) uptime is falling off a cliff.

I'm not trying to compare Rapid Strikes with vMA dual wield to Shrouded Daggers with a monster set. I'm trying to compare Rapid Strikes with a monster set to Shrouded Daggers with a monster set. The gear set ups are identical. Without vMA dual weapons, you don't need to Rapid Strikes before every DoT. Does Shrouded Daggers out-parse Rapid Strikes as a spammable?

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Lastly, lets compare the spammables. One is a single target, channel that most be used in melee range. The other is a ranged insta cast skill that hits 2 additional enemies, providing excellent cleave damage, and gives you weapon damage to boot (not that your really need it). Its a pretty short analysis to realize which is better. With a Daggers build, I dont need to touch my bars for AOE fights. Stam Sorcs with daggers do ungodly AOE damage. With a RS build, I need to make room for steel tornado for trash or add heavy fights.

See, the only advantage I'm seeing here from Shrouded Daggers is the multi-target hit. Range doesn't matter as you should be in melee range anyway, and the Major Brutality doesn't matter as you will be getting it from another source anyway (weapon damage pots or Critical Surge).

My query was for purely single target fights, does Shrouded Dagger out-parse Rapid Strikes? Same rotation, same gear, same build. Only difference is using each one as the spammable.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

show previous quotes

Illurian wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Will do. I'm rank 9 and 9/10ths with fighters guild so dawnbreaker is right around the corner, I just need to suffer through endless PvP grinding to get caltrops. With those I think ill hit an acceptable level for most content.

To be quite honest with you, I don't have Caltrops on my StamSorc either, so I'm in the same boat of needing to suffer through the PvP grind for it. I also don't have his Alchemy maxed out, so he doesn't get the full benefit from weapon damage pots. Still parse an average of 32.5k on the skeleton dummy self buffed (without major fracture), though.

Sorry for double post.

You can grind caltrops in a few hours. On a stam sorc, just stack AOE and zerg surf for an evening.

Alchemy can be leveled in about 15 minutes. Just buy a stack each of White Cap and Blue Entoloma (will give a 2 trait potion/poison and are dirt cheap), and about 75 each of the first few tiers of either poison or potion solvent (doesnt matter which). Make potions until you can spend the next skill point in the tree, change your solvent level and repeat. Its the first thing I do on character once I see they have a handful of spare skill points to spend.

Your damage really isnt bad, but caltrops will certainly give you a few K more and better potion uptime is probably another 1-2k as well.

Thanks for the tips! I totally agree that I need to get caltrops and alchemy up, but I've just been so lazy.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2018

Illurian wrote: »

Thanks for your detailed response! I'll try to make my questions on your points more readable:
show previous quotes

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Illurian wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw could you elaborate on why Rapid Strikes is no longer a good spammable? Does Shrouded Daggers out-perform it even on single target?

@Illurian
Honestly, it comes down to rotation and sustain. The old meta was to use DW VMA weapons which give buffs to DOTs after rapid strikes. So rotations became, rapid, DOT, rapid, DOT, etc. A few things have changed since then.

One, sustain is way down causing us to need to heavy attack much more often. If you try to run the pre-morrowind rapid strikes rotation, you will not make it through a 5 minute trial fight without having to need to break the rotation and start heavy attacking. Your DOT downtime suffers, and your damage falls off a cliff at that point. Modern stam rotations build the HAs into the rotation, so you passively sustain pretty much infinitely as long as you dont die.

DKs, who have the most DOTs at their disposal, actually went away from a RS build even before morrowind. Ultimately, they found that more DOTs was better damage than fewer DOTs that were buffed by RS.

I understand that the skill and set ups may have changed since Morrowdind, but so have play styles. As you said, current stam rotations heavy weave, which provides a ton of sustain. I'm able to sustain my rotation (with Rapid Strikes) indefinitely purely because of the heavy-weave heavy (what a sentence!) play style.

show previous quotes

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Second, most people are running 1-2 more DOTS than they used to. Caltrops is now run by everyone instead of one person (used to not stack), and Deadly Cloak is required to survive for most end game trial content. What this means is that if you want to run all the possible DOTs, AND put a rapid strikes in front of all them, your rotation becomes too long and you end up with poor uptimes on your hardest hitting skills.

Modern stamina rotations (save NB) are very circular (8-10 skills and repeat). Typically, 4 back bar Skills, and 4-5 front bar skills. With 2-3 heavy attacks thrown in there (front bar only), you typically end up casting Endless hail (your Strongest DOT) a second or 2 at most after it expires. Throw in 5 rapid strikes on top of that rotation, and now your Hail (and other back bar DOT) uptime is falling off a cliff.

I'm not trying to compare Rapid Strikes with vMA dual wield to Shrouded Daggers with a monster set. I'm trying to compare Rapid Strikes with a monster set to Shrouded Daggers with a monster set. The gear set ups are identical. Without vMA dual weapons, you don't need to Rapid Strikes before every DoT. Does Shrouded Daggers out-parse Rapid Strikes as a spammable?
show previous quotes

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Lastly, lets compare the spammables. One is a single target, channel that most be used in melee range. The other is a ranged insta cast skill that hits 2 additional enemies, providing excellent cleave damage, and gives you weapon damage to boot (not that your really need it). Its a pretty short analysis to realize which is better. With a Daggers build, I dont need to touch my bars for AOE fights. Stam Sorcs with daggers do ungodly AOE damage. With a RS build, I need to make room for steel tornado for trash or add heavy fights.

See, the only advantage I'm seeing here from Shrouded Daggers is the multi-target hit. Range doesn't matter as you should be in melee range anyway, and the Major Brutality doesn't matter as you will be getting it from another source anyway (weapon damage pots or Critical Surge).

My query was for purely single target fights, does Shrouded Dagger out-parse Rapid Strikes? Same rotation, same gear, same build. Only difference is using each one as the spammable.

show previous quotes

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Illurian wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Will do. I'm rank 9 and 9/10ths with fighters guild so dawnbreaker is right around the corner, I just need to suffer through endless PvP grinding to get caltrops. With those I think ill hit an acceptable level for most content.

To be quite honest with you, I don't have Caltrops on my StamSorc either, so I'm in the same boat of needing to suffer through the PvP grind for it. I also don't have his Alchemy maxed out, so he doesn't get the full benefit from weapon damage pots. Still parse an average of 32.5k on the skeleton dummy self buffed (without major fracture), though.

Sorry for double post.

You can grind caltrops in a few hours. On a stam sorc, just stack AOE and zerg surf for an evening.

Alchemy can be leveled in about 15 minutes. Just buy a stack each of White Cap and Blue Entoloma (will give a 2 trait potion/poison and are dirt cheap), and about 75 each of the first few tiers of either poison or potion solvent (doesnt matter which). Make potions until you can spend the next skill point in the tree, change your solvent level and repeat. Its the first thing I do on character once I see they have a handful of spare skill points to spend.

Your damage really isnt bad, but caltrops will certainly give you a few K more and better potion uptime is probably another 1-2k as well.

Thanks for the tips! I totally agree that I need to get caltrops and alchemy up, but I've just been so lazy.

You are more than welcome.

I dont have hard data on this as I have not personally tested them directly. Here is what I will say. I look at a LOT of damage parses from some of the best players in this game. It has been a year since I have seen rapid strikes on any of them. If you are just using it as a spam skill, I would be completely blown away if RS beat daggers, but the only way I know to be sure is to get on a dummy and test it. Haha.

Also, do not dismiss the AOE and the range. How many pure single target fights exist in this game? Not many overall, and even less in trial settings. The range of daggers comes in handy on first boss of VAA, All bosses in HRC (assuming you go top, and if you go bottom you want the splash damage), Second Boss in VMOL, 3/4 bosses in VSO and a few of the VHOF fights as well. A ton of bosses have AOE mechanics that force you out of melee range for a few seconds at a time.

The AOE damage is useful in every fight except he Manti and the Lighting Attro, but both of those fights utilize the range (especially the lightning attro), so even there, hard to go against daggers. It is also AMAZING in trash fights, which is actually rather important when pushing score. My stam sorc is rarely out of first place for AOE damage, and I usually run with a pretty darn good group.

Edit: Honestly the only place I would recommend RS to anyone would be to actually run the healing morph on your first VMA clear on a few classes (how I got flawless on my stam sorc the first time). But even then, it's a stale meta.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

Thanks for the explanations oreyn. I'm going to go ahead and use shrouded daggers now I guess, but it does feel off having two major brutality abilities slotted (I really don't want to give up crit surge healing).

JiKama · February 2018

I would setup my bars something like
1 DW- TwinSlash/ShroudedDagger/Deadly Cloak /Hurricane/Bound Armaments.
Ulti-FlawlessDawnbreaker
2 Bow- PoisonInjection/EndlessHail/RazorCaltrops/RearmingTrap/BoundArmaments
Ulti-Ballista

Edited again XD. Just read about your concers regarding Crit Surge/ Shrouded Daggers

If all else use Steel Tornado instead of Shrouded daggers on bar 1. #Spin2Win. OR you can put rearming trap instead of Shrouded daggers on bar1 and put crit surge where I put Rearming trap on bar 2.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

Um... I do have bound armaments on both bars.

JiKama · February 2018

I'm sorry!!! I misread