Endgame trials, low DPS

NoedBR

TL;DR: I tried everything, but can't do decent DPS. Please help!

There's something wrong, I can't find what it is.
My DPS is really bad, I'm always the lowest DPS in trials.

Have tried everything:
- different classes, MagBlade, MagCro, MagSorc (all Khajit)
- best gear, all golden
- have all necessary skills and passives, including mages guild, psijic, etc
- looking at other people parses, logs, videos
- CP adjustments (I'm 1350+ now)
- several hours on dummy, practicing weaving and rotation
- even bought a new PC, have great performance now (I used to play in laptop)

I have good trials experience, know mechanics, good survival.
Cleared all vet trials and some HM (vCR+2, vAS+1, vSS fire HM, all vCrag HM).

See my dummy parses below: I know the problem is weaving time and missing LA... having a really hard time trying to improve that, but I don't know how.






I did a vAS+1 yesterday as MagBlade...
There was another MagBlade there (CP 700ish), using almost same gear and skills, and did more than twice my DPS (I'm CP 1350). He also had casts per minute almost double than me.
Note: I only died in this fight when the entire team wiped. The other NB died 2 times!








Please help!
I don't want this to be the end game for me (quitting because I'm bad?)
But if I can't improve DPS, I can't do hardest content that I like.

Note:
Animation cancelling is the worst thing in ESO, most people can't figure out and seems Zenimax will never try to make it better... instead they prefer idiot jokes on the death recap screen.

Fennwitty

I don't know your gear, playstyle Mundus etc. My antivirus says the screenshot website looks suspicious so I won't blow up the pictures.


On PC, install Light Attack Helper addon. In the addon's options set it to not reset automatically.

It gives you a small meter with your light attack rate per second. Aim for roughly .7 light attacks per second to start with. Channeled skills will drop this number because you can't tend to light attack weave the same way. 1 per second is too much -- it means all you're doing is light attacking and skills aren't firing. Otherwise the higher the better.

Weaving/canceling is usually made overcomplicated when people try to describe it.

Step 1: Press left click to light attack.
Step 2: Press a key to use a skill.
Repeat.
Congratulations!

Start with a 'heartbeat' rhythm. Left click, key. Left click, key.

All you're trying to do is press a skill key a tiny bit later than you're pressing left click.

Lead with the left click, follow with the key.

Fennwitty

I should add though in trials, you often have to deal with varying lag. That can really influence the timing you need for skill entry if it's bad.

Sort of an issue of practice and keeping an eye on Light Attack Helper/your flying damage numbers to figure out if your timing is good given laggy situations.

Draxund

Fennwitty wrote: »

On PC, install Light Attack Helper addon. In the addon's options set it to not reset automatically.

It gives you a small meter with your light attack rate per second. Aim for roughly .7 light attacks per second to start with. Channeled skills will drop this number because you can't tend to light attack weave the same way. 1 per second is too much -- it means all you're doing is light attacking and skills aren't firing. Otherwise the higher the better.

Weaving/canceling is usually made overcomplicated when people try to describe it.

Step 1: Press left click to light attack.
Step 2: Press a key to use a skill.
Repeat.
Congratulations!

Start with a 'heartbeat' rhythm. Left click, key. Left click, key.

All you're trying to do is press a skill key a tiny bit later than you're pressing left click.

Lead with the left click, follow with the key.

That's probably the most clear and concise description of LA weaving I've ever seen. Thank you!

Everest_Lionheart

I was expecting to see a low parse number here when I ready the title. 79K is not bad, so don’t get down on yourself over the number. As for a few things I noticed in your setup that is holding you back here. First is running Medusa on the body. It’s best to run front bar only with weapons and jewelry, you lose too much penetration bonus by running the 2 heavy body pieces, you are also losing out on max Magicka which in the big picture equates to more spell damage.

The second thing I see and it’s trial specific. In vAS the Zaan 2pc set does not play well there and you will miss a ton of potential uptime because it’s a very mobile fight. My teams are running 2x 1pc crit sets in there with one of those pieces being slimecraw because if the extra crit bonus it has over other sets. I’ve seen other teams run 2pc slimecraw as well for the additional 5% damage. But if your crit % is super high you can run the shadow and push crit damage even further.

Other factors to consider could be positioning in trials as well. In vAS pretty much everyone has their lane and unless you have a healing god they probably aren’t running RO/jorv for Maj slayer uptime so you would be getting that from Necro’s wearing MA. If you happen to be in a lane too far from those buffs you will not get them. It’s on your raid lead to build the comp and position accordingly to ensure those buffs are available to everyone.

Final piece again trial specific can be where you have to focus your attention for protectors and mini bosses. If you happen to be on a side that gets say 60% of the protectors your DPS as a NB may drop because you will spending time focusing said protectors and likely missing GCD where you can cast a few more skills. Remember NB is high single target damage and I’d your teammate has more time focusing targets and less time targeting adds there would be a clear disparity in DPS percentage over the whole fight.

It’s all little stuff and it does add up. For now get Medusa in weapons and jewelry and MS body. Use Zaan to parse. Also try poison enchant on front bar and flame back. Sounds crazy but it’s a significant bump for parsing. You can keep this setup for certain trials but others you will want 2 crit monster pieces over Zaan or the more traditional flame front and beserker backbar enchants.

Good luck.

El_Borracho

79K is solid DPS for anyone, especially a magcro. Magblades, when played well, are the hardest hitters in the game in my opinion. They also have an execute that the magcro does not. That can have an impact on the numbers. But 79K is not something you should be ashamed about.

And like others have said, high DPS in vet trials is important to burn faster and avoid more mechanics. But staying alive, knowing mechanics, and supporting your group is more important. Can't DPS if you are dead

redspecter23

OP says low dps. I see 79k. Looks fine for pretty much anything to me.

If you're doing ultra high end score pushing, I'd be consulting the members of your core group for advice. The vast majority of the playerbase on the forums would consider 79k quite high.

NoedBR

Thanks all for the responses, I think what I'm really LF is how to improve weaving time and stop missing light attacks.

In the OP parse I sent:
- Instead of 0.15 weaving average, I want to get 0.05.
- Instead of missing 91 LA (about 40% of all attacks!) I want it to be 0.
- Instead of 79k I want 90k.

But no matter what I do, can't improve those numbers... it feels I'm doing it completely wrong. Feels like a bug in my game, because it can't be so hard.

@Fennwitty I have the addon. You got the point, rhythm.

@Everest_Lionheart right, on that trial I had some gear wrong, still I should have done more damage as compared to the other NB who died twice... I didn't die and positioned well.
Also look at the MagCro parse, the gear is more correct, but that's where it show so many LA misses.

@El_Borracho and @redspecter23 right 79k looks good in a parse, but if you look closer on the LA misses on that parse you will understand. In my guild there are many people who can parse with 0 LA miss and weaving average 0.05s.

Everest_Lionheart

From personal experience I had to slow down a bit when I parse and when I raid. I play on console so there’s no fancy metrics for me to dive into.

What helped me most was to download a metronome app on my phone and use that to keep up a steady tempo and avoid rushing. Using the weaving technique one of the posters explained above with a metronome set to about 55 beats per minute you will likely find that many more of your light attacks will land and your numbers will increase. Likewise in content you will begin to feel even more power as you train your fingers to constantly hit that tempo. Pushing faster than that runs you very close to the next GCD and if you are early there is a chance that either your LA or skill will not fire.

It just takes time and practice to feel the rhythm but once you get it the lightbulb will turn on and you will consistently get higher DPS. Just work the process.

Amerises

Fennwitty wrote: »

Start with a 'heartbeat' rhythm. Left click, key. Left click, key.

Litterally this.

I have never read, or heard, it explained any better. You could watch videos, or download an add on, which are both very helpful and may be worth your time, but a heartbeat rhythm is exactly right.

One important thing too is bar swap. Some skills are easier to swap to and from. I imagine you're using unstable wall after bar swap, which isn't bad, but you need to bar swap BETWEEN the heartbeats, the sooner after your first ability the better, but keep the rhythm on your LA. This ALONE would increase your dps by a lot because not only is your your wall is a decent DoT but also adds quite a bit to your LA.

Amerises

Also, by videos, I dont mean screen recordings, I mean mouse and KB clicks where the video is of their hands and fingers.

Amerises

https://youtu.be/mmqzzjyREU8

On counsel, but same concept.

Wuerstal

So I don't want to throw shade or anything, but as far as I can see: You are just playing vAS wrong... It's not your raw dmg, just that you are not doing the things you are supposed to do. (That atleast would be my guess).
80k dps on dummy is fine. My dps is at around 83k with magplar and magdk. But I can push up to 35k dps in vAS+2.

It's just a hunch but I see this type of thinking alot lately: If my parse is good, why is my dps in Trails that bad?
Well in vAS you can see the problems pretty good: Wrong focus, bad ult timing, etc. (I would suggest using Meteor as used ult)
Those are way more important in AS than raw dps.

If a sphere is up, every skill you cast that is not hitting the sphere (or a miniboss) is dmg lost. Every Ult on Olms while he is shielded: dmg loss. Kiting to far away so you cant hit anything anymore: dmg loss.
If you took felms to the arena: Pack some dots and throw them onto him before he jumps away: dmg gain. Stuff like that.

In the guild I am in there are people who parse around 70k dps. They are in a group with people with around 85k dps parses. So you might think they are the better player: They are not.
70k parse player is always top dps, while 85k parse player is somewhere in the middle. Ofcourse you have a better starting point if your parse is better, but if you can't do the right things at the right time in a Trail, your parse is worthless.

colossalvoids

Would completely agree with @Wuerstal

I'd recommend watch some experienced players pov's from said trials to see how they approach the fight. When I was pushing for as+2 or ir we were seeing significant progress when were on a good timer with minis and were not wasting time on immune phases, protectors etc. and focusing on phases where you can go all in with destro ultis without realising mini just left the radius or immune phase occurred. It's not all about parsing for sure and I believe around ~80 on a doll is pretty acceptable there.

If your other problem is LA's not registering you should definitely look up some weaving timing guides, GCD add-ons and put some attention on bar swaps as it makes look like you skipped some skill animation and ready to weave again but in reality you still on GCD and can start your miss-weaving there, also some skills have a priority over la so you can't just spam skill-la and pray for it to go off perfectly but play slower and actually cast on CD's like on necro using skull I believe, as an example. Also remembered lightning splash from sorc, could be double casted a lot of you have habit of button spam.

Also latency. I was learning to play with minimum of 120-140 in real content also having just 20-30 fps max there and your curve might be way different with over 300 latency and perfect FPS. Anyway there is no harm watching some extensive guides on weaving even if you're perfectly comfortable with it, some players have different tips and might be helpful enough, some might play also with pretty high ping overall so their advices might be of help.

Everest_Lionheart

Wuerstal wrote: »

So I don't want to throw shade or anything, but as far as I can see: You are just playing vAS wrong... It's not your raw dmg, just that you are not doing the things you are supposed to do. (That atleast would be my guess).
80k dps on dummy is fine. My dps is at around 83k with magplar and magdk. But I can push up to 35k dps in vAS+2.

It's just a hunch but I see this type of thinking alot lately: If my parse is good, why is my dps in Trails that bad?
Well in vAS you can see the problems pretty good: Wrong focus, bad ult timing, etc. (I would suggest using Meteor as used ult)
Those are way more important in AS than raw dps.

If a sphere is up, every skill you cast that is not hitting the sphere (or a miniboss) is dmg lost. Every Ult on Olms while he is shielded: dmg loss. Kiting to far away so you cant hit anything anymore: dmg loss.
If you took felms to the arena: Pack some dots and throw them onto him before he jumps away: dmg gain. Stuff like that.

In the guild I am in there are people who parse around 70k dps. They are in a group with people with around 85k dps parses. So you might think they are the better player: They are not.
70k parse player is always top dps, while 85k parse player is somewhere in the middle. Ofcourse you have a better starting point if your parse is better, but if you can't do the right things at the right time in a Trail, your parse is worthless.

VAS is such a unique trial in itself that I’m not sure metrics are even reliable here. I mentioned before that depending what strategy is run your damage can vary widely. Typically in my groups we have lanes 1-4 focus on entrance protector and lanes 5-8 focus on exit protectors. Some runs we are talking 7/10 protectors coming to exit side where off tank happens to also be holding the minis. Now smart players leave their dots and use ST to hit protectors. However the OP here is on a NB meaning significant dots are limited and if they are happen to be on olms and you have to go kill a protector the only
Damage you may be registering will be on that protector.

Now conversely it may be that the other NB gets to spend significantly more time on target (boss+mini) because they aren’t preoccupied chasing other mechs. That person is nearly double if the entire group as well save for the #2 DPS so it could simple be a matter of experience casting dots like degen and crippling grasp on both targets (they are single target dots and can be cast on every target in the room.)

Ult timing can play a big role also. How it works is when protector does group comes in for warhorn + colossus and everyone unloads destro ulti. I prefer destro because it gives more cleave on mini than meteor. I’ve almost been booted from vAS for using meteor before in an optimized group. Another factor if your group is using MA and whether or not you are one of the lucky recipients of the 10% major slayer buff from it. It only activates on the 6 closest people so if the MA wearer happens to be in say lane 1 and you are all the way over in lane 8 you won’t get the buff, but if your other NB is in lane 2 or 3 that’s a huge difference. Also factor in MK if someone is wearing that and if your LA ratio is down that’s another DPS. And finally if you have Zen’s in group. That’s more dmg lost on dots as well. Buff sets are critical to group damage and proper comp and alignment in each boss fight is equally important to maximize uptimes.

NoedBR

@Wuerstal @colossalvoids @Everest_Lionheart ty so much, this is all very helpful, and I understand my vAS example was not very good for explaining my actual problem... but I learned a lot about vAS from this, thanks.

I think what I really to work on is rotation, weaving time, dot uptime, missing LA, that can be done on dummy... then when I'm confident I can do damage, work on doing the right mechanics.

Thing is, I'm not making much progress on dummy, still miss so many LA and have bad weaving time... maybe I have to try more, but I have been training on dummy at least 1h every day for a about 4 weeks already.

GreenHere

NoedBR wrote: »

@Wuerstal @colossalvoids @Everest_Lionheart ty so much, this is all very helpful, and I understand my vAS example was not very good for explaining my actual problem... but I learned a lot about vAS from this, thanks.

I think what I really to work on is rotation, weaving time, dot uptime, missing LA, that can be done on dummy... then when I'm confident I can do damage, work on doing the right mechanics.

Thing is, I'm not making much progress on dummy, still miss so many LA and have bad weaving time... maybe I have to try more, but I have been training on dummy at least 1h every day for a about 4 weeks already.

I'm not really good enough with precision weaving to be giving advice here, but I have been party to conversations between people who are in the 100ishK bracket. I'll try to relay advice they were giving others with some degree of accuracy:

"Basically, you want to slow the F down. Start out weaving like comically slow, and speed it up from there. If you start too fast, or even start at a perfect pace, you're likely to tense up and start overdoing it more when you pick up momentum or things get hectic. You really wanna learn to weave UP TO the perfect pace, because going too fast is where a lot of people start running into timing problems and things basically just completely fall apart form there. If you are a little slower than perfect pacing, that's way less of a DPS loss than going so fast you start missing skill casts or LA weaves altogether -- but it's still a loss. If you're a bit too slow but weaving correctly, you'll steadily gain DPS as you perfect your pacing.
It's always better to be weaving perfectly but a bit slow on the timing rather than pressing buttons so fast *** isn't working like it's supposed to, because it's better to be moving up the ladder than trying to pull yourself down it."

I didn't memorize the conversation verbatim, but that was the gist of it. Again, this is like second-hand advice here, so take that for what it's worth I guess.