An In-depth question at front bar/back bar

boombazookajd

Hey folks! So I'm beginning to get my head into the whole back bar/front bar concept. My question is, exactly how does a front bar, back bar sort of combo work in combat and why have it in a build?

Right now on my DK, my best spec'd build, I have BSW jewelry, chest, and hands. My weapons are Julianos staves, with juli legs, feet, and waist. Skoria head and shoulder. I do have a BSW Lightning staff and an inferno staff as well.

Front bar: eruption, blockade, ele drain, coagulating blood, FoO (Reflective Plate)
Back bar: burn embers, flame whip (crushing shock), engulfing flames, harness magicka, molten weapons

I've heard a lot about proc'ing the back bar enchant on the front bar, or vice versa so I'm a bit lost. generally I just follow an alcast build but I want to understand why the builds are the way they are. For instance, why have a shock enchant on the front bar and a weapon damage glyph on the back bar.

I really enjoy my magDK and want to really get into the class, despite their current shortcomings (like the lack of an execute and their rough sustain). I also have a mag blade i'm trying to put together that currently runs mothers sorrow/julianos/infernal guardian (for vMA).

To summarize questions:

1. How does front bar/back bar proc'ing work?
2. how does the glyph affect skills? For instance, my back bar glyph is weapon/spell damage. How does this impact my back bar skills (Burning Embers, Flame Whip(Crushing Shock), Engulfing Flames)

I get that the build runs the way it does, but I want to know how and why the motor works.

jypcy

Sounds like you’ve heard people talking about the changes coming with update 19 (starting Monday if you’re on PC). Currently, the enchant on your currently active bar is activated by damage from weapon skill line abilities or the weapon itself*. With update 19, damage from weapon skill line abilities activate the enchant attached to the weapon that’s the source of that damage. Example:

You have a set up where your front bar is a 2h and your back bar is a bow.
In current, you cast endless hail. While you remain on your bow bar, the damage from this ability activates the enchant on your bow. You then swap to your 2h bar. While you remain on your 2h bar, the damage from the ability activates the enchant on your 2h.
Next patch, you cast endless hail. While you remain on your bow bar, the damage from this ability activates the enchant on your bow. You then swap to your 2h bar. The damage from endless hail continues to activate the enchant on your bow. You have to deal damage with your 2h using a 2h ability or light/heavy attack to activate its enchant.

Referring to the berserker enchant (increase spell and weapon damage), this is an effect on your character. So, when it procs, it increases your character’s spell and weapon damage for 5 seconds, and so affects all of your skills while it lasts: class, weapon, guild... doesn’t matter. To see this, make sure your weapon with the berserker chant is charged, then open your character screen and look at your weapon and spell damage values. Then, just light attack a target, and check your values again within 5 seconds. You should see they’ve increased, and then decrease again after the effect wears off. You can do the same thing looking at the before/during tooltip values of most of your skills (some don’t take your weapon/spell damage into account, so won’t change as these values increase or decrease).


*there are exceptions to which weapon abilities actually proc the enchant. I don’t know which these are offhand, so the examples I use might not be 100% accurate, but insofar as my understanding goes, the system itself works as I describe it.

boombazookajd

I have been listening to a few videos about the upcoming changes, which is what has me looking into the front bar/back bar enchant proc'ing.

I'm also just trying to understand how the combat system works. I'm certainly not going to lead in theory crafting sets, but it would be nice to know why I should have certain sets on the front bar or back bar and why.