UI with MS or Juli?

asalemi

Look guys real world issues. Hitting dummies and testing video game armor. Please try to make a difference in this world. Go out help people be kind to your neighbors. This is such utter bull crap. I’m so glad I play how I want with whatever armor I dam please because there are hundreds of choices. Remember choice.

RiskyChalice863

Grianasteri wrote: »

Stevie6 wrote: »

I’m currently using MS, Juli, and IH (grothdar sometimes) and I can basically solo a lot of world bosses and some vet dungeons. I watched Xynode’s YouTube easy sorc video and it would seem a lot easier to use. It’s getting to the point of not being able to do rotations anymore. So, I need a basic heavy attack build. I started farming solo for UI and obtain the following items in a couple of days:

Two lightning staves (infused,precise)
Neckless
No rings
Jack, boots, belt (divines)

Will UI work with either MS or Juli? I have ilambris, valkin skoria, grothdar, IH, and others. Probably use grothdar. I’m also considering New Moon. The set works well on my stamden. If anyone has any other combo with UI your thoughts would be appreciated. Thx.

OK, here are the thoughts of someone who has been farming for Undaunted Infiltrator for over 300 runs of Arx Corinium... DONT BOTHER. By all means, have a go, you could get lucky, I dropped 2 Burning Spell Weave fire staffs in a dozen runs of City of Ash... but I have run Arx Corinium over 300 times and NEVER dropped a UI Shock staff, the drop rate is ridiculously low.

I do not actually run the Xynode build, I run something similar, harder to sustain but a bit more damage (although I am using Infalible Aether). If you need a heavy attack build then I think the Xynode build is one of the best out there and it does still work without UI, go for it.

Anyway in short, yes just run Mothers Sorrow, or Julianos. The DPS difference for the average player is unlikely to be game breaking.

Me, I will continue grinding Arx Corinium till my dying days or until I do drop that Shock staff, its a matter of principle now. That bloody dungeon will not beat me!

I’ve farmed Arx Corinium a similar number of times and never got the UI lightning staff either. That said, I’ve essentially given up, and I think it’s basically fine. A UI lightning staff is only necessary if you absolutely want to go 5/1/1. I got a full set of UI jewelry, and also UI chest and leg pieces. I’ve consigned myself to simply doing 5 Light/2 Medium if I’m running UI. Compared to running 5/1/1, it loses 4% health and 2% magicka/stamina from the Undaunted and heavy armor passives, some extra resistances (though less than you’d think because 5/1/1 with UI would mean the heavy and medium pieces are small pieces, rather than large pieces if doing 5L/2M), and a small bit of Constitution passive. But I do get a little extra Stam recovery and sprint and dodge roll cost reduction. More importantly, I retain my sanity. I know it’s not quite as strong, but I don’t know that the difference is worth potentially spending hours and hours more farming a dungeon I’ve done a million times.

RiskyChalice863

T3hasiangod wrote: »

It's been tested by a few people at this point. UI ends up losing out to a few other more readily available sets.

MS + NMA
MS + Juli
NMA + IA
Juli + IA

All of those combinations are easier to obtain and does not require the waste of 150 transmutes on a dead-end set.

Please do not waste time farming for the set. Do yourself a favor and spend the time farming the gold needed to buy MS pieces or farm IA instead.

I don’t doubt that you’ve tested this and that these are the results. And it’s undoubtedly true that UI is an incredible time sink to farm and also requires lots of transmutes. So I see the argument that other more readily available sets are better and people shouldn’t waste their time and resources on it. That said, I think a couple things are worth noting:

1. I wouldn’t exactly call IA readily available for most of the ESO population. The vast majority of the player base never touches trials—whether because they don’t have enough CP to really do them, aren’t good enough at the game, or simply don’t know people in-game who run them. So, for instance, for me, I ideally wanted IA but decided to farm UI instead because IA was not really available to me. Notably, I’d wager that the subset of people looking specifically for a heavy attack build—many of whom are people looking for something that doesn’t require high levels of skill or mechanical ability—are probably more likely than average to be people who aren’t doing trials. All this is to say that, for many people, UI may be a complete grind to farm, but IA basically cannot be farmed.

2. More importantly, testing DPS differences between those sets and UI cannot really be done in an entirely objective way that actually measures how it would be for a different person. This is because UI buffs just one specific thing (light and heavy attacks) while the other sets you mention boost DPS overall. This means the relative benefit of UI compared to MS depends quite a bit on what percent of the time you spend heavy attacking. This means the DPS depends a great deal on the rotation someone uses, how optimal that rotation is, etc. For example, let’s take as given that you tested UI and found it to not be as good for you as MS on a heavy attack build. Well, what if I am not nearly as good at keeping all my DOTs up as you are, and therefore heavy attacks make up a significantly higher portion of my time spent and my damage than they would for you? Well, that would of course naturally help out UI in comparison to MS, since I’d be spending more time than you on the component of damage UI actually buffs more than MS does and less time on the components of damage that MS buffs way more than UI does. Would it be enough to make UI better? It’s possible, but it would depend on exactly what my rotation looks like.

Your retort to this may be that in an optimal rotation MS is better and that’s what should matter. But, while that might make sense in other contexts, I’m not sure that that’s right in this context. People who want to run UI are quite unlikely to be people who are capable of running a perfect rotation. If they were, they would be pretty unlikely to be looking for a heavy attack build. So a realistic representation of the DPS of MS vs. UI in a heavy attack build for the people looking to use it would be if one ran a pretty sub-optimal rotation. The more suboptimal it is, the more UI would be likely to gain in comparison to MS. Thus, I don’t think that you running a test of the DPS you get on MS vs. UI can be an accurate representation of the relative DPS those two sets would output for most of the people thinking of running UI. It’s a relevant data point, but it’s simply not conclusive, because the relative DPS of the two sets is going to vary based on how close to optimal the player plays.

karekiz

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

T3hasiangod wrote: »

It's been tested by a few people at this point. UI ends up losing out to a few other more readily available sets.

MS + NMA
MS + Juli
NMA + IA
Juli + IA

All of those combinations are easier to obtain and does not require the waste of 150 transmutes on a dead-end set.

Please do not waste time farming for the set. Do yourself a favor and spend the time farming the gold needed to buy MS pieces or farm IA instead.

I don’t doubt that you’ve tested this and that these are the results. And it’s undoubtedly true that UI is an incredible time sink to farm and also requires lots of transmutes. So I see the argument that other more readily available sets are better and people shouldn’t waste their time and resources on it. That said, I think a couple things are worth noting:

1. I wouldn’t exactly call IA readily available for most of the ESO population. The vast majority of the player base never touches trials—whether because they don’t have enough CP to really do them, aren’t good enough at the game, or simply don’t know people in-game who run them. So, for instance, for me, I ideally wanted IA but decided to farm UI instead because IA was not really available to me. Notably, I’d wager that the subset of people looking specifically for a heavy attack build—many of whom are people looking for something that doesn’t require high levels of skill or mechanical ability—are probably more likely than average to be people who aren’t doing trials. All this is to say that, for many people, UI may be a complete grind to farm, but IA basically cannot be farmed.

2. More importantly, testing DPS differences between those sets and UI cannot really be done in an entirely objective way that actually measures how it would be for a different person. This is because UI buffs just one specific thing (light and heavy attacks) while the other sets you mention boost DPS overall. This means the relative benefit of UI compared to MS depends quite a bit on what percent of the time you spend heavy attacking. This means the DPS depends a great deal on the rotation someone uses, how optimal that rotation is, etc. For example, let’s take as given that you tested UI and found it to not be as good for you as MS on a heavy attack build. Well, what if I am not nearly as good at keeping all my DOTs up as you are, and therefore heavy attacks make up a significantly higher portion of my time spent and my damage than they would for you? Well, that would of course naturally help out UI in comparison to MS, since I’d be spending more time than you on the component of damage UI actually buffs more than MS does and less time on the components of damage that MS buffs way more than UI does. Would it be enough to make UI better? It’s possible, but it would depend on exactly what my rotation looks like.

Your retort to this may be that in an optimal rotation MS is better and that’s what should matter. But, while that might make sense in other contexts, I’m not sure that that’s right in this context. People who want to run UI are quite unlikely to be people who are capable of running a perfect rotation. If they were, they would be pretty unlikely to be looking for a heavy attack build. So a realistic representation of the DPS of MS vs. UI in a heavy attack build for the people looking to use it would be if one ran a pretty sub-optimal rotation. The more suboptimal it is, the more UI would be likely to gain in comparison to MS. Thus, I don’t think that you running a test of the DPS you get on MS vs. UI can be an accurate representation of the relative DPS those two sets would output for most of the people thinking of running UI. It’s a relevant data point, but it’s simply not conclusive, because the relative DPS of the two sets is going to vary based on how close to optimal the player plays.

Just run NMA + Juli. You don't even NEED to transmute if you have a buddy.

katorga

Stevie6 wrote: »

Tried the same setups again after patch and it works to a point. Iceheart is no longer reliable. Basically, you get a 4800 shield and that’s a big nothing burger. Might have to make NMA in heavy armor for more resists and health for vet bosses. Use grothdar or anything but IH.

The LAG is really bad now after patch. FPS is down to around 60 on average. The lag factor in n/vet dungeons was bad before and now after the patch. The connection to Dallas,TX is still around 29ms but connect to the server and wow..laggggggggggggg. 140ms to 999+ms in all content. The addon were turned off and lag happened. Turned on..samething...lag. It’s a software problem on the developer’s end.

I don't know if it is lag, every thing seems great on my system, but skills misfire all the time now even in PVE.

UI + Unweaver racks up huge hits on my necro. Probably looks better than it actually performs, but it is immune to misfires. I back bar the stam set.

UI + Draugrkin's Grip works well too with less uptime. It does buff other skills.

Draugrkins + Ice Furnace with Boneyard/Siphon/HA...some massive AOE fields.

T3hasiangod

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

T3hasiangod wrote: »

It's been tested by a few people at this point. UI ends up losing out to a few other more readily available sets.

MS + NMA
MS + Juli
NMA + IA
Juli + IA

All of those combinations are easier to obtain and does not require the waste of 150 transmutes on a dead-end set.

Please do not waste time farming for the set. Do yourself a favor and spend the time farming the gold needed to buy MS pieces or farm IA instead.

2. More importantly, testing DPS differences between those sets and UI cannot really be done in an entirely objective way that actually measures how it would be for a different person.

No, it can be done objectively. Use the exact same sets, changing only the one set. Exchange UI for MS/Julianos and then test the difference. Alternatively, keep the rotation identical, but change the sets around. Use the same rotation, but compare UI + IA versus MS + Juli or some other combination. This erases the effect of player skill, as both tests are running the same rotation, and thus only the set bonuses are affected our end results.

sekou_trayvond

Juhasow wrote: »

Try Infallible aether/mage set. It seems to fit the best to the heavy attack setup You're looking for.

I use this- IA plus UI plus infernal guardian. Pets. 1 bar. It works for me. Carries my no talent butt through VMA anyway. But I know IA can be a real pain to farm as it is a trial drop.

RiskyChalice863

T3hasiangod wrote: »

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

T3hasiangod wrote: »

It's been tested by a few people at this point. UI ends up losing out to a few other more readily available sets.

MS + NMA
MS + Juli
NMA + IA
Juli + IA

All of those combinations are easier to obtain and does not require the waste of 150 transmutes on a dead-end set.

Please do not waste time farming for the set. Do yourself a favor and spend the time farming the gold needed to buy MS pieces or farm IA instead.

2. More importantly, testing DPS differences between those sets and UI cannot really be done in an entirely objective way that actually measures how it would be for a different person.

No, it can be done objectively. Use the exact same sets, changing only the one set. Exchange UI for MS/Julianos and then test the difference. Alternatively, keep the rotation identical, but change the sets around. Use the same rotation, but compare UI + IA versus MS + Juli or some other combination. This erases the effect of player skill, as both tests are running the same rotation, and thus only the set bonuses are affected our end results.

You’re missing the point I was making, though. Here’s the point: Different players will have different skill levels that will result in very different rotations (and, quite importantly, differing abilities to stick to their intended rotation when actually in a real fight). In most comparisons of sets, that doesn’t really matter, because each set in question is modifying all your outgoing damage anyways, so you’d come to the same relative results regardless of what rotation you use in your test. In those scenarios, you’d be right to say that all that matters is making sure you use an identical rotation for both. But, here, the specific rotation you decide to use in your test will actually affect what the relative results are, because two of the sets in question essentially modify only one specific damage source while the other two sets modify all outgoing damage. So you’d come to different relative results depending on what percent of the time you spend utilizing that one specific damage source. In essence, the greater amount of time you spend heavy attacking, the better UI + IA will look compared to MS + Juli, because UI + IA buff heavy attacks more than MS + Juli do, while MS + Juli buff everything else more than UI + IA do.

Given that, it’s not adequate to just use the same rotation for both and say one set combination is objectively superior to the other based on the fact that it got more DPS in that specific rotation. This is because it does not actually logically follow that that set combination would always do more DPS with every other rotation as well. It may well be that someone who often forgets to refresh their DoTs and therefore uses heavy attacks much more than is optimal would get more damage out of a UI + IA build than out of a MS + Juli build, even though MS + Juli outperforms UI + IA when you test them with a much better rotation.

And that fact is particularly important here, because I think it’s safe to say that the players seeking heavy attack builds are more likely to be the types of players who would actually forget to optimally refresh their DoTs and would use heavy attacks more than is optimal. So your personal comparisons of UI + IA and MS + Juli may not accurately reflect the results many players seeking heavy attack builds would get from those sets.

zvavi

@RiskyChalice863 while i do agree with you about ui being more effective if you mainly heavy attack, the main reason i am against it even then, is that it is making people go for more heavy attacks, than what they actually need to sustain, and making them stay at that level.

I understand that some people cant sustain a full la rotation (tbh a lot have a problem with heavy attacks cause of pressing down the mouse for too long) but those whose medical condition allows them to do more, it is a set i would never recommend.

RiskyChalice863

zvavi wrote: »

@RiskyChalice863 while i do agree with you about ui being more effective if you mainly heavy attack, the main reason i am against it even then, is that it is making people go for more heavy attacks, than what they actually need to sustain, and making them stay at that level.

I understand that some people cant sustain a full la rotation (tbh a lot have a problem with heavy attacks cause of pressing down the mouse for too long) but those whose medical condition allows them to do more, it is a set i would never recommend.

I think that’s a fair point of view. I’ll note though that there’s more to it than just having the ability to sustain a full LA rotation. It’s also about just keeping up your rotation (and therefore all your DoTs) when actually in a fight. A lot of people can’t keep things together very easily when in an actual fight where they also need to be paying attention to mechanics and staying alive and whatnot. For those people, I think UI is likely to perform significantly better in reality than it does on paper.

That said, it is also true that players like that who would use UI would sort of be using UI as a crutch, which might prevent them from ever really learning to keep it together better in fights. So I wouldn’t argue that one should advocate UI for new players who haven’t even tried much to improve yet, but I think there are plenty of somewhat experienced players who basically can’t really LA weave well and whose rotation simply crumbles often enough in actual fights that UI might be a good bet for them.

zvavi

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

I think there are plenty of somewhat experienced players who basically can’t really LA weave well and whose rotation simply crumbles often enough in actual fights that UI might be a good bet for them.

I am still disagreeing on this point. Because.
1. There are no mechanics in most dungeons.
2. Most rotations are very static, 1 2 3 on back bar, go front, another dot, spammable for the win.
3. If rotation crumbles, doesn't mean it wont with a heavy attack rotation.
4. That's why we hit a skeleton, when i was relatively new, every time i changed skills/rotation, i would hit a 3m real quick to adjust to the new feeling. i think that "hit the skelly for 5 minutes" is much a better approach than "farm UI for weeks" one.
5. Spammable without light attacks will still deal more damage than a heavy attack.

karekiz

zvavi wrote: »

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

I think there are plenty of somewhat experienced players who basically can’t really LA weave well and whose rotation simply crumbles often enough in actual fights that UI might be a good bet for them.

I am still disagreeing on this point. Because.
1. There are no mechanics in most dungeons.

That vastly depends on what dungeons and if you run HM or not.

Classic dungeons - sure - yeah, but there is about as many DLC dungeons as classic dungeons now, and with a low DPS group even ICP technically has a one shot if you fail mechanic in it.

RiskyChalice863

zvavi wrote: »

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

I think there are plenty of somewhat experienced players who basically can’t really LA weave well and whose rotation simply crumbles often enough in actual fights that UI might be a good bet for them.

I am still disagreeing on this point. Because.
1. There are no mechanics in most dungeons.
2. Most rotations are very static, 1 2 3 on back bar, go front, another dot, spammable for the win.
3. If rotation crumbles, doesn't mean it wont with a heavy attack rotation.
4. That's why we hit a skeleton, when i was relatively new, every time i changed skills/rotation, i would hit a 3m real quick to adjust to the new feeling. i think that "hit the skelly for 5 minutes" is much a better approach than "farm UI for weeks" one.
5. Spammable without light attacks will still deal more damage than a heavy attack.

1. Easier dungeons don’t really have mechanics. But lots of harder ones do—at least in some fights. And there’s also just what I guess I’d call lesser mechanics that can just induce panic that makes rotations worse. Let me just give an example off the top of my head from a dungeon I recently did (so may not be a perfect example). Let’s take the Dranos fight in Cradle of Shadows. There’s a period near the end of the fight where there’s a bunch of like red waves coming out randomly from the center of the big room the fight is in. You’ve got to kill stuff while avoiding those red waves. They don’t one-shot you (unless maybe you’re super squishy) but they do a lot of damage. I’d wager most players are not keeping up a good rotation during that phase of the fight, because they’re focusing a lot on avoiding the red wave things.

3. My point isn’t that a heavy attack rotation won’t crumble (though it’s perhaps less likely to, since heavy attack rotations are simply easier than LA weaving). It’s that when that heavy attack rotation crumbles, it is likely to crumble into something that doesn’t optimally refresh DoTs and spends too much time heavy attacking. And that’s important here, because a UI + IA build will do much less damage on its DoTs than a MS + Juli build would, while it will do more damage on its heavy attacks. So if you are not getting optimal levels of damage from your DoTs and are spending too much time heavy attacking, UI + IA will perform better relative to MS + Juli than it would in a more optimal rotation. Of course, I should note that it’s also possible that someone’s rotation crumbles and devolves into them spamming DoTs more than they should and heavy attacking less than they should. In that case, UI + IA would actually look even worse relative to MS + Juli than it would with an optimal rotation. So it all definitely depends on the rotation itself. And that’s why I said that there’s no objective way to compare how these sets would perform for a different person—because we simply don’t know what their rotation will end up being, and the nature of their rotation is determinative of the relative performance of the sets.

4. That may be a fair point. If UI is only better for people with suboptimal rotations, then it’s fair to just tell people to L2P instead of farming UI. But there are people who have played and practiced a lot, but just still do crumble in actual fights. A setup based around maximizing heavy attack damage would be good for these people at least in the short term, since it will likely make them much more effective. Maybe in the long term those people should spend more time just getting so comfortable with their rotation that they don’t crumble, but that improvement may come over a much longer time horizon than it takes to farm UI (because, by the way, you don’t actually NEED a UI lightning staff. I run a UI build and don’t have a UI lightning staff. I just have the jewelry and run 5L/2M—it’s not completely optimal, but it’ll likely take people a lot less time to farm).

5. Not with a dedicated heavy attack build. I’ve got a Undaunted Infiltrator + Undaunted Unweaver Mag DK (would be UI + IA but I don’t have IA) that absolutely does more damage with heavy attacks than it would with a spammable. And honestly, it does more damage with heavy attacks than any build I could imagine doing just with a spammable and no light attacks. And there’s obviously no sustain issues whatsoever (at least for now...). I’m pretty sure based on some basic calculations (which I’ve made in another thread) that at 810 CP and just using heavy attacks and a couple abilities only as necessary to keep UI/UU up, it could hit about 40k DPS self buffed. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think any build could do 40k DPS self-buffed with just spammables.

zvavi

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

1. Easier dungeons don’t really have mechanics. But lots of harder ones do—at least in some fights. And there’s also just what I guess I’d call lesser mechanics that can just induce panic that makes rotations worse. Let me just give an example off the top of my head from a dungeon I recently did (so may not be a perfect example). Let’s take the Dranos fight in Cradle of Shadows. There’s a period near the end of the fight where there’s a bunch of like red waves coming out randomly from the center of the big room the fight is in. You’ve got to kill stuff while avoiding those red waves. They don’t one-shot you (unless maybe you’re super squishy) but they do a lot of damage. I’d wager most players are not keeping up a good rotation during that phase of the fight, because they’re focusing a lot on avoiding the red wave things.

3. My point isn’t that a heavy attack rotation won’t crumble (though it’s perhaps less likely to, since heavy attack rotations are simply easier than LA weaving). It’s that when that heavy attack rotation crumbles, it is likely to crumble into something that doesn’t optimally refresh DoTs and spends too much time heavy attacking. And that’s important here, because a UI + IA build will do much less damage on its DoTs than a MS + Juli build would, while it will do more damage on its heavy attacks. So if you are not getting optimal levels of damage from your DoTs and are spending too much time heavy attacking, UI + IA will perform better relative to MS + Juli than it would in a more optimal rotation. Of course, I should note that it’s also possible that someone’s rotation crumbles and devolves into them spamming DoTs more than they should and heavy attacking less than they should. In that case, UI + IA would actually look even worse relative to MS + Juli than it would with an optimal rotation. So it all definitely depends on the rotation itself. And that’s why I said that there’s no objective way to compare how these sets would perform for a different person—because we simply don’t know what their rotation will end up being, and the nature of their rotation is determinative of the relative performance of the sets.

4. That may be a fair point. If UI is only better for people with suboptimal rotations, then it’s fair to just tell people to L2P instead of farming UI. But there are people who have played and practiced a lot, but just still do crumble in actual fights. A setup based around maximizing heavy attack damage would be good for these people at least in the short term, since it will likely make them much more effective. Maybe in the long term those people should spend more time just getting so comfortable with their rotation that they don’t crumble, but that improvement may come over a much longer time horizon than it takes to farm UI (because, by the way, you don’t actually NEED a UI lightning staff. I run a UI build and don’t have a UI lightning staff. I just have the jewelry and run 5L/2M—it’s not completely optimal, but it’ll likely take people a lot less time to farm).

5. Not with a dedicated heavy attack build. I’ve got a Undaunted Infiltrator + Undaunted Unweaver Mag DK (would be UI + IA but I don’t have IA) that absolutely does more damage with heavy attacks than it would with a spammable. And honestly, it does more damage with heavy attacks than any build I could imagine doing just with a spammable and no light attacks. And there’s obviously no sustain issues whatsoever (at least for now...). I’m pretty sure based on some basic calculations (which I’ve made in another thread) that at 810 CP and just using heavy attacks and a couple abilities only as necessary to keep UI/UU up, it could hit about 40k DPS self buffed. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think any build could do 40k DPS self-buffed with just spammables.

1. I get what you mean, but it is a bad example, since things die faster if u spam spammable at them instead of rotation, and dds can avoid the need to attack them at all if tank pulls them in/brings boss to them.
3. I seen people panic, if they manage to keep their wits, they keep dmging (heavy attack or spammable) but if they can't, they just gonna run around shielding/healing.
4. That brings us back to point n2, get them a more static rotation. 123 swap spammable, even when panicking is not that hard.
5. Please share a parse (mind you 40k dmg per ha is not 40k dps, not even 20k)

RiskyChalice863

zvavi wrote: »

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

1. Easier dungeons don’t really have mechanics. But lots of harder ones do—at least in some fights. And there’s also just what I guess I’d call lesser mechanics that can just induce panic that makes rotations worse. Let me just give an example off the top of my head from a dungeon I recently did (so may not be a perfect example). Let’s take the Dranos fight in Cradle of Shadows. There’s a period near the end of the fight where there’s a bunch of like red waves coming out randomly from the center of the big room the fight is in. You’ve got to kill stuff while avoiding those red waves. They don’t one-shot you (unless maybe you’re super squishy) but they do a lot of damage. I’d wager most players are not keeping up a good rotation during that phase of the fight, because they’re focusing a lot on avoiding the red wave things.

3. My point isn’t that a heavy attack rotation won’t crumble (though it’s perhaps less likely to, since heavy attack rotations are simply easier than LA weaving). It’s that when that heavy attack rotation crumbles, it is likely to crumble into something that doesn’t optimally refresh DoTs and spends too much time heavy attacking. And that’s important here, because a UI + IA build will do much less damage on its DoTs than a MS + Juli build would, while it will do more damage on its heavy attacks. So if you are not getting optimal levels of damage from your DoTs and are spending too much time heavy attacking, UI + IA will perform better relative to MS + Juli than it would in a more optimal rotation. Of course, I should note that it’s also possible that someone’s rotation crumbles and devolves into them spamming DoTs more than they should and heavy attacking less than they should. In that case, UI + IA would actually look even worse relative to MS + Juli than it would with an optimal rotation. So it all definitely depends on the rotation itself. And that’s why I said that there’s no objective way to compare how these sets would perform for a different person—because we simply don’t know what their rotation will end up being, and the nature of their rotation is determinative of the relative performance of the sets.

4. That may be a fair point. If UI is only better for people with suboptimal rotations, then it’s fair to just tell people to L2P instead of farming UI. But there are people who have played and practiced a lot, but just still do crumble in actual fights. A setup based around maximizing heavy attack damage would be good for these people at least in the short term, since it will likely make them much more effective. Maybe in the long term those people should spend more time just getting so comfortable with their rotation that they don’t crumble, but that improvement may come over a much longer time horizon than it takes to farm UI (because, by the way, you don’t actually NEED a UI lightning staff. I run a UI build and don’t have a UI lightning staff. I just have the jewelry and run 5L/2M—it’s not completely optimal, but it’ll likely take people a lot less time to farm).

5. Not with a dedicated heavy attack build. I’ve got a Undaunted Infiltrator + Undaunted Unweaver Mag DK (would be UI + IA but I don’t have IA) that absolutely does more damage with heavy attacks than it would with a spammable. And honestly, it does more damage with heavy attacks than any build I could imagine doing just with a spammable and no light attacks. And there’s obviously no sustain issues whatsoever (at least for now...). I’m pretty sure based on some basic calculations (which I’ve made in another thread) that at 810 CP and just using heavy attacks and a couple abilities only as necessary to keep UI/UU up, it could hit about 40k DPS self buffed. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think any build could do 40k DPS self-buffed with just spammables.

1. I get what you mean, but it is a bad example, since things die faster if u spam spammable at them instead of rotation, and dds can avoid the need to attack them at all if tank pulls them in/brings boss to them.
3. I seen people panic, if they manage to keep their wits, they keep dmging (heavy attack or spammable) but if they can't, they just gonna run around shielding/healing.
4. That brings us back to point n2, get them a more static rotation. 123 swap spammable, even when panicking is not that hard.
5. Please share a parse (mind you 40k dmg per ha is not 40k dps, not even 20k)

I’m nowhere near 810 CP, so I wouldn’t be able to hit those numbers. And it also requires a Maelstrom Destro staff, which I don’t have. So I’d not be able to show you a parse (also, I’m on console so not sure it’s possible to show a DPS parse anyways).

However, I’m basing this off of numbers from a UESP build editor build with 810 CP that I put together a few weeks ago. I pretty haphazardly distributed the CP and I put Slimecraw on it when that’s probably not the best option in reality (because its effect is diluted by all the percent damage boosts), so this almost certainly was a decent bit away from being optimized.

Anyways, I dug more into the numbers just now (see below for explanation of that*) and admittedly the DPS it would pull on the build I put together is more like 33,250 self-buffed. Again, though, this is just by using Unstable Wall of Storms and Lightweight Beast Trap every 10 seconds, using Molten Armaments when it runs out, using Shifting Standard when you get it, and otherwise just heavy attacking constantly. While that is lower than the 40k I mentioned earlier, I do still think it’s higher than any build could get self-buffed just from constantly using a spammable.

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*If you’re curious for the nitty-gritty of the calculations see below:

According to the build editor, each heavy attack does a base damage of 38,042. That is without Molten Armaments. There’s 62% in damage boosts already without Molten Armaments, so adding another 50% takes it to 49,783 base damage per heavy attack. With off balance on them, that’d add another 80% damage boost, for a total of 68,570 base damage per lightning heavy attack. There’s a 49.8% crit chance, with 99% critical damage. So, factoring in crits, that’s actually 74,327 per heavy attack on someone who isn’t off balance, and 102,376 damage per heavy attack on someone who is off balance. Now, for simplicity, let’s assume off balance is up on cooldown (it may be slightly less, I suppose, but you’ll be keeping up wall of elements and have a shock enchant). That’ll average out to 83,252 damage per heavy attack. Each heavy attack takes 2.2 seconds, so that ends up being 37,842 damage per second with your heavy attack. Then let’s assume 50% uptime on minor vulnerability (the shock enchant itself will get you like 40% uptime, and you’ll have your lightning staff damage itself and wall of elements, so this is almost certainly low-balling it—let’s say it’s making up for the fact that you won’t always exactly proc off balance on cooldown). With 50% uptime on minor vulnerability you’re now looking at 39,356 damage per second on heavy attacks. Your shock enchant’s damage itself will add another 1,171 damage per second (3017 base damage, with 49.8% crit chance, 99% crit damage, and 4% extra damage from 50% minor vulnerability uptime, and it is procc’ed every 4 seconds while heavy attacking). That that comes out to 40,527 damage per second. This build has 5297 spell resistance, and parse skeletons have 18,200 resistances, I believe, so this actually comes out to 32,604 damage per second on the skeleton.

Of course, you won’t always be heavy attacking. You will also need to use Unstable Wall every 10 seconds to proc UI and get your Maelstrom staff’s damage buff working. And you’ll need to use Lightweight Beast Trap every 10 seconds to trigger Undaunted Unweaver and Minor Force. Would using these abilities lower your damage? Not really.

Unstable Wall has a tooltip of 21,154 total damage over its 10 second duration. Taking crits and minor vulnerability uptime into account, that means it’ll do 32,847 damage on average over 10 seconds. You’d use a LA weave after it, and your LA has a base damage of 9,186–which will average 14,263 damage after crits and minor vulnerability uptime. So, each GCD in which you use Unstable Wall, you’re looking at 47,110 damage output created in that one second GCD. Again, though, taking resistances into account, this goes down to 37,900 damage output created in that one second GCD.

Lightweight Beast Trap obviously won’t fare quite as well. The total tooltip on it is only 7,269 damage. You’ve got 46.5% weapon crit and 80% weapon crit damage. So, including crits and minor vulnerability uptime, you’re looking at 10,372 damage from Lightweight Beast Trap. Then add the light attack damage described above, and you’re looking at 24,635 damage output created in that one second GCD. Taking resistances into account (including due to 0 physical penetration), you’re actually looking at 18,987 damage output created in that one second GCD.

If we assume that you are using heavy attack 80% of the time, and doing the Unstable Wall and Lightweight Beast Trap cooldowns 10% of the time each (since you will be refreshing them every 10 seconds to keep your UU and UI buffs up), that comes out to an average of 31,727 DPS, just from heavy attacking and using Unstable Wall and Lightweight Beast Trap every 10 seconds.

But you also have to keep Molten Armaments up. It lasts for 36 seconds. When you use that, your damage will only be the damage from a light attack you weave with it. If you have 35 seconds that average 31,727 DPS, and 1 second in which your only damage is a light attack, then the average DPS over those 36 seconds is 31,164 DPS.

But then that’s not taking into account ultimates. You’d use Shifting Standard. You’d output a massive 191,166 damage from that thing, and 202,641 with a LA weave. You’d have that up every 75 seconds (slightly quicker actually because Molten Armaments gives ultimate, but let’s just assume 75 seconds). Taking that into account similarly to how I dealt with Molten Armaments gets you to just over 33,250 DPS.

I’ll note that you may say I shouldn’t have calculated using LA weaving on the abilities, but the reality is that you’d get the same numbers if you didn’t LA weave between the abilities, because that would just mean that your next heavy attack would start before the GCD is over, instead of assuming a light attack during the GCD and then a heavy attack starting the next GCD. And since the first tick of damage on a lightning heavy attack is the same as a light attack, the above is a very similar calculation as assuming you HA weave—it’s just simpler to show the numbers this way. If anything, it low balls it a bit for reasons I won’t bother explaining because this is already too long.

mocap

DK is very good on PTS now.

IA + Elf Bane + Zaan + vMA lightning. 2 skills rotation (Wall+IngFlames) lol + 5 or 6 heavy attacks. Ez 40k dps.
upd: 3kk dummy, full self parse. IA, not UI. Imo Infallible Aether is more powerful than Infiltrator, and waaaaaay eazy to get.

Stevie6

mocap wrote: »

DK is very good on PTS now.

IA + Elf Bane + Zaan + vMA lightning. 2 skills rotation (Wall+IngFlames) lol + 5 or 6 heavy attacks. Ez 40k dps.
upd: 3kk dummy, full self parse. IA, not UI. Imo Infallible Aether is more powerful than Infiltrator, and waaaaaay eazy to get.

Well, I did some testing on PTS and it wasn’t good for UI. HA build without resource sustain only results in an early death. LA isn’t apart of the rotation. The Devs aren’t thinking. They assume low end players will start using LA for resource sustain and make apart of their rotation. LA isn’t apart of my rotation. What the problem is there isn’t a rotation for my HA build. Keeping it simple one bar HA build. The damage isn’t there...at all.

The Devs need to look at PRE MORROWIND to see what worked and made players happy and buy the game. You want noobs/casuals to stay, then bring back damage and shields. Roll back all item sets and races. Play the way you want to play is ambiguous atm.