dpencil1 wrote: »

In this post, I will be examining a number of popular Magicka DPS sets in light of the changes brought with the Horns of the Reach patch (3.1.5). The method of comparison will be by using an otherwise static build on the UESP Build Editor, and comparing the Effective Spell Power (ESP) when switching the various sets to be considered.

What is Effective Spell Power and what does it mean?
First, it is not dps! Rather, it speaks more to the potential power of a particular build. You might be able to get higher dps with a different build that has lower ESP if that build better fits the way you play or if the raw damage from certain skills/procs outshines the alternative stat increases on offer. In the future, the Build Editor may be able to offer something closer to a true dps comparison, but more work would need to be done to make that a reality. So in-game testing, like that done by Alcast and Gilliamtherogue is still going to give the most true-to-life results. Think of ESP as more of a theoretical power potential. It is still useful to get a high ESP, but it is not the be-all-end-all priority.

What effect does a static build have on results?
Different classes, skills, and complementary sets can have an effect on the effectiveness of a particular set. The number of possible combinations is far too large for me to test, so what I would suggest is for interested players to observe how I arrive at my results on the build I am using as a baseline and then apply that process to your own baseline build. You can create your own build here:
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor

BUILD INFO

My static build:
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=23456
For each comparison, the 5-piece body set is switched out while all other variables remain static. The one exception to this will be with Spinner's, where I adjust the distribution of points in the Apprentice tree so that we do not over-penetrate. The number of points in the Apprentice tree (145) remains the same. All other builds use one constant CP distribution, as it remains the best in all other cases.

The assumed buffs are:
Major Sorcery, Prophesy, and Breach
Infused+Torug's Crusher Enchant.
100% Infused Wep Dmg Glyph
100% Moondancer Spell Damage buff
(Crusher and Breach being applied by a tank)
- I am not using Alkosh or Minor Breach, as the uptime on those buffs are often not constant and may not be available in small or less min/maxed groups.
- Although 100% uptime on the Wep Dmg glyph and Moondancer are not likely, they are theoretically possible, and since lower uptimes would reduce all ESP's equally, the fact that they are slightly inflated is not problematic.

Here is the ESP comparison chart with full values:


Here is the same chart with 12000 points removed to better view the differences between each set:


SET COMPARISON DISCUSSION

Baseline - This is the ESP with no body 5-piece at all, so you could subtract 9616 from any of the other full set values to see exactly how much ESP each set adds.

Spinner - Please refer to this thread detailing how Spell Penetration works: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4453799#Comment_4453799
Generally speaking, using Lover, Sharpened, and/or Major Breach will be more useful ways of gaining Spell Penetration as they are more easily switched out for other things if your group penetration buffs make any of those unnecessary. That said, Spinner's can be very helpfull in a solo setting, especially if you want to fully penetrate everything instead of running Ele Drain and only generally fully penetrating bosses.

Julianos (4L/1M) - As the only crafted set we are considering, the benefit of being able to complete a 5-1-1 setup to fully benefit from the Undaunted Mettle passive, is represented here. If you are planning to run 2 5-piece sets, this is the value you should expect to gain.

Julianos (5L) - This is Julianos as a stand-alone 5-piece, where being able to craft a different armor weight is unnecessary due to being able to mix and match monster set pieces.

Burning Spell Weave - Although my baseline build is not geared for fire damage, this is irrelevant as any skill changes would have an equal effect on all builds' ESP. With BSW, the range of % uptime is from 57%-66%. Anything below 57% and your 5th piece bonus is worse than Julianos. Also keep in mind that the extra Burning procs are not calculated into the ESP at all. So mDKs in particular will find additional benefit to the set above that noted in the chart. Both a 60% and 65% uptime we're measured to show somewhat of the range of ESP available.

Necropotence - Since Necropotence is generally considered a complimentary set to playing pet builds, and pets do not benefit from additional Spell Damage, many of the boosts built in to our baseline ESP (Moondancer, Wep Dmg glyph, Apprentice stone) do not increase our pet damage at all. UPDATE: Since the writing of rhis post, I did additional parse and calculation work, specifically looking at the Pet Sorc. See this thread for more info:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/369734/pet-sorc-dps-set-comparison-with-parse-data#latest

Mother's Sorrow - With as much extra Spell Damage as we are putting into our build with 100% Moondancer, 100% Wed Dmg Glyph, and Apprentice stone, there is a lot of base power for Mother's Sorrow to magnify. In a more modest scenario, this set would lose potency quickly.

Netch's Touch - Although my pre-HotR analysis used a 100% lightning uptime on Netch's Touch, I've revised this to the more modest values of 80% and 90%. This is primarily due to the fact that, even though Sorc pets do lightning damage, Netch does not increase this damage at all (since pet damage is entirely dependent on max Magicka and not Spell Damage). This means that there will be, in almost every case, some sources of damage that will not benefit from Netch. If less than 75% of your total dps is lightning damage, this set's 5th piece becomes less potent than Julianos, so that's why we chose 80% and 90% values to look at. Even 90% may be difficult to achieve without hurting your dps in other ways.

Destruction Mastery - Generally an underwheling set. It gives less max Magicka than Necro with the benefit of not needing to slot a pet. If taken as part of a maximizing Magicka build, it can be decent, but strictly from a ESP perspective it is not a great choice.

Scathing Mage - This is one of the most volatile sets considered in this survey. Although there is no cooldown on the 5th piece bonus, theoretically allowing for 100% uptime (516 extra Spell Damage), the proc requiring a direct damage crit is quite restrictive. The baseline build in this comparison only has about 50% crit chance with Scathing equipped, so reaching 75% uptime would be quite unlikely. A player would want to spec heavily into crit chance to make good use of this set, potentially sacrificing other benefits in the process. It also requires spamming Force Pulse, which can be quite draining on your Magicka supply.

Silks of the Sun - Like BSW, although the baseline build used here is not specced into fire damage, changing skills to account for this would effect all builds equally, and so is irrelevant. Even at 100% uptime, Sun still under-performs compared to both Julianos and BSW.

Twice-Born Star - Definitely the runt of the litter, TBS offers some extra health and stamina, as well as great versatility in terms of pairing different Mundus stones, but strictly from an ESP perspective it is clearly in last place. That difference is still not huge (4.5% weaker than Spinner's, and 3.7% weaker than Julianos), so if you like the flexability that TBS provides, then go for it.

Thanks for reading!

gethemshauna wrote: »

altemriel wrote: »

dpencil1 wrote: »

In this post, I will be examining a number of popular Magicka DPS sets in light of the changes brought with the Horns of the Reach patch (3.1.5). The method of comparison will be by using an otherwise static build on the UESP Build Editor, and comparing the Effective Spell Power (ESP) when switching the various sets to be considered.

What is Effective Spell Power and what does it mean?
First, it is not dps! Rather, it speaks more to the potential power of a particular build. You might be able to get higher dps with a different build that has lower ESP if that build better fits the way you play or if the raw damage from certain skills/procs outshines the alternative stat increases on offer. In the future, the Build Editor may be able to offer something closer to a true dps comparison, but more work would need to be done to make that a reality. So in-game testing, like that done by Alcast and Gilliamtherogue is still going to give the most true-to-life results. Think of ESP as more of a theoretical power potential. It is still useful to get a high ESP, but it is not the be-all-end-all priority.

What effect does a static build have on results?
Different classes, skills, and complementary sets can have an effect on the effectiveness of a particular set. The number of possible combinations is far too large for me to test, so what I would suggest is for interested players to observe how I arrive at my results on the build I am using as a baseline and then apply that process to your own baseline build. You can create your own build here:
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor

BUILD INFO

My static build:
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=23456
For each comparison, the 5-piece body set is switched out while all other variables remain static. The one exception to this will be with Spinner's, where I adjust the distribution of points in the Apprentice tree so that we do not over-penetrate. The number of points in the Apprentice tree (145) remains the same. All other builds use one constant CP distribution, as it remains the best in all other cases.

The assumed buffs are:
Major Sorcery, Prophesy, and Breach
Infused+Torug's Crusher Enchant.
100% Infused Wep Dmg Glyph
100% Moondancer Spell Damage buff
(Crusher and Breach being applied by a tank)
- I am not using Alkosh or Minor Breach, as the uptime on those buffs are often not constant and may not be available in small or less min/maxed groups.
- Although 100% uptime on the Wep Dmg glyph and Moondancer are not likely, they are theoretically possible, and since lower uptimes would reduce all ESP's equally, the fact that they are slightly inflated is not problematic.

Here is the ESP comparison chart with full values:


Here is the same chart with 12000 points removed to better view the differences between each set:


SET COMPARISON DISCUSSION

Baseline - This is the ESP with no body 5-piece at all, so you could subtract 9616 from any of the other full set values to see exactly how much ESP each set adds.

Spinner - Please refer to this thread detailing how Spell Penetration works: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4453799#Comment_4453799
Generally speaking, using Lover, Sharpened, and/or Major Breach will be more useful ways of gaining Spell Penetration as they are more easily switched out for other things if your group penetration buffs make any of those unnecessary. That said, Spinner's can be very helpfull in a solo setting, especially if you want to fully penetrate everything instead of running Ele Drain and only generally fully penetrating bosses.

Julianos (4L/1M) - As the only crafted set we are considering, the benefit of being able to complete a 5-1-1 setup to fully benefit from the Undaunted Mettle passive, is represented here. If you are planning to run 2 5-piece sets, this is the value you should expect to gain.

Julianos (5L) - This is Julianos as a stand-alone 5-piece, where being able to craft a different armor weight is unnecessary due to being able to mix and match monster set pieces.

Burning Spell Weave - Although my baseline build is not geared for fire damage, this is irrelevant as any skill changes would have an equal effect on all builds' ESP. With BSW, the range of % uptime is from 57%-66%. Anything below 57% and your 5th piece bonus is worse than Julianos. Also keep in mind that the extra Burning procs are not calculated into the ESP at all. So mDKs in particular will find additional benefit to the set above that noted in the chart. Both a 60% and 65% uptime we're measured to show somewhat of the range of ESP available.

Necropotence - Since Necropotence is generally considered a complimentary set to playing pet builds, and pets do not benefit from additional Spell Damage, many of the boosts built in to our baseline ESP (Moondancer, Wep Dmg glyph, Apprentice stone) do not increase our pet damage at all. UPDATE: Since the writing of rhis post, I did additional parse and calculation work, specifically looking at the Pet Sorc. See this thread for more info:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/369734/pet-sorc-dps-set-comparison-with-parse-data#latest

Mother's Sorrow - With as much extra Spell Damage as we are putting into our build with 100% Moondancer, 100% Wed Dmg Glyph, and Apprentice stone, there is a lot of base power for Mother's Sorrow to magnify. In a more modest scenario, this set would lose potency quickly.

Netch's Touch - Although my pre-HotR analysis used a 100% lightning uptime on Netch's Touch, I've revised this to the more modest values of 80% and 90%. This is primarily due to the fact that, even though Sorc pets do lightning damage, Netch does not increase this damage at all (since pet damage is entirely dependent on max Magicka and not Spell Damage). This means that there will be, in almost every case, some sources of damage that will not benefit from Netch. If less than 75% of your total dps is lightning damage, this set's 5th piece becomes less potent than Julianos, so that's why we chose 80% and 90% values to look at. Even 90% may be difficult to achieve without hurting your dps in other ways.

Destruction Mastery - Generally an underwheling set. It gives less max Magicka than Necro with the benefit of not needing to slot a pet. If taken as part of a maximizing Magicka build, it can be decent, but strictly from a ESP perspective it is not a great choice.

Scathing Mage - This is one of the most volatile sets considered in this survey. Although there is no cooldown on the 5th piece bonus, theoretically allowing for 100% uptime (516 extra Spell Damage), the proc requiring a direct damage crit is quite restrictive. The baseline build in this comparison only has about 50% crit chance with Scathing equipped, so reaching 75% uptime would be quite unlikely. A player would want to spec heavily into crit chance to make good use of this set, potentially sacrificing other benefits in the process. It also requires spamming Force Pulse, which can be quite draining on your Magicka supply.

Silks of the Sun - Like BSW, although the baseline build used here is not specced into fire damage, changing skills to account for this would effect all builds equally, and so is irrelevant. Even at 100% uptime, Sun still under-performs compared to both Julianos and BSW.

Twice-Born Star - Definitely the runt of the litter, TBS offers some extra health and stamina, as well as great versatility in terms of pairing different Mundus stones, but strictly from an ESP perspective it is clearly in last place. That difference is still not huge (4.5% weaker than Spinner's, and 3.7% weaker than Julianos), so if you like the flexability that TBS provides, then go for it.

Thanks for reading!

hmm, so Spinner is so good, good to know!!

If you are target dummy minmaxer, yes, it is.