Magnus's Gift VS The Seducer

Cuyler · January 2015

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Cuyler wrote: »

see the cost reduction always comes at a price (could be damage or crit). for the record it's not needed when your popping potions faster than your using the resource.

So potion cooldown enchantments on all jewelry? I would not have thought of that but it is an interesting approach. How do the potion cooldown enchantments work? 5 seconds per glyph? So you could reduce the cooldown from 30 seconds to 15 seconds? Could get expensive in time or gold to keep your supply of potions up when you go through them at that pace.

Also, don't you have to sacrifice spell/weapon damage enchantments to use the potion cooldown reduction enchantments? That seems like it would hurt DPS.

Yes, 5 secs per glyph. Total of 15 secs between potions. I use panacea of spell power (inc spell damage/spell crit/and restore magicka). The potion effect lasts for 10 secs and significantly increases dps compared to the straight damage enchants on jewelry.
Yes is does take time to farm the mats. But 4 potions for every craft so not that long. You only need to use potions continuously in boss fights or PvP. Trash mobs melt away cause base damage/crit is higher to begin with.

Jaerlach · January 2015

Dracane wrote: »

Cuyler wrote: »

Lucas.interlichnrb18_ESO wrote: »

Which one is more viable for a Breton Sorcerer DPS for PvP?

Neither. Both are over rated. You should only need these sets playing solo or if you don't want to farm ingredients for endless tri-pots.

Most of the time you have people buffing you or a healer. With symmetry you should spec all damage/crit and forget the recovery.

This is a weird statement, even ridiculous to be honest.
You are playing the game, right ?

Most endgame magicka dps do exactly what he said. Seducer/warlock is a pvp thing now and leveling. In trials people run damage and crit and use their spell crit pots and spell symmetry for magicka sustain. Those builds oom in 20s without pots and symmetry.

Kartalin · January 2015

A statistical comparison of the Seducer 5 piece bonus and the Magnus 5 piece bonus only, disregarding the other benefits those sets offer.

This of course assumes the RNG is functioning properly. Ultimately the results look the same, but the difference is that Seducer guarantees the magicka reduction whereas the Magnus set should approach the same value over time, meaning that the more trials are done, the closer you should get to the same outcome. If you are fighting two mobs solo then maybe you cast 6-10 spells or so. On average you would use the same mana with either set. The difference with Magnus is that with a small sample size maybe you'll get lucky and have the spells for free once or more, but it's almost equally as likely you get no free spells. The 43% chance that in 10 spell castings you get 0 spells for free with Magnus is legitimate, and I appreciate that @PBpsy‌ was trying to demonstrate that.

Now let's look at the other set bonuses. To simplify, I will omit the 7 spell damage Magnus' Gift gives you. We assume each player starts with 2000 base magicka and 100 magicka regen.

I've rounded 368.5 down to 368 to help correct for a small approximation error introduced by omitting the possibility of 4+ procs.

So the Seducer set on average uses 48 magicka less in the exercise described. But now let's bring back in the spell damage bonus. Is that extra 7 spell damage on each of those 10 spells worth the usage of an additional 48 magicka? Once you address that question, then you know which set you should use.

Again, this does require that we trust the RNG to do its job. Personally I can't say I'm that confident in it, but it seems some of you have had good experiences with the Magnus set.

Cuyler · January 2015

Jaerlach wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Cuyler wrote: »

Lucas.interlichnrb18_ESO wrote: »

Which one is more viable for a Breton Sorcerer DPS for PvP?

Neither. Both are over rated. You should only need these sets playing solo or if you don't want to farm ingredients for endless tri-pots.

Most of the time you have people buffing you or a healer. With symmetry you should spec all damage/crit and forget the recovery.

This is a weird statement, even ridiculous to be honest.
You are playing the game, right ?

Most endgame magicka dps do exactly what he said. Seducer/warlock is a pvp thing now and leveling. In trials people run damage and crit and use their spell crit pots and spell symmetry for magicka sustain. Those builds oom in 20s without pots and symmetry.

Yea just want to be clear I agree with you @Dracane. Building for cost reduction/recovery (Seducer/warlock/Willows) is the way to go if you can't afford to pound potions all the time.

Potions builds are not a build a casual player would want to go PvP with. Trying to solo in PvP with this build and you'll be burning potions like no other.

It relies heavily on group play and using buffs from allies to increase magicka regen. It will work for PvP and quite well because you're more than likely going to have a healer and preferably a NB to run with if you aren't one already. I'm a sorc which means 100% damage/crit build with pots and symmetry being my only source for sustain without them.

It's an MMO though and I don't like playing alone so it's a non-issue.

OrphanHelgen · January 2015

oren74 wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

Magnus is the better choice if you have a decent magicka pool. Sure, Seducer gives you a fix cost reduction, so you can calculate with that. But it's only 8%, so that's not that much.

Seducer

Let's say you have 2400 magicka and use all your magicka, then Seducer saves you 192 Magicka. Does this sound good? Not really.

Magnus

Magnus only has a 8% chance to proc, but with a magicka pool of 2400 it's more than likely that it procs at least once. Let's say you're using a skill that costs 240 magicka, then you can use it 10 times in a row (without mag regen) until you run out of magicka. If Magnus procs 1 time, it saves you 240 magicka. Thats already 50 more than Seducer can do.

In my tests i did with the Magnus set, i could see that it often procs more than 1 time over the use of the entire magicka pool. even if it only procs 2 times, it saves you almost 500 magicka and this will happen very often.

I tested the Magnus + Warlock Combo and i had Magnus once proc 8 times before i ran out of magicka. the more it procs, the more you can cast, the more chance you have that it procs again. In this test i was using a skill that cost me 288 magicka, with Magnus procing 8 times, that saved me 2300 magicka. Does this sound good? Yes it does!

So, Seducer is better for calculating, cause you can rely on the cost reduction.

But Magnus has more potential to save you magicka. A lot of magicka.

yup, this guy gets it.

Plus, I want bonus spell damage. I can max out magicka easily...getting overcharged spell damage is hard though.

I also read somewhere random, that it is a hidden soft cap for reduced cost. Chance for spell to be free, is not a cap, so maybe the magnus is better yes. I think so.

danno8 · January 2015

OrphanHelgen wrote: »

I also read somewhere random, that it is a hidden soft cap for reduced cost. Chance for spell to be free, is not a cap, so maybe the magnus is better yes. I think so.

Maybe you read this?

danno816_ESO wrote: »

w3ng_vgeb17_ESO wrote: »

With stamina cost reduction, which is recommended by many people, I hit a hidden cap as it seems. After stacking a lot of this gear, a ring with 20 stamina cost reduction only gave me 17 reduction on the stamina skills.

It could just be the order they do the reductions.

Lets say you have a skill that costs 250 stamina. Then lets say you have 25% reduction with Unholy Knowlegde + Bow line cost reduction, then reductions by 20 for flat amounts (jewelry etc. .)

(250 - 20) * (1-.25) = 172.5

but if they calculate % first:

250*(1-.25) - 20 = 167.5

This could be what you are seeing.

edit: so in the first example if you bump flat reduction to 30 (an increase of 10) you only see a reduction of 7.5. In the second example you would see the full reduction.

I took this from another thread I commented on. I think it's just the way the math is done.

Jaerlach · January 2015

Cuyler wrote: »

Jaerlach wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Cuyler wrote: »

Lucas.interlichnrb18_ESO wrote: »

Which one is more viable for a Breton Sorcerer DPS for PvP?

Neither. Both are over rated. You should only need these sets playing solo or if you don't want to farm ingredients for endless tri-pots.

Most of the time you have people buffing you or a healer. With symmetry you should spec all damage/crit and forget the recovery.

This is a weird statement, even ridiculous to be honest.
You are playing the game, right ?

Most endgame magicka dps do exactly what he said. Seducer/warlock is a pvp thing now and leveling. In trials people run damage and crit and use their spell crit pots and spell symmetry for magicka sustain. Those builds oom in 20s without pots and symmetry.

Yea just want to be clear I agree with you @Dracane. Building for cost reduction/recovery (Seducer/warlock/Willows) is the way to go if you can't afford to pound potions all the time.

Potions builds are not a build a casual player would want to go PvP with. Trying to solo in PvP with this build and you'll be burning potions like no other.

It relies heavily on group play and using buffs from allies to increase magicka regen. It will work for PvP and quite well because you're more than likely going to have a healer and preferably a NB to run with if you aren't one already. I'm a sorc which means 100% damage/crit build with pots and symmetry being my only source for sustain without them.

It's an MMO though and I don't like playing alone so it's a non-issue.

As I said, that is a pve dps setup entirely. Seducer/Warlock is a huge thing in Cyrodiil still, and it's much better than Magnus's gift for another reason that's getting no mention in this thread:

Additional magicka recovery helps all magicka abilities.

Spell damage does not help many abilities which are magicka-based and use weapon damage. This includes crushing shock and impulse, two of the most important damaging skills in the game for magicka characters. Spell damage is also irrelevant on magicka skills that are used for utility, such as heals, shields, cc effects, etc. In these situations, seducer's other set bonuses are still relevant, and magnus's other set bonus is not relevant.

This is why smart players use seducer/warlock. Magnus/warlock is good for spell damage builds, but most magicka builds don't give a crap what their spell damage is, especially in PVP, where nearly all relevant abilites are based on weapon damage, and where the most important thing is sustainability.

deepseamk20b14_ESO · January 2015

Since I am not rich nor do I PvE ever since I've reached cap months ago I will never get a hold of any pieces of the Warlock set. Currently I use 5 pc Seducer and 4 piece Magnus. Honestly, everything I touch dies. I have 2600+ magicka, 145 magicka recovery, 113 stamina recovery, 135 spell power, 3250 HP, and 1464 stamina, and can care less about any sort of crit. I'm sure most people can achieve this with other set combos other than this or Seducer/Warlock but I just haven't bothered to check since I have found what I like already. If you are poor like me, you cannot go wrong with this combo (Seducer/Magnus). You will have every stat for a magicka build that you need, overcharged by a long shot. If you are rich or PvE a lot, definitely go Seducer/Warlock because of the fact you can do 3 Warlock jewelry and 2 armor which means you can choose whatever other 2 pc bonus you want. There are plenty of decent enough 2 pc bonus sets out there so It's really up to you as far as that goes. Some of these new undaunted helm and shoulder sets are pretty nifty! That's my 2 cents.

danovic · January 2015

Wear 5 peace Seducer and 4/3 peaces of magnus every character is works well.

Derra · January 2015

Cuyler wrote: »

Jaerlach wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Cuyler wrote: »

Lucas.interlichnrb18_ESO wrote: »

Which one is more viable for a Breton Sorcerer DPS for PvP?

Neither. Both are over rated. You should only need these sets playing solo or if you don't want to farm ingredients for endless tri-pots.

Most of the time you have people buffing you or a healer. With symmetry you should spec all damage/crit and forget the recovery.

This is a weird statement, even ridiculous to be honest.
You are playing the game, right ?

Most endgame magicka dps do exactly what he said. Seducer/warlock is a pvp thing now and leveling. In trials people run damage and crit and use their spell crit pots and spell symmetry for magicka sustain. Those builds oom in 20s without pots and symmetry.

Yea just want to be clear I agree with you @Dracane. Building for cost reduction/recovery (Seducer/warlock/Willows) is the way to go if you can't afford to pound potions all the time.

Potions builds are not a build a casual player would want to go PvP with. Trying to solo in PvP with this build and you'll be burning potions like no other.

It relies heavily on group play and using buffs from allies to increase magicka regen. It will work for PvP and quite well because you're more than likely going to have a healer and preferably a NB to run with if you aren't one already. I'm a sorc which means 100% damage/crit build with pots and symmetry being my only source for sustain without them.

It's an MMO though and I don't like playing alone so it's a non-issue.

This is strictly from a solo and small scale point of view:

I´ve tried potion builds with my sorc. They can not substain in the same way a setup with cost reduce can. Especially when you consider you have to give up nothing relevant to get said cost reduction. Crit is pointless in pvp. So have fun paying extra to achieve nothing over a cost reduction build for only double the money/time investment

If the opponent actually lets you use potions of spellpower instead of tripots because you don´t need the extra heal / stamina he is bad anyway.

The thing is: The cost reduction build is only slightly less vaible in a larger group environment (non healing), whereas you absolutely lower your performance with a potion build when playing solo.

Lava_Croft · January 2015

Argonian + Nightblade + Alchemist + Seducer + Warlock = Master Race Master Combination.

Septimus_Magna · January 2015

I have used Seducer and Magnus and found the Seducer to be more useful in PVP. When you are low on Magicka the 8% cost reduction lets you use spells quicker. Also Magnus would proc when I used it out of battle effectively reducing the chance to proc in battle. The way I see it both sets reduce 8% magicka cost but seducer does this 100% of the time during fights and Magnus does not always.

Since the release of the Undaunted pledges I haven't been PVPing much. But I think I will use a seducer/warlock/engine guardian when I return to Cyrodiil. 3 Seducer LA, 2 Warlock LA, 2 Engine LA, 3 Warlock Jewelry and Sword&Board Seducer. I'm one of the lucky few who managed to get the Helmet Infused and Shoulders Divines, great for PVE but not so much for PVP. With this setup I can only have 4 pieces impenetrable so 36% crit reduction, would the Engine Guardian set be worth sacrificing 18% crit reduction? Also I wonder if the dwemer that restores resources pulls you out of stealth when it procs?

Soulac · January 2015

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Argonian + Nightblade + Alchemist + Seducer + Warlock = Master Race Master Combination.

Seducer + Arch - Mage

PBpsy · January 2015

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

I have used Seducer and Magnus and found the Seducer to be more useful in PVP. When you are low on Magicka the 8% cost reduction lets you use spells quicker. Also Magnus would proc when I used it out of battle effectively reducing the chance to proc in battle. The way I see it both sets reduce 8% magicka cost but seducer does this 100% of the time during fights and Magnus does not always.

Since the release of the Undaunted pledges I haven't been PVPing much. But I think I will use a seducer/warlock/engine guardian when I return to Cyrodiil. 3 Seducer LA, 2 Warlock LA, 2 Engine LA, 3 Warlock Jewelry and Sword&Board Seducer. I'm one of the lucky few who managed to get the Helmet Infused and Shoulders Divines, great for PVE but not so much for PVP. With this setup I can only have 4 pieces impenetrable so 36% crit reduction, would the Engine Guardian set be worth sacrificing 18% crit reduction? Also I wonder if the dwemer that restores resources pulls you out of stealth when it procs?

You could also get really lucky and get the EG set with impenetrable. I heard some bad things about the set in PVP though, supposedly the sphere can get destroyed(please confirm) but in some situation getting someone to attack it instead of you may be beneficial.

Septimus_Magna · January 2015

PBpsy wrote: »

You could also get really lucky and get the EG set with impenetrable. I heard some bad things about the set in PVP though, supposedly the sphere can get destroyed(please confirm) but in some situation getting someone to attack it instead of you may be beneficial.

Yeah, I always run DC a few times when there's a pledge but only HA impenetrable shoulders so far. That's correct, the sphere can be destroyed, I think it has around 4k health so its not destroyed in one or two shots.

LonePirate · January 2015

Soulac wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Argonian + Nightblade + Alchemist + Seducer + Warlock = Master Race Master Combination.

Seducer + Arch - Mage

This is a solid combination as it is like having two Seducer sets as they have the same five piece bonus although the Arch-Mage set offers some extra spell damage instead of two magicka recovery bonuses. The real benefit, though, is the Arch-Mage set has jewelry pieces, so you can wear five pieces of both sets. Of course there are drawbacks with the Arch-Mage set in that it only goes up to VR12 currently and finding those jewelry pieces is very time consuming and/or very expensive.

Nestor · January 2015

deepseamk20b14_ESO wrote: »

Since I am not rich nor do I PvE ever since I've reached cap months ago I will never get a hold of any pieces of the Warlock set. Currently I use 5 pc Seducer and 4 piece Magnus.

You are using the best combo of the two sets. You get the good benefits from the Magnus set and avoid the questionable 5th piece benefit.

I have used to this combo to great effect on my sorcerer back when I was leveling. However since the most used stick skills are weapon damage based, I now use set combos that buff Weapon Damage along with magic buffs. That will change come 1.6

Septimus_Magna · January 2015

LonePirate wrote: »

Soulac wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Argonian + Nightblade + Alchemist + Seducer + Warlock = Master Race Master Combination.

Seducer + Arch - Mage

This is a solid combination as it is like having two Seducer sets as they have the same five piece bonus although the Arch-Mage set offers some extra spell damage instead of two magicka recovery bonuses. The real benefit, though, is the Arch-Mage set has jewelry pieces, so you can wear five pieces of both sets. Of course there are drawbacks with the Arch-Mage set in that it only goes up to VR12 currently and finding those jewelry pieces is very time consuming and/or very expensive.

This is very interesting indeed! I think it wont be too expensive because blue vr12 Arch Mage set pieces drop fairly often.

Dagoth_Rac · January 2015

What are people's feelings about the Martial Knowledge set? Bonuses are:

2 = Max Magicka
3 = Spell Damage
4 = Spell Damage
5 = 10% bonus damage every 4 seconds

Seems like a very nice DPS set and seems to drop like crazy at VR12 while doing Undaunted pledges. And with the discussion on here that many "pros" go for damage-based sets and use potions for resource management, it seems like this would fit that. I could see 5 Martial + 3 Aether + 3 Soulshine Jewelry being a good damage set if you don't care about regen. But it does not seem to sell for much in guild stores. Why is this not popular? There must be some drawback that I am not seeing. And understanding what that drawback is might help me understand DPS builds more. My main is a Templar Tank so I don't have a ton of experience with DPS.

s7732425ub17_ESO · January 2015

LonePirate wrote: »

Soulac wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Argonian + Nightblade + Alchemist + Seducer + Warlock = Master Race Master Combination.

Seducer + Arch - Mage

This is a solid combination as it is like having two Seducer sets as they have the same five piece bonus although the Arch-Mage set offers some extra spell damage instead of two magicka recovery bonuses. The real benefit, though, is the Arch-Mage set has jewelry pieces, so you can wear five pieces of both sets. Of course there are drawbacks with the Arch-Mage set in that it only goes up to VR12 currently and finding those jewelry pieces is very time consuming and/or very expensive.

Archmage does not have rings. This means you have to wear 1 neck and 4 armor pieces for the 5 piece bonus. This also means that you must wear 3 seducer armor pieces and 2 seducer weapon pieces, meaning you need to go 1h/s or dual wield to get both bonuses.

Dagoth_Rac · January 2015

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

This is very interesting indeed! I think it wont be too expensive because blue vr12 Arch Mage set pieces drop fairly often.

Where does Arch-Mage drop? I see the necklace at reasonable prices quite often in guild stores, but don't know if I have ever seen the armor pieces. Is the necklace Bind On Equip but armor is Bind On Pickup?

Merlight · January 2015

Derra wrote: »

Rings are a fixed cost reduction that gets diminishing returns and is applied before any other cost reduction.

The 8% on seducer is a % value and is simply additive to other % based cost reduction. There are no diminishing returns on seducer cost reduce. It gets better the more % based cost reduce you can stack (respective to the reduced cost of the spell in the end). Seducer cost reduction is always calculated from the 100% non cost reduced base mana cost of a spell.

On the other hand Magnus gets weaker with cost reduction because it only saves you spells that are already reduced in cost.

Minor correction to the first paragraph. Jewelry cost reductions don't get diminishing returns, they simply suffer from percentage reductions that come afterwards. The more % reductions you have, the less you get from jewelry.

For example the cost of Crystal Fragments with 21% evocation (7 light armor pieces) + 5% unholy knowledge (dark magic) + 3% magicka mastery (breton racial) and:

no seducer (29% total), no jewelry ... 299
420 * 0.71 = 298.2
no seducer, -61 jewelry ... 255
(420 - 61) * 0.71 = 254.89
effectively only -44 from jewelry
8% seducer (37% total), no jewelry ... 265
420 * 0.63 = 264.6
8% seducer, -61 jewelry ... 227
(420 - 61) * 0.63 = 226.17
effectively only -38 from jewelry

Heishi · January 2015

milthalas wrote: »

A statistical comparison of the Seducer 5 piece bonus and the Magnus 5 piece bonus only, disregarding the other benefits those sets offer.

This of course assumes the RNG is functioning properly. Ultimately the results look the same, but the difference is that Seducer guarantees the magicka reduction whereas the Magnus set should approach the same value over time, meaning that the more trials are done, the closer you should get to the same outcome. If you are fighting two mobs solo then maybe you cast 6-10 spells or so. On average you would use the same mana with either set. The difference with Magnus is that with a small sample size maybe you'll get lucky and have the spells for free once or more, but it's almost equally as likely you get no free spells. The 43% chance that in 10 spell castings you get 0 spells for free with Magnus is legitimate, and I appreciate that @PBpsy‌ was trying to demonstrate that.

Now let's look at the other set bonuses. To simplify, I will omit the 7 spell damage Magnus' Gift gives you. We assume each player starts with 2000 base magicka and 100 magicka regen.

I've rounded 368.5 down to 368 to help correct for a small approximation error introduced by omitting the possibility of 4+ procs.

So the Seducer set on average uses 48 magicka less in the exercise described. But now let's bring back in the spell damage bonus. Is that extra 7 spell damage on each of those 10 spells worth the usage of an additional 48 magicka? Once you address that question, then you know which set you should use.

Again, this does require that we trust the RNG to do its job. Personally I can't say I'm that confident in it, but it seems some of you have had good experiences with the Magnus set.

This is some good maths. Were it me, I would have shaken it up a bit with variable spell cost and magicka. Plot that on an X/Y chart to see where they intersect and whatnot.

This is provided more as an example than real math (I don't have time to do a whole spreadsheet to duplicate work and manipulate data.) I'll borrow some

1000 MP 10cast 100 each (8% off) = 80 saved
1000 MP 10cast 100 each (8% free chance) = 38% chance 100 saved |
15% chance 200 saved
Difference 20 | 120

1500 MP 10cast 150 each (8% off) = 120 saved
1500 MP 10cast 150 each (8% free chance) = 38% chance 150 saved |
15% chance 300 saved
Difference 30 | 180

2000 MP 10cast 200 each (8% off) = 160 saved
2000 MP 10cast 200 each (8% free chance) = 38% chance 200 saved |
15% chance 400 saved
Difference 40 | 240

Also IIRC 7 spell damage = 70 damage (before resistance) 105 with crit
put that across 10 spells for 700dmg (1050 crit of course all 10 wouldn't be crit but that's a whole different calculation)

For your second image there, I think 200 is a more realistic number for cost, let's see how it works out.

For Seducer magicka used would be- 1840 - 600reg = 1240
Magnus proc none- 2000 - 550reg = 1450
Magnus proc 1- 1800 - 550reg = 1250
Magnus proc 2- 1600 - 550reg = 1050
Magnus proc 3- 1400 - 550reg = 850
Plugged into equation = 1281.5
Difference 41 (rounding down that 5)

So theoretically it would cross if we did it about 6 more times pushing it to entirely unrealistic numbers.

Averaging the two sides it ends up 1150 cost about 24.75% of the time

Either way, the spell dmg is still worth the little bit more cost. Even saving 160 from casting 10 200cost spells, There's not much you can cast with 160 magicka but 700 dmg over 10 spells can make a difference. (unless I was wrong about 1 spell dmg = 10dmg. I'll have to test it later but I'm pretty sure).

LonePirate · January 2015

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

LonePirate wrote: »

Soulac wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Argonian + Nightblade + Alchemist + Seducer + Warlock = Master Race Master Combination.

Seducer + Arch - Mage

This is a solid combination as it is like having two Seducer sets as they have the same five piece bonus although the Arch-Mage set offers some extra spell damage instead of two magicka recovery bonuses. The real benefit, though, is the Arch-Mage set has jewelry pieces, so you can wear five pieces of both sets. Of course there are drawbacks with the Arch-Mage set in that it only goes up to VR12 currently and finding those jewelry pieces is very time consuming and/or very expensive.

Archmage does not have rings. This means you have to wear 1 neck and 4 armor pieces for the 5 piece bonus. This also means that you must wear 3 seducer armor pieces and 2 seducer weapon pieces, meaning you need to go 1h/s or dual wield to get both bonuses.

Thank you for that clarification. I could have sworn the set did have rings. I guess it is easy enough to pick up two Healer or Cyrodiil's Light rings to accompany the dual five piece builds you described above.

Dagoth_Rac · January 2015

Heishi wrote: »

Either way, the spell dmg is still worth the little bit more cost. Even saving 160 from casting 10 200cost spells, There's not much you can cast with 160 magicka but 700 dmg over 10 spells can make a difference. (unless I was wrong about 1 spell dmg = 10dmg. I'll have to test it later but I'm pretty sure).

Spell Damage stat increases damage by a percentage, not a flat amount. I believe it is about 0.45% per point in Spell Damage. So 7 Spell Damage should work out to about 3.20% more damage on skills that scale via Spell Damage. Might be more useful when Update 6 is released and Desto Staff scales off Spell Damage. With Desto Staff scaling off Weapon Damage right now, Magnus won't do anything for popular skills like Crushing Shock or Impulse.

Oughash · January 2015

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

What are people's feelings about the Martial Knowledge set? Bonuses are:

2 = Max Magicka
3 = Spell Damage
4 = Spell Damage
5 = 10% bonus damage every 4 seconds

Seems like a very nice DPS set and seems to drop like crazy at VR12 while doing Undaunted pledges. And with the discussion on here that many "pros" go for damage-based sets and use potions for resource management, it seems like this would fit that. I could see 5 Martial + 3 Aether + 3 Soulshine Jewelry being a good damage set if you don't care about regen. But it does not seem to sell for much in guild stores. Why is this not popular? There must be some drawback that I am not seeing. And understanding what that drawback is might help me understand DPS builds more. My main is a Templar Tank so I don't have a ton of experience with DPS.

Martial Knowledge is a good set. I see people using it often. However, there are three unfortunate drawbacks:
1. Destro staff skills scale on weapon damage and are the skills typically used for most high-dps rotations in end-game PvE.
2. The traits on the chest and head are terrible (WTF Reinforced!?)
3. In PvP, people generally look for survivability and regen, not damage.

Some caveats: the devs have stated that they intend to change all magicka-based skills to scale off of magicka dmg. This should negate drawback #1. Also with armor values changing, reinforced may actually be OK. I have a set just sitting in the back since it is so easy to get.

dietlime · January 2015

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Always Seducer. Don't waste your time with Warlock as well.

Currently soloing Craglorn group delves as a VR3 with Twilight's Embrace and Warlock, my sustained EHP is somewhere in the 4000's last time I did the math.

dietlime · January 2015

MADshadowman wrote: »

Well, then go with your Seducer set and watch me cast a lot more spells than you. I've used both sets for a long time, and all i can tell you is: if you have a decent amount of magicka, and know how to play, you will see why Magnus is the better choice.

One last thing:

If you "have to" rely on a set bonus for your build to work properly, you're doing something wrong.

That's utterly backwards. Synergy means stacking complementary effects. Even a shallow RPG like ESO revolves around synergy. Skill in a game like this means identifying those synergies and understanding underlying mechanics fare more than simple execution.

Sustained hard support healing should use Seducer's. Consistency is important as a hard support, in this sense always guaranteeing X% more output helps a team more than possibly getting a few more casts in. Critically, if a Seducer caster is out of mana he may be able to cast a life-saver one tick sooner depending where his last cast left him. If Magnus bottoms out he has to wait for the full cost.

Solo and for PvP, Magnus can really shine since you're in a situation where one cast is the difference between life and death and fitting two more into your pool (before you hit empty) might save you outright.

This is the reason Warlock is sub-par for proper group activities, because it's a trivial amount of mana ~500 some / 60 is something like 8 mana / second but you're going to waste it in one shot anyway so you can't consider it that way. Conversely though, if you're not bottoming out and can intentionally save it for a time of need, it can be more valuable than Magnus ever is; effectively increasing your pool by one cast of any spell.

Kartalin · January 2015

Ishammael wrote: »

Martial Knowledge is a good set. I see people using it often. However, there are three unfortunate drawbacks:
1. Destro staff skills scale on weapon damage and are the skills typically used for most high-dps rotations in end-game PvE.
2. The traits on the chest and head are terrible (WTF Reinforced!?)
3. In PvP, people generally look for survivability and regen, not damage.

Some caveats: the devs have stated that they intend to change all magicka-based skills to scale off of magicka dmg. This should negate drawback #1. Also with armor values changing, reinforced may actually be OK. I have a set just sitting in the back since it is so easy to get.

I agree the traits on Martial Knowledge are kind of head scratchers but it's not terrible overall. Some use 5 Stygian + 4 Martial Knowledge for ganking with the spell damage bonuses and extra stealth damage. Also it's a cool looking set. I tried 5 Stygian + 5 Nightshade for a bit on my dw gank build, with spell damage jewelry enchants. Since all the armor is medium you get weapon crit bonuses and you have the spell damage, which pairs perfectly with ambush, surprise attack/concealed weapon, etc. Also Nightshade is Impen. But it's level v10.

Basically the problem with these dropped sets is that it's really difficult to find one that fits your build perfectly. The benefit of crafted sets is that you can pick your traits, but at end game it seems like a lot of dropped sets are more beneficial than the crafted ones.

Septimus_Magna · January 2015

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Where does Arch-Mage drop? I see the necklace at reasonable prices quite often in guild stores, but don't know if I have ever seen the armor pieces. Is the necklace Bind On Equip but armor is Bind On Pickup?

Excuse my sarcasm, the necklace is common and it costs 7-10k. But the other pieces are very expensive and hard to come by. I saw Arch Mage robe for 120k and hood, pants and shoulders for 80k. So a full set will cost more than 300k! Thats almost half of my total gold, I rather save my gold for some of the new sets coming with update 6.

The Arch Mage set drops from pvp reward bags. And all pieces are bind on equip.