Viable/Possible Replacements for Burning Spellweave or Necropotence?

Artanis · March 2017

After refusing to use Inferno Staff + Burning Spellweave for sometime now, I finally farmed for the set and was very pleased with its performance.

While I intend to keep the set and plan to even gold it as soon as I get my hands on some more wax, I'd rather not use the set unless I am ordered by party/guild members to put them on. Simply put, I just like using lightning over fire in pve, and I only use fire staff for pvp. I understand Necropotence is one of the popular sets that is somewhat on par with the BSW, but, again, I'd rather not use any pets, again, for personal preferences.

I was wondering if there are other set combinations that can perform as well as BSW or, at least, are viable in highend pve contents. I was thinking along the lines of Infalliable Aether, and Julianos, but I need some more suggestions.

Pixel_Zealot · March 2017

Julianos doesn't out damage BSW. TBS doesn't come close.

Why 6 & 9 trait craft gear has become so obsolete I don't know.

Enslaved · March 2017

BSW is far superior to anything you could use. Try silks of the Sun and compare it.

LilySix · March 2017

I'm using Scathing Mage on my magNB.

And necropotence is not the best for trials. Soso keep on using BSW.

Artanis · March 2017

I understand nothing will ever come close to BSW. But I'd still like to know if anything could be used in its place. With this said, it's pretty sad that BSW is sort of forced onto you because it outperforms every other set. Why does ZOS even bother to design and release other sets in the first place?

What about Julianos + Scathing Mage? Is that viable?

Pixel_Zealot · March 2017

Julainos + Scathing Mage doesn't really compare to BSW + Moondancer

LilySix · March 2017

Scathing mage + infaillible aether works well for me.

dpencil · March 2017

You could use the UESP build editor. Put your build on there and then throw different sets on it to see how your effective spell damage changes.

Sharee · March 2017

Enslaved wrote: »

BSW is far superior to anything you could use. Try silks of the Sun and compare it.

For fire spells, over time the performance should be comparable. Max uptime on BSW is 66%(IIRC), its damage is 600, that means on average the damage is 400, which just happens to be the sun's permanent bonus. BSW has more burst, but sun is more reliable.

Ofc. BSW buffs more than just fire which makes it superior, but if all you care for is constant pressure through fire damage, sun is a viable replacement.

Dantaria · March 2017

Artanis wrote: »

What about Julianos + Scathing Mage? Is that viable?

Depends on your definition of "viable"

Julianos sure is. BSW gives you +2-3k DPS over it. -2-3k DPS is sure as hell not the end of the world if we're not talking about absolute minmaxing and vetTrials HM.

ArvenAldmeri · March 2017

You did not mention one important thing. Your class. Now since you are talking about necropotance I assume your class is sorc or NB. Either way you should have fire staff and lighting staff on both classes.

Artanis · March 2017

Ok, I'll shut up now.

Well, goodbye ESO. It was fun while it lasted, but I came here to play a mage, not a pyromancer.

DRXHarbinger · March 2017

Artanis wrote: »

Ok, I'll shut up now.

Well, goodbye ESO. It was fun while it lasted, but I came here to play a mage, not a pyromancer.

Shotgun stuff.

ArvenAldmeri · March 2017

Artanis wrote: »

Ok, I'll shut up now.

Well, goodbye ESO. It was fun while it lasted, but I came here to play a mage, not a pyromancer.

If you really play a sorc, you are far from being pyromancer. Only thing you have or should have in fire is ele wall and your ultimates. Everything else is lightning or magic damage.

dpencil · March 2017

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=2400

Standard BiS gear for a sorc: 10614 ESD (effective spell damage) when BSW is proced. 9583 ESD when not proced. In the best case scenario of 66% uptime, average ESD is 10270. At 50% uptime, you'd get 10,098.

Julianos, with same setup: 10010 ESD

Scathing, with same setup: 10388 when proced, and 9488 unproced. Assuming 50% proc time, average ESD is 9938. At 66% uptime it would be 10,088. At 75% uptime it would be 10,163.

Twice-Born, with Thief and Shadow: 9973 ESD

Necropotence (if we drop Bound Aegis for Volatile Familiar): 9894 ESD

Of course, there are other factors to consider besides simply ESD, but it is one way of comparing the sets with all other elements of a build maintained.

Edit: A few others, just for comparison...

Mother's Sorrow: 9791 ESD

Spinner's: 9651 ESD

Treasure Hunter: 9663 ESD

Spider Cultist: 9453 ESD. This doesn't take into account the 5 piece bonus's impact, which would boost Force Pulse and Blockade slightly.

Seducer: 9235 ESD

Artanis · March 2017

ArvenAldmeri wrote: »

Artanis wrote: »

Ok, I'll shut up now.

Well, goodbye ESO. It was fun while it lasted, but I came here to play a mage, not a pyromancer.

If you really play a sorc, you are far from being pyromancer. Only thing you have or should have in fire is ele wall and your ultimates. Everything else is lightning or magic damage.

TBH, I don't mind using fire spells and wouldn't mind even if all my spells had to be fire. I was just speaking in jest because I grew a little tired of lack of diversity in gearing and overpowered sets that make 2nd and 3rd option practically unusable in highend contents.

Still yet, I'm also right in a sense that there is just too many focus on fire in this game. Importance of fire in the lore notwithstanding, it's still just too much, and other elementals are overlooked and neglected. From magdk, magplar to even sorc and NB, every ***'s fire.

But ya, I'm taking a break from ESO not because I hate fire, but because I just don't find gearing in ESO to my liking anymore. Especially because, I am forced to wear a certain set rather than being encouraged to wear them. If I am being forced, there should be at least couple options to choose from. Trust me, I don't mind flavor of the month.

dpencil · March 2017

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=3724

That's my Heavy Attack build, 10555 ESD with Necropotence (54,709 mag). If you ran Julianos with that setup, you'd get 9953.

Dantaria · March 2017

Artanis wrote: »

But ya, I'm taking a break from ESO not because I hate fire, but because I just don't find gearing in ESO to my liking anymore. Especially because, I am forced to wear a certain set rather than being encouraged to wear them. If I am being forced, there should be at least couple options to choose from. Trust me, I don't mind flavor of the month.

Like... I'm sorry, but it seems more like your mindset problem as well as the mindsets of your guildmembers.

I'm running 5 Julianos + 4 moondancer on my sorc. I'm doing most vet dungeons fine as well as normal trials. "Most" and not "all" simply because of the CP (275 currently, don't feel myself ready for vet CoS or RoM).

Noone has ever told me, "Farm BSW, you lazy piece of s**t". And if someone had, I would have answered, "Gtfo, I'm not wearing rags, my DPS is fine for this content".

Unless you're aiming really high (vTrials HM, etc), there is absolutely no reason to be forced into wearing BSW. If you are aiming high... well, you've chosen this yourself

You knew the rules of this particular game.

But if people order you to wear BSW in non-super-endgame content... Why are you allowing them to? Maybe find yourself another guild?

There is like... absolutely no reason to go "BSW or nothing".

bebynnag · March 2017

if u prefer lightning, and are prepared to run all shock skills & only shock skilsl - netches touch is an option, but that means no frags, no curse, no meteor only 1/3 of your force pulse is strong.

the setup us certainly fun to play, and has its strenghts (pair it with elegant and troll some people in pvp with overload)

i used the set up to farm my bsw (that aoe splash damage made it so easy)

maybe you or someone else could excell with the set where i returned mediocre results

WarpigFunk · March 2017

Artanis wrote: »

Ok, I'll shut up now.

Well, goodbye ESO. It was fun while it lasted, but I came here to play a mage, not a pyromancer.

Dude... 5 pc Scathing, 3pc Moondancer, 2pc Kena
Moondancer Lightning sharpened front bar
Maelstrom lightning back bar sharpened or charged.

Run skill bars that look something like this:

imgur.com/a/gkILn

Run a full gold set of that and you'll be a pretty powerful lightning mage.
Thats over 2200 spell power, 42k mag, 64% crit ... without potions.

Will you be slightly lower on the DPS charts than a BiS Necro or BSW build? Yea maybe - but it's close enough that 1. you'll be effective in pretty much everything in the game, and 2. proficiency and skill can make up alot of the difference between you and most sorcs anyway. 3. your wall of elements will buff group dps assuming people in there are running the exploiter passive.

You don't have to be BiS all day everything to play the game ... and if you're that *** about min maxing then you shouldn't have an issue using a flame staff on one of your bars, it's not the end of the world.

rotaugen454 · March 2017

Since staff means no running two 5 piece sets plus a monster set, is BSW 5 piece with 4 piece Julianos decent? I like crafted because I am guaranteed traits. Then I add a DPS monster set to top it off. I've run Ash tons of times grinding for BSW, trying to get infused on any large armor and divines on small. Crafted Julianos lets me fill in the gaps easily. It's the BSW jewelry that will take a long time. My current non-BSW setup lets me do any group dungeon on hard mode, but I want to get into trials and have been told to get BSW first.

Cherryblossom · March 2017

rotaugen454 wrote: »

Since staff means no running two 5 piece sets plus a monster set, is BSW 5 piece with 4 piece Julianos decent? I like crafted because I am guaranteed traits. Then I add a DPS monster set to top it off. I've run Ash tons of times grinding for BSW, trying to get infused on any large armor and divines on small. Crafted Julianos lets me fill in the gaps easily. It's the BSW jewelry that will take a long time. My current non-BSW setup lets me do any group dungeon on hard mode, but I want to get into trials and have been told to get BSW first.

If you don't have Malestrom staff, then you can have BSW on back bar and another 5 piece on front bar. Procing is a skill but quite possible.

dpencil · March 2017

3 piece willpower is better than just about every 4 piece. The only thing that makes Infal/Moon better is Minor Slayer.

alexkdd99 · March 2017

rotaugen454 wrote: »

Since staff means no running two 5 piece sets plus a monster set, is BSW 5 piece with 4 piece Julianos decent? I like crafted because I am guaranteed traits. Then I add a DPS monster set to top it off. I've run Ash tons of times grinding for BSW, trying to get infused on any large armor and divines on small. Crafted Julianos lets me fill in the gaps easily. It's the BSW jewelry that will take a long time. My current non-BSW setup lets me do any group dungeon on hard mode, but I want to get into trials and have been told to get BSW first.

I am currently running julianos + BSW + 1 pc kena, + 1 sharp light vma back bar. Front bar is julianos fire staff so it is the only one with the extra 300 spell damage. Since the back bar is only buffs and DoTs it doesn't really matter. (Or I don't think it does)

Can't wear complete monster set obviously but oh well. I am reaching 30k dps with this setup. My jewellery is BSW 2x spell damage 1x recovery. It really wasn't much grinding to get BSW jewellery and 2 pieces of Divines armor.

Also not sure if you have a healer but if you farm coa1 with group finder your queue will pop pretty fast. Managed to get my jewellery in less than 10 vCoA 1 runs. Actually ended up getting 3x BSW rings and 2x necklaces. There is a unique ring that drops in there that is BSW so you have multiple chances to get the ring. It's called scamp lords signet.

Also read somewhere you are better off running all divines now, maybe that changed again with Homestead? I know a long time ago small divines with large infused was good.

hmsdragonfly · March 2017

BSW only provides around 2k more DPS than Julianos.

I don't see why Julianos is not viable.

hmsdragonfly · March 2017

Artanis wrote: »

ArvenAldmeri wrote: »

Artanis wrote: »

Ok, I'll shut up now.

Well, goodbye ESO. It was fun while it lasted, but I came here to play a mage, not a pyromancer.

If you really play a sorc, you are far from being pyromancer. Only thing you have or should have in fire is ele wall and your ultimates. Everything else is lightning or magic damage.

TBH, I don't mind using fire spells and wouldn't mind even if all my spells had to be fire. I was just speaking in jest because I grew a little tired of lack of diversity in gearing and overpowered sets that make 2nd and 3rd option practically unusable in highend contents.

Still yet, I'm also right in a sense that there is just too many focus on fire in this game. Importance of fire in the lore notwithstanding, it's still just too much, and other elementals are overlooked and neglected. From magdk, magplar to even sorc and NB, every ***'s fire.

But ya, I'm taking a break from ESO not because I hate fire, but because I just don't find gearing in ESO to my liking anymore. Especially because, I am forced to wear a certain set rather than being encouraged to wear them. If I am being forced, there should be at least couple options to choose from. Trust me, I don't mind flavor of the month.

Tbh BSW isn't that OP like people make it out to be. 5% more DPS isn't going to make you a better DD.
In PvE, people try to squeeze out as much DPS as they can, so everyone is obsessed with FoTM, which is BSW this meta (and was TBS last meta), but as long as you don't run for score, you don't have to be a meta slave.
You can run like Julianos + Necropotence, Julianos + Mother Sorrow, Scathing Mage + Necropotence, Scathing Mage +Julianos, Julianos + Moon Dancer, Scathing Mage + Moon Dancer... whatever you want, it doesn't matter. You can do all the content with those setups. BSW is only needed if you want to compete for the #1 on the leaderboard.

Tl,dr: No one forces you to run BSW. You are encouraged to run BSW.