'Effective' DPS possible without weaving... ?

Mordenkainen · May 2017

I tried it for about a year now. Friend tells me it totally looks good when watching me trying to murder a robust target dummy.

My DPS results are the same. It's crap. At least compared to the 30k,40k,50k+ wizards out there.

I get 17k-18k on a robust dummy without weaving and then seriously the same with what I could only call trying to weave. Either my character is having the spasm of the century, nothing of whatever skill I try to 'weave' gets shortened, or the game refuses to register my input and skips light attacking entirely which results in the skill being spammed at least twice and screwing my whole rotation up.

I am frustrated to the point of considering continueing to play the game with just picking flowers and pretending to be a merchant or something. I have no idea anymore what the issue is. If it's my *** 260ms ping, my fps being too low by 2 frames or if my haircut is just butt ugly in the eyes of some cosmic power.

Is it possible to play this game as actual useful and contributing DPS in trials/veteran dungeons without doing this whole weaving magic? I'm at my wits end here.

Emma_Overload · May 2017

Your ping is a problem. Don't even bother trying medium weaves, stick to light attacks for sure.

Dorrino · May 2017

Mordenkainen wrote: »

I get 17k-18k on a robust dummy without weaving

With light attack weaving you'll get 1-1.5k more dps. So 18-19k:)

Mordenkainen wrote: »

Is it possible to play this game as actual useful and contributing DPS in trials/veteran dungeons without doing this whole weaving magic? I'm at my wits end here.

Yes. Weaving accounts for 5-8% dps.

Your problem is not in weaving:P

Morgul667 · May 2017

Light attack weave is possibled up to 450 ms, ping. Above that ping dont waste time on weave.

I wouldnt advertise medium weave with high pings

with 260ms you can pull reasonable DPS in the 20-30k DPS range without horn, spc and so on. Elemental drain is enough.

To light attack weave, start with a staff for instance that is easy to weave : attack click then use the skill right after it (without rushing too much, i'd say half a second after. Practice on simple targets and it will come)

Mordenkainen · May 2017

I should've mentioned I play a wood elf magicka nightblade.

I did manage 20k on the mage in VAA once and I think this here is my best parse I propably ever had. At least in regards to damage numbers.. certainly not in dps though.

This was in VHRC on the warrior.

Spoke to someone who plays a magNB (Altmer) in my PvE guild and according to them their last parse on a dummy was 29,5k

I'd be happy if I could get to 25k on a dummy myself.

Dorrino · May 2017

Mordenkainen wrote: »

Ok.

Magicka nightblade is actually the worst class in the game to skip light attacks:)

You're losing 7-8% of dps from lack of Assassin's Will.

You lose ~15% of dps, by not using light attacks with mael staves.

You're losing some dps by using funnel health instead of Force Pulse.

And for sure you're losing quite a bit of dps by not morphing Path of Darkness:)

Even taking that all into account, you spammable skill (funnel health) can't be #1 dps skill in the parse. That has to be Blockade, by a noticeable margin.

Mordenkainen · May 2017

Dorrino wrote: »

You lose ~15% of dps, by not using light attacks with mael staves.

You're losing some dps by using funnel health instead of Force Pulse.

And for sure you're losing quite a bit of dps by not morphing Path of Darkness:)

I do not have a Maelstrom staff and I gave up on getting one of those after bashing my head for close to a month alone against the final Round in VMA. I also sincerely hope those will never be a real requirement.

I did correct my main spammable just a few days ago actually! Using Force Pulse ever since!

And I am actually using Twisted Path. Not sure why Combat Metrics is showing it as the base skill there. O_o

That parse is a week or so old actually and I am painfully aware of the actual real lack of light attacks there.

I'm sitting on a dummy again as I type this here, trying it over and over again after having watched some stuff on youtube and I don't get it. I have some extremely weird animation 'freezes' sometimes that just ruin this in its entirety. Is this lag or am I really too stupid to hit two buttons in a row?

well, at least I found out I cancel my light attack with a skill and not vise versa. That took me just a year, lol. Guess I'm really slow.

Erasure · May 2017

As an Altmer Scamp Summoner, the best I did this update with Ele Drain provided on a skeleton was 44k.
The best I did with 0 weaving or animation cancelling, with the same rotation, was 30k.

I'm not sure how well that comparison will carry over to Nightblade, but you can get by without fighting your ping to push out weaves. You should at least be able to hit 25k, I'd think.

To make those kinds of improvements, you're going to have to get really comfortable with keeping your Damage over Time skills active. Most of the people I see who struggle to pass 20-25 only cast the long ticking skills as an afterthought. Some of them grow out of that habit and improve, and some of them don't. Blaming gear or skill loadout is common when meeting that failure for the first time, but rotation mistakes are often the cause. By way of comparison, in Necropotence/Ilambris/Moondancer/vMA Backstaff I can get 20k+ just by casting Liquid Lightning -> Blockade of Storms -> Lightning Channelx3 ->Repeat. No Scamp attacks, no Prey, nothing fancy.

What you may be thinking of as your 'main attacks', your instant spammable abilities, are not supposed to be the focus in PvE. They're fill. They are what you cast when you don't have anything better to do, when you're waiting for Twisting Path/Cripple/Blockade or whatever else to cool down. Get into that mindset, prioritize the right skills, and then work on getting the fill back into place.

Arenguros · May 2017

I do feel with you and I only have one advice: Don't bother.

I have tested various builds on pts and none of them came above 24k self-buffed in the best gear available to templates. And I also have pings ranging from 150 to 300+ (which the game even shows in red as a big nope).
Doesn't matter if it was a classic build with ~4 dots/aoes and a spamable or literally just 7+ dots that I keep up with heavy attacks in between. (all with weaving when possible).

I can't even understand posts like these:

Erasure wrote: »

By way of comparison, in Necropotence/Ilambris/Moondancer/vMA Backstaff I can get 20k+ just by casting Liquid Lightning -> Blockade of Storms -> Lightning Channelx3 ->Repeat.

This nets me about 15k dps with pots, 12k without.

DeHei · May 2017

Weaving will be your major damage with Morrorwind. It doesnt matter which build you use. You should fix your ping, else you arent able to play everything in the game..

Arenguros · May 2017

DeHei wrote: »

Weaving will be your major damage with Morrorwind. It doesnt matter which build you use. You should fix your ping, else you arent able to play everything in the game..

LAs got buffed by 15%, but this is still far from major damage.

You can not magically fix your ping.
Most of it is dependant on your location, provider and the ESO servers.

darthsithis · May 2017

To make weaving easier do the light attack, skill, then block in the rhythm you would say the word "bicycle" (Biiiicycle lol).

Or if you are musically included it is a dotted triplet. Ex%207.png

Just the first measure obvs.

Maelstrom staff maybe necessary, but I pull 50,000ish with a precise maelstrom fire and an infal lightning.

Good luck

danno8 · May 2017

Mordenkainen wrote: »

well, at least I found out I cancel my light attack with a skill and not vise versa. That took me just a year, lol. Guess I'm really slow.

I was going to suggest you were doing it wrong based on how you worded your OP. Then I read this last sentence.

Yes, you animation cancel the tail end of a light attack using a skill. That is how "weaving" is done.

Izaki · May 2017

Dorrino wrote: »

Mordenkainen wrote: »

I get 17k-18k on a robust dummy without weaving

With light attack weaving you'll get 1-1.5k more dps. So 18-19k:)

Mordenkainen wrote: »

Is it possible to play this game as actual useful and contributing DPS in trials/veteran dungeons without doing this whole weaving magic? I'm at my wits end here.

Yes. Weaving accounts for 5-8% dps.

Your problem is not in weaving:P

My light attacks are more than 12% of my DPS. Its different for everyone and depends on the consistency of the weaves.

Izaki · May 2017

darthsithis wrote: »

To make weaving easier do the light attack, skill, then block in the rhythm you would say the word "bicycle" (Biiiicycle lol).

Or if you are musically included it is a dotted triplet.

Just the first measure obvs.

Maelstrom staff maybe necessary, but I pull 50,000ish with a precise maelstrom fire and an infal lightning.

Good luck

Block cancelling is like the stupidest thing in the game dude, it literally has no purpose at all. :P

darthsithis · May 2017

Really? So do people just do LA and cancel with an ability? U might've changed the game for me lol.

Block cancel seems to speed up wall of elements frags surge and definitely ward tho.

But for weaving maybe I'll leave it out. Let's see how that goes.

Srsly tho, LA ability NO BLOCK, light attack again? So LA pulse LA pulse frag swap cancel to back bar instead of doing block in between every one?

Izaki · May 2017

darthsithis wrote: »

Really? So do people just do LA and cancel with an ability? U might've changed the game for me lol.

Block cancel seems to speed up wall of elements frags surge and definitely ward tho.

But for weaving maybe I'll leave it out. Let's see how that goes.

Srsly tho, LA ability NO BLOCK, light attack again? So LA pulse LA pulse frag swap cancel to back bar instead of doing block in between every one?

Of course, that's why you never see anyone block cancel aside from the "console plebs" :P The global cooldown on skills is 1 sec no matter what. So whether you block or not the cooldown is still going to be 1 sec. You can't "speed up" skills, even if you cancel the animation by blocking, you're still going to be unable to use an ability for the next 1 sec because of the cooldown. So yeah, block canceling is absolutely pointless, it may cause your skills to bug out and not to mention that it looks really stupid (and I mean like INSANELY stupid).

Waffennacht · May 2017

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

darthsithis wrote: »

Really? So do people just do LA and cancel with an ability? U might've changed the game for me lol.

Block cancel seems to speed up wall of elements frags surge and definitely ward tho.

But for weaving maybe I'll leave it out. Let's see how that goes.

Srsly tho, LA ability NO BLOCK, light attack again? So LA pulse LA pulse frag swap cancel to back bar instead of doing block in between every one?

Of course, that's why you never see anyone block cancel aside from the "console plebs" :P The global cooldown on skills is 1 sec no matter what. So whether you block or not the cooldown is still going to be 1 sec. You can't "speed up" skills, even if you cancel the animation by blocking, you're still going to be unable to use an ability for the next 1 sec because of the cooldown. So yeah, block canceling is absolutely pointless, it may cause your skills to bug out and not to mention that it looks really stupid (and I mean like INSANELY stupid).

I have tested no animation cancelling vs block casting, and I swear it's faster with frags

Joy_Division · May 2017

Mordenkainen wrote: »

I tried it for about a year now. Friend tells me it totally looks good when watching me trying to murder a robust target dummy.

My DPS results are the same. It's crap. At least compared to the 30k,40k,50k+ wizards out there.

I get 17k-18k on a robust dummy without weaving and then seriously the same with what I could only call trying to weave. Either my character is having the spasm of the century, nothing of whatever skill I try to 'weave' gets shortened, or the game refuses to register my input and skips light attacking entirely which results in the skill being spammed at least twice and screwing my whole rotation up.

I am frustrated to the point of considering continueing to play the game with just picking flowers and pretending to be a merchant or something. I have no idea anymore what the issue is. If it's my *** 260ms ping, my fps being too low by 2 frames or if my haircut is just butt ugly in the eyes of some cosmic power.

Is it possible to play this game as actual useful and contributing DPS in trials/veteran dungeons without doing this whole weaving magic? I'm at my wits end here.

During the Thieve's Guild update, ZoS made changes to the animation priority system. The short of it is, sometimes you lose control of what your character does, what you see visually on the game screen is not always what your character is doing according to the game, and medium weaves have become noticeably more difficult to do.

So, yes, the game will at ties not register your input and mess up your rhythm. Do not medium weave.

260 ping isn't good, but it is absolutely possible to light attack weave, which is what you will want to do anyway in the upcoming patch. The degree of "skill" animation cancelling allegedly requires is far overblown. I am terrible at anything that has to do with timing and coordination and I learned how to do it in a matter of days, so much so that it ha become second nature and it's hard not to do it. Don't worry about bar swapping or block-swapping cancels, those do take a lot of practice and only offer marginal benefits to a dps parse. Just complementing your skills with a light attack is all you need to put up competitive numbers and play well.

Honghua · May 2017

Mordenkainen wrote: »

I tried it for about a year now. Friend tells me it totally looks good when watching me trying to murder a robust target dummy.

My DPS results are the same. It's crap. At least compared to the 30k,40k,50k+ wizards out there.

I get 17k-18k on a robust dummy without weaving and then seriously the same with what I could only call trying to weave. Either my character is having the spasm of the century, nothing of whatever skill I try to 'weave' gets shortened, or the game refuses to register my input and skips light attacking entirely which results in the skill being spammed at least twice and screwing my whole rotation up.

I am frustrated to the point of considering continueing to play the game with just picking flowers and pretending to be a merchant or something. I have no idea anymore what the issue is. If it's my *** 260ms ping, my fps being too low by 2 frames or if my haircut is just butt ugly in the eyes of some cosmic power.

Is it possible to play this game as actual useful and contributing DPS in trials/veteran dungeons without doing this whole weaving magic? I'm at my wits end here.

Maybe play as a healer?

Lord_Eomer · May 2017

Mordenkainen wrote: »

I should've mentioned I play a wood elf magicka nightblade.

I did manage 20k on the mage in VAA once and I think this here is my best parse I propably ever had. At least in regards to damage numbers.. certainly not in dps though.

This was in VHRC on the warrior.

Spoke to someone who plays a magNB (Altmer) in my PvE guild and according to them their last parse on a dummy was 29,5k

I'd be happy if I could get to 25k on a dummy myself.

What sets are you using? (BSW + 4 piece Aethar + Illambris is gpod choice) And how have you distibuted CP can also help you gain DPS,

It seems you dot is low, you may not have put CP in Thautermage

Playing as Magicka with Stam Race is also an issue and you are losing some DPS

Dorrino · May 2017

.

Dorrino · May 2017

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

My light attacks are more than 12% of my DPS. Its different for everyone and depends on the consistency of the weaves.

I stand corrected. I assumed stamina specs. Mag specs have mael staves increasing their light attacks damage.

Mordenkainen wrote: »

I do not have a Maelstrom staff and I gave up on getting one of those after bashing my head for close to a month alone against the final Round in VMA. I also sincerely hope those will never be a real requirement.

For mag specs it does buff those light attacks quite noticeably.

Mordenkainen wrote: »

I'm sitting on a dummy again as I type this here, trying it over and over again after having watched some stuff on youtube and I don't get it. I have some extremely weird animation 'freezes' sometimes that just ruin this in its entirety. Is this lag or am I really too stupid to hit two buttons in a row?

Record a short video clip for us.

The lag can't prevent your from pressing light attack and then a skill.

This in case, since it's not obvious what exactly is your problem, i'll try to lay out what exactly people do to anim cancel:

Let's assume your light attacks is you left mouse button (LMB) and your test skill is the numerical '1'.

Without anim canceling you do: Press '1'->Release '1'->Wait 1 sec-> Press '1'-> Release '1' -> Wait 1 sec -> etc

With anim canceling you do: Press LMB -> Release LMB -> Press '1' -> Release '1' - > Wait 1 sec -> Press LMB -> Release LMB -> Press '1' -> Release '1' - > Wait 1 sec -> etc

The time between Press LMB -> Release LMB is as fast as you can do it. You 'tap' the button.

The time between Release LMB -> Press '1' is again as fast as you can do it. But if you experience problems with this particular interval start slowly.

Make it - Press LMB -> Release LMB -> Wait 0.5 sec -> Press '1' -> Release '1' - > Wait 1 sec -> Press LMB -> Release LMB -> Wait 0.5 sec -> Press '1' -> Release '1' - > Wait 1 sec -> etc

Keep us informed please. I'm curious what could be that problem of yours.

darthsithis · May 2017

block cancelling makes frags faster i swear it. but ty for the info, ive been blocking every skill after cancelling the LA. game changer since sometimes moves dont even fire when i do that (if my timing is slightly off).

Seriously, thank you!

but block cancelling your reflective scales so ppl dont see they're up is still something im gonna continue

love watching someone hit themselves with their own frag lol.

Masel · May 2017

I've never blockcanceled anything and I can do 34k DPS by myself on the PTS on a magblade when my ping doesn't suck for once on the NA based PTS. Without a Maelstrom Staff you're going to lose some of it. Weaving is and will he a big part of damage dealing in ESO. If you seriously can't do it due to latency, I recommend leveling a magicka dk and use a heavy attack build. The rotation is very easy and you can pull good DPS, even after the recent nerfs. Also you don't need to worry about resources at all.

In order to make that as effective as possible, you need a maelstrom staff though...

NBrookus · May 2017

Telling people that have to get a vMA staff when they are having trouble with basic DPS is not a solution, because you have to understand mechanics to get one in the first place. 100+ runs/leaderboard drops and I have zero sharp staves. I'm done with the place.

@Mordenkainen
First, master the click timing of light attacks and heavy attacks. Light attack: one fire ball. Heavy/medium attack: 2 fire balls.
Second, get the animation cancel with the skill timing. Just do attack -> skill and watch your CLS window to be sure each are firing. For me, the initial "ah ha" trigger was seeing the spot in the attack animation where I could fire the skill.
Once you can do that with decent success, put on some music with a good 60bpm pace and go to town on a target skelly to help lock in the muscle memory.

If you can't reliably light attack weave but can heavy attack weave, it could be that your mouse button is not responsive enough. If you are using a basic mouse head down to your local office supply store/gaming den and see what the click response on a high quality mouse feels like.

darthsithis · May 2017

not block cancelling, then comparing with block cancelling. looks the same, just that the skills end quicker. cant LA any sooner

http://xboxclips.com/turboyagi/24dd5fdc-085e-4c6c-a31b-19fb2dcec105

So without block casting (which i am so used to lol), am I doing this right?

http://xboxclips.com/turboyagi/478cb809-04c2-4e94-b33b-b78289694d01/embed

ty in advance

Izaki · May 2017

Dorrino wrote: »

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

My light attacks are more than 12% of my DPS. Its different for everyone and depends on the consistency of the weaves.

I stand corrected. I assumed stamina specs. Mag specs have mael staves increasing their light attacks damage.

I barely play magicka. Light attacks are 12% of my damage and I'm a stamina build. That's called "consistency" and "hours of practice"

Izaki · May 2017

darthsithis wrote: »

not block cancelling, then comparing with block cancelling. looks the same, just that the skills end quicker. cant LA any sooner

http://xboxclips.com/turboyagi/24dd5fdc-085e-4c6c-a31b-19fb2dcec105

So without block casting (which i am so used to lol), am I doing this right?

http://xboxclips.com/turboyagi/478cb809-04c2-4e94-b33b-b78289694d01/embed

ty in advance

Yeah the skills "end quicker" but they don't hit any sooner or anything. Literally nothing changes damage wise. (Hence why I never understood the "uproar" about animation canceling breaking the game etc. etc. For the most part block canceling is literally useless.) And in a few weeks come back to that clip and you'll realize how painful it is to watch someone block canceling

And yes the 2nd clip is perfect

dodgehopper_ESO · May 2017

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

darthsithis wrote: »

To make weaving easier do the light attack, skill, then block in the rhythm you would say the word "bicycle" (Biiiicycle lol).

Or if you are musically included it is a dotted triplet.

Just the first measure obvs.

Maelstrom staff maybe necessary, but I pull 50,000ish with a precise maelstrom fire and an infal lightning.

Good luck

Block cancelling is like the stupidest thing in the game dude, it literally has no purpose at all. :P

It has a use, if you actually need to block. :P Otherwise you're just killing your stamina regeneration for 4 seconds. (Unless something has changed in Morrowind I missed?)

Dorrino · May 2017

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

I barely play magicka. Light attacks are 12% of my damage and I'm a stamina build. That's called "consistency" and "hours of practice"

Agreed. About 12%. Didn't add bow light attacks. But that only happens if you sustain without heavies. It goes down to 10-11% with no sustain builds in Morrowind.

Light attacking is really easy to do, it's actually harder not to do it after a little bit of practice.