The channeled acceleration is advised in most of builds because of the minor force buff. In PvE groups players should be around 60% critical chance and they stack critical modifiers like minor force, shadow mundus, major force from agressive horn skill.
Those two skills have nothing in common except movement speed buff. The first skill is defensive, the second is agressive and not often used for its movement speed buff.
WrathOfInnos wrote: »If you can stay in melee range for the full duration of Boundless Storm then it ends up very similar to Channeled Acceleration for DPS. The single target damage contribution of Boundless is usually around 3-3.5% of total, while the Minor Force buff from Accel is approx 4%. However, this does not tell the full story. Boundless is instant cast and takes 1 GCD, while Accel requires 2 GCD’s (fewer spammables and chances to proc frags) and a skipped Light Attack between them. Boundless also offers slightly better offensive passives for slotting it (2% Spell Damage).
I’ve come to the conclusion that Acceleration is better for a short fight where you can cast it once before starting and then just let it run for the full 36s (or 50s if you pre-buff with Jorvulds then swap gear). As soon as you have to recast Channeled Accel it becomes worse than Boundless.
That being said, using Boundless assumes melee, and if you are within 5m of the boss then you wouldn’t typically use Accel. Instead you’d use Barbed Trap, which gives the same 4% DPS from Minor Force whole also doing slightly over 1% of your damage itself. Barbed Trap is instant cast, and costs Stamina so it’s essentially free for your Magicka sustain. This makes Barbed Trap marginally better than Boundless for a long fight. Ideally you would slot both, if you don’t need a shield or to provide the Conduit synergy for Alkosh.
Basically the only time Channeled Accel is useful is:
- Short fight where you never recast it in combat (also fights with short phases like Lokkestiiz)
- Pure ranged position where you can’t use Trap or Boundless
- If you really need the Psijic Shield passive to survive, and already have Major Resistance buffs from a Warden with Frost Cloak.