WrathOfInnos wrote: »

It’s typically best to use Inferno for bosses and Lightning for all the weak enemies between bosses. If you don’t feel like swapping that often then most just stick with Inferno, since boss fights are usually where optimization matters most.

Thanks. That is what I needed to know.

So just using lightning normally other than areas with boss fights would work well? Perhaps aim at each kind of staff and swap depending on what I am doing?

It's not a terribly big deal, unless you have an explicit buff to fire damage (Engulfing Flames, being a DK yourself, or -- not now but until fairly recently -- being a Dunmer). Fire staffs boost single-target damage. Lightning staffs boost AoE damage. Perhaps 65% or less of your damage will be single-target, with the rest AoE.

I think your active bar determines whether you get the single-target buff or the AoE buff on DoT ticks, not the bar you activated the ability from.

So it's not as helpful as you'd like to back-bar a lightning staff for your AoE abilities. When you switch to lightning, your single-target DoT's get weaker, and when you switch back to flame, your AoE DoT's get weak again. With flame-flame they pick one and stick to it. And Wall of Flames gets a damage buff for being flame anyways, so it counteracts the passive loss.

Though if you just have an ilambris helm, and don't have liquid lightning, a back-bar lightning might still be a good choice because you need both damage types to proc it.

Back-bar lightning was more valuable in the past because Wall of Storms set enemies concussed enemies off-balance, and the Exploiter CP perk dealt increased damage against off-balance enemies. But then there was this change in Dragon Bones that limited its usefulness against bosses:

Boss enemies can only be set Off Balance once every 15 seconds. After the first Off Balance debuff ends on a boss enemy, they will be immune to subsequent Off Balance debuffs until this immunity duration is over.

In spite of all that, I still front-bar a lightning staff because I mostly play solo so I'm more dependent on AoE's.

Lightning staff is great for petsorc and heavy attack. You wont miss the fire staff single target unless u min max and light weave amd all that jazz

ezio45 wrote: »

Lighting staff just sucks tbh.

pulls worse numbers than fire staff on everything but petsorc.

My main is a pet sorc, so this may be why it is working well for me now.

Fire= more direct damage + burning effect (DOT)
Lightning= more AOE damage +minor vunerability
Ice= alternative to tanking (shields, block cost reduction while using magicka to block)


Each staff has it's own unique quality that can be very, very helpful depending on your build. My PVP builds use all three depending on the character and role that they take.

Iskiab wrote: »

If you’re soloing you can use anything and it doesn’t matter. If you’re doing dungeons you should be using double fire unless you’re a sorc or a healer

My main is a pet sorc. Though I do find I can sometimes miss damaging something with a flame staff since I try to do the longer loading shots and someone else (usually in delves) will kill it too quickly. That is one advantage of a lightning staff, instant damage even with long shots.

Because Alcast relies on light attacks as most of his damage, and Fire Staff has a higher light attack than lightning staff, by quite a far cry.

Is this stuff still relevant? I dont have a vMA staff but have 2 Siroria Inferno staves, has anything changed or is this necro still fresh?

Grianasteri wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I have been using the build guides at alcasthq.com as a target and I notice they only seem to have fire staffs. Does anyone know why that is?

I like lightning staffs better in general and I am wondering what the real difference is.

Fire staffs have a chance to proc the burning status, which deals damage over time, and fire damage goes more single target damage in general.

Shock damage has a chance to proc concussion and then off balance, which means the target takes more damage. Shock is also better at multiple target damage.

Personally I far prefer fire staffs visually.

Alcast is often building for trial maximisation, so if you are a dps the shock damage benefits will often be getting provided via the healers running shock staffs, hence for dps it can be the case a fire staff is better. But it does depend on the build and the way youre using your character.

Well, its pretty much run a necropotence lightning staff backbar and lose 4-5set piece siroria bonus, or just run 2 siroria fire staves. Considering that daedric prey and degeneration are single target anyway, I’ll go two fire for now.

. Fire staffs have a chance to proc the burning status, which deals damage over time, and fire damage goes more single target damage in general.

Light attacks from fire staffs do not cause burning. All the skills do, light attacks do not.