Magicka Damage influencers?

eMKa8

Hi everyone ,

I have several questions about the different aspects of dealing damage and was hoping to talk about them.

I am trying to understand how different aspects are impacting your true damage...

I am a magsorc focussing on magicka abilities

Max Magicka: the higher your magicka , the higher your spell damage of your abilities right ? Is it it the same for your staff attacks ?
Spell damage: here the same i guess , the higher your spell Damage , the higher the damage of your skills as well right ?
But why using spell damage instead of max magicka then ? They do both the same, however max magicka still gives another advantage of having more ressources for casting spells ... isnt it ?

Ultimates : Are ultimates from stamina based weapons ( which will deal physical damage) as good as the magicka line ultimates if you are a magsorc? I d like to use other ultimates (not standard magicka) however i am afraid they are less effective then the regular sorcerer ultimates ...
ultimates scale with your highest ressource ... so i know ultimates will cost me magicka anyway ... but will the ohysical damage of stamina-ultimates be high enough if my build is magicka based ?

What are the main differences between
- frost damage (immobilizes i know)
- Fire damage (deals more damage i guess)
- Lightning damage (deals damage to more enemies i guess)
- Magic damage —-> no idea !

What does magic damage exactly do?

If you are CP300 and magicka focused , how high does then your stats minimum have to be To be able to have a solid build ?
- how high max magicka needed
- Spell damage
- Spell critical %
- Critical damage%

Is magicka recovery important for anything else (damage wise) if you have sufficient sustain ?

tsaescishoeshiner

eMKa8 wrote: »

Max Magicka: the higher your magicka , the higher your spell damage of your abilities right ? Is it it the same for your staff attacks ?
Spell damage: here the same i guess , the higher your spell Damage , the higher the damage of your skills as well right ?
But why using spell damage instead of max magicka then ? They do both the same, however max magicka still gives another advantage of having more ressources for casting spells ... isnt it ?

You're right about Max Magicka having the advantage of more resources. But some Sorcerer spells only scale with Max Magicka, not Spell Damage. Your Familiar and Twilight only scale with Max Magicka (Clannfear scales with Max Stamina). Conjured Ward also scales with Max Magicka, but is capped to a certain % of your Max Health (like 50%? I forget).

You also get some bonuses to Max Magicka, like from the Mages Guild skills Inner Light, and Bound Aegis. Things that give you Spell Damage usually give you more of it than things that give you Max Magicka (like 10-20% more).

eMKa8 wrote: »

Ultimates : Are ultimates from stamina based weapons ( which will deal physical damage) as good as the magicka line ultimates if you are a magsorc? I d like to use other ultimates (not standard magicka) however i am afraid they are less effective then the regular sorcerer ultimates ...
ultimates scale with your highest ressource ... so i know ultimates will cost me magicka anyway ... but will the ohysical damage of stamina-ultimates be high enough if my build is magicka based ?

Yes, all ults scale with whatever is higher, except for Penetration. A physical damage ultimate will scale with Physical Penetration, not Spell Penetration. You also probably mainly want CP bonuses that increase your Spell Penetration and Magic, Shock, Fire, and Frost damage, which won't benefit a Physical/Poison/Disease ultimate skill. But yeah, you can totally use them. It's less effective but not completely ineffective. I used to use the 2H ult on my magblade for PvP.

So yeah, use them if you like. You'll also lose out on light attack damage from using a physical weapon, but if you're not light attack weaving a lot, or not doing really hard content, it doesn't matter that much. But it is less effective. But do whatever you want! lol

eMKa8 wrote: »

What are the main differences between
- frost damage (immobilizes i know)
- Fire damage (deals more damage i guess)
- Lightning damage (deals damage to more enemies i guess)
- Magic damage —-> no idea !

What does magic damage exactly do?

Magic damage has no secondary effect. Also Frost Damage doesn't immobilize, it applies Minor Maim (reduces damage done by 15%). Shock applies Minor Vulnerability (increases damage taken by 8%), and fire applies burning (a damage-over-time). The immobilize you're thinking of comes from Wall of Frost, not the Frost damage itself :~p

eMKa8 wrote: »

If you are CP300 and magicka focused , how high does then your stats minimum have to be To be able to have a solid build ?
- how high max magicka needed
- Spell damage
- Spell critical %
- Critical damage%

Is magicka recovery important for anything else (damage wise) if you have sufficient sustain ?

It depends what you mean by a "solid build". The lower end to aim for would be at least ~32k Magicka and ~2k Spell Damage unbuffed, with above 50% Spell Critical IMO. Here's Alcast's (bit outdated I think) un-buffed stat page for Magicka Sorcerer:



His Magicka Recovery is low because he's using the set False God's Devotion and relying on a healer for synergies for Magicka restore. You don't need extra Magicka Recovery if you already feel you have enough. Try whacking on a 3mil dummy - can you get all the way through it without having to Heavy Attack too much? Then try a 6 mil (might take some heavies), then a 21mil (might take 8-9 minutes).

eMKa8

@tsaescishoeshiner
Thanks for your answers. They give insights !

I thought shock damage from lightning staff was giving some aoe damage due to the electricity shocks? Is your damage from a light shock not passed through a little bit to other surrounding enemies?

The stats from that picture alcastHQ are amazing. His Critical might have been even +80 % with the thief ... !!

Are those stats with food buffs ? I hope so because otherwise mine are really bad haha!

Fyi : are you playing on EU on PC ? I am , so feel free to add me eMKa8 (my account name)

Do i understand correctly that major sorcery indeed only increases your spell damage? I thought it buffed the damage of your skills in general, and didnt realise it only referred to spell damage and NOT to spells. 😉

The secondary effects of staff attacks (light or heavy) , do they all last for 10 seconds each?
Why do most people always choose inferno staff? Is it only because it has a higher damage effect due to the dot?

tsaescishoeshiner

eMKa8 wrote: »

I thought shock damage from lightning staff was giving some aoe damage due to the electricity shocks? Is your damage from a light shock not passed through a little bit to other surrounding enemies?

It looks like you're thinking of the bonus for Lightning Staves. Lightning Staff passives give +8% AoE damage, and the heavy attacks deal splash damage. But only when you have a lightning staff equipped — it'll buff all AoE damage, and shock damage doesn't get that buff without a lightning staff equipped

eMKa8 wrote: »

The stats from that picture alcastHQ are amazing. His Critical might have been even +80 % with the thief ... !!

Are those stats with food buffs ? I hope so because otherwise mine are really bad haha!

Yah it looks like it's with food. And at above like ~50% crit, Shadow stone would be better than Thief, anyway

eMKa8 wrote: »

Fyi : are you playing on EU on PC ? I am , so feel free to add me eMKa8 (my account name)

PC NA over here :~p

eMKa8 wrote: »

Do i understand correctly that major sorcery indeed only increases your spell damage? I thought it buffed the damage of your skills in general, and didnt realise it only referred to spell damage and NOT to spells. 😉

The secondary effects of staff attacks (light or heavy) , do they all last for 10 seconds each?
Why do most people always choose inferno staff? Is it only because it has a higher damage effect due to the dot?

Well yah Major Sorcery increases your Spell Damage stat by 20%, which increases the actual damage of your spells and light attacks and stuff, but not by 20%

I think only Ice Staff heavies have an effect with a duration?

Yah the burning chance from flame Wall of Elements is good, and it deals bonus damage to burning targets. But they also increase single-target damage by 8%, which includes light attacks, so it's a big bonus. And single-target damage is important to buff cuz u usually have enough AoE damage for most content with little effort

OG_Kaveman

most the answers you want are in this thread- https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/422268/a-comprehensive-guide-on-damage-dealing-in-elder-scrolls-online/p1

OrphanHelgen

Spell damage stats are usually higher than magicka. 129 spell dmg is ruffly same dmg as 1290 magicka. Then spell dmg you have minor and major sorcery, which is 20% + 10%, compared to max magicka scaling which is for example warhorn with 15%.
As a sorc, you also have 2% spell dmg for each sorc ability slotted as well.