Comparing Heavy Attacks

Billium813

I was looking a bit at the numbers and I feel like Inferno Staff is under performing while Lightning Staff is over performing with Sergeant's Mail. I ran some comparisons between Bow, Inferno Staff, and Lightning Staff and I'll list them below. I wanted to compare single target damage numbers. I went into this feeling like Inferno staff should be far superior to Lightning Staff in single target damage (given Lightning Staff also cleaves in a fairly large 5m AOE) and that Bow should be fairly close to Inferno Staff in numbers. Let me know what you think.

----Heavy Attacks + Champion Points----

Bow

Inferno Staff

Lightning Staff

First, I tested just straight HAs on a target dummy to get a baseline. I know the dps numbers are low in general, but it seems like Bow is really far out in front (no doubt thanks to Hawks Eye passive). Also, Lightning Staff seems to have a nice 60/40 split on HA damage/channel damage. I think that makes sense and there is some rng in crits to allow for small variations, however it seems like Inferno Staff performed lower than expected for single target damage.

----Heavy Attacks + Oakensoul + Champion Points----

Bow

Inferno Staff

*there seemed to be some bug in cmx and I couldn't get the Oakensoul buffs to show...

Lightning Staff

Next, I tested HAs with Oakensoul. With the 100% uptime of Empower and the prevalence of HA builds recently, I wanted to get a feel for how Oakensoul increased the numbers and if anything stood out. It looks like Oakensoul more than doubles the dps, which is kind of expected given all the buffs! Some things I thought were interesting to note are that Bows seem to be the clear winner here and Inferno Staff is still much lower than expected. Also, Lightning Staff still seems to have that nice 60/40 split.

----Heavy Attacks + Sergeant's Mail + Champion Points----

Bow

Inferno Staff

Lightning Staff

Finally, I tested HAs with Sergeant's Mail. Here's where things went a bit wonky imo. Now, we see that Lightning Staff is dominating both Inferno and Bow in single target. Notice that the channel on Lightning Staff has almost completely swapped to 40/60 and the channel is doing more damage than the actual HA! I suppose that makes sense given that Sergeant's Mail increases the HA damage and the channel counts as part of that HA damage... Also, again, we see Inferno Staff pulling up the rear. Seems a bit harsh for Inferno Staves to be so low given their passives seem like they should be the kings of single target damage.

Now, first off, I realize that not all HAs need to be in balance. However, imo, it felt a bit weird for a Heavy Attack 5-piece set like Sergeant's Mail to favor 1 specific weapon so much. I realize that sets like Hawk's Eye exist and 5 piece sets CAN favor a specific weapon. However, Hawk's Eye is a BOW set; it very specifically is targeted for BOW builds. Sets like Sergeant's Mail are not DESTRUCTION STAFF sets, so I think it's fair to run a comparison with other weapons and see how they fair. The set Spider Cultist Cowl exists and would be more specifically targeted for Destruction Staves.

1. I think the Tri-Focus passive could increase Inferno Staff Heavy Attack damage from 12% -> 25%.
2. Sergeant's Mail should no longer buff the channel damage from Lightning Staff. I feel like the intention of the Sergeant's Mail set is to buff the HA damage. Lightning staff is now the only weapon that has a unique channel that's part of its HA damage (yes, I know Restoration Staff exists, but it specifically has a nerf now). That channel damage almost completely offsets the longer duration to HA as the damage is constant, and with Sergeant's Mail, now more damage than the actual final hit. Perhaps the channel damage needs to be a flat damage
3. I think the overall DPS of Lightning Staff could be lowered to be more comparable to Ice Staves. In testing Ice Staves, the damage was substantially lower than the other 3 so I didn't include them above. I think it makes sense for their damage to be lower since Ice Staves have the side effect of a damage shield and are more defensive than offensive. However, at the moment, Lightning Staff single target damage is comparable to other range weapon damage, and even surpasses Inferno Staves! This makes the cleave damage all gravy and Lightning Staves the obvious clear choice for HA damage, outside of extremely niche flame damage builds. I think the AOE cleave damage should be incorporated in evaluating the ranking of Destruction Staves and atm it doesn't seem to be viewed as a benefit!

Billium813

Also, I'm wondering if someone can explain this to me. According the the Tri-Focus passive, Lightning Staves should be doing 100% damage as a cleave AOE, correct? I was seeing numbers smaller than 100% from both the channel AND the AOE.



640 ÷ 932 = 0.6866952789699570815450643776824
960 ÷ 1398 = 0.6866952789699570815450643776824
(crit) 2882 ÷ 4198 = 0.6865173892329680800381133873273

Am I missing something or is the cleave damage really ~69% rather than the tooltip amount of 100%?

Turtle_Bot

I would like to see those same comparation tests done on traditional 2 bar LA weaving set-ups.

Lightning staves have been significantly weaker than inferno/DW/2h and even bows for a while now for those more traditional builds, especially with inferno staves providing a high chance for a free (self buffed) DoT on each LA as well as getting buffed by/or buffing up a significantly greater number of sets/passives that specifically buff/proc off flame damage/LAs that doesn't exist for shock damage whose provided status is very accessible via other means.

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves.

Lightning staves have finally found a niche that allows them to clear content as more than just a back bar weapon on a support build for lightning wall of elements for the AoE off balance.

Even then the builds are very balanced in their current state. The floor of a heavy attack build is like 20-30k (what an average player can expect to get from the build without putting any practice in) with a potential ceiling of 100-110k (only achievable by already top tier players who easily pass 130k+ on traditional builds), while traditional LA weaving builds have a floor of 10-20k and a ceiling of 130k+ (higher effort, but better reward for putting in that effort).

Billium813

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

I would like to see those same comparation tests done on traditional 2 bar LA weaving set-ups.

Lightning staves have been significantly weaker than inferno/DW/2h and even bows for a while now for those more traditional builds, especially with inferno staves providing a high chance for a free (self buffed) DoT on each LA as well as getting buffed by/or buffing up a significantly greater number of sets/passives that specifically buff/proc off flame damage/LAs that doesn't exist for shock damage whose provided status is very accessible via other means.

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves

I mean for this to be a conversation on Heavy Attacks.... I'm not sure what LA weaving as to do with it. Reading Tri-Focus and Sergeant's Mail, I think those only apply to Heavy Attacks, right? Why drag LA weaving into this?

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Lightning staves have finally found a niche that allows them to clear content as more than just a back bar weapon on a support build for lightning wall of elements for the AoE off balance.

Why is it a bad thing for Lightning Staves to be backbar support for procing AoE off balance/concussion? No one seems to be complaining that Ice Staff is primarily a backbar brittle proc support staff. I think there is an imbalance between Inferno Staff and Lightning Staff where the AoE cleave isn't being accounted for in power. Balance is not the same as removing it from the game. There should be a decision that players make when choosing and Lightning Staff seems to just be the clear choice right now for HA, even single target.

Turtle_Bot

Billium813 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

I would like to see those same comparation tests done on traditional 2 bar LA weaving set-ups.

Lightning staves have been significantly weaker than inferno/DW/2h and even bows for a while now for those more traditional builds, especially with inferno staves providing a high chance for a free (self buffed) DoT on each LA as well as getting buffed by/or buffing up a significantly greater number of sets/passives that specifically buff/proc off flame damage/LAs that doesn't exist for shock damage whose provided status is very accessible via other means.

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves

I mean for this to be a conversation on Heavy Attacks.... I'm not sure what LA weaving as to do with it. Reading Tri-Focus and Sergeant's Mail, I think those only apply to Heavy Attacks, right? Why drag LA weaving into this?

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Lightning staves have finally found a niche that allows them to clear content as more than just a back bar weapon on a support build for lightning wall of elements for the AoE off balance.

Why is it a bad thing for Lightning Staves to be backbar support for procing AoE off balance/concussion? No one seems to be complaining that Ice Staff is primarily a backbar brittle proc support staff. I think there is an imbalance between Inferno Staff and Lightning Staff where the AoE cleave isn't being accounted for in power. Balance is not the same as removing it from the game. There should be a decision that players make when choosing and Lightning Staff seems to just be the clear choice right now for HA, even single target.

Why not drag LA weaving into it? You've made it perfectly clear via your numerous comments on all the other heavy attack threads that you prefer for everyone to be forced to play 2 bar LA weaving builds to be able to have a chance to clear content that is harder than overland/questing/normal dungeons and that HA builds should just be nerfed into irrelevancy because you don't like them/have the opinion that they are too easy.

Why are lightning staves being forced into only being a back bar support weapon for proccing off balance/concussion a good thing? If we are going to nerf lightning staves for heavy attack builds, then should we not also buff them for regular builds as well? Like I said, lightning staves have been behind the other weapons for a long time now for regular weaving/ability based builds, so for balance sake, shouldn't we either buff lightning staves for those builds at the same time, or nerf flame staves, DW, 2h, etc so they are more in line with lightning staves? Or maybe, we can just leave lightning staves to have their niche just like the other weapons have their niche. After all, everyone is already complaining about the current severe lack of build diversity, and here we have a new way to play become popular because its a viable alternative for more people to complete more content and yet we have people like you trying to nerf it for what logical reason exactly?

Many people have complained about Ice staff being a tanking/support weapon, including countless comments and threads over the past 6 months alone, just because you chose to ignore it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

If we're going to talk about accounting for cleave when discussing balance, then maybe we should talk about buffing sorcs damage by 20-30% or more since sorcerer is almost entirely single target focused, or better yet, nerf DK by 40% because with all of its cleave and survivability, it's still easily parsing very similar numbers to sorc for single target fights as well as having that far superior cleave.

katorga

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves.

Lightning HA builds do around 25-35% less dps than an optimized 2-bar build. But 25-35% less is still above the minimum dps needed for most pve content.

Kinda ironic to see all the nerf posts for something that measurably is less powerful.

MudcrabAttack

Do you have the storm master set to use in the comparison between all the heavy attacks?

Billium813

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

Do you have the storm master set to use in the comparison between all the heavy attacks?

I did comparisons with all the HA weapons +Storm Master too

----Heavy Attacks + Storm Master + Champion Points----

Bow

Inferno Staff

Lightning Staff

Storm Master relies heavily on crit chance; with a cooldown of 10 seconds and a duration of 20 seconds. That leaves a 10 second window for the HA to proc on crit. Lightning Staff has 100% uptime because it counts the channel crit proc, so as soon as the 10 second cooldown is up, Storm Master procs almost immediately. For Inferno Staff and Bow, the 10 second window is a bit narrow, but as long as the crit is high (I was testing with Thief Mundus), there shouldn't be an issue keeping the uptime high.

As you can see, the Storm Master set bonus of 1542 still seems to apply much more damage to Lightning Staves compared to HAs lacking a channel. The Lightning Staff channel damage just barely starts to edge out the final hit damage here. Compared to Sergeant's Mail, Storm Master seems less impactful, but still imbalanced against other weapons IMO. I think the issue is that Sergeant's Mail adds 2580 damage at full stacks, yet Storm Master only adds 1542

Lancer1602

katorga wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves.

Lightning HA builds do around 25-35% less dps than an optimized 2-bar build. But 25-35% less is still above the minimum dps needed for most pve content.

Kinda ironic to see all the nerf posts for something that measurably is less powerful.

This is only true on a parse dummy. If you have an optimised Oaken Sorc raid - it would be much easier and more effective than 95% of LA build raids. Expecially in the 4man content, where 3 Oakensorcs + Tank can clear any dungeon trifecta with tiniest amount of effort. Since they dont have to worry about their sustain , resource management. Their Single target and AOE target is insane - considering how much effort they put in and their survivability is crazy , since oakensould gives a ton of buffs that makes your character really bulky.

Billium813

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

I would like to see those same comparation tests done on traditional 2 bar LA weaving set-ups.

Lightning staves have been significantly weaker than inferno/DW/2h and even bows for a while now for those more traditional builds, especially with inferno staves providing a high chance for a free (self buffed) DoT on each LA as well as getting buffed by/or buffing up a significantly greater number of sets/passives that specifically buff/proc off flame damage/LAs that doesn't exist for shock damage whose provided status is very accessible via other means.

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves

I mean for this to be a conversation on Heavy Attacks.... I'm not sure what LA weaving as to do with it. Reading Tri-Focus and Sergeant's Mail, I think those only apply to Heavy Attacks, right? Why drag LA weaving into this?

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Lightning staves have finally found a niche that allows them to clear content as more than just a back bar weapon on a support build for lightning wall of elements for the AoE off balance.

Why is it a bad thing for Lightning Staves to be backbar support for procing AoE off balance/concussion? No one seems to be complaining that Ice Staff is primarily a backbar brittle proc support staff. I think there is an imbalance between Inferno Staff and Lightning Staff where the AoE cleave isn't being accounted for in power. Balance is not the same as removing it from the game. There should be a decision that players make when choosing and Lightning Staff seems to just be the clear choice right now for HA, even single target.

Why not drag LA weaving into it? You've made it perfectly clear via your numerous comments on all the other heavy attack threads that you prefer for everyone to be forced to play 2 bar LA weaving builds to be able to have a chance to clear content that is harder than overland/questing/normal dungeons and that HA builds should just be nerfed into irrelevancy because you don't like them/have the opinion that they are too easy.

? I never once advocated for the eradication of 1 bar builds... You're making things up to try to debase my point in this thread. Your trying to drag LAs into this to muddy the discussion too when that isn't remotely part of what I am trying to discuss here. Let's compare apples to apples.

My only issue is that if you look at all the HA builds right now (Necro, Templar, DK, ect), they all use Lightning Staves. However, if you look at the build, they spec Magicka and run almost nothing from Destruction Staff! What's the point of using Lightning Staff if you don't even need the Skills from it? They run Elemental Susceptibility and Crushing Shock for solo as pure utility skills, but in group content they run nothing. The rest of the build is HA Lightning Staff + class skill weaving + Mages Guild Ult.

So, what about Bow? What if I want to run the same exact build (Storm Master + Sergeant's Mail), but spec into Stamina and run Bow? For solo play, I can get the same solo utility as Crushing Shock from Venom Arrow, and Stamina allows me to run Razor Caltrops to be similar to Elemental Susceptibility, but in AOE. Except 1 bar Bow HA builds are easily 20-30k dps less than 1 bar Lightning Staff HA builds in single target damage AND lack AOE Cleave! You'd be a fool to run it.

At first I thought, "Oh, maybe Bow just does less HA damage overall from Lightning Staff". Except it doesn't and in fact it seem to do more! The issue seems to be that Lightning Staff is getting a greater benefit from Sergeant's Mail over any other weapon; counting for a 20-30k DPS swing at the higher end. That seems wrong when you look at the intention of Sergeant's Mail and how Lightning Staff is the only weapon that gets this benefit due to its unique HA Channel. Sergeant's Mail is a generic HA set, but its clearly FAR better on one specific HA than any other. Seems wrong to me.

Lancer1602

Lancer1602 wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves.

Lightning HA builds do around 25-35% less dps than an optimized 2-bar build. But 25-35% less is still above the minimum dps needed for most pve content.

Kinda ironic to see all the nerf posts for something that measurably is less powerful.

This is only true on a parse dummy. If you have an optimised Oaken Sorc raid - it would be much easier and more effective than 95% of LA build raids. Expecially in the 4man content, where 3 Oakensorcs + Tank can clear any dungeon trifecta with tiniest amount of effort. Since they dont have to worry about their sustain , resource management. Their Single target and AOE target is insane - considering how much effort they put in and their survivability is crazy , since oakensould gives a ton of buffs that makes your character really bulky.

HA builds provide too much considering how much effort is required. Empower - a flat 80% boost. Which other buff gives that much of an increase? And it is so easily accessed - just from any magic guild skill. Weapons Expert slottable cp that gives another 20% flat damage increase. Sergeant +Storm master sets that give you so much and ask nothing in return. For example Kinras requires you to have 5 LAs in a row to trigger a 10% buff, that is not unique and requires you to do a LA atleast every 5s to keep it. StormMaster requires you to crit with a heavy attack - which is really easy with a lighting staff. and you get a 20s buff with a 10sec cd. and also because of tri-focus passive - all of your damage is also an AOE.

Zezin

Billium813 wrote: »

I was looking a bit at the numbers and I feel like Inferno Staff is under performing while Lightning Staff is over performing with Sergeant's Mail. I ran some comparisons between Bow, Inferno Staff, and Lightning Staff and I'll list them below. I wanted to compare single target damage numbers. I went into this feeling like Inferno staff should be far superior to Lightning Staff in single target damage (given Lightning Staff also cleaves in a fairly large 5m AOE) and that Bow should be fairly close to Inferno Staff in numbers. Let me know what you think.

----Heavy Attacks + Champion Points----

Bow

Inferno Staff

Lightning Staff

First, I tested just straight HAs on a target dummy to get a baseline. I know the dps numbers are low in general, but it seems like Bow is really far out in front (no doubt thanks to Hawks Eye passive). Also, Lightning Staff seems to have a nice 60/40 split on HA damage/channel damage. I think that makes sense and there is some rng in crits to allow for small variations, however it seems like Inferno Staff performed lower than expected for single target damage.

----Heavy Attacks + Oakensoul + Champion Points----

Bow

Inferno Staff

*there seemed to be some bug in cmx and I couldn't get the Oakensoul buffs to show...

Lightning Staff

Next, I tested HAs with Oakensoul. With the 100% uptime of Empower and the prevalence of HA builds recently, I wanted to get a feel for how Oakensoul increased the numbers and if anything stood out. It looks like Oakensoul more than doubles the dps, which is kind of expected given all the buffs! Some things I thought were interesting to note are that Bows seem to be the clear winner here and Inferno Staff is still much lower than expected. Also, Lightning Staff still seems to have that nice 60/40 split.

----Heavy Attacks + Sergeant's Mail + Champion Points----

Bow

Inferno Staff

Lightning Staff

Finally, I tested HAs with Sergeant's Mail. Here's where things went a bit wonky imo. Now, we see that Lightning Staff is dominating both Inferno and Bow in single target. Notice that the channel on Lightning Staff has almost completely swapped to 40/60 and the channel is doing more damage than the actual HA! I suppose that makes sense given that Sergeant's Mail increases the HA damage and the channel counts as part of that HA damage... Also, again, we see Inferno Staff pulling up the rear. Seems a bit harsh for Inferno Staves to be so low given their passives seem like they should be the kings of single target damage.

Now, first off, I realize that not all HAs need to be in balance. However, imo, it felt a bit weird for a Heavy Attack 5-piece set like Sergeant's Mail to favor 1 specific weapon so much. I realize that sets like Hawk's Eye exist and 5 piece sets CAN favor a specific weapon. However, Hawk's Eye is a BOW set; it very specifically is targeted for BOW builds. Sets like Sergeant's Mail are not DESTRUCTION STAFF sets, so I think it's fair to run a comparison with other weapons and see how they fair. The set Spider Cultist Cowl exists and would be more specifically targeted for Destruction Staves.

1. I think the Tri-Focus passive could increase Inferno Staff Heavy Attack damage from 12% -> 25%.
2. Sergeant's Mail should no longer buff the channel damage from Lightning Staff. I feel like the intention of the Sergeant's Mail set is to buff the HA damage. Lightning staff is now the only weapon that has a unique channel that's part of its HA damage (yes, I know Restoration Staff exists, but it specifically has a nerf now). That channel damage almost completely offsets the longer duration to HA as the damage is constant, and with Sergeant's Mail, now more damage than the actual final hit. Perhaps the channel damage needs to be a flat damage
3. I think the overall DPS of Lightning Staff could be lowered to be more comparable to Ice Staves. In testing Ice Staves, the damage was substantially lower than the other 3 so I didn't include them above. I think it makes sense for their damage to be lower since Ice Staves have the side effect of a damage shield and are more defensive than offensive. However, at the moment, Lightning Staff single target damage is comparable to other range weapon damage, and even surpasses Inferno Staves! This makes the cleave damage all gravy and Lightning Staves the obvious clear choice for HA damage, outside of extremely niche flame damage builds. I think the AOE cleave damage should be incorporated in evaluating the ranking of Destruction Staves and atm it doesn't seem to be viewed as a benefit!

Thank you for testing this, I agree Inferno staves in general need a buff, they even brought it down a bit a while ago out of nowhere.

Yazrz

Lancer1602 wrote: »

Lancer1602 wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves.

Lightning HA builds do around 25-35% less dps than an optimized 2-bar build. But 25-35% less is still above the minimum dps needed for most pve content.

Kinda ironic to see all the nerf posts for something that measurably is less powerful.

This is only true on a parse dummy. If you have an optimised Oaken Sorc raid - it would be much easier and more effective than 95% of LA build raids. Expecially in the 4man content, where 3 Oakensorcs + Tank can clear any dungeon trifecta with tiniest amount of effort. Since they dont have to worry about their sustain , resource management. Their Single target and AOE target is insane - considering how much effort they put in and their survivability is crazy , since oakensould gives a ton of buffs that makes your character really bulky.

HA builds provide too much considering how much effort is required. Empower - a flat 80% boost. Which other buff gives that much of an increase? And it is so easily accessed - just from any magic guild skill. Weapons Expert slottable cp that gives another 20% flat damage increase. Sergeant +Storm master sets that give you so much and ask nothing in return. For example Kinras required you to have 5 LAs in a row to trigger a 10% buff, that is not unique and required you to do a LA atleast every 5s to keep it. StormMaster requires you to crit with a heavy attack - which is really easy with a lighting staff. and you get a 20s bugg with a 10sec cd. and also because of tri-focus passive - all of your damage is also an AOE.

The point with empower is that HA are so under powered without any buff. If they had been tuned to be competitive in the first place then empower would have less of a boost.

Lancer1602

Yazrz wrote: »

Lancer1602 wrote: »

Lancer1602 wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves.

Lightning HA builds do around 25-35% less dps than an optimized 2-bar build. But 25-35% less is still above the minimum dps needed for most pve content.

Kinda ironic to see all the nerf posts for something that measurably is less powerful.

This is only true on a parse dummy. If you have an optimised Oaken Sorc raid - it would be much easier and more effective than 95% of LA build raids. Expecially in the 4man content, where 3 Oakensorcs + Tank can clear any dungeon trifecta with tiniest amount of effort. Since they dont have to worry about their sustain , resource management. Their Single target and AOE target is insane - considering how much effort they put in and their survivability is crazy , since oakensould gives a ton of buffs that makes your character really bulky.

HA builds provide too much considering how much effort is required. Empower - a flat 80% boost. Which other buff gives that much of an increase? And it is so easily accessed - just from any magic guild skill. Weapons Expert slottable cp that gives another 20% flat damage increase. Sergeant +Storm master sets that give you so much and ask nothing in return. For example Kinras required you to have 5 LAs in a row to trigger a 10% buff, that is not unique and required you to do a LA atleast every 5s to keep it. StormMaster requires you to crit with a heavy attack - which is really easy with a lighting staff. and you get a 20s bugg with a 10sec cd. and also because of tri-focus passive - all of your damage is also an AOE.

The point with empower is that HA are so under powered without any buff. If they had been tuned to be competitive in the first place then empower would have less of a boost.

Before new CP system, there were HA sorcs that were running 2Bar builds and there were single bar StamPlars - there was a lot of diversity, many viable builds that were able to do veteran trials and dungeons. But none of them were that easy and overpowered as HA Oakensorc now.

Billium813

Lancer1602 wrote: »

Yazrz wrote: »

Lancer1602 wrote: »

Lancer1602 wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves.

Lightning HA builds do around 25-35% less dps than an optimized 2-bar build. But 25-35% less is still above the minimum dps needed for most pve content.

Kinda ironic to see all the nerf posts for something that measurably is less powerful.

This is only true on a parse dummy. If you have an optimised Oaken Sorc raid - it would be much easier and more effective than 95% of LA build raids. Expecially in the 4man content, where 3 Oakensorcs + Tank can clear any dungeon trifecta with tiniest amount of effort. Since they dont have to worry about their sustain , resource management. Their Single target and AOE target is insane - considering how much effort they put in and their survivability is crazy , since oakensould gives a ton of buffs that makes your character really bulky.

HA builds provide too much considering how much effort is required. Empower - a flat 80% boost. Which other buff gives that much of an increase? And it is so easily accessed - just from any magic guild skill. Weapons Expert slottable cp that gives another 20% flat damage increase. Sergeant +Storm master sets that give you so much and ask nothing in return. For example Kinras required you to have 5 LAs in a row to trigger a 10% buff, that is not unique and required you to do a LA atleast every 5s to keep it. StormMaster requires you to crit with a heavy attack - which is really easy with a lighting staff. and you get a 20s bugg with a 10sec cd. and also because of tri-focus passive - all of your damage is also an AOE.

The point with empower is that HA are so under powered without any buff. If they had been tuned to be competitive in the first place then empower would have less of a boost.

Before new CP system, there were HA sorcs that were running 2Bar builds and there were single bar StamPlars - there was a lot of diversity, many viable builds that were able to do veteran trials and dungeons. But none of them were that easy and overpowered as HA Oakensorc now.

I think there may still be issues with Empower, but I think there's also an issue with diversity in weapon choice for these 1 bar HA builds. I am not personally seeking to advocate for Oakensoul or Empower adjustments here, since that seems to be a whole separate discussion IMO. I think HA builds insane sustain, reasonable DPS, long range attack, auto-aim, and Lightning Staff cleave AoE form a perfect storm of "the best midrange build". HA builds being good midrange builds isn't necessarily "bad", as long as there are reasonable alternatives and build diversity. At the moment, I find that there are none. Especially if you can't LA weave on 2 bars, which is often what players are told to do as an alternative.
I think there is a lot of points trying to be made that 1 bar HA builds are "stepping stones" to more complex builds with higher DPS. But what incentive does a player have to leave the 1 bar build behind? It's just as good, especially en-masse and requires much less effort or resource management. Who needs the hassle of 2 bars? How easy is it really to migrate from HA to LA weaving on 2 bars and why would a player make that move?

Lancer1602

Billium813 wrote: »

Lancer1602 wrote: »

Yazrz wrote: »

Lancer1602 wrote: »

Lancer1602 wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves.

Lightning HA builds do around 25-35% less dps than an optimized 2-bar build. But 25-35% less is still above the minimum dps needed for most pve content.

Kinda ironic to see all the nerf posts for something that measurably is less powerful.

This is only true on a parse dummy. If you have an optimised Oaken Sorc raid - it would be much easier and more effective than 95% of LA build raids. Expecially in the 4man content, where 3 Oakensorcs + Tank can clear any dungeon trifecta with tiniest amount of effort. Since they dont have to worry about their sustain , resource management. Their Single target and AOE target is insane - considering how much effort they put in and their survivability is crazy , since oakensould gives a ton of buffs that makes your character really bulky.

HA builds provide too much considering how much effort is required. Empower - a flat 80% boost. Which other buff gives that much of an increase? And it is so easily accessed - just from any magic guild skill. Weapons Expert slottable cp that gives another 20% flat damage increase. Sergeant +Storm master sets that give you so much and ask nothing in return. For example Kinras required you to have 5 LAs in a row to trigger a 10% buff, that is not unique and required you to do a LA atleast every 5s to keep it. StormMaster requires you to crit with a heavy attack - which is really easy with a lighting staff. and you get a 20s bugg with a 10sec cd. and also because of tri-focus passive - all of your damage is also an AOE.

The point with empower is that HA are so under powered without any buff. If they had been tuned to be competitive in the first place then empower would have less of a boost.

Before new CP system, there were HA sorcs that were running 2Bar builds and there were single bar StamPlars - there was a lot of diversity, many viable builds that were able to do veteran trials and dungeons. But none of them were that easy and overpowered as HA Oakensorc now.

I think there may still be issues with Empower, but I think there's also an issue with diversity in weapon choice for these 1 bar HA builds. I am not personally seeking to advocate for Oakensoul or Empower adjustments here, since that seems to be a whole separate discussion IMO. I think HA builds insane sustain, reasonable DPS, long range attack, auto-aim, and Lightning Staff cleave AoE form a perfect storm of "the best midrange build". HA builds being good midrange builds isn't necessarily "bad", as long as there are reasonable alternatives and build diversity. At the moment, I find that there are none. Especially if you can't LA weave on 2 bars, which is often what players are told to do as an alternative.
I think there is a lot of points trying to be made that 1 bar HA builds are "stepping stones" to more complex builds with higher DPS. But what incentive does a player have to leave the 1 bar build behind? It's just as good, especially en-masse and requires much less effort or resource management. Who needs the hassle of 2 bars? How easy is it really to migrate from HA to LA weaving on 2 bars and why would a player make that move?

With how the game is now - 1 bar HA OakenSorc would definitely be way more effective than any other 2bar LA build for 90% of the people.


As Skinny Cheeks explained 100% right, there should be more gradation and way more scaling than the way it is now.

Turtle_Bot

Billium813 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

I would like to see those same comparation tests done on traditional 2 bar LA weaving set-ups.

Lightning staves have been significantly weaker than inferno/DW/2h and even bows for a while now for those more traditional builds, especially with inferno staves providing a high chance for a free (self buffed) DoT on each LA as well as getting buffed by/or buffing up a significantly greater number of sets/passives that specifically buff/proc off flame damage/LAs that doesn't exist for shock damage whose provided status is very accessible via other means.

If lightning staves are so OP compared to flame, DW and 2H weapons, why are ALL traditional LA weaving builds slotting those other weapons and not lightning staves

I mean for this to be a conversation on Heavy Attacks.... I'm not sure what LA weaving as to do with it. Reading Tri-Focus and Sergeant's Mail, I think those only apply to Heavy Attacks, right? Why drag LA weaving into this?

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Lightning staves have finally found a niche that allows them to clear content as more than just a back bar weapon on a support build for lightning wall of elements for the AoE off balance.

Why is it a bad thing for Lightning Staves to be backbar support for procing AoE off balance/concussion? No one seems to be complaining that Ice Staff is primarily a backbar brittle proc support staff. I think there is an imbalance between Inferno Staff and Lightning Staff where the AoE cleave isn't being accounted for in power. Balance is not the same as removing it from the game. There should be a decision that players make when choosing and Lightning Staff seems to just be the clear choice right now for HA, even single target.

Why not drag LA weaving into it? You've made it perfectly clear via your numerous comments on all the other heavy attack threads that you prefer for everyone to be forced to play 2 bar LA weaving builds to be able to have a chance to clear content that is harder than overland/questing/normal dungeons and that HA builds should just be nerfed into irrelevancy because you don't like them/have the opinion that they are too easy.

? I never once advocated for the eradication of 1 bar builds... You're making things up to try to debase my point in this thread. Your trying to drag LAs into this to muddy the discussion too when that isn't remotely part of what I am trying to discuss here. Let's compare apples to apples.

Where did I say you wanted 1 bar builds eradicated, I was referring specifically to HA builds which anyone can check any of the numerous HA threads and see that I am correct in this. You are the one making things up here.
You have been extremely vocal in your disdain for HA builds and those who use them, calling for them to be nerfed so much that they would be essentially useless for anything that's not overland/questing.

As for a stamina HA build, 2H weapons have the same cleave as lightning staves, higher base damage (from both the base weapon and the passives), the only thing it misses out on is the additional tick that lightning staves have.
DW has 2 hits (instead of 3 ticks) as well as higher base damage and much better passives, the only thing its missing is the cleave.
Both of these weapons perform within 10% of lightning staff builds, but both of these weapons are also BiS for majority of LA weaving builds and heavily outperform lightning staves for those builds.

Also, you want to talk about muddying the discussion, you came in here creating this thread after your numerous comments regarding your opinion on HA builds with a completely generic title (that was very baiting considering your stance on the topic), also with incomplete and frankly laughable testing data that only further proves that this entire thread is an attempted bait to validate your opinion on HA builds and get others to side with you in getting them nerfed back into irrelevance. You muddied your own discussion.

axi

Billium813 wrote: »

Also, I'm wondering if someone can explain this to me. According the the Tri-Focus passive, Lightning Staves should be doing 100% damage as a cleave AOE, correct? I was seeing numbers smaller than 100% from both the channel AND the AOE.



640 ÷ 932 = 0.6866952789699570815450643776824
960 ÷ 1398 = 0.6866952789699570815450643776824
(crit) 2882 ÷ 4198 = 0.6865173892329680800381133873273

Am I missing something or is the cleave damage really ~69% rather than the tooltip amount of 100%?

You hit targets with max PvE resistances so AoE portion of dmg is being reduced by that 18k resist they have. You should reach fairly similar values if You would hit multiple iron atronachs.

Auldwulfe

Billium813 wrote: »

I was looking a bit at the numbers and I feel like Inferno Staff is under performing while Lightning Staff is over performing with Sergeant's Mail. I ran some comparisons between Bow, Inferno Staff, and Lightning Staff and I'll list them below. I wanted to compare single target damage numbers. I went into this feeling like Inferno staff should be far superior to Lightning Staff in single target damage (given Lightning Staff also cleaves in a fairly large 5m AOE) and that Bow should be fairly close to Inferno Staff in numbers. Let me know what you think.

----Heavy Attacks + Champion Points----

Bow

Inferno Staff

Lightning Staff

First, I tested just straight HAs on a target dummy to get a baseline. I know the dps numbers are low in general, but it seems like Bow is really far out in front (no doubt thanks to Hawks Eye passive). Also, Lightning Staff seems to have a nice 60/40 split on HA damage/channel damage. I think that makes sense and there is some rng in crits to allow for small variations, however it seems like Inferno Staff performed lower than expected for single target damage.

----Heavy Attacks + Oakensoul + Champion Points----

Bow

Inferno Staff

*there seemed to be some bug in cmx and I couldn't get the Oakensoul buffs to show...

Lightning Staff

Next, I tested HAs with Oakensoul. With the 100% uptime of Empower and the prevalence of HA builds recently, I wanted to get a feel for how Oakensoul increased the numbers and if anything stood out. It looks like Oakensoul more than doubles the dps, which is kind of expected given all the buffs! Some things I thought were interesting to note are that Bows seem to be the clear winner here and Inferno Staff is still much lower than expected. Also, Lightning Staff still seems to have that nice 60/40 split.

----Heavy Attacks + Sergeant's Mail + Champion Points----

Bow

Inferno Staff

Lightning Staff

Finally, I tested HAs with Sergeant's Mail. Here's where things went a bit wonky imo. Now, we see that Lightning Staff is dominating both Inferno and Bow in single target. Notice that the channel on Lightning Staff has almost completely swapped to 40/60 and the channel is doing more damage than the actual HA! I suppose that makes sense given that Sergeant's Mail increases the HA damage and the channel counts as part of that HA damage... Also, again, we see Inferno Staff pulling up the rear. Seems a bit harsh for Inferno Staves to be so low given their passives seem like they should be the kings of single target damage.

Now, first off, I realize that not all HAs need to be in balance. However, imo, it felt a bit weird for a Heavy Attack 5-piece set like Sergeant's Mail to favor 1 specific weapon so much. I realize that sets like Hawk's Eye exist and 5 piece sets CAN favor a specific weapon. However, Hawk's Eye is a BOW set; it very specifically is targeted for BOW builds. Sets like Sergeant's Mail are not DESTRUCTION STAFF sets, so I think it's fair to run a comparison with other weapons and see how they fair. The set Spider Cultist Cowl exists and would be more specifically targeted for Destruction Staves.

1. I think the Tri-Focus passive could increase Inferno Staff Heavy Attack damage from 12% -> 25%.
2. Sergeant's Mail should no longer buff the channel damage from Lightning Staff. I feel like the intention of the Sergeant's Mail set is to buff the HA damage. Lightning staff is now the only weapon that has a unique channel that's part of its HA damage (yes, I know Restoration Staff exists, but it specifically has a nerf now). That channel damage almost completely offsets the longer duration to HA as the damage is constant, and with Sergeant's Mail, now more damage than the actual final hit. Perhaps the channel damage needs to be a flat damage
3. I think the overall DPS of Lightning Staff could be lowered to be more comparable to Ice Staves. In testing Ice Staves, the damage was substantially lower than the other 3 so I didn't include them above. I think it makes sense for their damage to be lower since Ice Staves have the side effect of a damage shield and are more defensive than offensive. However, at the moment, Lightning Staff single target damage is comparable to other range weapon damage, and even surpasses Inferno Staves! This makes the cleave damage all gravy and Lightning Staves the obvious clear choice for HA damage, outside of extremely niche flame damage builds. I think the AOE cleave damage should be incorporated in evaluating the ranking of Destruction Staves and atm it doesn't seem to be viewed as a benefit!

If you drop the ring, use Slime Craw full, and either Queen's Elegance which is all light, or Order's Wrath crafted all light, the passives for pen and crit add HUGE chunks, again, no ring.

Auldwulfe

Billium813

I did a bit of testing with Queen's Elegance to see how Empower affects different HAs

----Heavy Attacks + 5P Queen's Elegance + Champion Points----

Bow

Lightning Staff

Inferno Staff

2 Handed

----Heavy Attacks + 4P Queen's Elegance + 1P Filler + Champion Points----

Bow

Lightning Staff

Inferno Staff

2 Handed

All weapons are seeing +80% damage, with Lightning Staff seeing that +80% on the channel AND the final hit. I'm still seeing that nice 60/40 damage split on final damage/channel for Lightning Staff as well so it would appear that the +80% damage on channel damage is split between both channel hits. The numbers support that too.

• Without Empower
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 1009, Final Hit 1x 3031 = 5049
  • Inferno Staff - Final Hit 1x 3871
  • Bow Staff - Final Hit 1x 5383
  • 2 Handed - Final Hit 1x 3713

• With Empower
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 1816, Final Hit 1x 5456 = 9088
  • Inferno Staff - Final Hit 1x 6967
  • Bow Staff - Final Hit 1x 9690
  • 2 Handed - Final Hit 1x 6683

Faulgor

Yeah, lightning staves always had the cool heavy attack going for them, whereas every other HA kinda sucks. I've often said that each weapon should have more unique elements to their HA. I hope with HA builds being ubiquitous now, ZOS will have another look at that.
Two-Handed do full splash damage now, too, so that's at least a little bit of flavor. But as you pointed out, because of how sets like Sergeant's interact with channeling HAs, only lightning and restoration staff HA builds make any sense.
IIRC, this was changed at one point (in the way you suggest, only applying the set buff to the last hit) and basically killed all HA builds. Should they decide to change it again, I hope they do it without killing HA builds this time.

I'd love to play different HA builds. If this meta is here to stay, at least let's have some diversity within it?

Auldwulfe

Billium813 wrote: »

I did a bit of testing with Queen's Elegance to see how Empower affects different HAs

----Heavy Attacks + 5P Queen's Elegance + Champion Points----

Bow

Lightning Staff

Inferno Staff

2 Handed

----Heavy Attacks + 4P Queen's Elegance + 1P Filler + Champion Points----

Bow

Lightning Staff

Inferno Staff

2 Handed

All weapons are seeing +80% damage, with Lightning Staff seeing that +80% on the channel AND the final hit. I'm still seeing that nice 60/40 damage split on final damage/channel for Lightning Staff as well so it would appear that the +80% damage on channel damage is split between both channel hits. The numbers support that too.

• Without Empower
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 1009, Final Hit 1x 3031 = 5049
  • Inferno Staff - Final Hit 1x 3871
  • Bow Staff - Final Hit 1x 5383
  • 2 Handed - Final Hit 1x 3713

• With Empower
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 1816, Final Hit 1x 5456 = 9088
  • Inferno Staff - Final Hit 1x 6967
  • Bow Staff - Final Hit 1x 9690
  • 2 Handed - Final Hit 1x 6683

Nicely done -- I did notice that Queen's Elegance did keep the uptime at 99%.. which is about what I got ..... mine was 97 to 99, but as I noted, I am getting old, and sometimes the order for my right index finger gets interpreted as twitch my left foot.....LOL

Auldwulfe

Billium813

Faulgor wrote: »

Yeah, lightning staves always had the cool heavy attack going for them, whereas every other HA kinda sucks. I've often said that each weapon should have more unique elements to their HA. I hope with HA builds being ubiquitous now, ZOS will have another look at that.

I like all the staff HA animations, even Ice Staff. But I would agree that the other Physical HAs could be a bit cooler looking. Bow is nice, but I'd like to see the sonic boom circles around the shot be more pronounced and maybe make the arrow feel heavier? or give it more weight in the hit?

Faulgor wrote: »

But as you pointed out, because of how sets like Sergeant's interact with channeling HAs, only lightning and restoration staff HA builds make any sense.
IIRC, this was changed at one point (in the way you suggest, only applying the set buff to the last hit) and basically killed all HA builds. Should they decide to change it again, I hope they do it without killing HA builds this time.

I'd love to play different HA builds. If this meta is here to stay, at least let's have some diversity within it?

The only way to legitimize a build archetype is to give it a diverse build strategy for players to play with. I feel that at the moment, HA builds being ONLY Lightning Staves makes HA builds look bad and implies "bug". I know there has been discussions about how Oakensoul is the issue, or Lightning Staves are the issue, or maybe HA sets are too strong, or Empower is too strong. I decided to run these tests to find where the discrepancies are and what stands out.

I think they need to look at Lightning Staff channel damage much closer and check all the HA sets that provide a flat damage increases to Heavy Attack damage (Infallible Mage, Knight Slayer, Noble Duelist's Silks, Undaunted Unweaver, Storm Master, Undaunted Infiltrator, Sergeant's Mail). If you look at other HA sets like Curse of Doylemish or Poisonous Serpent, they have cool downs or do additional damage separate from the HA damage or specifically buff damage to "Fully Charged Heavy Attacks".

Billium813

I ran some quick tests with Infallible Mage to check how it affects Lightning Staff channel damage. In order to test this a bit better, I also equipped Wise Mage so that the Minor Vulnerability could be removed from the comparison.

Infallible Mage

----Heavy Attacks + 5P Infallible Mage + 5P Wise Mage + Champion Points----

Lightning Staff

----Heavy Attacks + 4P Infallible Mage + 5P Wise Mage + 1P Filler + Champion Points----

Lightning Staff

• Without Infallible Mage
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 1222, Final Hit 1x 3670 = 6114

• With Infallible Mage
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 2072, Final Hit 1x 4520 = 8664

This seems really odd to me. (8664 - 6114) ÷ 3 = 850. So, it seems that the Infallible Mage bonus is applied to both the channel damage AND the final hit damage. However, it seems weird that it's only 850 damage instead of 900 damage. Ik IK, it's only 50 damage, and this is a flat 900 too so it won't scale. This is such a minor issue, but it still seems wrong.

Now, the REASON I wanted to test this was after reading the wording on Infallible Mage:

> Your fully-charged Heavy Attack deal an additional 900 damage

and comparing that to Sergeant's Mail's wording:

> increasing the damage of your Heavy Attacks by 645 per stack

See, I was thinking, maybe the fix for Sergeant's Mail (and Storm Master) could be to change to:

> increasing the damage of your fully-charged Heavy Attacks by 645 per stack

With this change, maybe the Sergeant's Mail buff would apply only to the final hit!

However, after testing Infallible Mage, it seems that fully-charged wording may not work either. Even though Infallible Mage says it would only add damage to fully-charged HA, it adds that ~900 damage to channel damage too. That means that medium attacks get the +900 damage! I'm seeing 2x ~800 damage added to Lighnting Staff medium attacks (1x-2x channel damage only).

Faulgor

Billium813 wrote: »

I ran some quick tests with Infallible Mage to check how it affects Lightning Staff channel damage. In order to test this a bit better, I also equipped Wise Mage so that the Minor Vulnerability could be removed from the comparison.

Infallible Mage

----Heavy Attacks + 5P Infallible Mage + 5P Wise Mage + Champion Points----

Lightning Staff

----Heavy Attacks + 4P Infallible Mage + 5P Wise Mage + 1P Filler + Champion Points----

Lightning Staff

• Without Infallible Mage
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 1222, Final Hit 1x 3670 = 6114

• With Infallible Mage
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 2072, Final Hit 1x 4520 = 8664

This seems really odd to me. (8664 - 6114) ÷ 3 = 850. So, it seems that the Infallible Mage bonus is applied to both the channel damage AND the final hit damage. However, it seems weird that it's only 850 damage instead of 900 damage. Ik IK, it's only 50 damage, and this is a flat 900 too so it won't scale. This is such a minor issue, but it still seems wrong.

Now, the REASON I wanted to test this was after reading the wording on Infallible Mage:

> Your fully-charged Heavy Attack deal an additional 900 damage

and comparing that to Sergeant's Mail's wording:

> increasing the damage of your Heavy Attacks by 645 per stack

See, I was thinking, maybe the fix for Sergeant's Mail (and Storm Master) could be to change to:

> increasing the damage of your fully-charged Heavy Attacks by 645 per stack

With this change, maybe the Sergeant's Mail buff would apply only to the final hit!

However, after testing Infallible Mage, it seems that fully-charged wording may not work either. Even though Infallible Mage says it would only add damage to fully-charged HA, it adds that ~900 damage to channel damage too. That means that medium attacks get the +900 damage! I'm seeing 2x ~800 damage added to Lighnting Staff medium attacks (1x-2x channel damage only).

The tool tip of Infallible Mage you posted states "Your Heavy Attacks deal an additional 900 damage". The fully-charged part applies only to the Minor Vulnerability debuff.
Afaik, there are no longer any sets that only buff damage of fully-charged heavy attacks. But those sets were changed so many times ...
I agree that the best solution would be to balance heavy attacks around fully-charged ones. Then they could differentiate the weapon types from there - I was thinking not just in terms of visuals but effects. The chain lightning effect of lightning staves is great and should be the benchmark here.

Billium813

Faulgor wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

I ran some quick tests with Infallible Mage to check how it affects Lightning Staff channel damage. In order to test this a bit better, I also equipped Wise Mage so that the Minor Vulnerability could be removed from the comparison.

Infallible Mage

----Heavy Attacks + 5P Infallible Mage + 5P Wise Mage + Champion Points----

Lightning Staff

----Heavy Attacks + 4P Infallible Mage + 5P Wise Mage + 1P Filler + Champion Points----

Lightning Staff

• Without Infallible Mage
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 1222, Final Hit 1x 3670 = 6114

• With Infallible Mage
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 2072, Final Hit 1x 4520 = 8664

This seems really odd to me. (8664 - 6114) ÷ 3 = 850. So, it seems that the Infallible Mage bonus is applied to both the channel damage AND the final hit damage. However, it seems weird that it's only 850 damage instead of 900 damage. Ik IK, it's only 50 damage, and this is a flat 900 too so it won't scale. This is such a minor issue, but it still seems wrong.

Now, the REASON I wanted to test this was after reading the wording on Infallible Mage:

> Your fully-charged Heavy Attack deal an additional 900 damage

and comparing that to Sergeant's Mail's wording:

> increasing the damage of your Heavy Attacks by 645 per stack

See, I was thinking, maybe the fix for Sergeant's Mail (and Storm Master) could be to change to:

> increasing the damage of your fully-charged Heavy Attacks by 645 per stack

With this change, maybe the Sergeant's Mail buff would apply only to the final hit!

However, after testing Infallible Mage, it seems that fully-charged wording may not work either. Even though Infallible Mage says it would only add damage to fully-charged HA, it adds that ~900 damage to channel damage too. That means that medium attacks get the +900 damage! I'm seeing 2x ~800 damage added to Lighnting Staff medium attacks (1x-2x channel damage only).

The tool tip of Infallible Mage you posted states "Your Heavy Attacks deal an additional 900 damage". The fully-charged part applies only to the Minor Vulnerability debuff.
Afaik, there are no longer any sets that only buff damage of fully-charged heavy attacks. But those sets were changed so many times ...
I agree that the best solution would be to balance heavy attacks around fully-charged ones. Then they could differentiate the weapon types from there - I was thinking not just in terms of visuals but effects. The chain lightning effect of lightning staves is great and should be the benchmark here.

Oh! https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Infallible+Mage+Set

I suppose I should double check before posting. Looks like a mistake on the wiki. I didn't notice in the game either. Thanks for pointing that out!

Faulgor

Billium813 wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

I ran some quick tests with Infallible Mage to check how it affects Lightning Staff channel damage. In order to test this a bit better, I also equipped Wise Mage so that the Minor Vulnerability could be removed from the comparison.

Infallible Mage

----Heavy Attacks + 5P Infallible Mage + 5P Wise Mage + Champion Points----

Lightning Staff

----Heavy Attacks + 4P Infallible Mage + 5P Wise Mage + 1P Filler + Champion Points----

Lightning Staff

• Without Infallible Mage
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 1222, Final Hit 1x 3670 = 6114

• With Infallible Mage
  • Lightning Staff - Channel: 2x 2072, Final Hit 1x 4520 = 8664

This seems really odd to me. (8664 - 6114) ÷ 3 = 850. So, it seems that the Infallible Mage bonus is applied to both the channel damage AND the final hit damage. However, it seems weird that it's only 850 damage instead of 900 damage. Ik IK, it's only 50 damage, and this is a flat 900 too so it won't scale. This is such a minor issue, but it still seems wrong.

Now, the REASON I wanted to test this was after reading the wording on Infallible Mage:

> Your fully-charged Heavy Attack deal an additional 900 damage

and comparing that to Sergeant's Mail's wording:

> increasing the damage of your Heavy Attacks by 645 per stack

See, I was thinking, maybe the fix for Sergeant's Mail (and Storm Master) could be to change to:

> increasing the damage of your fully-charged Heavy Attacks by 645 per stack

With this change, maybe the Sergeant's Mail buff would apply only to the final hit!

However, after testing Infallible Mage, it seems that fully-charged wording may not work either. Even though Infallible Mage says it would only add damage to fully-charged HA, it adds that ~900 damage to channel damage too. That means that medium attacks get the +900 damage! I'm seeing 2x ~800 damage added to Lighnting Staff medium attacks (1x-2x channel damage only).

The tool tip of Infallible Mage you posted states "Your Heavy Attacks deal an additional 900 damage". The fully-charged part applies only to the Minor Vulnerability debuff.
Afaik, there are no longer any sets that only buff damage of fully-charged heavy attacks. But those sets were changed so many times ...
I agree that the best solution would be to balance heavy attacks around fully-charged ones. Then they could differentiate the weapon types from there - I was thinking not just in terms of visuals but effects. The chain lightning effect of lightning staves is great and should be the benchmark here.

Oh! https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Infallible+Mage+Set

I suppose I should double check before posting. Looks like a mistake on the wiki. I didn't notice in the game either. Thanks for pointing that out!

Yeah it was probably correct in the past. As I said, they changed those sets around a lot.