Spell Damage vs. Spell Critical

DigiAngel

So on the heals of my Julianos vs. Treasure hunter thread, here's the rub:

With Julianos set I have:
Spell Damage: 2150
Spell Critical: 53.6%

With Treasure:
Spell Damage: 2028
Spell Critical: 65.8%

So there it is. I was always under the impression that higher critical was always better...even with lower spell damage. Is this not the case?

El_Borracho

That is unbuffed. So if you were to run Julianos and receive Major Prophecy, either through a skill or potion, your numbers would be higher with Julianos. You will not receive a similar bump with Treasure Hunter. Which is why running a set that gives you a buff that you can get from another source is wasting that 5th piece

Contrast that to running Inner Light, which gives Major Prophecy and a 5% increase to your magicka resources. Julianos + Inner Light, you get the 5th piece of Julianos, the 5% boost and Major Prophecy. With Treasure Hunter, all you get is a 5% boost.

Major Prophecy is an indispensable skill for PVE magicka characters. The juggling act is to be able to maximize how you use your character, though. You can always swap out skills and potions, but if you can raise your spell damage/spell crit through armor sets without using Major Sorcery or Prophecy, you can get the benefit of both.

In other words, by putting Major Prophecy on your armor, you lose the opportunity to have another buff and Major Prophecy. For instance, Mother's Sorrow, which has the same buffs from 2-4 as Treasure Hunter, but has this as a 5th piece:

(5 items) Adds 1937 Spell Critical

That + Inner Light obliterates Treasure Hunter's crit gain. Which is why a set like Treasure Hunter in practice is not as strong as Julianos, Medusa, or Mother's Sorrow.

Most players, including myself, would rather make or buy pots in order to run Mother's Sorrow, all the damage/heal/shield skills I want, and get Major Prophecy and/or Major Sorcery. Pretend you're paying to have 2 extra skill slots on your bar and it makes it easier.

DigiAngel

Hrmm.....ok so....I currently AM running 5 Mother's Sorrow AND 5 Juliano's or Treasure hunter...so I'm not understanding "5th piece" as I already have 5 of each )(via staves and whatnot). I DO get what you're saying though about Inner light...giving 2 buffs....so at least I'm comprehending some I think the approach is still "run Juliano's + Mother's Sorrow + Essence potion" and it's that last bit that I'm struggling with...I don't WANT to have to juggle a potion every 46 seconds. I get it will be more damage/magicka overall. And that's where my brain says "maybe just Treasure Hunter + Mother's Sorrow is almost as good". I've got enough gold to try the potion thing...but the way I switch using the potion wheel I can totally see myself in a battle, use an essence potion, need health, and instead get essence potion and dead. I'll have to switch back to health as default EVERY time I think...unless there's a mechanic on switching potions out that I've missed. Thanks for your patience

El_Borracho

So when I say 5th piece, its Treasure Hunter's 5th piece buff. IMO, its not as good as the others as I explained above because its buff can be gained from another source. However, you can't gain Mother's Sorrow's 5th piece buff from another source. That's all I mean by it.

Practically speaking, the potions are only something you need for hard vet content, like VMOL, VHOF, VSS, VCR, or any dungeon or arena boss where there is a hard, punitive DPS check. They are nice to use in the Craglorn 3, but unnecessary. Go ahead and run Inner Light instead of another skill, like Harness Magicka, if you want. You should be okay

Julianos + MS is also a strong combo and one to run until you can replace Julianos with Siroria or Master Architect or another trial set, if you're looking to run trials or dungeons. If not, you're okay with your current setup. All of this only matters if you are doing engame veteran content

DigiAngel

Thanks again....Ya I've had difficulty in getting into trials lately..only done nCR 3 times...that was a couple weeks ago and haven't been in since. I hang around Craglorn and "DPS LFG nCR" but I don't get a lot of responses. I'll have to ping the guilds I'm in and see if anyone else is running them.