What do you mean? They clearly reduced the chances. Before the update you would have received well over 50% in resto staves...

In all seriousness, the rng in VMA is quite ridiculous.

Meld777 wrote: »

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Maelstrom staves are a back bar weapon.

Umm.... no.... no they aren't.
Any stamina build uses front bar.
MOST mag builds will do double bar... 1 sharpened lightning, 1 sharpened inferno. OR mal on front bar with dual wield swords on back bar.
I know, i know.... there is some meta build that uses only a sharpened lightning or inferno on back bar and does the other with a moondancer on front. That's one build out of many.

That "some meta" build is the one with most potential DPS. A 4pc Moondancer/Aether bonus + spell damage glyph > maelstrom weapon. You aren't running Blockade on both bars, so there's 0 need for having 2 vMA staves.
Btw I did say Staves, Idk why you bring up stamina builds.

That's the reason you're far from being 1st even with your vMA staff. Deltia builds are good for beginners. If you never question builds, buff interactions and playstyles, you'll never be number 1.

Yes, that setup is best if you play like shown in the videos. Every competitive group has their secrets. For Hodor it's the trash pulls. You won't find a single video of them doing that, unless it's their 2nd group, which doesn't know the 1st group's trash tactics either. We, on the other hand, stream most of our raids, but especially those when going for max score. I, however, will never share my build and playstyle outside of my raid group and close friends. Same goes for most of our group. That's my competitive advantage.

Now go enjoy light-weaving Force Pulse. Not saying it's bad.

What's with all the assumptions? Salty you didn't get your weapon? I don't have mine either.
It doesn't matter if you're first at the launch of a patch. What matters are the scores before they are wiped, those are the ones people remember.
How would you know my ranking if you're not on the same platform as me?
How would you know what class I main and what build I use?
You know... I think you've contradicted yourself enough to start to look stupid. If you have that many secrets, why are you complaining about not being competitive? Seems like an excuse for not being good enough

Beware13 wrote: »

In all honesty, VMA weapons do not "make or break" your build or your ability to compete. I have never gotten my sharpened inferno staff and while the extra damage would be nice, it's not necessary to do end game content. My raid team was the first NA clear of vMoL and I have been on top of trial leaderboards multiple times, never having a VMA weapon.

This might be true of Magicka, but for competitive Stamina, you NEED VMA weapons. Stamina underperforms compared to Magicka builds for end game trials (especially after our recent nerfs). You can get by without them but you're taking a significant damage penalty doing so. ZOS made Maelstrom DW too good for what they are, and because of that they're BIS even with bad traits. Pretty much all end game Stamina builds require them. Since Stamina is mostly relegated to single target and our AOE damage is too low that we need that extra boost to compete.

Magicka builds can benefit from a VMA staff but it's not make or break in most cases. You don't need them. Magicka's default skillsets give them excellent single target, great AOE, ample healing and strong shields. Stamina builds need to grind out in Cyrodiil for a simple heal (Vigor). Stamina can still do great single target damage but their versatility is greatly diminished in any other situation.

If you're running Vet Trials on hard mode, and you're going for score, you're running VMA DW or you're gimping the team. Bow and 2H are not viable in any way for vet Trials leaving only one option, and that option pretty much funnels you into needing VMA gear. It sucks.

And believe it or not most Stamina people hate it. We want to run other builds and have diversity, but we're railroaded into a small niche.

jakeedmundson wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

VMA loot is beyond awful, and it certainly has driven and will continue to drive good players away from the game.

As for a VMA staff giving 4k DPS single target, sorry I dont buy it. Saying "trust me on this" without providing anything to back up your claim makes you sound like a politician.

Could they add 4k in a trash pull? Certainly.

I've seen the lightning staff tested on heavy attack builds for single target... Sorry i can't remember exactly where but i've seen the numbers.
You're right i think for the classic frag/force pulse build with an inferno staff... it might add 2k ish? that number sticks in my head for some reason.

Somewhere around there yeah, depending on the consistancy and speed of your weaves etc. Typically between 1-2k iirc

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

VMA loot is beyond awful, and it certainly has driven and will continue to drive good players away from the game.

As for a VMA staff giving 4k DPS single target, sorry I dont buy it. Saying "trust me on this" without providing anything to back up your claim makes you sound like a politician.

Could they add 4k in a trash pull? Certainly.

I've seen the lightning staff tested on heavy attack builds for single target... Sorry i can't remember exactly where but i've seen the numbers.
You're right i think for the classic frag/force pulse build with an inferno staff... it might add 2k ish? that number sticks in my head for some reason.

I was actually testing a heavy attack build yesterday with a lighting staff, more for fun and perhaps a simpler alternative to the "Meta" rotation. It would certainly require a VMA staff to make it work. I was getting 3-4k less DPS on the target dummy than my normal rotation, but the numbers were still impressive and the rotation could be done by a trained monkey. I was basically using 3 skills in my rotation and the channel. It is certainly possible that you could build a more robust rotation around it to pull some pretty impressive numbers. Maybe that is what he is getting at. Whether that will actually out parse the meta, I guess I dont know.

2k is about what I saw on single target when my inferno dropped a few months ago. The AOE DPS, definitely went up more, as I use a lighting staff channel for AOE.

Oh i don't think it would beat the meta build... but i REALLY enjoy using it on my sorc.
I just can't find a vma lightning staff to make it stronger... as of right now though, with my build i can hit 25 - 30k dps with only the power surge buff. I actually use that to farm VMA.... too bad it doesn't recognize your class/build and drop items accordingly

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

VMA loot is beyond awful, and it certainly has driven and will continue to drive good players away from the game.

As for a VMA staff giving 4k DPS single target, sorry I dont buy it. Saying "trust me on this" without providing anything to back up your claim makes you sound like a politician.

Could they add 4k in a trash pull? Certainly.

I've seen the lightning staff tested on heavy attack builds for single target... Sorry i can't remember exactly where but i've seen the numbers.
You're right i think for the classic frag/force pulse build with an inferno staff... it might add 2k ish? that number sticks in my head for some reason.

I was actually testing a heavy attack build yesterday with a lighting staff, more for fun and perhaps a simpler alternative to the "Meta" rotation. It would certainly require a VMA staff to make it work. I was getting 3-4k less DPS on the target dummy than my normal rotation, but the numbers were still impressive and the rotation could be done by a trained monkey. I was basically using 3 skills in my rotation and the channel. It is certainly possible that you could build a more robust rotation around it to pull some pretty impressive numbers. Maybe that is what he is getting at. Whether that will actually out parse the meta, I guess I dont know.

2k is about what I saw on single target when my inferno dropped a few months ago. The AOE DPS, definitely went up more, as I use a lighting staff channel for AOE.

Oh i don't think it would beat the meta build... but i REALLY enjoy using it on my sorc.
I just can't find a vma lightning staff to make it stronger... as of right now though, with my build i can hit 25 - 30k dps with only the power surge buff. I actually use that to farm VMA.... too bad it doesn't recognize your class/build and drop items accordingly

I took that build through VMA the other day. It was @Masel92 that put me on to it. Not saying its the fastest, but it's probably the easiest way to clear, and I have done it on every class, and tried darn near everything.

I just got my fastest run with the HA build and hit the leaderboard (527k) AND it dropped a sharpened lightning staff.... so double lucky that time.

Lets just say i won't be running vMA for a while...

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

VMA loot is beyond awful, and it certainly has driven and will continue to drive good players away from the game.

As for a VMA staff giving 4k DPS single target, sorry I dont buy it. Saying "trust me on this" without providing anything to back up your claim makes you sound like a politician.

Could they add 4k in a trash pull? Certainly.

The vMA lightning staff does add more than 4k DPS. 2 Ticks per second, 1341 More damage, multiplied by CPS etc. Proof:

vMA Staff in a HA Build:


MASTER Staff instead:

Currently 3rd place of my class on PC EU with 587505, playing a Magicka Nightblade, slowly approaching 600 runs overall, jack *** in both chests and weeklies. Powered Dagger + Decisive Dagger ftw. At least two gold tempers. Nowhere close to a Sharpened or Precise Inferno.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I was actually testing a heavy attack build yesterday with a lighting staff, more for fun and perhaps a simpler alternative to the "Meta" rotation. It would certainly require a VMA staff to make it work. I was getting 3-4k less DPS on the target dummy than my normal rotation, but the numbers were still impressive and the rotation could be done by a trained monkey. I was basically using 3 skills in my rotation and the channel. It is certainly possible that you could build a more robust rotation around it to pull some pretty impressive numbers. Maybe that is what he is getting at. Whether that will actually out parse the meta, I guess I dont know.

2k is about what I saw on single target when my inferno dropped a few months ago. The AOE DPS, definitely went up more, as I use a lighting staff channel for AOE.

Was this the pet build recently posted under Infallible? Fun build if so. It's fun, easy, and pub-proof (i.e., I can play it after a session at the pub with few mistakes)

Gorilla wrote: »

Was this the pet build recently posted under Infallible? Fun build if so. It's fun, easy, and pub-proof (i.e., I can play it after a session at the pub with few mistakes)

@Oreyn_Bearclaw

Eleusian wrote: »

Weapons are the current ZOS "grind by design" it doesn't matter if it's VMA , Moondancer , BSW whatever. It's the hook

Remember when it was Running WGT 50X for the bad trait Kena Helm?

Or killing Skoria for the X time for no helm again?

Nothing is changing , just stop paying.

I don't get how they don't realize that a token system provides a carrot on a stick too. Just a much less frustrating one that players won't leave the game over.

You can require 100 tokens for a vMA weapon and you'd actually get more people grinding than you have now.

Seems to be about right. RNG works most of the time 10% of the time.

I think the main problem with RNG is that it is truly random. Most players want it to be less random, actually. Like the probability of an item drop must increase with the number of times when it does not drop. Well, personally I wouldn't mind if ZOS would implement such a thing.