the eternal question of what stat is better

Sergykid

i will use max magicka / spell damage for reference, but all question also apply to max stamina / weapon damage.

which is better? max magicka or spell damage? i know the ratio is something around to 10.5 to 1 (items grant the same amount of stats whichever stat it has)
Which of those stats should i make higher? How do i know to max the magicka stat or spell damage?

Enchants on armor pieces are magicka, so my guess is that maxing magicka is better.
But there's the buff with 20% spell damage, so i suppose this is better.
Light attacks scale with max magicka, so this one is better? Since spells scale with both max magicka and spell damage.
But spells scale off the highest stat? So for example a spell will deal same damage with either 1k max magicka and 100 spell damage, or 2k magicka?
.

MashmalloMan

Everything scales with the 10.5 to 1 ratio (light attacks too, was changed recently), the only thing that doesn't is shields and pets for magicka and some other specific skills (vigor, PoL and PL, etc.)

On Jewelery, the difference between the max magicka and a spell dmg with infused is practically the same. Magicka will give you bigger shields and doesn't cost any crystals to transmute. It also gives you a bigger resource pool to work with so magicka beats infused here.

Stamina is different, there is more modifiers for weapon dmg, built in to medium armor and skills like fighters guild. Infused weapon dmg is better for jewelry, but by a very small margin.

1k spell dmg is HUGE in comparison to 1k magicka. 1k spell damage is like 10,500 magicka so no. 2k magicka would not give you the same damage with an ult. Ult's scale off your highest stats when it comes to Magicka vs Stamina and Weapon dmg vs Spell dmg.

Magicka has more modifiers, sets and skills based on max magicka, running 5/1/1 armor setup isn't a huge loss on light armor because you get the same crit/penetration where med gets crit per piece, since you have more magicka, pretty much every magicka DD uses 5/1/1 to get the 6% magicka. You lose a little bit of sustain both ways.

Sergykid

Marshall1289 wrote: »

Everything scales with the 10.5 to 1 ratio (light attacks too, was changed recently), the only thing that doesn't is shields and pets for magicka and some other specific skills (vigor, PoL and PL, etc.)

On Jewelery, the difference between the max magicka and a spell dmg with infused is practically the same. Magicka will give you bigger shields and doesn't cost any crystals to transmute. It also gives you a bigger resource pool to work with so magicka beats infused here.

Stamina is different, there is more modifiers for weapon dmg, built in to medium armor and skills like fighters guild. Infused weapon dmg is better for jewelry, but by a very small margin.

1k spell dmg is HUGE in comparison to 1k magicka. 1k spell damage is like 10,500 magicka so no. 2k magicka would not give you the same damage with an ult. Ult's scale off your highest stats when it comes to Magicka vs Stamina and Weapon dmg vs Spell dmg.

Magicka has more modifiers, sets and skills based on max magicka, running 5/1/1 armor setup isn't a huge loss on light armor because you get the same crit/penetration where med gets crit per piece, since you have more magicka, pretty much every magicka DD uses 5/1/1 to get the 6% magicka. You lose a little bit of sustain both ways.

sorry, i wrote wrongly 1k spell there. Edited it. I was talking about 1k magicka and 100 spell damage, or 2k magicka, if it's the same.

So basically, it really doesn't matter which one i max, but it's better to max only one of them for the ultimates which scale ONLY of the highest one. And max magicka is better to max because of more sources of increasing it. So between a set that gives 5k magicka, or a set that gives 500 spell damage, the set with 5k magicka is better in general.

and here i think of another thing, instead of jewels with spell damage, better keep magicka recovery and go for max magicka food to increase the one stat.

MashmalloMan

Sergykid wrote: »

So basically, it really doesn't matter which one i max, but it's better to max only one of them for the ultimates which scale ONLY of the highest one. And max magicka is better to max because of more sources of increasing it. So between a set that gives 5k magicka, or a set that gives 500 spell damage, the set with 5k magicka is better in general.

Well in this game, hybrid stam/magicka builds don't do too well so having everything in magicka and spell dmg will give you the most ult damage, there is no difference for ults scaling vs skills or light attack scaling, the same 10.5 to 1 applies. The ONLY difference is that a skill that uses fire dmg for example, doesn't just scale off magicka, spell dmg, spell crit by default.

The ult will do a stat check and scale on the stats that are higher. All this means is that the ults are usable by any spec. At one point if a skill did magicka dmg a stamina user couln't use it because it was scaling off magicka/spell dmg, etc.

Now for exmple: As a stamina sorc if I wanted to use meteor, I could. It will use my stam/dmg/crit for scaling. The only downside is amplifiers like CP (have nothing specced in to fire/ice dmg or fire/ice crit dmg), penetration (will need spell penetration because it is fire/ice) and passives (dark elves 7% fire dmg, etc).

In a no cp environment, using ults that don't match your dmg type is even more viable because everyone is missing the extra scaling that you get from cp you can't invest in.

Magicka light armor only has spell penetration, no physical penetration, so you will notice physical/poison/disease ults hit weaker than a magicka counterpart.

Sergykid wrote: »

and here i think of another thing, instead of jewels with spell damage, better keep magicka recovery and go for max magicka food to increase the one stat.

Just use 3x spell damage arcane with witch-mothers potent brew buff food. If you can sustain that, that's your best route, if not, add 1x magicka regen glygh. Remember you can get magicka steal in groups, extra sustain via heavy armor passive getting hit by dmg and synergy's. It's best not to invest too much in to sustain based on a solo parse because it's much easier in a group.

Sergykid

Marshall1289 wrote: »

[...] The ult will do a stat check and scale on the stats that are higher. All this means is that the ults are usable by any spec. At one point if a skill did magicka dmg a stamina user couln't use it because it was scaling off magicka/spell dmg, etc. [...]

yes i do not talk about hybrid mag/stam, only about the thing between max mag and spell dmg, respectively max stam and wep dmg

what will my ult scale from? max mag or spell dmg?
will my ult hit harder with 2k mag, or 1k mag and 100 spell dmg? or 200 spell dmg?

Marshall1289 wrote: »

[...] Just use 3x spell damage arcane with witch-mothers potent brew buff food. If you can sustain that, that's your best route, if not, add 1x magicka regen glygh. [...]

why use spell damage if it's better to stack just one of the two?
still didn't understand, it's better to go for only one of them, or it doesn't matter?
full max magicka or full spell damage? or it doesn't matter?
.

Biro123

One thing you are missing is that set bonuses also give more spell-damage, in comparison to magicka. -
129 Vs 1096 if I remember correctly.
So a spell damage set bonus is equivalent to 1355 (129 * 10.5) magicka.
But then you're not getting the stat pool, which can be helpful in its own right.

Beardimus

I think what you are trying to understand is how damage is created between magika & spell damage stats right?

I e a difference between these three setups for example

60k magika & 1500 SD
40k magika & 3k SD
30k magika & 5K SD

Am i right @Sergykid ?

idk

1. Ults scale off your largest poll. Though the type of damage is relevant to CP.

2. If you are only looking to compare mag to SD or stam to WD they the comparison is not 1000 mag to 100 SD as that is not how sets lay them out.

Bladerunner1

In terms of pure damage and nothing else it depends on class, race, skills, Undaunted, CP level, war horn, Major and Minor Sorcery.

Dunmer Nightblades have 9% more magic for being Dunmer, 8% more magic with a Siphoning Skill slotted, 7% more with Inner Light on a bar, 6% more with Undaunted passives, 2% more with other mages guild skills, 10% more with Warhorn, 20% more with 300 CP rank

(the 20% from CP only applies to base and allocated magicka stat, arcane trait, magicka armor glyphs, 1-4 item set bonuses. It doesn't apply to buff food and 5th piece armor bonuses.)

A Murkmire Nightblade would get another 10% spell damage from minor sorcery and 20% from major sorcery.

So a 1096 magic set buff from an item set adds 1754 magic to a Dunmer Magblade with raid buffs.

129 spell damage set buff adds 168 spell damage to a Dunmer Magblade with raid buffs.

It's still close to the same damage buff. Even as shields are getting weaker, it still may be worth stacking the primary resource for fast burn high DPS mechanics.

Bladerunner1

As far as comparing damage buffed by stamina and weapon damage:

Stamina has a few class buffs, racials, 20% CPs, Warhorn and Undaunted passives.

But in Mirkmire weapon damage has 15% from medium armor, 8% from flawless dawnbreaker, 3% for other fighters guild skills, 10% from Minor Brutality, 20% from major Brutality.

A 1096 stamina set buff adds 1600 stamina to a Murkmire Redguard Stamblade with trials buffs.

A 129 weapon damage set buff adds 201 to the same build with all the buffs.

The 201 weapon damage ( x 10.5) is a similar damage buff to adding 2113 stamina, but stamina set buffs really only add 1600.

Sergykid

i have just these simple questions ...

what will my ult scale from? max mag or spell dmg?
- from what i read from u, both of those
will my ult hit harder with 2k mag, or 1k mag and 100 spell dmg? or 200 spell dmg?
- from what i read from u, any of those
full max magicka or full spell damage? or it doesn't matter?
- from what i read from u, it doesn't matter

@Beardimus i don't understand the question

Bladerunner1

Sergykid wrote: »

i have just these simple questions ...

what will my ult scale from? max mag or spell dmg?
- from what i read from u, both of those
will my ult hit harder with 2k mag, or 1k mag and 100 spell dmg? or 200 spell dmg?
- from what i read from u, any of those
full max magicka or full spell damage? or it doesn't matter?
- from what i read from u, it doesn't matter

Damage from ultimates are determined by a combination of two stats:

Magic or stamina, whichever is higher

AND

Spell damage or weapon damage, whichever is higher.

Move around the sliders on this sheet and you can see how different amounts of spell damage and magicka affect the damage.

http://esolog.uesp.net/viewSkills.php

dangutang

What are you trying to do? The specifics matter for whether or not you should stack more max mag or SD. The generality of 10.5:1 is certainly true enough, but there are so many other factors that it isn't as simple as stacking one or the other if you're trying to max dps. Generally, you don't want to stack max mag or SD to the exclusion of reaching an adequate level of penetration or sustain. Also don't forget about crit.

Not sure on ultimates. Are you asking out of curiosity, or is there something specific you're trying to do with an ultimate? In my experience the damage of ultimates doesn't contribute much to overall dps, so building around them isn't really optimal unless you're building for some specific situation where it would be central. If I were you, I'd check on the build editor, or just test in game. Try your ult with and without food buff, or some way that would only change max mag/stam. And then again with and without major sorcery/brutality. Divide the difference by the damage without the buff and there you'll have the % increase.

Sergykid

dangutang wrote: »

What are you trying to do? The specifics matter for whether or not you should stack more max mag or SD. The generality of 10.5:1 is certainly true enough, but there are so many other factors that it isn't as simple as stacking one or the other if you're trying to max dps. Generally, you don't want to stack max mag or SD to the exclusion of reaching an adequate level of penetration or sustain. Also don't forget about crit.

Not sure on ultimates. Are you asking out of curiosity, or is there something specific you're trying to do with an ultimate? In my experience the damage of ultimates doesn't contribute much to overall dps, so building around them isn't really optimal unless you're building for some specific situation where it would be central. If I were you, I'd check on the build editor, or just test in game. Try your ult with and without food buff, or some way that would only change max mag/stam. And then again with and without major sorcery/brutality. Divide the difference by the damage without the buff and there you'll have the % increase.

not trying anything and not asking for anything specifically.

why are there two stats to take care of if both are the same thing? Just wanted to know out of those two to know which is better, but in the end it doesn't matter.

for example, in choosing between necropotence or julianos, it matters entirely on what class am i playing. If we take those two sets on a zero influences paper, they grant the same thing.
All this thing is just situational on whatever bonuses i have for either max mag or spell dmg

Beardimus

You are getting a ton of info here, but i can see its not answering your direct question is what i meant. I think what you wanna know is what affect magika & SD have to how damage is calculated. I.e. What's the relationship. I.e. If you just had 40k magika or just had 4k SD and none of the other stat what damage would you do.

Thus as you say the difference between having 2k Magika, 1k & 100SD or 200SD in your examples. My examples are similar ratios but more realistic numbers

I.e.

60k magika & 1500 SD - high magical low SD
40k magika & 3k SD - more balanced
30k magika & 5K SD - high SD build

As examples at either end of the spectrum.

Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree but it feels like you are asking.the role SD & Magika stats play in damage calculation