Being mag without a staff.

Somber97866

I just signed in from a long break and talk to some friends and they tell me that now in game mad characters all wearing a dual hand sword and dual wield on their other bar.
I don't know about you all but it seems to me there's something not right here. But I guess it'll stay that way till the foreseeable future. Cuz it takes forever to get things fixed.
Couldn't maybe spending your time making up new weapons or a new race to play. Wouldn't their time be better spent giving us more options to play with. Like I don't know some new kind of runes would be nice. And I don't play this game to be defensive I play this game to do damage.

Raammzzaa

I enjoy playing melee on a mag toon, personally.

Soarora

I’m not sure about PvP (though I feel trying to stay in melee range of another player is probably a pain) but for PvE that’s not entirely true. The meta is daggers frontbar and 2h, staff, or bow backbar (not sure if it’s been figured out which is best yet but looks like it’s going to be 2h like you mentioned). That is just the meta though, you can do whatever you want. Even in endgame you really can’t all use daggers/2h because some content requires or is easier with range. You can still do a lot of damage with staves, it’s still a very valid option.

Zezin

Soarora wrote: »

I’m not sure about PvP (though I feel trying to stay in melee range of another player is probably a pain) but for PvE that’s not entirely true. The meta is daggers frontbar and 2h, staff, or bow backbar (not sure if it’s been figured out which is best yet but looks like it’s going to be 2h like you mentioned). That is just the meta though, you can do whatever you want. Even in endgame you really can’t all use daggers/2h because some content requires or is easier with range. You can still do a lot of damage with staves, it’s still a very valid option.

I think it's safer to say you can't use it in all encounters but in most you can, what I don't understand is why they nerfed inferno staffs in U35 as it was the best ranged weapon and even then didn't come close to the numbers you can get with dual wield.

TheGreatBlackBear

Playing melee as mag is nothing new. Zaan was a very dominant set in pve for years and required you to be in melee range. Magblade requires you to be in melee range for soul harvest/incap. Outside of keeping up time on target during disengage mechanics there's no real reason to use a staff unless you're struggling for sustain andneed to heavy to get mag back. But with hybridisation and using skills that also cost stamina you will mag out far less often these days.

Soarora

Zezin wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

I’m not sure about PvP (though I feel trying to stay in melee range of another player is probably a pain) but for PvE that’s not entirely true. The meta is daggers frontbar and 2h, staff, or bow backbar (not sure if it’s been figured out which is best yet but looks like it’s going to be 2h like you mentioned). That is just the meta though, you can do whatever you want. Even in endgame you really can’t all use daggers/2h because some content requires or is easier with range. You can still do a lot of damage with staves, it’s still a very valid option.

I think it's safer to say you can't use it in all encounters but in most you can, what I don't understand is why they nerfed inferno staffs in U35 as it was the best ranged weapon and even then didn't come close to the numbers you can get with dual wield.

ZOS’ rebalancing style seems to be nerf, rarely buff. I wouldn’t be surprised if they saw inferno > other staves and nerfed inferno without regard to other weapons.

BloodyStigmata

I have a new magplar that's running sword & board + bow backbar. In PVE so far it works.

Am I topping DPS charts? No. But it's fun. Only downside is I can't heavy attack to restore magicka, so throwing in some stamina skills is necessary for sustain.

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding

Turtle_Bot

It's been this way for years in pvp outside of a few overpowered new sets (see vateshran destro on release).

It's the insane amount of flexible raw stats that the stamina weapons give that applies to all abilities, not just that weapon lines abilities.
Dual wield has the highest raw damage/pen/crit/crit damage boost of any weapon type in the game and applies those passive boosts to raw stats that count for all abilities, not just dual wield abilities only, far out performing even second place weapon in 2 handed which also does this, since dual wield has 2 passives that increase these base raw stats where 2 handed only has 1 passive that does this.
Meanwhile staff passives only apply their boosts to staff abilities, not to all abilities, so wielding a staff means that your other abilities deal significantly less base damage when compared to running dual wield.

The passives are as followes;
- dual wield expert gives a scaling boost to your weapon/spell damage equal to 6% of your off hand damage which grants between 80 and 95 raw damage values (these scale with brutality/sorcery etc).
- ruffian passive that grants a 15% damage boost against enemies that are stunned, immobilised, disoriented or silenced, which is extremely common in pvp.
- Twin blade and blunt is a mix and match passive that grants bonuses to raw stat values dependent on what weapon type you're wielding (axes 6% crit damage per axe, daggers 812 crit rating per dagger, swords 142 weapon/spell damage per sword and maces 1650 pen per mace).

2 handed have the following passives;
- heavy weapons, equivalent to twin blade and blunt, but without the ability to mix and match the stats that get buffed and no crit chance option due to no 2 handed daggers
- follow up, after completing a fully charged heavy, the next direct damage attack deals +10% damage. worse version of ruffian due to lower value and relying on a slow damage mechanic to obtain it.

destro staves have the following passives;
- penetrating magic, destruction staff abilities ignore 10% of enemies spell resistance, sounds amazing until you realise that in organised play the group is already at pen cap so this actually does nothing at all and only applies to destro staff abilities, not to all abilities like the raw damage buffs that dual wield and 2 handed passives do.
- elemental force, increases the chance to apply status effects, sounds great, but the dot ticks for status effects are so small when compared to the raw damage increases to the skills themselves that dual wield/2 handed gives by buffing raw stats.
- Ancient knowledge, increases damage of single target (flame) or aoe (lightning) abilities by 10%. This is good (after being changed to all abilities from only staff abilities as it was introduced as), but very limiting in the playstyle, and with the constant nerfs to lightning staves in the past, flame staves pulled significantly further ahead meaning that aoe is very limited for buffing magic damage.

Bow is in a weird spot, it does have some nice passives, such as up to 12% damage increase to abilities at range and a flat crit chance boost as well as up to 25% damage increase to bow abilities for weaving light attacks, but overall isn't as strong for a front bar option as the melee weapons, (it's not weak by any means, but it is slightly behind dual wield and 2 handed for front bar options).

Simply put, dual wield (and to a slightly lesser extent 2 handed) gives a lot of different types of raw passive damage buffs that can easily adapt to any meta, while destro staves provide buffs to either a very limited penetration buff (which is useless in group pve) and a small status effect chance buff (not as useless, but not as useful since the charged trait exists with over 3 times the value) and due to the long standing meta of crit being on top, due to a complete lack of any crit resistance on pve enemies and low armor values that allow for easy pen cap/over pen in pve, staff passives just don't do enough compared to other weapon types, particularly for organised group play where hitting pen cap is the norm.

Somber97866

Haha he said you can do whatever you want, even in endgame! Hahahaha what a bunch of bs! This game is always been about endgame meta and I love that but not being a magtoon with two daggers and two handed sword. That just seems to me like all the bs about everything being balanced is obviously as far from balanced as possible

Troodon80

I find it amusing, personally, when people refer to dual wield as being something new. People don't remember the dual wield Moondancer swords meta of Update 9 and 10 from back in 2016? I do think "balance" should be a case of one not outperforming the other by a significant margin. Lightning, flame, and ice should have their places, and they should do more or less the same as daggers or two-handed. Dual wield on magicka builds isn't something new. We've just come full circle.

RNGeeze

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Simply put, dual wield (and to a slightly lesser extent 2 handed) gives a lot of different types of raw passive damage buffs that can easily adapt to any meta, while destro staves provide buffs to either a very limited penetration buff (which is useless in group pve) and a small status effect chance buff (not as useless, but not as useful since the charged trait exists with over 3 times the value) and due to the long standing meta of crit being on top, due to a complete lack of any crit resistance on pve enemies and low armor values that allow for easy pen cap/over pen in pve, staff passives just don't do enough compared to other weapon types, particularly for organised group play where hitting pen cap is the norm.

Thanks for the breakdown, I don’t do trials but I do keep an eye on the ever shifting meta and dual wielding on a ranged caster class just never sat well with me thematically. I get why it’s a thing I just wish there was less of a gap between the the two but I guess their train of thought is if you are in melee range you’ll be in more danger so they need to give players incentive for that play style.

Elendir2am

Everybody run with staff then so nobody run with staff now. Time gives and time takes, build change with each updates. Who was boss once is useless in other times.

Vevvev

Playing with melee weapons as a mag character isn't new, just odd. There was a time before the hybrid update when you'd run some weapons for the critical chance and passives like dual daggers,but it was still a good idea to keep a Magicka weapon for the resource restore.

And I don't think it's too crazy considering spell swords in lore are a thing, and ESO has 3 melee focused classes that get up close and personal with spells. Dragonknight, Templar,and Nightblade.

I still run a staff though for the 100% increased status effect chance and ranged light attacks. I still fight in melee though since I'm a Dragonknight Vampire and my whole kit is basically completely melee focused.

Quethrosar

wizards don't dual wield.
simple as that.
dnd rules.

Vevvev

Quethrosar wrote: »

wizards don't dual wield.
simple as that.
dnd rules.

Gandalf says hello.

Troodon80

Quethrosar wrote: »

wizards don't dual wield.
simple as that.
dnd rules.

While I am a big fan of anything D&D...


I'm going to have to turn to page 71 and... disagree:



They can use daggers... and there's nothing specifically stating that they cannot dual wield. So... Nirnhoned + Charged Daggers are fine.

This post is meant as a joke, by the way.

darthmorbous

Raammzzaa wrote: »

I enjoy playing melee on a mag toon, personally.

yup, even Gandalf had a sword.

I never played mag before JUST because a staff is ...well...the lamest weapon ever in any game.

if you could use it as a proper staff, aka LONG STICK, like a monk plus magic...that would be perfection

Soarora

Somber97866 wrote: »

Haha he said you can do whatever you want, even in endgame! Hahahaha what a bunch of bs! This game is always been about endgame meta and I love that but not being a magtoon with two daggers and two handed sword. That just seems to me like all the bs about everything being balanced is obviously as far from balanced as possible

The game is only about endgame meta if you want to do endgame. My comment on being able to do whatever you want is in regard to other aspects of the game as I didn't get the memo you were talking only about endgame. Regardless, no you still don't NEED to do daggers/2h. vCR, vAS, vKA, vSS, vRG, and vGD all have a use for ranged dps and I'm sure there's more content that does as well. If you're a (jabs, specifying since now there's non-jabs) templar or dk though then yeah daggers are probably your best bet. Even for melee you can possibly use a staff backbar though I'm not sure how it's looking now that MA destro actually applies the damage boost on both bars.

Baconlad

Let's be completely honest with ourselves guys...every one uses magic in ESO. Even the big dog two handed beast of a sorc, spamming dizzy, uses lightning magic for defense.

The stamblade uses invisibility spells, the stamplar uses restoration, stamen uses mystic/ frost, necro....well duh and DK uses it for IMHO alteration mastery.

All players in this game magic. Unless you specifically gimp urself. We're all mages...using various types of armor and weapons

Vanthras79

I would love to have a one-handed skill tree that does not involve a shield. Furthermore, a one-handed skill tree that would allow for spell casting would be quite cool.

Somber97866

Now we finally have hybrid builds but they couldn't anticipate how that would effective staff skill line passives being weak as a kitten for pve compared to dual wield and two handed passives! Lol

Somber97866

I know and how long do you think it's gonna take to correct this? I wonder how bad they are gonna screw? I hate to be this way but it's a forgone conclusion

Somber97866

BTW I love hybrid builds just don't see why they couldn't have forseen how weak destro staff passive are

FrancisCrawford

Troodon80 wrote: »

Quethrosar wrote: »

wizards don't dual wield.
simple as that.
dnd rules.

While I am a big fan of anything D&D...


I'm going to have to turn to page 71 and... disagree:



They can use daggers... and there's nothing specifically stating that they cannot dual wield. So... Nirnhoned + Charged Daggers are fine.

This post is meant as a joke, by the way.

In old-school, D&D neither wizards nor rogues could dual wield. Well, they could, but very ineffectively.

So let's indeed keep this to the joke level, and/or look elsewhere for our archetypes.

Turtle_Bot

Vanthras79 wrote: »

I would love to have a one-handed skill tree that does not involve a shield. Furthermore, a one-handed skill tree that would allow for spell casting would be quite cool.

people have thrown around the idea of a 1 hand + ward skill line that works similar to the 1 hand and shield line. it would be a defensive skill line for the most part, but having this line would allow for frost staves to be true destruction magic weapons as all the defensive passives can be moved to this line.

I'd also love to see a wand/1 handed magic skill line added personally, make it a magicka version of dual wield with similar passives to dual wield, but it has magicka based skills and weapons. the weapon types for this line could include wands, scepters, runes and tomes.

Wands would buff crit chance (equal to daggers), scepters buff crit damage (equal to axes), runes buff pen (equal to maces) and tomes buff damage (equal to swords).

skills could be like magic bolt (ranged spammable), warded blow (melee or short-range stun), Runic mine (ground based aoe dot), Gale (gap closer with execute scaling), enhanced magics (sorcery/brutality buff that grants another utility effect), ultimate could be magical blast that works similar to the npc magic bombs that drop like meteor then split into 4 different directions along the ground.

Jensmom

I LIKE playing with a staff. I do NOT like playing with swords/daggers/battle whatevers. It seems that for whatever insane reason, and I don't follow all that closely the "theory" I just do what someone or other tells me works good. Now I can't even do that. I play ALL magic toons. I usually play with staffs ONLY. What ZOS has done is made MY game, the way I like to play it, unplayable. I am not an elite player, but I have been playing and paying since BETA. I have tried a few "fixes" some have posted in an effort to enhance my damage and keep staves. Nothing works. I didn't play for 2 weeks after the change, and with the help of some really good friends/guildies, made my sorc sucks less, but my templar is still the pits. Shards isn't the spammable spear was. I was able to beat Malstrom normal BECAUSE I could heal myself while fighting. This is a HUGE option to take away from the non elite player. In one of my many rants I asked my friends WHY have they made it so a staff is no longer viable? THIS is the real question. There is NO build (that I have seen anyway) using just staves. MMOs have always had 2 types of weaponry: stamina and magic. Seems like ESO is trying to do away with the option to be full Magica. Content is no longer keeping me here. As soon as my friends find a better game, I'll be gone. WE TOLD ZOS and they CHOSE not to listen! If I sound angry it's because I AM!

BretonMage

I'm perfectly good with "play how you want", and if magicka characters want to use daggers and even greatswords (wth, but whatever) then they should be able to. BUT it strikes me as extremely odd when magicka characters do BETTER with melee weapons than with staves. It feels really discordant with the lore and and gameplay of any fantasy RPG, TES or otherwise.

I like the idea of bare handed/runic spell skills. It would fit well in the TES world too, as traditionally we'd use our hands to cast spells.

Caribou77

They gotta thing against ranged magicka abilities. Try casting one in PVP - - it will be dodged over 50% of the time.

That’s why Whirling Blades and Dizzy/Executioner are so overused. They hit. They kill things.

PVP is much harder for staff/magicka builds.

Somber97866

I'm not necessarily against wizards, makes, etc using swords , axes or daggers just that using a staff shouldn't be a loss of damage endgame.
Tbh you could make the passive for 2hander and staves relatively the same and make wands a thing with those having relatively same passive as dual wield and finishi! Badaboom your done!

Somber97866

Yeah and they should've never touched spears ( so freaking stupid)