"Scamp's" Pulse attack (volatile familiar) DOES NOT increase with Thaumaturge (+ some insight)

Benemime · March 2018

People often are saying on pet build guides that we should stack thaumaturge for scamp as well because it increases the damage of its pulse attack. Well, it's not increasing AT ALL.

I ran the test by putting 31 points in thaumaturge, then I removed them and I reallocated the points to "Piercing" (the one from the same constellation as thaumaturge that increase the physical penetration, just so I could see the tooltip on scamp pulse attack, that does "shock" dmg - although the animation effect doesn't look like shock dmg at all, I have to check if it really is). Anyway, the dmg remained the same, both the regular attack and the pulse attack was dealing the same amount of damage, on tooltip and on the target, I always close/open the UI just in case if the tooltip is bugged as well.

When I move those 31 points to master at arms instead, both attacks got higher (the regular attack and the pulse attack).

This is problematic because the description of the pulse itself suggests that it's a DoT. Although the damage on the mob/target is white instead of orange.

Why I mentioned the color of the dmg not being orange? Because thaumaturge was increasing Atronach base attack (the one that appears orange on the target, the fallen damage is still affected by master at arms, and the AoE attack from Charged Atronach as well).

Thaumaturge is also increasing the orange damage from lightning staff heavy attack
While master at arms increases the white damage from lightning staff heavy attack.
(I just run all of those tests, thaumaturge is also increasing the damage from entropy - mages guild skill - that is shown orange as well)

So, that lead us to believe that thaumaturge only affects orange color dmg types, while master at arms increases white colored dmg types. Right?

NO! Liquid lightning and wall of elements displays white colored damage numbers, but are affected by thaumaturge exclusively.

So to me this is really problematic.

To summer it up:

First of all, the pulse attack from scamp (volatile familiar) doesn't work as a DoT, it's a direct hit dmg type instead, and it's shown white colored.

The regular attack from scamp is a direct hit as well, and white colored as well.

^ Both the regular and the pulse are affected by master at arms exclusively

On the other hand, the StormAtronach, that its base attack is orange colored and it's affected by thaumaturge (although imo should be a direct hit and be white colored instead, but things are starting to get a little crazy anyway)

Although the base/main attack from Atronach is orange/"DoT" type, the fallen dmg from when it's summoned and the AoE attack (from Charged Atronach exclusively) are still white colored and affected by Master at arms as a direct hit, which is Ok and right

To go against the DoT = orange dmg, there is wall of elements and liquid lightning, that displays a white colored dmg type but are considered DoT (they are scaled by thaumaturge)

Also, I've just remember to mention that Staff Expert only affects the orange colored dmg from lightning staff, the "Dot" one that is also affected by thaumaturge as well. The white colored dmg from lightning staff heavy attack is affected only by master at arms, NOT scaling from staff expert - which I don't think it's fair since the staff expert should increase everything from the heavy attack I guess

Jarryzzt · March 2018

Heeeey, looks like I need to put more points into Master at Arms...

...seriously. FWIW I had always thought that mechanically Familiar seemed to be direct damage (in five distinct pulses) and not a DoT, though I agree the description is somewhat ambiguous. But I haven't yet tested this...and you have, so thanks for that.

Honestly, in the ideal ZOS would have had a little subheader for each and every skill in the game that had tags for that skill. E.g. "AoE, DoT, Physical" or "Single-target, Direct, Fire". And ditto on any CP node (i.e. which tags it affects). This, however, is yet another in a million-million list of UI issues that a) had obviously not been thought through as well as they might have been from the beginning and b) are unlikely to be fixed in the visible future...

Emma_Overload · March 2018

This is actually good news if they changed this to direct damage, because most Sorcs spells are. Maybe bad news for some PVE builds, but I heard the 75 Thaumaturge meta died anyway thanks to off-balance nerfs.

Erraln · March 2018

Sorry, no.

Blue CP: 100 Blessed, 40 Staff Expert, 100 Variable.
Non-critical, fully unbuffed observed Familiar Damage Pulse strikes:

100 Piercing (should not buff scamp) 2759
100 Master at Arms: 2759
100 Thaumaturge: 3324

I don't know why you saw pulse damage increase with MaA, but you must have had a confounding variable in there somewhere. Like, say, Concussed being active.

Benemime · March 2018

Erraln wrote: »

Sorry, no.

Blue CP: 100 Blessed, 40 Staff Expert, 100 Variable.
Non-critical, fully unbuffed observed Familiar Damage Pulse strikes:

100 Piercing (should not buff scamp) 2759
100 Master at Arms: 2759
100 Thaumaturge: 3324

I don't know why you saw pulse damage increase with MaA, but you must have had a confounding variable in there somewhere. Like, say, Concussed being active.

No, without concussed, I ALWAYS pay attention to concussion and I don't get the first number that appears on my screen.

I literally just tested it again just because of your comment: I had 20 points on thaumaturge and i removed all 20 points from it, I logged off to refresh whatever number that has to be refreshed because sometimes the UI bugs. And when I logged in the number was the same: 3982 from pulse attack of volatile familiar (yes my volatile familiar hits hard with its pulse attack), I wrote this number on my phone before resetting the 20 points and before logging off.

I set the 20 points to master at arms and the pulse attack was now 4105.

I just dropped the 20 points on thaumaturge again and my pulse attack went back to 3982.

WrathOfInnos · March 2018

@Erraln @Benemime What server are you both on. Maybe it's been changed for only PC or console?

Valdek · March 2018

For other people looking in to this: It is worth mentioning that the actual damage taken by targets does NOT always tie up with the damage on tooltips. I tested this a while back and made a post on it about my magplar.

e.g. putting points into Master-at-Arms showed an increase in tooltip damage for a number of my magplar's spells, but the ACTUAL damage did NOT increase. Other CP choices are similarly buggy.

Undefwun · March 2018

Well i might be wrong, but I always thought 'orange' meant crits...

When I shoot my merciless bow and get non-crit values it's white when i get my 30k+ hits it's orange...

Benemime · March 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

@Erraln @Benemime What server are you both on. Maybe it's been changed for only PC or console?

I'm on xbox.

Undefwun wrote: »

Well i might be wrong, but I always thought 'orange' meant crits...

When I shoot my merciless bow and get non-crit values it's white when i get my 30k+ hits it's orange...

Critical from white dmg is...yellow-ish

The orange dot has a critical and a non criical

Undefwun · March 2018

Benemime wrote: »

Critical from white dmg is...yellow-ish

The orange dot has a critical and a non criical

well there you go.. learned something new today

Erraln · March 2018

@WrathOfInnos PC-NA

pteam · March 2018

Here’s some testing I did the other day on Xbox against a skeleton:

Wall of elements - 2112 no crit, 3549 crit yellow and white numbers
Liquid lightning , 2589 no crit, 4350 crit yellow and white
Curse - 15795 crit, 9402 no crit. yellow and white numbers
Scamp reg attack - 811 normal attack , 1216 crit white and yellow numbers ,
Scamp pulse - 6311 pulse crit, 3756 non crit
Twilight, 4419 crit, 2946 no crit

After 3% more in master at arms:
Wall of elements, - 2112 no crit, 3549 crit.
Liquid lightning - 2589no crit, 4350 crit
Curse - 16157 crit, 9618 no crit
Scamp, 811 normal attack, 1216 crit
Pulse 6311 crit 3756 no crit
Twilight 2946 , 4419crit

Deleted 16% in master at arms, 0% total
Wall of elements - 3549 crit, 2112 no crit
Liquid lightning - 2589 no crit, 4350 crit
Curse - 14228 crit, 8469 no crit
Scamp reg attack - 811 no crit, 1216 crit
Scamp pulse - 3756 no crit, 6311 crit
Twilight - 2946, 4419 crit.

1% more in thaumaturge
Wall of elements 2126 no crit 3571 crit
LL - 2606 no crit, 4378 crit
Curse - 9402 no crit, 15795
Scamp - 811 no crit, 1216 crit
Scamp pulse - 3781 no crit, 6352 crit
Twilight, 4419 crit, 2946 no crit

Dracane · March 2018

I am highly suspicious, that OPs test have actually occured. For the very simple reason, that the scamp's base attack's do not scale with any CP passives at all. The tooltip changes, but the damage dealt never changes. And last time I checked, thaumaturge increased the pulse damage while master at arms did not.

I can't comprehend how you come to these results.

firedrgn · March 2018

There are jump points you wont see 1% will you
I think the test is problematic.

You really need to clear cp test then add all you cp in one thing at a time.

It cost the same 3k gold so not sure why your doing 1% ..or i dont understand what your saying

Valdek · March 2018

pteam wrote: »

Here’s some testing I did the other day on Xbox against a skeleton:

Wall of elements - 2112 no crit, 3549 crit yellow and white numbers
Liquid lightning , 2589 no crit, 4350 crit yellow and white
Curse - 15795 crit, 9402 no crit. yellow and white numbers
Scamp reg attack - 811 normal attack , 1216 crit white and yellow numbers ,
Scamp pulse - 6311 pulse crit, 3756 non crit
Twilight, 4419 crit, 2946 no crit

After 3% more in master at arms:
Wall of elements, - 2112 no crit, 3549 crit.
Liquid lightning - 2589no crit, 4350 crit
Curse - 16157 crit, 9618 no crit
Scamp, 811 normal attack, 1216 crit
Pulse 6311 crit 3756 no crit
Twilight 2946 , 4419crit

Deleted 16% in master at arms, 0% total
Wall of elements - 3549 crit, 2112 no crit
Liquid lightning - 2589 no crit, 4350 crit
Curse - 14228 crit, 8469 no crit
Scamp reg attack - 811 no crit, 1216 crit
Scamp pulse - 3756 no crit, 6311 crit
Twilight - 2946, 4419 crit.

1% more in thaumaturge
Wall of elements 2126 no crit 3571 crit
LL - 2606 no crit, 4378 crit
Curse - 9402 no crit, 15795
Scamp - 811 no crit, 1216 crit
Scamp pulse - 3781 no crit, 6352 crit
Twilight, 4419 crit, 2946 no crit

Those findings look very similar to what I discovered when I tested the CPs. It seemed like master at arms performed very poorly for my pve rotation and (despite the increases in the damage on tooltips) it had no actual impact on true damage. (Edit: for the majority, but not all, of my abilities.)

firedrgn wrote: »

There are jump points you wont see 1% will you
I think the test is problematic.

You really need to clear cp test then add all you cp in one thing at a time.

It cost the same 3k gold so not sure why your doing 1% ..or i dont understand what your saying

I’m not sure I get you. You do see damage increasing for each CP point you spend IF it actually increases the damage for the ability in question. Putting in 1 CP to see if there’s an increase is just as accurate as putting in 100 and will tell you whether or not that CP increases damage for that ability. The only difference is that with more CP points, the damage increase would be larger.

Tasear · March 2018

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEdito

Here you go. A testing area for you ideas and Curiosities.

Benemime · March 2018

pteam wrote: »

Here’s some testing I did the other day on Xbox against a skeleton:

Wall of elements - 2112 no crit, 3549 crit yellow and white numbers
Liquid lightning , 2589 no crit, 4350 crit yellow and white
Curse - 15795 crit, 9402 no crit. yellow and white numbers
Scamp reg attack - 811 normal attack , 1216 crit white and yellow numbers ,
Scamp pulse - 6311 pulse crit, 3756 non crit
Twilight, 4419 crit, 2946 no crit

After 3% more in master at arms:
Wall of elements, - 2112 no crit, 3549 crit.
Liquid lightning - 2589no crit, 4350 crit
Curse - 16157 crit, 9618 no crit
Scamp, 811 normal attack, 1216 crit
Pulse 6311 crit 3756 no crit
Twilight 2946 , 4419crit

Deleted 16% in master at arms, 0% total
Wall of elements - 3549 crit, 2112 no crit
Liquid lightning - 2589 no crit, 4350 crit
Curse - 14228 crit, 8469 no crit
Scamp reg attack - 811 no crit, 1216 crit
Scamp pulse - 3756 no crit, 6311 crit
Twilight - 2946, 4419 crit.

1% more in thaumaturge
Wall of elements 2126 no crit 3571 crit
LL - 2606 no crit, 4378 crit
Curse - 9402 no crit, 15795
Scamp - 811 no crit, 1216 crit
Scamp pulse - 3781 no crit, 6352 crit
Twilight, 4419 crit, 2946 no crit

was that before or after dragon bones?

Septimus_Magna · March 2018

Scamp being direct dmg doesnt make sense, the pulse acts like Blockade or Liquid but it just ticks less often and moves with the pet.

Curse on the other hand could be considered direct (delayed) dmg because its one per cast. I think it used to count as dot but I dont know if they changed it.

Dracane · March 2018

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Scamp being direct dmg doesnt make sense, the pulse acts like Blockade or Liquid but it just ticks less often and moves with the pet.

Curse on the other hand could be considered direct (delayed) dmg because its one per cast. I think it used to count as dot but I dont know if they changed it.

Would be nice if this was true. The scamp pulse has little in common with blockade and lightning. Because these are ground aoes and are unblockable, the scamp's pulse is more like pulsar when it comes to this, thus blockable.

Illurian · March 2018

Valdek wrote: »

firedrgn wrote: »

There are jump points you wont see 1% will you
I think the test is problematic.

You really need to clear cp test then add all you cp in one thing at a time.

It cost the same 3k gold so not sure why your doing 1% ..or i dont understand what your saying

I’m not sure I get you. You do see damage increasing for each CP point you spend IF it actually increases the damage for the ability in question. Putting in 1 CP to see if there’s an increase is just as accurate as putting in 100 and will tell you whether or not that CP increases damage for that ability. The only difference is that with more CP points, the damage increase would be larger.

Sorry, this is blatantly false. Contrary to what the description of the CPs say while you add CP, there are "jump points", meaning you only get actual benefit when you add enough points to hit this jump point.

For the most part, the jump points seem to be whole integers. This means that if you add enough CP to increase the value to the closest 1%, you will receive the benefit of that 1%. E.g. If you add 14 CP to increase a certain stat from 14.3% to 14.99%, you won't see any increase whatsoever. However if you add 15 CP to increase said stat from 14.3% to 15%, then you will see a 1% increase in said stat.

Here's a link to Alcast's site for a more in depth explanation. https://alcasthq.com/eso-championpoints-jumppoints/

Septimus_Magna · March 2018

Dracane wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Scamp being direct dmg doesnt make sense, the pulse acts like Blockade or Liquid but it just ticks less often and moves with the pet.

Curse on the other hand could be considered direct (delayed) dmg because its one per cast. I think it used to count as dot but I dont know if they changed it.

Would be nice if this was true. The scamp pulse has little in common with blockade and lightning. Because these are ground aoes and are unblockable, the scamp's pulse is more like pulsar when it comes to this, thus blockable.

It depends how you look at it. From the players pov you just activate the pet pulse and it acts like a pulsar dot around the pet.

The definition of a dot imo is that the entire dmg capacity of the skill doesnt happen instantly but over X amount of time. This make curse debateble but the pet pulse destributes its dmg over time.

Valdek · March 2018

Illurian wrote: »

Sorry, this is blatantly false. Contrary to what the description of the CPs say while you add CP, there are "jump points", meaning you only get actual benefit when you add enough points to hit this jump point.

For the most part, the jump points seem to be whole integers. This means that if you add enough CP to increase the value to the closest 1%, you will receive the benefit of that 1%. E.g. If you add 14 CP to increase a certain stat from 14.3% to 14.99%, you won't see any increase whatsoever. However if you add 15 CP to increase said stat from 14.3% to 15%, then you will see a 1% increase in said stat.

Here's a link to Alcast's site for a more in depth explanation. https://alcasthq.com/eso-championpoints-jumppoints/

I stand corrected! Whenever I’ve put a single point into CPs to try it out, it has always increases the damage of the abilities it has affected. Will take a look at the more detailed info.

pteam · March 2018

Benemime wrote: »

pteam wrote: »

Here’s some testing I did the other day on Xbox against a skeleton:

Wall of elements - 2112 no crit, 3549 crit yellow and white numbers
Liquid lightning , 2589 no crit, 4350 crit yellow and white
Curse - 15795 crit, 9402 no crit. yellow and white numbers
Scamp reg attack - 811 normal attack , 1216 crit white and yellow numbers ,
Scamp pulse - 6311 pulse crit, 3756 non crit
Twilight, 4419 crit, 2946 no crit

After 3% more in master at arms:
Wall of elements, - 2112 no crit, 3549 crit.
Liquid lightning - 2589no crit, 4350 crit
Curse - 16157 crit, 9618 no crit
Scamp, 811 normal attack, 1216 crit
Pulse 6311 crit 3756 no crit
Twilight 2946 , 4419crit

Deleted 16% in master at arms, 0% total
Wall of elements - 3549 crit, 2112 no crit
Liquid lightning - 2589 no crit, 4350 crit
Curse - 14228 crit, 8469 no crit
Scamp reg attack - 811 no crit, 1216 crit
Scamp pulse - 3756 no crit, 6311 crit
Twilight - 2946, 4419 crit.

1% more in thaumaturge
Wall of elements 2126 no crit 3571 crit
LL - 2606 no crit, 4378 crit
Curse - 9402 no crit, 15795
Scamp - 811 no crit, 1216 crit
Scamp pulse - 3781 no crit, 6352 crit
Twilight, 4419 crit, 2946 no crit

was that before or after dragon bones?

This was after dragon bones while testing some things to dps parse. Ended up getting 40k solo was my highest where before dragonbones on my magsorc my highest was 43.3k solo and 48k in group