Best gear setup for Magicka PvE DPS builds in 2.1?

Maulkin · September 2015

Hi all,

With the new sets and all the changes made to the gear in 2.1, I'm trying to work out what would be the optimal set-up for my Magicka Sorc & NB DPSers. The reason why I'm turning to the forums, is that new gear is so difficult to acquire or even craft now, that it's not possible for someone to test all the options himself, yet.

So I have 4 options listed an I'd like you to give an opinion, on especially if you've tried them, or suggest your own option:

Option 1
4 x Overwhelming
3 x Willpower
2 x Torug's Pact
2 x Molag Kena

Option 2
4 x Overwhelming
3 x Willpower
3 x Torug's Pact
1 x Molag Kena

Option 3
4 x Overwhelming
3 x Willpower
2 x Torug's Pact
2 x Nerien'eth

Option 4
5 x Kagrenacs Hope
3 x Willpower (Jewels)
2 x Torug's Pact
1 x Molag Kena

Option 5
5 x Scathing Mage
3 x Willpower (Jewels)
2 x Torug's Pact
1 x Molag Kena

If you don't have Overwhelming, insert Martial Knowledge the difference seems negligible in the stats, ~10 SD points.

Now, from tests, I found option 1(double Kena) to be a liability. As a sorc with DW on your Overload bar you can do top DPS with overload spam, but for anything else other than a static tank & spank fight, you will run into resource problems. So the setup is not universal or versatile enough for me.

Option 2 has the highest raw spell damage that does not rely on procs. Option 3 might have higher DPS than option 2 on static fight. Emphasis on might. Apparently Nerien'eth adds 1.5k to your DPS on average, still debatable if it can outperform option 2, I'd like opinions here.

Option 4 is currently my personal favourite because it's a) the easiest to put together and b) is the only set that offers a nice balance (spell damage, a bit of regen, a bit of HP and another useful bonus in dungeons with faster rezing). Option 5 is a complete mystery to me. If you can approach 100% up-time on the on the 5-piece bonus with a high crit build (crit chance Mundus and Precise staff) , it could potentially be the very best. But with low up-time it could also be terrible.

So what do you guys think?

Flaminir · September 2015

As you say, at the moment its all conjecture as we can't get the gear quick enough to fully test.....

But for my Sorc I'm going to be staying away from Molag Kena.... too many resource issues to make it worth it IMHO.

For the Sorc I will probably be going Nerien'eth. Good damage, and with force shock counting as 3 hits, along with a light attack.... you can get a 40% chance to proc it each second or so. With Sorcs using force shock as the main DPS filler it will work very well.

Willpower (obviously)_.... yaaaawn.

And as for the rest, probably scathing mage, but have only had 1 piece drop so far. I feel like for the 5 piece set you need to get some extra spell power into the build if not going for Molag Kena...... scathing mage seems the best bet for that over a sustained fight.

In a PvP setting I may swap the scathing for Kagneracs Hope.... rather have static spell damage than a risky proc that may not happen in shorter more bursty fights, plus the other bonuses are good for PvP.

d8rmir · September 2015

I think you might like this stuff: http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/pts-2-1-2-sorcerer-arithmagic/

The more appealing to me is the "gear B" in the link, which is very close to your option 5: full scathing mage, molag kena, willpower and spare weapon.

Xantaria · September 2015

Option 5.

Thief.

All pieces Divines.

LoreRiley · September 2015

Xantaria wrote: »

Option 5.

Thief.

All pieces Divines.

Didnt they remove Divine stacking?

P3ZZL3 · September 2015

AFAIK I thought they did remove Divine Stacking where only 1 or 2 are worth it now *shrugs*

Also, whats the point of Kena when it's weapon damage?

Maulkin · September 2015

Flaminir wrote: »

As you say, at the moment its all conjecture as we can't get the gear quick enough to fully test.....

But for my Sorc I'm going to be staying away from Molag Kena.... too many resource issues to make it worth it IMHO.

I'm finding the same.

Flaminir wrote: »

For the Sorc I will probably be going Nerien'eth. Good damage, and with force shock counting as 3 hits, along with a light attack.... you can get a 40% chance to proc it each second or so. With Sorcs using force shock as the main DPS filler it will work very well.

Nerien'eth is by far the best for trash pulls and such, but if a boss is fairly mobile it needs swapping out imo.

Flaminir wrote: »

Willpower (obviously)_.... yaaaawn.

Too right. Boring as feck. Only jewelry setup that works.

Flaminir wrote: »

And as for the rest, probably scathing mage, but have only had 1 piece drop so far. I feel like for the 5 piece set you need to get some extra spell power into the build if not going for Molag Kena...... scathing mage seems the best bet for that over a sustained fight.

I've had none drop yet. Is it random trait? or all infused?

d8rmir · September 2015

P3ZZL3 wrote: »

Also, whats the point of Kena when it's weapon damage?

Kena should give both weapon and spell damage.

Maulkin · September 2015

P3ZZL3 wrote: »

AFAIK I thought they did remove Divine Stacking where only 1 or 2 are worth it now *shrugs*

Also, whats the point of Kena when it's weapon damage?

Kena is weapon and spell damage.

Leandor · September 2015

I'm theorizing here, but with an assumed 60% spell crit, 10% chance of proc, you would get a proc on average every ~17 attacks. Within the uptime of the proc, you'd get 4 attacks 6 attacks off with LA weaving. If I'm not completely stupid (and please say so, if it is the case), that translates to an average uptime of 25% 33%.

Considering that Kagrenac's provides approximately 50% of scathing mages spelldamage, but consistently, I assume that you'd still come out on top with kagrenac over scathing mage, even with a loss of 4% spell crit.

Now, the real question is whether the 10% proc chance are the kind of 10% that conform to the old ravager set or the 10% that conform to the disintegration proc. If it's the former, then actual performance of scathing mage is better than kagrenac. If it's the latter, kagrenac will outshine scathing mage, at least in PvE where burst is less important and sustain is where the monies are.

Maulkin · September 2015

Xantaria wrote: »

Option 5.

Thief.

All pieces Divines.

Thing is, I don't know how crit chance stacking works. Because you get a flat number and every % point higher requires more flat points.

So if you can achieve 80% crit chance for example, then that is 80% * 10% = 8% on every attack to proc the set. If it has no cool down, you could probably have 100% uptime.

Buuut, 80% crit chance might not be what you get with option 5.

Maulkin · September 2015

Leandor wrote: »

I'm theorizing here, but with an assumed 60% spell crit, 10% chance of proc, you would get a proc on average every ~17 attacks. Within the uptime of the proc, you'd get 4 attacks off. If I'm not completely stupid (and please say so, if it is the case), that translates to an average uptime of 25%.

No. The up-time is 6". Within the uptime I can animation cancel 6 attacks. That is 12 attacks excluding enchant proc, dots etc. I would use 12 attacks as the absolute bare minimum in my calculations. Probably 13-14

Also if you can achieve 70% crit with the right Mundus and staff trait, that is 1 proc every 14 attacks. So you could in theory get 100% uptime with 70% crit (if that's achievable)

Leandor wrote: »

Considering that Kagrenac's provides approximately 50%of scathing mages spelldamage , but consistently, and with the loss of 5% spellcrit (which, for sake of simplicity, is assumed to provide 1.65 times the damage) you'd still come out on top with kagrenac over scathing mage.

No no no. Kagrenac is 220+ spell damage as v16 legendary. It's like 90% of Scathing Mage. But you lose all the crit chance. Which is way more than 4% chance. That is not how crit is calculated

d8rmir · September 2015

Leandor wrote: »

I'm theorizing here, but with an assumed 60% spell crit, 10% chance of proc, you would get a proc on average every ~17 attacks. Within the uptime of the proc, you'd get 4 attacks off. If I'm not completely stupid (and please say so, if it is the case), that translates to an average uptime of 25%.

This should improve a little bit if you include Force Pulse in your rotation, it counts as a triple attack.
In the link I posted above it's estimated a 50% chance to have the scathing bonus active in 6.58 sec.

Leandor · September 2015

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

I'm theorizing here, but with an assumed 60% spell crit, 10% chance of proc, you would get a proc on average every ~17 attacks. Within the uptime of the proc, you'd get 4 attacks off. If I'm not completely stupid (and please say so, if it is the case), that translates to an average uptime of 25%.

No. The up-time is 6". Within the uptime I can animation cancel 6 attacks. That is 12 attacks excluding enchant proc, dots etc. I would use 12 attacks as the absolute bare minimum in my calculations. Probably 13-14

Also if you can achieve 70% crit with the right Mundus and staff trait, that is 1 proc every 14 attacks. So you could in theory get 100% uptime with 70% crit (if that's achievable)

Leandor wrote: »

Considering that Kagrenac's provides approximately 50%of scathing mages spelldamage , but consistently, and with the loss of 5% spellcrit (which, for sake of simplicity, is assumed to provide 1.65 times the damage) you'd still come out on top with kagrenac over scathing mage.

No no no. Kagrenac is 220+ spell damage as v16 legendary. It's like 90% of Scathing Mage. But you lose all the crit chance. Which is way more than 4% chance. That is not how crit is calculated

I did notice my error myself, that you would get out more than 4 attacks, but I very seriously doubt your 12. I know I am not the best player but you may get off a burst of 10 attacks if you include things like projectile travel time etc., but not consistently.

The data I have shows that kagrenac gives you ~240 spell damage V16 gold and the proc on scathing mage is 440 spell damage. This is a bit more than 50% but for the sake of simplicity I assumed just 50%.

Considering that the setup is the same (same mundus, same traits), the only difference between scathing mage and kagrenac is the two times 2% spell crit. So, no, you would not lose more than that. If you consider a different mundus stone for kagrenac, that skews the comparison and would result in reduction of difference in spell damage.

There will be an influence if you manage 70% crit over 60%, getting into the region of 1 proc every 15 attacks, that would be less than 50% uptime still considering 6 attacks in 6 seconds (which should not be possible considering the all hailed 1.3 second global cooldown or whereever that number currently is assumed to be).

Septimus_Magna · September 2015

Hey Maulkin,

I think of running option 4 in pvp groups because it strikes nice balance, decent spell damage plus good sustain with 3x magicka cost reduction on your jewelry and atronach mundus stone. Most pieces are also the easy to get just by farming or buying mats. For pve the sustain would be more than enough so I would switch the mundus to thief/apprentice to improve damage.

For pve I think option 3 because the Nerien'eth set is pretty strong against stationary bosses with Crushing Shock weave. It does take a while farming CoH to get it with good traits but I will definitely try it out when I get it.

Im not sure if Nerien'eth still procs on AOE and DOTs because that would make it proc a lot with pulsar, liquid lightning etc.

P3ZZL3 · September 2015

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh ok

It only says WD so just thought "Save it for my Stampler"

So what kind of SD with and without buffs are people getting right now?

Maulkin · September 2015

@Leandor, as others have said Force Shock is 3 attacks. 1 light attack + Shock is 4 attacks.

Duh, I'm stupid, I though Scathing gave 256 spelldamage, my bad

Leandor · September 2015

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

@Leandor, as others have said Force Shock is 3 attacks. 1 light attack + Shock is 4 attacks.

Duh, I'm stupid, I though Scathing gave 256 spelldamage, my bad

Hm, do all three attacks of force shock have an individual crit chance? If they are considered the same (meaning all crit or none crits), then you'd have to calculate those three as one. If they are individual, you are right, you could manage up to 16 attacks in 6 seconds.

Sorry, did several rounds of edits in my above posts, I'm slow like that today for some reason. Anyways, with 70%+ crit rate and 16 attacks, you'd very probably have nigh on 100% uptime, which would then be nerfed quite fast now that they have decided that ravager is a buggy mechanism. It would probably get the same internal CD that ravager now has, limiting you to the ~55% uptime that would make kagrenac and scathing mage actually equal, with the sole difference of kagrenac providing stats that scathing mage doesn't.

Maulkin · September 2015

Leandor wrote: »

Considering that the setup is the same (same mundus, same traits), the only difference between scathing mage and kagrenac is the two times 2% spell crit. So, no, you would not lose more than that. If you consider a different mundus stone for kagrenac, that skews the comparison and would result in reduction of difference in spell damage.

But it is not 2% crit. It is a flat number. Depending on what your crit chance was before it will have a different effect on your overall crit.

Also, important thing: It appears Scathing Mage has a cooldown equal to the buff's duration. Basically you can't re-proc it while the buff is active so you are forced to go some time without buff.

If it procs on approx 1 every 15 attacks on a crit build. than you will probably have 50% up-time

Maulkin · September 2015

Leandor wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

@Leandor, as others have said Force Shock is 3 attacks. 1 light attack + Shock is 4 attacks.

Duh, I'm stupid, I though Scathing gave 256 spelldamage, my bad

Hm, do all three attacks of force shock have an individual crit chance? If they are considered the same (meaning all crit or none crits), then you'd have to calculate those three as one. If they are individual, you are right, you could manage up to 16 attacks in 6 seconds.

Definitely separate and individual crit chance.

d8rmir · September 2015

By the way I didn't know about the change in Kagrenac's hope...
How big is the spell-damage buff? Is it the same as, say, Torug's 2 items?

Maulkin · September 2015

d8rmir wrote: »

By the way I didn't know about the change in Kagrenac's hope...
How big is the spell-damage buff? Is it the same as, say, Torug's 2 items?

Much more, almost double the Torug's bonus. v16 Legendary Kagrenac is ~236 I believe. Torug is ~124 as v16 legendary

Leandor · September 2015

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

But it is not 2% crit. It is a flat number. Depending on what your crit chance was before it will have a different effect on your overall crit.

It is a "crit rating" flat number, and the calculation of crit rating to crit chance is to my knowledge only dependent on your character level, not on the amount of crit you actually have. If this is different, meaning it would increase your overall crit rating by 2% of the current total, that would be a) unique for this game and b) less than a flat increase in numbers.

Maulkin · September 2015

Leandor wrote: »

Sorry, did several rounds of edits in my above posts, I'm slow like that today for some reason. Anyways, with 70%+ crit rate and 16 attacks, you'd very probably have nigh on 100% uptime, which would then be nerfed quite fast now that they have decided that ravager is a buggy mechanism. It would probably get the same internal CD that ravager now has, limiting you to the ~55% uptime that would make kagrenac and scathing mage actually equal, with the sole difference of kagrenac providing stats that scathing mage doesn't.

I also did edits XD.

It has the same cooldown as ravager now. So its a 55% uptime avg.

P3ZZL3 · September 2015

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

d8rmir wrote: »

By the way I didn't know about the change in Kagrenac's hope...
How big is the spell-damage buff? Is it the same as, say, Torug's 2 items?

Much more, almost double the Torug's bonus. v16 Legendary Kagrenac is ~236 I believe. Torug is ~124 as v16 legendary

CAn someone post a picture of the set bonus structure please? All I can find is one giving resurrection bens....

Maulkin · September 2015

Leandor wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

But it is not 2% crit. It is a flat number. Depending on what your crit chance was before it will have a different effect on your overall crit.

It is a "crit rating" flat number, and the calculation of crit rating to crit chance is to my knowledge only dependent on your character level, not on the amount of crit you actually have. If this is different, meaning it would increase your overall crit rating by 2% of the current total, that would be a) unique for this game and b) less than a flat increase in numbers.

My understanding is that you have a flat crit number. And that number converts to crit %. but the table that does the conversion has diminishing returns.

So if you need 100 points for example to go from 20% to 21%, you might need 150 points to go from 50% to 51%. Kinda like the CP system. At least that's how I understood it.

I might be very wrong here. Please correct me, if so

d8rmir · September 2015

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

d8rmir wrote: »

By the way I didn't know about the change in Kagrenac's hope...
How big is the spell-damage buff? Is it the same as, say, Torug's 2 items?

Much more, almost double the Torug's bonus. v16 Legendary Kagrenac is ~236 I believe. Torug is ~124 as v16 legendary

Ah wow, thanks...It is better than my current vr14 martial knowledge then. So I only have to farm ~600 ingots/fabrics. And to do the fighter's guild questline.
But I see this a short-term solution, first choice would be scathing mage. Which will also require endless farming, so Kagrenac will probably become a long-term solution.

P3ZZL3 wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

d8rmir wrote: »

By the way I didn't know about the change in Kagrenac's hope...
How big is the spell-damage buff? Is it the same as, say, Torug's 2 items?

Much more, almost double the Torug's bonus. v16 Legendary Kagrenac is ~236 I believe. Torug is ~124 as v16 legendary

CAn someone post a picture of the set bonus structure please? All I can find is one giving resurrection bens....

I can find only pictures of the pre-2.1 version too. And a mention in the patch notes, in case you don't trust the OP.

Leandor · September 2015

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

But it is not 2% crit. It is a flat number. Depending on what your crit chance was before it will have a different effect on your overall crit.

It is a "crit rating" flat number, and the calculation of crit rating to crit chance is to my knowledge only dependent on your character level, not on the amount of crit you actually have. If this is different, meaning it would increase your overall crit rating by 2% of the current total, that would be a) unique for this game and b) less than a flat increase in numbers.

My understanding is that you have a flat crit number. And that number converts to crit %. but the table that does the conversion has diminishing returns.

So if you need 100 points for example to go from 20% to 21%, you might need 150 points to go from 50% to 51%. Kinda like the CP system. At least that's how I understood it.

I might be very wrong here. Please correct me, if so

The addon "CritPercent" by Garkin shows the same percentage number irrespective of the crit chance your character has (easily tested by activating/deactivating inner light). That is what I based my assumption on, so I am far from sure that I got it right.

@P3ZZL3 This thread has all crafted sets at V14 from 2.1.4

EDIT: Mike, if the cooldown is the same as the uptime, you can still get 100% uptime in the optimum case. Worst case would be ~50%, which would mean that you'd have a last crit just within uptime and then would have to make a full 15 attacks until your next crit+proc event (which we assume to be 6 seconds as well).

I think that as long as uptime and cooldown are the same, an uptime of more than 75% on average could be reached. Only if there would be a forced downtime (as in cooldown longer than proc duration), this could approach 50% uptime - the set looks to be quite good, at least for someone whose base rotation is force shock/LA weaving. You would lose the set bonus as soon as you put in other attacks, because you would lose the "4 in 1 crit chance" to proc it.

I can see it being a reasonably good set for PvE, but for PvP (which I know was not your question at all) I can't see scathing to be interesting at all.

Even for PvE, if you factor in things like CF procs or LL casts to increase DPS (using sorcerer as example), you would actually lose quite some of the advantage over a fixed damage increasing set like kagrenac very quickly.

Maulkin · September 2015

I'm stealing the Kagrenac picture from another thread and posting it here since many people are asking

That can reach nearly 240 SD in v16 Legendary.

Maulkin · September 2015

Leandor wrote: »

Even for PvE, if you factor in things like CF procs or LL casts to increase DPS (using sorcerer as example), you would actually lose quite some of the advantage over a fixed damage increasing set like kagrenac very quickly.

Since you can't crit blocking chars or shielded chars and since it doesn't proc on heals it's rather useless for PvP, I agree.

Sallington · September 2015

Good luck getting 4 or 5 pieces or Overwhelming and/or Scathing