How much DPS can a magblade do without vMA staff

An_An · November 2018

Hello. A bit of background before the question -

My gear - Valkyn/BSW/Mother’s (skills/gear similar to Alcasts #2 build)
CP - 550
(Gold weapons, purple rest)

My 6 million dummy parses are consistently between 23-24k. They almost never deviate from this unless I change a mundus stone. Recently, I replicated my gear setup on the PTS with max cp and gold gear, With a vMA staff on the backbar I was hitting consistently between 31-32k.

Question:
Has anyone run the gear setup I’m running? What’s your parse with and without the vma inferno staff? I’m trying to figure out why my DPS is low and would really appreciate tips. I almost never miss a light attack and get 2.5 spectral bow procs per merciless buff. BSW has a 60% uptime. Why is my DPS so low ?

I am hoping to reach 30k without the vMA staff. Is this possible? VMA gave me severe anxiety issues and I’m hoping to never set foot in there again, but would love to run challenging content with my friends nevertheless.

Update:
I golded out all my gear, changed CP a little bit based on the Constellations addon and I'm now at 27-28k. Hoping to cross 30k soon, wish me luck.

Vuron · November 2018

I've been back about a month after a 4 year break and I'm trying to get back up to speed on my DPS. I haven't run a parse yet, but from smaller tests it seems that I'm running similar DPS to you.

I'm running the same gear setup as you and don't have the VMA staff, but have been told it only gives a 1-2k dps boost.

I noticed that Alcast changed some of the skills for the Murkmire update, but I'm still using swallow soul and kept inner light on my 2nd bar instead of channeled acceleration.

Are you using LA/impale when the dummy hits 25%?

I'm curious what food and potions you're using and what your stats look like because we seem to have very similar setups. I might try to do a parse tonight.

Sparr0w · November 2018

An_An wrote: »

Hello. A bit of background before the question -

My gear - Valkyn/BSW/Mother’s (skills/gear similar to Alcasts #2 build)
CP - 550
(Gold weapons, purple rest)

My 6 million dummy parses are consistently between 23-24k. They almost never deviate from this unless I change a mundus stone. Recently, I replicated my gear setup on the PTS with max cp and gold gear, With a vMA staff on the backbar I was hitting consistently between 31-32k.

Question:
Has anyone run the gear setup I’m running? What’s your parse with and without the vma inferno staff? I’m trying to figure out why my DPS is low and would really appreciate tips. I almost never miss a light attack and get 2.5 spectral bow procs per merciless buff. BSW has a 60% uptime. Why is my DPS so low ?

I am hoping to reach 30k without the vMA staff. Is this possible? VMA gave me severe anxiety issues and I’m hoping to never set foot in there again, but would love to run challenging content with my friends nevertheless.

I hit about 45k with that setup at cp700

An_An · November 2018

Vuron wrote: »

I've been back about a month after a 4 year break and I'm trying to get back up to speed on my DPS. I haven't run a parse yet, but from smaller tests it seems that I'm running similar DPS to you.

I'm running the same gear setup as you and don't have the VMA staff, but have been told it only gives a 1-2k dps boost.

I noticed that Alcast changed some of the skills for the Murkmire update, but I'm still using swallow soul and kept inner light on my 2nd bar instead of channeled acceleration.

Are you using LA/impale when the dummy hits 25%?

I'm curious what food and potions you're using and what your stats look like because we seem to have very similar setups. I might try to do a parse tonight.

I'm using the usual Spell Power pots (restore Magicka, major sorcery, major prophecy), but switched out Funnel Health for Elemental Weapon. Previously, I was dual slotting Magelight but have recently switched it on the back bar to Channeled Acceleration, which seems to have helped a bit. This also gives access to the Psijic shield on both bars, which is useful.

And yes, LA -> Impale on execute always... on bad parses I have sustain issues (3 spell damage glyphs) but its just when I don't refresh Siphoning at the right time (I find reactivating it with 4-6 seconds left the most efficient in terms of returns).

WoppaBoem · November 2018

I run without the VMA staff but use BSW/Julianos/Skoria and get better results. You need to be as fast as possible and possibly look at your CP distribution.

Vuron · November 2018

I don't want to sound like I'm stating the obvious, but it might be as simple as your timing. In order to reach the theoretical maximum, every weave has to be exactly a second apart. Even having every weave at 1.1 would be more than a 10% loss due to spectral bow not hitting the maximum number of times. Going faster than a second would be even worse because it would prevent entire skills from firing.

In a perfect rotation, spectral bow would proc 3 times. I'm pretty sure this is my issue because I haven't gotten to practice on dummies and haven't gotten the timing down.

magictucktuck · November 2018

Gear, i personally dont think BSW is much good anymore, i was wearing BSW, julianos, and Skoria for 32k dps

then i got Siroria and and zaan used Siroria, mother's sorrow and Zaan and jumped to 41kdps

but keep in mind zaan in single target and fights with too much movement are not good for siroria, so for example vet black rose prison i found it better to use mothers sorrow and julianos and skoria. grothdar would be good too but i liked the extra health.

parsing gear is not always BIS for actual fights. just single target boss burns usually

EDIT: i got 36k dps with mothers sorrow and julianos and skoria. so i would drop bsw since just switching that 1 set out i gained 4k dps

rumple9 · November 2018

I run BSW, vicious death and skoria

WrathOfInnos · November 2018

You can definitely break 30k on a Magblade without a vMA staff. The maximum DPS that staff can add is about 4K, and that relies a lot on group support. In most cases it will add 2-3k to your light attack DPS. Even this comes at a cost, since it means you lose the 4 and 5 piece set bonuses of either BSW or Sorrow while on your back bar.

You would see an increase in DPS with a Minor Slayer set like Master Architect or Siroria. And Zaan also far outperforms Skoria.

GrigorijMalahevich · November 2018

Enough for any content where you are making a difference if you can’t complete vMA

Haquor · November 2018

An_An wrote: »

Vuron wrote: »

I've been back about a month after a 4 year break and I'm trying to get back up to speed on my DPS. I haven't run a parse yet, but from smaller tests it seems that I'm running similar DPS to you.

I'm running the same gear setup as you and don't have the VMA staff, but have been told it only gives a 1-2k dps boost.

I noticed that Alcast changed some of the skills for the Murkmire update, but I'm still using swallow soul and kept inner light on my 2nd bar instead of channeled acceleration.

Are you using LA/impale when the dummy hits 25%?

I'm curious what food and potions you're using and what your stats look like because we seem to have very similar setups. I might try to do a parse tonight.

I'm using the usual Spell Power pots (restore Magicka, major sorcery, major prophecy), but switched out Funnel Health for Elemental Weapon. Previously, I was dual slotting Magelight but have recently switched it on the back bar to Channeled Acceleration, which seems to have helped a bit. This also gives access to the Psijic shield on both bars, which is useful.

And yes, LA -> Impale on execute always... on bad parses I have sustain issues (3 spell damage glyphs) but its just when I don't refresh Siphoning at the right time (I find reactivating it with 4-6 seconds left the most efficient in terms of returns).

Why would you reactivate it early instead of letting it expire? Less recasts overtime, which is more magicka conserving, and a bigger bump to your resources at the end. Also spending more time doing damage in your rotation.

If youre doing 45k dps on a 6 mil dummy that is the difference between 7 casts or 10 casts if you refresh every 15 sec. Gap widening if you do less dps than 45k

Reverb · November 2018

Valera Progib wrote: »

Enough for any content where you are making a difference if you can’t complete vMA

For a lot of people it's not about being able to finish vma, it's about not getting the right drops. If you run vma over and over (and over and over) and get lousy drops until you get angry and decide to never go back, you make do with an alternate build.

I don't know how many times I've run it, probably 30, and not a single bow, lightning staff, or flame staff. But I have a bundle of maces and shields, some ice staves, and a few greatswords.

So my stam and mag toons fall short in dps compared to my groupmates with the right weapons, but I'm able to complete the content and pull my weight.