5.2.3 & 5.2.4 Liquid Lightning is Still Underperforming (also 5.2.5)

Olupajmibanan

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I've been doing a lot more testing, and have come to realize that I was mistaken about one thing. To get maximum DPS, neither Scalding Rune or Mystic Orb should be used. I was thinking that Orbs were the last good DoT, but as I continue testing it has become clear that they are a DPS loss as well. This truly is the patch of just spamming spammables (with Wall of course, for the Light Attack buff and enchant procs).

Came to same conclusion but must say that this is true for magsorc exclusively. You need to have some passive damage coming while mindlessly smashing the spammable button in order to achieve some serious dps. Magsorc has pets for this. For example magplar or magDK gain a lot for slotting Mystic orb and it's absolutely worth.

Tyrion87

So as I can see, the next patch is gonna screw non-pet sorcs even more than the current one. Each sorc build I've seen on the pts so far included at least one pet, but mostly two (three with atro). It seems non-pet sorcs will be even less viable and with ditching lighting splash they will be even more boring to play than they are now. And this patch was supposed to be about identity... if you want to play non-pet sorc, you can say goodbye to your identity.

Devs should just rename sorcs to 'summoners' at this point and introduce a new true sorcerer class.

Oakmontowls_ESO

So what you are saying is that their ratio of spamable to DoT damage is still not correct.

WrathOfInnos

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

So what you are saying is that their ratio of spamable to DoT damage is still not correct.

Yes, and the ratio of cost to damage could use some work too.

WrathOfInnos

As of 5.2.4 Liquid Lightning and Lightning Flood are still too expensive and not enough damage to justify using. The recent changes to other class AoE's give me hope:

"Twisting Path (morph): This morph once again uses the same scaling coefficient as the other morph, Refreshing Path. This will result in approximately 132% damage increase from the previous PTS patch."

and

"Impaling Shards: Reduced the cost of this ability and its morphs to 3240, down from 4536.
Winter’s Revenge (morph): Increased the damage of this morph by approximately 80%. This will allow it stand out from other Damage over Time abilities."

Both Twisting Path and Winter's Revenge seem to be balanced now in terms of damage (around 7.3k DPS vs Target Iron Atronach, 2.5X a spammmable over 12s) and cost (around 3k Magicka). Please don't let Lightning Splash get forgotten. A Sorcerer without Lightning does not feel like a Sorcerer, and class identity is not looking good.

MartiniDaniels

They should've buffed liquid lightning in this patch to "compensate" for daedric curse nerf and for overall aoe dps viability.

WrathOfInnos

Winter’s Revenge and Twisting Path are both 12s and deal an average of 7.3k DPS (against Iron Atro dummy). This means that each cast deals approximately 88k over its duration.

Liquid Lightning is longer, 14s total, so it should deal slightly lower DPS but deal slightly higher damage per cast. My recommendation is to make it 6.7k DPS for a total of 94k damage over 14s.

Lightning Flood is 10s and should deal more DPS than the 12 or 14s DoTs, but less damage per cast. If we keep the same ratio of Liquid/Flood ticks as on live, this would put Flood at 8.3k DPS, or 83k per cast over 10s.

Implementing these new values would mean increasing the damage of Lightning Splash and it’s morphs by around 87% from the current PTS version.

Mannix1958

An inside peek at a think tank discussing options for the next meta:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hwqlw

Aerenel

As strong as magsorc is in pvp it is lacking in pve. Liquid lightning and bound aegis are both good candidates for pve buffs, they would bring sorc in line with other mag dps specs. No one uses them in pvp so it wouldn't unbalance that area of the game, either.

Oakmontowls_ESO

Aerenel wrote: »

As strong as magsorc is in pvp it is lacking in pve. Liquid lightning and bound aegis are both good candidates for pve buffs, they would bring sorc in line with other mag dps specs. No one uses them in pvp so it wouldn't unbalance that area of the game, either.

Bound aegis has potential to be used in pve depending on the buff. Liquid lightning is really the only safe buff.

Lupai

This skill is underperforming when compared to other AoE's like twisting path.

Oakmontowls_ESO

When you take the damage from the synergy into account, it is the third best AoE DoT for magika just under blazing/luminous spear and boneyard with synergy

WrathOfInnos

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

When you take the damage from the synergy into account, it is the third best AoE DoT for magika just under blazing/luminous spear and boneyard with synergy

I disagree. For one thing, the tooltip on the synergy overestimates it’s damage. Sure if another Mag Sorc used it that number might be true, but in reality the Conduits should be used by either the tank or a Stamina DPS for Alkosh and Lokke uptimes. Neither of these builds have good Spell Crit or Spell Pen, they don’t have a bonus to Shock damage, and they won’t have points into Elemental Expert, Spell Erosion, or Elfborn.

Even if it were synergized in the best case scenario, Liquid Lightning would deal less damage over 14s than Twisting Path or Winter’s Revenge do in 12s. Flood is even worse.

Also you have to consider the cost. Liquid/Flood costs about 1-1.5k more than other DoTs. This means that you need to invest into about 200 more Magicka regen, which means removing some damage from the build. There are a few ways to do this, but they are all going to mean a couple % DPS loss overall.

Oakmontowls_ESO

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

When you take the damage from the synergy into account, it is the third best AoE DoT for magika just under blazing/luminous spear and boneyard with synergy

I disagree. For one thing, the tooltip on the synergy overestimates it’s damage. Sure if another Mag Sorc used it that number might be true, but in reality the Conduits should be used by either the tank or a Stamina DPS for Alkosh and Lokke uptimes. Neither of these builds have good Spell Crit or Spell Pen, they don’t have a bonus to Shock damage, and they won’t have points into Elemental Expert, Spell Erosion, or Elfborn.

Even if it were synergized in the best case scenario, Liquid Lightning would deal less damage over 14s than Twisting Path or Winter’s Revenge do in 12s. Flood is even worse.

Also you have to consider the cost. Liquid/Flood costs about 1-1.5k more than other DoTs. This means that you need to invest into about 200 more Magicka regen, which means removing some damage from the build. There are a few ways to do this, but they are all going to mean a couple % DPS loss overall.

If you look in my thread comparing the magika AoE DoTs, it's not that bad in damage Per point of Magika. It is on the lower end but it's still better than unstable wall.

WrathOfInnos

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

When you take the damage from the synergy into account, it is the third best AoE DoT for magika just under blazing/luminous spear and boneyard with synergy

I disagree. For one thing, the tooltip on the synergy overestimates it’s damage. Sure if another Mag Sorc used it that number might be true, but in reality the Conduits should be used by either the tank or a Stamina DPS for Alkosh and Lokke uptimes. Neither of these builds have good Spell Crit or Spell Pen, they don’t have a bonus to Shock damage, and they won’t have points into Elemental Expert, Spell Erosion, or Elfborn.

Even if it were synergized in the best case scenario, Liquid Lightning would deal less damage over 14s than Twisting Path or Winter’s Revenge do in 12s. Flood is even worse.

Also you have to consider the cost. Liquid/Flood costs about 1-1.5k more than other DoTs. This means that you need to invest into about 200 more Magicka regen, which means removing some damage from the build. There are a few ways to do this, but they are all going to mean a couple % DPS loss overall.

If you look in my thread comparing the magika AoE DoTs, it's not that bad in damage Per point of Magika. It is on the lower end but it's still better than unstable wall.

I don't believe that's true either. One cast of Unstable Wall does about 70k damage itself (or 7k DPS) some of this is from Engulfing Flames and the damage increase on Burning enemies so not reflected in the tooltip, and the Maelstrom effect adds about 6k to every Light Attack or 6k DPS with good weaving. Add to that the fact that it procs back bar enchants on cooldown, so gives more Berserker uptime or Flame Glyph procs, and Unstable Wall is easily responsible for over 15k DPS.

Lightning Flood ticks slightly harder than Unstable Wall (about 12% higher from the testing I've done), but it lacks the final explosion and only does 10 ticks of DoT damage vs the 11 from Unstable Wall. The final tick is missing from Flood, it really ends at 9s, and Liquid Lightning ends at 13s. The overall DPS from Flood is in the range of 5k-5.5k in my testing. In the absolute best case, a Magicka DPS will synergize it and hit for about 25k, adding 2.5k group DPS. I don't see Flood ever surpassing 8k effective DPS.

All things considered, Lightning Flood is only about half as effective as Unstable Wall, and both cost exactly the same 4207 Magicka after cost reductions.

Oakmontowls_ESO

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

When you take the damage from the synergy into account, it is the third best AoE DoT for magika just under blazing/luminous spear and boneyard with synergy

I disagree. For one thing, the tooltip on the synergy overestimates it’s damage. Sure if another Mag Sorc used it that number might be true, but in reality the Conduits should be used by either the tank or a Stamina DPS for Alkosh and Lokke uptimes. Neither of these builds have good Spell Crit or Spell Pen, they don’t have a bonus to Shock damage, and they won’t have points into Elemental Expert, Spell Erosion, or Elfborn.

Even if it were synergized in the best case scenario, Liquid Lightning would deal less damage over 14s than Twisting Path or Winter’s Revenge do in 12s. Flood is even worse.

Also you have to consider the cost. Liquid/Flood costs about 1-1.5k more than other DoTs. This means that you need to invest into about 200 more Magicka regen, which means removing some damage from the build. There are a few ways to do this, but they are all going to mean a couple % DPS loss overall.

If you look in my thread comparing the magika AoE DoTs, it's not that bad in damage Per point of Magika. It is on the lower end but it's still better than unstable wall.

I don't believe that's true either. One cast of Unstable Wall does about 70k damage itself (or 7k DPS) some of this is from Engulfing Flames and the damage increase on Burning enemies so not reflected in the tooltip, and the Maelstrom effect adds about 6k to every Light Attack or 6k DPS with good weaving. Add to that the fact that it procs back bar enchants on cooldown, so gives more Berserker uptime or Flame Glyph procs, and Unstable Wall is easily responsible for over 15k DPS.

Lightning Flood ticks slightly harder than Unstable Wall (about 12% higher from the testing I've done), but it lacks the final explosion and only does 10 ticks of DoT damage vs the 11 from Unstable Wall. The final tick is missing from Flood, it really ends at 9s, and Liquid Lightning ends at 13s. The overall DPS from Flood is in the range of 5k-5.5k in my testing. In the absolute best case, a Magicka DPS will synergize it and hit for about 25k, adding 2.5k group DPS. I don't see Flood ever surpassing 8k effective DPS.

All things considered, Lightning Flood is only about half as effective as Unstable Wall, and both cost exactly the same 4207 Magicka after cost reductions.

I am accounting for burning but not engulfing. I did not know about the missing tick but that sounds like a bug. Obviously the numbers I've come up with are theoretical numbers and that there are more reasons to use certain skills like wall procing berzerker and maelstrom.

Vahrokh

Tyrion87 wrote: »

So as I can see, the next patch is gonna screw non-pet sorcs even more than the current one. Each sorc build I've seen on the pts so far included at least one pet, but mostly two (three with atro). It seems non-pet sorcs will be even less viable and with ditching lighting splash they will be even more boring to play than they are now. And this patch was supposed to be about identity... if you want to play non-pet sorc, you can say goodbye to your identity.

Devs should just rename sorcs to 'summoners' at this point and introduce a new true sorcerer class.

No, because by the next patch they would completely screw up the new sorcerer class too.

Vahrokh

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

When you take the damage from the synergy into account, it is the third best AoE DoT for magika just under blazing/luminous spear and boneyard with synergy

Good luck passing decent guild application DPS check with that excuse.

ESO_Nightingale

Winter's Revenge's "unique effect" is that it does more damage than other ground aoes because it's other effects are weak. liquid lightning has a powerful synergy to provide to the group, just based off that, i think it's tool-tip should be quite noticeably less than winter's revenge, but still buffed from whatever it is now.

WrathOfInnos

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Winter's Revenge's "unique effect" is that it does more damage than other ground aoes because it's other effects are weak. liquid lightning has a powerful synergy to provide to the group, just based off that, i think it's tool-tip should be quite noticeably less than winter's revenge, but still buffed from whatever it is now.

In Sunspire, I make sure to give Conduits to the Alkosh DPS on cooldown (every 20s). I have never seen the synergy damage break 1k DPS. In theory one other DPS could be grabbing every 2nd Conduit since I use Flood every 10s, but that’s still very little group benefit to be justifying it becoming a terrible solo skill.

In other trials it’s worse, since the tank will typically be using Alkosh and doesn’t have the stats to make the synergy deal much damage. Positioning often means that only the tank can reach the conduit, which removes the concept of alternating between 2 synergy users. I would be surprised if Conduits did more than 500 group DPS in most trials.

ESO_Nightingale

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Winter's Revenge's "unique effect" is that it does more damage than other ground aoes because it's other effects are weak. liquid lightning has a powerful synergy to provide to the group, just based off that, i think it's tool-tip should be quite noticeably less than winter's revenge, but still buffed from whatever it is now.

In Sunspire, I make sure to give Conduits to the Alkosh DPS on cooldown (every 20s). I have never seen the synergy damage break 1k DPS. In theory one other DPS could be grabbing every 2nd Conduit since I use Flood every 10s, but that’s still very little group benefit to be justifying it becoming a terrible solo skill.

In other trials it’s worse, since the tank will typically be using Alkosh and doesn’t have the stats to make the synergy deal much damage. Positioning often means that only the tank can reach the conduit, which removes the concept of alternating between 2 synergy users. I would be surprised if Conduits did more than 500 group DPS in most trials.

i didn't say that the skill shouldn't be buffed, no, it should deal a similar amount to what it did a few patches ago for reference i think other class ground aoes should have tooltips around 2k at max with all passives etc. Though winter's revenge applies a snare weaker than frost wall and far weaker than eruption, a competing aoe ground skill, the unique chilled buff it provides is applied by tanks already. where as you have a unique synergy that gives allies about a spammable worth of damage in an aoe. i'd way rather have liquid lightning if it did a little bit less damage than winter's revenge.

WrathOfInnos

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Winter's Revenge's "unique effect" is that it does more damage than other ground aoes because it's other effects are weak. liquid lightning has a powerful synergy to provide to the group, just based off that, i think it's tool-tip should be quite noticeably less than winter's revenge, but still buffed from whatever it is now.

In Sunspire, I make sure to give Conduits to the Alkosh DPS on cooldown (every 20s). I have never seen the synergy damage break 1k DPS. In theory one other DPS could be grabbing every 2nd Conduit since I use Flood every 10s, but that’s still very little group benefit to be justifying it becoming a terrible solo skill.

In other trials it’s worse, since the tank will typically be using Alkosh and doesn’t have the stats to make the synergy deal much damage. Positioning often means that only the tank can reach the conduit, which removes the concept of alternating between 2 synergy users. I would be surprised if Conduits did more than 500 group DPS in most trials.

i didn't say that the skill shouldn't be buffed, no, it should deal a similar amount to what it did a few patches ago for reference i think other class ground aoes should have tooltips around 2k at max with all passives etc. Though winter's revenge applies a snare weaker than frost wall and far weaker than eruption, a competing aoe ground skill, the unique chilled buff it provides is applied by tanks already. where as you have a unique synergy that gives allies about a spammable worth of damage in an aoe. i'd way rather have liquid lightning if it did a little bit less damage than winter's revenge.

Yes a little lower would be fine. In an earlier post, I recommended to make Liquid Lightning 600 DPS lower than Twisting Path or Winter’s Revenge (6.7k vs 7.3k on Iron Atro Dummy). This would make Liquid Lightning slightly inferior if nobody synergized, about even if a tank synergized, and slightly superior if DPS synergized.

Something also needs to be done about the cost, because in its current state it is unsustainable, and building to sustain this one skill means taking over 2k DPS loss on other skills. Add that to the skill damage deficiency of 3-4k compared to Path or Winter and it’s clear why nobody is using LL on PTS.

ESO_Nightingale

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Winter's Revenge's "unique effect" is that it does more damage than other ground aoes because it's other effects are weak. liquid lightning has a powerful synergy to provide to the group, just based off that, i think it's tool-tip should be quite noticeably less than winter's revenge, but still buffed from whatever it is now.

In Sunspire, I make sure to give Conduits to the Alkosh DPS on cooldown (every 20s). I have never seen the synergy damage break 1k DPS. In theory one other DPS could be grabbing every 2nd Conduit since I use Flood every 10s, but that’s still very little group benefit to be justifying it becoming a terrible solo skill.

In other trials it’s worse, since the tank will typically be using Alkosh and doesn’t have the stats to make the synergy deal much damage. Positioning often means that only the tank can reach the conduit, which removes the concept of alternating between 2 synergy users. I would be surprised if Conduits did more than 500 group DPS in most trials.

i didn't say that the skill shouldn't be buffed, no, it should deal a similar amount to what it did a few patches ago for reference i think other class ground aoes should have tooltips around 2k at max with all passives etc. Though winter's revenge applies a snare weaker than frost wall and far weaker than eruption, a competing aoe ground skill, the unique chilled buff it provides is applied by tanks already. where as you have a unique synergy that gives allies about a spammable worth of damage in an aoe. i'd way rather have liquid lightning if it did a little bit less damage than winter's revenge.

Yes a little lower would be fine. In an earlier post, I recommended to make Liquid Lightning 600 DPS lower than Twisting Path or Winter’s Revenge (6.7k vs 7.3k on Iron Atro Dummy). This would make Liquid Lightning slightly inferior if nobody synergized, about even if a tank synergized, and slightly superior if DPS synergized.

Something also needs to be done about the cost, because in its current state it is unsustainable, and building to sustain this one skill means taking over 2k DPS loss on other skills. Add that to the skill damage deficiency of 3-4k compared to Path or Winter and it’s clear why nobody is using LL on PTS.

that sounds fine.

WrathOfInnos

TFW weeks of testing and feedback is ignored...

I guess Sorcerers just won’t be using any Lightning damage this patch (only pets), so much for “Class Identity” and “Power Fantasy”. Those were really nice buzzwords though, almost calmed the community outrage while we believed them.

The_Lex

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

TFW weeks of testing and feedback is ignored...

I guess Sorcerers just won’t be using any Lightning damage this patch (only pets), so much for “Class Identity” and “Power Fantasy”. Those were really nice buzzwords though, almost calmed the community outrage while we believed them.

So true. Marketing buzzwords.

In PvE, Sorcs won't use any lightning except maybe a shock enchant. PvP is a little different, but still.

universal_wrath

Not like it matter or anything, since patch is live, but lightning splash and its morph are aoe based element and should deal more dmg than the rest of aoe skills beside magic because it has no attibute. Does not matter if the has a synrgy if nobody uses it since it is not attractive like blazing. Their should be a system where caster can activate it's own synrgy like bone yard. I have been asking for this fot over 2 years now, since most players don't like activating synrgies unless they are somewhat delendant on them aka tanks ando lokke/alkosh set users.

Austinseph1

Liquid lightning, shards, and even boneyard were hrs sells at 5k.. I preformed better without them aoe or single target, didn’t matter. The cost isn’t worth the use when there are just far better and cheaper options.

YandereGirlfriend

Sort of off-topic but it is also annoying how seemingly everybody these days now has access to an easy source of Minor Vulnerability, which renders Concussion and Lightning Damage in general redundant from a group perspective.

I know that it's kind of perpendicular to LL since you (really, the Healer) are proccing it with Wall, but while they go about hopefully buffing this skill it would be nice to add something actually unique that might justify slotting it.

Like scrap the damage from Conduit and instead have it apply like an unnamed 8% Critical Damage bump for your group for 10 seconds or something.

That alone would guarantee that you bring a Sorc or two with LL slotted for 100% uptime and would synergize well with the Sorc's lone unique buff, Minor Prophecy.

Oakmontowls_ESO

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Sort of off-topic but it is also annoying how seemingly everybody these days now has access to an easy source of Minor Vulnerability, which renders Concussion and Lightning Damage in general redundant from a group perspective.

I know that it's kind of perpendicular to LL since you (really, the Healer) are proccing it with Wall, but while they go about hopefully buffing this skill it would be nice to add something actually unique that might justify slotting it.

Like scrap the damage from Conduit and instead have it apply like an unnamed 8% Critical Damage bump for your group for 10 seconds or something.

That alone would guarantee that you bring a Sorc or two with LL slotted for 100% uptime and would synergize well with the Sorc's lone unique buff, Minor Prophecy.

That would mean you would have a sorc healer and one of the stam sorcs would run it.

ecru

boneyard without consuming a corpse does even less damage than liquid lightning.