DW Swords and Increased Spell Damage

ADarklore · June 2017

Been doing a lot of Googling and forum searches and surprise, surprise, a lot of mixed and probably inaccurate information abound.

My question on the topic pertains to... the actual sword quality themselves. Since Dual Wielding spell slingers don't actually USE the swords, does it matter whether the Swords are Purple or Gold quality? I've read some people saying that the sword 'damage rating' increases spell damage, but not sure that is accurate... I would think that sword damage would only apply to actual usage of the swords themselves whether through light/heavy attacks or DW abilities; some accurate information would be much appreciated.

acw37162 · June 2017

Yes, always gold weapons if you can it affects your overall weapon or spell damage number.9

Brutusmax1mus · June 2017

Yes it does matter a lot. Gold them first if you have to choose. Infact i have 14 characters so i only gold weapons lol.

ADarklore · June 2017

Ok, let me be more clear, EXPLAIN how a gold sword is going to increase my spell damage over a purple sword, since I'm not actually using my weapon to inflict for damage. I don't want to spent 100K in gold if there isn't going to be any reason to do so. So far two people have replied but have not provided any facts. Clearly if I was using a staff, I would gold it because I would be using the staff for spell damage, but since swords do not do spell damage, how does it increase it other than through the passive and having two weapons equipped vs one?

If it is true, great, but if it is true, I'd like an actual explanation of how a sword's damage number increases spell damage.

TheStealthDude · June 2017

Your weapon, regardless of type, provides a base level of spell AND weapon damage. This is why, if you look at your stats, you always have a bit of spell or weapon damage, even if you only use one or the other.

LegacyDM · June 2017

ADarklore wrote: »

Ok, let me be more clear, EXPLAIN how a gold sword is going to increase my spell damage over a purple sword, since I'm not actually using my weapon to inflict for damage. I don't want to spent 100K in gold if there isn't going to be any reason to do so. So far two people have replied but have not provided any facts. Clearly if I was using a staff, I would gold it because I would be using the staff for spell damage, but since swords do not do spell damage, how does it increase it other than through the passive and having two weapons equipped vs one?

If it is true, great, but if it is true, I'd like an actual explanation of how a sword's damage number increases spell damage.

They are magical swords and as such boost your spell damage.

Read the twin blade and blunt passive tooltip under dual wield weapons. Clearly spells it out.

As far as damage on weapons. All damage on all weapons increases both weapon and spell damage. Golding the weapons out increases it.

ADarklore · June 2017

Thanks for the info everyone.

Beardimus · June 2017

The gain off the off hand sword is very slight however i think about 1% so if on a budget do the main hand and leave off purple

Lum1on · June 2017

All weapons (not shields) increase your weapon and spell damage by x amount. The value is depended on the quality of the weapon.

The following only applies to dual wields (and maybe some others but not all):

Epic CP160 one-handed weapon gives you 1132 weapon and spell damage, where legendary would give you 1335.
However off-hand is a little bit different case because it only gives you 20,0% of the value, so ~226 (epic) or 267 (legendary)
Those values will get inreased by Major (20,0%) and Minor (5,0%) brutality/sorcery.

If you think about how much it affects here is an example how you can calculate it:

(I_SD * 10,5) / (M + 10,5 * SD) = I_TD%

Where:

I_SD = "Increased spell damage" - the difference between epic and legendary dual wields: (1335 + 1335*0,2) - (1132 + 1132*0,2) = 243 and with Major sorcery: 243 * 1,2 = ~291
M = "Max. magicka" - for example, 40 000
SD = "Spell damage" before the increasement - for example, 2 500
I_TD = "Increased tooltip damage"

So we get the result:

(291 * 10,5) / (40 000 + 10,5 * 2 500) = ~0,046 = 4,6%

Expected increase in tooltips when upgrading epic dual wields to legendary is around 4-5,0% depending your max. magicka and spell damage before upgrading.

Rev Rielle · June 2017

Don't forget to get in there and swing away with them still between skills. Good for getting your enchantments to proc a little faster, and the light attacks alone provide a little bonus dps too. It might only be 1-2 K dps but it all adds up.

Merlin13KAGL · June 2017

ADarklore wrote: »

Ok, let me be more clear, EXPLAIN how a gold sword is going to increase my spell damage over a purple sword, since I'm not actually using my weapon to inflict for damage. I don't want to spent 100K in gold if there isn't going to be any reason to do so. So far two people have replied but have not provided any facts. Clearly if I was using a staff, I would gold it because I would be using the staff for spell damage, but since swords do not do spell damage, how does it increase it other than through the passive and having two weapons equipped vs one?

If it is true, great, but if it is true, I'd like an actual explanation of how a sword's damage number increases spell damage.

Because a gold weapon has a higher damage/set tooltip than a purple one.
The same asinine way the swords 'magically' add spell damage in the first place.

The mechanic shouldn't be there in the first place. If you don't use the weapon, you should get no bonus from it.

Sadly, since the mechanic is there, the general rule is as follows:

Gold out your main weapon. Offhand does less damage and will benefit less from gold, though it will still increase it.
Were you actually using the weapons, have differing enchants on each and they can both proc.
- This can be done by having two different effects.
- This can also be done by having a gold enchant on main hand, and purple enchant on offhand. This way, the game views them as two different enchants (gold vs purple), even though the effect is the same.
- Since you're never actually swinging them, enchants won't proc, so enchants won't matter.
If they'd actually add arcane weapons in game, this could potentially make sense. Since they have not, it 'works' towards the increase for the same reason it 'works' in the first place.