So how is the crit damage cap most likely to be reached (or not) in PvE?

FrancisCrawford

It seems that:

• There will be a cap of 125% on crit damage.
• That's for the sum of crit-damage-dealt and crit-damage-taken.

Possible contributions start:

• 50% base crit damage. That's always present.
• 20% Major Force. In PvE, that's generally from Aggressive Warhorn. As a PUG healer, I rarely bother providing it, and when I do it's usually through the resto ultimate. But in large part that's because of factors specific to Groupfinder PUGs.
• 10% Minor Force. In PvE, that's generally from one of two skills (Fighter's Guild Trap or Psijic Guild alternative), or from a set bonus (Medusa).
• 10-25% CP, especially Backstabber (15%).
• 10% Minor Brittle. This is a natural debuff for a healer to provide; I don't know how common it is for tanks to do so.

Added together, those top out at 115%. So there's no problem yet.

But that still leaves Medium Armor (unavoidable for stamina builds), Nightblade passive (unavoidable for NBs), Shadow Mundus Stone (easily avoidable), Harpooner's Wading Kilt (sad to junk this after all the farming effort), Elemental Catalyst, and some other odds and ends.

So which choices does it seem most likely people will make in various contexts? My GUESSES start:

• Warhorn will continue to be a standard in trials.
• People will be happy to junk Minor Force for most ranged builds, but less so for melee ones.
• People's interest in keeping or droppin the CP buffs will be very content-specific ... ASSUMING people have enough CP to switch stars in and out. (Reason: They're great against well-tanked bosses, but not so relevant in trash fights.)
• Neither stamina nor magicka builds will continue to make much use of the Kilt.

Thoughts?

Dalsinthus

I think warhorn (and maybe DK tanking) will see much less use. It’s not up 100% of the time in dungeon groups or many trial groups. Why use it when you can cap crit damage 100% of the time and get major vulnerability from a necro tank?

mzprx

DK tanks and Warhorn will become obsolete overnight if the 125% cap goes live. i am sitting at 126% without Fighting Finesse and Backstabber only because i am a Khajiit stamina Templar. and i had to take off Sul-Xan, or it would take me to 138%, which will do me no good. so i 100% do NOT want to see a DK tank using Warhorn in my group. and this is not only problem for stamina groups. people don't really have to try hard to get to the cap even with all magicka setup, so DKs (until now arguably the best tanks) will be sent packing, as they have no other usable Ultimate that would give anything to the group..

some people have suggested raising the cap to 150%. that would actually be a solution, as it would allow certain builds to use their gear to it's full potential and also use DKs as tanks with Warhorn. poor Catalyst Necromancers and Brittle Wardens. no one will ever want them in their group any more. even with the cap raised to 150%. someone at ZOS didn't think this through..

Dalsinthus

The thing that gets me is just in the last year they’ve added so many sources of crit damage: catalyst, axes, medium armor, frost staff brittle, sul xan, kilt. And now they’re like oh hey wait this is a problem? This was an easy problem to see coming - crit was king long before this stuff was added. It makes no sense unless the goal is just to keep the game in constant flux.

FrancisCrawford

Dalsinthus wrote: »

The thing that gets me is just in the last year they’ve added so many sources of crit damage: catalyst, axes, medium armor, frost staff brittle, sul xan, kilt. And now they’re like oh hey wait this is a problem? This was an easy problem to see coming - crit was king long before this stuff was added. It makes no sense unless the goal is just to keep the game in constant flux.

The Kilt part is particularly obnoxious, because of how tedious the grind was.

FrancisCrawford

How big a damage buff is the 10% max magicka/stamina part of Aggressive Horn?

And is the 10% damage taken from Major Vulnerability additive to or multiplicative with the various damage-done buffs?

ESO_Nightingale

mzprx wrote: »

DK tanks and Warhorn will become obsolete overnight if the 125% cap goes live. i am sitting at 126% without Fighting Finesse and Backstabber only because i am a Khajiit stamina Templar. and i had to take off Sul-Xan, or it would take me to 138%, which will do me no good. so i 100% do NOT want to see a DK tank using Warhorn in my group. and this is not only problem for stamina groups. people don't really have to try hard to get to the cap even with all magicka setup, so DKs (until now arguably the best tanks) will be sent packing, as they have no other usable Ultimate that would give anything to the group..

some people have suggested raising the cap to 150%. that would actually be a solution, as it would allow certain builds to use their gear to it's full potential and also use DKs as tanks with Warhorn. poor Catalyst Necromancers and Brittle Wardens. no one will ever want them in their group any more. even with the cap raised to 150%. someone at ZOS didn't think this through..

Was doing some testing last night, tbh, brittle wardens and catalyst necros will absolutely still be wanted. You can drop crit cp, kilt and minor force from groups in any fashion you like on mag.

Brittle warden still needs love in the form of more actual frost skills though.

YandereGirlfriend

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

mzprx wrote: »

DK tanks and Warhorn will become obsolete overnight if the 125% cap goes live. i am sitting at 126% without Fighting Finesse and Backstabber only because i am a Khajiit stamina Templar. and i had to take off Sul-Xan, or it would take me to 138%, which will do me no good. so i 100% do NOT want to see a DK tank using Warhorn in my group. and this is not only problem for stamina groups. people don't really have to try hard to get to the cap even with all magicka setup, so DKs (until now arguably the best tanks) will be sent packing, as they have no other usable Ultimate that would give anything to the group..

some people have suggested raising the cap to 150%. that would actually be a solution, as it would allow certain builds to use their gear to it's full potential and also use DKs as tanks with Warhorn. poor Catalyst Necromancers and Brittle Wardens. no one will ever want them in their group any more. even with the cap raised to 150%. someone at ZOS didn't think this through..

Was doing some testing last night, tbh, brittle wardens and catalyst necros will absolutely still be wanted. You can drop crit cp, kilt and minor force from groups in any fashion you like on mag.

Brittle warden still needs love in the form of more actual frost skills though.

Quite right.

I would imagine that it makes constructing a raid much easier to continue providing these universal sources of Critical Damage and then allowing your DDs to make up the difference in whatever way is most efficient for them to do so.

Having Brittle and Catalyst essentially raises the base rate of Critical Damage to +75% which means that you only have to source another 50% for each individual DD, which is super easy.

BattleAxe

mzprx wrote: »

DK tanks and Warhorn will become obsolete overnight if the 125% cap goes live. i am sitting at 126% without Fighting Finesse and Backstabber only because i am a Khajiit stamina Templar. and i had to take off Sul-Xan, or it would take me to 138%, which will do me no good. so i 100% do NOT want to see a DK tank using Warhorn in my group. and this is not only problem for stamina groups. people don't really have to try hard to get to the cap even with all magicka setup, so DKs (until now arguably the best tanks) will be sent packing, as they have no other usable Ultimate that would give anything to the group..

some people have suggested raising the cap to 150%. that would actually be a solution, as it would allow certain builds to use their gear to it's full potential and also use DKs as tanks with Warhorn. poor Catalyst Necromancers and Brittle Wardens. no one will ever want them in their group any more. even with the cap raised to 150%. someone at ZOS didn't think this through..

I would beg to differ on this as what this means is other support roles will be able to use other sets to benefit the group. Also even if dks drop warhorn standard of might has decent group utility providing another synergy as well as magma shell is a nice balance of selfish and group support reducing incoming dmg to 3% of dks max health and giving a decent size shield comparable to barrier ultimate.

mzprx

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

...Was doing some testing last night, tbh, brittle wardens and catalyst necros will absolutely still be wanted. You can drop crit cp, kilt and minor force from groups in any fashion you like on mag...

as i've mentioned - i am sitting at 126% without Backstabber and Fighting Finesse. those are the two critical damage increasing CP slottables. just because i am a Khajiit stamina Templar wearing Medium armour. so yes, you can bring a Catalyst Necromancer and/or Brittle Warden, sure. but that would mean i would have to deliberately gimp meself and start using gear that is weaker than the one i actually want to use (and have farmed in Trials, used gold upgrade mats on and really like). it's not like i am really trying to get to the cap. i don't see the logic behind that. imagine doing Trials and not being able to actually use the gear you get from there..

BattleAxe wrote: »

I would beg to differ on this as what this means is other support roles will be able to use other sets to benefit the group. Also even if dks drop warhorn standard of might has decent group utility providing another synergy as well as magma shell is a nice balance of selfish and group support reducing incoming dmg to 3% of dks max health and giving a decent size shield comparable to barrier ultimate.

sure, the Standard gives one member of your group a synergy. do you feel like you're starving for synergies these days? i sure don't. to be able to provide a synergy for one person at the cost of 250 Ultimate every couple of minutes is nothing to write home about. and Magma Armor (and morphs) limits the incoming damage to 3% for you and you only. no one else is going to benefit from this..

like i have mentioned, getting to the cap is no that hard even without DK tanks using Warhorn, Catalyst Necromancers or Brittle Wardens. so if you can get there you will get there because you want your critical damage to be as high as possible for the whole fight, not only when a DK tank uses Warhorn or Warden provides Brittle. so all these will be obsolete..

FrancisCrawford

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

mzprx wrote: »

DK tanks and Warhorn will become obsolete overnight if the 125% cap goes live. i am sitting at 126% without Fighting Finesse and Backstabber only because i am a Khajiit stamina Templar. and i had to take off Sul-Xan, or it would take me to 138%, which will do me no good. so i 100% do NOT want to see a DK tank using Warhorn in my group. and this is not only problem for stamina groups. people don't really have to try hard to get to the cap even with all magicka setup, so DKs (until now arguably the best tanks) will be sent packing, as they have no other usable Ultimate that would give anything to the group..

some people have suggested raising the cap to 150%. that would actually be a solution, as it would allow certain builds to use their gear to it's full potential and also use DKs as tanks with Warhorn. poor Catalyst Necromancers and Brittle Wardens. no one will ever want them in their group any more. even with the cap raised to 150%. someone at ZOS didn't think this through..

Was doing some testing last night, tbh, brittle wardens and catalyst necros will absolutely still be wanted. You can drop crit cp, kilt and minor force from groups in any fashion you like on mag.

Brittle warden still needs love in the form of more actual frost skills though.

Quite right.

I would imagine that it makes constructing a raid much easier to continue providing these universal sources of Critical Damage and then allowing your DDs to make up the difference in whatever way is most efficient for them to do so.

Having Brittle and Catalyst essentially raises the base rate of Critical Damage to +75% which means that you only have to source another 50% for each individual DD, which is super easy.

It does seem like providing a benefit to the whole group is a lot more efficient that providing it to oneself.

Providing Brittle AND Catalyst together requires little more than a Force Shock spammable (probably Force Pulse for the splash damage) plus 5-pieces of single-barred Catalyst that includes an ice staff. This option is looking much less forbidding than it used to with ZoS plans to improve dungeon farming. In theory that should give outstanding single-target uptime. Assuming a Wall of Elements morph you get broad AoE for 1/3 of Catalyst too.

If this is on a non-Warden DD then using the ice staff hurts; on the plus side, some classes make it easy for you to do hit more broadly with a second element. If it's on a healer you care less about the missing damage, but may lack the bar space for as much multi-element AoE, and also might have lower frequency on the spammable causing lower uptime as well.

E.g., on a Brittle/Catalyst sorcerer healer you'd want:

• A Force Shock morph.
• Crystal Frags or another Dark Magic skill (for the group-wide crit passive).
• Elemental Drain/Siphon Spirit. (Expendable, technically, if you put Absorb Magicka on your destro staff and are diligent about proccing it every 4 seconds.)
• A Wall of Elements morph.
• A Lightning Splash morph.
• 2x Twilight Matriarch. (If you don't take this, why are you using a sorcerer?)
• Combat Prayer.
• A least one HoT. (Expendable, technically, if you're using Olorime rather than SPC.)

That's sort of doable, at least in dungeon (as opposed to raid) content, but it's tight.

FrancisCrawford

mzprx wrote: »

, not only when a DK tank uses Warhorn or Warden provides Brittle. so all these will be obsolete..

Doesn't a Warden have great Brittle uptime with Winter's Revenge alone, within its AoE? We had a thread about that a while ago, and it seemed to be true even without the upcoming buff to Charged.

And of course single-target Brittle uptime can be 100% for any class if you have a tight rotation and a Master's ice staff; Wardens are just presumed to be more willing to go that route than other classes, for obvious reasons of a frost damage passive.

Sordidfairytale

My medium armor wearing stamina Templar Khajit is at 96% Crit Damage Bonus with Fighting Finesse slotted, so it's possible to survive with the Bonus crit damage cap in effect in a DK Warhorn group.

BattleAxe

mzprx wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

...Was doing some testing last night, tbh, brittle wardens and catalyst necros will absolutely still be wanted. You can drop crit cp, kilt and minor force from groups in any fashion you like on mag...

as i've mentioned - i am sitting at 126% without Backstabber and Fighting Finesse. those are the two critical damage increasing CP slottables. just because i am a Khajiit stamina Templar wearing Medium armour. so yes, you can bring a Catalyst Necromancer and/or Brittle Warden, sure. but that would mean i would have to deliberately gimp meself and start using gear that is weaker than the one i actually want to use (and have farmed in Trials, used gold upgrade mats on and really like). it's not like i am really trying to get to the cap. i don't see the logic behind that. imagine doing Trials and not being able to actually use the gear you get from there..

BattleAxe wrote: »

I would beg to differ on this as what this means is other support roles will be able to use other sets to benefit the group. Also even if dks drop warhorn standard of might has decent group utility providing another synergy as well as magma shell is a nice balance of selfish and group support reducing incoming dmg to 3% of dks max health and giving a decent size shield comparable to barrier ultimate.

sure, the Standard gives one member of your group a synergy. do you feel like you're starving for synergies these days? i sure don't. to be able to provide a synergy for one person at the cost of 250 Ultimate every couple of minutes is nothing to write home about. and Magma Armor (and morphs) limits the incoming damage to 3% for you and you only. no one else is going to benefit from this..

like i have mentioned, getting to the cap is no that hard even without DK tanks using Warhorn, Catalyst Necromancers or Brittle Wardens. so if you can get there you will get there because you want your critical damage to be as high as possible for the whole fight, not only when a DK tank uses Warhorn or Warden provides Brittle. so all these will be obsolete..

Your right only the dk gets the cap at 3% but it also provides a sizable shield to the group. Yes again 1 person can use the synergy but still that synergy could be proccing a dps in alkosh or give a person that small boost in resources to fire off a skill. Also likely warhorn will still be utilized because not everyone will necessarily be at the crit dmg cap so yes warhorn may be wasted on you but it also is giving you some added resources and would maybe allow you to change out a piece of gear for something else possibly.

PrinceShroob

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

mzprx wrote: »

, not only when a DK tank uses Warhorn or Warden provides Brittle. so all these will be obsolete..

Doesn't a warden have great Brittle uptime with Winter's Revenge alone, within its AoE?

Nope, Brittle requires using a frost staff when you apply Chilled, so magicka Wardens have no access to Brittle without losing DPS (and tanks would need to stay on their frost staff bar).

Base 50% increase in damage with a critical hit
15% from Backstabber
10% from Fighting Finesse
20% from Major Force
10% from Minor Force
10% from Minor Brittle or 1% per stack of Hunter's Focus from Harpooner's Wading Kilt (maximum 10%, plus 2% from Medium Armor Dexterity passive) (when you can't maintain Kilt stacks)
10% from Nightblade Hemorrhaging passive/10% from Templar's Piercing Spear passive/10% from Warden's Glacial Presence passive (if the enemy has recently been Chilled)

That's 125% (127% with Kilt). If your group has no Nightblades (Warden's increased Critical Damage is dependent on a status effect they can only apply with one skill and Templars are melee), you'll run Elemental Catalyst and just won't care that you go over the cap. Or you'll run Elemental Catalyst anyway and the Nightblades will eat the damage loss from essentially losing a passive.

So, essentially, the cap does pretty much nothing to a meta build (Bahsei's Mania on an Altmer with the Thief Mundus stone) while harming stamina and half the classes.

ESO_Nightingale

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

My medium armor wearing stamina Templar Khajit is at 96% Crit Damage Bonus with Fighting Finesse slotted, so it's possible to survive with the Bonus crit damage cap in effect in a DK Warhorn group.

is it at 96% on your stat sheet? because on there, the cap is 75%. the base crit dmg of 50% isn't counted.

ESO_Nightingale

PrinceShroob wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

mzprx wrote: »

, not only when a DK tank uses Warhorn or Warden provides Brittle. so all these will be obsolete..

Doesn't a warden have great Brittle uptime with Winter's Revenge alone, within its AoE?

Nope, Brittle requires using a frost staff when you apply Chilled, so magicka Wardens have no access to Brittle without losing DPS (and tanks would need to stay on their frost staff bar).

Base 50% increase in damage with a critical hit
15% from Backstabber
10% from Fighting Finesse
20% from Major Force
10% from Minor Force
10% from Minor Brittle or 1% per stack of Hunter's Focus from Harpooner's Wading Kilt (maximum 10%) (when you can't maintain Kilt stacks)
10% from Nightblade Hemorrhaging passive/10% from Templar's Piercing Spear passive/10% from Warden's Glacial Presence passive (if the enemy has recently been Chilled)

That's 125%. If your group has no Nightblades (Warden's increased Critical Damage is dependent on a status effect they can only apply with one skill and Templars are melee), you'll run Elemental Catalyst and just won't care that you go over the cap. Or you'll run Elemental Catalyst anyway and the Nightblades will eat the damage loss from essentially losing a passive.

So, essentially, the cap does pretty much nothing to a meta build (Bahsei's Mania on an Altmer with the Thief Mundus stone) while harming stamina and half the classes.

yeah you can drop optional stuff like minor force, kilt backstabber and fighting finesse. i think brittle still has great applications because it can allow the group to be able to run another damage skill or passive slot over barbed trap/channeled acceleration or the cps. frostden doesn't lose a gigantic amount of damage unless brittle is being effectively applied by someone else. it would still like more aoe brittle application though naturally through fissure and/or a viable arctic blast.

mzprx

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

My medium armor wearing stamina Templar Khajit is at 96% Crit Damage Bonus with Fighting Finesse slotted, so it's possible to survive with the Bonus crit damage cap in effect in a DK Warhorn group.

sure thing. but are you using the Kilt? are you using Sul-Xan? do you use the Trap?

Base 50% increase in damage with a critical hit
10% from Minor Force
12% from Khajiit Feline Ambush passive
1% per stack of Hunter's Focus from Harpooner's Wading Kilt (maximum 10%)
12% from Sul-Xan's Torment
2% per piece from Medium Armor Dexterity passive (maximum 14%)
10% from Templar's Piercing Spear passive

all of this is 118% and it's the bare minimum if you are a stamina Khajiit Templar and want to use the gear you want to use, because why would you not? anything more than this will put you over the cap (DK tank using Warhorn, Warden applying Brittle, Necromancer using the Catalyst, Shadow Mundus stone, usind axes, etc., options are in abundance). this is without any CP slottables that would increase your critical damage. so if you bring any of the above mentioned critical damage boosting classes or roles it will do a lot of players no good what-so-ever..

it's the same as with penetration. you always want to be at the cap. anything lower than cap and you're doing less damage. anything over it is a wasted stat. it will be the same with this new cap. you will want to be at the cap at all times. not only if you have certain classes wearing certain gear or using certain abilities in your group. so these will, again, become obsolete..

Sordidfairytale

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

My medium armor wearing stamina Templar Khajit is at 96% Crit Damage Bonus with Fighting Finesse slotted, so it's possible to survive with the Bonus crit damage cap in effect in a DK Warhorn group.

is it at 96% on your stat sheet? because on there, the cap is 75%. the base crit dmg of 50% isn't counted.

Yes, on the stat sheet it reads 46%, so with the currently hidden 50% I have a 96% crit damage bonus.

mzprx

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

...yeah you can drop optional stuff like minor force, kilt backstabber and fighting finesse...

this i have an issue with. not you or your point. ZOS is changing all sets to have hybrid stats because "play how you want". but forcing me to not use the Trap that actually deals pretty good damage just so i don't get over the cap is exactly the opposite of "play how you want". i want to use it. but i will have to drop it for the sake of "cap". that is not how i imagine "how you want"..

PrinceShroob

mzprx wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

...yeah you can drop optional stuff like minor force, kilt backstabber and fighting finesse...

this i have an issue with. not you or your point. ZOS is changing all sets to have hybrid stats because "play how you want". but forcing me to not use the Trap that actually deals pretty good damage just so i don't get over the cap is exactly the opposite of "play how you want". i want to use it. but i will have to drop it for the sake of "cap". that is not how i imagine "how you want"..

It is very stupid to hybridize the Fighters Guild skill line and then go "see this skill that costs stamina, gives you Weapon Damage for having it slotted, and deals Physical Damage? If you're stamina, don't use it."

ESO_Nightingale

mzprx wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

...yeah you can drop optional stuff like minor force, kilt backstabber and fighting finesse...

this i have an issue with. not you or your point. ZOS is changing all sets to have hybrid stats because "play how you want". but forcing me to not use the Trap that actually deals pretty good damage just so i don't get over the cap is exactly the opposite of "play how you want". i want to use it. but i will have to drop it for the sake of "cap". that is not how i imagine "how you want"..

you can drop the cp points and kilt as well if you don't want them and would like to use trap instead.

ESO_Nightingale

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

My medium armor wearing stamina Templar Khajit is at 96% Crit Damage Bonus with Fighting Finesse slotted, so it's possible to survive with the Bonus crit damage cap in effect in a DK Warhorn group.

is it at 96% on your stat sheet? because on there, the cap is 75%. the base crit dmg of 50% isn't counted.

Yes, on the stat sheet it reads 46%, so with the currently hidden 50% I have a 96% crit damage bonus.

great to know!

Sordidfairytale

mzprx wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

...yeah you can drop optional stuff like minor force, kilt backstabber and fighting finesse...

this i have an issue with. not you or your point. ZOS is changing all sets to have hybrid stats because "play how you want". but forcing me to not use the Trap that actually deals pretty good damage just so i don't get over the cap is exactly the opposite of "play how you want". i want to use it. but i will have to drop it for the sake of "cap". that is not how i imagine "how you want"..

You can still slot Trap. It will still do that damage for you. Plenty of skills have overlap and provide some extra buffs that you may not need at any one particular time. Some builds slot Meteor just for the added increased max magic.

mzprx

PrinceShroob wrote: »

mzprx wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

...yeah you can drop optional stuff like minor force, kilt backstabber and fighting finesse...

this i have an issue with. not you or your point. ZOS is changing all sets to have hybrid stats because "play how you want". but forcing me to not use the Trap that actually deals pretty good damage just so i don't get over the cap is exactly the opposite of "play how you want". i want to use it. but i will have to drop it for the sake of "cap". that is not how i imagine "how you want"..

It is very stupid to hybridize the Fighters Guild skill line and then go "see this skill that costs stamina, gives you Weapon Damage for having it slotted, and deals Physical Damage? If you're stamina, don't use it."

i'm sorry but i don't really understand your point here. what i meant was that ZOS is making all sets have hybrid stats because they want to encourage the "play how you want" gameplay. so them forcing me to not use a skill that i actually do want to use is exactly the opposite. it's not "play how you like", it's "play how you must to not go over a cap that we introduced". i don't have the Trap on my bar just to increase my weapon damage, i use it in combat. it's my 8th or 9th most damaging ability according to CMX. so that 10% critical damage boost is something that i need to take into consideration..

mzprx

BattleAxe wrote: »

...Your right only the dk gets the cap at 3% but it also provides a sizable shield to the group. Yes again 1 person can use the synergy but still that synergy could be proccing a dps in alkosh or give a person that small boost in resources to fire off a skill. Also likely warhorn will still be utilized because not everyone will necessarily be at the crit dmg cap so yes warhorn may be wasted on you but it also is giving you some added resources and would maybe allow you to change out a piece of gear for something else possibly.

do you mean the Igneous Shield skill? the one that gives members of your group around 3k shield? don't want to be rude, but that will not save anyone from dying to mechanics. it's nice to have, but you absolutely can't rely on it. it generally can't be activated on demand (with regards to other group members), the size is small and no group will bring a DK tank to Trials because of Igneous Shield..

and yes, synergies are great, but again - do you feel starved for synergies these days? there are more synergies flying around that you can actually use. so no DD wearing Alkosh will miss that one synergy which a DK tank can provide every couple of minutes. remember, 250 Ultimate for one single synergy is a bad trade if you can have a Necromancer tank giving you Major Vulnerability for 225 Ultimate..

FrancisCrawford

PrinceShroob wrote: »

Brittle requires using a frost staff when you apply Chilled,

Thank you. Even though it's already been mentioned in this thread, I'm sure there's at least one person reading who didn't already know that!

PrinceShroob

mzprx wrote: »

PrinceShroob wrote: »

mzprx wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

...yeah you can drop optional stuff like minor force, kilt backstabber and fighting finesse...

this i have an issue with. not you or your point. ZOS is changing all sets to have hybrid stats because "play how you want". but forcing me to not use the Trap that actually deals pretty good damage just so i don't get over the cap is exactly the opposite of "play how you want". i want to use it. but i will have to drop it for the sake of "cap". that is not how i imagine "how you want"..

It is very stupid to hybridize the Fighters Guild skill line and then go "see this skill that costs stamina, gives you Weapon Damage for having it slotted, and deals Physical Damage? If you're stamina, don't use it."

i'm sorry but i don't really understand your point here. what i meant was that ZOS is making all sets have hybrid stats because they want to encourage the "play how you want" gameplay. so them forcing me to not use a skill that i actually do want to use is exactly the opposite. it's not "play how you like", it's "play how you must to not go over a cap that we introduced". i don't have the Trap on my bar just to increase my weapon damage, i use it in combat. it's my 8th or 9th most damaging ability according to CMX. so that 10% critical damage boost is something that i need to take into consideration..

Apologies, I meant that the skill line was recently hybridized (so, in a sense, promoted -- the developers want you to slot it since it's now universally good for any build, giving both Weapon and Spell Damage; it's so ubiquitous that even companions can use it) but still scales with Weapon Damage and stamina. So, in essence, the skill deals good damage, is a CC, gives extra Weapon Damage, and is in the stamina-focused Fighters Guild skill line (although the passives provide Weapon and Spell Damage, the skills all cost stamina still), and yet cannot be used by stamina characters due to the Critical Damage cap. I agree that the developers are sending mixed messages -- in this case, making the skill provide myriad benefits to stamina builds yet also implementing a cap that functionally prevents its use.

I definitely could've made my point clearer, sorry.

mzprx

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

...You can still slot Trap. It will still do that damage for you. Plenty of skills have overlap and provide some extra buffs that you may not need at any one particular time. Some builds slot Meteor just for the added increased max magic.

yes. i can still slot the Trap. that is all fine. but if i do then a DK tank, Catalyst Necromancer or Brittle Warden will put me over the cap. so either my Trap is pointless (not useless, mind you) or them DK tanks, Necromancers and Wardens. Night Mothers Gaze set will give me some good damage as well, but would you wear it in a group where the tank provides the same thing? it is not the same as using the Meteor for more max magicka. more magicka will never hurt anyone. going over the cap will. well, not literally, but it's the same as with penetration. you don't want to go over it as it will be a waste..

Sordidfairytale

• Base 50% increase in damage with a critical hit
• 10% from Minor Force Already mentioned earlier if you use Trap you still get damage from this skill
• 12% from Khajiit Feline Ambush passive Provides a degree of flex other races don't get
• 1% per stack of Hunter's Focus from Harpooner's Wading Kilt (maximum 10%) Also provides stacks of crit chance
• 12% from Sul-Xan's Torment Also provides a considerable crit chance bonus
• 2% per piece from Medium Armor Dexterity passive (maximum 14%) Allows for more flex (e.g. penetration from light)
• 10% from Templar's Piercing Spear passive Provides a degree of flex other classes don't get

BattleAxe

mzprx wrote: »

BattleAxe wrote: »

...Your right only the dk gets the cap at 3% but it also provides a sizable shield to the group. Yes again 1 person can use the synergy but still that synergy could be proccing a dps in alkosh or give a person that small boost in resources to fire off a skill. Also likely warhorn will still be utilized because not everyone will necessarily be at the crit dmg cap so yes warhorn may be wasted on you but it also is giving you some added resources and would maybe allow you to change out a piece of gear for something else possibly.

do you mean the Igneous Shield skill? the one that gives members of your group around 3k shield? don't want to be rude, but that will not save anyone from dying to mechanics. it's nice to have, but you absolutely can't rely on it. it generally can't be activated on demand (with regards to other group members), the size is small and no group will bring a DK tank to Trials because of Igneous Shield..

and yes, synergies are great, but again - do you feel starved for synergies these days? there are more synergies flying around that you can actually use. so no DD wearing Alkosh will miss that one synergy which a DK tank can provide every couple of minutes. remember, 250 Ultimate for one single synergy is a bad trade if you can have a Necromancer tank giving you Major Vulnerability for 225 Ultimate..

Magma shell the ultimate reduces all incoming dmg to 3% and gives all allies a damage shield