Maelstrom weapon enchantments

Tkap420 · June 2017

@ZOS_GinaBruno Alright so I'm testing somethings out with my maelstrom weapons finally got two sharpened lightning staffs after about 400 runs. But basically I took two of my old staffs (defending) and put a bezerker enchant on one and left the unique enchantment on my other. Now even though I got rid of the spell damage bonus because of the bezerker enchantment on the one bar my spell dmg stays the same on each bar with identical skills on each. So I went to test it out thinking my dmg output would be the same on each bar since my spell damage was the same. But my light attacks on the bar with the bezerker enchant where doing less dmg then the bar with the unique enchantment. So my questions are:
Is the spell dmg supposed to be a set bonus or part of the enchantment?
Is my character screen readout being the same a bug or the output damage being different a bug?

Pepper8Jack · June 2017

Probably a ui error with the character sheet. As far as I know the spell damage bonus on the MA staves was part of the MA enchantment and not a part of the weapon itself.

i.e. re-enchanting the weapon should get rid of the spell damage bonus, and the identical spell damage on the character sheet is likely a ui error. Have you tried unequipping the staff with the unique enchant, then reloading the ui with only the berserker enchant equipped?

Tkap420 · June 2017

Yea I swapped the weapons to different bars just to see if that was the case... I heard the poisons keep the dmg output the same..goin to test that myself tonight just wanted to get an official statement on here asap see if we can clear it up...in my opinion if they made the spell dmg part of the staff not the enchant it would make the staffs more desirable.

f047ys3v3n · June 2017

Here is my understanding:

1) The spell damage bonus is not part of the enchant. It is intrinsic and Re-enchanting will not remove it. Re-enchanding of master weapons is common in order to retain the analogous bonus to spell power but put a damage enchant on the weapon because the master destro staves insignificantly boost an ability that is rarely used.

2) Your damage will be less with your defending stave because it is defending. You are getting penetration with the sharpened one so all damage you do on that bar will be more.

Your results look like they are working as expected to me.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · June 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Here is my understanding:

1) The spell damage bonus is not part of the enchant. It is intrinsic and Re-enchanting will not remove it. Re-enchanding of master weapons is common in order to retain the analogous bonus to spell power but put a damage enchant on the weapon because the master destro staves insignificantly boost an ability that is rarely used.

2) Your damage will be less with your defending stave because it is defending. You are getting penetration with the sharpened one so all damage you do on that bar will be more.

Your results look like they are working as expected to me.

That is news to me, but it would explain the functionality of poisons and vma staffs. That would in theory make a VMA staff reenchanted with a spell damage glyph best in slot (as opposed to moondancer) on a lot of PVE dps builds. It's only like 60 spell damage more, but still more. Sounds like a big leap to take though to re-enchant a sharp VMA destro. Not sure I could do it. Haha

Tkap420 · June 2017

@f047ys3v3n @Oreyn_Bearclaw ..i was using two defending maelstrom weapons for the test with the light attacks...not my sharpened. The spell dmg is definitely taken off the weapon when re-enchanted even tho it still gives you the spell dmg on your char sheet. The poisons keep the dmg output the same on both bars <which is supposed to be identical to re-enchanting the weapon > re-read my original post

SodanTok · June 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Here is my understanding:

1) The spell damage bonus is not part of the enchant. It is intrinsic and Re-enchanting will not remove it. Re-enchanding of master weapons is common in order to retain the analogous bonus to spell power but put a damage enchant on the weapon because the master destro staves insignificantly boost an ability that is rarely used.

2) Your damage will be less with your defending stave because it is defending. You are getting penetration with the sharpened one so all damage you do on that bar will be more.

Your results look like they are working as expected to me.

Not really. May be old information, but on PTS (but with Morrowind) ~2months ago I tested it on VMA bow. The weapon damage in char sheet stays same but the all damage will be lower (tested defending vs precise btw).

The only and best explanation is that VMA/Master enchants have 2 parts. Active and passive. Reenchant replaced the whole enchantment. Poisons just disable the active part.

theamazingx · June 2017

Well known and documented ui bug.

Functionally, enchanting a vma weapon will override the ENTIRE enchantment. Only poisons will override the skill modifier while leaving the spell damage.

theamazingx · June 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Here is my understanding:

1) The spell damage bonus is not part of the enchant. It is intrinsic and Re-enchanting will not remove it. Re-enchanding of master weapons is common in order to retain the analogous bonus to spell power but put a damage enchant on the weapon because the master destro staves insignificantly boost an ability that is rarely used.

2) Your damage will be less with your defending stave because it is defending. You are getting penetration with the sharpened one so all damage you do on that bar will be more.

Your results look like they are working as expected to me.

I hope no one ruins their hardearned weapons by listening to this :P

Toast_STS · June 2017

hmm I noticed the same thing with my robust ravager necklace. I re-enchanted and it still has the old damage enchant show up in character UI but not on the item's tooltip. I haven't been able to tell if it actually gives me more weapon damage.

Tkap420 · June 2017

@theamazingx Yea my entire post is to find out which way it's supposed to be...not to know how it is I know how it is tested it myself. What I'm saying is that If the poison is supposed to suppress the enchantment then both should be the same thing. Both leave your spell dmg the same but output dmg is different. Was looking for an official statement from zos... @ZOS_EveP @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GaryA @ZOS_TristanK

f047ys3v3n · June 2017

SodanTok wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Here is my understanding:

1) The spell damage bonus is not part of the enchant. It is intrinsic and Re-enchanting will not remove it. Re-enchanding of master weapons is common in order to retain the analogous bonus to spell power but put a damage enchant on the weapon because the master destro staves insignificantly boost an ability that is rarely used.

2) Your damage will be less with your defending stave because it is defending. You are getting penetration with the sharpened one so all damage you do on that bar will be more.

Your results look like they are working as expected to me.

Not really. May be old information, but on PTS (but with Morrowind) ~2months ago I tested it on VMA bow. The weapon damage in char sheet stays same but the all damage will be lower (tested defending vs precise btw).

The only and best explanation is that VMA/Master enchants have 2 parts. Active and passive. Reenchant replaced the whole enchantment. Poisons just disable the active part.

PTS would be the way to test is since you can easily get many same traited weapons by creating new test toons. Back in the days that I remember lots of folks re-enchanting vDSA staves we didn't have a test dummy so it was harder to test beyond the UI which indicated the non-ability based bonus was intrinsic and not overridden.

For what it is worth I have only one vMA and vDSA sharp inferno stave and was too skittish to over-right the vDSA one even though I don't use the ability. You never know what ZOS is going to do especially with a very hard to acquire weapon that massively under-performs or an ability that likewise is very under-performing.

Perhaps my information is what is old. It is much older than yours. Perhaps also nobody has ever really figured it out. I know I was too scared to drop a glyph on one of my staves and too busy during the short pts duration that NA server ever gets to test it then.