Why does light attack damage seem to do more damage then skills?

angelncelestine · September 2018

Every parse I see from people the top damage is from light attacks, and not actual skills, besides maybe an execute. Can anyone explain to me how this makes sense? Why have all of these neat skills if a light attack seems to do more damage?

OrphanHelgen · September 2018

People complained they didn't want to heavy attack, so I guess this is the way zos answered.

susmitds · September 2018

Light Attack does not do more damage individually. As long as animation cancelling stays, you will do more light attacks than any skill.
And no, highest damage in Stam DPS should be Endless Hail, usually.

Koolio · September 2018

We like to have really powerful light attacks.

Like so strong that it does more damage than heavy attacks.

WrathOfInnos · September 2018

Individual light attacks don’t do more damage than skills. They end up highest average because light attacks are used every second, while most skills are used once every 5-12s. Light attacks are usually 20-25% of overall DPS, with around 5-10% from enchants and around 70% from skills (sometimes some proc sets if they are used). So skills in general are around 3X as much damage as light attacks, it’s just that no single skill outperforms all light attacks.

Drakkdjinn · September 2018

Pew pew I'm good at this pew pew.

AcadianPaladin · September 2018

Light attacks are a big part of my bow/bow stamsorc's rotation. She has great damage and survivability but the nature of a bowsorc is low stam sustain. So she can keep hail, caltrops, surge, hurricane going (LA weaving of course) and uses LA as her spamable in sustained fights. Yes, she uses snipe and PI but has to be judicious. Due to this, she has put a lot into her light attacks. +11% from her bound armor, +20% from surge, plenty of CP into Physical Weapon Expert, etc. And her light attacks hit very hard while conserving stamina. Part of it just depends on how your whole build works and what your objectives are.

BuddyAces · September 2018

Because a dev finally used the group finder, seen what the majority of their player base does, and raised the floor. Now that struggling lil feller just has to drop a dot and he can pew pew his way to victory.

The fact that they added a skill that buffs light attacks should tell you everything you need to know.

Balancing is hard work so let's just have everyone spam light attacks.

TheYKcid · September 2018

Don't forget about the vMA destro effect. It adds its bonus damage directly into the light attack, which makes LAs comprise an even larger part of a mag parse.

kadar · September 2018

angelncelestine wrote: »

Every parse I see from people the top damage is from light attacks, and not actual skills, besides maybe an execute. Can anyone explain to me how this makes sense? Why have all of these neat skills if a light attack seems to do more damage?

You LA in between every single skill, whereas the damage you do with skills is split between 10-12 abilities.

jcm2606 · September 2018

If you're looking at any sort of combat log that allows you to see where your damage is coming from, as alluded to by other players, this is sort of misleading, just due to how damage sources are counted up.

Imagine if we had some combo, say, this:

LA -> Skill 1 -> LA -> Skill 2 -> LA -> Skill 3 -> LA -> Skill 3 -> LA -> Skill 3 -> LA -> Skill 4

If we assume the combined damage of your skills equal the combined damage of your light attacks, light attacks will still come out on top in your combat log, simply because those 6 light attacks are under the one action, while those 6 skills are under 4 different actions.

Light attacks did get buffed with Summerset, however, in a few different ways.

Light and heavy attacks were changed to scale with your stats the same way that skills do. In ESO, damage of actions (excluding set procs) scale with weapon/spell damage and max stamina/magicka, depending on whether the action is stamina or magicka based. Skills scale with a ratio of roughly 10.5:1, where, say, 10.5 max stamina is roughly equal to 1 weapon damage. Prior to Summerset, light and heavy attacks scaled with a ratio of roughly 40.5:1, where 40.5 max stamina was roughly equal to 1 weapon damage. Summerset changed the light/heavy attack ratio to the same 10.5:1 as skills. Light and heavy attacks received a big buff here.

The base damage of light and heavy attacks were also changed, such that light attacks deal considerably more damage, irrespective of the scaling changes, while heavy attacks deal just a bit better damage. This had the effect of buffing light attacks while nerfing heavy attacks in terms of damage.

Empower was changed to increase the damage of your next light attack by 40%.

Several sets and skills were added since Summerset that all revolve around somewhat buffing light attacks, while ignoring heavy attacks.

Personally, I don't agree with these changes. Light attack weaving shouldn't be mandatory to just reach minimal DPS, it should remain a tool that good players use to gain an edge over the average player who doesn't weave.

Skullstachio · September 2018

Hint: Use Sunderflame on a Two-handed Dragonknight, use Molten Arnaments (for the 40% extra Heavy attack damage) follow it up with Rally.

You Will be surprised what you can do with a two handed heavy attack or even a bow heavy attack (provided they are Nirnhoned.) one can easily hit over more than 10k, in a 4 player group, one may hit harder than 15k in a single heavy attack with DK group buffed sunderflame.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · September 2018

Alpha-Lupi wrote: »

Hint: Use Sunderflame on a Two-handed Dragonknight, use Molten Arnaments (for the 40% extra Heavy attack damage) follow it up with Rally.

You Will be surprised what you can do with a two handed heavy attack or even a bow heavy attack (provided they are Nirnhoned.) one can easily hit over more than 10k, in a 4 player group, one may hit harder than 15k in a single heavy attack with DK group buffed sunderflame.

10k and 15k are nothing. People are hitting 40-60k light attacks in trial senarios.

Light attack weaving shouldn't be mandatory to just reach minimal DPS,

They are absolutely not mandatory to get 30k DPS. Gear, champion points and just having an okayish rotation will get you to 30k dps. I barely weave, I get that on most of my toons, though to get 45k+, you do. But mandatory? You can complete all content without light attacking once. Only time that high of DPS is "mandatory", is timed vet trials. And how many of the people around here are participating in those? Like 3% or less.