Black Dragon Bolt

[Thalmor]

Hmmmm, Caster Level 25, Items that are Min Level 25.... Seems to me that we maybe getting a level cap increase some time SOON.... But maybe I reading to much into it.

[Memnir]

My Earth Savant just became an extremely happy lill guy.


Horrid Wilting, yer gittin the boot!

[Morosy]

Well, an Acid savant would cast it at CL 26. They'd also have a max of 28 (30 with the ToD set) and there are ways to bump it up with items. Abishai set comes to mind.

Keep in mind that Polar Ray also shows a cap of CL25

No Abishai love anymore for conjurations

Definitely going to make me spec some into acid though.

So an 8th level acid spell that does 100-300 damage over it's 6 seconds span per cast (at caster level 25) plus metas and enhancements etc.

Rate vs Polar ray:

8th level cold spell that does 50-150 damage (all at once) per cast (at caster level 25) plust metas and enhancements.

Instant:
Polar Ray: 50-150 (avg 100)
Black Dragon Bolt: 25-75 (avg 50)

at 2 seconds:
Polar Ray: 0
Black Dragon Bolt: 50-150 (avg 100)

at 4 seconds:
Polar Ray: 0
Black Dragon Bolt: 75-225 (avg 150)

at 6 seconds:
Polar Ray: 0
Black Dragon Bolt: 100-300 (avg 200)

So it looks like it will do double polar ray's damage per sp, and double the dps of polar ray, since the cooldown on polar ray is 6 seconds.

Is this spell intended to be the absolute best single target damage spell in the game?

It rivals triple stacked niacs/eladars for pure dps without the restriction of having to stack it up to that.

base 33.3-50 dps on BDB vs 31.5-39 base dps on Niacs/eladars 3 stack

While those numbers may not look huge yet, that's BASE dps. Metas/enhancements magnify it a great deal.

full elemental spec enhancements, full metas, sorc capstone multiply all those numbers by approximately 5 times

BDB (full meta and enhance) 346.3 average dps with crits factored in.
Niacs or Eladars (full metas and enhance) 293.1 average dps with crits factored in.
Polar Ray (full metas and enhance) 155.9 average dps with crits factored in

That looks way too overpowered.

It gets even sicker when you factor in savant curses.

Do Melf's/BDB get the initial tick at instant of cast? Or is it like Niac's/Eladars where it's cast, then 2 seconds later it kicks in.

To be honest, if they do actually have BDB at 4 tics per cast one thing they could at least do is make it 3 tics per cast to tone it down a bit.

Wow, very strong spell though.

[GoldyGopher]

Checking the Math

Earth Savant III - Empowered and Maximized - With Thamor's Set.
((25 x 2) X 1.5 (Acid Manipulation) X 1.5 (Empowered) x 2 (Maximized) * 1.15 (Acid Curse) x 3 (1 every 2 seconds for 6 Second) ) / 6 = 129.375 Base

129.375 * 2.75 * 8.4 (Critical Damage) = 2979.9
129.375 * 51.6 (Base Damage) = 6675.75
DPS = (9655.65/60) = 160.93

Sustainable for more than 5 Minutes.

With the full set you 14% chance to Crit - since I figured damage per second as a base over 60 seconds 8.4 seconds would be crits (easier than breaking it down per tick which is actually how it is done).

[KyrzaBladedancer]

So an 8th level acid spell that does 100-300 damage over it's 6 seconds span per cast (at caster level 25) plus metas and enhancements etc.

Rate vs Polar ray:

8th level cold spell that does 50-150 damage (all at once) per cast (at caster level 25) plust metas and enhancements.

Polar Ray does 25d3+75 and Black dragon bolt does 75d3 over it's span, or 100d3 if it is the normal hit and 3 tics. so 100-150 for Polar Ray or 75-225/100-300 for Black Dragon Bolt.

[Musouka]

My Earth Savant just became an extremely happy lill guy.


Horrid Wilting, yer gittin the boot!

I'm going to toss irresistable dance again for it.

I have the epic big top for clicks of that if needed anyway

But yes, my earth savant just got super happy. Can't wait to max + empower + superior erosion 8 click it... or maybe eardweller click it.

[rest]

"...at caster level 25"

Caster level 25??

At level 15 on my new baby fire savant, I'm casting evocation spells at caster level 22. Abashi set + Docent from the U10 stuff + savant bonuses = ftw.

[porq]

I dunno, my 25 sided sees as much action as my 3 sided...

I actually have a 3-sided die, had to special order it because nobody has that in stock . Looks like a bean.

Edit: Found a picture.

[Xaxx]

tested this earlier on base acid savant was getting base damage of 180-240 per tick with crit ticks of 505 to 550 (without acid curse active).

Limited testing, and with a base geared sorc, nothing special.

Just my quick notes on earlier in game testing.

[Musouka]

tested this earlier on base acid savant was getting base damage of 180-240 per tick with crit ticks of 505 to 550 (without acid curse active).

Limited testing, and with a base geared sorc, nothing special.

Just my quick notes on earlier in game testing.

I have a geared earth savant, just missing the tod ring to make the set.

I'm almost done installing lama, and will get on and test it out and show some good numbers. I'll probably drop into subt to test it.

[Hollowgolem]

You're forgetting resists. Because this is not all in one big burst, it has triple- or quadruple-hits from resist acid (which Horoth, Harry, and Suulo all have, by way of example).

I'm not saying resist cold doesn't affect polar ray, I'm just saying resist acid of an equal value would affect this -more- than equivalent cold resist would hurt polar ray.

[Musouka]

You're forgetting resists. Because this is not all in one big burst, it has triple- or quadruple-hits from resist acid (which Horoth, Harry, and Suulo all have, by way of example).

I'm not saying resist cold doesn't affect polar ray, I'm just saying resist acid of an equal value would affect this -more- than equivalent cold resist would hurt polar ray.

i agree... but them aside... epic bosses will go quicker.

[stricq]

Thanks for the clarification.

For some reason I read that as "level cap increase"

It wouldn't be the first hint at a new level cap....

[Gkar]

"...at caster level 25"

Caster level 25??

Don't get excited, there are now several ways to raise your effective caster level in the game, resulting in L20 casters being able to cast as if they were a higher caster level.

[Dark-Star]

Playing around a bit with Black Dragon Bolt.

No ToD set for Earth, on an Ogre in Epic Von 1, acid cursed, SLA earth grabbed, BDB was hitting for 950+ a tic on crits with Eardweller running. Should be able to increase the damage with the Savant set by increasing max caster level by two, but that is untested.

It hits immediately upon casting, three tics (no 4th tic).

[Jaid314]

With the full set you 14% chance to Crit - since I figured damage per second as a base over 60 seconds 8.4 seconds would be crits (easier than breaking it down per tick which is actually how it is done).

with the full set, you get a 9% chance to crit actually. the savant crit chance and damage stuff doesn't stack with other lore items.

[Rodasch]

You're forgetting resists. Because this is not all in one big burst, it has triple- or quadruple-hits from resist acid (which Horoth, Harry, and Suulo all have, by way of example).

I'm not saying resist cold doesn't affect polar ray, I'm just saying resist acid of an equal value would affect this -more- than equivalent cold resist would hurt polar ray.

Cold/elec resist hit Niacs and eladars 8-9 times over their duration, yet those dots are considered by many to be "overpowered" single target dps. Black Dragon Bolt does more DPS in one cast than either of those dots and takes less DR hits over it's course than niacs or eladars.

Even with the extra resist hits, unless the monster's acid resist hits a high enough value to invalidate the damage per tick completely. With an acid savant ignoring 15 points of acid resist, it takes a great deal of acid resistance to bring this spells dps down in line with any other spell in the game, dps wise or damage per sp wise.

Checking the Math

Earth Savant III - Empowered and Maximized - With Thamor's Set.
((25 x 2) X 1.5 (Acid Manipulation) X 1.5 (Empowered) x 2 (Maximized) * 1.15 (Acid Curse) x 3 (1 every 2 seconds for 6 Second) ) / 6 = 129.375 Base

129.375 * 2.75 * 8.4 (Critical Damage) = 2979.9
129.375 * 51.6 (Base Damage) = 6675.75
DPS = (9655.65/60) = 160.93

Sustainable for more than 5 Minutes.

With the full set you 14% chance to Crit - since I figured damage per second as a base over 60 seconds 8.4 seconds would be crits (easier than breaking it down per tick which is actually how it is done).

I think your crit chance is off I get 18% at max enhancements and gear, with a total crit multiplier of +200%. For proper dps calculations of crits that means (Base DPS)+(Base DPS*crit rate*crit multipier).
50 dmg avg per "tick" means we have two options for calcs, depending on if we get the initial hit as a tick or if it waits 2 seconds to start.

Earth Savant III - Empowered and Maximized - With Thamor's Set.
(4 x 50) total damage over duration or (3 x 50) total damage over duration
To be thorough let's do both calcs

(200 X 2 (Acid Manipulation+Gear) X 2.7 (Empowered and Maximized with capstone) x 1.15 (Acid Curse) / 6 = 207 Base DPS at 4 hits per cast (281.52 dps with crits)

(150 x 2 (Acid Manipulation+Gear) x 2.7 (empowered, maximized, and capstone) x 1.15 (Acid Curse) /6 = 155.25 Base DPS at 3 hits per cast (211.14 dps with crits)

Both those numbers look better than my initial calcs, I think my spreadsheet I did the initial calcs on got boned somewhere, doing them manually looks more reasonable, but still pretty freakin powerful. At least this shows it as less dps than a triple stack of niac's/eladars but more than a double stack.

No Abishai love anymore for conjurations

Definitely going to make me spec some into acid though.




Do Melf's/BDB get the initial tick at instant of cast? Or is it like Niac's/Eladars where it's cast, then 2 seconds later it kicks in.

To be honest, if they do actually have BDB at 4 tics per cast one thing they could at least do is make it 3 tics per cast to tone it down a bit.

Wow, very strong spell though.

Not sure, I can only guess until someone reports otherwise, but I was working based off of the way the BDB on black dragon helm gives initial hit and then ticks. See revised calcs above

Polar Ray does 25d3+75 and Black dragon bolt does 75d3 over it's span, or 100d3 if it is the normal hit and 3 tics. so 100-150 for Polar Ray or 75-225/100-300 for Black Dragon Bolt.

Yes, and if you average both of those damage sets out you get the following:

Polar Ray: 125
Black Dragon Bolt: 150 (3 ticks) or 200 (4 ticks)

Either way it's still 20% stronger than polar ray or 60% stronger if 4 damage hits.

20%-60% is huge, that means for every 1000 points of damage you do with polar ray, you'd be doing 1200-1600 with Black Dragon Bolt for the same SP and over the same time frame. The only way to make this spell equal to Polar Ray, or worse than Polar ray, is to fight something with Acid Resistance of more than it's cold resistance. Or if the Acid resist value actually hits about 60-65, so as to invalidate the separate ticks.

Epic Lailat has Cold resist 80 but no Acid Resist, this spell is the clear choice on her
Elite Horoth has equal resistance to cold and acid, making this spell the clear choice again
Elite Sully has equal resistance to cold and acid, making this spell the clear choice again
Sorjek - Immune to cold, this spell wins hands down
Arraetrikos - equal resistance to cold and acid...again, this spell wins
Abbot - immune to cold and electric but not acid...again this spell wins
Epic Velah - the one and only worthwhile raid boss where this spell falls behind polar ray, due purely to velah's vulnerability to cold spells.

See where this is going?

[GoldyGopher]

tested this earlier on base acid savant was getting base damage of 180-240 per tick with crit ticks of 505 to 550 (without acid curse active).

Limited testing, and with a base geared sorc, nothing special.

Just my quick notes on earlier in game testing.

Without the curse you should average right around 220 per tick and crits just under 500. Your crits seem a tad high, wondering if you got some other unlisted gear?

[Musouka]

In the subt, i'm hitting living spells with it and they die with 1 hit of this spell. Loving the 5 SP less cost than polar ray.

Everything down here is dying with hit of this.

[rest]

That spell is awesome enough to take even if you're an air savant IMHO. Moar dots on every time.
More dots...
More dots...
More dots...
More dots...
STOP DOTS!

Nah I'm just kidding don't stop dots.