I would lose destructive clench for weakness and impulse for entropy or Sap essence. I prefer sap essence since it is a decent aoe, heals, and provides Major Sorcery. I would keep Siphoning attacks.

Yeah the range for Sap Essence is crap. But drop twisting path, Blockade and maybe 2-3 Sap essence and everything melts. I run pots with Major Sorcery for times I want to start the fight with Major Sorcery.

Merciless resolve is too good. You're running Destro so you need all the dmg boosts you can get. Plus weaving with Destro procs the bow all the time. I run DW and am kinda jealous because I hardly proc it lol. Definitely a tough one. I say just try them all out and see which feels better.

xblackroxe wrote: »

Use Sap instead of Impulse. There is nothing that Impulse can that Sap doesnt better. Sap has a bigger radius (8m instead of 6) heals and gives major sorcery. Its the best magicka aoe in the game (not counting sorcs with lightning staff heavy attacks)

Also switch out clench for Cripple as this is one of the strongest dots in the game and Clench hits for crap.

Slot for elemental weakness open now.

even with the reduction in hp? i mean i know what sap does, my main was an nb healer. You think the heal is more of a bonus than the reduction to the mobs hp? I become a bigger target when I use it and im squishy, so it makes things difficult, or interesting for sure lol.

Sorry not arguing with people just listening to what people have to say and posing the questions in my head before I make a full on decision.

Why Force Pulse instead of Strife?

Strife costs less. Heals you. And does more damage. It's the magblade's bread-and-butter.

Force Pulse is inferior unless:

• You are an Altmer or Dunmer and get bonus damage. You're an Argonian.
• You are using Scathing Mage and/or Nerien'eth, both of which gain from Force hitting 3 times per attack and thus make these sets more likely to proc. You're not using these sets.
• You're running in a group where there's a healer taking care of your healing needs and someone to apply Elemental Drain for you to account for Force's higher cost. Never use Force Pulse in Maelstrom or other situations where you're soloing. But in many group instances, the extra healing from Funnel Health helps relieve some of the stress from your healer.

Frankly, I've never been a fan of the Force Pulse bandwagon for magblades. There are times when it is better, but it's really highly situational. By default, you should be using Strife, switching to Force Pulse if the circumstances are appropriate.

And as others have pointed out, you should use Sap instead of Impulse. Really, the only destruction staff ability that a magblade needs is Blockade.

forse pulse with siphon is a three time proc, unless it doesn't work like that, so i understand the heal with funnel, but i try to think most of the time, this is a solo game. I understand eso is an mmo, but most don't play it as such. I had a stupid argument about cc with a mage and explaining, "hey if you cc, ill throw in my dps and heals and we'll clear things quicker." The response was "my damage doesn't need cc so i dont have anything for cc on my bar." I tried to explain "cc as a whole will help keep things tied down, which means better cc ( things stay in aoe) and better healing ( people arnt running dodging all over)." I mean i get the healing aspect but in a 12 man trial I would think the extra dps and the bonus to my siphons procing would be better due to sustain, i could be wrong. So unlike WoW, which i raided in for 7 years, this game isn't group oriented and people, to be honest, are quite *** stupid when it comes to group mechanics and thinking for the team.

I play Argonian religiously. All my characters are Argonian and my main is a Magblade so listen very carefully.

1) Clever Alchemist is useless for you. It sounds nice on paper, mixing with NB and Argonian passives but the truth is that between the low up time of Clever Alchemist, mixed with the broken Alchemy enchantment, you will lose substantial DPS. Clever Alchemist is only useful for Bomblades in PvP with Vicious Death but since you are running Dual Destro staff, it would be ineffective on you regardless.

2) Unless you wear Nereineth and/or Scathing Mage, Force Pulse is terrible. The high cost really puts a strain on your magic pool, even with SA helping out. Strife is much more useful as it does comparable damage, heals you (which synergies very well with Argonians) and the cost is much more manageable. Force Pulse is only really good on Altmer and Dunmer as they get passive increases to the damage Force Pulse does making it pull ahead of Strife for them in terms of damage.

3) Weakness to Elements is so so on a NB as they can just use Mark Target for the same debuff. The difference being that Mark grants you more crit and heals you when the target dies. If you replace Force Pulse for Strife, you shouldn't have any sustain issues either so it's really not worth it. In group content, it's highly likely that the healer will be running Weakness anyways, so it's of little use for you there as well.

4) Replace Pulsar with Sap essence. Pulsar and Sap have similar range but Sap offers a much more substantial amount of benefits over Pulsar. The 10% reduction to enemy health doesn't help all that much as most enemy mobs don't have enough health to really justify the reduction anyways. Sap heals you as well as allies, grants major sorcery, and is cheaper to use over Pulsar, while also helping to trigger your Siphon tree passives. It also means you don't need to keep Entropy on either as you'll have a source for Major Sorcery.

5) Under no circumstance should you ever need to remove Merciless Resolve from your hotbar. That is your hardest hitting, non-ultimate attack and I can see absolutely no reason to remove it. The fact it gives you more damage AND crit are just frosting to top it off.

I'm sort of torn between Destructive Clutch and Twisting/Refreshing Path. The DoT component on both is nice and both have decent utility for solo play but I really can't justify one over the other. Clutch has better range and CC but Twisting/Refreshing offer Major Resolve+Ward as well as increasing your health just for slotting it, not to mention it's an AoE attack and Refreshing heals you, while Twisting can proc sets such as Scathing Mage (why only Twisting can proc it and Refreshing cannot is a mystery to me ). It's a tough call there but I personally prefer Refreshing Path. it plays more to an Argonian's strengths by giving you even more health as well as healing you and while the CC from Clutch is great, Cripple is a decent enough CC move for most things you'll encounter, with only ranged enemies giving you any sort of hassle for using Path instead of Clutch.

Attackopsn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Um, Force Pulse is less DPS unless you meet certain criteria. You're not an Altmer or a Dunmer and you are not using proc sets like Scathing or Neri, so you are losing DPS with FP.

As for sustain, SA has two procs. A guaranteed proc on the staff attack of your weave and a RNG proc on your ability cast. The guaranteed weave proc is the bulk of SA's value. The RNG proc is a bonus. The cost of FP is high enough that the higher chance at the RNG proc doesn't make up for its higher cost.

Reference the penetrating magic passive in the Destruction Staff skill line. Force Pulse should be used in any situation that does not demand the additional HoT provided by Strife.

Good point. Penetrating Magic grants around 1800 penetration against enemies in trials and dungeons. That's about 3% worth of mitigation. For non-Dunmer/Altmer, Force Pulse has a 3.5% tooltip deficit compared to Funnel. So the extra penetration just puts it back at par with Strife. The 2x cost and loss of healing are still substantial downsides, though.

This is all really good info. I'm not an argonian but recently have been playing my magblade.

I run dual destro, 5 piece julianos, 3 piece willpower, and 2 piece valkyn. I have a Nerien'eth setup as well. Need to get maelstrom staves but can't work up the courage to try vet.

I've been working on my rotations. Plan on switching julianos to TBS. It's been a blast and enjoy reading up on the builds others use.

Xvorg wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Um, Force Pulse is less DPS unless you meet certain criteria. You're not an Altmer or a Dunmer and you are not using proc sets like Scathing or Neri, so you are losing DPS with FP.

As for sustain, SA has two procs. A guaranteed proc on the staff attack of your weave and a RNG proc on your ability cast. The guaranteed weave proc is the bulk of SA's value. The RNG proc is a bonus. The cost of FP is high enough that the higher chance at the RNG proc doesn't make up for its higher cost.

Reference the penetrating magic passive in the Destruction Staff skill line. Force Pulse should be used in any situation that does not demand the additional HoT provided by Strife.

Good point. Penetrating Magic grants around 1800 penetration against enemies in trials and dungeons. That's about 3% worth of mitigation. For non-Dunmer/Altmer, Force Pulse has a 3.5% tooltip deficit compared to Funnel. So the extra penetration just puts it back at par with Strife. The 2x cost and loss of healing are still substantial downsides, though.

And the ulti generated for spamming it is something to consider too.

The ultimate generation lost by not utilizing Strife is only about 1 ultimate every 4 seconds, since you are using Crippling Grasp every 8 seconds and the Transfer passive has a cool down of 4 seconds. Also in response to a previous post made by @Silver_Strider, the circumstances that would warrant the use of Force Pulse actually create a situation where the operational cost is lower than Strife due to Elemental Drain. This can be taken even further in fights with high Force Siphon uptime.

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Um, Force Pulse is less DPS unless you meet certain criteria. You're not an Altmer or a Dunmer and you are not using proc sets like Scathing or Neri, so you are losing DPS with FP.

As for sustain, SA has two procs. A guaranteed proc on the staff attack of your weave and a RNG proc on your ability cast. The guaranteed weave proc is the bulk of SA's value. The RNG proc is a bonus. The cost of FP is high enough that the higher chance at the RNG proc doesn't make up for its higher cost.

Reference the penetrating magic passive in the Destruction Staff skill line. Force Pulse should be used in any situation that does not demand the additional HoT provided by Strife.

Good point. Penetrating Magic grants around 1800 penetration against enemies in trials and dungeons. That's about 3% worth of mitigation. For non-Dunmer/Altmer, Force Pulse has a 3.5% tooltip deficit compared to Funnel. So the extra penetration just puts it back at par with Strife. The 2x cost and loss of healing are still substantial downsides, though.

And the ulti generated for spamming it is something to consider too.

The ultimate generation lost by not utilizing Strife is only about 1 ultimate every 4 seconds, since you are using Crippling Grasp every 8 seconds and the Transfer passive has a cool down of 4 seconds. Also in response to a previous post made by @Silver_Strider, the circumstances that would warrant the use of Force Pulse actually create a situation where the operational cost is lower than Strife due to Elemental Drain. This can be taken even further in fights with high Force Siphon uptime.

@Attackopsn
Is this considering that Elemental Drain would grant a weaker return of resources due to Drain scaling on max magic alone and Argonians being the weakest magic race in terms of max magic? Other than using Nereineth or Scathing Mage, what circumstances would an Argonian NB need to run Force Pulse at all over Strife?

Still better sustain as long as the support roles are maintaining these debuffs, and the use of Force Pulse is mainly for max dps in trial content

code65536 wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Um, Force Pulse is less DPS unless you meet certain criteria. You're not an Altmer or a Dunmer and you are not using proc sets like Scathing or Neri, so you are losing DPS with FP.

As for sustain, SA has two procs. A guaranteed proc on the staff attack of your weave and a RNG proc on your ability cast. The guaranteed weave proc is the bulk of SA's value. The RNG proc is a bonus. The cost of FP is high enough that the higher chance at the RNG proc doesn't make up for its higher cost.

Reference the penetrating magic passive in the Destruction Staff skill line. Force Pulse should be used in any situation that does not demand the additional HoT provided by Strife.

Good point. Penetrating Magic grants around 1800 penetration against enemies in trials and dungeons. That's about 3% worth of mitigation. For non-Dunmer/Altmer, Force Pulse has a 3.5% tooltip deficit compared to Funnel. So the extra penetration just puts it back at par with Strife. The 2x cost and loss of healing are still substantial downsides, though.

Remember that engulfing flames also increases the flame component by 10%. Personally, I'd keep funnel health for all content except for competitive group trials that your group does not require the extra hot for. Also the extra scathing proc chance aids uptime in addition to situations where neri is being used. Also keep in mind that Force Pulse has the ability to damage additional targets providing a minor aoe bonus to your main spammable, something that is very valuable in current end game fights.

Yes, and I had noted the advantages for users of proc sets, which the OP isn't using.

I never said FP doesn't have advantages. It does, and there are definitely situations where it is ideal. Strife is still the default for a magblade. When all the stars align in favor of FP: i.e., in a well-coordinated trial (I would never run FP for 4-man content since any extra healing you do in 4-man content means more time the healer can spend doing DPS instead of healing or worrying about keeping up your Ele, and you're more likely to get that Engulfing debuff in a trial than in 4-man) and if you're using proc sets, then, yes, you should use FP. But otherwise, Strife all the way.

Now, if you are the type of person who spends 90% of their time in a vet trial with a well-coordinated group, you'll probably be using FP most of the time and thus call Strife the situational one, but that's a semantic quibble. The fact is that FP makes sense only under a specific combination of circumstances--ones that don't apply for the OP of this thread.



(People misusing FP is a bit of a peeve of mine, as I see it often in-game, including one bad vDSA run that I healed where a magblade DPS didn't want to run Strife because he was running Scathing and "needed" FP to maximize their DPS. Well, maximizing personal DPS doesn't necessarily maximize group DPS. Healers do DPS in 4-man content, and the DPS loss from the healer having to spend more time healing (and from the extra deaths that probably could've been avoided if there was more self-sufficiency) wasn't nearly worth what marginal extra DPS he could do with FP. Yes, FP can be ideal under the right circumstances. But I've come across people who just read the title of Nos/Fire's FP-is-better thread without understanding all the caveats that they laid out. For vast swaths of the game--and this includes any content that isn't a 12-man trial--Strife is better. Yes, for someone who primarily does 12-man trials, FP might seem like the default, but for much of the game's content, Strife is the default, not vice-versa.)

Yup, just noting the differences

Attackopsn wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Um, Force Pulse is less DPS unless you meet certain criteria. You're not an Altmer or a Dunmer and you are not using proc sets like Scathing or Neri, so you are losing DPS with FP.

As for sustain, SA has two procs. A guaranteed proc on the staff attack of your weave and a RNG proc on your ability cast. The guaranteed weave proc is the bulk of SA's value. The RNG proc is a bonus. The cost of FP is high enough that the higher chance at the RNG proc doesn't make up for its higher cost.

Reference the penetrating magic passive in the Destruction Staff skill line. Force Pulse should be used in any situation that does not demand the additional HoT provided by Strife.

Good point. Penetrating Magic grants around 1800 penetration against enemies in trials and dungeons. That's about 3% worth of mitigation. For non-Dunmer/Altmer, Force Pulse has a 3.5% tooltip deficit compared to Funnel. So the extra penetration just puts it back at par with Strife. The 2x cost and loss of healing are still substantial downsides, though.

And the ulti generated for spamming it is something to consider too.

The ultimate generation lost by not utilizing Strife is only about 1 ultimate every 4 seconds, since you are using Crippling Grasp every 8 seconds and the Transfer passive has a cool down of 4 seconds. Also in response to a previous post made by @Silver_Strider, the circumstances that would warrant the use of Force Pulse actually create a situation where the operational cost is lower than Strife due to Elemental Drain. This can be taken even further in fights with high Force Siphon uptime.

But crippling is several times more expensive that strife and the Dmg each 8 secs is quite lower. In the same 8 secs you can use at least 4 strifes and do more dmg

Xvorg wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Um, Force Pulse is less DPS unless you meet certain criteria. You're not an Altmer or a Dunmer and you are not using proc sets like Scathing or Neri, so you are losing DPS with FP.

As for sustain, SA has two procs. A guaranteed proc on the staff attack of your weave and a RNG proc on your ability cast. The guaranteed weave proc is the bulk of SA's value. The RNG proc is a bonus. The cost of FP is high enough that the higher chance at the RNG proc doesn't make up for its higher cost.

Reference the penetrating magic passive in the Destruction Staff skill line. Force Pulse should be used in any situation that does not demand the additional HoT provided by Strife.

Good point. Penetrating Magic grants around 1800 penetration against enemies in trials and dungeons. That's about 3% worth of mitigation. For non-Dunmer/Altmer, Force Pulse has a 3.5% tooltip deficit compared to Funnel. So the extra penetration just puts it back at par with Strife. The 2x cost and loss of healing are still substantial downsides, though.

And the ulti generated for spamming it is something to consider too.

The ultimate generation lost by not utilizing Strife is only about 1 ultimate every 4 seconds, since you are using Crippling Grasp every 8 seconds and the Transfer passive has a cool down of 4 seconds. Also in response to a previous post made by @Silver_Strider, the circumstances that would warrant the use of Force Pulse actually create a situation where the operational cost is lower than Strife due to Elemental Drain. This can be taken even further in fights with high Force Siphon uptime.

But crippling is several times more expensive that strife and the Dmg each 8 secs is quite lower. In the same 8 secs you can use at least 4 strifes and do more dmg

Cripple's a DoT that you refresh once every 8s--you shouldn't be spamming it. Since one cast of Cripple does more total damage than one cast of Strife, it is ideal that, every 8 ability cooldowns, you expend one of those ability cooldowns on refreshing Cripple instead of casting another Strife.

This means that you'll be casting a Siphoning ability once every 8s to proc Transfer. Since Transfer has a 4s cooldown, you're only losing half of Transfer's ulti gen.