The Lightning DK is Dead, long live the Fire DK

Alanar · January 2017

I did some testing on PTS and confirmed that the change to lightning heavy attacks does affect all of the sets that buff heavy attack damage (Maelstrom staff, Sergeant's Mail, Infallible Aether, Undaunted Infiltrator), nerfing them by 75% for lightning builds. As a result, lightning heavy attack builds (such as my ShockKnight) will no longer be viable for end-game content. It was fun while it lasted.

I expect we will still see builds with a lightning staff on the back bar for AOE damage, but they will be much more traditional builds optimizing for spell penetration, critical chance and damage, spell power, and max magicka.

Bashev · January 2017

Alanar wrote: »

I did some testing on PTS and confirmed that the change to lightning heavy attacks does affect all of the sets that buff heavy attack damage (Maelstrom staff, Sergeant's Mail, Infallible Aether, Undaunted Infiltrator), nerfing them by 75% for lightning builds. As a result, lightning heavy attack builds (such as my ShockKnight) will no longer be viable for end-game content. It was fun while it lasted.

I expect we will still see builds with a lightning staff on the back bar for AOE damage, but they will be much more traditional builds optimizing for spell penetration, critical chance and damage, spell power, and max magicka.

I tested Maelstorm staff and Molten and it works fine. I dont know how did you do the tests. The templates doesn have the sets so I cannot test them.

DisgracefulMind · January 2017

Lightning DK was a thing?

ParaNostram · January 2017

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

Lightning DK was a thing?

For some niche builds, yeah.

Xvorg · January 2017

ParaNostram wrote: »

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

Lightning DK was a thing?

For some niche builds, yeah.

Molten armaments + full heavy lit attack + thaum...

Wreuntzylla · January 2017

Lightning staff AoE is pretty awesome in PvP confined spaces.

WillhelmBlack · January 2017

Lightning staff buffs your DK's AoE skills and other skills like Bats, Proxy Det etc. And so will Varens Legacy now. Lightning DK isn't over, it's only just begun.

Sugaroverdose · January 2017

Alanar wrote: »

I did some testing on PTS and confirmed that the change to lightning heavy attacks does affect all of the sets that buff heavy attack damage (Maelstrom staff, Sergeant's Mail, Infallible Aether, Undaunted Infiltrator), nerfing them by 75% for lightning builds. As a result, lightning heavy attack builds (such as my ShockKnight) will no longer be viable for end-game content. It was fun while it lasted.

I expect we will still see builds with a lightning staff on the back bar for AOE damage, but they will be much more traditional builds optimizing for spell penetration, critical chance and damage, spell power, and max magicka.

This builds actually looks like using unpredicted by dev's usage of sets, so it's fix.

s1gm4xb14_ESO · January 2017

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/312119/fully-charged-heavy-attack-info#latest

Masel · January 2017

Alanar wrote: »

I did some testing on PTS and confirmed that the change to lightning heavy attacks does affect all of the sets that buff heavy attack damage (Maelstrom staff, Sergeant's Mail, Infallible Aether, Undaunted Infiltrator), nerfing them by 75% for lightning builds. As a result, lightning heavy attack builds (such as my ShockKnight) will no longer be viable for end-game content. It was fun while it lasted.

I expect we will still see builds with a lightning staff on the back bar for AOE damage, but they will be much more traditional builds optimizing for spell penetration, critical chance and damage, spell power, and max magicka.

They can't be serious. Another guy said that infallible aether was fine though. I can't test it myself so can you provide numbers to back this up? I dedicated a lot of time to come up with build ideas for this and they were neither op nor unfair. Might as well quit the game now, feels like a lot of time went into nothing.

The maelstrom staff still works on every tick, and so does undaunted infiltrator. So they won't be dead overall.

kadar · January 2017

@Alanar I'm confused. Why is is the change to Lightning staff a nerf to Heavy attack builds?

Masel · January 2017

The change to lightning staff isn't. The change to sets that buffed every channelled tick of a lightning staff is. They only buff the last tick now, making them useless.

Silver_Strider · January 2017

So, what I'm hearing is that Lightning Staff heavy attacks are now useless for anything other than hunting down dodge monkeys in PvP but are useful for overall AoE purposes.

All that time farming for a Lightning IA staff, wasted. I guess I'll just stick with Moondancer then.

STEVIL · January 2017

So in general:

if your build gets a lot of mileage our of single target attacks you will be shifting away from lightnign staff to inferno staff.
if your build gets a lot of mileage out of AOE you will be shifting towards lightning staff and away from fire staff.
As much as possible, new builds will likely take this new division into account when selecting skills, scripting rotations and and gearing maybe even more than before when the significant issue was more related to DOT vs "burst.
Not all lightning ticks will be as good as the last or the first in all cases.

And this applies to DK too.

Got it.
New patch.
New choices.
Not everything the same as it was.
Day still ends in Y.

Day two of playtest: its the end of the world as we know it and i feel fine.

jarydf · January 2017

What about Elegance set? Does that still buff lightning heavies?

SublimeSparo · January 2017

I love crafting new staves for all my characters every patch.
So in theory for mdk you'd want flame staff front bar, lightning back?
Move blockade to front bar as need destro skill slotted? Or does slotting destro ult activate the new passives?
Then pulsar/ ele drain backbar?

Tremors · January 2017

jarydf wrote: »

What about Elegance set? Does that still buff lightning heavies?

Of course. The builds are far from dead.

Masel · January 2017

RedVyperOfDorne wrote: »

jarydf wrote: »

What about Elegance set? Does that still buff lightning heavies?

Of course. The builds are far from dead.

It's a dps loss from aether, but with undaunted infiltrator, elegance and lightning maelstrom staff, my ticks still hit for 14k selfbuffed. It's a dps loss of around 2-3k per tick. Of course elegance scales up with the Base damage, so in raids with the right buffs active, it might outperform aether.

The vMA builds that use aether and sergeant are dead though, so I'd have to come up with something else.

Bashev · January 2017

Masel92 wrote: »

RedVyperOfDorne wrote: »

jarydf wrote: »

What about Elegance set? Does that still buff lightning heavies?

Of course. The builds are far from dead.

It's a dps loss from aether, but with undaunted infiltrator, elegance and lightning maelstrom staff, my ticks still hit for 14k selfbuffed. It's a dps loss of around 2-3k per tick. Of course elegance scales up with the Base damage, so in raids with the right buffs active, it might outperform aether.

The vMA builds that use aether and sergeant are dead though, so I'd have to come up with something else.

Are you sure that sergeant is nerfed? Cause Molten weapons has the same tooltip (increase fully charged heavy attack) and it still buff each tick.

rustic_potato · January 2017

Alanar wrote: »

I did some testing on PTS and confirmed that the change to lightning heavy attacks does affect all of the sets that buff heavy attack damage (Maelstrom staff, Sergeant's Mail, Infallible Aether, Undaunted Infiltrator), nerfing them by 75% for lightning builds. As a result, lightning heavy attack builds (such as my ShockKnight) will no longer be viable for end-game content. It was fun while it lasted.

I expect we will still see builds with a lightning staff on the back bar for AOE damage, but they will be much more traditional builds optimizing for spell penetration, critical chance and damage, spell power, and max magicka.

That build was an inspiration for my heavy attack sorc build.. I can do 27k unbuffed single target on a sorc with just 2 dots and heavy attack. RiP the build..

Masel · January 2017

Bashev wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

RedVyperOfDorne wrote: »

jarydf wrote: »

What about Elegance set? Does that still buff lightning heavies?

Of course. The builds are far from dead.

It's a dps loss from aether, but with undaunted infiltrator, elegance and lightning maelstrom staff, my ticks still hit for 14k selfbuffed. It's a dps loss of around 2-3k per tick. Of course elegance scales up with the Base damage, so in raids with the right buffs active, it might outperform aether.

The vMA builds that use aether and sergeant are dead though, so I'd have to come up with something else.

Are you sure that sergeant is nerfed? Cause Molten weapons has the same tooltip (increase fully charged heavy attack) and it still buff each tick.

The skill works just as before. I can't test the sets myself as I'm on the PC EU Server and the PTS templates don't have those sets, so I'd have to wait until the EU chars are copied.

People say different things concerning the tick buffs since the update, so I don't know what to believe

Bashev · January 2017

Masel92 wrote: »

Bashev wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

RedVyperOfDorne wrote: »

jarydf wrote: »

What about Elegance set? Does that still buff lightning heavies?

Of course. The builds are far from dead.

It's a dps loss from aether, but with undaunted infiltrator, elegance and lightning maelstrom staff, my ticks still hit for 14k selfbuffed. It's a dps loss of around 2-3k per tick. Of course elegance scales up with the Base damage, so in raids with the right buffs active, it might outperform aether.

The vMA builds that use aether and sergeant are dead though, so I'd have to come up with something else.

Are you sure that sergeant is nerfed? Cause Molten weapons has the same tooltip (increase fully charged heavy attack) and it still buff each tick.

The skill works just as before. I can't test the sets myself as I'm on the PC EU Server and the PTS templates don't have those sets, so I'd have to wait until the EU chars are copied.

People say different things concerning the tick buffs since the update, so I don't know what to believe

I know I am in the same boat. The OP stated that he tested them and they dont work but I guess he/she read the patch notes and concluded without tests because when I tested the Maelstorm staff it worked and he/she said that it doenst. Anyway I still believe that the damage will not be changed as it is not a top DPS, It is just a nice variation of a decent DPS builds. Plus ZoS tried so hard to make people use heavy attacks.

Masel · January 2017

Bashev wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

Bashev wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

RedVyperOfDorne wrote: »

jarydf wrote: »

What about Elegance set? Does that still buff lightning heavies?

Of course. The builds are far from dead.

It's a dps loss from aether, but with undaunted infiltrator, elegance and lightning maelstrom staff, my ticks still hit for 14k selfbuffed. It's a dps loss of around 2-3k per tick. Of course elegance scales up with the Base damage, so in raids with the right buffs active, it might outperform aether.

The vMA builds that use aether and sergeant are dead though, so I'd have to come up with something else.

Are you sure that sergeant is nerfed? Cause Molten weapons has the same tooltip (increase fully charged heavy attack) and it still buff each tick.

The skill works just as before. I can't test the sets myself as I'm on the PC EU Server and the PTS templates don't have those sets, so I'd have to wait until the EU chars are copied.

People say different things concerning the tick buffs since the update, so I don't know what to believe

I know I am in the same boat. The OP stated that he tested them and they dont work but I guess he/she read the patch notes and concluded without tests because when I tested the Maelstorm staff it worked and he/she said that it doenst. Anyway I still believe that the damage will not be changed as it is not a top DPS, It is just a nice variation of a decent DPS builds. Plus ZoS tried so hard to make people use heavy attacks.

I asked on the PTS if someone from the NA server could test it for me, but no-one replied

Alanar · January 2017

Bashev wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

Bashev wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

RedVyperOfDorne wrote: »

jarydf wrote: »

What about Elegance set? Does that still buff lightning heavies?

Of course. The builds are far from dead.

It's a dps loss from aether, but with undaunted infiltrator, elegance and lightning maelstrom staff, my ticks still hit for 14k selfbuffed. It's a dps loss of around 2-3k per tick. Of course elegance scales up with the Base damage, so in raids with the right buffs active, it might outperform aether.

The vMA builds that use aether and sergeant are dead though, so I'd have to come up with something else.

Are you sure that sergeant is nerfed? Cause Molten weapons has the same tooltip (increase fully charged heavy attack) and it still buff each tick.

The skill works just as before. I can't test the sets myself as I'm on the PC EU Server and the PTS templates don't have those sets, so I'd have to wait until the EU chars are copied.

People say different things concerning the tick buffs since the update, so I don't know what to believe

I know I am in the same boat. The OP stated that he tested them and they dont work but I guess he/she read the patch notes and concluded without tests because when I tested the Maelstorm staff it worked and he/she said that it doenst. Anyway I still believe that the damage will not be changed as it is not a top DPS, It is just a nice variation of a decent DPS builds. Plus ZoS tried so hard to make people use heavy attacks.

I tested Sergeant's / Aether / Maelstrom together and noted that the ticks were roughly 1/2 of what they were previously. I'm not surprised if Maelstrom is still buffing each tick, as it's always worked differently than the set bonuses, adding damage at the end that doesn't get buffed by +% heavy attack bonuses such as Elegance. I haven't tested Undaunted Infiltrator yet to see if it's working the same as Sergeant's / Aether.

BlackMadara · January 2017

Anything that states fully charged heavy attacks will probably be what's affected

Toast_STS · January 2017

Masel92 wrote: »

Bashev wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

Bashev wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

RedVyperOfDorne wrote: »

jarydf wrote: »

What about Elegance set? Does that still buff lightning heavies?

Of course. The builds are far from dead.

It's a dps loss from aether, but with undaunted infiltrator, elegance and lightning maelstrom staff, my ticks still hit for 14k selfbuffed. It's a dps loss of around 2-3k per tick. Of course elegance scales up with the Base damage, so in raids with the right buffs active, it might outperform aether.

The vMA builds that use aether and sergeant are dead though, so I'd have to come up with something else.

Are you sure that sergeant is nerfed? Cause Molten weapons has the same tooltip (increase fully charged heavy attack) and it still buff each tick.

The skill works just as before. I can't test the sets myself as I'm on the PC EU Server and the PTS templates don't have those sets, so I'd have to wait until the EU chars are copied.

People say different things concerning the tick buffs since the update, so I don't know what to believe

I know I am in the same boat. The OP stated that he tested them and they dont work but I guess he/she read the patch notes and concluded without tests because when I tested the Maelstorm staff it worked and he/she said that it doenst. Anyway I still believe that the damage will not be changed as it is not a top DPS, It is just a nice variation of a decent DPS builds. Plus ZoS tried so hard to make people use heavy attacks.

I asked on the PTS if someone from the NA server could test it for me, but no-one replied

I farmed sergeant's mail to test it. It only buffs the 4th tick of a lightning staff and the 3rd tick of the resto staff. I'm not going to farm aether on the PTS though.