Optimize Ambush ?

Crowzer

Hello !

Just wondering how to optimize the ambush skill.
- I have 7/7 medium armor for criticals rate,
- 143 spell power while stealth,
- magicka runes on armors,
- precise traits on my dual daggers and full impenetrable. I never did ambush above 1100 about damages.

So what I have to tweak to get around the same ambush damage on this video ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGL60kiksVY&list=UU-QcR1asvMDHvBisQrCnFPA

Ok he's use resto staff for the old +10% damages, but anything else ?

Thanks,

Brasseurfb16_ESO

Restoration staff doesn't increases the dmg from all abilities anymore, so you might give up on the restoration staff build variant for Burst.

If you want to optimise Ambush damage, you can increase its effect :
- with Stealthy (Khajiit, Bosmer) passive by 10%
- with Twin Blade&Blunt (Swords) passives by 5% (might be a bug but it does increase te dmg from my Ambush)
- with Stygian 5pc set bonus by 20%
- with Shadow Mundus stone and Hemorrhage critical damage passive increasing the critical damage portion done twice by 10% .
- with extra spellpower
- with Piercing Mark (but I do not recommend it)

Sharee

[edited because above info is much more comprehensive]

quetzatli

is it a old vide (before 1.4 patch)?
before 1.4 i was full magika and 5 lights armore and 2 medium and i do the same damage now i can't then i change to have 5 médium and 2 lights armor to do less damage but use magika and stamania for long fight ...

Jacques Berge

This guy is getting really ridiculous burst damage. Good for him.

2 things...

1. This guy likely has no chance in a sustained fight.
2. It may be me but this video looks like this guy is running macros, which is considered cheating by ZoS.

But I may be wrong.

quetzatli

some guy use macros i recieve 5 hit in 0.1 second or it's megaserver fail

aco5712

You need all NB passives. You need to be a khajiit/bosmer otherwise you cant get these numbers. Attribute spec, you can run with 2.4k magicka + health or run just pure magicka (warning: running pure magicka is very hard to sustain with and the trade off isnt worth it, i have tried it out.)

7/7 medium is a waste. Sets you want are 5 piece stygian (recommend daggers + 3 armour) so that you can run 4 piece martial knowledge for the other 4 pieces. All in all, in stealth you should be running with roughly 165 spell damage and if you go magicka/health about 2.65k magicka or if you go full magicka i have gotten 3k. Make sure you have a siphon ability on bar like the person in the video for the 8% bonus to magicka. I like to run soul tether as my siphon ability because i like the 5 skills on my bar that i have. If you want to run soul harvest (which does hit harder and easier to crit) as your ulti, then funnel health is probably the skill to put on bar.

If you do the above you will get~1.3k ambush no problems (always dependant on impenetrable though). Always follow up with concealed weapon after an ambush (or ulti), it should crit for around 1-1.2k depending on stats. (soul harvest crits for 1.5k-2.2k~ depending on how much you charge it. soul tether crits for 1.6k-2k~)

And thats basically the build in the video.

Note: the ambushes that hit for 1.7k or so in the video are due to his NB friend using ambush before him giving his stealth hit another 36% damage. Nothing to do with the sets or self buffs)

Tankqull

reasons for his dmg:

1. spell pierce through light armor and especially sharpened trait = 0 dmg reduction left on ambush (getting fixed) [as ambush has a granted crit no need for medium armor crit]
2. heal staff 10% dmg increasement (fixed)
3. extrem focussing on magicka as spell/weapon dmg is heavily overrated in regards of dmg increasement
4. bug within dmg increasment buffs through abilites being consumed by other players

so nothing special here to be honest

Crowzer

Thanks for replies. Yes, it's a video before 1.4

For me more information about my character, I'm Dunmer (yes I choose this race only for look but now it help me for beeing vampire because the fire resist).

VR14 and 5 pieces of Spectre's Eyes set and 4 pieces Hunding for +8 critical rates on the other attacks. Also have 2.5K magicka with food. (0/49/0 for attributes points)
All passives in NB and I have Shadow stone activated. I know all attacks from steatlh is always critical.

I try with the set martial knowledge or archer mind. Also with dual sword for DW passive.

shebali

Crowzer wrote: »

Thanks for replies. Yes, it's a video before 1.4

No, the video is not before 1.4. There is stuff on there that is only 3 days old. Everything after 1.4

Crowzer

Oh you inspired me

Crowzer

An another questin: do you think that the sharpened trait increase damage ? For example, dual sword and sharpened ? (I'm not talking about the bug with the light armor)

Jacques Berge

It doesn't "increase damage" but reduce damage mitigation. Which is really just 2 sides of the same coin. If you're trying to recreate the joker in the vid and want two man jump people. Then sharpened is probably your best bet. As precise doesn't come into play with stealth attacks.

CapuchinSeven

Crowzer wrote: »

Hello !

Just wondering how to optimize the ambush skill.
- I have 7/7 medium armor for criticals rate,
- 143 spell power while stealth,
- magicka runes on armors,
- precise traits on my dual daggers and full impenetrable. I never did ambush above 1100 about damages.

Thanks,

What are you running to get 143 spell power out of interest?

To answer your question though, you don't want dual daggers. You want twin swords for the +5% damage, +10% penetration from sharpened and +7 spell damage from a two item set.

aco5712

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

To answer your question though, you don't want dual daggers. You want twin swords for the +5% damage, +10% penetration from sharpened and +7 spell damage from a two item set.

If he is looking optimize ambush damage, he is better off running the stygian set with the dual daggers(which are traited with penetration anyways). The 20% to spell dmg and magicka in stealth is gonna give you more dmg then having 5% from 2 swords.

Brasseurfb16_ESO

Tankqull wrote: »

reasons for his dmg:

1. spell pierce through light armor and especially sharpened trait = 0 dmg reduction left on ambush (getting fixed) [as ambush has a granted crit no need for medium armor crit]
2. heal staff 10% dmg increasement (fixed)
3. extrem focussing on magicka as spell/weapon dmg is heavily overrated in regards of dmg increasement
4. bug within dmg increasment buffs through abilites being consumed by other players

so nothing special here to be honest

I wouldn't agree with you on point 1. simply because Ambush and Veiled Strike are considered as melee abilities and actualy get mitigated by armour instead of spell resistance.

So that extra spell penetration you get from light armour concentration passive does nothing for those two particular abilities.

Tankqull

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

Tankqull wrote: »

reasons for his dmg:

1. spell pierce through light armor and especially sharpened trait = 0 dmg reduction left on ambush (getting fixed) [as ambush has a granted crit no need for medium armor crit]
2. heal staff 10% dmg increasement (fixed)
3. extrem focussing on magicka as spell/weapon dmg is heavily overrated in regards of dmg increasement
4. bug within dmg increasment buffs through abilites being consumed by other players

so nothing special here to be honest

I wouldn't agree with you on point 1. simply because Ambush and Veiled Strike are considered as melee abilities and actualy get mitigated by armour instead of spell resistance.

So that extra spell penetration you get from light armour concentration passive does nothing for those two particular abilities.

the entire armor(reduce/penetration) system is horribly broken.

Jacques Berge

From a person who uses mark in both pve and pvp, I can say that the armor system is kind of garbage... %75 of people's are usually amounts to %10 damage mitigation... You think it would be more than that. I usually use mark to spot sneakers and turn them into delicious walking health pots haha

Sharee

aco5712 wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

To answer your question though, you don't want dual daggers. You want twin swords for the +5% damage, +10% penetration from sharpened and +7 spell damage from a two item set.

If he is looking optimize ambush damage, he is better off running the stygian set with the dual daggers(which are traited with penetration anyways). The 20% to spell dmg and magicka in stealth is gonna give you more dmg then having 5% from 2 swords.

Using stygian daggers results in less ambush damage than using two swords, and getting the stygian set bonus from 5 stygian armor pieces instead.

Jacques Berge

Yeah... But do you look as cool doing it? Lol

Brasseurfb16_ESO

Jacques Berge wrote: »

Yeah... But do you look as cool doing it? Lol

Stygian armour looks nice!

quetzatli

using restoration staff do more damage whith ambush

Yusuf

Go full light-armor. The good players are all wearing impenetrable to counter your critchance and you don't need crit to kill bad players
EDIT: Also put sharpened on your weapons. You will get a flat increase in damage and your stealth attacks will always crit if their from stelath anyway.
Ambush, Soul harvest, Execute, cloak, good night unaware player x)

CapuchinSeven

aco5712 wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

To answer your question though, you don't want dual daggers. You want twin swords for the +5% damage, +10% penetration from sharpened and +7 spell damage from a two item set.

If he is looking optimize ambush damage, he is better off running the stygian set with the dual daggers(which are traited with penetration anyways). The 20% to spell dmg and magicka in stealth is gonna give you more dmg then having 5% from 2 swords.

And drop a set like Seducer when I can already three shot someone from stealth? With 135 spell damage and 2500 magic the extra 20% damage (while very nice) just becomes over kill for me and I'm much better off with the sustainability of something like Seducer and even Warlock.

In fact, I'd rather have a mix of Seducer and Arch Mage than the extra 20% damage on first attack wit Stygian.

Brasseurfb16_ESO

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

aco5712 wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

To answer your question though, you don't want dual daggers. You want twin swords for the +5% damage, +10% penetration from sharpened and +7 spell damage from a two item set.

If he is looking optimize ambush damage, he is better off running the stygian set with the dual daggers(which are traited with penetration anyways). The 20% to spell dmg and magicka in stealth is gonna give you more dmg then having 5% from 2 swords.

And drop a set like Seducer when I can already three shot someone from stealth? With 135 spell damage and 2500 magic the extra 20% damage (while very nice) just becomes over kill for me and I'm much better off with the sustainability of something like Seducer and even Warlock.

In fact, I'd rather have a mix of Seducer and Arch Mage than the extra 20% damage on first attack wit Stygian.

Actualy Stygian gives a nice boost to spellpower, stamina and magicka. The 20% damage bonus also works while invisible. So if you Shadow Cloak right before using for instance deathstroke, you can turn your 3 shots into a 2 shots very easely.

So realy, beside the resource manadgement, which isn't that important as a Nightblade in PvP. Since you will never be able to outsustain anyone with your abilities like DKs or Templars do, that magicka regen and cost discount is going to be much less desirable. What you realy want is a way to burst someone down, get out of the fight and repeat the process on a new target.

kijima

Tried this with Stygian 3 piece plus the 2 daggers, and the rest martial knowledge.

Ambush, Concealed, soul harvest and then impale.

It's great for killing one player very quickly, but having run this style of Bosmer NB back to back with bow, my K/D ratio is much better with bow, and I'm doing huge damage with bow now anyway.

It's a way you can play, and I was getting bored of bow. But it's a little one trick pony for my liking.

CapuchinSeven

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

aco5712 wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

To answer your question though, you don't want dual daggers. You want twin swords for the +5% damage, +10% penetration from sharpened and +7 spell damage from a two item set.

If he is looking optimize ambush damage, he is better off running the stygian set with the dual daggers(which are traited with penetration anyways). The 20% to spell dmg and magicka in stealth is gonna give you more dmg then having 5% from 2 swords.

And drop a set like Seducer when I can already three shot someone from stealth? With 135 spell damage and 2500 magic the extra 20% damage (while very nice) just becomes over kill for me and I'm much better off with the sustainability of something like Seducer and even Warlock.

In fact, I'd rather have a mix of Seducer and Arch Mage than the extra 20% damage on first attack wit Stygian.

Actualy Stygian gives a nice boost to spellpower, stamina and magicka. The 20% damage bonus also works while invisible. So if you Shadow Cloak right before using for instance deathstroke, you can turn your 3 shots into a 2 shots very easely.

So realy, beside the resource manadgement, which isn't that important as a Nightblade in PvP. Since you will never be able to outsustain anyone with your abilities like DKs or Templars do, that magicka regen and cost discount is going to be much less desirable. What you realy want is a way to burst someone down, get out of the fight and repeat the process on a new target.

You're welcome to your choice and I like diversity but it's just a pointless bonus for me personally.

It allows you to get in, kill and then get out as you said. Without it I get in, kill and then have so much magicka from my regen I can get out and keep healing my group as well as spamming cripple on DK's.

Sorry, the 20% damage is very very nice and I'm not saying it isn't, but I kill in seconds with it and kill in seconds without it, I'm better off just going with other sets like Warlock and Seducer and having 2500 magic with 155 regen and 100 spell damage as well as the bonus from Warlock if I let myself get low, the amount of magic you can keep up is insane.

If I ever want just burst I could keep the Seducer and put on Cyrodiils Light combination. In this configuration I sit with 130 spell damage 2600 magic (that's huge amounts of burst there and even more with the Shadow mundus stone) and I still manage a 130 magicka regen. Extra stealth damage at that point is just simply not really that important when I already gain +100% crit from cloak (but again, I'm not saying it's not nice, just that I'd prefer the 130 regen personally).

Brasseurfb16_ESO

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

aco5712 wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

To answer your question though, you don't want dual daggers. You want twin swords for the +5% damage, +10% penetration from sharpened and +7 spell damage from a two item set.

If he is looking optimize ambush damage, he is better off running the stygian set with the dual daggers(which are traited with penetration anyways). The 20% to spell dmg and magicka in stealth is gonna give you more dmg then having 5% from 2 swords.

And drop a set like Seducer when I can already three shot someone from stealth? With 135 spell damage and 2500 magic the extra 20% damage (while very nice) just becomes over kill for me and I'm much better off with the sustainability of something like Seducer and even Warlock.

In fact, I'd rather have a mix of Seducer and Arch Mage than the extra 20% damage on first attack wit Stygian.

Actualy Stygian gives a nice boost to spellpower, stamina and magicka. The 20% damage bonus also works while invisible. So if you Shadow Cloak right before using for instance deathstroke, you can turn your 3 shots into a 2 shots very easely.

So realy, beside the resource manadgement, which isn't that important as a Nightblade in PvP. Since you will never be able to outsustain anyone with your abilities like DKs or Templars do, that magicka regen and cost discount is going to be much less desirable. What you realy want is a way to burst someone down, get out of the fight and repeat the process on a new target.

You're welcome to your choice and I like diversity but it's just a pointless bonus for me personally.

It allows you to get in, kill and then get out as you said. Without it I get in, kill and then have so much magicka from my regen I can get out and keep healing my group as well as spamming cripple on DK's.

Sorry, the 20% damage is very very nice and I'm not saying it isn't, but I kill in seconds with it and kill in seconds without it, I'm better off just going with other sets like Warlock and Seducer and having 2500 magic with 155 regen and 100 spell damage as well as the bonus from Warlock if I let myself get low, the amount of magic you can keep up is insane.

If I ever want just burst I could keep the Seducer and put on Cyrodiils Light combination. In this configuration I sit with 130 spell damage 2600 magic (that's huge amounts of burst there and even more with the Shadow mundus stone) and I still manage a 130 magicka regen. Extra stealth damage at that point is just simply not really that important when I already gain +100% crit from cloak (but again, I'm not saying it's not nice, just that I'd prefer the 130 regen personally).

Well, if it gets the job done I can't argue with your choice.

Cody

Tankqull wrote: »

reasons for his dmg:

1. spell pierce through light armor and especially sharpened trait = 0 dmg reduction left on ambush (getting fixed) [as ambush has a granted crit no need for medium armor crit]
2. heal staff 10% dmg increasement (fixed)
3. extrem focussing on magicka as spell/weapon dmg is heavily overrated in regards of dmg increasement
4. bug within dmg increasment buffs through abilites being consumed by other players

so nothing special here to be honest

so another example of how LA does better in stealth than medium armor, which is supposed to be DESIGNED for things like this?:(

Jacques Berge

Concentration does not apply to ambush... Ambush is a Melee based spell and its damage is mitigated by armor, not spell resistance. ambush followed by an overcharged death stroke is usually enough to kill most players. If not, assassins blade will finish them off.

Still_Mind

Read the discussion, and want to add my 2c.

I don't think you *have to* be Khajiit\Bosmer to be able to gank people like that, because the stealthy damage bonus would only apply to the initial Ambush, while the bulk of damage is being delivered via Death Stroke, Impale, Strife, etc. Ambush "merely" buffs the big followup to do arseloads of damage, which, combined with Martian Knowledge proc, does even more.