For PvP, here's what I consider minimums. But keep in mind, you might not be able to complete all content:

Mag:
35k mag, 11k stamina, 2.8-3k SD. Stamina can go up further but 11k is fine if you play mist form proactively or have access to shade/cloak. Most players squeeze DMG out, and do that with max mag since it's easier for mag builds to do that.

Stam:
30k Stam, 10k mag, 3.5k-4k WD. Stamina has it easier in that once your mag pool is down, it won't stop you from breaking free of cc or Dodge rolling. But it's still vital to use certain spells. WD is easier to stack than max Stam, but you can hit 33k stamina easily while still having good Weapon DMG.

Recovery:
It varies per class. For example magplars can get channeled focus for 240 extra effective Regen (Regen every 2 ticks) and use ele drain to get another 600 (300 each second). This means you can be at 1400 mag recovery but it will feel like you are at 2240 Effective Regen. Ele drain helps you remove some Regen and add DMG, which is how you are about to get great DMG and sustain in mag builds.

Stam builds are different, some classes don't have thing like channeled focus or ele drain, so they have to rely on heavy attack Regen and higher effective Regen. 2k Regen is the minimum you need on a Stam build, which you can drop if you have a resorce return mechanic (like siphoning strikes, DK Ultimate Regen, warden heals, etc). But honestly it's recommended to get 2k Regen for most stamina builds.

And in PvP, penetration is still recommended to gather, but maybe not as heavily as when sharpened was the meta. Mag builds can get penetration easier than stamina, but you probably want to hit 9-12k from all your sources (including maces).

What's all I have. You can definitely drop one in favor for another if you have friends that you play with. But experiment!

,

i was thinking the same thing today. i have 4k wd , 31k stam 13k health without any buffs on stamblade. stam recovery is 792 tho.

with buffs it becomes 38 k stam, 19k health and 6k ish wd. using veli,spriggans,hundings btw

@Minno
Really helpful answers, thank you!
The penetration numbers you mentioned are surprisingly high to me.
Would this be mainly from weapon trait and CP's?

@kylewwefan
2 out of my 14 characters are stamplars.
Wow, 4500 weapon damage? Nice. What is her stamina regen though?
I have all the sets you mentioned. I'd like to see if I can build to match those stats. Never been up to 4k WD or above.
If you could give me a little more detail, I can try it for myself.

@cpuScientist
Thank you for the trials insights. I do them from time to time, and this helped me understand the importance of damage for survival in them. It's logical, but I hadn't thought of it that way before.

@Voltranox

Light armor can get almost 5k penetration, then add on 3-4k from CP and you are at 8-9k easy. Add on major breach, you are at a disgusting level of 13280 (20% DMG increase lol 13280/662)

Stamina builds get the lowest, but they can get 3-4k easy from CP. Then dual maces is equal to the sharpened trait. Most builds are 18-21k resists; if you take the lowest subtract your base 3k penetration then multiply by 20% for dual maces, you'll get 3k pen coming from the maces. That means you'll be doing 6k penetration on stamina; which you can raise higher via CP if you already maxed at your main DMG stars (things like master of arms/thamaturge can be at 19-20%, if Templar/nightblade you only need 10% crit DMG, and 12-13% into mighty are all easy benchmarks to hit). Then rest dumps into penetration or to boost light attack/crit DMG if you need more power.

I'd say between 7-10k penetration is good in generally. If you can get major breach then you'll be able to wreck resist stack builds hard. Even percentage based mitigation requires resists to help maintain their mitigation levels.

As a follow up - I did a similar build as an experiment: Dreugh King Slayer and Hundings on a stamblade.

The result didn't work for me. Had just shy of 4k weapon damage (3920 or something from memory), and just over 1k regen.

I brought him into Cyro to test. My hits did do more damage, and I was able to hit some characters quite hard.
Against the majority of super tanky players I see more commonly over the last year or so, the damage was not great.
In some cases I was seeing the exact same problem as before - hardly any impact at all.

The most notable thing was the lack of regen. I have usually aimed for about 2500 or even higher.
I suppose many players might think this is too high.

Usually it allows me to fire off 3 or 4 skills, dodgeroll, block, fire off some more skills, etc. and keep fighting.
With 1k regen, 3 to 5 shots and he's be drained. It would take around 10 seconds to come back to full (way too long).
Occasional heavy attacks and trash pots would help, but quite often I'd be left standing at the edge of a battle waiting for my stamina to recover, unable to do any skills, sprint, dodgeroll or block.

So for me the mystery still remains.
How to break the 4k weapon/spell damage ceiling, and how to achieve it without gimping everything else.

On a side note, I still see exceptionally tanky hard-to-damage players fighting, that seem to be able to fight continuously non-stop, and are able to take multiple characters down with 2 or 3 shots. Sometimes I see them get hit multiple times by players and their health bar does not move much, so I can only assume they have massive health too.

I will keep experimenting, but at this stage I'm thinking of abandoning the quest for super high damage, because I like combining different sets and trying different effects. The quest for high damage seems to narrow the choice of builds and it has such an impact on other attributes that it affects gameplay. Still willing to listen to ideas though.

Voltranox wrote: »

As a follow up - I did a similar build as an experiment: Dreugh King Slayer and Hundings on a stamblade.

The result didn't work for me. Had just shy of 4k weapon damage (3920 or something from memory), and just over 1k regen.

I brought him into Cyro to test. My hits did do more damage, and I was able to hit some characters quite hard.
Against the majority of super tanky players I see more commonly over the last year or so, the damage was not great.
In some cases I was seeing the exact same problem as before - hardly any impact at all.

The most notable thing was the lack of regen. I have usually aimed for about 2500 or even higher.
I suppose many players might think this is too high.

Usually it allows me to fire off 3 or 4 skills, dodgeroll, block, fire off some more skills, etc. and keep fighting.
With 1k regen, 3 to 5 shots and he's be drained. It would take around 10 seconds to come back to full (way too long).
Occasional heavy attacks and trash pots would help, but quite often I'd be left standing at the edge of a battle waiting for my stamina to recover, unable to do any skills, sprint, dodgeroll or block.

So for me the mystery still remains.
How to break the 4k weapon/spell damage ceiling, and how to achieve it without gimping everything else.

On a side note, I still see exceptionally tanky hard-to-damage players fighting, that seem to be able to fight continuously non-stop, and are able to take multiple characters down with 2 or 3 shots. Sometimes I see them get hit multiple times by players and their health bar does not move much, so I can only assume they have massive health too.

I will keep experimenting, but at this stage I'm thinking of abandoning the quest for super high damage, because I like combining different sets and trying different effects. The quest for high damage seems to narrow the choice of builds and it has such an impact on other attributes that it affects gameplay. Still willing to listen to ideas though.

Remember some things are offensive that don't translate directly into weapon DMG:
- major defile
- bleeds
- minor beserk
- minor vulnerability
- and penetration.

Each of these serve a purpose and they are vital to break that celling you speak about:
- Defile wrecks healing heavily; a 25% reduction in healing means everyone's weapon DMG is less effective at keeping them alive via healing.
- bleeds ignore resist and help pressure shields
- minor beserk is 8% DMG done. Boosts proc set DMG which can't be boosted by CP. 8% DMG done equates to about 400 WD I think and comes from an easy 2pc set.
- minor vulnerability is 8% DMG done to targets. Similar concept to both beserk/defile, exceot only available via specific procs or sets. But you can have a charged weapon, add a shock enchant to your main hand, and proc concussed on your target.
- penetration hard counters high resist builds and dual maces gives you around 10% extra DMG because you'll be penetrating 10% of that armor from 18-21k resist (the dominate restart level in cyro).

@kylewwefan
Yeah I tried it on my stamblade only because I was reworking him anyway. I do see tanky NB's around.

So what does your character sheet list your weapon damage as for that build - unproc'ed and unbuffed?
When you said 4500, was that 'raw'?

@NightbladeMechanics

That has been my thinking as well.
And sustain has been the trait I value more than anything else.

The reason I started the thread was to learn more about what other people are doing.
Especially in regards to damage.

I have come across some stupidly tanky enemies.
Nothing more frustrating than fighting group of characters that no one can damage.

I hear people boast about their high weapon/spell damage. Some sound ridiculous. 8k??
But I have seen characters come in and practically one-shot pvp npc guards,
and plenty of times I've seen characters of all classes one-shot multiple players over and over.

I have been aiming for a minimum of 2000 weapon or spell damage (with some exceptions).
But once I start trying for more than that, other aspects start to suffer. Badly.

Just for an experiment, I tried replicating a build that kylewwefan shared,
but I didn't even get close to her 4500 weapon damage, which I found confusing.
I'm guessing that this number is her buffed/proc'd weapon damage estimation or something.

The experiment showed to me clearly though how much sustain matters to me. A lot.
The other answers about buffs/debuffs got me looking even closer at these mechanics...
as alternative ways to achieve higher damage, and keep my sustain.

Voltranox wrote: »

I have been trying lots of builds on my characters. All classes, all roles.
I've been using a wide variety of sets (both dropped and crafted), plus monster sets.
I mainly do pvp, but the basic questions I want to ask could apply to pve too.

Making a balanced build, but with decent damage

Apart from tank characters, I usually go for a balance between damage, sustain and mitigation.
On builds where I have tried for very high damage, it quickly shows that they will suffer badly with the other two aspects.

To have enough to keep fighting in most situations, I find that the highest I can get is 2-3k weapon or spell damage
before I am badly feeling the lack of sustain and protection. I realize that weaving and skills can help, but I'm just talking in general here.

So apart from a gank build or a tank build, what is a good benchmark to aim for for weapon/spell damage? Is 2-3k reasonable?
I hear people boast about their 4k damage...and often much, much more (6k and even 8k!). I assume that is the buffed and proc'ed state.

I can't work out how you could achieve that (even with all my build experiments).
I've tried pure damage sets (and/or proc-damage sets), gold weapons, damage enchants, damage jewelry, nirnhoned, potions.

And even if I could raise my weapon/spell damage to great heights, wouldn't that just leave me with pitiful sustain and protection?

Thanks.

I see that you play all classes and all roles, so what I am about to put forth applies for a Magplar (which I Main)...

As an open world Magplar who heavily solo's in PvP, my best approach has been to be as stealthy as possible, with as much escape capability as possible (and this is challenging, but doable, on a Magplar), while attempting to shoe horn in as much sustain, defense and offense as you can get away with...

The end result is a character that I consider to be my most balanced creation yet, and here is what I am achieving in PvP without casting any buffs on my self whatsoever (other than Witchmothers of course):

5 light, 1 medium, 1 heavy:

2.2k Spell Damage...
1200 Magicka Regen (I back bar Resto Staff for heavy attacks to help with sustain as needed)...
52% Spell Crit...
26.5k Health...
34.7k Magicka...
12.7k Stamina...
26k+ Spell Resist...
20k+ Physical Resist...
11k+ Spell Penetration...

IMHO, this is a good balance of offense and defense, with just enough sustain to be viable...

Voltranox wrote: »

@NightbladeMechanics Awesome post, thank you.

I've noticed that there are a lot of heavy armor proc sets to choose from.
I haven't been a big fan of heavy armor (because of the sustain and passives),
but they are doing nothing but taking space in my bank.
Might be time to dust them off.

@TheDoomsdayMonster Great insights.

Nice to see that your main is on 2.2k spell damage, unbuffed.
1200 regen would be frustrating for me I think, but easier to do heavy attacks with a staff.
11k penetration is decent. Do you use sharpened?
Pretty tanky too. How is your resistance so high while in mainly light?

Thanx...

Yes, I use Sharpened Dual Wield Swords; that combined with Light Armor passives and some CP's gets you there pretty easily...

As for the Defense, I wear Mighty Chudan x2...

Having 100% uptime on 8255 Physical/Spell Resist rocks (it makes your Mist Form difficult to kill unless you got a coordinated group chasing you)...

In addition you open up a slot for a different ability...

Chudan rocks for open world play IMHO as it's very convient to always have your defenses up...


Edit: I buff that tankiness by wearing Spectre's Eye...

Now while it doesn't negate as much damage over time as Riposte's or Transmutation, it does allow you to avoid being Poisoned and CC'd from time to time, and that goes a long way (passively dodging Incap feels so good)...

Spectre's Eye also makes Mist Form even more difficult to kill...

Passively dodging while in Mist Form is awesome...

@kylewwefan Thanks.
So when you open your character screen, does it list weapon damage as 4500?