Dark Flare vs Sweeps? How much of a gap is there?

LtCrunch · February 2017

Just like the title says I'm curious if any experienced Templar Magicka DPSers could tell me if Dark Flare can function as an effective spammable or not. I know sweeps is the better choice in terms of pure DPS but there's something to be said about the safety of range. There's also something that feels off to me about a pure mage in melee range. Just curious if I could still pull off a respectable parse with Dark Flare instead of sweeps. Some rough numbers would be appreciated if possible, since I don't have a high level Templar to test this on myself, at least not yet. Thanks in advance!

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · February 2017

Dark flare is worse then Sweeps for a couple of big reasons, those being it doesn't heal you and can be interuped, causing you to do no damage, kind of like wrecking blow being inferior to flurry now.

If you want to to be a rangeplar, you are better off with using reflective light as your spammable.

Here is a good build for a rangeplar-

http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/tondodinos-all-time-super-great-templariffic-reflectorino-build/

LtCrunch · February 2017

Hadn't thought about the interrupt tidbit tbh. The heal I wasn't worried about as much since if I stay at range chances are I'll need less healing anyway, at least most of the time. My biggest concern was losing burning light proc chances and the projectile travel time. From the little amount of testing I did it can take as long a 3.3sec from the moment I hit flare to when it actually deals damage, at least at max range. Which ain't great. I find it odd that ZOS feels the need for a cast time on an ability that has such a long travel animation.

I'm wagering that if I wanna stay ranged then Force Pulse would be my best bet, is that a fair assumption?

EDIT: Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

ryanborror · February 2017

Brandalf wrote: »

Hadn't thought about the interrupt tidbit tbh. The heal I wasn't worried about as much since if I stay at range chances are I'll need less healing anyway, at least most of the time. My biggest concern was losing burning light proc chances and the projectile travel time. From the little amount of testing I did it can take as long a 3.3sec from the moment I hit flare to when it actually deals damage, at least at max range. Which ain't great. I find it odd that ZOS feels the need for a cast time on an ability that has such a long travel animation.

I'm wagering that if I wanna stay ranged then Force Pulse would be my best bet, is that a fair assumption?

EDIT: Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

I've seen good players pull pretty good numbers with a dark flare rotation (streak one), but for me it just doesn't come close. It's not that huge of a difference but you will pull better numbers with sweeps.
Also a while ago a guy made a reflective light build and showed how it did more damage than force pulse l. That might be something to look into.

Joy_Division · February 2017

Not a good spammable. You don't want to waste the empower by weaving, but weaving is a good source of DPS. Sweeps is AoE. Cast time means stuff will die while you are still csting and thus you'll go global cooldowns without doing anything. Also many bosses require you to move, which is a bad combination with cast time.

LtCrunch · February 2017

Joy_Division wrote: »

You don't want to waste the empower by weaving, but weaving is a good source of DPS. Sweeps is AoE. Cast time means stuff will die while you are still csting and thus you'll go global cooldowns without doing anything.

Both good points, though for trash I would likely be spamming something else, not dark flare, and in a boss fight the second point wouldn't really be an issue.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Also many bosses require you to move, which is a bad combination with cast time.

Wouldn't sweeps be subject to similar issues? Obviously to a lesser extent, but still. You guys are mostly telling me what I suspected was already true, but damn I love the animation for flare xD

I'll have to look into the various rangeplar builds around and work from there me thinks.

Brutusmax1mus · February 2017

Brandalf wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

You don't want to waste the empower by weaving, but weaving is a good source of DPS. Sweeps is AoE. Cast time means stuff will die while you are still csting and thus you'll go global cooldowns without doing anything.

Both good points, though for trash I would likely be spamming something else, not dark flare, and in a boss fight the second point wouldn't really be an issue.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Also many bosses require you to move, which is a bad combination with cast time.

Wouldn't sweeps be subject to similar issues? Obviously to a lesser extent, but still. You guys are mostly telling me what I suspected was already true, but damn I love the animation for flare xD

I'll have to look into the various rangeplar builds around and work from there me thinks.

Boss fights it is not nearly as bad as people are thinking. And losing the weave with a staff but getting a monster set and dw is great. I did a blood spawn test with sweeps vs flare. I had been using sweeps rotation for a while. Never done a dark flare rotation. My dark flare result was 3 seconds behind my sweeps. And i definitely didn't have it optimized.

It's the range ability making you have to stop significantly less on certain fights that makes it work. If you can't spam back to back flares for 6 or 7 seconds sweeps is your better bet. Petite forget you have to move a ton of you're in melee range using sweeps.

LtCrunch · February 2017

"Brutusmax1mus wrote: »

Boss fights it is not nearly as bad as people are thinking. And losing the weave with a staff but getting a monster set and dw is great. I did a blood spawn test with sweeps vs flare. I had been using sweeps rotation for a while. Never done a dark flare rotation. My dark flare result was 3 seconds behind my sweeps. And i definitely didn't have it optimized.

It's the range ability making you have to stop significantly less on certain fights that makes it work. If you can't spam back to back flares for 6 or 7 seconds sweeps is your better bet. Petite forget you have to move a ton of you're in melee range using sweeps.

Huh, thanks for the info. I've still got a bit before my Templar hits 50 so I can kit him out and test things myself, so it's definitely appreciated

Drdeath20 · February 2017

Dark flare is a pvp skill. Hard hitting ranged skill that, empowers the next attack and debuffs.