WrathOfInnos wrote: »

If you are getting high 30’s then your rotation is pretty good. Gear will definitely bring you into the 40’s. Replace Skoria with Zaan, IA with Perfected Siroria, and Julianos with Mother’s Sorrow and you’re looking at at least a 15% DPS increase, which would turn a 38k parse into a 44k parse.

I would also recommend losing the heavy attacks on magblade. Try to build enough sustain for a light attack rotation, it will result in more now procs and more DPS.

Spell power potions are definitely better than running entropy, but I will agree with you that accelerate is a little underwhelming. You could run rearming trap if you want to keep minor force, but my preference is to obtain that buff from a healer with Twilight Remedy or a tank with Guard. That allows me to keep Inner Light on both bars.

Thanks for the reply.

So I farmed myself a Zaan helmet (already had shoulders), and that alone brought my dps up to to 41k without any further changes.

I don't think I will get Perfected Siroria anytime soon, but I will get myself Mother's Sorrow in the next few days, and try that with IA. I'll post an update once I've tested that.

Also, what do you think of Burning Spellweave? Do you think BSW + MS would be a good combo?

Ok, so I farmed BSW, switched Twisting Path and Crippling Grasp and dropped Entropy in favor of Siphoning Attacks, and use Potions instead now. This is the setup now:



I did a few parses on the 6M dummy, and the one where I was happy with my execution resulted in 39.7k dps (you can see the result in the screenshot too). Assuming someone else puts Minor Vulnerability on the target, since I can't do it myself now, this would put me at 39.7k*1.08=42.8k dps, so it should indeed be a slight improvement in an actual trial setting, but for a solo parse, MS+BSW seems to be worse than Juli+IA. Once I have enough crystals to change traits on 3 items (that's how many non-divines BSW body pieces I currently have), I will try with BSW on body and MS on jewelry/weapon.

This setup also created another issue... On the 6M dummy I need to do 2 heavy attacks to have enough sustain to finish it without running out of magicka, despite 2 magicka cost reduction enchants, so regen is now a pretty close call. If Ele Drain drops for more than a few seconds in a fight, I will have to fall back to doing heavy attacks (defeating the purpose of going with something other than IA), or I would have to use Witchmother's Potent Brew, which will put me at a dangerous 15k HP and also lose me almost 2k max. magicka. What's the best way to deal with that problem?

@Oreyn_Bearclaw
#2: With the setup you're commenting on, in an actual dungeon/trial I would have Siphoning Attacks on the back bar (replacing Ele Drain), so I would still have the regen passive. However now that I had time to think about it, it's still a good idea to have Twisting Path on front bar, because while the back bar dots all have the same spot in the rotation, Twisting Path might be delayed if Merciless Resolve is ready right after I switch bars, but wasn't ready on the previous rotation, so those extra few seconds on the duration of the front bar dot will allow me to have 100% uptime in the beginning of the fight and if I do some minor mistakes and miss some light attacks.

#3: My Elemental Weapon is rank 1, and according to the tooltip does about 300 less damage per cast, so I don't think it's worth trying it until I level it up, so that it's at least not a straight up dps loss if I lose the Spell Orb stack.

#4: Entropy does the same amount of damage per cast as Strife, so if that is what you use in the spare second every other rotation, there should be no difference. Using Entropy is essentially just a gold saving measure at no dps loss.

And how does this dynamic rotation work?

adeptusminor wrote: »

You really want to get more light attacks off. Right now you are sitting at 102 total light attacks in a fight that lasted 160 seconds, giving you 102/160 = 0.63 light attacks per second. Light attacks should be at the top of your damage list in a parse, and top parsers are hitting 0.9 light attacks per second. It will also help you sustain better, since each light attack will return a small amount of magicka as long as siphoning strikes is up.
You want to light attack between every single thing you do-between every single skill use and every barswap.

You do realize that you're trying to judge a heavy attack rotation based on the number of light attacks, and that if you add up the lightning and fire light attacks, it does add up to being "top of the damage list"? Here is a parse I just did with BSW on body (with 2 invigorating pieces, because I did not have enough crystals to change the traits on more than one piece) and MS on weapon/jewelry...



That's 124/148=0.83/sec. I don't think I missed more than 5 light attacks in this parse. I didn't try to do light attacks before bar swaps though, I thought bar swaps should be used to animation cancel skills and not light attacks, or am I wrong?

ZeroXFF wrote: »

Ok, so I farmed BSW, switched Twisting Path and Crippling Grasp and dropped Entropy in favor of Siphoning Attacks, and use Potions instead now. This is the setup now:



I did a few parses on the 6M dummy, and the one where I was happy with my execution resulted in 39.7k dps (you can see the result in the screenshot too). Assuming someone else puts Minor Vulnerability on the target, since I can't do it myself now, this would put me at 39.7k*1.08=42.8k dps, so it should indeed be a slight improvement in an actual trial setting, but for a solo parse, MS+BSW seems to be worse than Juli+IA. Once I have enough crystals to change traits on 3 items (that's how many non-divines BSW body pieces I currently have), I will try with BSW on body and MS on jewelry/weapon.

This setup also created another issue... On the 6M dummy I need to do 2 heavy attacks to have enough sustain to finish it without running out of magicka, despite 2 magicka cost reduction enchants, so regen is now a pretty close call. If Ele Drain drops for more than a few seconds in a fight, I will have to fall back to doing heavy attacks (defeating the purpose of going with something other than IA), or I would have to use Witchmother's Potent Brew, which will put me at a dangerous 15k HP and also lose me almost 2k max. magicka. What's the best way to deal with that problem?

@Oreyn_Bearclaw
#2: With the setup you're commenting on, in an actual dungeon/trial I would have Siphoning Attacks on the back bar (replacing Ele Drain), so I would still have the regen passive. However now that I had time to think about it, it's still a good idea to have Twisting Path on front bar, because while the back bar dots all have the same spot in the rotation, Twisting Path might be delayed if Merciless Resolve is ready right after I switch bars, but wasn't ready on the previous rotation, so those extra few seconds on the duration of the front bar dot will allow me to have 100% uptime in the beginning of the fight and if I do some minor mistakes and miss some light attacks.

#3: My Elemental Weapon is rank 1, and according to the tooltip does about 300 less damage per cast, so I don't think it's worth trying it until I level it up, so that it's at least not a straight up dps loss if I lose the Spell Orb stack.

#4: Entropy does the same amount of damage per cast as Strife, so if that is what you use in the spare second every other rotation, there should be no difference. Using Entropy is essentially just a gold saving measure at no dps loss.

And how does this dynamic rotation work?

First, Siphoning attacks will solve your sustain issues. On a 3 million dummy, you can cast it pre-fight, and if you keep potions up, you dont need to cast it again. On 6 million, you can usually get away with casting 2 times during the fight. In reality, you should practice keeping it up 100%, but if trying to shave a few seconds on your dummy, you dont need 100% uptime to sustain a 6 million dummy without heavy attacking. Your goal should be to never heavy attack.

You may be on to something juggling entropy for solo stuff to save on potions, but I usually just slot sap essence somewhere in four man stuff anyways and get the buff from that. If you are building for trials, siphoning is more important. In a trial on 10 minutes fights, I only need to heavy attack if I die. Sometimes I throw one in here or there if I get behind, but you shouldnt need to in theory. With proper siphoning uptime and the occasional orb from a healer, you should be able to sustain any fight.

Second, Elemental Weapon levels really fast. I bet even at rank 1, it will outperform funnel, but I guess I am not positive on that. Tool tips arent everything.

Third, what I mean by a dynamic rotation is that its always changing. You can start with a pretty circular opening, but otherwise you simply cast the next skill that needs cast. Your number one priority is that merciless is always up, and every 5th skill should be a bow proc. Next priority is your DOTs. I generally prioritize them as follows: Elemental Blockade>Twsting Path>Crippling Grasp. Remember that crippling has a travel time, and blockade does not. So even if they are the same duration, you cant always cast them back to back if trying to maximize uptime. You can also throw Rearming Trap or Channeled Acceleration into the mix if you want. After that I do my best to keep siphoning attacks up 100%. When everything is ticking, you weave funnel/elemental weapon above 25%, and impale below. Most people drop Crippling in execute phase, unless you need mobility for some reason. Additionally, potions and ultimates on cooldown. I understand not wanting to spend on potions, but if you want to pull the numbers you are after, its a requirement.

There is no magic to it, it just takes a lot of practice. Swap canceling is vital to a dynamic rotation like this. If you properly swap cancel, you dont lose a beat when you swap back and forth. Its rare that you cast more than 3-4 skills without swapping, and often its only 1-2. Buff trackers obviously are really helpful, so if you are on console, maybe its not the best plan. That said, its how you break into the 45k range. If you decide to go this route, expect to see your numbers drop for a while. You wont learn it overnight. You obviously have a good handle on merciless if you are pulling what you are pulling with a circular rotation, so keep at it.

If you want to see what it looks like, well here is a vid of the best of the best. He as updated his build slightly since this vid, but I would call LZH the authority on mageblade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbCpHqN0lA8

Does no one run moondancer anymore? I'm not a diehard pve guy I play pvp, so my rotation is horible but I'm hitting 30k with moondancer mothers sorrow zaan and apprentice mundus. Just curious as to why this set is unused

Edit for clarity I have a buddy spam purge synergy for the proc