What am I doing wrong with my DPS Stamplar?

jorabyte

Hey everyone. I've seen some discussions like this, and the usual answers are "We need to know more to diagnose the problem" and "some aspect of that build is bad, follow an Alcast build." To give some background, I enjoy the strategy of coming up with my own builds, and I'm not a min/maxer -- I don't want to follow a prescribed build because it fits the current meta or is "the only set or skill to use" because it delivers the absolute greatest power. I know the basic theory of how damage is calculated, what uses stamina vs. magicka, and how important buffs, debuffs, attack weaving, and rotation are. In the end, I want to have fun with a little RP and at the same time not be terrible in dungeon combat.

I've always built a tank or healer because I figure it's easier to form a group and get in a dungeon that way, but decided to try my hand at DPS. I completely respec'd a Templar tank to be Stamina DPS, and was shooting for a 20k parse.

I dunno what I'm doing wrong with this character. I've gone down the list, and even after turning him into a bit of a glass cannon putting no points in health, all in stamina, I can't top 8500 DPS. Here's "The list" of things I've carefully considered plus some details on the character:

- ~CP300
- Maxxed Stamina (39k)
- Applies Major & Minor Fracture (back bar)
- High Penetration
- Health & Stamina Food
- Crit & Weapon Damage Potions
- Gold weapons
- Gold weapon damage glyphs
- Good medium set armor (mix of purple/gold)
- Light attack weaving
- Rotation *feels* good - both bars used, buffs & debuffs, fair sustain

The only possibilities I can figure:

- Maybe I'm over-penetrating. Mobs have ~18.2k resistance, once you get thru that, counting debuffs, extra points should go in damage.
- Maybe my sets and Mundus need tweaking to do more damage and/or give me a damage buff.
- Maybe I'm not doing weaving right. I think I am, but maybe damage isn't going thru.
- Maybe Stamplar builds just suck in the current meta. Maybe two-handed weapons are underpowered.

As a last FYI, I know my racial selection isn't optimal -- Breton, for a Stamina character -- and dual-wielding would probably net me more damage. But from everything I've read, I feel I should be able to run any race and weapon configuration for RP purposes and do better than 10k DPS if I do all the things listed above.

Thoughts? Comments? Critiques?

MartiniDaniels

Most probably wrong build, if you are on PC install combat metrics add-on and attach parse and gear snapshot here. If not on PC, well, then list gear and enchantments and your bars. Also check if all necessary passives are taken. High dps output comes from min-maxing, every small and correct piece of build matters.

T3hasiangod

There is not enough information here. If you can provide any of the following, it'd help us determine what's going on.

* Superstar (i.e. gear, skill, and CP set-up specifics)
* Combat Metrics report
* Parse video
* ESO Log

jorabyte

@MartiniDaniels and @T3hasiangod that's what I was afraid you'd say. I don't want to min-max (pouty face). I'm at work today, and haven't used Combat Metrics, but I'm on PC and love Bandits UI and other add-ons. Based on Martini's info, I will probably adjust my build a little on my own before posting results.

Here's the best breakdown I can give from memory:
- Shoulders: Tremorscale
- Going for Tremorscale helmet
- 4 pieces Essence Thief, all purple
- 2 pieces Might of Lost Legion, purple
- Working on full Essence Thief instead of Legion
- Jewelry and weapons Spriggans
- Jewelry purple, weapons gold
- Two-hand front bar
- One-hand & shield back bar
- 2x weapon damage rings
- Stam recovery amulet
- Stam armor enchants
- Divines on some armor, Impen on others
- Health on chest and shield
- Lover Mundus
- CP poured into Penetration, Stam & Health Regen, and the Steed Resistances

Rotation goes roughly as follows:
- Eat food for health & stam
- Crit & weap dmg potion
- Start on back bar for debuffs
- PotL for Minor Fracture
- Shielded Assault charge, get dmg shield
- Pierce Armor for Major Fracture
- Aura of Retribution? HoT & DoT
- Biting Jabs for Dmg & Crit increase
- Switch to front bar
- Rune Focus for sustain
- Biting Jabs again
- Critical Charge for Dmg & DoT
- Executioner spam
- Repentance for constant buff & cleanup
- All class passives apply

Note, Repentance is useless except for resource regeneration in a boss fight unless there are adds. Have considered adding Psijic line for damage shield while blocking and the weapon damage spammable.

Does the extra detail help?

T3hasiangod

Several glaring things.

1. Sword and shield is not a DPS-oriented weapon.
2. Your sets are not particularly strong. There are other sets that are stronger for DPS that are also easy to obtain (e.g. Leviathan, Hunding's Rage, New Moon Acolyte).
3. Your rotation is not ideal. You don't need a damage shield ability, and you don't need Major Fracture in group content.

You are best off by starting by switching your sword and shield to a bow, and then changing your gear to something like Hunding's Rage + Briarheart/Leviathan.

Then go check out one of the many stamplar build videos to see how they do their rotations.

jorabyte

Thank you, @T3hasiangod ! I had hoped I could achieve "acceptable levels" remaining off-meta, but it seems the community has been down every road and figured out what clearly doesn't work. To answer a couple of your observations:

1. I went sword-&-board back bar to give me sustain for solo- or two-person content. Oddly enough, I can achieve about the same DPS on the back bar with shield pummel as I can with any 2H attacks I've tried.
2. I had already considered crafting some Hundings, will probably gold out a set of that to accompany the monster set and Spriggan and see how that works.
3. Again, I'm used to running tanks and healers, so when I started the DPS rotation I was immediately dying quickly. I feel like I have to have some shielding and healing or every boss is going to murder me. I'll have to check out some rotation videos as you suggested to see what successful Stamplars are doing.

Thanks again!

DocFrost72

If I may, T3hasiangod is not wrong about there being better options for dps than sword and shield, but it entirely capable of servicable damage. My damage dealer/solo build for templar is inspired off a 5e paladin. You can break 25-30k dps easily with sword and shield, and that will see you through any content it it possible to solo. You also aren't a liability to all but score run trials at that speed.

If you like, I can post my sword and shield + bow build?

Vyvrhel

To begin with, what is your race. As you said you were a respecd tank I assume your character is a Nord or Argonian? Sadly, buth of these are not "viable" as endgame dps.

Vyvrhel

Also, to do ANY good damage you just have to build around the meta. Which means dw and a bow, hundings or the dungeon/trial sets and the "good" skills. The drop in dps is shocking once you deviate from the meta.

OG_Kaveman

DocFrost72 wrote: »

If I may, T3hasiangod is not wrong about there being better options for dps than sword and shield, but it entirely capable of servicable damage. My damage dealer/solo build for templar is inspired off a 5e paladin. You can break 25-30k dps easily with sword and shield, and that will see you through any content it it possible to solo. You also aren't a liability to all but score run trials at that speed.

If you like, I can post my sword and shield + bow build?

I have a s/b Stam sorc that out DPSs most of the randos I find in the group finder.

Main bar- nirn main hand/infused shield with a double damage health poison

Hurricane- barbed trap- bound armaments- deep slash- power slam- ulti, flawless dawnbreaker.

Back bar- infused vMA bow, berzerk enchantment.

Crit surge- consuming trap- dark deal- poison injection- arrow barrage- ulti atro

I actually use toothrow and AY front bar with Maarselok, the 40% Stam cost reduction of bash from the s/b line takes the Stam cost from 1800 to 1100 per bash for me, that was the main draw of trying out using s/b as a front bar weapon set.

jorabyte

@DocFrost72 I'd love to see your build. The reason I went 2H and Sword/Shield is for RP, basing the character on a stereotypical "Paladin," although I find it sad the Magicka damage skills are garbage for a Stamina-based character. I'd love to see an ESO rework with character development and combat more like the single-player ES games where you could viably build any way you want.

@Vyvrhel being constrained to the meta makes me sad. After taking another look at the available sets, I concede that I'll need to switch to a damage-boosting set like Hundings and make my Mundus the Warrior, but for RP purposes I will simply accept this as less than an endgame character. I mentioned above he is a Breton, and I know that's not a good choice for Stamina DPS, but I will make the character all he can be and either rework him again (Magplar) or be satisfied with optimizations.

DocFrost72

My build:

5 hunding's rage (weapons, 3 armor)
5 vicious ophidian (can easily be replaced by dreugh king slayer from fungal grotto I, which is very easy to do even entry level. If you go this route, make hunding's all medium since you want 5 pieces medium and DKS only drops in heavy)
2 pieces lord warden dusk (to start, make head and shoulder any two monster sets that give 1 piece resistance or hp. Doing pledges can easily net you the warden shoulder, head is just a bit more complicated. A good alternative might be 2 pieces of Alessia's bulwark).

All body pieces are stamina, unless you're below 20k hp. One or two hp enchants max, use chest/legs/head for this.

Jewelry all enchanted to increase physical harm.

Bar one (sword and shield)
Biting jabs, pierce armor, power of the light, barbed trap, resolving vigor, ULT: Cresent Sweep

Bar two (bow)
Restoring focus, poison injection, endless hail, ritual of retribution, repentance, ULT: Crescent sweep.

If you're playing alone, the above will work well to keep you alive. If you're in a group, remove pierce armor and slot either soul trap for damage (what I do), or low slash for team utility. If you feel like you need a damage shield in group content, you can also use the sword and shield ability for that (for the life of me can't remember the name, I think it's defensive stance?).

Hp and stam cp150 blue food and generic world dropped green pots because unless you're using VO you'll have crit and dmg buffs already.

CP now here

warrior:52 ironclad, 50 medium armor focus, 18 spell shield, 52 thick skinned, 49 hardy, 49 elemental defender
thief: 52 warlord, 16 bashing focus, 49 mooncalf 49 tenacity, 52 tumbling, 52 shadow ward
mage: 35 physical weapon expert, 52 master-at-arms, 52 thaumaturge, 52 precise strikes, 30 piercing, 49 mighty

I could also make you an absolutely serviceable sword and shield/two hand build capable of vet dungeon damage, if you'd like?

jorabyte

@DocFrost72 - most excellent, many thanks! Also going back to what @T3hasiangod suggested about watching Stamplar build videos and adding observation of your build and @OG_Kaveman 's Stamsorc, I think I see the key to the high damage. Unless I'm missing something, 40% is the equipment + Mundus giving high stamina and high weapon damage. 40% is stacking DoT. Seems like the bow on the back bar is almost required for this. Then the remaining 20% is CP and execution of the rotation (weaving, etc.) I edited my build last night adding Hundings and switching to the Warrior, and my DPS went down, I suspect because I simply wasn't doing enough Damage Over Time along with my direct damage. No caltrops unlocked yet, no bow, very little DoT. I hope I know enough now to respec creatively.

DocFrost72

I know it's a big pain, but can you capture a video? I'll show you mine in a bit when I log on. A *lot* of damage comes from light attacks and dots for sure, so managing them is certainly key.

As for bow required, I'd lean more towards optimal than required. I'll show you what I mean when I can get online!

jorabyte

I've got pesky ol' job keeping me away from the game, so I can't really get video except during my evening playtime. I want the add-on that shows all the damage numbers on screen as you hit -- is that part of Combat Metrics?

I also want a way to quickly swap skill load-outs between fights. I added Bandits Equipment manager, haven't figured out how to use it yet. Recommendations?

DocFrost72

jorabyte wrote: »

I've got pesky ol' job keeping me away from the game, so I can't really get video except during my evening playtime. I want the add-on that shows all the damage numbers on screen as you hit -- is that part of Combat Metrics?

I also want a way to quickly swap skill load-outs between fights. I added Bandits Equipment manager, haven't figured out how to use it yet. Recommendations?

I feel the pain of life taking fun away xD

Damage numbers on screen you can do base game, actually. From memory, steps are;

Hit escape
Options
Combat
Outgoing damage numbers (on)

Combat Metrics breaks down each and every point of damage by source and neatly arranges it post battle. It can be a neat way to tell if certain dots don't have great uptime, or if you let a buff run off. That's like an MRI compared to me watching a video of you dpsing being a physical, as an example.

For fast swapping I use dressing room. You bind it to a number (or to open when you open the skills screen- my favorite) and then name and create a bunch of setups. Up to 18, I think...?

kylewwefan

I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to accomplish.

Tank that does damage? 2H DPS with a S/B backbar? PvP? Unique Maelstrom build? Totally solo? Group play?

Even with the gear you have, I would change skills to look like this

S/B bar: Pierce Armor, Trap Beast, Soul Trap, Focus, Repentance Ult Barrier
2H bar: Rally, Power of the Light Or Brawler, Jabs, Executioner, Repentance Ult Empowering Sweeps

You could replace one of the repentance with vigor or breath of life.

For group play; if you are not the tank; don’t use pierce armor. It is one of the only three taunts in this game. If you choose to become a tank, you may want to re think many things.

You would start on front bar and buff up with Rally. Swap to back bar and buff up with the focus. Pierce, Trap, Soul Trap swap bar. Brawler or POTL. Jabjabjabjabjab.

Executioner spam around %30 enemy health left. Otherwise start over every 15 seconds or so. Repentance. Ult whenever


I see you’re piecing together the essence thief set. I always wanted to try it, but never got back around to it. It looks great on paper! Was bugged for awhile then they fixed it. I just never got around to piecing it together. Hope it works good!

Tremor scale gets proc from taunt(pierce armor) something to consider when choosing monster sets. Kragh’s from Fungal Grotto or Selene’s from Selenes Web, or even Stormfist from Tempest Island May work well also.

Spriggans is a great set, but watch that you don’t invest too much into penetration.

DocFrost72

So, did a little testing and preliminary results are actually really neat. So much so I might be switching from bow to 2h.

Firstly, the build.

Bars remain as posted above for sword and shield and bow, but I added a bar to this build; 2H back bar. It hinges on the application of back bar enchant (which for testing I made physical dmg and restore stamina like my bow).



This gave me some really interesting build flexibility, and increased sustain. Let me explain.



That was the results of one test each of bow (top value), and 2h (bottom value) backbars. This is far from conclusive of course, it was merely one shot each. Besides only being a 3 mil skeleton (selected for time convenience and also because you mentioned only doing dungeons), the 2H bar had the extra benefit of a simpler rotation, and me being warmed up. I did not weave bashes to further increase dps like I should have. I made several mistakes often (reapplying dots early, letting them run off too long, missing weaving while adjusting to PTS ping etc etc), so these values could without a doubt fluctuate 2-3k up or down due to crit performance and a smoother, tighter weave.

THAT SAID.

With the 2H backbar, I noticed something strange. I was far better off using just stampede than poison injection and endless hail. My suspicion is the stamina management and one less dot back bar allowed me to weave more jabs into the mix. As such, I wouldn't rush to say 2h is better. What I will say is that the two are both very valid back bar choices.

Oh, the build also comes with 3 ridiculous benefits that will impress anyone you group with beyond doing vet dungeon capable damage.



Let me remind you that this is a dps build capable of 25k (self buffed, in a good group you're gunna shoot over 30k easily) that also has full on tank resistances, applies the warden buff (not pictured above) to teammates to make them harder to drop as well, and through ritual of retribution offers a cleanse AND a very good heal on par with echoing vigor. EDIT: Almost forgot you can also run head first into trash packs with reckless abandon thanks to having brawler, tank resistances, and two heals. Situations where you're separated from the group are just kind of jokes now, and soloing makes this a potent way to eat tremendous amounts of damage.



So yes, I think with enough time to hone a rotation, you could become a very welcome sight in almost any dungeon group.

jorabyte

@DocFrost72 that looks sick... but how the hell did you get that kind of number out of Stampede? I was using that, but I never see a DPS result higher than a 12k burst. Was that after laying down some DOTs, then hitting the dummy with Stampede?

DocFrost72

jorabyte wrote: »

@DocFrost72 that looks sick... but how the hell did you get that kind of number out of Stampede? I was using that, but I never see a DPS result higher than a 12k burst. Was that after laying down some DOTs, then hitting the dummy with Stampede?

Order of things:

Drop restoring focus, then apply stanpede and ritual of retribution, light attack weaving between them. Bar swap cancel retribution and go to front bar. Barbed trap, pierce armor, power of the light, jabs spam until time to reapply power of the light. Once reapplied, bar swap cancel to redo your retribution and stampede, back to front bar to pierce armor. Barbed trap every second time you swap to front bar, restoring focus every second time to back bar.

Make sure you're light attacking between abilities (weaving them, not just doing it after a skill but timing it to get them together as you note in your OP). Make sure you don't reapply dots before they fall off. Heavy attack if needed, but I doubt it will be.

You're only cp 300, so your results will be *slightly* less. Take this build out into the world too, don't just sit in front of a dummy. Obviously honing a rotation will help, but as cheesy as it sounds the real way you're going to get used to and good at as setup is to play it often. I recommend questing, maelstrom (normal), then maybe try your hand at soloing a few easy story I dungeons on normal. Pick up on what works with different fights. How you handle a boss and how you handle a trash pack might vary wildly here (I know it does with me).

And of course, please let me know if I can help further!

jorabyte

Thanks again, @DocFrost72 . Super insightful. I've actually given that weapon/armor set to my Redguard Stamina Warden -- I think he'll be more capable of pulling off the stamina build, and make better use of racial passives by far.

This still helps me understand for all my characters how to stack abilities. This Breton Templar I completely respec'd as a holy cleric so I can utilize all the great magicka spells. I think I'll enjoy playing him more this way, although my initial damage numbers are once again abysmal.

jorabyte

I'll have to record some video of myself so you guys can tell me where I'm messing up with overall execution, when I get the chance. I feel I must be fighting wrong, because all the numbers seem to me like they should be working together for more damage. This Templar is Level 50 in all class lines, has all racial passives, had all Medium Armor passives, and when I switched to a more meta loadout, my DPS went down. This one has much to learn, friends.

jorabyte

@T3hasiangod I saw some of your build videos on YouTube, totally awesome! I figured out one thing I was doing wrong: I had my spammables mapped to mouse side buttons. This was destroying my ability to consistently light attack weave. I remapped my ability keys to 1-5 and noticed a significant improvement. I'm still far from where I want to be, but watching my rotation, weaving, and keeping my DoTs active, I was able to solo parse over 10k. I have to play with Mundus stone and CP tweaks, gold out my gear for more Divines effect, and get a good monster set, but with practice I think I'm on the road to 15k, maybe 20. Once I make a little more improvement, I'll post Combat Metrics data and a parse video.

Sparr0w

@jorabyte the trick to dps is laying DoT's then using a spammable until they run out. For example, if you just cast 1 direct damage ability per second you will top out at say 15k dps as there's only ever up to 15k hitting the target, whereas if you lay 3 damage over time abilities, hitting say 3k each then use direct damage you will achieve up to 24k. You then start adding in buffs to increase the damage of these and little by little build DPS up to a respectable number & also dont forget to weave light attacks (as they are on a seperate cooldown you can do la>skill>la>skill in the same time it takes to do skill>skill and this is a free 5-10k dps on top.

But even so there is definitely something up with either the rotation or setup, as just weaving a spammable with no buffs other than a potion + food should easily put you above 10k... If you could get a superstar/cmx screenshot that would be very helpful

jorabyte

@Sparr0w will do. I honestly don't understand... I don't have a single DD ability that puts out 15k DPS. Every source of damage is much lower than that -- 8k, 4k... so while I think my rotation and weaving are ok (both need work), I can't stack up damage that isn't there to begin with. Builds I see online have comparable stats, so why are my hits so wimpy? I know you need to see metrics, so I don't expect you to answer that before I can record & post, but to all the masters posting here I want to thank you for your time and insight.

Sparr0w

jorabyte wrote: »

@Sparr0w will do. I honestly don't understand... I don't have a single DD ability that puts out 15k DPS. Every source of damage is much lower than that -- 8k, 4k... so while I think my rotation and weaving are ok (both need work), I can't stack up damage that isn't there to begin with. Builds I see online have comparable stats, so why are my hits so wimpy? I know you need to see metrics, so I don't expect you to answer that before I can record & post, but to all the masters posting here I want to thank you for your time and insight.

@jorabyte It's not all about what stats you can see, for example most stamina classes run with fairly low stamina pools (29k), but they have reasonably high critical chance, and higher critical damage. Then there's CP, optimising this vs not optimising this is quite a chunk of damage, iirc the difference from cp160 and max cp is around 30% dps.

Then there's other things such as enchants, passives, poisons, weave speed all of which you wont be able to see from comparing the character sheet, but will have a fairly large impact on your dps.

Also dont trust the tooltip, for example my tooltip on soul trap states it does 13k damage over 10 seconds, but on an actual parse it does between 3-4k dps.

BXR_Lonestar

From my experience, Stamplar's don't parse well, largely due to sustain issues and the way their sustain mechanic works. Repentence is one of your best ways to gain back stamina in combat, but there are no corpses to redeem when you are parsing, so unless you are parsing on the trial dummy where you can synergize for sustain, your sustain is going to suck. You can do more heavy attacks, use stam/stam regen food only to increase your parse sustain to try to better simulate combat sustain, but I'm not sure it makes up for the difference, and more heavy attacks actually lowers your DPS due to the time it takes to do them.

And for what it is worth, Stamplar sustain has always been an issue even pre-Dragonhold, and Dragonhold has made sustain issues worse for most characters. But you should still be able to parse more than 8500 DPS on a dummy. Pre-Dragonhold, even with a poor, unpracticed rotation, my stamplar still parsed at ~ 30k DPS. In PVE, I just wear spriggans, bone pirate, and kragh's monster set. No maelstrom or dragonstar weapons or anything.

jorabyte

@BXR_Lonestar just to be clear, I gave all the stam equipment to my Redguard Warden and will respec him for stamina, the Breton Templar I outfitted and spec'd to be a "Cleric of Holy Flame," a magicka battlemage. I wanted to use the abundance of magicka class spells Templar affords.

@Sparr0w I'm sure I still have timing issues with weaving. My temptation and habit is to spam left-clicks, but I think I have been trying to initiate too many actions at the same time, clogging up the attack queue with commands. Does that prevent attacks from going through, if you mash too many buttons too fast?

jorabyte

I wanted to share here something user @Miss_Morphine posted back in 2017 that answered my question about frantic button-mashing.

DPS is far from button mashing or clicking as fast as you can. It's about precision. In fact if you do more than 1 ability and 1 weapon attack a second it does absolutely nothing. There is a global cooldown of one ability per second so anything more is just noise that really doesn't matter.
What matters is making sure your dots are running, you use your ult when it's up, you weave in light/med attacks depending on the build, and you keep your buffs/relentless focus up and use the proc as soon as it's up.

I am nearly certain the global cooldown is the bane of my attempts at DPS heretofore. I've been far from having a "relaxed rotation" as I saw the ideal described in that post; I've run ESO combat the same way I played Street Fighter II as a kid--spam hadoukens as fast as my tired fingers could mash buttons.