Testing Dual-Wield Traits, Enchants, and Alchemical Poisons - Updated with Full Rotation

LiquidPony

These are the results of a very basic test purely aimed at determining the best DW traits and Enchants or Poisons to run in Wrathstone.

Build used:
Bosmer Stamblade
5 x Leviathan (Jewelry + Head/Shoulders)
5 x Vicious Ophidian (body)
2 x Agility Daggers
All Divines armor with Max Stam enchants
All Infused Jewelry with Weapon Damage enchants
Lover Mundus

Buffs & debuffs provided: Major Brutality & Major Savagery.

Methodology: stand in front of a 3mil skeleton and spam LA + Rending Slashes until dead. Note that I'm assuming that a Berserker enchant is going to be used on an Infused backbar here, so I did not test a frontbar Berserker enchant here. Each test was done three times. It is probably necessary to do many more tests to average out crits and sources of error.

Build variations:

1. Nirnhoned mainhand, Precise offhand, Double Damage Health Poisons (Fleshfly Larva + Nightshade + Nirnroot)
2. Nirnhoned mainhand, Precise offhand, Poison glyph mainhand, Absorb Stamina glyph offhand
3. Nirnhoned mainhand, Infused offhand, Poison glyph mainhand, Absorb Stamina glyph offhand
4. Infused mainhand, Infused offhand, Poison glyph mainhand, Absorb Stamina glyph offhand

Results:

Raw data:


Averages:


An album of screenshots of all CMX parses (including Stamina +/-) and Superstar builds is available here: https://imgur.com/a/xHxIJG8

Conclusion
Further testing obviously needs to be done to determine how these different setups synergize with a standard build and full rotation (i.e., the benefit of Nirnhoned/Precise will scale up a bit as a percentage DPS increase of a higher parse). The preliminary testing seems to indicate that last patch's Infused/Infused Poison/Absorb Stamina setup remains totally viable even if it isn't outright optimal; the DPS may be marginally lower than Nirnhoned/Precise with Alchemical Poisons, but there's also the non-trivial +96 stamina regen per second to consider (which will be a bit lower in a full rotation) plus the flexibility of swapping to a Prismatic mainhand for Daedric fights.

LiquidPony

Test Results with Full Roto

Build Used
Redguard Stamsorc
5 x Perfect Relequen (body)
5 x Leviathan (Jewelry + Head/Shoulders)
2 x Agility Daggers
Infused Maelstrom bow with Berserker enchant
All Divines armor with max stam enchants
All Infused jewelry with weapon damage enchants
All Legendary
Lover Mundus

Buffs and Debuffs provided: Major Brutality and Major Savagery

Rotation used

1. Trap, Greater Storm Atro
2. Hail, LA Caltrops, LA Poison Inject, swap
3. LA Hurricane, LA Rending Slashes x 6, LA Trap, LA swap
4. Go to #2

Greater Storm Atro dropped when it's up at the same time in each rotation after Poison Inject (the subsequent DW pass will only do 5 x Rending Slashes). The rotation was as static as possible, no adjusting for cooldowns or the finish, just rinse and repeat until dead on a 6mil skeleton.

Build Variations

1. Nirnhoned mainhand, Precise offhand, Double Damage Health Poisons (Fleshfly Larva + Nightshade + Nirnroot)
2. Nirnhoned mainhand, Precise offhand, Poison glyph mainhand, Absorb Stamina glyph offhand
3. Nirnhoned mainhand, Infused offhand, Poison glyph mainhand, Absorb Stamina glyph offhand
4. Infused mainhand, Infused offhand, Poison glyph mainhand, Absorb Stamina glyph offhand
5. Nirnhoned mainhand, Infused offhand, Absorb Stamina glyph mainhand, Poison glyph offhand

For each variation I did 5 parses and discarded the highest and lowest values.

Results

Raw Data


Averages


Conclusions
Basically what I assumed based on the results of the prior Rending Slashes spam test. Nirn/Precise with Poisons comes out just *barely* on top (is there still a bug with Poisons stacking on actual PvE enemies, though?). The highest average setup comes out right around 1% stronger than the lowest. The Nirn/Precise setup presumably has the most to gain as buffs stack up (i.e., Major Force + Precise, or on stamblades or stamplars with higher crit damage modifiers), but the difference is small enough that I'm not sure it really matters much in practice.

Honestly any of these setups is probably more-or-less "BiS", especially because the extra ~79 stam regen per second (the equivalent of a character sheet tooltip of 158 stam regen) of the Infused Absorb Stamina setups may allow for some other optimization.

templesus

This is skewed in the sense enchant proc uptime will not be anywhere near this high, whereas poison uptime can extend into backbar.

Need to be tested in a full rotation before comparisons can truly be made.

LiquidPony

templesus wrote: »

This is skewed in the sense enchant proc uptime will not be anywhere near this high, whereas poison uptime can extend into backbar.

Need to be tested in a full rotation before comparisons can truly be made.

Sure, that's why I said it needs to be tested with a full rotation and reserved a comment for testing it with a full rotation.

@templesus see the edited reserved comment for the full rotation testing.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Thank you for this. Do you have any idea how this stacks up against a single enchantment on a 2h?

LiquidPony

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Thank you for this. Do you have any idea how this stacks up against a single enchantment on a 2h?

@Lightspeedflashb14_ESO I didn't track a bunch of identical rotation tests but I have one parse saved where I see:

Absorb Stamina DPS: 1985
Absorb Stamina regen: +156 / second

That's on an Infused AY Greatsword. 5 AY, 5 Perfect Relequen, 2 Velidreth. So right about what you'd expect from the DW parses, almost exactly double the values of a single Absorb Stam enchant on an Infused 1H weapon.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Thank you for that, So in your opinion, does this Nerf help or hurt?

LiquidPony

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Thank you for that, So in your opinion, does this Nerf help or hurt?

I mean it definitely hurts DW DPS but I do think it helps even things out between 2H melee and DW melee a bit.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

LiquidPony wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Thank you for that, So in your opinion, does this Nerf help or hurt?

I mean it definitely hurts DW DPS but I do think it helps even things out between 2H melee and DW melee a bit.

I suppose that was the wrong way to ask, of course this "hurts" dw but overall, do think this a positive change or negative, I see it as a positive.

LiquidPony

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Thank you for that, So in your opinion, does this Nerf help or hurt?

I mean it definitely hurts DW DPS but I do think it helps even things out between 2H melee and DW melee a bit.

I suppose that was the wrong way to ask, of course this "hurts" dw but overall, do think this a positive change or negative, I see it as a positive.

I don't really know I guess?

From what I've seen so far, it seems like most stam specs got minor buffs to correspond with this nerf, with the exception of stamblades who really didn't get any buffs. So maybe it levels the playing field a bit for stam builds and for 2H builds as well.

Remains to be seen. If we get competitive 2H builds and stam builds other than stamblades in raid then it's a positive.

LiquidPony

Will update tomorrow with tests using Rapid Strikes and Crushing Weapon as spammables to see the impact on enchant procs.

Derra

Wouldn´t the 175 dps difference be made up for if you´d use disease instead of absorb stam already?

SaucyMcSauceface

any chance of a test with the absorb stamina on the backbar? For classes other than nightblade, the full restore stam enchant really helped.

LiquidPony

Derra wrote: »

Wouldn´t the 175 dps difference be made up for if you´d use disease instead of absorb stam already?

No idea, haven't tested Disease in a while.

SaucyMcSauceface wrote: »

any chance of a test with the absorb stamina on the backbar? For classes other than nightblade, the full restore stam enchant really helped.

I'm not sure. I'll try to if I get the time. For me I plan on dealing with the loss of sustain in other ways but it would be interesting to see Infused/Absorb Stamina backbar with Nirn/Poison Infused/Berserker front bar at least.

templesus

Should note that any build utilizing the new Deadly Strikes set(stamplar and StamDk primarily) poisons will perform even better as it buffs them.

John_Falstaff

PTS Patch Notes v4.3.1 wrote:

General

• Addressed a long-standing issue that caused poison solvent ingredients and crafting materials from dungeon monsters to drop more frequently than intended throughout the world.

"No-o-o-o, people, no loopholes, you will be nerfed, deal with it!" (c) ZOS

Hotdog_23

John_Falstaff wrote: »

PTS Patch Notes v4.3.1 wrote:

General

• Addressed a long-standing issue that caused poison solvent ingredients and crafting materials from dungeon monsters to drop more frequently than intended throughout the world.

"No-o-o-o, people, no loopholes, you will be nerfed, deal with it!" (c) ZOS

Oh no what will I do I only have over 100k of Alkahest I have, lol

Concerning the testing results, Thanks for sharing. It looks like ZOS (Gilliam) is doing a great job at balancing the game.

LiquidPony

templesus wrote: »

Should note that any build utilizing the new Deadly Strikes set(stamplar and StamDk primarily) poisons will perform even better as it buffs them.

I was planning on documenting some additional tests, the effect of Deadly Strikes being one of them, however since the PTS is resetting every week in this patch I have to go capture Vlastrus again and buy 1000 boxes again to get a pair of daggers again and I'm not sure I'll have time. Maybe this weekend.

Also worth noting that while Alchemical Poisons appear strong on paper, I'm not sure if they will actually stack on targets (since they didn't in the past), so they may not be practical in actual content.

For now I'm planning on sticking with Infused/Infused, maybe Transmuting new weapons I acquire to Nirnhoned, but I'm definitely not going hog wild and transmuting everything to Nirn/Precise and crafting 100,000 poisons.

John_Falstaff

@LiquidPony , I don't think I've seen anything in patch notes since that bug report thread on poisons, so they may not stack. I'm holding response to you in another thread until I do proper testing on PTS - I plan to try out double sharpened, extra 18-20 points in Piercing to pad to 4096 extra penetration (since everything else is already in diminishing returns on the blue tree), dropping Lover for Warrior (which would give ~360 WD, pretty much the same as infused main hand berserker at 80% uptime pre-nerf) and either poison + disease enchants or alchemical poisons. Then it may mostly boil down to poison versus single infused poison enchant pre-nerf (I always ran absorb stamina on bow bar), though I can't estimate how much I'll lose by withdrawing a couple percent from mighty and thaumaturge.

John_Falstaff

Just a snippet of information pertaining to the topic.

Have ran a battery of tests with a friend right now, and yes, the bug (or is it intended?) with poisons is still in place (on live, but it's not in PTS patch notes, so most likely there too), so stamina can probably forget alchemical poisons as a way to keep up the damage, for now anyway. They don't stack. As soon as someone else procs same poison on target, the poison dot that is already there gets cancelled early.



Both got cancelled prematurely when a friend proc'd his poison. In other words, a target can only have one instance of a given poison running on it at any given time. Sure in 4-mans one can equip weaker variant of poison (and sort out beforehand who runs which), but for trials, too much hassle and not enough poisons.

SaintSubwayy

LiquidPony wrote: »

templesus wrote: »

Should note that any build utilizing the new Deadly Strikes set(stamplar and StamDk primarily) poisons will perform even better as it buffs them.

I was planning on documenting some additional tests, the effect of Deadly Strikes being one of them, however since the PTS is resetting every week in this patch I have to go capture Vlastrus again and buy 1000 boxes again to get a pair of daggers again and I'm not sure I'll have time. Maybe this weekend.

Also worth noting that while Alchemical Poisons appear strong on paper, I'm not sure if they will actually stack on targets (since they didn't in the past), so they may not be practical in actual content.

For now I'm planning on sticking with Infused/Infused, maybe Transmuting new weapons I acquire to Nirnhoned, but I'm definitely not going hog wild and transmuting everything to Nirn/Precise and crafting 100,000 poisons.

you dont want DS daggers, since you will loose the 14% amplifier when on your backbar
Dropping the MOnsterset is by far the better option.
Use Agility, vDSA or vMA DW then

SaintSubwayy

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Just a snippet of information pertaining to the topic.

Have ran a battery of tests with a friend right now, and yes, the bug (or is it intended?) with poisons is still in place (on live, but it's not in PTS patch notes, so most likely there too), so stamina can probably forget alchemical poisons as a way to keep up the damage, for now anyway. They don't stack. As soon as someone else procs same poison on target, the poison dot that is already there gets cancelled early.



Both got cancelled prematurely when a friend proc'd his poison. In other words, a target can only have one instance of a given poison running on it at any given time. Sure in 4-mans one can equip weaker variant of poison (and sort out beforehand who runs which), but for trials, too much hassle and not enough poisons.

soo one dude can run Poisons, and all others will prob have to keep enchants...sound fair
Since they get buffed by DS, then it will be a stamDK's (most likely) priviledge to run Poisons

LiquidPony

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

templesus wrote: »

Should note that any build utilizing the new Deadly Strikes set(stamplar and StamDk primarily) poisons will perform even better as it buffs them.

I was planning on documenting some additional tests, the effect of Deadly Strikes being one of them, however since the PTS is resetting every week in this patch I have to go capture Vlastrus again and buy 1000 boxes again to get a pair of daggers again and I'm not sure I'll have time. Maybe this weekend.

Also worth noting that while Alchemical Poisons appear strong on paper, I'm not sure if they will actually stack on targets (since they didn't in the past), so they may not be practical in actual content.

For now I'm planning on sticking with Infused/Infused, maybe Transmuting new weapons I acquire to Nirnhoned, but I'm definitely not going hog wild and transmuting everything to Nirn/Precise and crafting 100,000 poisons.

you dont want DS daggers, since you will loose the 14% amplifier when on your backbar
Dropping the MOnsterset is by far the better option.
Use Agility, vDSA or vMA DW then

@SaintSubwayy yeah, that's the way I've set it up. StamDK = Relequen, Deadly Strike, Maelstrom DW. Stamsorc = Relequen, Deadly Strike, Master DW. On a stamplar I actually seem to get roughly the same results with a few different setups (Rele + Deadly + Veli, Rele + Deadly + Master DW, Relee + AY + Veli) but I have only done a handful of tests there so I'm not really sure what's ideal.