Flame Staff and Ancient Knowledge

SandandStars

Using a staff?

Not interested in the DW/Vatesh backbar plague.

LukosCreyden

My destro magicka necromancer has never felt so loved

I cannot test because console plebian, but I am REALLY not feeling good about my favourite class and playstyle currently.
There I was hoping that this update would get me back into the game.

Weckless

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

Yes, I have no problems with LA weaving on lightning staff which weren't present on other staves too. Sure, on live you'll always achieve better results with a flamestaff, because of the passives which will be changed in U39. How these changes will work out will have to be tested on PTS over the next few weeks, but my first guess is, that lightning staves will replace flame.

Being kicked into a heavy attack is unfortunately still present, but all weapons are affected. You can simply blockcancel that.

On a sidenote: You're wrong with your "bug that's now a feature" attitude, as weaving is a consequence of the combat system itself. Animation cancelling is and always was an intended feature to ensure player can block, interrupt and dodge when needed without having to wait for the end of skill animations. The fact, that devs didn't realize this system of course works also with LA and HA doesn't make this oversight a bug. You may not like it (and of course you will deny my argument), but LA weaving has always been a feature, not a bug.

Not to derail the thread, but a feature is arguably something planned. Being able to cancel animations to block, dodge, and interrupt was planned. A feature to make combat more dynamic and let you de-commit from an offensive action to save yourself from a mace to the face. Animation canceling for LA and HA wasn't planned. It was a bug, or at the very least an unintended quirk, which the developers didn't remove because it became widely used by the community to boost dps and removing it would have resulted in riots and subscription cancels. So... it stayed. Looks awkward, isn't very fun to do, creates an awkward performance gap between veteran players who know about it and new players who would never imagine ".85 to .90 light attacks per second" being an intended gameplay mechanic (CLICK CLICK CLICK), and so on... but it stays. Too embedded into the community now.

Anyhoots, good to know about lightning LA weaving. I'm guessing that you're right that lightning staves will replace flame staves, since a 12% bonus to dots is far more appealing than 500 bonus damage to only the initial tick of burning... which makes me wonder what the goal of ZOS is here. DW still outperforms staves, and staves will go from two options (Flame for most everything and Lightning for heavy attack builds) to ONE viable option (Lightning for most everything and Lightning for heavy attack builds).

Why not fire for dots, lightning for aoe, and frost for single target? Just dump the frost staff tanking stuff that NEVER caught on and give each staff a very clear, very defined dps role. Won't happen, but eh.

Oi. *shrug*

Edit addition: as an addendum, if they did the Fire = Dots, Lighting = AOE, Frost = Single Target thing, I'd have reason to mix up staves on characters. The magicka dragonknight and magicka templar would probably want to stay fire, but my sorcerer and nightblade do a lot more single target and might like frost. I'd have some choices to make and theorycrafters to consult.

As is... all four of my characters use 2 flame staves, and after update 39 they'll likely all be stuck using 2 lightning staves... just to lessen the impact of this nerf. I'll wind up with slightly worse dps and the same lack of variety, but out 64 rosin. I should have known this update would smack me after Update 38 left me relatively unscathed. Guffaw.

If they did that with the staves then frost would be better than fire in every way because majority of dots also count as single target damage. It's why deadly aim always takes priority over thaumaturge.

Weckless

JerBearESO wrote: »

Inferno staff is now the offensive version of ice staff backbar. HA into ele sus for a DoT and an extra 1500 damage I stead of the shield

You'd have to be on your fire staff everytime the status effects proc to still get bonus damage

Weckless

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

so i've done some testing with a 1 pet mag sorc build.

this is the build:



flame staff parse


ice staff parse


I haven't done a lightning staff parse, though i should to see how much difference the sorc passive matters

but here is the real gem
bow parse


bow front bar is way stronger with the change to the bow passive. 5% to all damage with a passive crit bonus stomps all over extra damage for status effects

While I hope they adjust this further, it's reassuring that flame staff, frost, and bow are within 3k DPS of each other on a 100k+ parse. I wonder how dual wield compares, but those are pretty close margins.

There's probably always going to be 1 weapon that just slightly wins out for optimized DPS—but the weapons should offer different build options.

Did you try charged on the fire staff with force pulse? That's going to be the best way to get the most damage out of it

Billium813

After some initial testing for this Ancient Knowledge, I'm wondering if it would be too good to just be

Inferno Staves increases your damage done with status effects by 500

I feel like this change to remove only applying to the "initial hit" would really open up Inferno Staff builds. As is, you can really only benefit from status effects inflicted BY Inferno Staves. Open up Inferno Staff as a good DPS backbar option. Let players Poison, Sunder, Bleed with the front bar, then swap to the Inferno bar and increase the damage.

It's rather annoying that Lightning Staff doesn't have this "initial hit" restriction on its DoT damage increase.

lQrukl

Tannus15 wrote: »

Once again I go back to @ESO_Nightingale suggestion for inferno staffs buffing dots and lightning staffs buffing direct damage and it all makes a lot more sense.

Sorcs, primarily a direct damage ranged class with shock damage buffs will use lightning staffs because synergy.
DK's, primarily a dot class will use inferno staffs.

DW will always be better than a staff if you can get away with it, but bow shouldn't be the strongest option for ranged magicka builds.

Once again I agree as much as possible!

Flame staff light attacks get bonus from Engulfing and Behemoth. If we are talking about min/max, buffing direct attacks while handling storm staff could smooth this difference, because light attacks is also direct.