Puncturing strikes vs Solar barrage, piercing javelin morph choice.

yogarogue · April 2014

So. I have been deliberating for a while now and im a bit stumped. just looking for some second opinions here. Im trying to decide what would be better on my hotbar between puncturing strikes and solar barrage. Im leaning towards solar barrage because although it seems slightly (very slightly) less damage. it affects all enemies in area. not just targets in front of you. It also adds an increase spell and attk power on next attk to all enemies effected as well making my next attk do more dmg, and it also doesn't have a cast time.

Piercing javelin has been a tough decision In choosing a morph. In my encounters so far its standard knockback (w/ no knockdown) has been perfectly viable and I have had no issues and don't see why it would make a difference for me having a 3 extra second knockdown during my rotation. on the opposite side of the coin I can choose a morph that has the possibility of increasing the dmg by a whopping 40% for the same magicka cost.

What do you guys think?

ThatHappyCat · April 2014

Remember that Puncturing Strikes deals double the damage to the closest target and interrupts them as it ends. It can also be morphed to basically always crit low health targets. I think Puncturing Strikes has greater range than Solar Barrage too. Also, Puncturing Strikes can be spammed. Solar Barrage cannot if you want to take advantage of its power boost.

Overall, Puncturing Strikes is the superior bread-and-butter melee range spell. It's single target DPS, AoE, interrupt and (if you take Biting Jabs) an execute.

Binding Javelin is the superior morph IMO. Instead of just pushing them away, it throws them on their back and forces them to lie there while you have your way with them. I don't see Aurora Javelin as particularly useful as the range (20m) is a bit short and therefore easy to close, especially in PvP: which for this skill I think is what matters, I don't really see a lot of point using it in PvE. There are better ranged DPS skills and mobs you CC (bosses) are often immune.

Montanx · April 2014

The crit boost on biting jabs is awesome. As for javelin, it's my fav ability in the game. I don't think there's a better pvp skill, it is essentially a 1 hit kill. If you binding javelin a player in the middle of a battle, they ain't getting up, they will be slaughtered. Javelin a player off their horse from stealth is the most satisfying thing Iv done in a game.

Drekor · April 2014

Puncturing strikes especially morphed to biting jabs with burning light passives is amazing damage. Just charge in with explosive charge and use jabs, radial sweep as it comes up.

Although if you are doing pve against a boss you need backlash on your bar, spell is unbelievably broken.

ThatHappyCat · April 2014

Ah yes, I forgot about Burning Light. Since Puncturing Strikes hits four times it's almost certain to proc Burning Light at least once per cast.

I don't like Radial Sweep. I get more DPS out of spamming Biting Jabs, using Crescent Sweep actually reduces my DPS, and its range is deceptively short. Only thing that could be said about it is it uses no magicka.

EriskRedLemur · April 2014

Biting Jabs is such a great ability; for reasons mentioned. Again there's some differences when looking for PvE and PvP, Binding Jav in PvE may not be so "wow" at the extra knock down, but in PvP it is a big wow against your enemy. Again, Solar Barrage vs Puncturing Strikes aka Biting Jabs, both actually are very viable to use. Solar Barrage's dmg mainly comes from the NEXT attack, which Biting Jabs can be.