Ps: my purple vr6 hits around 220-250 and can crit up to 650...

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

Davadin wrote: »

i retract what i said. I'm vr6 and I'm using both 2h weapon buff and the DK buff+fire, putting weapon damage at 216 (+2% increase per second until 20 sec) and i changed executioner into the other morph and stampede into critical charge... And use strictly 2h skills in cyro....

And I'm blowing people off left and right lol

Well you're a DK, of course you're blowing people off =P Also may want to rethink that sentence lmao

Dammit lol

2 hander has improved but I worry that it is still suffering from an identity crisis. The opening on the 2 hander is nice, with things like rally and wreaking blow giving good damage. The end, with abilities like executioner the fight can be quick once an enemy is below 25%. Critical charge is also one of the best closresults in the game. But that's where the love story ends, and we need to talk about the middle: control, AOE, and sustained damage.

Control: this is a major on for PVE and PVP. You have one crowd conto ability set on a long timer (uppercut and it's morph) and one that disorients a single enemie (a morph on charge), but you have several abilities that damage, splash, and aggro enemies you probably don't want to in PVE. In PVP the only viable control tool you have is uppercut, which can be negated or dodged easier than almost any other. Now compare this to other weapons, such as dual wield that gives a chance to miss (sparks), destro staff with a magica based interupt (crusing shock) or knock back (destructive touch), sword and board with multiple knock downs and interupts, and bow with spam able knock backs. What it comes down to is more control is needed, especially with a heavy attack that damages and causes aggro. This could be done by allowing charge morphs to affect an area and disorients a group of enemies and interupt them.givin cleave an offbalance effect could also help, but could be game breaking with the current brawler and cleave.

AOE: the AOE is horrible compared to a lot of counterparts. Cleave, the main AOE ability, gives moderate damage and ultimate gain but you can't block and you have to be close in to use it. The synergy with executioner can help if you lower their health, but if you're using this multiple times then you're canceling you own bleed. The forceful ability would be nice if it was more consistent and it was toggled on or off. With it turned on, fights like the Mage in AA get a lot more dangerous with an axe wandering in range of a simple heavy attack. The moderate damage really needs to be upped for this to have any chance to compete against impulse, unstable wall, pulsar, whirlwind, and more. Even the update with the reverse slash morph there is not enough AOE there to consider it to be great AOE.

Sustained damage: this is one of the hardest things I find most struggle with compared to others. Unless you are mixing in class abilities the benefits from wreaking blow are limited in the midfight. The stamina drain you'll get from executioner also requires something like green dragon blood and stamina pots to keep it up. Weaving heavy attacks with wreaking blow and the a follow up like crit charge does help, but it is a long combo that has you moving a lot which other dps can achieve by standing in one place and spamming a few different keys. Ralley/momentum also add damage, but only to 2 handed weapons. So if you cast it and swap, it's useless unless your offhand is also a 2hander. The heal that was added is nice, but nothing compared to any other buff/debuff folks cast (sparks, elemental drain, shield absorb) that remains even after weapon swap. The short time frame also makes it difficult to keep up on a buff bar.wreaking blow is another buff that is good, but only buffs the next ability, making it a little unwieldy. What can be done to improve this? Multiple things, however they will need balancing. For one, rally should transfer to other weapons, but maybe halve the bonus. In addition, increase wreaking blow's buff to the next 2 or 3 attacks instead, let folks explore their other abilities and weave more in before the next major blow. In addition, consider putting in a stamina regenerates buff or better yet, a stamina leech debuff (like elemental drain or spirit syphon) so you can cast it and use it with your other abilities to keep up resources in a long fight. We don't have the advantage of a mage's guild health for magicka buff, so something needs to give.

Gear: just to touch lightly on this, but there is a distinct lack of end game 2hander gear. There are few dropped sets that don't require running a lot of trials or spending a lot of alliance points. Parts that do drop like and alliance ring gives a 10% weapon crit with max magicka stacked on it. The berserking warrior set from trials is essentially the same, givin 14% crit if you keep attacking with a 2hander. Instead of giving just more weapon damage, which most of us softcap, seeing things that give more damage on percent or reduce stamina cost would help a lot more.


Don't get me wrong, I like the improvements made, however the middle fights really need some improvement. A lot of 2 hand build require a lot of work to be viable PVE dps for end game and require a bit more utility in PVP to off set the advantage ranged has.

heroofnoneb14_ESO wrote: »

2 hander has improved but I worry that it is still suffering from an identity crisis. The opening on the 2 hander is nice, with things like rally and wreaking blow giving good damage. The end, with abilities like executioner the fight can be quick once an enemy is below 25%. Critical charge is also one of the best closresults in the game. But that's where the love story ends, and we need to talk about the middle: control, AOE, and sustained damage.

Control: this is a major on for PVE and PVP. You have one crowd conto ability set on a long timer (uppercut and it's morph) and one that disorients a single enemie (a morph on charge), but you have several abilities that damage, splash, and aggro enemies you probably don't want to in PVE. In PVP the only viable control tool you have is uppercut, which can be negated or dodged easier than almost any other. Now compare this to other weapons, such as dual wield that gives a chance to miss (sparks), destro staff with a magica based interupt (crusing shock) or knock back (destructive touch), sword and board with multiple knock downs and interupts, and bow with spam able knock backs. What it comes down to is more control is needed, especially with a heavy attack that damages and causes aggro. This could be done by allowing charge morphs to affect an area and disorients a group of enemies and interupt them.givin cleave an offbalance effect could also help, but could be game breaking with the current brawler and cleave.

AOE: the AOE is horrible compared to a lot of counterparts. Cleave, the main AOE ability, gives moderate damage and ultimate gain but you can't block and you have to be close in to use it. The synergy with executioner can help if you lower their health, but if you're using this multiple times then you're canceling you own bleed. The forceful ability would be nice if it was more consistent and it was toggled on or off. With it turned on, fights like the Mage in AA get a lot more dangerous with an axe wandering in range of a simple heavy attack. The moderate damage really needs to be upped for this to have any chance to compete against impulse, unstable wall, pulsar, whirlwind, and more. Even the update with the reverse slash morph there is not enough AOE there to consider it to be great AOE.

Sustained damage: this is one of the hardest things I find most struggle with compared to others. Unless you are mixing in class abilities the benefits from wreaking blow are limited in the midfight. The stamina drain you'll get from executioner also requires something like green dragon blood and stamina pots to keep it up. Weaving heavy attacks with wreaking blow and the a follow up like crit charge does help, but it is a long combo that has you moving a lot which other dps can achieve by standing in one place and spamming a few different keys. Ralley/momentum also add damage, but only to 2 handed weapons. So if you cast it and swap, it's useless unless your offhand is also a 2hander. The heal that was added is nice, but nothing compared to any other buff/debuff folks cast (sparks, elemental drain, shield absorb) that remains even after weapon swap. The short time frame also makes it difficult to keep up on a buff bar.wreaking blow is another buff that is good, but only buffs the next ability, making it a little unwieldy. What can be done to improve this? Multiple things, however they will need balancing. For one, rally should transfer to other weapons, but maybe halve the bonus. In addition, increase wreaking blow's buff to the next 2 or 3 attacks instead, let folks explore their other abilities and weave more in before the next major blow. In addition, consider putting in a stamina regenerates buff or better yet, a stamina leech debuff (like elemental drain or spirit syphon) so you can cast it and use it with your other abilities to keep up resources in a long fight. We don't have the advantage of a mage's guild health for magicka buff, so something needs to give.

Gear: just to touch lightly on this, but there is a distinct lack of end game 2hander gear. There are few dropped sets that don't require running a lot of trials or spending a lot of alliance points. Parts that do drop like and alliance ring gives a 10% weapon crit with max magicka stacked on it. The berserking warrior set from trials is essentially the same, givin 14% crit if you keep attacking with a 2hander. Instead of giving just more weapon damage, which most of us softcap, seeing things that give more damage on percent or reduce stamina cost would help a lot more.


Don't get me wrong, I like the improvements made, however the middle fights really need some improvement. A lot of 2 hand build require a lot of work to be viable PVE dps for end game and require a bit more utility in PVP to off set the advantage ranged has.

Oooh lotsa good stuff.

Here's my feedback from a PvP-er VR6:
Control - totally. Only reliable skill was Stampede, where it actually STOPS the person from running away. Now it got nerfed so it only snares... so the Flame Whip combo doesn't work anymore...
I would recommend giving Stampede's snare to Cleave (AoE snare! What? We're 2H-der that needs to jump into the middle of the fight anyway!!), and make Wrecking Blow's knockback either ignore % of block or always knocks them out. Or reduce their Stamina a lot more than any other weapon's hit.

AoE - yeah. I had fun with Carve, but now it's only 2ulti, it's not even fun to use to build. I'd rather just throw caltrops. Reverse Slash, howver, is pretty nice.
Funny thing is, I had assumed like in other games, that 2H will be the KING of AoE, while DW is king of single-target... Well, without any dependable AoE damage and no way to crowd control... it's kinda meh.

Sustained DPS - yeah I'm no PvE but it feels like i'm doing well with my stamina regen.

Gear - still VR6. haven't played end level so can't comment.

But yes, totally agree. DPS PvE is lacking. A LOT more AoE would help. And PvP needs more crowd-control utility.

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

Control - Yea, don't rely solely on the 2H to control multiple enemies. A single enemy though? Couldn't get a better deal with Uppercut and it's morphs. For PvP Stampede got nerfed pretty hard getting a snare instead of a root, but it's still viable and with the right class skill combos can do what's needed. That said I'm still debating on which charge to pick up if any at all.

Don't forget Critical Charge got boosted. My VR6 blue sword (with soft-cap damage) can crit around 700... good to catch up prey or get closer FAST. Follow-up with a control skill, such as... something not-2H skills LOLOL

AoE - lolno, don't use Carve for AoE, don't even use Reverse Slice, or rather don't use it alone. Flawless Dawnbreaker makes for great spammable AoE, as does Empowering Sweep, and I say spammable because of Carve. I actually don't mind that it got nerfed because it was a bit insane with how easily it built up Ultimate, and even with the nerf it still does it amazingly fast, so yea, use that with an easy going Ultimate for AoE damage from melee range.

Reverse Slice is nice not for AoE but the extra damage. And finishing spammable. I'm keeping it. But yes, never really thought of Carve+Flawless for AoE... hmmmm..... but Carve does cost more than Reverse, no?

Sustained DPS in PvE - You guys must be on drugs because I was whipping ass like it was Fat Tuesday and I was single millionaire in a brothel. 1k was a challenge before, even in trials when the boss held still. Now that everything is built to hit like a mack truck carrying a brick shithouse, I have all the time I need to beat the living daylights out of something. If anything our sustained DPS is considerably higher and easier to achieve, even with weaving heavy attacks, or for that quick burst, light attacking weaving with spamming Uppercut. Point is, it works now, and it works well. Also, every build uses class skills, that's the point of the class.

yes, like i said above, my sustainability is fine. Even with 50/50 stamina/magicka build. That said, yes, you need to weave in some light/heavy attacks.

PvP Utility - Oh god yea we're lacking bub, lacking bad. Not even gonna go into it but you guys pretty much got the jist of it already. There are a lot of ways to improve this, but frankly I'm soooo out of breath from this *** I'm just going to go sit down now.

LOL

Davadin wrote: »

Hey what do you guys think with weapon selection? Is Sword with 3% extra the best deal? Or Mace could do some damage too? Or... how's Axe's DoT?

-Axe bleed still sucks damage-wise. A tiny bit better than before, but not really noticeable. The only thing using an axe is good for is a teeny bit more ult regen when the bleed crits.

-Mace is pretty good, but really only if you do ONLY physical damage, and even then it's situational to work better on targets with higher armor.

-Sword still seems like the all around winner to me (and it's 5% at max rank), since this 5% applies to all damage, regardless of type, and doesn't require your enemy to have high armor to be effective.

I'd say in PvE it's a tossup between Sword and Axe, with Sword mainly being the winner, Axe should only be chosen if you are in DESPERATE need of any and all extra ult generation. Otherwise sword will provide better dps.

In PvP it's a bit of a tossup between Sword and Mace, kind of depending on your build. If you're all focused on getting through as much of your enemies armor as possible, and have a build of all damage that calculates damage with armor instead of spell resistance, then mace might be an interesting choice.

If you have any sort of substantial magicka damage that uses spell resistance instead in your build though, go sword undoubtedly.

Well when it comes down to using a 2H, not going to get much variety from crit or dmg lol.

As for rotation, Blazing Spear light attack, vampire's bane, light attack, rally, light, uppercut light weaving to uppercut heavy weaving for stamina regen mid fight.

Also atm I'm rocking a gold mace, seems to work pretty god damn well tbh. Debating a sword later on in the future though, mainly because I miss swords. Also I thought the 5% was for 2H attacks only. I mean if it boosted ALL damage, then you bet your sweet ass it's sword all the way.

Blazing Spear doesn't return my stamina, it gives stamina to other players. And I said Blazing Spear too, so yea, Spear, Light Attack, Bane, Light Attack, etc.

Honestly it's all with the weaving man, and I may not do as much as DWing or Staffs, but there's also the factor that I'm a Templar (not the friendliest DPS class around) and I'm a lowly Imperial Werewolf, so while I get a load of stam and some regen, it's not exactly the super extra crit or anything like that to help set me apart from my peers.

I just happen to have a high end PC and an ear to listen to other people who offer advice and I keep an eye out for things. I will say this though, the whole thing with the 2H, Uppercut's animation hasn't changed, so you can actually hit Light Attack before the swing is over to proc a whole new one, making you hit like a mack truck and actually get the DPS out faster than Rapid Strikes. Rapid Strikes is just more trustworthy and easier to get off on moving targets, and barely better if at all than Wrecking Blow.

Weaving animations is good and essential for a lot of long term dps, however a lot of patterns might go something like heavy attack , skill, skill, skill, heavy attack, skill, skill... and the damage output can spike with skill skill skill skill, if there is something like a burn phase on a boss. With dual wield and destro I can spam these abilities easily, but with two hander the cleave and reverse slash can drop stamina quick if you do that. Uppercut not so much, but if you want to use the power bonus with it right after casting in quick succession you're going to have issues. Things like damage shields that will ignore crit are also a bigger hit on the dps verses abilities with consistent smaller hits.

The moving boss is another issue as well, and I think it would be fixed if upper cut was a cast anytime ability, but it's damage was done when brought in close and targeting an enemy. This would give a lot more versatility and still be a skill to master with the timing and distance.

heroofnoneb14_ESO wrote: »

Weaving animations is good and essential for a lot of long term dps, however a lot of patterns might go something like heavy attack , skill, skill, skill, heavy attack, skill, skill... and the damage output can spike with skill skill skill skill, if there is something like a burn phase on a boss. With dual wield and destro I can spam these abilities easily, but with two hander the cleave and reverse slash can drop stamina quick if you do that. Uppercut not so much, but if you want to use the power bonus with it right after casting in quick succession you're going to have issues.

What i'm doing is uppercut, then half way before ends, weave light attack, then a small skill right before a heavy attack (which gives extra 10% dps + stamina), before going back to uppercut with light attack again.

So basically power bonus of both uppercut and heavy attack goes back-to-back with light attack/skill weaved in between.

Closer to lower health, i'd spam reverse slash between heavy attacks.

Hmm gonna do some testing tonight

The canceling of an attack isn't an exploit period, they just haven't updated the animations yet. When they do those, we'll see that animation canceling will turn into simple combo linking of attacks.

ill do it until ZOS decide to give me a warning.

they can't/won't just BAN me... i'm 100% sure of that.

Btw, have someone tested if cleave bleed stacks with heavy weapons passive axe bleed?

After 1.5 update weaving with wrecking blow+ heavy attack while using weighted trait + haste can do wonders. Try it.. its super fun

Father wrote: »

After 1.5 update weaving with wrecking blow+ heavy attack while using weighted trait + haste can do wonders. Try it.. its super fun

I'm using this minus that weighted trait ;P need dat crit chance.1200-1300 dps is comin pretty easily with just wrecking blow+heavy attacks.

I've seen a lot of odd discussion of fitting in abilities between wrecking blow/heavy attacks, or simply using light attacks instead of heavy attacks. I don't think either of these options are very structurally sound.

Believe it or not, using light attacks instead of heavies netted LESS dps for me when comparing two high crit attempts. I really don't know why people are doing it, try it for yourself, maybe it's just me that's getting more dps from using heavy attacks (I am actually a NB with incapacitate for 12% increased heavy attack damage, so maybe it is just me )

Furthermore, fitting in an ability+light attack after a heavy attack>wrecking blow is kind of wasting your wrecking blow buff. It's going to a light attack if you do heavy attack>wrecking blow>light attack>ability>heavy attack. Which doesn't seem worth it to me.

A light attack receiving 50 extra weapon power still won't be too impressive, which is the basis for my position that just straight heavy attack+wrecking blow is the best 2h dps rotation out there for pre-execute-range fighting. Having 1400 wrecking blow crits followed by 1200 heavy attack crits within one second of each other? Yes please.

EDIT: Of course this post is strictly under the context of medium-long duration trial bosses where your sustained dps is actually important.