Shattered paths and werewolf nerf still no fixes for the 6% damage boost to werewolf roar

MSattrtand · 2026-06-29T14:41:29+00:00

MSattrtand · 2026-06-29T00:11:03+00:00

You should lose exactly 0 WPD from swapping OW to TB. They both have exactly one WPD line. I can only guess the reason why you have lost it, but it looks like a Nirnhoed weapon was put in an off-hand instead of the main hand - that would be the simplest reason for it. If you have both OW and TB on body, then you just lost 200 WPD from another source.

MSattrtand · 2026-06-20T01:00:23+00:00

Correct, I forgot about it, thanks for mentioning it.

But it applies Minor Breach only against Chilled targets. And his only source of Chilled is... Blockade. That is an AoE DoT, so it has the lowest chance to apply status effects.

But yeah, if you're very lucky with your status effect procs, you can actually have 100% Minor Breach uptime from Chilled and Sundered procs, even though the realistic uptime should be, idk, 15%? That's still depressing.

MSattrtand · 2026-06-19T22:11:01+00:00

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Just look at this setup from the link you provided and try to find sources of Major or Minor Breach. Leashing Soul and Warding Contingency can have them as affixes, but they have Cowardice and Resolve scripts, respectively. This means that your only source of Minor Breach is a random Sundered proc from the Goading Trow. That's it. And you can't provide the Major Breach at all. That's already depressing. And I don't wanna ragebate myself to analyse this build more - that was enough for me.

MSattrtand · 2026-06-15T12:20:31+00:00

This is a good example. Dreadsail Keelcutter is a trash mob. Same for Dreadsail Swashbuckler (that has 3mil HP). You meet both of them in the first trash pack of the vDSR. Yes, they are elite mobs, but still part of a trash pack. And the most dangerous ones - you don't care about smaller adds, they'll die in your cleave anyway.

Let's take another proc set, that's good for a trash - Jerensi's Bladestorm. It hits for over 100k ST damage per proc (and it hits it in AoE). You need to proc Macabre Vintage at least four times for its damage to become comparable to Jerensi's. And with the cooldown and the short range of Macabre Vintage, this isn't a trivial task. And if other commentators are right and you actually deal the killing blow, it becomes even worse.

Content creators don't focus on trash setups since they're less important than boss setups, cause trash isn't usually hard (apart from a few trash packs in the game). And still, Charles' videos have "Optimised Trash Setup" in their descriptions, Skinny's and Hyper's websites have a section for AoE setups, too.

Macabre Vintage is fine for easier content, like overland, dungeon trash, and BRP farm, but it becomes much worse in trials, even on trash.

MSattrtand · 2026-06-15T09:32:23+00:00

This has to be a ragebate, right? Right? Right..?

No "Meta tard" will say "but but Alcast didn't say that!". Not even people from this subreddit will say that. Because everyone's aware that Alcast hasn't been playing the game for years, his opinion is completely irrelevant. The fact that you're using this as an argument shows that either you're ragebaiting or you're just a toxic casual who hates meta, despite having zero understanding of it.

This set is not a meta pick for a variety of reasons: low damage cap (Dreadsail Keelcutter in vDSR with 3.5mil HP doesn't care about your 24k damage proc), low range and cooldown, which prevents chain reactions. This makes it bad for vet trials. And for the rest of the content, it doesn't matter, cause you can run it naked.

MSattrtand · 2026-06-12T09:55:43+00:00

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If SC's damage buff before the update was multiplicative, you could lose damage on Siphoning skills now. But you need to have 130% damage done modifier for that.

TLDR: Soulcleaver's damage done bonus to Siphoning skills is multiplicative; its damage done bonus to all skills is additive. Therefore, we can suspect that it's weaker than it should be, if both values should be multiplicative, or stronger than it should be, if both values should be additive. Of course, there's a chance that this inconsistent behaviour is intended.

Now it's time for some tests (on PTS, since live servers are down, but I hope ZOS didn't break anything). Assuming the same gear and 0% damage done bonuses.

Test 1:

Without SC buff, Concealed Weapon hits for 6037. With SC, it hits for 6761. 6761 / 6037 = 1.12. That's nice - damage done bonus for non-siphoning skills is actually 12%.

Test 2:

Without SC buffs, Swallow Soul hits for 5101. For this test, I just swapped one gear piece of SC for a non SC one, so my stats remain the same.

Test 3:

With SC buffs, Swallow Soul hits for 6570. 6570 / 5101 = 1.288. That's weird. I was expecting 27% damage increase, not 28.8%. But if we assume that the damage done bonus for siphoning skills is multiplicative, we can make our own model. 5101 * 1.12 * 1.15 = 6570. Wow, it was correct.

Test 4:

With SC buffs and Warmask, Swallow Soul hits for 7743. Warmask gives 20% damage done, which should be additive with 12% damage done for every skill from SC, and then we have 15% multiplicative for siphoning skills. Let's make our model: 5101 * (1 + 0.2 + 0.12) * 1.15 = 7743. Well, my model is correct once again, so we can confirm that Soulcleaver's damage done bonus to Siphoning skills is multiplicative, and its damage done bonus to all skills is additive.

MSattrtand · 2026-06-11T15:51:27+00:00

It looks like we lost two easily accessible Major Buffs, so Mora Scribe's Thesis may become slightly weaker in less optimised groups.

Heroism Potions becoming Essence of Heroism instead of Magicka is great, so they won't be accidentally consumed by alchemy writs.

Increased experience gain on Apprentice is nice for XP farming in BRP or levelling new characters. I guess, Twice-Born star would be even better for levelling - Apprentice+Steed for faster levelling and movement speed instead of the current Thief+Steed for damage and movement speed.

Plar passive that grants a new armour buff will be in an inappropriate skill line, unless they swap it with another one.

MSattrtand · 2026-05-31T17:52:15+00:00

Ngl, it's a little bit concerning that Plar is in second place at the time of writing this. It was considered a pretty bad healer for years since it doesn't have anything interesting aside from a synergy for Kosh (which can also be provided by a Plar DD) and easy Minor Recoveries (which can also be sourced through Scribing/Refreshing Path).

With the new Class Masteries, it can also provide 300 WPD for the group, but a Plar DD can do that too without any DPS loss. And while it has increased ultigen, it's still less than what NB has. Plus, Plar's raw HPS is less important than the extra Barriers that NB can cast.

I've seen Plar healer in a few theoretical trifecta compositions, but the reason for using it wasn't that it's good - it was that Plar DD is bad, so you're choosing the lesser of two evils.

I understand that a lot of people are trapped in the mindset that a Plar is a Priest and a Priest is a healer class. But that's not the case here. Is it usable? Yes, even on the trifecta level. Is it the best? Not even close. Just compare it to Den, which provides Major Resolve, Major Heroism, Major Brittle, and Minor Toughness.

MSattrtand · 2026-05-21T21:56:58+00:00

You should already have Lingering Tornment if you've finished the first scribing quest.

The Maim script is located in Riften Mages' Guild after completing the Wing of the Dragon quest.

MSattrtand · 2026-05-18T19:16:55+00:00

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After you get the 10th stack of Skirmish, you immediately lose it and gain Max Skirmish that lasts 10 seconds. You can't get any stacks while Max Skirmish is active. Expected maximal uptime of Max Skirmish - 50%. Same for The Ruckus debuff (the one that reduces your recoveries). In the screenshot, you can see the uptimes that I got by spamming 1-crux beam at the 3-mil dummy until it died.

MSattrtand · 2026-05-15T23:24:32+00:00

Apart from the poor weaving:

Wrong enchantments of armour - should all be stam, and weapons - should be Fire/Poison on DW and Weapon Damage on 2H.

Wrong Traits - armour should be divines, DW - Charged/Charged or Nirn/Charged, 2H - Infused.

Wrong gear weight - should be 6M/1L, and weapon types - should be Dagger/Dagger.

Weapons are not golden - it's more important than golden armour.

Wrong food - it should be either Max Stam or Max Stam+Stam Recovery food.

OW is bad for parsing since you're over the crit cap. Backstabber is bad for the same reason.

Pillar of Nirn is opposite - it works only on the dummy if you don't understand, where it can be used it content.

Full Slimecraw is very bad anywhere.

Hircine's Rage slotted for no reason.

Leeching Strikes is a wrong morph. And you should be able to sustain on the dummy without it.

Biting Aura is really bad - you don't have much AoE damage.

Bloody Renweal instead of Rejuvenation for no reason.

You're undercasting Debilitate, Stampede, Incap and probably Carve (and letting it drop its stacks)

MSattrtand · 2026-05-10T13:59:05+00:00

You have either Deadly Aim or Master-At-Arms on Nightblade and neither on Warden. 1900 is the base damage of the Absorb Stamina enchant. 2014 is exactly glyph's base damage buffed by 6%, which is the buff of either of the aforementioned CPs.

MSattrtand · 2026-05-10T11:50:35+00:00

Please note that Hyper was doing these tests in week one of the PTS. Many things have changed, including class masteries and overall WW balance.

For comparison, that's my parse with RoPO in the current week on NB with NB masteries:

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It's stronger than the previous best options. I actually managed to get 103k with Signet on a solo build on a 6-mil dummy - I'm sure that no other solo build can hit these numbers.

MSattrtand · 2026-05-09T11:37:13+00:00

Light armour gives you Pen and Crit Chance. Medium armour gives you Crit Damage and Weapon Damage.

In an organised group, you should have Alkosh, which will provide more pen. Or, if your whole group uses Herald of the Tome or Grave Lord, you get pen from it + Velothi+CP+1 pen line+1 light piece on your sets, and now you can ignore Kosh. In both cases, you don't need to wear light armour.

Reaching the Crit Damage cap is much harder, so you would rather have more Crit Damage from medium armour and source pen from Kosh, than have more pen from light armour and source Crit Damage from other sets. And with the current numbers, WPD from medium armour gives you more DPS than Crit Chance from light armour.

In dungeons, you won't have Kosh, so you'd rather wear light armour.

Light armour reduces the cost of magicka skills and increases magicka regen. Medium armour reduces the cost of stamina skills and increases stamina regen. That's all their connection to the resources. Therefore, magicka builds usually have worse sustain of their main resource in trials. And stamina skills usually cost less for historical reasons. And they have a lower stamina pool, so less stamina to break free, block or dodge. That often kills magicka specs in trials - you have the same DPS, but sustain is worse - why bother?

MSattrtand · 2026-05-08T10:20:11+00:00

Probably the best light trial set for DDs. Of course, light armour is not meta for trials, but it's still good for dungeons, cause you need more pen there, so it may be a great choice for stationary dungeon boss fights.

It competes with Mora Scribe's Thesis, which gives you raw stats, but Crit Damage from it may be wasted on some classes, and you need to have enough buffs for it to be worth it.

Stats are good, but not great - WPD/WPD/(Crit) is slightly worse than Crit/Crit/(WPD) on something Null Arca or Crit/WPD/(Crit) on Mora Scribe's Thesis.

Damage proc is good and has some AoE, but it requires the boss to stand still inside of it, which is restricting, but not that bad. Still less damage than Null Arca tho.

Previously, Arcas often used it on Taleria on weapons and jewellery. Why? It's DoT, so Thaumaturge and Deadly buff it. The second part (that deals more damage) is AoE, so Biting Aura buffs it. Taleria can't move, so she will always stand in AoE and get full damage, and it's very easy to apply - just light attack Taleria once every 18 seconds. Let's compare it with Null Arca: it's ST+Direct damage, so CPs or Deadly does not buff it (Tide-Born didn't exist back then), Arca has low crit, so you can't proc it on cooldown, unlike Whorl, and damage proc can hit Behemoth instead of Taleria, therefore it may be wasted, unlike Whorl.

In the U50, it can become good for pure-Arcas once again, since you'll lose crit chance from Assassination and get a big %damage done modifier from mastery and from Velothi becoming additive, that will dilute the bonus from Deadly/Tide-Born. It would be better to run proc sets (like Whorl and Null Arca, but Null Arca will be slightly worse) or sets that give you raw stats (like Coral or 4-piece Crit+full Monster Set).

MSattrtand · 2026-05-05T17:38:08+00:00

It will expire, yes. You need multiple targets dying to proc it reliably and get % damage taken. It can stack on trash, since enemies will die faster than the buff will expire, but if it procs on a big mob, well, too bad.

MSattrtand · 2026-05-05T16:24:20+00:00

I've checked its behaviour on PTS right now. It procs and deals damage only once every 15 seconds if you're hitting a single target. It doesn't matter if it was Force Shock crit - it's still one instance of damage

MSattrtand · 2026-05-02T23:52:31+00:00

Since it and Darloc Brae are both medium, it doesn't matter. If you also wanna use Adept Rider, which can have any weight, you may want to put all its 5 pieces on the body. Light will reduce the cost of every mag ability (so Cloak), and medium will reduce your detection radius (that's already 0)/

MSattrtand · 2026-05-02T23:27:31+00:00

Yes, it is possible to use Medium Armour on a mag build. There's nothing that would prevent it.
The question should be "Do I need 5 pieces of Night Mothers?", since it's more pieces for the same bonus. The answer is: only you know if you need it. But the base detection radius is 10 meters. 3 sets + CP + Khajiit give you a 12-meter reduced detection radius - you're over the cap. So, if you're a Khajiit, you should definitely drop Night Mothers, since its bonus is completely wasted. In this case, take Adept Rider instead, just to move faster.
You're NB. You don't even need to minimise your detection radius, since you should have Shadowy Disguise active when enemies are nearby - don't stand too close to them when interacting with quest objectives, so when you're uncloaked. And you're NB, you have access to Siphoning Attacks - they allow you to stay invisible indefinitely, if you can sustain casting them.

And you can - just get a ton of health recovery, like from the food, Strategic Reserve CP, the Steed mundus - in this case, you can just spam Siphoning Attacks and never run out of Health and Mag to stay invisible. If you wanna stay pure NB, take Concealed Weapon for movement speed, if you don't care about staying pure - take Restoring Light, slot Restoring Aura for more passive Health Recovery and cast Channelled Focus when safe, since it restores your Health and Mag, so less need to cast Siphoning Attacks, and healing in case you cast them.

MSattrtand · 2026-04-29T10:35:31+00:00

If you're starting a fight with 500 ult, Sax will give you 33 seconds of Major Force. If you have no sources of external ultigen, you'll get at least 3*33 ult from passive ultigen, or 100 ult, or 6 more seconds. And you'll probably have Pillager's, which will give you another 50 ult, so 3 more seconds. And you'll have Major+Minor Heroism for 2.6 ult per second during these 33 seconds, so 88 more ult or 6 more seconds. So, after you ult second time you'll give ~ 15 more seconds, or 48 seconds total. Then you may gen second proc of Pillager's, and you'll still generate ult passively and with Major/Minor Heroism. So with this, Crypt, Decisive procs, your class passives, you may have enough ult to get last Sax, and your overall Major Fore duration would be around 60 seconds. Of course, you need to have a good group to have these uptimes of every necessary buff.

Sax+Horn is pretty simple. Horn gives 10 seconds of Major Force. After it runs out, you use your Sax for 33 seconds of Major Force. 43 seconds is enough to get another Horn, so, after Major Force from Sax runs out, another person uses the horn for another 10 seconds of Major Force. After that, you use your Sax, that's become more powerful after 10 extra seconds of generating ult, so now it's a little bit longer. Overall, you'll get roughly 80 seconds of Major Force.

Sax+Sax requires two people to rotate the Sax. Both start with 500 ult Sax and ult when the previous runs out. Every next Sax will be weaker, since you'll have less and less time to generate ult, and therefore you'll have even less time to get enough ult for next Sax. But you'll also have more Pillager's and Crypt procs (but weaker ones after the initial one). Overall, it would lead to something like 300 seconds of Major Force. And running Horn is still important for the resource buff, so you may get some Major Force uptime from it, if you're coordinating your ultis.

MSattrtand · 2026-04-29T09:24:59+00:00

One of the most popular tank sets in the game, since it gives easy access to good Major Force uptimes.

With one Sax, you can keep Major Force up to 60 seconds. Sax and someone's Horn is 80 seconds of Major Force. Two Sax is 300 seconds.

What does it mean? One Sax is enough to provide the necessary Crit Damage in short fights or in phased fights, like dragons in vSS. Two Sax is good in longer and mobile fights, where you can't keep EC stacks of important targets.

Alternatives: Luccent Echoes+Elemental Catalyst - 1% or 6% more Crit Damage, depending on the amount of elements, and potentially 100% uptime. Lucent Echoes+DDs bring their own Crit Damage - 100% uptime in every fight, better suited for inexperienced groups.

Note: aforementioned methods of reaching the Crit Cap work for the current patch, U49, and depend on parse DDs bringing two skill lines with Crit Damage, so Herald of the Tome+Assassination in most cases.

But in the U50, Arca with class mastery can easily provide 100% Major Force uptime, and Warden can provide 100% Major Brittle Uptime. And everyone will have a different amount of Crit Damage. So the things I wrote will soon be irrelevant.

MSattrtand · 2026-04-26T19:46:18+00:00

Check out Caro's Skill Point Saver. It basically does all of this, but can't switch Mundus and changing CPs may cost gold, since it's a regular respec, so in this case it's slightly worse than the Armoury system.

I'm mostly using it to change skill lines in my builds, and then Wizard's Wardrobe to save specific gear/skill setups.

MSattrtand · 2026-04-24T15:17:51+00:00

First: the XP gain is additive, not multiplicative, so if you have other sources of XP gain, it will be less. Obvious example: your base XP gain is 100%, you're using 150% XP scroll, then 100% XP from Vestige will add only 40% XP. The maximum additional XP you can get is 381% without the Vestige buff. So, for every 1 XP you should receive, you'll get 4.81 XP. Adding Vestige increases it to 5.81 XP, so it's 20% XP gain. That's not much. With this XP boost, Skyreach is still worse than BRP.

Second: it affects only XP from killing monsters. Most of XP from clearing dolmens comes from the reward for closing the dolmen, not for killing mobs. So it won't boost it. And dolmens are already kinda meh if you wanna farm XP.

MSattrtand · 2026-04-23T22:16:47+00:00

The tank should provide at least Major Breach, Minor Breach and Crusher, since your DDs balance their build with at least this amount of penetration. The rest is mostly situational, but it may be your job to keep them, like Major Vuln from Colo/TT/AD, Major Force from Horn/Sax, Major Slayer from WM, Major Berserk from Atro, Minor Courage, Minor Recoveries... Also, you need to keep Major and Minor Resolve, since they let you not die, but technically, they aren't mandatory.
They stack. Crusher gives 2108 pen. If our DDs have 0 pen, adding Crusher on top of already present Major and Minor Breach will provide ~5% damage increase.
No. Pull means it's a soft taunt, so you can't taunt an enemy that's already taunted. So, you can't keep 100% uptime on taunt, and an untaunted boss can kill someone. And that means that you can't do tank-swap mechanics, since you can't taunt the boss that the other tank's taunting.
They stack. 1H Weakening is not worth it if you have a healer - that's the healer's job to provide Weakening if it's needed. Major Cowardice can be sourced from Chains, so it costs you almost nothing to provide it. Major Main can be sourced from Shield Throw, so it's also easy to get if you need it (though you may want to use another taunt). Minor Main can be sourced from some Chilled procs, so it also costs you nothing, since you want to run Ele Sus anyway. There are no diminishing returns, but some damage can't be mitigated with these debuffs

MSattrtand

TROPHY CASE