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Why dual wield over sword and board for magicka?

Junkogen
Junkogen
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Why? It seems like sword and shield would offer more utility. What's the advantage of dual wield for a magicka user?
  • pronkg
    pronkg
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    Dual wield provides more power instead of utility. Basicly matter of preference
  • Junkogen
    Junkogen
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    pronkg wrote: »
    Dual wield provides more power instead of utility. Basicly matter of preference

    How does it provide more power? Aren't the passives all made for stamina?
  • Yaricx
    Yaricx
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    Dual wield swords passive increases all damage
  • Leingod
    Leingod
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    5% dmg increase for DW
    Edited by Leingod on November 22, 2015 11:29AM
  • lolo_01b16_ESO
    lolo_01b16_ESO
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    The last dw passive increases all your damage by 2.5% for each sword equipped.
  • Junkogen
    Junkogen
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    Thanks guys!
  • TheHereticMonk
    Weirdly spell damage scales off max magicka and weapon damage.
    As dual wield with the passives provides the most weapon damage it therefore provides the most spell damage.
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  • Junkogen
    Junkogen
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    Weirdly spell damage scales off max magicka and weapon damage.
    As dual wield with the passives provides the most weapon damage it therefore provides the most spell damage.

    That's not true, is it? Spell damage is its own thing like weapon damage.
  • ostrapz
    ostrapz
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    Spell damage does in fact go up with dw
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  • pronkg
    pronkg
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    Junkogen wrote: »
    Weirdly spell damage scales off max magicka and weapon damage.
    As dual wield with the passives provides the most weapon damage it therefore provides the most spell damage.

    That's not true, is it? Spell damage is its own thing like weapon damage.

    Spell damage does not scale off max magicka. Magicka skills however do.

    all weapons provide spell damage however only destruction and restoration skills scale of spelldamage and max magicka.

    Dual wield provides The highest spell damage if you include that dual sword passive which does affect all damage you do
  • TheHereticMonk
    @pronkg the more attribute points you have in magicka the greater the damage any magicka based skills do.
    I'm 99.9% sure this is correct. If not, I'd be grateful if you could please provide evidence, as all the builds I've looked at indicate it does.
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  • pronkg
    pronkg
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    @pronkg the more attribute points you have in magicka the greater the damage any magicka based skills do.
    I'm 99.9% sure this is correct. If not, I'd be grateful if you could please provide evidence, as all the builds I've looked at indicate it does.
    pronkg wrote: »
    Junkogen wrote: »
    Weirdly spell damage scales off max magicka and weapon damage.
    As dual wield with the passives provides the most weapon damage it therefore provides the most spell damage.

    That's not true, is it? Spell damage is its own thing like weapon damage.

    Spell damage does not scale off max magicka. Magicka skills however do.


    Try and read next time. Spell damage is different from Magic damage. Spell damage does not scale of max magicka, magic damage does
  • TheHereticMonk
    @pronkg no need to be snide. It doesn't benefit anyone.

    I'm gonna lay out what I understand so you can point out where I'm going wrong. Most of this is incredibly obvious but bear with me as it's the surest way to figure out where I'm making a mistake.

    Magic damage effects skills that cause specifically magic damage i.e. not fire, lightning, poison etc
    Spell damage effects all skills that cost magicka to use irrespective of what type of damage they do.
    Max magicka effects the damage of all skills that cost magicka to use irrespective of damage type.
    When you put a point into your magicka attribute your spell damage will also go up.
    As your weapon damage increases so does your spell damage.

    So, where am I going wrong?

    What really boggles me is the relationship between spell damage and spell power. I've not really got my head around spell power.

    @Junkogen sorry for hijacking your post!
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  • zornyan
    zornyan
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    All ultimates and skills that state they do so scale off both magicka ans spell damage.
    .

    There are a few exceptions, like hardened ward oy scales off magicka.

    10.1 magicka I'd equal to 1 spell power.

    Some skills scale differently, for instance puncturing sweeps scales more off magicka than spell power, yet biting jabs scales more with weapon damage
  • pronkg
    pronkg
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    @pronkg no need to be snide. It doesn't benefit anyone.

    I'm gonna lay out what I understand so you can point out where I'm going wrong. Most of this is incredibly obvious but bear with me as it's the surest way to figure out where I'm making a mistake.

    Magic damage effects skills that cause specifically magic damage i.e. not fire, lightning, poison etc
    Spell damage effects all skills that cost magicka to use irrespective of what type of damage they do.
    Max magicka effects the damage of all skills that cost magicka to use irrespective of damage type.
    When you put a point into your magicka attribute your spell damage will also go up.
    As your weapon damage increases so does your spell damage.

    So, where am I going wrong?

    What really boggles me is the relationship between spell damage and spell power. I've not really got my head around spell power.

    @Junkogen sorry for hijacking your post!

    Didnt mean to be rude, my apologies.

    Just see it as spell power and magicka stats affect how much damage you do with certain skills.

    Either magic damage or elemental magic damage is affected by both stats.

    More spell power means more damage and more magicka means more damage.

    More magicka doesn't affect your spell power just the damage you do with skills.

    I think the term spell damage confused you as it is non existent as stat in game. Unless you use it as term for all magicka/spell power related skills that cause damage.

    As you can see in the champion tree for example thaumaturge provides magic damage and elemental expert elemental damage. These alter the stats of certain spells but have no affect on your spell power or magicka.



  • TheHereticMonk
    @pronkg that was big of you, really appreciate the apology even though I was being dumb and probably deserved it.
    This is why I like the eso forums, people are generally cool and friendly.
    Anyhow, water under the bridge and all that.

    Not sure what you mean about spell damage not being a stat. If I go to my character screen I have spell damage listed next to weapon damage. What I don't have listed is spell power but I see it discussed a fair bit.

    I get what you're saying about the champion points tree example. That makes sense.
    Equally what @zornyan said about some skills only scaling off max magicka makes sense. In the case of Hardened Ward it does no damage so spell damage wouldn't be a factor with it. Simple.

    So if I get what you're saying, both max magicka and spell damage (or spell power even? This needs clarifying) effect the damage done by any offensive magicka costing skill. More max magicka = more damage and more spell damage/power = more damage.

    @zornyan stated that for every 10.1 magicka you have you get +1 spell power (where is this spell power stat? This is getting ridiculous I can only find a spell damage stat on my character screen)
    @pronkg states that magicka has no effect on spell power.

    One of you has to be wrong or else I'm missing something fundamental here.

    Either way both max magicka and spell damage and/or power increase damage with magicka costing offensive skills.
    How to increase magicka is straightforward.
    How to increase spell damage and or power (whatever :s ) is not. I know jewlery enchants do it and also weapon damage does. But if increasing your max magicka doesn't then how else do you?

    I'm really sorry if I'm being stupid here, I just want to get my head wrapped around this and then we can all get back to playing ESO!
    There's a lot of conflicting (and unclear) information on this subject out there.
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  • pronkg
    pronkg
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    I mixed them up lol. It's spell damage yes I just checked it. So forget spell power.

    So again.

    Spell damage and max magicka both affect the damage you do with Skills that provide magic damage or elemental, frost shock and flame.

    Tooltips of skills generally notify which type it is.

    You can up your magicka with attribute points, glyph armor enchants, mundus stones and certain set bonuses.

    Spell damage is provided from weapons, set bonuses, mundus stones and jewelry glyph enchants.

    However these 2 stats don't boost eachother is what I meant before.


    Spell damage generally provides more damage but some skills like hardened ward shields only scale from max magicka.

    So in general to do more damage see to it you get as much spell damage and max magicka as possible.


    As for OP's question. The dual wield passive "twin blade and blunt" provides a 5% bonus to all damage done be it a skill based on weapon damage/stamina or spell damage/magicka or even light/heavy attacks. That's why magicka classes choose dual wield swords above shield if they want to do as much DPS as possible.
  • TheHereticMonk
    @pronkg Thank you!

    That is much clearer now. So now I can just forget about worrying about spell power and further confusing myself.

    I can confirm 100% that you are right and increasing magicka has no effect on spell damage (feel free to roll eyes and say I told you so). Before your most recent post, in an attempt to figure it out myself, I did a full respec and put one point into magicka, used a spell, checked damage rinse and repeat. Yes, it was a huge waste of gold but strangely satisfying.

    I misunderstood @zornyan. What they were saying was that, for spells which scale off magicka and spell damage, one point increase in spell damage increases the damage output of a spell by the same amount as 10.1 points into magicka.
    So this goes to show, gaining a point in spell damage is ten times more effective than gaining a point in magicka with regards to increasing the damage delivered by a spell.

    So glad this is sorted now!

    Again, a huge thank you for holding my hand and getting me there ;)

    Never Knows Best!
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  • TheHereticMonk
    Funnily enough this answers the other thing I was wondering; which is better Mage or Apprentice stone?
    Clearly Apprentice unless you really, really like Wards.
    Never Knows Best!
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  • pronkg
    pronkg
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    Funnily enough this answers the other thing I was wondering; which is better Mage or Apprentice stone?
    Clearly Apprentice unless you really, really like Wards.

    You're welcome.

    Apprentice provides a little bit more dmg I think yes. It all depends on your build and preference, I keep tweaking and gaining higher overal stats, I love that about this game. Just hit a 33.400 crystal frag crit today :p and I'm positive I can gain more
  • zornyan
    zornyan
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    Funnily enough this answers the other thing I was wondering; which is better Mage or Apprentice stone?
    Clearly Apprentice unless you really, really like Wards.

    Not necessarily ,

    For instance say you only have a 20% buff to spell power, but say, by using a set of skills you get 30% buff to magicka.

    Using a raw bonus can then equal more, for instance swapping from mage to apprentice changes my tooltip on puncturing sweeps by 8 points of damage. Yet I find 2k more magicka far more resourceful than 200 odd spell damage, as although my damage is basically identical, my resource is now far higher too.
  • pronkg
    pronkg
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    zornyan wrote: »
    Funnily enough this answers the other thing I was wondering; which is better Mage or Apprentice stone?
    Clearly Apprentice unless you really, really like Wards.

    Not necessarily ,

    For instance say you only have a 20% buff to spell power, but say, by using a set of skills you get 30% buff to magicka.

    Using a raw bonus can then equal more, for instance swapping from mage to apprentice changes my tooltip on puncturing sweeps by 8 points of damage. Yet I find 2k more magicka far more resourceful than 200 odd spell damage, as although my damage is basically identical, my resource is now far higher too.


    True,

    I haven't calculated it exactly on my sorc so I don't know why, but I seem to hit way harder with apprentice.
    And resources are no issue for me usually
    Edited by pronkg on November 23, 2015 12:34AM
  • TheHereticMonk
    *sigh* just when I thought I had it all down to a tee.
    I do agree though that the level of depth and detail in ESO allows for endless experimentation and permutations. It's not black and white and that's a good thing.
    Problem is I'm playing on Xbox so our tooltips are pathetic and we have no assistive mods to provide detail.
    Sometimes it feels like trying to do quantum physics in another language with no dictionary.
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  • TheHereticMonk
    In hindsight that was a poor analogy as quantum physics is maths based, the great universal language.
    But you get my drift.
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  • Forestd16b14_ESO
    Forestd16b14_ESO
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    ZOS logic: What makes better for magic users? 2 metal swords.
  • Waffennacht
    Waffennacht
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    They really do need for information for the sheet (plus fix the bugs)

    They need to clarify that spell damage is a completely independent stat, not the totality of other stats.

    They need to show how max magicka and spell damage effect the amount of damage from spells.

    Only here do we learn 10.1 magicka equals 1 spell damage.

    They need to show what spell damage actually translates into stats.

    So for each 1 spell damage how much damage more would a spell do?

    I would like the mundus stones to show the actual stats provided.

    So 10.1 magicka translates to 1 spell damage, however this is not reflected in the character sheet right? As example if I increase my magicka by 1010 the character sheet would not show spell damage increase of 100?

    Imo it seems like increasing magicka means more spells and more damage, while spell damage is just slightly more damage?

    And there is no stat shown for magicka cost reduction?
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  • kendellking_chaosb14_ESO
    kendellking_chaosb14_ESO
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    Weirdly spell damage scales off max magicka and weapon damage.
    As dual wield with the passives provides the most weapon damage it therefore provides the most spell damage.

    Both Spell and Weapon damage takes most of it's power from the weapon you have and two swords give you more power.

    Spell power is your weapon's base damage, max magicka and spell power buffs.

    Weapon damage is your weapon's base damage, max stamina and weapon damage buffs.

    Melee does more damage cause you have to be close to light and heavy attack but Restoration and destruction staffs are better if you range weave attacks.
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  • pronkg
    pronkg
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    ZOS logic: What makes better for magic users? 2 metal swords.

    There is logic behind this.

    The logic is they want users to be able to use more weapons to vary their builds. The reason close range weapons provide the most spell damage is because you're at disadvantage cause you can't use light and heavy attacks from range causing you not to load any ult regeneration. So typically magicka builds use dual swords on their back bar for finishing skills or for example Overload on sorcs. Using it as main weapon is not viable as dps.

    As for having no stats on consoles. Zenimax stated they are working on combat text, so be patient. Increasing spell damage and magicka does show on the tooltip of all your skills that are affected. You can see it change. However your crit damage/ spell penetration etc these numbers you'll
    Never see without addons.

    As for any magicka user I would say getting between 3 and 4 k spell damage while having between 40 and 50k magicka is close to a maxed out build.
  • pronkg
    pronkg
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    Junkogen wrote: »
    Why? It seems like sword and shield would offer more utility. What's the advantage of dual wield for a magicka user?

    With my destruction staff I have roughly 3200 spell damage. With dual swords it's about 3850.

    Again you can choose for sword and board for utility. I've used that in pvp allot and has some perks.

  • zornyan
    zornyan
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    pronkg wrote: »
    ZOS logic: What makes better for magic users? 2 metal swords.

    There is logic behind this.

    The logic is they want users to be able to use more weapons to vary their builds. The reason close range weapons provide the most spell damage is because you're at disadvantage cause you can't use light and heavy attacks from range causing you not to load any ult regeneration. So typically magicka builds use dual swords on their back bar for finishing skills or for example Overload on sorcs. Using it as main weapon is not viable as dps.

    As for having no stats on consoles. Zenimax stated they are working on combat text, so be patient. Increasing spell damage and magicka does show on the tooltip of all your skills that are affected. You can see it change. However your crit damage/ spell penetration etc these numbers you'll
    Never see without addons.

    As for any magicka user I would say getting between 3 and 4 k spell damage while having between 40 and 50k magicka is close to a maxed out build.

    As above, I'm on console so I'm constantly asking good ol pc players to help me with stats I can't see, all I can suggest is i run around with 42k magicka, 1500ish regen and 3500 spell power buffed and my build works extremely well in pvp and pve
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