What traits/enchants do people run on mag DD staves?

Carbonised · March 2018

The meta was sharp/sharp for ages until the trait rebalance a while back, and now I see nirnhoned being very popular, and even infused with an elemental enchant.

I'm a Dunmer magDK DD, and have been running sharp/sharp with spell damage enchant, but what is considered the "best" trait/enchant combo these days for inferno staff on both bars?

I'm talking specifically for dungeons or trials mostly, PvE anyway.

SaintSubwayy · March 2018

Backbar vMA nirnhoned
Frontbar infused

Illurian · March 2018

I run Infused frontbar with a flame/shock enchant and Nirnhoned back bar with a spell damage enchant.

Some of my guildies say that infused on both bars provides better dps, though.

Carbonised · March 2018

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

Backbar vMA nirnhoned
Frontbar infused

I've seen this setup as well. So infused with flame enchant is really worth giving up the pen from sharp or the damage from a nirnhoned?

I'm also on non-MA staves btw.

Septimus_Magna · March 2018

Infused is BiS for the front bar, back bar depends on how much you barswap and how many dots you put up.

If you switch barswap a lot like mNBs for example infused is pretty good on the backbar.

Liofa · March 2018

Double Infused . Flame front , Berserker back bar .

code65536 · March 2018

Not sure why people are recommending Nirnhoned for the back instead of Infused.

Nirnhoned adds 200 SD. Spell power enchant adds 348 SD for 5 seconds, with 10 second cooldown. So average SD, if you spend 100% of your time on the back bar and have perfect uptime, is ((200*10)+(348*5))/10 = 374.

Spell power enchant on an Infused bar adds 452 SD for 5 seconds, with 5 second cooldown. Average SD, if you spend 100% of your time on the back bar and have perfect uptime, is 452.

So, if you spend all your time on the back and proc the enchant as soon as it's off cooldown, Infused wins over Nirnhoned. But what about real-world usage? Because generally, you spend very little time on the back bar and you won't get enchantment procs on cooldown.

So first, you generally spend your time on the front bar. The 200 SD from the Nirn trait applies only to the back bar. That 200 SD goes away as soon as you bar swap to the front. Furthermore, abilities like Blockade use the stats of the bar that you're currently on, not the bar that it was cast from, so what matters more is what your front bar SD is, not what your back bar SD is. The SD from the back bar enchant, however, sticks with your character and persists across bar swaps. Which means that Infused will boost your front bar SD more than Nirnhoned will. Which means that accounting for the fact that you're not on the back bar 100% of the time will shift things even more in favor of Infused.

Second, because of the shorter cooldown, you are pretty much guaranteed to get the SD proc every time you flip to reapply your back bar DoTs. But if you flip back every, say, 8s, then with a 10s cooldown, there will be times when you won't get a back bar SD proc.

Nirnhoned makes sense for the back bar on a stamina class, since stamina dual-wield and thus have their Berserker enchant on the front bar, and so Nirnhoned on the back is better. But if your Berserker enchant is on the back bar--as is the case for magicka--then you should be using Infused, not Nirnhoned.

TL;DR: Infused on the back bar for magicka DD. Nirnhoned back bar is incorrect advice.

Carbonised · March 2018

code65536 wrote: »

Not sure why people are recommending Nirnhoned for the back instead of Infused.

Nirnhoned adds 200 SD. Spell power enchant adds 348 SD for 5 seconds, with 10 second cooldown. So average SD, if you spend 100% of your time on the back bar and have perfect uptime, is ((200*10)+(348*5))/10 = 374.

Spell power enchant on an Infused bar adds 452 SD for 5 seconds, with 5 second cooldown. Average SD, if you spend 100% of your time on the back bar and have perfect uptime, is 452.

So, if you spend all your time on the back and proc the enchant as soon as it's off cooldown, Infused wins over Nirnhoned. But what about real-world usage? Because generally, you spend very little time on the back bar and you won't get enchantment procs on cooldown.

So first, you generally spend your time on the front bar. The 200 SD from the Nirn trait applies only to the back bar. That 200 SD goes away as soon as you bar swap to the front. Furthermore, abilities like Blockade use the stats of the bar that you're currently on, not the bar that it was cast from, so what matters more is what your front bar SD is, not what your back bar SD is. The SD from the back bar enchant, however, sticks with your character and persists across bar swaps. Which means that Infused will boost your front bar SD more than Nirnhoned will. Which means that accounting for the fact that you're not on the back bar 100% of the time will shift things even more in favor of Infused.

Second, because of the shorter cooldown, you are pretty much guaranteed to get the SD proc every time you flip to reapply your back bar DoTs. But if you flip back every, say, 8s, then with a 10s cooldown, there will be times when you won't get a back bar SD proc.

Nirnhoned makes sense for the back bar on a stamina class, since stamina dual-wield and thus have their Berserker enchant on the front bar, and so Nirnhoned on the back is better. But if your Berserker enchant is on the back bar--as is the case for magicka--then you should be using Infused, not Nirnhoned.

TL;DR: Infused on the back bar for magicka DD. Nirnhoned back bar is incorrect advice.

Thanks, Code. So infused with spell damage enchant on back bar. And what about front bar? Infused with flame damage like @Liofa suggested?

Nice to see how trait "balance" just meant going from sharp/sharp to infused/infused, both for DD and tank builds. So much for that balance.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · March 2018

Just keep in mind, to proc the spell Damage enchant, you have to light or heavy attack while on the back bar, this can be hard for some, myself included, so I just run another damage enchant, lighting or fire, the one that is not on my front bar. This way it procs from wall with much higher consistently.

code65536 · March 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Not sure why people are recommending Nirnhoned for the back instead of Infused.

Nirnhoned adds 200 SD. Spell power enchant adds 348 SD for 5 seconds, with 10 second cooldown. So average SD, if you spend 100% of your time on the back bar and have perfect uptime, is ((200*10)+(348*5))/10 = 374.

Spell power enchant on an Infused bar adds 452 SD for 5 seconds, with 5 second cooldown. Average SD, if you spend 100% of your time on the back bar and have perfect uptime, is 452.

So, if you spend all your time on the back and proc the enchant as soon as it's off cooldown, Infused wins over Nirnhoned. But what about real-world usage? Because generally, you spend very little time on the back bar and you won't get enchantment procs on cooldown.

So first, you generally spend your time on the front bar. The 200 SD from the Nirn trait applies only to the back bar. That 200 SD goes away as soon as you bar swap to the front. Furthermore, abilities like Blockade use the stats of the bar that you're currently on, not the bar that it was cast from, so what matters more is what your front bar SD is, not what your back bar SD is. The SD from the back bar enchant, however, sticks with your character and persists across bar swaps. Which means that Infused will boost your front bar SD more than Nirnhoned will. Which means that accounting for the fact that you're not on the back bar 100% of the time will shift things even more in favor of Infused.

Second, because of the shorter cooldown, you are pretty much guaranteed to get the SD proc every time you flip to reapply your back bar DoTs. But if you flip back every, say, 8s, then with a 10s cooldown, there will be times when you won't get a back bar SD proc.

Nirnhoned makes sense for the back bar on a stamina class, since stamina dual-wield and thus have their Berserker enchant on the front bar, and so Nirnhoned on the back is better. But if your Berserker enchant is on the back bar--as is the case for magicka--then you should be using Infused, not Nirnhoned.

TL;DR: Infused on the back bar for magicka DD. Nirnhoned back bar is incorrect advice.

Thanks, Code. So infused with spell damage enchant on back bar. And what about front bar? Infused with flame damage? Or Nirnhoned with flame?

The front is more variable.

Running in a group where someone else (e.g., a healer with IA) is providing Minor Vulnerability? Infused/Nirnhoned/Precise (*) fire enchant for the raw damage.

Running in a group with no other source of Minor Vulnerability? Infused shock enchant for the Minor Vulnerability uptime.

Using a light-attack-force-shock rotation with an Asylum staff? Infused absorb magic enchant for the sustain.

Fighting Undead/Daedra, like Rakkhat, the first two vAA bosses or Thurvokun? Infused Prismatic enchant.

(*) Infused is the safe bet for the front bar, but the main downside to damage-dealing enchants is that they are single-target. In multi-target fights, Nirnhoned or Precise can be stronger.

Carbonised · March 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Just keep in mind, to proc the spell Damage enchant, you have to light or heavy attack while on the back bar, this can be hard for some, myself included, so I just run another damage enchant, lighting or fire, the one that is not on my front bar. This way it procs from wall with much higher consistently.

I've been using spell enchant on my back bar for a long while, so I'm used to light/medium attack weavin to proc it before bar swap, plus i cast WoE and Erupt from back bar both, so good time to proc the enchant while casting those.

As per Code's second response (and the other response here, thanks guys), I'm gonna go with infused-spelldamage on back bar and infused-firedamage on front bar. Single target damage is moret important in the content I usually do, and it's the enchants I already use, so it's just the weapon traits that need to get changed. I guess it's finally bye bye to the sharp/sharp traits I've used in almost 2 years then, at least until a new balance meta comes along.

Thanks everyone!

Leandor · March 2018

I prefer nirnhoned front bar with poisons and infused back bar with berserker. But then, I'm only talking pvp