Stealth Attack Question - Passives & Bow Vs 2H/DW

willymchilybily · August 2015

Hi all,

new to the forums, but am interested in damage from stealth and have some related questions, sorry for the long post. Feed back very welcome.

Questions:

1) Why from stealth does my "Surprise Attack" one shot mobs and my "lethal Arrow" not, when tool tip claims lethal arrow has more damage, having no damage numbers being on console its very hard for me to try to understand whats happening through testing alone. please help me understand the mechanics.

2) As a Kahjit Nightblade my racial passive "Stealthy" grants +9% damage from stealth, and "Master Assassin" Class Passive gives +10% weapon/spell damage from stealth or invisible. i see the weapon damage go up when i crouch/stealth by 10%. i check any particular weapon skill, it seems the damage goes up by approximately <10% , but i was expecting it to go up by around 14% (more detail below) just want to check i'm missing something those more knowledgeable know?

Details:

1).

im actually in a rare scenario where the 2H I have actually gives exactly the same weapon damage as my bow (because bow fulfills a set but 2H has more damage to begin with). now i have done lots of testing with rally/camohunter/piercing mark/relentless focus, and using lethal arrow vs surprise attack. i was using camo hunter for more damage from stealth anyway, relentless focus and rally. and lethal arrow could not 1Shot kill medium armor npc but suprise attack did. it was probably around 4k on the tool tip pre buff/stealth, and 6.9 k when all buffed/stealthed. likewise surprise attack around 3.3k pre buffing around 5.7k after.

Then with more testing i actually found surprise attack with only the 20% rally buff was one shot'ing still. where lethal arrow with +8% relentless focus, 12% from range, 20% from rally, plus camo hunter on the bar (i think its around a flat 3k on top? even without 4%/15% proc) and i have 10 CP in thurmatage (5% to poisons) i still could not one shot the damn NPC. So i am trying to figure out why.

I thought maybe it was a crit thing. but with camohunter on the bow bar im around 73% crit chance. so after trying to 1shot 5 NPCs with all the buffs and max range. still nothing.

I then thought maybe the major fracture debuf was kicking in before the damage was taken off the target. So i started using piercing mark in addition. i actually got the targets down to very low health 5% maybe but never a 1 Shot.

Now i read recently actually attacking from stealth from behind gives a slight damage bonus. I cant remember if i tried in particular to get directly behind the target with the bow, and I don't have the passive for 2H swords that gave 5% damage bonus. But even if i account for those it just doesn't make any sense to me.

Now don't get me wrong im not saying range attacks should be able to match close quarter attacks for damage. All I'm saying is why does it seem i do more damage with an attack that should from what i understand from the tool tip do less damage...... (surprise attack only part buffed ~4k damage, lethal arrow full buffed 6.9k)

2).

i know the damage of a particular skill works from both, weapon damage, and stamina. so my 13.5k stamina probably comes to around 1300 weapon damage equivalent and i think I'm at around 1140 weapon damage besides. So the master assassin buff should be (1140/2340)*10% = 4.8% buff to the damage a skill does + the flat 9% from stealthy on all damage. I'm in theory just shy of 14% more damage when attacking from stealth. I don't see this buff when i stealth. further more. When I darkcloak and turn invisible when not stealthed i see the same rise in damage. so either stealthy is working for both stealth and invisibility or not working, or just not showing on tooltips. Or im missing something. any one able to shed some light?

LiquidSchwartz · August 2015

Good luck, all I can tell you is that it works in there some how- usually.

Reeko · August 2015

Surprise Attack scales with weapon damage and max stamina, Lethal Arrow is only a set amount of damage.

willymchilybily · August 2015

Reeko wrote: »

Surprise Attack scales with weapon damage and max stamina, Lethal Arrow is only a set amount of damage.

oh dear, now I'm even more confused. Why does rally increase my lethal arrow damage if its not scaled with weapon damage?
feel free to give a more indepth explanation

i don't mind if it gets technical

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO · August 2015

All the stamina attacks draw from Weapon power and max Stamina how ever melee attacks get a higher damage buff with stealth attack. Basic attacks get more then spell at melee range so it's possible on PC with no CP in higher damage for basic attacks to do more damage with a full heavy then Surprise Attack.

You are rewarded for the high risk of melee stealth damage because it's melee range where you can drop a Snipe from 41m away 46 once your Focused Aim hits it's a lot less dangerous 46m away then 7m hence the bigger reward for melee. Two handed full heavy and Uppercut are just sick from stealth.

Reeko · August 2015

willymchilybily wrote: »

Reeko wrote: »

Surprise Attack scales with weapon damage and max stamina, Lethal Arrow is only a set amount of damage.

oh dear, now I'm even more confused. Why does rally increase my lethal arrow damage if its not scaled with weapon damage?
feel free to give a more indepth explanation i don't mind if it gets technical

Ok you got me there lol. Maybe Lethal Arrow ONLY scales with weapon damage while Surprise Attacks is wpn dmg and stamina both?

Also, what is your wpn damage at with bow? With melee weapon? Or do you use Surprise on your bow bar?

Xvorg · August 2015

Reeko wrote: »

willymchilybily wrote: »

Reeko wrote: »

Surprise Attack scales with weapon damage and max stamina, Lethal Arrow is only a set amount of damage.

oh dear, now I'm even more confused. Why does rally increase my lethal arrow damage if its not scaled with weapon damage?
feel free to give a more indepth explanation i don't mind if it gets technical

Ok you got me there lol. Maybe Lethal Arrow ONLY scales with weapon damage while Surprise Attacks is wpn dmg and stamina both?

Also, what is your wpn damage at with bow? With melee weapon? Or do you use Surprise on your bow bar?

As far as I remember, the multipliers for a melee attack are higher than a ranged attack for more than obvious reasons. Suprise!! you're dead is a melee attack, so the multiplier from stealh is big, while lethal arrow, despite having a higher base, has not a so high multiplier for crits. This has been the same since Morrowind? where the crit from stealth melee was 6x, while the critical from stealthed ranged was only 3x. I don't know if Z guys tried the same here or at least something similar to that.

I use Surprise!! in my bow, and it gets 7k with critical sometimes (weapon dmg similar to yours) from stealth (and from behind). Even having a ranged weapon, the attack is considered melee.

willymchilybily · August 2015

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO wrote: »

All the stamina attacks draw from Weapon power and max Stamina how ever melee attacks get a higher damage buff with stealth attack. Basic attacks get more then spell at melee range so it's possible on PC with no CP in higher damage for basic attacks to do more damage with a full heavy then Surprise Attack.

You are rewarded for the high risk of melee stealth damage because it's melee range where you can drop a Snipe from 41m away 46 once your Focused Aim hits it's a lot less dangerous 46m away then 7m hence the bigger reward for melee. Two handed full heavy and Uppercut are just sick from stealth.

I guess this makes the most sense. Damage i actually do is weapon damage and stamina based (or spell magicka). include all the weapon and damage buffs. minus the armor of the enemy plus what i negate/penetrate i suppose. if i crit its multiplied by 1.5 or w/e and then on top there is an additional factor that i don't see or know about that scales my damage further depending on the type of range the attack is fired from (close or long distance). Its an interesting, but the first time i have heard this if not a little confusing . Mostly because of how much additional damage this unknown modifier seems to give.
You think I have:

a 4.9k bow ability. +20%(ralley)+8%(mark)+12%(distance)+5%(thermatage)+ ~10% (stealth) = +55% = 7.6k+ damage before armor mitigation

vs a 3.4k class ability 20% ralley + ~10% stealth = + 30% = 4.4k damage before armor mitigation.

yet despite being what seems like 70% more damage once buffed it still wont 1 shot an enemy and yet my barely buffed suprise attack does. is melee really that much more powerful opener? if so i should consider switching up my play style

wrecking blow stealth attacks all over cyrodil

Xvorg wrote: »

Reeko wrote: »

willymchilybily wrote: »

Reeko wrote: »

Surprise Attack scales with weapon damage and max stamina, Lethal Arrow is only a set amount of damage.

oh dear, now I'm even more confused. Why does rally increase my lethal arrow damage if its not scaled with weapon damage?
feel free to give a more indepth explanation i don't mind if it gets technical

Ok you got me there lol. Maybe Lethal Arrow ONLY scales with weapon damage while Surprise Attacks is wpn dmg and stamina both?

Also, what is your wpn damage at with bow? With melee weapon? Or do you use Surprise on your bow bar?

As far as I remember, the multipliers for a melee attack are higher than a ranged attack for more than obvious reasons. Suprise!! you're dead is a melee attack, so the multiplier from stealh is big, while lethal arrow, despite having a higher base, has not a so high multiplier for crits. This has been the same since Morrowind? where the crit from stealth melee was 6x, while the critical from stealthed ranged was only 3x. I don't know if Z guys tried the same here or at least something similar to that.

I use Surprise!! in my bow, and it gets 7k with critical sometimes (weapon dmg similar to yours) from stealth (and from behind). Even having a ranged weapon, the attack is considered melee.

yeah i know skyrim it was like x6 multiplier vs x9 between bow vs dagger with passives. but only on that specific tree. otherwise it was 1.5 x damage

but i thought criticals were a flat 1.5x the damage in ESO you would do non critical. (or more with the right passives and mundus stone etc). At least i have tried to reasearch as much as possible and find nothing to indicate otherwise

Reeko wrote: »

willymchilybily wrote: »

Reeko wrote: »

Surprise Attack scales with weapon damage and max stamina, Lethal Arrow is only a set amount of damage.

oh dear, now I'm even more confused. Why does rally increase my lethal arrow damage if its not scaled with weapon damage?
feel free to give a more indepth explanation i don't mind if it gets technical

Ok you got me there lol. Maybe Lethal Arrow ONLY scales with weapon damage while Surprise Attacks is wpn dmg and stamina both?

Also, what is your wpn damage at with bow? With melee weapon? Or do you use Surprise on your bow bar?

I will be heading home now and ill probably have to check in game to be sure. but from memory i am around 1200 weapon damage with no buffs i think closer to 1800 weapon damage buffed, on both weapons. surprise attack is only on my melee weapon. i still really see though how that explains that the two different skill tool tip values (which change as i change my gear or buff up) don't do the damage they say respectively, its like there is some hidden something im not understanding.

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO · August 2015

Yes melee has a higher damage multiplier and anything with a changer or cast time has an even higher one.