I think force pulse is better aoe and elemental weapon is better single target. What makes force pulse better single target is the status effects it puts on a target.

Every guide will tell you what’s the most damage on a dummy, so will use elemental weapon, but if you like force pulse better use force pulse. I’m not sure what the difference in dps is, but if you’re finding lag or missing makes elemental weapon impractical then force pulse might actually pull ahead. For example, almost no one uses elemental weapon as a spammable in pvp.

Not positive but I think EW is used due to the Psijic Passive Spell Orb - When you cast a Psijic Order ability while you are in combat, you generate a spell charge. When you reach 5 spell charges, you launch a spell orb at the closest enemy to you dealing 397 Magic Damage or 441 Physical Damage, whichever is higher. The spell charges must be generated within 10 seconds of each other or all charges will be lost.
Which I assume adds a chunk of the extra damage when using EW
https://eso-skillbook.com/skillline/psijic-order

Not sure of the magicka cost on either ability but maybe if EW is lower in theory you're getting more out of your pool

One new variable to this is the Stagger debuff. Force Pulse counts for 3 hits and gets around 1200 extra damage from Stagger, while Ele Weapon only gets about 400 on average (these are rough estimates). This approximately makes up for the Spell Orb contribution with Ele Weapon and makes the two skills very close for trials if you have good debuff uptimes. On dummies Ele Weapon is superior because the is no Stagger and it helps burning uptime (more important when solo). The main thing Ele Weapon has going for it at this point are the status effects and the passive shield when blocking. Force Pulse is competitive single target and does much better for AoE splash damage.

Force Pulse is better if your weaving is not yet trained or you have high ping/low fps. If you spam Force Pulses too fast you will loose light attacks but FP will still do damage, if you miss LA with Ele Weapon you just waste resources and nothing will fire.
Also FP is excellent in trash/add pulls if you have DK in the group, their cone Engulfing sets everything to have burning status, triggering FP's cleave. In CR, paired with Asylum staff, FP kills orbs in 2 casts if they are eledrained and your Warden is busy enough to not send bugs to them.

Elemental Weapon is a poor skill with high damage threshold while Force Pulse has become the weaker morph of the the Froce Shock Skill.

In the past, namely upon its release and for almost the entire year following, Elemental Weapon was the BIS for Magicka DPS. It had the lowest cost for non-class spammables, was at the maximum damage threshold for a spammable (plus the added damage of the Psijic Orb passive on-top), increased the chance of secondary effects (hitting the Asylum stave in the gut) and lastly refunded its entire cost if you didn't manage to get off a light attack in the 2-second window of using the skill.

It was a no-brains winner that quickly and effortlessly eclipsed ALL Magicka Spammables in the game. Which of course made class identity take another blow and homogenized game-play further.

Its only draw-back was its incredible clunkiness. It did take practice to use, and its game-play is and was never smooth. The worse your ping became and of course the lower your FPS moved, the harder EW becomes to use. Some have always shied away from it, and others just flat out refuse to use it. But the META-Makers always made it BIS.

But then, ZOS increased its cost putting it at the maximum cost for a spammable and then made it refund only 50% of its cost if you didn't hit the 2-second window. This raised the skills difficulty to use, which was already higher than many spammables. Since the skill relies on light attacks it requires you to use a global cool-down before it registers damage. (Skill-GCD-light attack) This was negated by its low cost and full refund but now if you missed the 2-second window of the light attack via PVE game-mechanics, or simply the skills clunkiness gets int he way, or in PVP being stunned or the enemy using line-of-sight tactics, you would still get hit with cost resulting in lower sustain against your magicka pool while outputting zero damage.

At the same time Zos lowered the cost of some competing spammables including Force Shock and its morphs, and also increased their damage.

This made it a not so clear winner.

On-top Class Spammables also got some upgrades here and there making them also compete (Such as increased speed, damage, and 3rd hit effects (Like the Wardens Bird or DKs molten whip)

Force Shock got a major change. It was expensive for a spammable, and then only the Force Pulse morph carried actual spammable level damage. Meaning if you were going to use the skill Force Pulse was the only option except in circumstances where Crushing Shock was required for its interrupt.

However, Force Pulse lost its luster in the overhaul of the skill. As the entire skills cost was reduced to mirror other spammable costs in the game including Elemental Weapon, and the Spammable damage was given to the Base skill meaning now Force Shock, Force Pulse, AND Crushing Shock all hit for the same amount of damage at level 4 rank. Add on top that Crushing Shock further lowers its cost as it ranks up making Crushing Shock COST LESS than Force Pulse and YES LESS THAN ELEMENTAL WEAPON. Throw in, that Crushing shock gives you an interrupt to casters and a free stun vs the cleave damage gained by Force Pulse. In-order for Force pulse to activate its extra damage nearby enemies must have a status effect on them. If they don't, then it doesn't fire. Lastly, against Dungeon Bosses, or Trial Bosses there is NO extra damage as they will only accept the base damage of the skill.

So in the end Crushing Shock interrupts, stuns, costs less, and puts out the same initial burst damage as Force Pulse.

Comparing Crushing Shock to Elemental Weapon is a personal preference.

Crushing shock on average costs 200 magicka less but Elemtanl Weapon on average deals 200 more damage. Crushing is required in some trials and dungeons, and its utility shines in PVP granting a free stun and interrupt; however Elemental Weapon adds increased status effect and activates the Passive Psijic Spell Orb damage.

Crushing Shock is smooth, easy to use, and doesn't hold damage output through a GCD while Elemental Weapon is clunky and does hold the damage through a GCD resulting in a 2-second 50% refund of cost if not managed.

In Pure MIN/MAX builds on top-end computers without lag and low PING (Below 200 minimum) Elemental Weapon will outperform All other spammables just because of the Psijic Spell Orb passive. It is free proc damage that is around an extra 6k on avearge every 12-15 seconds in a normal rotation. However, this DPS gain is quite small and will result in a dps end result of somewhere between 500 to 1000 more dps compared to other spammables. A seriously paltry number but worth it for Min/Max gamers. Though, this is honestly only true in Dummy Parses, as live game-play mechanics can and will interrupt the DPS output of the skill because of how it operates.

Crushing Shocks utility and lower cost or more than comparable to this damage and in live game play will be much more useful than anything offered by the other skills. It will also net you less dps loss in live game-play during mechanics.

Force Pulse only shines really in trash mobs, and Bosses with high amounts of adds.

@Soundinfinite great summary of what happened, except you missed that they also buffed the change of status effects:

Increased the chance to apply an Elemental Status Effect to 10% per hit from 3%, since each hit is a “Direct Damage” attack.

in my opinion crushing shock is the best generic magicka spammable right now.
in addition the asylum staff is now utterly worthless.

Tannus15 wrote: »

@Soundinfinite great summary of what happened, except you missed that they also buffed the change of status effects:

Increased the chance to apply an Elemental Status Effect to 10% per hit from 3%, since each hit is a “Direct Damage” attack.

in my opinion crushing shock is the best generic magicka spammable right now.
in addition the asylum staff is now utterly worthless.

Crushing shock does the same damage as force pulse without the cleave that you are trading for an interrupt that is 100% useless on most fights.

I like force pulse better. Not as Clunky and easier to use. Elemental Weapon always felt like sorta pay to win to me with the passive added to it for elemental weapon.

I’m sure all the people with LA and impale on their recaps would disagree with your assessment of ele weapons usefulness in pvp.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

What is the current chance of status effects with Force Pulse/Crushing Shock? (And for clarity, do you mean before or after doubling from the weapon passive?) I recall it was increased, but I can't now locate the patch notes for the exact details.

Bumping this after a year and a half because the question still stands.

Force Shock (either morph) should give 10% chance per element of causing a status effect, before various modifiers. But I have a vague memory of patch notes saying that one of the morphs, as a special feature, gives a higher chance.

Am I just imagining that?

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

What is the current chance of status effects with Force Pulse/Crushing Shock? (And for clarity, do you mean before or after doubling from the weapon passive?) I recall it was increased, but I can't now locate the patch notes for the exact details.

Bumping this after a year and a half because the question still stands.

Force Shock (either morph) should give 10% chance per element of causing a status effect, before various modifiers. But I have a vague memory of patch notes saying that one of the morphs, as a special feature, gives a higher chance.

Am I just imagining that?

I know that Pulsar/Ele Ring behaves like that with the increased Status Effect chance but I don't believe that Force Pulse behaves similarly.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

What is the current chance of status effects with Force Pulse/Crushing Shock? (And for clarity, do you mean before or after doubling from the weapon passive?) I recall it was increased, but I can't now locate the patch notes for the exact details.

Bumping this after a year and a half because the question still stands.

Force Shock (either morph) should give 10% chance per element of causing a status effect, before various modifiers. But I have a vague memory of patch notes saying that one of the morphs, as a special feature, gives a higher chance.

Am I just imagining that?

I know that Pulsar/Ele Ring behaves like that with the increased Status Effect chance but I don't believe that Force Pulse behaves similarly.

That would explain why I sort of remember it but can't find it when searching.

I presume Pulsar is the one with the increased chance?

Yep, it is.