Stinging Slashes weapon set: not working as intended.

Skullstachio · April 2023

I recently acquired a one-handed axe and mace of the stinging slashes set from dragonstar arena on normal, I went to test it to see what results I could get and, for one, it was not increasing the damage of twin slashes for each initial hit and bleed tick prior to its description.

At first I thought it would be a morph issue as I had it morphed to blood craze, but, turns out it affects the whole base ability and the morphs and is not working in which there is no damage increase. (I already submitted a ticket regarding this issue today.)
Platform: Xbox Series X
Megaserver: North America
Ticket Number: will be disclosed in an edit on the OP upon request.

Edit I: This was tested in PvE (in the overland
Moreover: after more testing on a training dummy, something just occurred to me and is creating a conflict of interest set wise.

Currently, the set says Twin slashes deals 1635 more damage "for each hit of the initial attack and bleed." which to my view point means that Twin slashes should be able to have increased ramping damage based on a flat value. akin to how the flame damage from the zaan monster set increases by 100% per tick of flame damage from the set itself alone.

Heres a twin slashes example:
*each initial hit deals 1000 damage (which is 2000 since it involves hitting a target with "both" one-handed weapons) and the target bleeds for 10000 damage over 20 seconds (assuming the target has 0 armor and resists.) which is 10 ticks of damage over time after a 2 second delay.

*Without Stinging slashes: this would be 1000 per hit with each weapon, followed by 1000 damage every 2 seconds after a 2 second delay, dealing 10000 damage over 20 seconds (10 ticks of damage.)

*With Stinging slashes(again, just how I see it, possible confusion ahead on my end, welcome to be wrong.): the first initial hit would be 1000 damage and the second hit would be 2635 since it is a flat increase.
then the first tick of bleed damage after the 2 second delay, would be 4270, then 5905 on 2nd tick, 7540 on 3rd, 9175 on 4th, 10810 on 5th, 12,445 on 6th, 14,080 on 7th, 15,715 on 8th, 17,350 on 9th, and the final 10th tick would hit for 18,985 damage, combined together all up, would amount to a staggering 119,910 damage! (Again, this is factoring in that the target has no form of Damage Mitigation on the target at all. Because if it did, it would affect the initial hits and the subsequent ticks of damage and result in significantly lower damage over that period of 20 seconds. While also factoring in that this is also without any "other" form of bonus damage sources.)

But as I tested, this was what was projected instead of what I would have seen thought-wise:
*with stinging slashes: both initial hits land for 2635 damage instead of 1000, and the 10000 damage over 20 seconds, or 1000 every 2 seconds, is increased to 2635, which makes the whole damage over time total 26,350.

I'm not the only one confused about the wording and mechanics of the stinging slashes weapon set. (I even searched "Stinging Slashes" in the basic forum search bar and found I wasn't the only one having their brains proverbially scrambled over it.

Galeriano · April 2023

How did You came to a conclusion it is not increasing the damage of twin slashes?

Set itself definietly works as its being commonly used in PvP right now.

virtus753 · April 2023

Where did you test it, in particular? I don’t believe it will work in no-CP Cyro, for example.

Necrotech_Master · April 2023

just make sure you are using the right items lol

"the masters axe" for example, is the same name for both the 1h/shield weapon and for the dual wield weapon

if you mix a 1h/shield and dual wield weapon, you wont get the set bonus for the dual wield weapon

Skullstachio · April 2023

virtus753 wrote: »

Where did you test it, in particular? I don’t believe it will work in no-CP Cyro, for example.

Specifically in PvE (overland) just about to add on to the original thread prior to posting this comment.

virtus753 · April 2023

Tooltips are not always written the clearest way, granted, but the set seems to be behaving in a reasonable manner:

Three instances of damage are increased per cast: each initial hit of the direct damage (one from each weapon) and the initial hit of the bleed.

If it did what you initially described it would be obviously overpowered several fold.

Based on reasonable damage expectations, and confirmed by your testing, they mean "each hit of the initial attack and bleed" where the adjective "initial" applies both to the attack and to the bleed (i.e. "initial attack" and "initial hit of the bleed"). It is not "each hit of the initial attack" and "each hit of the bleed."

They could stand to edit the set description. I would not expect them to change the set to apply to every hit of the bleed.

Necrotech_Master · April 2023

virtus753 wrote: »

Tooltips are not always written the clearest way, granted, but the set seems to be behaving in a reasonable manner:

Three instances of damage are increased per cast: each initial hit of the direct damage (one from each weapon) and the initial hit of the bleed.

If it did what you initially described it would be obviously overpowered several fold.

Based on reasonable damage expectations, and confirmed by your testing, they mean "each hit of the initial attack and bleed" where the adjective "initial" applies both to the attack and to the bleed (i.e. "initial attack" and "initial hit of the bleed"). It is not "each hit of the initial attack" and "each hit of the bleed."

They could stand to edit the set description. I would not expect them to change the set to apply to every hit of the bleed.

stuff like the maelstrom destro affects every tick of wall of elements + the explode if its unstable wall

this set im pretty sure does the same thing and applies the dmg on each tick, but this set because its a sticky dot, doesnt feel as impactful as it used to because of the horrendously slow 2 sec tick rate (while the wall of elements is dmg per second due to being a ground dot)

the way your describing it, adding 1650 dmg to the entire bleed (or +1650 dmg over 20 sec) would be absolutely worthless, thats effectively only adding like +80 dmg per tick (or +40 dps) and such garbage nobody would even consider using it

virtus753 · April 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Tooltips are not always written the clearest way, granted, but the set seems to be behaving in a reasonable manner:

Three instances of damage are increased per cast: each initial hit of the direct damage (one from each weapon) and the initial hit of the bleed.

If it did what you initially described it would be obviously overpowered several fold.

Based on reasonable damage expectations, and confirmed by your testing, they mean "each hit of the initial attack and bleed" where the adjective "initial" applies both to the attack and to the bleed (i.e. "initial attack" and "initial hit of the bleed"). It is not "each hit of the initial attack" and "each hit of the bleed."

They could stand to edit the set description. I would not expect them to change the set to apply to every hit of the bleed.

stuff like the maelstrom destro affects every tick of wall of elements + the explode if its unstable wall

this set im pretty sure does the same thing and applies the dmg on each tick, but this set because its a sticky dot, doesnt feel as impactful as it used to because of the horrendously slow 2 sec tick rate (while the wall of elements is dmg per second due to being a ground dot)

the way your describing it, adding 1650 dmg to the entire bleed (or +1650 dmg over 20 sec) would be absolutely worthless, thats effectively only adding like +80 dmg per tick (or +40 dps) and such garbage nobody would even consider using it

The maelstrom destro staff description is fairly straightforward and doesn't say anything about an initial hit, so I'm confused about that being offered as a comparandum here when considering OP's confusion about the wording of Stinging Slashes' set description and how that accords with its behavior. I don't think I've read about anyone having issues understanding the maelstrom destro's set description or behavior.

As for Stinging Slashes' mechanics, adding the 1650 damage as ramping damage to each tick as laid out by OP would be - in OP's own words - "staggering." I cannot see ZOS changing the set to those numbers.

Necrotech_Master · April 2023

virtus753 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Tooltips are not always written the clearest way, granted, but the set seems to be behaving in a reasonable manner:

Three instances of damage are increased per cast: each initial hit of the direct damage (one from each weapon) and the initial hit of the bleed.

If it did what you initially described it would be obviously overpowered several fold.

Based on reasonable damage expectations, and confirmed by your testing, they mean "each hit of the initial attack and bleed" where the adjective "initial" applies both to the attack and to the bleed (i.e. "initial attack" and "initial hit of the bleed"). It is not "each hit of the initial attack" and "each hit of the bleed."

They could stand to edit the set description. I would not expect them to change the set to apply to every hit of the bleed.

stuff like the maelstrom destro affects every tick of wall of elements + the explode if its unstable wall

this set im pretty sure does the same thing and applies the dmg on each tick, but this set because its a sticky dot, doesnt feel as impactful as it used to because of the horrendously slow 2 sec tick rate (while the wall of elements is dmg per second due to being a ground dot)

the way your describing it, adding 1650 dmg to the entire bleed (or +1650 dmg over 20 sec) would be absolutely worthless, thats effectively only adding like +80 dmg per tick (or +40 dps) and such garbage nobody would even consider using it

The maelstrom destro staff description is fairly straightforward and doesn't say anything about an initial hit, so I'm confused about that being offered as a comparandum here when considering OP's confusion about the wording of Stinging Slashes' set description and how that accords with its behavior. I don't think I've read about anyone having issues understanding the maelstrom destro's set description or behavior.

As for Stinging Slashes' mechanics, adding the 1650 damage as ramping damage to each tick as laid out by OP would be - in OP's own words - "staggering." I cannot see ZOS changing the set to those numbers.

its not like a stacking increase,

if its 10,000 dmg over 20 sec, that is 500 dmg per tick

this set adds 1650 dmg per tick, making each tick do 2100 dmg instead of 500

thats how the maelstrom staff works, each tick gets the fixed increase bonus and it does "relatively" the same dmg per tick as this set

im still at work so cant provide screenshot proof, but thats how this set has always worked, the initial hits and each tick of the bleed get the bonus dmg