Maelstrom fire vs lightning staff on back bar

malistorr

Hi all,

I passed vMA my 1st couple times in the last 2-days. On 2nd pass I got the Maelstrom fire staff and have it back-barred with the infused trait. My plan is to start fights on the back bar and use Wall of Elements (morph) to start the fight and take advantage of the Heavy attack buff. Then I will immediately switch to the front bar with my Undaunted Infiltrator lightning staff and I will be mostly heavy attacking. In this specific scenario, would there be any advantage to doing vMA more to get the lightning staff instead for the back bar? My sets don't buff lightning damage specifically, so I wasn't sure if the Wall of Elements will do the same (or more) damage as fire vs. as lightning with a lightning staff? Or will there be no difference at all? I figure why spend days or weeks trying to farm for the vMA lightning staff if all I'm doing is using WOE to then switch bars to front and then attacking from there? Please let me know if my line of thinking is correct. If I'm wrong and there is a benefit to having lightning back-barred instead of fire for someone looking to maximize heavy attack damage (and therefore concussion and off-balance), please let me know why. Both staves will have shock enchant. Back infused and front charged.
Thanks

WrathOfInnos

Inferno Maelstrom Staff is almost always going to result in more damage. It gets a 20% bonus against Burning enemies, and a 10% bonus if anyone is using Engulfing Flames (tank or MagDK). However you did mention the one thing that sets Lightning apart, it causes off-balance which will make your Heavy Attacks hit harder for 7s. Ideally one of your supports will handle off-balance so you can use an Inferno Staff, but if you’re solo then Lightning Wall is important if you want to maximize heavy attacks.

Also you should use 2 different enchants, they will share a cooldown if you have the same one on each weapon and you’ll be wasting one.

malistorr

Does the information you shared apply given the specifics I mentioned in my post? I'm not going to be using the fire staff for anything at all other than casting WOE so I wasn't sure if the glyph even matters? And I'm literally using no other skills and I'm not heavy attacking at all with the fire staff. I'm only going to switch bars and use the lightning staff 100% of the time.
So based on what I've said should I still use a fire or spell damage glyph on the maelstrom staff? I wasn't sure if that carries over to the front bar, and if so, how? Does it somehow buff the WOE and since that keeps damaging enemies on the front bar it makes that skill/attack alone a little stronger? Sorry to ask so many questions but I'm looking for specifics here.
Thank you for answering.

Alidel

WOE will trigger glyph from your backbar even while you swapped and doing heavy attacks on your frontbar which should proc frontbar glyph as well.

malistorr

So if I want to maximize concussion and off balance should I keep the front-bar UI lightning staff charged trait and leave back bar infused? And should I leave shock glyph on front bar staff? If so, whick glyph should I used on the bar back Maelstrom fire staff, fire damage?

WrathOfInnos

If you want highest concussion then use Infused Shock on back bar since Wall will proc it on cooldown, and Charged front bar (although this is overkill IMO since you’ll get about 80% concussion uptime without Charged). Front bar glyph should be Berserker (highest AoE) or Flame (highest single target and buffs Flame Wall with Burning status). You’ll have to choose between the higher Wall damage with Maelstrom Inferno or the off-balance effect from Lightning Wall, which usually comes down to solo vs group play.

malistorr

For someone who only heavy attacks like me, I'm thinking of going both front and back bar lightning staves. I guess I'll go back-bar infused since everyone says that is best. Front-bar, if I shouldn't use charged (because I'm getting plenty of concussion from back-bar shock glyph and infused trait), I was wondering if berserker is really better than sharpened or precise? My spell penn is only about 5800 I think without using CP points for it or using a sharpened staff. I was thinking, instead of using 40ish CP points to get my penn up close to 9000, I should just use a sharpened staff on front-bar and use those 40 CP points to increase my elemental (lightning damage) and crit damage in the blue CP. Or go precise to get another 7ish % increase to crit. chance. Too many options and not sure which way to go. I don't see myself testing this for weeks to figure it all out. ahhhhh