BarSwap Characteristics. Finer Details of Combat

kylewwefan

What all backbar stuff changes when swapping to front bar? Or does it stay the same? Is it traits, enchants, passives.

I’m trying to go Lightning Staff backbar for Destro Staff passives of %8 more AOE Damage and Inferno Staff front bar for %8 single target Destro Staff passives.

Many builds are using inferno staff back and front now. Maybe it’s to fit the timing of the skills their using better, I dont know?

In trying to figure out what carries over and what doesn’t I have thoroughly confused myself and left really not sure of anything, but the consensus is double inferno and I don’t know why.

I like using them both, because lightning wall of Elements looks better IMO and the inferno is looks better and works better for light attacks. Also imo.

Dimski

Your currently active skills carry over. The passives don't.
People use dual destro staves because they want to keep the passives and because they haven't used staff skills that much in the first place. My magDK uses dual inferno staves but doesn't have a single staff skill on the front-bar and only elemental barrier on the back bar.

Sparr0w

@kylewwefan @Gilliamtherogue has done a couple video's on stuff like this, one that stands out here.

Sure others will give detailed explanations on this post too.

From what I can see it's because:

• Inferno light attacks (which you weave) hit quite a bit harder than shock ones.
• Off balance got changed, so now you get max uptime with 2x healers (maybe the tank too depending on group).
• Blockade of fire does additional DPS to burning enemies.
• Inferno staves up single target DPS by 8% (main source of DPS is single target in LA/Spammable/Procs/Execute, exception being PetSorc)
• DarkElves get increased fire damage also

Currently when swapping to front bar, weapon skills from your back bar (e.g. Blockade) will then proc your front bar enchant on cooldown. Next patch this is getting changed so it will instead proc your backbar enchant.

John_Falstaff

Just to add a bit of information to stick around here, couple of patches ago it was changed how DoTs work when bar swapping: now, all stats are recalculated every tick, so if you've placed Blockade on back bar and swapped, next tick will be done with new stats (weapon damage, critical etc.). That change probably makes it less sensible to run nirnhoned on backbar since dots won't keep ticking with same weapon damage as they were fired with.

Also, upcoming Wolfhunter update will make running dots remember weapons they were fired from and trigger that weapon's enchantments, so if you had an infused staff with fire glyph on backbar, then your Blockade will keep triggering it every two seconds while on front bar, if I got the change right. But damage ticks themselves will be recalculated with active stats.

kylewwefan

I’m trying to wrap my head around this.

So, I back bar a Lightning Staff for Wall of Elements and 2 other class AOE skills. They all get buffed by Destro Staff passives for %8 increased AOE abilities.

But then I barswap

Now my front bar has an Inferno Staff! So I can light attack Force Pulse spam and get the %8 inferno Staff passives.

But you’re telling me the %8 Lightning Staff passives falls off when I’m on front bar?

Am I understanding this correctly.

I need to lay down. You've no idea how much focus it took to word that right.

Sparr0w

kylewwefan wrote: »

I’m trying to wrap my head around this.

So, I back bar a Lightning Staff for Wall of Elements and 2 other class AOE skills. They all get buffed by Destro Staff passives for %8 increased AOE abilities.

But then I barswap

Now my front bar has an Inferno Staff! So I can light attack Force Pulse spam and get the %8 inferno Staff passives.

But you’re telling me the %8 Lightning Staff passives falls off when I’m on front bar?

Am I understanding this correctly.

I need to lay down. You've no idea how much focus it took to word that right.

From what I understand EVERY tick of damage everything gets recalculated, so yes when you swap to your front bar, then next tick of damage from your AoE will deal 8% less damage (assuming you're running the same weapons on both bars).

kylewwefan wrote: »

I’m trying to wrap my head around this.

So, I back bar a Lightning Staff for Wall of Elements and 2 other class AOE skills. They all get buffed by Destro Staff passives for %8 increased AOE abilities.

But then I barswap

Now my front bar has an Inferno Staff! So I can light attack Force Pulse spam and get the %8 inferno Staff passives.

But you’re telling me the %8 Lightning Staff passives falls off when I’m on front bar?

Am I understanding this correctly.

I need to lay down. You've no idea how much focus it took to word that right.

@kylewwefan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEJjaneTXuk

Damage over Time (or DoTs) abilities are a pretty convoluted mess in terms of how they operate with your character's stats. This video will be aimed at explaining some of the jargon behind the stats, and giving you a soft guideline to how these abilities interact with stats and bar swaps.

jypcy

Yeah Sparrow covered it pretty well. Just a bit more in depth as to why you see double inferno favored most often:

•Passive that increases single target damage for the front bar. The front bar is the bar you’ll spend the most time on, and so the passives for that staff type will be active most often. Light attacks, executes, spammables, and various dots are in most cases single target, so it’s generally more beneficial to buff these with the flame staff passive instead of the few aoe skills a class uses with the lightning staff passive. If you have a build that does use a lot of aoes, though, it’s good to consider a lightning staff instead.

•Wall of elements effect. You need to cast wall of elements (woe) from the bar that has a vma staff equipped for the vma set to buff the wall. Because you can use a staff on your front bar to complete a set and have that active more often, it’s more beneficial to backbar the vma staff and thus woe gets backbarred as well. Also, because you’re not spending too much time on your backbar, which passive you have active here won’t matter as much, so a lot of weight gets placed on the woe effect. The lightning woe effect affects the target, so the whole group benefits as much from only one person using it as they would if everybody used it. The flame woe effect affects the caster’s damage, so you don’t get any benefit from it if you’re not personally using it. Thus, more people prefer to use flame woe and let somebody else (such as a tank or healer) run lightning woe.

Also @edmt0001_ESO double check the passives. I’m pretty sure the big ones such as the 8% damage buff only take effect if you have a destro staff AND destro skill on that bar.

Sparr0w

jypcy wrote: »

Also @edmt0001_ESO double check the passives. I’m pretty sure the big ones such as the 8% damage buff only take effect if you have a destro staff AND destro skill on that bar.

From what I'm aware this is the case, hence why non FP builds run Destro ult & FP builds run Meteor.

Gilliam demonstrates this in the Video above using twisting path with no destro skill slotted.

kylewwefan

This guy is a wizard without a beard. I think I understand now. My head is spinning.

jypcy

Also @kylewwefan from your above post it sounds like you understand the concept, but if it helps solidify it, maybe seeing it in terms of “on/off” is clearer than the destro staff trichotomy.

Based on your other thread I understand you have a warden, which have several class passives that take effect based on what’s active on your bar, such as frozen armor. To see this, unequip all skills, then put some winters embrace skills on one bar and leave the other bar’s skills empty. When you bar swap, you’ll see your passives affecting your resistances based on what you have equipped on that bar. Even if you cast all of the winter’s embrace skills and then barswap, your resists will lower because the passives don’t carry over to your other bar; even though the skills are active (like a woe cast on the ground), the passive only takes into account what’s on your currently active bar.

You can test something similar with the advanced species animal companions passive. Equip two identical weapons, one on each bar. Then, fill one bar with animal companions skills and make the other one empty except for winter’s revenge or some other dot skill. Cast the dot on a target, then barswap back and forth slowly without casting any other skills. You should see that the ticks from the dot deal more damage when you’re on the bar that has all of the animal companions skills and less damage when you’re on the bar that you cast it from.

The destro passives essentially work the same way as these class passives, but instead of checking “is x skill on the bar? Y/N” multiplied by the number of those skills on the bar, it’s checking “is A/B/C staff equipped on the bar while y skill is on the bar? Y/N” and changes depending on the type of staff.

Sparr0w

kylewwefan wrote: »

This guy is a wizard without a beard. I think I understand now. My head is spinning.

Lol yup, good luck soaking it up first time

Minno

Sparr0w wrote: »

@kylewwefan @Gilliamtherogue has done a couple video's on stuff like this, one that stands out here.

Sure others will give detailed explanations on this post too.

From what I can see it's because:

• Inferno light attacks (which you weave) hit quite a bit harder than shock ones.
• Off balance got changed, so now you get max uptime with 2x healers (maybe the tank too depending on group).
• Blockade of fire does additional DPS to burning enemies.
• Inferno staves up single target DPS by 8% (main source of DPS is single target in LA/Spammable/Procs/Execute, exception being PetSorc)
• DarkElves get increased fire damage also

Currently when swapping to front bar, weapon skills from your back bar (e.g. Blockade) will then proc your front bar enchant on cooldown. Next patch this is getting changed so it will instead proc your backbar enchant.

Cool stuff!

Will initial DMG spells with dot effects (ie poison injection) trigger the backbar enchant?

Dimski

jypcy wrote: »

Also @edmt0001_ESO double check the passives. I’m pretty sure the big ones such as the 8% damage buff only take effect if you have a destro staff AND destro skill on that bar.

Grrr... Now I have to reconsider my build(s)

jypcy

Minno wrote: »

Sparr0w wrote: »

@kylewwefan @Gilliamtherogue has done a couple video's on stuff like this, one that stands out here.

Sure others will give detailed explanations on this post too.

From what I can see it's because:

• Inferno light attacks (which you weave) hit quite a bit harder than shock ones.
• Off balance got changed, so now you get max uptime with 2x healers (maybe the tank too depending on group).
• Blockade of fire does additional DPS to burning enemies.
• Inferno staves up single target DPS by 8% (main source of DPS is single target in LA/Spammable/Procs/Execute, exception being PetSorc)
• DarkElves get increased fire damage also

Currently when swapping to front bar, weapon skills from your back bar (e.g. Blockade) will then proc your front bar enchant on cooldown. Next patch this is getting changed so it will instead proc your backbar enchant.

Cool stuff!

Will initial DMG spells with dot effects (ie poison injection) trigger the backbar enchant?

Yes, as I understand it, with Update 19, any damage caused by your offbar weapon will trigger that weapon’s enchantment, although still only be affected by the passives on the active bar. Keeping with the staff passive examples, let’s say you have an infused bow backbar with a poison dmg enchant and an infused flame staff frontbar with a flame dmg enchant. You start on the bow bar and cast poison inject. The poison enchant fires from the direct damage of the poison inject. You then barswap to your flame staff and cast flame clench. The flame enchant also fires from the direct damage of the flame clench, buffed 8% by the flame staff passive. Your poison inject is also ticking and although you remain on your front bar, the poison enchant fires again from the dot of the poison inject (when the enchant is off cooldown). Because you’re still on your flame staff bar, the poison inject damage and poison enchant are also buffed by the flame staff passive, even though they were fired from your bow bar. Your flame clench dot will continue to proc your staff’s flame enchant, and your poison inject dot will continue to proc your bow’s poison enchant.

Edit to call out that I used a bad example— the example should be accurate if you substitute wall of elements for destructive clench and endless hail for poison inject. Thanks to Marshall for correcting that.

edmt0001_ESO wrote: »

jypcy wrote: »

Also @edmt0001_ESO double check the passives. I’m pretty sure the big ones such as the 8% damage buff only take effect if you have a destro staff AND destro skill on that bar.

Grrr... Now I have to reconsider my build(s)

Not sure what your build is, but a pretty common combo would be woe on the backbar for the passive there and destro ult on the frontbar for the passive there.

MashmalloMan

jypcy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Sparr0w wrote: »

@kylewwefan @Gilliamtherogue has done a couple video's on stuff like this, one that stands out here.

Sure others will give detailed explanations on this post too.

From what I can see it's because:

• Inferno light attacks (which you weave) hit quite a bit harder than shock ones.
• Off balance got changed, so now you get max uptime with 2x healers (maybe the tank too depending on group).
• Blockade of fire does additional DPS to burning enemies.
• Inferno staves up single target DPS by 8% (main source of DPS is single target in LA/Spammable/Procs/Execute, exception being PetSorc)
• DarkElves get increased fire damage also

Currently when swapping to front bar, weapon skills from your back bar (e.g. Blockade) will then proc your front bar enchant on cooldown. Next patch this is getting changed so it will instead proc your backbar enchant.

Cool stuff!

Will initial DMG spells with dot effects (ie poison injection) trigger the backbar enchant?

The poison enchant fires from the direct damage of the poison inject. You then barswap to your flame staff and cast flame clench. The flame enchant also fires from the direct damage of the flame clench, buffed 8% by the flame staff passive. Your poison inject is also ticking and although you remain on your front bar, the poison enchant fires again from the dot of the poison inject (when the enchant is off cooldown). Because you’re still on your flame staff bar, the poison inject damage and poison enchant are also buffed by the flame staff passive, even though they were fired from your bow bar. Your flame clench dot will continue to proc your staff’s flame enchant, and your poison inject dot will continue to proc your bow’s poison enchant.

edmt0001_ESO wrote: »

jypcy wrote: »

Also @edmt0001_ESO double check the passives. I’m pretty sure the big ones such as the 8% damage buff only take effect if you have a destro staff AND destro skill on that bar.

Grrr... Now I have to reconsider my build(s)

This isn't true, there are only 2 skills in the game that reliably proc the dmg enchantment from "dots" and that is volley and blockade. Theres some weird situations like blade cloak doing something similar, but it's most likely a bug. Blade cloak can proc enchantments on the first, 2nd, 3rd tick of the buff, but only if the first tic procs the enchantment, if something else procs the enchantment then the 2nd, 3rd tick goes off of blade cloak, it will not proc any enchantments. I would consider it a bug or something unintentional and in a typical rotation, that would happen 24/7 so you can't rely on the skill to carry enchantments over to your back bar the same way volley or blockade does.

Passives/stats update with the bar your on still and affect skills/enchantments like you stated.

Minno

jypcy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Sparr0w wrote: »

@kylewwefan @Gilliamtherogue has done a couple video's on stuff like this, one that stands out here.

Sure others will give detailed explanations on this post too.

From what I can see it's because:

• Inferno light attacks (which you weave) hit quite a bit harder than shock ones.
• Off balance got changed, so now you get max uptime with 2x healers (maybe the tank too depending on group).
• Blockade of fire does additional DPS to burning enemies.
• Inferno staves up single target DPS by 8% (main source of DPS is single target in LA/Spammable/Procs/Execute, exception being PetSorc)
• DarkElves get increased fire damage also

Currently when swapping to front bar, weapon skills from your back bar (e.g. Blockade) will then proc your front bar enchant on cooldown. Next patch this is getting changed so it will instead proc your backbar enchant.

Cool stuff!

Will initial DMG spells with dot effects (ie poison injection) trigger the backbar enchant?

Yes, as I understand it, with Update 19, any damage caused by your offbar weapon will trigger that weapon’s enchantment, although still only be affected by the passives on the active bar. Keeping with the staff passive examples, let’s say you have an infused bow backbar with a poison dmg enchant and an infused flame staff frontbar with a flame dmg enchant. You start on the bow bar and cast poison inject. The poison enchant fires from the direct damage of the poison inject. You then barswap to your flame staff and cast flame clench. The flame enchant also fires from the direct damage of the flame clench, buffed 8% by the flame staff passive. Your poison inject is also ticking and although you remain on your front bar, the poison enchant fires again from the dot of the poison inject (when the enchant is off cooldown). Because you’re still on your flame staff bar, the poison inject damage and poison enchant are also buffed by the flame staff passive, even though they were fired from your bow bar. Your flame clench dot will continue to proc your staff’s flame enchant, and your poison inject dot will continue to proc your bow’s poison enchant.

edmt0001_ESO wrote: »

jypcy wrote: »

Also @edmt0001_ESO double check the passives. I’m pretty sure the big ones such as the 8% damage buff only take effect if you have a destro staff AND destro skill on that bar.

Grrr... Now I have to reconsider my build(s)

Not sure what your build is, but a pretty common combo would be woe on the backbar for the passive there and destro ult on the frontbar for the passive there.

not gonna lie, that sounds awesome lol.

So then I assume infused traits located on the backbar will not buff up the enchant if it is proc'd on the front bar that has a different trait?

jypcy

Minno wrote: »

jypcy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Sparr0w wrote: »

@kylewwefan @Gilliamtherogue has done a couple video's on stuff like this, one that stands out here.

Sure others will give detailed explanations on this post too.

From what I can see it's because:

• Inferno light attacks (which you weave) hit quite a bit harder than shock ones.
• Off balance got changed, so now you get max uptime with 2x healers (maybe the tank too depending on group).
• Blockade of fire does additional DPS to burning enemies.
• Inferno staves up single target DPS by 8% (main source of DPS is single target in LA/Spammable/Procs/Execute, exception being PetSorc)
• DarkElves get increased fire damage also

Currently when swapping to front bar, weapon skills from your back bar (e.g. Blockade) will then proc your front bar enchant on cooldown. Next patch this is getting changed so it will instead proc your backbar enchant.

Cool stuff!

Will initial DMG spells with dot effects (ie poison injection) trigger the backbar enchant?

Yes, as I understand it, with Update 19, any damage caused by your offbar weapon will trigger that weapon’s enchantment, although still only be affected by the passives on the active bar. Keeping with the staff passive examples, let’s say you have an infused bow backbar with a poison dmg enchant and an infused flame staff frontbar with a flame dmg enchant. You start on the bow bar and cast poison inject. The poison enchant fires from the direct damage of the poison inject. You then barswap to your flame staff and cast flame clench. The flame enchant also fires from the direct damage of the flame clench, buffed 8% by the flame staff passive. Your poison inject is also ticking and although you remain on your front bar, the poison enchant fires again from the dot of the poison inject (when the enchant is off cooldown). Because you’re still on your flame staff bar, the poison inject damage and poison enchant are also buffed by the flame staff passive, even though they were fired from your bow bar. Your flame clench dot will continue to proc your staff’s flame enchant, and your poison inject dot will continue to proc your bow’s poison enchant.

edmt0001_ESO wrote: »

jypcy wrote: »

Also @edmt0001_ESO double check the passives. I’m pretty sure the big ones such as the 8% damage buff only take effect if you have a destro staff AND destro skill on that bar.

Grrr... Now I have to reconsider my build(s)

Not sure what your build is, but a pretty common combo would be woe on the backbar for the passive there and destro ult on the frontbar for the passive there.

not gonna lie, that sounds awesome lol.

So then I assume infused traits located on the backbar will not buff up the enchant if it is proc'd on the front bar that has a different trait?

Haven’t actually tested it on PTS, this is just what I’ve heard from people who have. I’m really not sure whether the offbar enchant takes the active bar weapon’s trait into account or the weapon’s trait from which it’s firing. My guess would be the weapon’s trait from which it’s firing, otherwise dual wield could be weird (does it use the main hand trait or offhand trait?), but it wouldn’t be the first time ZoS has coded weird stuff into this game. See Marshall’s post above.

MashmalloMan

Minno wrote: »

jypcy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Sparr0w wrote: »

@kylewwefan @Gilliamtherogue has done a couple video's on stuff like this, one that stands out here.

Sure others will give detailed explanations on this post too.

From what I can see it's because:

• Inferno light attacks (which you weave) hit quite a bit harder than shock ones.
• Off balance got changed, so now you get max uptime with 2x healers (maybe the tank too depending on group).
• Blockade of fire does additional DPS to burning enemies.
• Inferno staves up single target DPS by 8% (main source of DPS is single target in LA/Spammable/Procs/Execute, exception being PetSorc)
• DarkElves get increased fire damage also

Currently when swapping to front bar, weapon skills from your back bar (e.g. Blockade) will then proc your front bar enchant on cooldown. Next patch this is getting changed so it will instead proc your backbar enchant.

Cool stuff!

Will initial DMG spells with dot effects (ie poison injection) trigger the backbar enchant?

Yes, as I understand it, with Update 19, any damage caused by your offbar weapon will trigger that weapon’s enchantment, although still only be affected by the passives on the active bar. Keeping with the staff passive examples, let’s say you have an infused bow backbar with a poison dmg enchant and an infused flame staff frontbar with a flame dmg enchant. You start on the bow bar and cast poison inject. The poison enchant fires from the direct damage of the poison inject. You then barswap to your flame staff and cast flame clench. The flame enchant also fires from the direct damage of the flame clench, buffed 8% by the flame staff passive. Your poison inject is also ticking and although you remain on your front bar, the poison enchant fires again from the dot of the poison inject (when the enchant is off cooldown). Because you’re still on your flame staff bar, the poison inject damage and poison enchant are also buffed by the flame staff passive, even though they were fired from your bow bar. Your flame clench dot will continue to proc your staff’s flame enchant, and your poison inject dot will continue to proc your bow’s poison enchant.

edmt0001_ESO wrote: »

jypcy wrote: »

Also @edmt0001_ESO double check the passives. I’m pretty sure the big ones such as the 8% damage buff only take effect if you have a destro staff AND destro skill on that bar.

Grrr... Now I have to reconsider my build(s)

Not sure what your build is, but a pretty common combo would be woe on the backbar for the passive there and destro ult on the frontbar for the passive there.

not gonna lie, that sounds awesome lol.

So then I assume infused traits located on the backbar will not buff up the enchant if it is proc'd on the front bar that has a different trait?

It won't, your correct, infused back bar poison enchant procing from endless hail will have a 2sec cd and will have 50% + additional dmg. Your front bar enchant follows the rules of the weapon it's attached to, something like charged/precise/nirnhoned/sharpened won't carry over to your back bar, but passively help everything you do on the front bar - including your back bar enchant. The person's post you replied to is wrong about dots procing enchants though. Only endless hail (stam) and blockade (mag) will help proc the back bar enchantment.

No one runs blockade AND endless hail, so back bar enchants next patch will have 100% uptime because we base our rotations off of endless hail and blockade, but your front bar enchant will only proc when you are on the front bar, unless your some weird hybrid build using both skills which would be awful.

Using a charged front bar weapon will increase status effect proc chance of your back bar poison enchant. Precise front bar will increase your crit chance, in turn increasing the chance for your backbar enchant to crit. Nirnhoned won't effect the enchant. Sharpened should, but isn't advisable because you would want the same penetration on front/back through other means so you don't over/under penetrate targets.

kylewwefan

I was doing some more testing with this stuff again, but on Stam toons instead of magic.

Using Hundings Rage weapons. Sharpened Bow with crusher enchant.

Endless hail, stay on bow bar it does average 3k DPS for 10 seconds.

Endless hail, swap to front bar with nirn/Infused daggers, average 5.5k DPS for 10 seconds

My endless hail damage nearly doubles from swapping to front bar. Diddnt want to make a nirn and Infused one for testing purposes.

My perception is sharpened is still quite good, possibly best for a non Maelstrom Bow user.

I do have a multitude of Maelstrom bows I tried testing with. I diddnt have the enchants changed to crusher, but the sharpened one seems to outperform nirn, Infused, powered and charged using same bar swap.

Before, I was checking out passives, and enchants. Weapon trait is seems different. sharpened, albeit nerffed from a long time past is still very good it seems.

GreenHere

Sorry if this just adds to the confusion, but...

I was under the impression that single target dots retained the stats they were casted with, and only aoe dots were constantly refreshed.. which is why people used to run exactly what OP is asking about -- aoe on backbar, single target on front.

Am I wrong / has this been changed with updates / did I make this all up in a fever dream?

John_Falstaff

@GreenHere , I think I've read somewhere in the notes that some abilities not updating after bar-swap used to do that simply because of bugs. Now that things should be fixed, all DoTs (single target or AoE or ground) should tick with stats from here and now - so, as soon as you swap bars, each new damage tick will use recalculated values of weapon/spell damage, penetration, max stat - and so on, and so forth. So, stats should come in effect with per-tick granularity.