Comparison between the 4 Mage Mundus stones

Dracane · October 2015

Hey there

I want to give a quick comparison between the 3 Mage stones, Atronach, Apprentice and Mage. Which benefit each of them offers and which downsides.
The Ritual also is a Mage stone lore wise, but probably not a choice for most Mages unless they are healers.

Here is the short version:

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And here is the long version

The Mage, lorewise one of the 3 guardian signs is the most balanced choice. It offers a bit of everything.
It increases your Magicka, meaning you have more ressources, stronger damage shields, stronger healing and of course more damage with spells.
The Mage is the stones that I tend to compare the most with the Atronach and the Apprentice.

Damage Comparison between the Mage and the Apprentice

The Apprentice received a heavy nerf with update 2.0. It used to offer 5200 spell penetration, which increased the damage by A LOT.
Now it offers 166 flat spell damage on V16 and the Mage offers 1280 Magicka, which equals 128 spell damage.
The main benefit of the Apprentice here is, that it's value is boosted a lot by damage buffs such as Surge and Entropy and also by Templar and Sorcerer passives.

The damage gap between the mage and the apprentice has become very small though. While it used to be ~400 damage on each attack, it's ~100 damage now and this gap will become even smaller, because Champion points will slowly increase the percentage of the Mage, while the Apprentice remains as it is. However, the Apprentice still IS the superior choice for damage. 100 more damage on each hit stacks, and will be 1000 damage difference after 10 hits etc etc. And you also must think about crits, they also become stronger with the Apprentice (because it increases the base damage more than the mage)

Sustain Comparison between the Mage and the Atronach

The Atronach offers 210 Magicka regeneration. The big benefit is, that this value is affected by maaaany buffs. For example Altmer racial passives, Sorcerer Capacitor passive, alliance war passives and many more. For myself, I will have restored exactly 6600 more Magicka every minute, when I take the Atronach.

But here is the thing: Things like Elemental drain and Harness Magicka scale with your Maximum Magicka. Meaning they restore more, the more Magicka you have. Elemental drain restores 545 Magicka for me without the Mage. With the mage, it restores 568 Magicka on each hit.
Here is an example: Force shock procs elemental drain 3 times and also my lightning staff light attack procs it 1 time. I can perform almost 1 attack each second. So I could almost perform 60 attack per minute (probably a bit less, because my attack speed is a bit more than 1 s)
So elemental drain will restore 5760 more Magicka , only because I have the mage. But that's not everything... I also have my shock damage enchant, which also procs elemental drain and has a cooldown of 4 seconds. Means it procs 15 times in minute for 360 additonal Magicka only by having the mage.

Consider that this would be under perfect circumstances, that you will NEVER have anywhere and even then, the Atronach would still restore more Magicka than the Mage does. And especially in pvp, I will cast a lot of other spells and will have times where I can't just spam force shock. So in reality, the Atronach remains clearly superior for sustain. But it's still an interesting thing to know

I will not compare the Ritual with any other stone. The Ritual offers a huge 15% healing done boost, not other stone can outheal this. But it offers nothing but healing, so comparing it with other stones is pointless here.

Ezareth · October 2015

Thanks for the numbers. I was wondering at this comparison myself and was about to go do testing of my own.

As an Altmer sorc with max undaunted using 3 different types of armor I should be receiving a 15% bonus to my Mage Stone(17% on my bars with degeneration) which evens up the comparison between mage and apprentice.

I'll have to test the mage for the exact numbers to determine how CPs affect it before deciding on which to run.

Dracane · October 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

Thanks for the numbers. I was wondering at this comparison myself and was about to go do testing of my own.

As an Altmer sorc with max undaunted using 3 different types of armor I should be receiving a 15% bonus to my Mage Stone(17% on my bars with degeneration) which evens up the comparison between mage and apprentice.

I'll have to test the mage for the exact numbers to determine how CPs affect it before deciding on which to run.

When I checked my mage yesterday, it gave me 1680 Magicka or so I believe.
Which would be like 460 more. But Cp definately increases something and it's not a fix value. I only receive like 8 stamina points, but 20+ Magicka points or 24 Magicka depending on what I am wearing.

The reason why I think CP scale with a percentage, is because someone posted a thread called 'Sorcerer Arithmetics' or so and he mentioned, that CP increase your pool by a percentage. So yea

If this scales with EVERYTHING, which seems to be the case, then the mage would become better and better over time (only slightly and slowly) When I first tested the difference between the mage and the apprentice a few months ago, it was a 116 damage difference. Now it's exactly 100, meaning the mage must have become stronger somehow.

I guess the easiest way would be to sacrifise 3k gold and reset my Champion points and compare everything.

hardcore_gmr · October 2015

How are you coming up with these figures for comparison. I am aware the raw numbers are on display on the wiki, but how are you live testing the findings. How is having a larger raw spell power/high magic pool build affecting these result. I.e does having a more spell power/more resources help scaling. I've noticed on high spell power builds that the scaling makes the damage really favor spell damage over more resources. I first noticed this trend with my stamina DK and at first I was using the tower, and stacking max stamina armor and glyphs I achieved high damage but not like when I converted to weapon damage stacking. The raw damage increase scaled significantly better throughout. It seems as if the sacrifice is between high damage and some extra sustain from stacking resources vs having higher damage output overall but losing some sustain because you have less resources. For this reason cost reduction is much more important for High weapon/spell damage builds and regen is more important 4 max resource builds. Of course you will still need a good amount of each but if you are min/maxing you can get more effectiveness out of your build by either focusing on increasing weapon/spell damage or increasing max main stat.

Dracane · October 2015

hardcore_gmr wrote: »

How are you coming up with these figures for comparison. I am aware the raw numbers are on display on the wiki, but how are you live testing the findings. How is having a larger raw spell power/high magic pool build affecting these result. I.e does having a more spell power/more resources help scaling. I've noticed on high spell power builds that the scaling makes the damage really favor spell damage over more resources. I first noticed this trend with my stamina DK and at first I was using the tower, and stacking max stamina armor and glyphs I achieved high damage but not like when I converted to weapon damage stacking. The raw damage increase scaled significantly better throughout. It seems as if the sacrifice is between high damage and some extra sustain from stacking resources vs having higher damage output overall but losing some sustain because you have less resources. For this reason cost reduction is much more important for High weapon/spell damage builds and regen is more important 4 max resource builds. Of course you will still need a good amount of each but if you are min/maxing you can get more effectiveness out of your build by either focusing on increasing weapon/spell damage or increasing max main stat.

I never said, that Magicka is better than spell damage. After all I've said, that the apprentice (spell damage) is better for raw damage. Even though this stone is only a shadow of its former self

Cost reduction is very strong, but receives no bonus. While regeneration received plenty, you get much for out of it.
Regen gets stronger with each second where you don't use abilities, cost reduction gets stronger the more you spam abilities, which is the case most of the time. Regeneration rarely has a chance to inflict its potential.

And my comparisons are based on ingame testing obviously (practical) and math.

bigereard · October 2015

I dunno the latest formula, not testing it yet, but at 2.1 max magicka formula is like this:

((Base health + Attributes point + Trait + Enchant + Set+Mundus+Food+PvP Bonus)+(Base health + Attributes point + Trait + Enchant + Set)*(0.01*mage champion point^0.563)*(1+%set+%racial+%passive skill+%active skill)

So the CP point not increase max magicka from mundus, apprentice is clearly winner in term of damage per skill potential, but the mage have possibility of doing one extra skill when bursting.

However If CP point increase max magicka from mundus, mage mundus is extremely powerful for the max magicka build at the end game:

If a sorc stack max magicka so much:
10% Racial + 10% necropotence + 4% grace of ancient + 5% inner light + 4% 2 mage guild skill + 8% bound aegis + 2% undaunted = +43% magicka

149% (CP point) * 143% = 213% max magicka

The mage = 1280 * 2.13 = 2726 max magicka
The apprentice = 166 * 1.31 major minor buff, 3 expert mage * 10.46 = equivalent to 2274 max magicka

Alucardo · October 2015

bigereard wrote: »

I dunno the latest formula, not testing it yet, but at 2.1 max magicka formula is like this:

((Base health + Attributes point + Trait + Enchant + Set+Mundus+Food+PvP Bonus)+(Base health + Attributes point + Trait + Enchant + Set)*(0.01*mage champion point^0.563)*(1+%set+%racial+%passive skill+%active skill)

So the CP point not increase max magicka from mundus, apprentice is clearly winner in term of damage per skill potential, but the mage have possibility of doing one extra skill when bursting.

However If CP point increase max magicka from mundus, mage mundus is extremely powerful for the max magicka build at the end game:

If a sorc stack max magicka so much:
10% Racial + 10% necropotence + 4% grace of ancient + 5% inner light + 4% 2 mage guild skill + 8% bound aegis + 2% undaunted = +43% magicka

149% (CP point) * 143% = 213% max magicka

The mage = 1280 * 2.13 = 2726 max magicka
The apprentice = 166 * 1.31 major minor buff, 3 expert mage * 10.46 = equivalent to 2274 max magicka

hardcore_gmr · October 2015

Dracane wrote: »

hardcore_gmr wrote: »

How are you coming up with these figures for comparison. I am aware the raw numbers are on display on the wiki, but how are you live testing the findings. How is having a larger raw spell power/high magic pool build affecting these result. I.e does having a more spell power/more resources help scaling. I've noticed on high spell power builds that the scaling makes the damage really favor spell damage over more resources. I first noticed this trend with my stamina DK and at first I was using the tower, and stacking max stamina armor and glyphs I achieved high damage but not like when I converted to weapon damage stacking. The raw damage increase scaled significantly better throughout. It seems as if the sacrifice is between high damage and some extra sustain from stacking resources vs having higher damage output overall but losing some sustain because you have less resources. For this reason cost reduction is much more important for High weapon/spell damage builds and regen is more important 4 max resource builds. Of course you will still need a good amount of each but if you are min/maxing you can get more effectiveness out of your build by either focusing on increasing weapon/spell damage or increasing max main stat.

I never said, that Magicka is better than spell damage. After all I've said, that the apprentice (spell damage) is better for raw damage. Even though this stone is only a shadow of its former self

Cost reduction is very strong, but receives no bonus. While regeneration received plenty, you get much for out of it.
Regen gets stronger with each second where you don't use abilities, cost reduction gets stronger the more you spam abilities, which is the case most of the time. Regeneration rarely has a chance to inflict its potential.

And my comparisons are based on ingame testing obviously (practical) and math.

Dude I wasn't attacking your post, actually I am intrigued by your narrowed gap in the difference between spell damage and max magic. I have been running some tests of my own prior to your post so I am actually really glad this forum has theory crafter and play testers. The reason I asked about how you are coming up with these figures is because I wanted to compare my own method. In my test max resource never closes, the gap in fact the stays pretty consistent throughout and with good cost reduction widens the margin slightly as you near the end of your resource bar. Again wasn't trying to undermine your findings just wondering how you came to them.

Dracane · October 2015

hardcore_gmr wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

hardcore_gmr wrote: »

How are you coming up with these figures for comparison. I am aware the raw numbers are on display on the wiki, but how are you live testing the findings. How is having a larger raw spell power/high magic pool build affecting these result. I.e does having a more spell power/more resources help scaling. I've noticed on high spell power builds that the scaling makes the damage really favor spell damage over more resources. I first noticed this trend with my stamina DK and at first I was using the tower, and stacking max stamina armor and glyphs I achieved high damage but not like when I converted to weapon damage stacking. The raw damage increase scaled significantly better throughout. It seems as if the sacrifice is between high damage and some extra sustain from stacking resources vs having higher damage output overall but losing some sustain because you have less resources. For this reason cost reduction is much more important for High weapon/spell damage builds and regen is more important 4 max resource builds. Of course you will still need a good amount of each but if you are min/maxing you can get more effectiveness out of your build by either focusing on increasing weapon/spell damage or increasing max main stat.

I never said, that Magicka is better than spell damage. After all I've said, that the apprentice (spell damage) is better for raw damage. Even though this stone is only a shadow of its former self

Cost reduction is very strong, but receives no bonus. While regeneration received plenty, you get much for out of it.
Regen gets stronger with each second where you don't use abilities, cost reduction gets stronger the more you spam abilities, which is the case most of the time. Regeneration rarely has a chance to inflict its potential.

And my comparisons are based on ingame testing obviously (practical) and math.

Dude I wasn't attacking your post, actually I am intrigued by your narrowed gap in the difference between spell damage and max magic. I have been running some tests of my own prior to your post so I am actually really glad this forum has theory crafter and play testers. The reason I asked about how you are coming up with these figures is because I wanted to compare my own method. In my test max resource never closes, the gap in fact the stays pretty consistent throughout and with good cost reduction widens the margin slightly as you near the end of your resource bar. Again wasn't trying to undermine your findings just wondering how you came to them.

I compared tooltip numbers and damage dealt to enemies. What over options are there to do such tests ?

Flaminir · October 2015

A lot of people (Myself included) have found that actually the various 'mage' stones are now not the highest DPS... with the buffs to the Thief for example (18% crit when used with all divines yellow gear), its that which has improved my DPS the most.

Dracane · October 2015

Flaminir wrote: »

A lot of people (Myself included) have found that actually the various 'mage' stones are now not the highest DPS... with the buffs to the Thief for example (18% crit when used with all divines yellow gear), its that which has improved my DPS the most.

Exactly. The Thief is even more superior than the mage stones.
But I only wanted to compare the 3 relevant mage stones when it comes to sustain and damage. I did not take other stones into account.

But yes, the thief is much stronger.

Waffennacht · October 2015

Not too concerned with the dps aspect but definitely interested in the max magicka/cost reductions.

So I can read that in high levels the mage is the superior choice. If I am lacking in CP and would like to maximize the pool what is the best choice?

I've wondered if using Divines trait with the mage actually produces a higher magicka pool than using Infused and a high leveled enchantment? What about different mundus with enchantment?

Also how much does the mage stone increase your magicka?

Dracane · October 2015

Waffennacht wrote: »

Not too concerned with the dps aspect but definitely interested in the max magicka/cost reductions.

So I can read that in high levels the mage is the superior choice. If I am lacking in CP and would like to maximize the pool what is the best choice?

I've wondered if using Divines trait with the mage actually produces a higher magicka pool than using Infused and a high leveled enchantment? What about different mundus with enchantment?

Also how much does the mage stone increase your magicka?

With pool you mean your Magicka pool ? Then the mage is better.
For raw damage however, the apprentice is better.

If you use infused on the 3 main armor pieces (head, chest, legs) it will give you more Magicka than having divine on it.
But having divine on the 4 minor pieces, will grant more Magicka then having infused on them.

And as I wrote above, it increases your Magicka by 1280

hardcore_gmr · October 2015

Waffennacht wrote: »

Not too concerned with the dps aspect but definitely interested in the max magicka/cost reductions.

So I can read that in high levels the mage is the superior choice. If I am lacking in CP and would like to maximize the pool what is the best choice?

I've wondered if using Divines trait with the mage actually produces a higher magicka pool than using Infused and a high leveled enchantment? What about different mundus with enchantment?

Also how much does the mage stone increase your magicka?

At VR16 you get 1280 max magic from mage stone, and 1922 with 7 pieces of divines. For endgame dps builds players should prioritize stones in this order...

1. Crit damage/crit chance
2. Spell/weapon damage
3. Max resource

The opposite is true for sustain focused builds. You want ....

1.max stat/cost reduction
2. Resource Regeneration
3. Damage

Of course all this depends on what gear you are running. Which is what I was trying to get at in my earlier post; that if you are stacking gear in connection with your stone you are going to get better returns out of your stone than if you pick a stone to fill an area were your gear is weak. Therefore max stat stone scales better with max stat gear, vs using damage gear and max stat stone.

Waffennacht · October 2015

Excellent answer, exactly what I was looking for

hardcore_gmr wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Not too concerned with the dps aspect but definitely interested in the max magicka/cost reductions.

So I can read that in high levels the mage is the superior choice. If I am lacking in CP and would like to maximize the pool what is the best choice?

I've wondered if using Divines trait with the mage actually produces a higher magicka pool than using Infused and a high leveled enchantment? What about different mundus with enchantment?

Also how much does the mage stone increase your magicka?

At VR16 you get 1280 max magic from mage stone, and 1922 with 7 pieces of divines. For endgame dps builds players should prioritize stones in this order...

1. Crit damage/crit chance
2. Spell/weapon damage
3. Max resource

The opposite is true for sustain focused builds. You want ....

1.max stat/cost reduction
2. Resource Regeneration
3. Damage

Of course all this depends on what gear you are running. Which is what I was trying to get at in my earlier post; that if you are stacking gear in connection with your stone you are going to get better returns out of your stone than if you pick a stone to fill an area were your gear is weak. Therefore max stat stone scales better with max stat gear, vs using damage gear and max stat stone.

Thank you so much for the info!

Dracane wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Not too concerned with the dps aspect but definitely interested in the max magicka/cost reductions.

So I can read that in high levels the mage is the superior choice. If I am lacking in CP and would like to maximize the pool what is the best choice?

I've wondered if using Divines trait with the mage actually produces a higher magicka pool than using Infused and a high leveled enchantment? What about different mundus with enchantment?

Also how much does the mage stone increase your magicka?

With pool you mean your Magicka pool ? Then the mage is better.
For raw damage however, the apprentice is better.

If you use infused on the 3 main armor pieces (head, chest, legs) it will give you more Magicka than having divine on it.
But having divine on the 4 minor pieces, will grant more Magicka then having infused on them.

And as I wrote above, it increases your Magicka by 1280