Is Lightning Staff Broken?

kylewwefan · December 2016

Every time I try to weave Medium or even light attack, the lightning staff goes into like a channel heavy. I can block cancel it, but not really sure if any hit is registered at all when I do that. It may just be a problem with MagBlade IDK? Sap Essence always seems to bug things out too. Maybe I need to get a good inferno staff and leave the lightning behind.

Kutsuu · December 2016

Lightning staff will always channel when you hold attack down - the heavy attack is a channel like resto. When you're using a lightning staff you should always light weave unless you want to do a full heavy. It's only the fire/cold staffs that have an effective medium weave.

DPShiro · December 2016

As said above, only light weave with lightning.

kylewwefan · December 2016

Ok. Thank you. Does block cancel allow the attack to go through?

Kutsuu · December 2016

Channels can't be animation cancelled.

Masel · December 2016

Screw weaving, go get yourself sergeants mail,infallible aether and a vma lightning staff and you will learn to love lightning staffs when you can duct-tape your left mouse button and melt everything

Xvorg · December 2016

Masel92 wrote: »

Screw weaving, go get yourself sergeants mail,infallible aether and a vma lightning staff and you will learn to love lightning staffs when you can duct-tape your left mouse button and melt everything

Why not Elegance (Queen´s elegance) which gives a 20% extra dmg on light and heavy attacks and have direct bonus to spell dmg and magicka?

Masel · December 2016

Xvorg wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

Screw weaving, go get yourself sergeants mail,infallible aether and a vma lightning staff and you will learn to love lightning staffs when you can duct-tape your left mouse button and melt everything

Why not Elegance (Queen´s elegance) which gives a 20% extra dmg on light and heavy attacks and have direct bonus to spell dmg and magicka?

Sergeants 5 piece bonus is overwhelmingly strong, especially on mag dks.

Sorcs with overload -> elegance
everyone else -> Sergeants mail

Actually, not completely true, if you want stronger Shields and heals (i.e. for vma or world bosses) -> elegance.

I get 30 k single target dps with sergeants mail just by putting stalwart guard on someone, putting down blockade with heavy attacks and keeping molten armaments up, and you can multiply that with the number of adds. Second left boss vet hel ra ->100k+ dps because of welwas.

Got a full flawless vma run with this build here, used elegance for vma for the reasons i mentioned, works pretty good:

https://youtu.be/FjQPiA5XENk

Reorx_Holybeard · December 2016

Masel92 wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

Screw weaving, go get yourself sergeants mail,infallible aether and a vma lightning staff and you will learn to love lightning staffs when you can duct-tape your left mouse button and melt everything

Why not Elegance (Queen´s elegance) which gives a 20% extra dmg on light and heavy attacks and have direct bonus to spell dmg and magicka?

Sergeants 5 piece bonus is overwhelmingly strong, especially on mag dks.

Sorcs with overload -> elegance
everyone else -> Sergeants mail

Actually, not completely true, if you want stronger Shields and heals (i.e. for vma or world bosses) -> elegance.

I get 30 k single target dps with sergeants mail just by putting stalwart guard on someone, putting down blockade with heavy attacks and keeping molten armaments up, and you can multiply that with the number of adds. Second left boss vet hel ra ->100k+ dps because of welwas.

Got a full flawless vma run with this build here, used elegance for vma for the reasons i mentioned, works pretty good:

https://youtu.be/FjQPiA5XENk

What sort of build are you using with Sergeants? I assume this is with an Inferno Staff?

I did some theorycrafting recently for a Heavy Attack build and found that Elegant gets more HA damage. Sergeants is great for a tanky HA build but for a max HA build you can't get away from Elegant for a few reasons:

The 2/3/4 piece bonus of Sergeant is useless for HA damage whereas for Elegant has Spell Damage/Magicka/Magicka which all increases HA damage.
Sergeant is a Heavy Armor set only available in Healthy Jewelry whereas Elegant is Light Armor and available in Arcane.

From my theorycrafting builds I was getting a regular HA with Blockade hitting for 26k with Elegant and only 24k with Sergeants. However, I'm interested to hear from someone actually using the build to see how it compares with theory. Heavy Attack damage is a complex calculation so I'd like to confirm there are no errors/omissions with it.

My builds in question can be viewed in more detail here (Elegant) and here (Sergeants).

kylewwefan · December 2016

Huh? I looked at sergeant mail like decon trash. Guess I need to go farm some of that.

Alanar · December 2016

I'm not sure what's happening with the calculator. When I tested Sergeant's vs Elegance using actual gear, I found that Sergeant's did about 20% more damage. You can see the full build I'm running here.
http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/alanarres-shockknight-pve-dk-dps-update-12-ready/

Reorx_Holybeard · December 2016

Alanar wrote: »

I'm not sure what's happening with the calculator. When I tested Sergeant's vs Elegance using actual gear, I found that Sergeant's did about 20% more damage. You can see the full build I'm running here.
http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/alanarres-shockknight-pve-dk-dps-update-12-ready/

Thanks! I'm going to have to try to get a set and test it, or see if I can still test it on PTS. Since it looks like you are using Lightning Staffs I've guessing that the Sergeants Heavy Attack damage is being applied to all 3 or 4 pulses of the staff.

Alanar · December 2016

Yes, the extra heavy attack damage from Infallible Aether, Sergeant's Mail, and Maelstrom staff all get added to each tick of the channel, making it quite powerful.

Masel · December 2016

Alanar wrote: »

Yes, the extra heavy attack damage from Infallible Aether, Sergeant's Mail, and Maelstrom staff all get added to each tick of the channel, making it quite powerful.

Yep, that's exactly why I use it. Just went into vma with it for fun on my sorc and it worked very well, very easy to play in there, as most things melt very fast. Then I remembered that mag dks have molten armaments, and the damage really gets out of hands there.

For everything else than a lightning or resto staff, elegance will do a better deal as the other buffs only get applied once.

This build is awesome for every single thing in the game. Solo, 4 man content, trials.... You can give a lot if support as you don't need more than three or four skills. We blasted through vdsa in a little more than an hour yesterday. You can guard the other dd, so it can even be a stam dd and he or she won't get one-shot by stuff anymore.

Hell, I even use it in pvp and duels, people are meltable too. Every tick hits for 5k there, I keep getting asked why I hit so hard.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · December 2016

I have noticed this A LOT lately. I front bar a lightning staff and use a light weave. I will also intentionally charge a full heavy if things are really grouped up. I would say that about 1 out of 10-15 weaves, my staff just does a full channel. I can even take my hand off my mouse and it continues. This is really frustrating to happen in trials. As you stated, it can be block canceled, but its a huge pain. Basically every time it happens, you see your DPS drop a few hundred points.

On a Sorc using an Infallible Aether Lighting Staff if that matters.

Were you using the Destro Ult by chance? This totally bugs my bars out if I go double fire staff, but seems to work okay if I use a lightning staff on my front bar. This did start happening about the same time I made the change and started running Elemental Rage in trials. I have a strong feeling that this might be the culprit.

Masel · December 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I have noticed this A LOT lately. I front bar a lightning staff and use a light weave. I will also intentionally charge a full heavy if things are really grouped up. I would say that about 1 out of 10-15 weaves, my staff just does a full channel. I can even take my hand off my mouse and it continues. This is really frustrating to happen in trials. As you stated, it can be block canceled, but its a huge pain. Basically every time it happens, you see your DPS drop a few hundred points.

On a Sorc using an Infallible Aether Lighting Staff if that matters.

Were you using the Destro Ult by chance? This totally bugs my bars out if I go double fire staff, but seems to work okay if I use a lightning staff on my front bar. This did start happening about the same time I made the change and started running Elemental Rage in trials. I have a strong feeling that this might be the culprit.

I use the destro ultimate because it enables me to burst down for example the last boss before the daedroth spawns. Meteor doesn't have the same kind of burst there, as you can only cast it when he's already there.

If you watch the video, you see that it totally bugs out my ground aoes when I use Elemental rage. Can't place eruption or can only place it with a very weird animation after I used the destro Ult... No idea what happens there

kylewwefan · December 2016

I don't use the destro ulti, though I probably should. I try to light attack and it just channels anyways. IDK? I can block to cancel, but I think that somewhat deletes the attack, which is a somewhat long channel anyways. I'm on MagBlade if that makes any difference. It also makes everything studder when using sap essence on mobs.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · December 2016

Masel92 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I have noticed this A LOT lately. I front bar a lightning staff and use a light weave. I will also intentionally charge a full heavy if things are really grouped up. I would say that about 1 out of 10-15 weaves, my staff just does a full channel. I can even take my hand off my mouse and it continues. This is really frustrating to happen in trials. As you stated, it can be block canceled, but its a huge pain. Basically every time it happens, you see your DPS drop a few hundred points.

On a Sorc using an Infallible Aether Lighting Staff if that matters.

Were you using the Destro Ult by chance? This totally bugs my bars out if I go double fire staff, but seems to work okay if I use a lightning staff on my front bar. This did start happening about the same time I made the change and started running Elemental Rage in trials. I have a strong feeling that this might be the culprit.

I use the destro ultimate because it enables me to burst down for example the last boss before the daedroth spawns. Meteor doesn't have the same kind of burst there, as you can only cast it when he's already there.

If you watch the video, you see that it totally bugs out my ground aoes when I use Elemental rage. Can't place eruption or can only place it with a very weird animation after I used the destro Ult... No idea what happens there

For whatever reason, if you are using 2 Flame staffs, the destro ult is a nightmare from a bug standpoint. For me, I lose the ability to weave until I die or relog, which is a deal breaker. I have submitted multiple tickets. I do not get that problem if I run a lightning staff on my front bar. I am experiencing what OP is talking about, but no idea if its related to the destro ultimate or not.

DRXHarbinger · December 2016

Swap bars. I always run an inferno back bar and lit front bar. Drop destro ult on inferno switch to lit staff and no issues with it dropping your aoes. My magdk runs elegant and Aether and vma staves. All you need to do is drop blockade, eruption and use embers for heals and just hold trigger. Stupidly easy to get flawless on a magdk this way.

Autolycus · December 2016

Funny how nobody even tried to answer the OP's question.

OP, this is a common bug. The same thing happens with resto staves too. It's an issue that ZOS needs to fix, and in the meantime we have to deal with it forcing us to do heavy attacks when we don't intend it. I speculate it has something to do with the beam-type attack on lightning and resto staves vs. projectile-type attacks on fire and frost. But that's pure speculation; all I know for sure is that it's annoying as hell and has been happening for a long time now.

SienneYviete · December 2016

Autolycus wrote: »

Funny how nobody even tried to answer the OP's question.

OP, this is a common bug. The same thing happens with resto staves too. It's an issue that ZOS needs to fix, and in the meantime we have to deal with it forcing us to do heavy attacks when we don't intend it. I speculate it has something to do with the beam-type attack on lightning and resto staves vs. projectile-type attacks on fire and frost. But that's pure speculation; all I know for sure is that it's annoying as hell and has been happening for a long time now.

Funny how at least three posts in the thread answered the op's question.