How do people make their Light Attacks do so much damage?

Athyrium93

Looking at parses posted by creators like Liko and Alcast as well as regular high DPS players I've noticed their light attacks are doing crazy damage, 20k or more per hit.... HOW?

Mine hit for half that if I'm lucky, even when specifically messing around seeing just how hard I can get them to hit by putting 75 CP into Staff Expert, with crit chance and crit damage both around 80% plus Solar Barrage for empower, gold weapons, gold enchants, 40k max magicka, and yet they only hit for 10k....

I'm not asking about DPS, I get LA weaving and how it increases DPS, and that the DPS provided from light attacks is approximately 90% of the damage of their average hit in most parses. I'm asking specifically about how to make the individual light attacks hit harder.

The only thing I can think of is a Maelstrom Staff, which I haven't tried yet because RNG thinks I really need shields instead... Do Maelstrom Staves really add 10k damage? am I missing something obvious? (my testing was done on the Iron Atro so I don't think it's a penetration issue either)

WrathOfInnos

Maelstrom Staff adds about 3k average to Light Attacks on a dummy, and closer to 4k in trials.

What weapon type are you using? Is this with Shadow Mundus (7 divines)? What is your crit chance? Your Spell Damage? Do you have points in all the DPS passives (class, destruction staff, undaunted, racial, Mage’s Guild)?

El_Borracho

@WrathOfInnos is right, for most players the Maelstrom staff does not add 20K. Weapon damage pots, some skills, and some armor sets stack damage onto light attacks when used after other criteria are met. There is a tight window for these things and some are better at the juggling than others.

Simple answer, Alcast is just better than you, me, and almost everyone else in this game. Its his job, after all

Athyrium93

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Maelstrom Staff adds about 3k average to Light Attacks on a dummy, and closer to 4k in trials.

What weapon type are you using? Is this with Shadow Mundus (7 divines)? What is your crit chance? Your Spell Damage? Do you have points in all the DPS passives (class, destruction staff, undaunted, racial, Mage’s Guild)?

Templar
All passives maxed
Inferno Staff
6 divines
325 CP
3319 spell damage
78.3% spell critical
88% crit damage

Running mother's sorrow, julianos, and valkyn skoria in a 5-1-1***
Weapons and big pieces gold, everything else except one ring purple, all gold enchants
Thief Mundus (I really need to remember to swap that)

Spell power pots on cooldown
Mistral banana bunny hash food

***(not planning to farm better gear anytime soon, this character is a healer 90% of the time, so the focus is getting the million sets needed for that golded first, dps is just a side hobby)

Edit to add- CP was not optimized when I was testing this, usually CP is standard healer CP, even if I'm doing DPS (cause I'm cheap) I just put 75 points in Staff Expert the other day because I was curious of the difference it would make, all numbers above are from when I was testing it.

WrathOfInnos

Athyrium93 wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Maelstrom Staff adds about 3k average to Light Attacks on a dummy, and closer to 4k in trials.

What weapon type are you using? Is this with Shadow Mundus (7 divines)? What is your crit chance? Your Spell Damage? Do you have points in all the DPS passives (class, destruction staff, undaunted, racial, Mage’s Guild)?

Templar
All passives maxed
Inferno Staff
6 divines
325 CP
3319 spell damage
78.3% spell critical
88% crit damage

Running mother's sorrow, julianos, and valkyn skoria in a 5-1-1***
Weapons and big pieces gold, everything else except one ring purple, all gold enchants
Thief Mundus (I really need to remember to swap that)

Spell power pots on cooldown
Mistral banana bunny hash food

***(not planning to farm better gear anytime soon, this character is a healer 90% of the time, so the focus is getting the million sets needed for that golded first, dps is just a side hobby)

Looks like it’s probably just the combination of several minor things then. Your Spell Damage is a little low, do you have Spell Damage enchants on all 3 jewelry pieces? What about Infused Berserker in your back bar staff with Unstable Wall to keep ugh uptimes? Replacing Julianos with Siroria would also help boost Spell Damage and give you Minor Slayer. I’d estimate you’re missing about 1k Spell Damage.

CP’s will also help. I don’t recommend investing much in Staff Expert on Templar because they already get free Empower, and Light Attack less than other classes when using Sweeps and beam. Master at Arms, Elfborn and Elemental Expert will increase light attack damage, and you want 9-10 points in Spell Erosion (don’t need Skoria then).

You should also use Precise on your front bar weapon, especially when you switch to Shadow mundus.

Crit damage seems low, but this could just be lack of Shadow and missing some Elfborn CPs. Are you using anything for Minor Force, like Barbed Trap? Do you have an Aedric Spear ability on both bars for 10% crit damage?

Athyrium93

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Athyrium93 wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Maelstrom Staff adds about 3k average to Light Attacks on a dummy, and closer to 4k in trials.

What weapon type are you using? Is this with Shadow Mundus (7 divines)? What is your crit chance? Your Spell Damage? Do you have points in all the DPS passives (class, destruction staff, undaunted, racial, Mage’s Guild)?

Templar
All passives maxed
Inferno Staff
6 divines
325 CP
3319 spell damage
78.3% spell critical
88% crit damage

Running mother's sorrow, julianos, and valkyn skoria in a 5-1-1***
Weapons and big pieces gold, everything else except one ring purple, all gold enchants
Thief Mundus (I really need to remember to swap that)

Spell power pots on cooldown
Mistral banana bunny hash food

***(not planning to farm better gear anytime soon, this character is a healer 90% of the time, so the focus is getting the million sets needed for that golded first, dps is just a side hobby)

Looks like it’s probably just the combination of several minor things then. Your Spell Damage is a little low, do you have Spell Damage enchants on all 3 jewelry pieces? What about Infused Berserker in your back bar staff with Unstable Wall to keep ugh uptimes? Replacing Julianos with Siroria would also help boost Spell Damage and give you Minor Slayer. I’d estimate you’re missing about 1k Spell Damage.

CP’s will also help. I don’t recommend investing much in Staff Expert on Templar because they already get free Empower, and Light Attack less than other classes when using Sweeps and beam. Master at Arms, Elfborn and Elemental Expert will increase light attack damage, and you want 9-10 points in Spell Erosion (don’t need Skoria then).

You should also use Precise on your front bar weapon, especially when you switch to Shadow mundus.

Crit damage seems low, but this could just be lack of Shadow and missing some Elfborn CPs. Are you using anything for Minor Force, like Barbed Trap? Do you have an Aedric Spear ability on both bars for 10% crit damage?

During that test CP was all kinds of weird because I had 75 in staff expert, which I'm sure hurt damage more than little, (I'm at work and only had a screen shot of that one parse saved to my phone because it was the first time I hit 38k dps after being stuck at 35k for a while, so I'm not sure what exact numbers on everything are during a "real" parse), all three jewelry pieces have Spell damage enchants though, I think I had a flame damage enchant back bar and Precise front bar during that test, I didn't have minor slayer (only just unlocked accelerate, psijic line sucks to level) but did have an Aedric Spear ability on both bars

r3turn2s3nd3r

Athyrium93 wrote: »

I didn't have minor slayer (only just unlocked accelerate, psijic line sucks to level) but did have an Aedric Spear ability on both bars

Minor Slayer comes from trial sets. i.e. False God, Infallible Aether, Siroria, etc. 5% more damage against trial and dungeon enemies (and on the dummies). The psijic skill gives you Minor Force.

Athyrium93

r3turn2s3nd3r wrote: »

Athyrium93 wrote: »

I didn't have minor slayer (only just unlocked accelerate, psijic line sucks to level) but did have an Aedric Spear ability on both bars

Minor Slayer comes from trial sets. i.e. False God, Infallible Aether, Siroria, etc. 5% more damage against trial and dungeon enemies (and on the dummies). The psijic skill gives you Minor Force.

My bad, just typed the wrong one!

r3turn2s3nd3r

Athyrium93 wrote: »

r3turn2s3nd3r wrote: »

Athyrium93 wrote: »

I didn't have minor slayer (only just unlocked accelerate, psijic line sucks to level) but did have an Aedric Spear ability on both bars

Minor Slayer comes from trial sets. i.e. False God, Infallible Aether, Siroria, etc. 5% more damage against trial and dungeon enemies (and on the dummies). The psijic skill gives you Minor Force.

My bad, just typed the wrong one!

Ahh, gotcha.