How do Weapon Damage and Spell Damage affect Ultimates?

Azurephoenix999 · April 2016

Really want Soul Strike (almost 23K damage over 3 seconds looks good) but I'm afraid it might use Spell Damage. My Weapon Damage is almost double my Spell Damage, so I wanted to know how much of a difference it makes.

Americanfunguy · April 2016

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that Soul Assault goes of max magicka or stamina, and your weapon power/spell power does not contribute.

Reorx_Holybeard · April 2016

Azurephoenix999 wrote: »

Really want Soul Strike (almost 23K damage over 3 seconds looks good) but I'm afraid it might use Spell Damage. My Weapon Damage is almost double my Spell Damage, so I wanted to know how much of a difference it makes.

Almost all ultimates (including Soul Strike) use two things to scale their damage:

Highest of Magicka / Stamina
Highest of Spell / Weapon Damage

The only exception I can think of are the Werewolf Ultimates which always use Stamina/Weapon Damage.

Acsvf · April 2016

Depends on which one would give you a higher tooltip damage. Also consider your maximum stamina and magicka, because those matter as well.

Edziu · April 2016

Azurephoenix999 wrote: »

Really want Soul Strike (almost 23K damage over 3 seconds looks good) but I'm afraid it might use Spell Damage. My Weapon Damage is almost double my Spell Damage, so I wanted to know how much of a difference it makes.

all ultimates (except take flyigh and morphs and warewolf) are scale to you max stats, so on ostamina build to your max stamina and weapon dmg when on magica build to max magica and spell dmg.

but all those ulties are magic damage and they scaling only with cp to magica builds, on stamina build with max cp you will never hit much hard with ulti than on magica build until ZOS balance this

MrTarkanian48 · April 2016

1) If your max magicka is higher than your max stamina it will scale with max magicka. The opposite is true if your max stamina is higher.

2) If your Spell damage is higher than your weapon damage it will scale with spell damage. The opposite is true if your weapon damage is higher.

In this way the base tooltip damage for Ultimates is equally powerful for stamina or magicka builds alike.

The problem comes in when Champion points are considered. As mentioned before, almost all Ultimates do "Magic" Damage, and these scale with Elemental Expert CP.

For example, if you are a stamina NB with 100 CP in Mighty, your Soul Assault might hit for 23K over 3 seconds, but it is not affected by mighty CP. A magicka NB running equal damage and max stats (only in magicka) but with 100 CP in Elemental Expert will hit 25% harder, or almost 29K over 3 seconds.

The only exception is "Take Flight" for dragonknights which does "Physical" damage.

This is currently a big disadvantage for stamina builds, and many hope it will get balanced in the next Dark Brotherhood patch.

PainfulFAFA · April 2016

I managed to get my SS to hit 60k on tooltip as a stamina sorc and CP in the right places. ( SS is a DoT)

Eirikir · April 2016

Edziu wrote: »

Azurephoenix999 wrote: »

Really want Soul Strike (almost 23K damage over 3 seconds looks good) but I'm afraid it might use Spell Damage. My Weapon Damage is almost double my Spell Damage, so I wanted to know how much of a difference it makes.

all ultimates (except take flyigh and morphs and warewolf) are scale to you max stats, so on ostamina build to your max stamina and weapon dmg when on magica build to max magica and spell dmg.

but all those ulties are magic damage and they scaling only with cp to magica builds, on stamina build with max cp you will never hit much hard with ulti than on magica build until ZOS balance this

I hope the weapon skill ultimates are good amd sooner then later.