Damage scaling; Spell and Weapon dmg

Morphine · September 2015

In character screen, spell dmg refers to all magicka skills and basic staff attacks (light and heavy attacks) while weapon dmg refers to all stamina skills and all stamina weapons.

Few things confuse me.
Staff is probably magicka based weapon but when i equip it, it rise both magicka and stamina damage in character screen?
I see many builds with only magicka but playing with stamina weapons like dual wielding or 1h and shield. I understand it can add to your gear set bonus but how stamina weapons can rise your spell dmg and how effective basic weapon attacks can be if you have only magicka?

I understand that magicka pool rise your magicka based skills while stamina pool rise your stamina based skills. I am asking about those 2 other stats: "Spell damage" and "Weapon damage"

Can anyone explain it a little bit?

btw. Even with addons its hard to understand dmg scaling, what would be if we dont have addons at all?

Asayre · September 2015

All weapons increase your spell damage and weapon damage by the amount listed as 'Damage' when you hover over an item. This is why even though staff light and heavy attacks are based on magicka and spell crit you see an increase in weapon damage when you equip it.

Some magicka builds use 2H sword or dual wield swords because of the higher spell damage because as above all weapons give the same amount of spell damage and weapon damage. Also there are passives namely 'Heavy Weapons' and 'Twin Blade and Blunt' which increase the effectiveness of this weapon even for spells. Some people use 1H and shield and that is to use some 1H and shield abilities to increase survivability in PVP.

The tooltip value of a skill is based off both your magicka or stamina build and your spell damage or weapon damage. For most skills, the tooltip value can be calculated with the formula
Tooltip = a*(Magicka+b*Spell Damage)
You can swap magicka and spell damage for stamina and weapon damage. a is just a coefficient and depends on the skill and b is around 10.5

Without addons you'll have perfect immersion and no idea about numbers.

Morphine · September 2015

Thanks a lot! I think i understand it now.

So number listed under Spell damage would actually be my light and heavy attacks with staff. Weapon damage would be light and heavy attack with sword.

Damage of my magicka skills would be combination of my magicka pool and Spell damage. Damage of my stamina skills would be combination of my stamina pool and Weapon damage.

If i have a set bonus that rise spell damage it will improve both magicka skills and light/heavy attacks with staffs. If i heavy a set bonus that rise weapon damage it will also rise my stamina skills and light/heavy attacks with swords.

Asayre · September 2015

That's right!