Skyrim Tips and Tricks » Discussions

How 'Critical Damage' for swords works in Skyrim

• James

  

  Member
   

  November 26, 2013

  Ya, charge is a straight 2x multiplier of all critical damage. So with all 3 bladesman perks you can do 300% of a sword's base critical damage using charge (plus it's a guaranteed proc). Obviously this can get fairly good when using greatswords since they typically have higher critical damage ratings.
  
  A daedric greatsword with a base critical damage of 12 will have that boosted to 18 with all 3 deep wounds perks and using charge that is now boosted to 36 damage. Considering it can also be boosted with MFD, this is not an insignificant amount.

  Ya, charge is a straight 2x multiplier of all critical damage. So with all 3 bladesman perks you can do 300% of a sword's base critical damage using charge (plus it's a guaranteed proc). Obviously this can get fairly good when using greatswords since they typically have higher critical damage ratings.
  
  A daedric greatsword with a base critical damage of 12 will have that boosted to 18 with all 3 deep wounds perks and using charge that is now boosted to 36 damage. Considering it can also be boosted with MFD, this is not an insignificant amount.
• Warlocksg

  

  Member
   

  November 26, 2013

  Reading through the post, to be honest, I can see this working out only for either 1 of these 2 build types:

  • Spellswords
  • Battlemages

  Allow me to explain why though:

  A dual flurry based bladesman will want to concentrate on stamina upkeep and damage when executing his power attacks. I mean that is the whole concept of taking dual flurry, to have powerful power attacks (or if with minor absorb stamina enchant, never ending power attacks).

  Between his slashes and strong One handed perked, dual flurried power attacks, critical damage is sorta fluff. A nice addition, if you have extra perk points to spend cause you don't know what to do with them.

  On the other hand, for a character that heavily relies on 1 handed attacks to be combined with either shield or spell, this would prove more useful. What this means is less power attacking and more normal attack repitiions (due to low stamina cost).

  Assuming that we have a full set of one handed 5/5 perks and bladesman is perked 3/3, like you mentioned with marked for death shout factored in, then multiple normal strikes of a one handed sword will definitely benefit more.

  Add this to a battlemage or spellsword playstyle, where the strikes of the blade is further augmented by any flame spell that hits the target (according to spell description), we have one helluva massive combo here.

  That said, has this angle been tested by you james? Would you know if any flame effect on target, while increasing the damage taken from standard melee attacks, also affects the critical damage on target?

   

   

  Reading through the post, to be honest, I can see this working out only for either 1 of these 2 build types:

  • Spellswords
  • Battlemages

  Allow me to explain why though:

  A dual flurry based bladesman will want to concentrate on stamina upkeep and damage when executing his power attacks. I mean that is the whole concept of taking dual flurry, to have powerful power attacks (or if with minor absorb stamina enchant, never ending power attacks).

  Between his slashes and strong One handed perked, dual flurried power attacks, critical damage is sorta fluff. A nice addition, if you have extra perk points to spend cause you don't know what to do with them.

  On the other hand, for a character that heavily relies on 1 handed attacks to be combined with either shield or spell, this would prove more useful. What this means is less power attacking and more normal attack repitiions (due to low stamina cost).

  Assuming that we have a full set of one handed 5/5 perks and bladesman is perked 3/3, like you mentioned with marked for death shout factored in, then multiple normal strikes of a one handed sword will definitely benefit more.

  Add this to a battlemage or spellsword playstyle, where the strikes of the blade is further augmented by any flame spell that hits the target (according to spell description), we have one helluva massive combo here.

  That said, has this angle been tested by you james? Would you know if any flame effect on target, while increasing the damage taken from standard melee attacks, also affects the critical damage on target?

   

   

• James

  

  Member
   

  November 26, 2013

  I'm still not convinced that fire magic increases damage like that. It's something I plan on figuring out soon though so I can try and figure an answer to this question.

  I'm still not convinced that fire magic increases damage like that. It's something I plan on figuring out soon though so I can try and figure an answer to this question.
• Warlocksg

  

  Member
   

  November 26, 2013

  OK, thanks man. It would help a lot of people out there who are rolling spellswords and/or battlemages. The standard flame or incinerate spell followed by a 1-2 swing of the swords makes up most of the normal damage cycle involving melee combo's in such playstyles, due to this conceived notion. It would help if you could either confirm or dispel this.

  Thanks.

  OK, thanks man. It would help a lot of people out there who are rolling spellswords and/or battlemages. The standard flame or incinerate spell followed by a 1-2 swing of the swords makes up most of the normal damage cycle involving melee combo's in such playstyles, due to this conceived notion. It would help if you could either confirm or dispel this.

  Thanks.

• Alastor

  

  Member
   

  November 26, 2013

  I have always been under the impression that fire magic only increased the damage of another fire spell.

  I have always been under the impression that fire magic only increased the damage of another fire spell.
• James

  

  Member
   

  November 26, 2013

  When I briefly tried in in the past I don't remember it actually boosting anything, but I wasn't really trying so that might be incorrect.  I'm finding that a large amount of the 'knowledge' I thought I had about Skyrim is inaccurate.

  When I briefly tried in in the past I don't remember it actually boosting anything, but I wasn't really trying so that might be incorrect.  I'm finding that a large amount of the 'knowledge' I thought I had about Skyrim is inaccurate.

• Teccam

  

  Member
   

  November 26, 2013

  I'm pretty sure the "opponents on fire take extra damage" thing is just a poorly written way of saying "in addition to the stated damage, opponents also take a small amount of burn damage while they are on fire." I don't think the effect modifies their damage taken while on fire, from physical nor spell damage. And I don't think it was ever intended to.

  I think Nik touched on burn damage in his Gameplay Mechanics thread. Not sure if it's the same link that you posted in your bashing thread, James, but I'll see if I can find that info. I think he basically found that most fire spells/effects do ~10% burn damage over 2 or 3 seconds, but there were one or two exceptions.

  EDIT » Found it. It was that thread. LINK

  I'm pretty sure the "opponents on fire take extra damage" thing is just a poorly written way of saying "in addition to the stated damage, opponents also take a small amount of burn damage while they are on fire." I don't think the effect modifies their damage taken while on fire, from physical nor spell damage. And I don't think it was ever intended to.

  I think Nik touched on burn damage in his Gameplay Mechanics thread. Not sure if it's the same link that you posted in your bashing thread, James, but I'll see if I can find that info. I think he basically found that most fire spells/effects do ~10% burn damage over 2 or 3 seconds, but there were one or two exceptions.

  EDIT » Found it. It was that thread. LINK

• James

  

  Member
   

  November 27, 2013

  This is what I was eluding to, playing around with sun spells this week (they work in a similar way) has shown this to be true. Fire and sun spells use a somewhat complex calculation for damage and use 'taper' values to give them reducing amounts of damage over time, the "take more damage" that the descriptions mention seem to be referring to this effect. If this is correct then enemies do not take increased damage. The equation is more complicated than it seems in Nik's thread but he's certainly on the correct path.
  
  Still not 100% sure but I'm fairly confident.

  This is what I was eluding to, playing around with sun spells this week (they work in a similar way) has shown this to be true. Fire and sun spells use a somewhat complex calculation for damage and use 'taper' values to give them reducing amounts of damage over time, the "take more damage" that the descriptions mention seem to be referring to this effect. If this is correct then enemies do not take increased damage. The equation is more complicated than it seems in Nik's thread but he's certainly on the correct path.
  
  Still not 100% sure but I'm fairly confident.
• Sangreal

  

  Member
   

  November 27, 2013

  This (Charge + Bladesman combination) is something I was not aware of myself also.

  It seems clear now that with swords you can reach the highest amounts of damage, when combined with MFD shout, since axe bleed damage is magical and redundant at higher levels/difficulties, and mace armor penetration is overridden with the shout.

  I like it how your posts chip away the mystery of skyrim mechanics little by little.

  This (Charge + Bladesman combination) is something I was not aware of myself also.

  It seems clear now that with swords you can reach the highest amounts of damage, when combined with MFD shout, since axe bleed damage is magical and redundant at higher levels/difficulties, and mace armor penetration is overridden with the shout.

  I like it how your posts chip away the mystery of skyrim mechanics little by little.

• Alastor

  

  Member
   

  November 27, 2013

  So by fluttering the Flames spell, you're actually stacking small amounts of DPS. That's cool to know.

  So by fluttering the Flames spell, you're actually stacking small amounts of DPS. That's cool to know.