Are attributes still linked to spell/weapon damage?

Iamnuff

I've googled around but the only infomation I can find is from 2014. I'm getting confusing results in-game trying to find out for myself.

My first NB is Stam-only, with all points in stamina for a bigger resource-bar, yet looking on her character page, her spell-power and weapon-damage stats are near identical. I'd assumed this meant that some update in the past four years had unlinked those stat (which would be nice, and allow things like melee-mag-templars)
I respeced my attribute points but reassigning them didn't seem to chance any of the stats on my page except for my resource-caps, so I figured that was that.

Except when I unlocked Strife and cripple (mag skills) from her siphoning skill-line, her damage sucks. The tooltip damage is lower than with her bow (stam) skills, but not by terribly much. I'd assumed they were just weaker because they come with a heal/slow respectively.
When actually using it on enemies however, their health-bars barely move. The heal I get from funnel is completely negligible (25% of the minuscule damage that the spell dealt) an cripples DoT is unnoticable. (it's slow is also far too weak and too brief for my taste, but that's a consequence of all hindering abilities being balanced for PVP, I guess)

At first I assumed that those skills just sucked, but if they require magicka attributes to function properly then it would explain their poor performance.

My DragonKnight is also a mag/melee build, but since he's a tank using a sword and board, I never really expected his melee attacks to actually deal damage anyway, I use them to apply debuffs and use his magic abilities when I want to kill things.

So to ask again, Attributes. Does getting more Magicka still make your magic skill damage/staff-weapon damage go up? And likewise for stamina boosting weapon damage?

I sincerely hope not, since 70% of class skills are magicka based. Freeform build-creation was a major selling point for ESO. I'd hate to learn that I can't use any of my class-skills effectively unless I switch to a mag-build and equip a staff.

Royaji

Max resources do not change weapon/spell damage directly but are part of the calculation for the tooltip damage of respective abilites. In this formula 10.5 resource roughly equals to 1 weapon/spell damage. So yes, max resources (and as result attributes) do still affect the damage your skills will be doing.

Several of nightblades skills have stamina morphs that you will be able to use more efficiently after morphing. But overall stamina characters lean to using weapon and guild abilities. Nightblades less so but do not expect to have two full bars of class-specific skills.

Iamnuff

Royaji wrote: »

Max resources do not change weapon/spell damage directly but are part of the calculation for the tooltip damage of respective abilites. In this formula 10.5 resource roughly equals to 1 weapon/spell damage. So yes, max resources (and as result attributes) do still affect the damage your skills will be doing.

Several of nightblades skills have stamina morphs that you will be able to use more efficiently after morphing. But overall stamina characters lean to using weapon and guild abilities. Nightblades less so but do not expect to have two full bars of class-specific skills.

I don't even have one bar of class skills on my NB. I'm not sure if there's five stamina abilities in the whole class.
I've got Killer's Blade and Reaper's Mark, One to start a fight, the other to end it.
If both are active on a Mob when it dies, I basically get a full-heal.

Everything else is bow-skills, on both bars.
I'll probably go for Grimm Focus too, when i unlock it.
The only reason i bothered with Funnel and Cripple is because I need xp for Siphoning so I can unlock Siphoning Strikes and it's stamina morph.

As for stamina-characters being weapon focused and mag characters being class-focused, that kinda sucks.


Every class has tons of magicka abilities, but you can't use them unless you go Mag-build, in which case you'd probably be better off with a staff and a robe.
If I did that, then all of my characters would end up feeling exactly the same.

I totally understand that you can't make everything equally viable, but they can probably do better than 'You have to choose between your class abilities or your weapons. No mixing and matching.'

More stamina morphs. More skills that are stamina-based to start with.
Then maybe add one or two magicka skills or morphs to each weapon-tree. (burning arrows, elemental blade, ect)

Hell, I'd love to see a stamina-morph for a staff-skill where you just beat someone upside the head with it. So long as it has a nice satisfying [Thunk] sound effect.

edit: thanks for letting me know how it works, anyway. Even though it wasn't what I wanted to hear.

edit: Wait, does that mean food increases your damage?

Royaji

Nightblades can have 4 or 5 class skills (including ultimate) on a stamina build. Compare that to sorcs with only 2 or 3.

Food will indeed increase your damage and you should always use it.

Bladerunner1

Nightblades have quite a few good morphs for stamina classes. Surprise attack is pretty awesome for a melee range stamina NB skill. Leeching strikes are very good too for self healing and resource maintenance. You already mentioned Killers Blade, and you'd want the relentless focus morph of grim focus for better sustain and a lot of heavy hitting free ranged damage.

Since you mentioned bow skills, power extraction will be good to spam around multiple enemies at once and supply you with major brutality, which otherwise can't come for free to an archer NB without crafted power potions.

*Edit For pure damage dealing buffs, stamina DPS tends to benefit more from weapon damage than stamina in a long fight. Fighters guild and medium armor passives will add bonus weapon damage to your already existing pool. Mages on the other hand can get along fine by stacking more magicka because they tend to have more magic multipliers.

Iamnuff

Royaji wrote: »

Nightblades can have 4 or 5 class skills (including ultimate) on a stamina build. Compare that to sorcs with only 2 or 3.

Food will indeed increase your damage and you should always use it.

To be fair, a sorcerer is kind of implied to be a mag-build from the start. If you're not using magic, than you're just a guy in a dress.

Bladerunner1 wrote: »

Nightblades have quite a few good morphs for stamina classes. Surprise attack is pretty awesome for a melee range stamina NB skill. Leeching strikes are very good too for self healing and resource maintenance. You already mentioned Killers Blade, and you'd want the relentless focus morph of grim focus for better sustain and a lot of heavy hitting free ranged damage.

Since you mentioned bow skills, power extraction will be good to spam around multiple enemies at once and supply you with major brutality, which otherwise can't come for free to an archer NB without crafted power potions.

*Edit For pure damage dealing buffs, stamina DPS tends to benefit more from weapon damage than stamina in a long fight. Fighters guild and medium armor passives will add bonus weapon damage to your already existing pool. Mages on the other hand can get along fine by stacking more magicka because they tend to have more magic multipliers.

How is surprise attack good? Is it because of the stealth combo, or is it's base damage just good?

Bladerunner1

Iamnuff wrote: »

How is surprise attack good? Is it because of the stealth combo, or is it's base damage just good?

The base is very good, the skill is instant-cast, and it provides the Major Fracture debuff to a target. It's a primary spammable attack for a melee stamina Nightblade.

But I'm not sure if you play an archer in PVE, if you do it may not be so great to keep on a bar, perhaps it's good to keep slotted in pvp.

Iamnuff

Bladerunner1 wrote: »

Iamnuff wrote: »

How is surprise attack good? Is it because of the stealth combo, or is it's base damage just good?

The base is very good, the skill is instant-cast, and it provides the Major Fracture debuff to a target. It's a primary spammable attack for a melee stamina Nightblade.

But I'm not sure if you play an archer in PVE, if you do it may not be so great to keep on a bar, perhaps it's good to keep slotted in pvp.

My mag-blade uses it, but only out of stealth, I just used DW skills as my main spammable.

I don't do PVP. Frankly I kind of resent the whole gamemode.
I know it's silly, but whenever I see a skill (stun, root, invisibility, buff) with a duration of 2.5 seconds, I just know that that's because it was nerfed into the ground after PVPers started using it in meta-builds.

Balancing your skills for pvp makes PVE worse. Since 90% of the game is PVE, the choice seems obvious.
I've played other mmos where skills just behave differently when used in PVP zones or against players. Personally that seems like a much better way to balance PVP than having all CC wear off after two seconds. Given that bosses are immune anyway, it does't feel worth it to use them most of the time.

I tried the bombard/hail combo to pin enemies down and trap them in an AOE, but you have to go bombard/hail/bombard/poison arrow/bombard/focused aim
If you don't cast your CC every other skill, the enemies will just walk out of the aoe-zone because it's duration is the cast-time of a single heavy attack, or one other skill.
The slow isn't even worth mentioning, it says it's 40%, but I've never notice any difference.

Eventually I just ditched bombard entirely, stacked DoTs on the enemies as they run towards me, then dropped the AOE on my own location to facetank them. It's the only way to keep them inside the target-zone.
Plus, if they reach lets me right as their health gets low, I can finish them with Killers Blade to get some health back.

AcadianPaladin

Iamnuff wrote: »

...
To be fair, a sorcerer is kind of implied to be a mag-build from the start. If you're not using magic, than you're just a guy in a dress. ...

I respectfully disagree.

I run a bow/bow stamsorc and she feels nothing like my lightning staff/staff magsorc. My bowsorc runs Crit Surge, Hurricane, Bound Armaments (on both bars) and Dark Deal. Sometimes she runs Vigor instead of Dark Deal. That is 4 or 5 slots filled with sorc skills. Her other skills are Endless Hail, Caltrops, Bombard, Poison Injection and Snipe. Flawless Dawnbreaker (FG) on both ults for the passives.

Her dps is higher than my magsorc's though her sustain and survivability are not quite as good. Regardless, she solos plenty of world bosses and normal group dungeons - with a pair of bows. For stamsorcs who run dual wield/bow, their performance is even better.

VaranisArano

The disparity between magicka and stamina morphs is because the game originally intended everyone to use magicka. The stamina class/magicka class is a player created meta that eventually took over.

The class that's actually designed for stam builds/mag builds is the newer Warden, and it shows in that Warden is much better designed for stam morphs and less reliant on weapon skill trees.

That being said, I love my Stam Sorc, even if I just use Hurricane and the passive from Bound Armaments for class stam skills.