set question

boombazookajd

I'm trying to figure out what sets I want to run on my PVE magDK.

Right now I have 3 BSW. Chest, Hands, necklace...2 Silks of the Sun...and 3 Julianos...2 withered hand rings (a remnant of leveling in the desert). and am running 2 pc Ilambris.

I've been grinding for BSW jewelry, getting the neck last night. Still need rings.

Im not sure about the proc rate on BSW and am leaning a bit toward the guaranteed 5 piece bonus of Silks of the Sun.

My question is which one is better? Is BSW's proc rate a problem?

Illurian

It's cool seeing a ton of MagDK discussions.

I recently leveled up a MagDK myself (yesterday, in fact) and am running this set on him:
5x BSW
4x IA
2x Grothdarr

On my first solo trial parse on the target dummy (without knowing much about the rotation, I just slapped some skills that made sense together), I was able to parse 30k+ dps. I'm sure someone with more knowledge and practice on MagDK can increase this number by at least 5-10k.

BSW actually procs pretty often, if not on cooldown (I'll have to check the exact % uptime later when I can log in), due to the sheer amount of fire skills MagDKs have.

I've not tried Silks of the Sun, so I can't offer and advice on that, but from my own (anecdotal) experience, BSW has great uptime and certainly contributes to a large portion of your dps as a MagDK.

Checkmath

You are on the right track with burning spellweave, its simply the best for magdks. The effect procs prerry much on cooldown. For the moment i recommend zaan or grothdar as monsterset. Additionally a maehlstrom fire staff would be best. For jewellry one of the trial dps magicka sets is fine together with a flamestaff to get the 4th boni on the frontbar.
So 5 bsw on body
Grothar or zaan helmet and shoulder (one medium, one heavy)
Msa flamestaff backbar
Ia or md flamstaff frontbar
3 times jewellry of ia or md
(If you arent trial yet, willpower jewellry will do fine with a random inferno staff frontbar.
Backbar staff nirn, frontbar staff infused.
(Silk of the sun isnt as good as bsw since it provides a health bonus instead of a spellcrit)

Illurian

Realized I took a screenshot of the parse I did on my MagDK yesterday.



As you can see, the uptime of BSW was 62%. With an 8 second uptime and a 12 second cooldown, the maximum theoretical uptime of BSW is 66.6667%. So BSW's uptime is pretty close to its theoretical maximum value.

Thus, it's really worth it to run BSW on a MagDK.

Dont_do_drugs

Checkmath wrote: »

You are on the right track with burning spellweave, its simply the best for magdks. The effect procs prerry much on cooldown. For the moment i recommend zaan or grothdar as monsterset. Additionally a maehlstrom fire staff would be best. For jewellry one of the trial dps magicka sets is fine together with a flamestaff to get the 4th boni on the frontbar.
So 5 bsw on body
Grothar or zaan helmet and shoulder (one medium, one heavy)
Msa flamestaff backbar
Ia or md flamstaff frontbar
3 times jewellry of ia or md
(If you arent trial yet, willpower jewellry will do fine with a random inferno staff frontbar.
Backbar staff nirn, frontbar staff infused.
(Silk of the sun isnt as good as bsw since it provides a health bonus instead of a spellcrit)

well yes, its one time health, but depending on your bufffood, you might go for the regen one instead of the blue health-magicka? then u need the 1k health for trials. also since last update, lightning staff seems to be more of useless, so u run full fire damage, which might make sun more interesting than bsw.

so if u compare:

bsw + md + grothdarr/zaan + fire/fire
bsw + md + grothdarr/zaan + fire/light
sun + md + grothdarr/zaan + fire/fire

how would it turn out after all? same char, same skills, but compared to each other?

Septimus_Magna

5x BWS, 4x IA and 2x Zaan would be my choice.

Next update maybe Elf Bane instead of BSW. It also increases the duration of the Zaan proc making it deal a ton of dmg

Checkmath

Elf bane isnt any good in pve, it only provides a bit spelldamage and magicka. Conpared to other set boni its underwhelming. 2 secs more fire dots isnt worth it to give up crit and more spelldamage. It probably rather drains you magicka, since whip isnt a free skill most of the times. Anyway would you loose a lot of magicka, since elfbane jewelry is healthy till summerset.
Even if it would be arcane i doubt it will be worth it.

boombazookajd

I really enjoy using Ilambris. I know the target can move out of the area, and it is a pretty small area at that, but it procs like crazy.

I'm probably going to stick with BSW, just need to keep up the COA grind or get deep pockets for guild traders. I do enjoy playing my magDK a lot, more so than my stamDK.

There's just so much fire! And nothing is more satisfying than the sight and sound of an enemy bursting into flames.

Septimus_Magna

Checkmath wrote: »

Elf bane isnt any good in pve, it only provides a bit spelldamage and magicka. Conpared to other set boni its underwhelming. 2 secs more fire dots isnt worth it to give up crit and more spelldamage. It probably rather drains you magicka, since whip isnt a free skill most of the times. Anyway would you loose a lot of magicka, since elfbane jewelry is healthy till summerset.
Even if it would be arcane i doubt it will be worth it.

The thing is, 2 seconds longer fire DoT doesnt sound so good but if you do the numbers its actually very strong.

It gives you the option to do a heavy attack to gain resources while dealing dmg for example, without losing any dps from the DoTs. The other major dmg gain comes fron Zaan, the fire beam deals more dmg with each tick. If you extend the duration the final tick will deal massive dmg. Alcast tried it out in one of his videos a while ago.

With the Psijic Order skills I can see mag DKs becoming pretty strong. They mainly struggle with sustain so if they have a Dark Deal type skill it could really help the class.

Checkmath

Atm there is pretty much no information about psychic skilline and something unique to sorcerer like dark deal never will find a way to a skillline available for all.
Zaans dps is about 2.5-3k, best monsterset so far in the game. But its melee and a lot of fights dont allow melee range. Just to boost up a procset and heaving the possibilty to include one heavy attack per rota will not make up for the spelldamage, max magicka or crit loss to other sets. Elfbane is useful for one case: killing stupid people in pvp, who dont know how to avoid zaan.

jnelson1182

* I am also running a mag DK as my mian n a mag sorc as a very close to main alt since I have spent so much time on my sorc I can't justify not still using him from time to time. I was actually dealing with this same issue the last 3-4 days of playing, I have heard that mag DK's are useless in endgame group pve stuff which is what I enjoy playing over pvp especially since there is so much to compete in eso, my DK is aimed at doing a lot of fire dmg using destro staff skills mixed with class skills aoe on front bar with flame staff and then most my class skills on back bar with either sword and shield or two swords depending on what content I am trying to do. A question I do have regarding gear is do you guys think it is better to wear a full 5 piece set to get w/e bonus it has or to mix an match sets resulting in either higher health or mag but no real set bonus? Also has anyone ever tried running a mix of either bsw or silks with the lich set, if so what are your thoughts on it? to me when I tried it I was no longer forced to do so many heavy attacks to regain mag as much as without lich but I didn't notice a slight loss in damage.

Checkmath

For pve normally a full 5 piece set, 2 monster pieces and trial jewellry is best for magicka dds. This is because you mostly have msa staff backbar and either the 4th piece of the jewellry or a AS staff frontbar. Exceptions are when you are playing with acuity, since this one only needs to be full on one bar. So preferred on frontbar, together with 1 monsterset and another full 5 piece set. The same goes for the vHoF sets. On stamina its mostly 5/5/2 on frontbar and a msa bow backbar.

Narvuntien

Well I don't have any IA or Moondancer (I think one piece of each, just not lucky enough) and just not brave/crazy enough to do vMA. (don't have cwc)

I have 5 BSW 5 Julianos 1 pc Grothdar. but I have also used 5 Sun, 5 Julianos, 1 pc Slimeclaw.
Since you lose the crit from BSW when using Sun you have to add more with slimecraw (and lose mag from grothdar)

I have a whoopping 25K whooo yeah go me, but I am pretty happy I was finally able to hit 25K.

The big issue for Magdks in general is that 12K mag regen compared at that 15K Drain. You can see in his combat metrics. Thats a huge gap and you are always living on the edge of running out of magicka. I am using trash pots and don't have medicinal use so perhaps that is part of my low dps.

The thing I noticed from that dps parse compared to mine is how much more damage his light attacks do than me, it seems he is much better at weaving than I am.

Is the combat metrics files saved somewhere or do you have to screen shot them?

Checkmath

Well dks sustain really is *** since power lash has a short window in boss fights. Actually sustain is crap since morrowind.
For silk of the sun, you just gain a health bonus, where other sets have crit, magicka or spelldamage. So you lose one bonus towards your goal of maximizing your damage.
Using trash pots and not having medicinal use definitely is some part of your sustain problem. Magicka pots give you 20% magregen. With trash pots and no medicinal use, you get that buff for 20 seconds. With essence of spellpower you get 20% more regen for 46 seconds i think. So increased regen permanently when you drink pots on cooldown. Anyway i recommend using those potions, since they also give you major sorcery and prophety, meaning you dont have to buff yourself with enthropy or ignious weapons.
And about the light attacks, maybe he is better in weaving, he has more spelldamage or he is using a vmsa staff. All three increase the damage of weaving significantly.

Illurian

Narvuntien wrote: »

Well I don't have any IA or Moondancer (I think one piece of each, just not lucky enough) and just not brave/crazy enough to do vMA. (don't have cwc)

I have 5 BSW 5 Julianos 1 pc Grothdar. but I have also used 5 Sun, 5 Julianos, 1 pc Slimeclaw.
Since you lose the crit from BSW when using Sun you have to add more with slimecraw (and lose mag from grothdar)

I have a whoopping 25K whooo yeah go me, but I am pretty happy I was finally able to hit 25K.

The big issue for Magdks in general is that 12K mag regen compared at that 15K Drain. You can see in his combat metrics. Thats a huge gap and you are always living on the edge of running out of magicka. I am using trash pots and don't have medicinal use so perhaps that is part of my low dps.

The thing I noticed from that dps parse compared to mine is how much more damage his light attacks do than me, it seems he is much better at weaving than I am.

Is the combat metrics files saved somewhere or do you have to screen shot them?

Hey there,

So the parse that I posted was more to show the BSW uptime, and not the actual dps (this was one of the first parses I did on my MagDK after grinding him up to CP level). I would have posted a more "standard" parse for dps comparisons.

A few caveats here with my parse:

1. Lover Mundus. While I didn't hit the pen cap even with ele drain up, the Lover Mundus inflates the skele parse significantly. I was using the Lover Mundus while grinding up in Skyreach, and forgot to change it when testing out my rotation once I hit CP.
2. Magicka drain. I got a bit excited towards the end of the parse (when I see that the skele is ~30% hp) and neglected resource management entirely to finish off the parse. This also inflates the skele parse a bit, as well as giving and inaccurate representation on the magicka drain in an actual fight, when I am paying more attention to resource management. I was also only using trash pots without any alchemical passives (I don't think I've even gained the skill line on this character), so that would also change the Magicka regeneration in a serious fight/parse.
3. Rotation. As I said in my first post, my rotation is completely messed up as I simply slapped together some skills that I thought made sense and kept up with DoT timing. A better, more planned rotation would give better results.

Now, in terms of weaving, don't look at the damage, as that could be attributed to different sets/gear (I was using a vMA inferno staff backbar; charged as that's what I got from the weekly and was too lazy to grab the vMA staff with a better trait from another alt, but still vMA nonetheless). Rather, you should try and look at the amount of light attacks registered to compare weaving fluency. Comparing the number of light attacks hit to the time spent in combat doesn't give an exact comparison, but it would give you a better idea of how fluent the weaves are. Some caveats to this are skills that have a long cast time, channeled skills, and time spent performing heavy attacks.
The most accurate way to see if you are weaving (or missing any weaves) is to compare your light/heavy attack hits with number of skills cast. This could take some time looking through the combat metrics parse, but it would give a more accurate way of seeing how many weaves you are actually hitting/missing.

You have to manually save parses in combat metrics, but once you do so, it will stay logged until you delete it.

jnelson1182

ok great info guys it actually helped me a ton. I actually have two more questions that are kind of related but I didn't want to create a thread for it, does anyone know what I should be aiming for when it comes to penetration as well as mag and physical resistance? I'm trying to decide if I should run the mundus that gives resistance or if I can come up with enough from my sets, right now I am running btw with some embershield to get my health up for now.

Checkmath

Light armor provides you with spellpenetration as magdk and if you put some points into spellerosion there is no need to further penetrate enemies;)
Lover mundus stone is overkill, since there are plenty of other ressources of penetration in group play like major breach.
You think about ressistances in pve? Dds run minimal ressistances and maximum damage, there is no need to push ressistances since your main defence is the light armor shield.

Illurian

jnelson1182 wrote: »

ok great info guys it actually helped me a ton. I actually have two more questions that are kind of related but I didn't want to create a thread for it, does anyone know what I should be aiming for when it comes to penetration as well as mag and physical resistance? I'm trying to decide if I should run the mundus that gives resistance or if I can come up with enough from my sets, right now I am running btw with some embershield to get my health up for now.

Apprentice Mundus would be the best choice.

You don't have to worry too much about your resistances in PvE; base resistances you get from armor passives and the actual armor, along with the damage reduction from CP, is enough for all PvE content (you don't need to build specifically for resistances).

What you should aim for defensively, however, is a minimum amount of HP. You should aim for a minimum of ~17k hp with your food buff. A common way of doing this is going 5/1/1 or 5/0/2 (L/M/H) armor, as the undaunted and heavy armor passives give you free boosts to your health. Some Magicka DDs who use Witchmother's Brew food (gives less health than normal blue Magicka+Health food) also use the Valkyn Skoria monster set for the 1 piece bonus in health.

jnelson1182

ok so then my resistances are tied to penetration? I'm confused on that. and right now I am running a mix of btw and embersheildmand it puts my health at 20k, I'm running 5/1/1 with Skoria because almost everything on both on my bars will proc it so I actually get a lot of use out of it, one thing I noticed is without the resist mundus stone I feel really squishy, even when with the exact same amount of health it still feels like I lose health faster that was the entail reason I tried to mundus stone cuz I was unsure what else I could do to raise my resistances. now with volatile armor running I have something like 22k spell resistance, I'm thinking I can change around either running that or the mundus then would it be possible to make up the rest of whatever resistance I need from either glyphs or traits on my gear as well as the cp for it? one last thing is when it comes to pve do I need spell and physical resistance or just one or the other?