Trading off max magicka vs. spell power

FrancisCrawford · July 2020

The usual rule of thumb is that 1 spell power equates to about 10.5 max magicka, or 10 if you want to make the calculation faster at the cost of lowering accuracy. That's the tradeoff between the two stats to get the same damage (or healing) from a single skill use (or basic attack).

However, there's another benefit to max magicka, which is having more available magicka per fight. E.g., and oversimplifying the numbers:

1000 max magicka boosts damage as much as 100 spell power does.
In a fight that lasts 100 seconds, it also gives you 10 more magicka per second.
That value is like 20 magicka regen, which is comparably "costly" in your item slots as 20 spell power.
So really, the value of 1000 max magicka is closer to that of 120 spell power ...
... and given their standard set bonus amounts, it seems ZoS agrees with that kind of view.

Obvious oversimplifications in that start:

Max magicka, magicka regen and spell power all commonly get percentage bonuses.
The 100 second fight duration was an utterly arbitrary number.

So -- has anybody (outside ZoS) done an analysis along those lines and come up with rules of thumb other than the standard 10X or 10.5X figures?

BXR_Lonestar · July 2020

The other reason why mag characters go max magika for damage rather than max spell power is because more skills and passives scale up our max magika rather than spell damage. Inner light/Mage Light? It gives us spell critical AND 8% total to our max magika. Equipping Degeneration not only gives us a source of major sorcery, but also adds in an extra 3% max magika. Sorcs have daedric armor that gives you another passive 5% max magika increase.

These kinds of passives make it more beneficial to build for a larger magika pool because it scales up better than spell damage. The inverse is true with Stamina.

WrathOfInnos · July 2020

IMO the sustain advantage of Max Magicka over Spell Damage is negligible. Either the fight is so short you don’t need it, or the fight is so long you don’t notice it. Best case you’ll get 1-2 more casts before running out of Magicka, and it’s pretty unlikely those 1-2 casts will line up exactly when the boss is about to die (so you’ll run out anyway).

As for relative power you can usually assume Max Mag gets the CP bonus (20%), Undaunted passives (6%) and Inner Light (7%). Some builds will also slot Degen or Meteor (2%) and Nightblades have a Siphoning passive equal to Sorc’s Bound Aegis (8%). In a trials group you can also add the Agressive Warhorn bonus (10%). Overall this means most builds have a MM multiplier of about 1.43 to 1.45, with Magblades at about 1.51. At 1.43 a standard 1096 MM bonus is equal to 149 Spell Damage. At 1.51 this goes up to 157 Spell Damage.

Now on the Spell Damage side, if you have Major and Minor Prophecy, most classes get a 1.3 multiplier. Sorcerer can get around 1.38 by slotting 4 class skills. At 1.3 a standard 129 SD bonus becomes 167. Or at 1.38 it gives 178 SD.

So in PVE Spell Damage is almost always better than Max Mag, by about 12%. In PVP it can be reversed because shield size is driven by Max Mag and fight pacing is different.

FrancisCrawford · July 2020

Thanks for all the detail!!! It's exactly what I hoped for.

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

IMO the sustain advantage of Max Magicka over Spell Damage is negligible. Either the fight is so short you don’t need it, or the fight is so long you don’t notice it. Best case you’ll get 1-2 more casts before running out of Magicka, and it’s pretty unlikely those 1-2 casts will line up exactly when the boss is about to die (so you’ll run out anyway).

As for relative power you can usually assume Max Mag gets the CP bonus (20%), Undaunted passives (6%) and Inner Light (7%). Some builds will also slot Degen or Meteor (2%) and Nightblades have a Siphoning passive equal to Sorc’s Bound Aegis (8%). In a trials group you can also add the Agressive Warhorn bonus (10%). Overall this means most builds have a MM multiplier of about 1.43 to 1.45, with Magblades at about 1.51. At 1.43 a standard 1096 MM bonus is equal to 149 Spell Damage. At 1.51 this goes up to 157 Spell Damage.

Now on the Spell Damage side, if you have Major and Minor Prophecy, most classes get a 1.3 multiplier. Sorcerer can get around 1.38 by slotting 4 class skills. At 1.3 a standard 129 SD bonus becomes 167. Or at 1.38 it gives 178 SD.

So in PVE Spell Damage is almost always better than Max Mag, by about 12%. In PVP it can be reversed because shield size is driven by Max Mag and fight pacing is different.

Dusk_Coven · July 2020

From PTS patch notes 6.1.0 https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/537057/pts-patch-notes-v6-1-0
with regards specifically to Sorcerer > Daedric Summoning

Daedric Summoning
All pets from this skill line now use a hybrid of your Spell Damage and Max Magicka, rather than purely Max Magicka. This change was done to reduce the total power of these abilities when stacking a singular stat.

FrancisCrawford · July 2020

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

From PTS patch notes 6.1.0 https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/537057/pts-patch-notes-v6-1-0
with regards specifically to Sorcerer > Daedric Summoning

Daedric Summoning
All pets from this skill line now use a hybrid of your Spell Damage and Max Magicka, rather than purely Max Magicka. This change was done to reduce the total power of these abilities when stacking a singular stat.

And so, with the strongest single reason for running Necropotence going away, I started this thread.

Wolf81 · July 2020

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

From PTS patch notes 6.1.0 https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/537057/pts-patch-notes-v6-1-0
with regards specifically to Sorcerer > Daedric Summoning

Daedric Summoning
All pets from this skill line now use a hybrid of your Spell Damage and Max Magicka, rather than purely Max Magicka. This change was done to reduce the total power of these abilities when stacking a singular stat.

And so, with the strongest single reason for running Necropotence going away, I started this thread.

Ya I talked about this in other thread bit ago...with the change I might just swap out my necropotence for my destruction mastery though its still a magicka set it has less so and smidge more spellpower. These are subjective though I'm only speaking of basic dungeon sets and overland stuff prior to trying to get pfg or sioria setup.
This issue I see on my pet sorc is we lose magicka thus a bit of sustain and shield strength as result now having to gear more like a basic spellslinger style sorc.

Anyron · July 2020

Yes, but on items you have more spell dmg than magicka.. 129 spell dmg or 1096 magicka.. You can also increase spell dmg by 20% with major sorcery.
And reason why some players are going to max magicka is shield. Because shield scales only of max magicka ( exept healing ward i think)