Please ignore the tryhards that post 90k dummy humps. Those players 95% of the time do 30k (or less) in real action, and all serious trial runners know this is true. Although we should know, asking a sincere question about how to improve dps is gonna attract all the EPEEN waving, cuz it's forums.

My own subjective view of the good, bad, and the recommended is:

Good: 60k is a good realistic ceiling for actual in-trial combat. If you can hit 60k single target in real vet content, you have the right to brag (a little).
Bad: If you're under 20k, something is wrong with your rotation. 25k I would say is the low bar to respectable dps (IN REAL COMBAT).
Recommended: Shoot for 40k single target, in actual combat, if you want to do vet trials--certain hard modes might require a bit more dps than 40k, but with 40k you have enough to clear everything in this game. Unless you're running for leaderboards or have a personal adequacy issue, you should not feel bad if you can hit 40k in real combat.

Now, about your build:

One thing that jumps out at me in your skill build is you don't have a spammable---pop elemental weapon (preferred), crushing shock (okay), mage's wrath (only good in execute range), or something like that to use during your AOEs, ideally on the same bar as crystal frags.

Other observations:

-your spell damage (if just north of 2k) is kinda low, though not sure what race you're using, your jewel glyphs, etc.
-Crit chance mundus stone might be overkill--diminishing returns and all, it might be better to pick the one that juices crit DAMAGE, not chance.
-Not sure about your sustain, but if you're out of mag all the time when you parse, that could be a problem.*
*Keep in mind, dummy humpers build unrealistically to get those high dummy hump #s, and will inevitably have a healer friend buffing/debuffing/tossing orbs.

-Probably the most important thing, you almost definitely just need to practice your rotation. Keeping up your buffs, aoes, etc. without overcasting is hard and takes time and practice. There is not substitute for a strong rotation--no amount of trial gear, cp, advice from EPEEN wavers is gonna help that improve. It takes time and effort, but you'll get there

Rev Rielle wrote: »

Darkenarlol wrote: »

3/6 m dummy solo

below 30 - try tank or heal (or improve lol)

30 - bad (at least you are a dd now...even if you barely pull your weight)

40 - med (your rotaion still miss some timers/ LA)

50 good (you really know what you are doing)

above 50 - top tier anim cancel godmode

Try not pay attention to these numbers, or the explanations with them, they don't represent any real reality of the majority in-game (but expect nothing else on these forums).

If you can deal 30,000 dps alone on a 3/6 million target dummy you are more than fine for 99.9% of content (Competitive Leaderboard content being the exclusion, but such a small minority of the player base engage in that it is statistically insignificant).

They don't represent the majority of players that's true, and not coincidentally majority of players haven't completed a vDLC trial.

30k is good for crag, and a carry for most vDLCs (most mid tier trial guilds won't consider you if you can't do 40k these days).

i'm sure you've gotten tons of advice already but to reiterate:

1) precursor isn't a good dummy test, at least go for a 3 million HP dummy, later on as you get better go for 6 mill to test your sustain.

2) Good dps depends on the content. Normal dungeons don't require more than 20k to finish with ease for the most part. DLC HM dungeons on the other hand you're gonna want to pull out 35-40k to comfortably clean them out. Vet dlc trials, on the last hand, require the best dps, usually averaging around 40+, up to 50k depending on the specific trial. Some people like to go past that for record runs or for bragging points [pretty much exclusively the latter] but again, it depends on the content. if you want to do normal sunspire for FGD then i'd recommend a starting point of 25k dps on a 3 mill. nSS is pretty easy, if your healers and tanks know what they're doing it's pretty easy to farm.

3) bad dps is whatever is noticable. I don't care if other people i'm running with are hitting less than me, I only care when it's something drastic like 10k and not using skills or something/don't have any full sets.

4) recommended dps i went over. good dps is anything above recommended. so if someone says vSS requires 40k for example, 45k is good.

How do you know/calculate dps? Is 35-40k supposed to be the number you see on the training dummy every time you hit or is it calculated over a certain time? What's the best way to know your true dps output?

SirAndy wrote: »

mrsrobot wrote: »

How do you know/calculate dps? Is 35-40k supposed to be the number you see on the training dummy every time you hit or is it calculated over a certain time? What's the best way to know your true dps output?

@mrsrobot
The overall dps number is calculated when the dummy dies. So for the 3mil dummy that is after you dealt 3 million in damage.
Divide that number of damage by the seconds it took you to kill the dummy = your dps

Dummies are OK for comparing dps between builds but be aware that a lot of people will use skill rotations on a dummy that won't work in-game just to inflate their dps numbers because epeen.

The problem is that a dummy does not fight back, meaning you don't need any damage mitigation and you don't need to heal or shield yourself either.
So people come up with skill rotations and weapon/armor set combinations that don't account for any of that to boost their dummy dps and brag about how cool they are when in reality that rotation would never work in-game because it's missing key elements (mitigation/healing/shields) one will need when actually playing the game.

Bottom line, take any dummy parses you see with a large grain of salt, people seldomly post their real dps.
That is especially true for the iron atronach raid dummy (21 mil) which has every conceivable debuff applied that would normally exists if you ran with a solid raid group. That thing melts like butter if you just look at it funny.
That's where those 90k+ dps numbers are coming from.

If you were to throw one of those builds into vMA they would probably not get past the first stage.

Oh thank you so much, I get it now. I tried the target dummys at other people's houses but never long enough to kill one, didn't realise it was possible.

Darkenarlol wrote: »

3/6 m dummy solo

30 - bad (at least you are a dd now...even if you barely pull your weight)

Funny. That's funny. You're funny.

msalvia wrote: »

Please ignore the tryhards that post 90k dummy humps. Those players 95% of the time do 30k (or less) in real action, and all serious trial runners know this is true. Although we should know, asking a sincere question about how to improve dps is gonna attract all the EPEEN waving, cuz it's forums.

My own subjective view of the good, bad, and the recommended is:

Good: 60k is a good realistic ceiling for actual in-trial combat. If you can hit 60k single target in real vet content, you have the right to brag (a little).
Bad: If you're under 20k, something is wrong with your rotation. 25k I would say is the low bar to respectable dps (IN REAL COMBAT).
Recommended: Shoot for 40k single target, in actual combat, if you want to do vet trials--certain hard modes might require a bit more dps than 40k, but with 40k you have enough to clear everything in this game. Unless you're running for leaderboards or have a personal adequacy issue, you should not feel bad if you can hit 40k in real combat.

Now, about your build:

One thing that jumps out at me in your skill build is you don't have a spammable---pop elemental weapon (preferred), crushing shock (okay), mage's wrath (only good in execute range), or something like that to use during your AOEs, ideally on the same bar as crystal frags.

Other observations:

-your spell damage (if just north of 2k) is kinda low, though not sure what race you're using, your jewel glyphs, etc.
-Crit chance mundus stone might be overkill--diminishing returns and all, it might be better to pick the one that juices crit DAMAGE, not chance.
-Not sure about your sustain, but if you're out of mag all the time when you parse, that could be a problem.*
*Keep in mind, dummy humpers build unrealistically to get those high dummy hump #s, and will inevitably have a healer friend buffing/debuffing/tossing orbs.

-Probably the most important thing, you almost definitely just need to practice your rotation. Keeping up your buffs, aoes, etc. without overcasting is hard and takes time and practice. There is not substitute for a strong rotation--no amount of trial gear, cp, advice from EPEEN wavers is gonna help that improve. It takes time and effort, but you'll get there

In regards too your note on spell damage, if they picked up Siroria from nCR 2.5k buffed with a spell pot is honestly more than enough the only draw back is siroria is notoriously hard to maintain full stacks on to that end however the average player can maintain at least 10 stacks maybe slightly more in most fights provided they aren't kiting but with them being ranged it would be easier to maintain. That alone will push him up above 3.5k spell damage then there is major courage from healers + tanks and minor sorcery which would further increase pushing them above 4.2k.

Alternatively they could run spell strategist as well with MS but I am not too sure on how much of a difference it would make because thats kinda where rotation + ability to play comes in because good players with MS + ST will end up doing really high numbers anyway though MoS will out perform it on paper and in practice but again...skill level matters.

What I am getting at is, low base Spell damage can be extremely deceptive in terms of what you're actually at fully buffed in a raid by comparison.

Swordbreaker wrote: »

I put together a magicka sorcerer build that seems to be somewhat close to some meta builds i've seen, but more tailored to may playstyle, and works extremely well in solo PvE content with high DPS and pretty decent surivivability, but when i test it on The Precursor target dummy in my guild HQ, i get between 20k-25k dps. I'm wondering how decent this is, cuz i know what works in solo PvE doesnt necessarily work in Trials or Vet Dungeons, and whether i'm ready to try SunSpire cuz i want False God's Devotion

For those wondering, my build is as follows (Keep in mind this is all before food buffs):
Monster Set: Slimecraw (Light armor w/ max magicka enchant)
All Armor: Law of Julianos Set (Light armor) w/ max magicka enchant and Divines trait
Jewelry: Mother's Sorrow w/ spell damage enchant
Weapons: Mother's Sorrow lightning staff in both slots w/ weapon/spell damage enchant and infused trait

WITHOUT food buffs, i'm sitting at just over 2000 spell damage, 2500 when buffed with Power Surge
Crit rate: 65.7% (used with Power Surge to regain 2550 health/second when i crit
Max Magicka: 32148
Max Health: 11367
Max Stamina: 9708

Front Bar:
Crystal Fragments, Haunting Curse, Power Surge, Twilight Matriarch, Inner Light

Back Bar:
Hardened Ward, Elemental Blockade, Lightning Flood, Twilight Matriarch, Inner Light.

Mundus Stone:
The Thief (Crit rate)

If i missed anything let me know. Also feel free to make any recommendations on changes. I'm certainly no expert on builds. My main goal with this was to make it as easy, quick and lazy to mow through delves, public dungeons and questing, with lots of AoE and crit rate for healing. But never tested it in a Trial (never done a Trial before) or Vet Dungeon cuz queue times take ages as a DPS.

I dont recommend this right now but when and if you can and when you're feeling like you're in a comfortable position try changing your jewellery traits (at most 2 of them no more, 3x blood thirsty is not worth it) to blood thirsty, execute damage is incredibly good right now but only switch to that when you are entirely comfortable, for now should keep arcane so you have more magicka to mess with and practice with.

Also I would (if I was in your place) replace Julianos with Mantle of Siroria (can be farmed in normal cloudrest which you can pug by joining a group in craglorn chat - do not be afraid of normal runs in this case nCR even for inexperienced players it is quite easy) if at all possible or Spell strategist which can be bought for gold from a guild trader if you do not want to play PvP. Julianos is "ok" as a starting point. If you of course aren't a position to get either sets right now then thats okay but you should work towards them they are exceedingly powerful sets.

rule of thumb some of us use not all because there are varying opinions on the matter and entirely depends at what level you are playing:

The DPS output you get on a 6 mil and the DPS output you get on the 21m usually has a middle medium (usually found in the upper end of that "in between") This is mostly because raid dummies have 100% up time on buffs that will virtually never ever always have 100% up time because reality not even the best players manage that 100%.

60k on a raid dummy and 35k-40k on a 6 mil will give you a rough idea of what you can hit in raids usually give or take 5-6k (sometimes more) depending on group buff up times and your own ability and rotation so for me in raids I hit 50k-60k DPS but on average I am roughly at 52k. On a 21 raid dummy I am 67k (PTS), 62k Live, on a 6 mil its 40k PTS, 35k Live. There will never be an exact figure until you actually raid after parsing of course it takes practice but thats how I usually determine what I will likely be hitting and its for the most part correct 90% of the time, the other 10% comes from just well, circumstance or just if I mess up.

Start with the 6 mil (I dislike the 3 mil it just dies too quickly), parse, no matter what your result is first time do not feel bad at all whatsoever that will only harm your ability to improve. Then take that number and then increase it by 5k. Keep practicing until you do it and then rinse and repeat. Once you hit 30k then you're ready for the raid dummy as you will have had enough practice to fill an extended rotation with either little error or mistakes (though this will happen, again do not feel bad - crapping on yourself will only make you fail more). The 21 mil is also useful for determining your ability to sustain damage for a long duration and sustain your resources (managing to maintain your resources and pull out your full rotation is key here).

after all that, back to the 30k parse check your up times and ensure you're not over casting non-spammables (DoTs/AoEs - dk is exempt because engulfing) then again aim for another 5k. And literally keep doing that until you get to the next hurdle. I highly advise watching alcasts animation cancel video as well, it does a great job of explaining animation cancelling and how it effects DPS and shows you how to do it efficiently. It should also be noted that light attacks for magicka play a huge part in DPS right now (Light weaving; Ability > LA > Ability > LA etc).

Sorry if anything I said was either "confusing" or overwhelming some things in this game get a bit messy as are my explanations of things - the way I calculate DPS for raids is estimate based and by no means perfect so do not be surprised if you get varying results and I am also by no means a "amazing" player either as I am sure some people here will cringe at the "62k on a raid dummy", just my two cents.