NB Magicka ST DPS (PvE)

Altyrann

I play on live as a magicka NB and enjoy it, but from spending some time on PTS I am struggling to get ST damage output even close to what I can do purely by spamming wrecking blow on the stamina side.

The key things I have noticed are below. Anyone come up with good ways to get around some of these? Any suggestions more than welcome.

- Having to use both Inner Light and Entropy limits you to 3 free slots per bar
- Damage from Destruction Staff skills seems low both for the DoT and the instant cast - little reason to add to bar at all
- Entropy damage, while better than on live, is still relatively poor
- Funnel Health, while very magicka efficient, just does too little damage for a main damage spell - comparing to Dark Flare for magicka Templars or Wrecking Blow I get much less damage and no 20% empower buff
- Grim Focus is clunky to use, requiring two casts to give damage - if the spectral bow was an automatically fired proc on your current target (similar to fireball from DK Inferno skill) it would make this skill much more useful

As a further suggestion, I think that a ranged morph of Death Stoke (maybe replacing the stun version) would be an interesting way to help magicka NB builds by allowing the 20% damage buff without being in melee range.

Overall I am not asking for magicka NB to be made top DPS, I am just hoping that some of these areas can be looked at to bring it roughly into line with other ST builds.

Zershar_Vemod

Sadly I do not currently have any suggestions, for I too am having a lot of issues trying to get anywhere near where I ma now in Live on PTS.

Magicka NB for the short end of the stick by far..

Tankqull

Zershar_Vemod wrote: »

Sadly I do not currently have any suggestions, for I too am having a lot of issues trying to get anywhere near where I ma now in Live on PTS.

Magicka NB for the short end of the stick by far..

thx to the NB stamina fellows...

Zershar_Vemod

Tankqull wrote: »

Zershar_Vemod wrote: »

Sadly I do not currently have any suggestions, for I too am having a lot of issues trying to get anywhere near where I ma now in Live on PTS.

Magicka NB for the short end of the stick by far..

thx to the NB stamina fellows...

Indeed...I will probably have to abandon my main because of 1.6 or wait a good amount of time until someone posts a good magicka NB build...

They should have left the magicka-stamina abilities alone imo.

But for the OP, Entropy and it's morph, Degeneration, still seemed to be decent on PTS. I'd say keep that unless you wanted to replace it in general.

Fatalyis

We can't blame stamina NBs for wanting to be more viable. I was all for playing stamina-based in early access, but was forced to play Magicka because it was just plain better. Now, I'm in love with playing a Magicka-based NB and stuck doing it as a Redguard.

This isn't the stamina users fault....this is ZOS and their inability to figure out how to properly run their game.

Nivzruo_ESO

All the NBs that wanted to be stam ninjas had to adjust to a cloth wearing mage NB .. guess it's ur turn to adapt.

Altyrann

Rather than swinging from one to the other because only one at a time is competitive, I am suggesting that both should be competitive so you can base your playing style on preference. I am entirely happy that stamina builds are doing well and that class skills note include some stamina options. I just think the game would be more interesting if not every dps had to run wrecking blow builds to compete.

Samadhi

Since launch, got to play Nightblade as the Sneaky Mage-Assassin the class used to be in the Morrowind/Oblivion days.

Now, ZOS has turned my character into a standard Rogue, without renaming the Class.

Stamina Nightblades still don't get as viable use of Invisibility, while Magicka Nightblades don't get the damage output to go with their sneakiness.

Honestly, this has turned out pretty poorly on both ends of the spectrum.

My Nightblade is mainly just going to be running a pure Healer build when 1.6 hits live.

SickDuck

Maybe OP is looking at the wrong skills for DPS.

• Funnel Health: cheap and gives a decent HoT on caster plus 2 allies, while doing some damage. Probably it should not be the top DPS 1-button spam.
• Inner Light: 10% crit, 7% magicka, 2% magicka recovery. You don't have to slot it, but if you do that's because it gives you more advantage than other skills. I don't like this design, especially that these skills use 2 slots most of the time, but this is how it works.
• Entropy: Very cheap to cast. DoT + HoT + 20% damage buff +(2% magicka and recovery if on the active bar). It is quite nice without the DoT & HoT part even, but not absolute necessary to use (definitely not on both bars). Sap Essence still looks better for the Major Sorcery buff.
• Grim Focus is clunky, I agree on that.
• Can't comment much on the destro staff skills, haven't tried them on PTS yet.

I don't know what's the good solution for magicka NBs at the moment, haven't played it for a while now. But it always looks that your class was hit with most nerfs ever when so many things are changing. I was on the edge of rage quitting with my NB as 8 out of 12 skills on my bar were nerfed on some level. Was thinking on changing back to magicka build as it looked much better (and it still does for some purpose), or to move on another character. Now after lot of shuffling around it looks al-right. And it's not just about the skills but gear, traits, mundus.. pretty much everything needs to be changed.

DeLindsay

What I've been testing with for ST Magicka NB build is 2 variations of current NB builds, CS and FunnelBlade. CS still achieves higher ST damage than Funnel Health does with a purely SD stacking build (I sit just below 2200 SD). CS is also more Magicka efficient if someone in the group is running Elemental Drain. Essentially the build I'm leaning towards in 1.6 is Fire Destro*/Fire Destro*:

MAIN BAR:

Ice Comet - Ult (for Magicka Controller Passive)

• Crushing Shock -or- Funnel Health
• Inner Light
• Crippling Grasp (duration too short to have to bar swap all the time to roll it)
• Siphoning Attacks
• Relentless Focus (if for nothing else the +8% damage done, 2% Crit and 10% Crit ceiling)

ALT BAR:

Veil of Blades - Ult

• Impale
• Inner Light
• Evil Hunter (or Relentless Focus**)
• Siphoning Attacks (toggle off during execute phase)
• Structured Entropy (so I don't have to bar swap during execute phase)

MUNDUS: The Thief until ~50% crit then back to The Shadow (you will be over 50% again once you get 30pts in The Apprentice)

BENEFITS

• Both bars are equally effected by Magicka Controller (2 each).
• Bar 1 gets 10% Crit ceiling and 2% Crit chance.
• Bar 2 gets 10% Crit ceiling and 2/4% Crit chance.
• Bar 1 gets to use Transfer Passive for additional Ultimate gain via Crippling Grasp.
• Bar 2 gets 3% Health.
• Both bars get 8% Magicka from Magicka Flood.

DRAWBACKS

• Can't compete with Stamina DPS.
• Lots of Bar swapping which is difficult to master and hard for those with poor Latency.
• Light Armor is the new Glass canon and is super squishy.

*Fire Destro for PvE due to the Tri Focus Passive in Destruction Staff which grants +15% damage to Heavy attacks.

**I have not yet tested whether Evil Hunter would be superior DPS to Grim Focus's 8% damage increase + 2% Crit + 10% Crit ceiling. If it's determined that Evil Hunter is higher DPS then that would be the obvious choice. Will the above build be considered viable in end game post 1.6, only time will tell but if you as a Player can manage ~7K DPS (the new 1K DPS from Live 1.5.8) I think most groups will have no issue with you running a Magicka DPS build as a NB. For gear I'd suggest this setup:

• Light of Cyrodiil: 2/3pc (Rings) VR14 Epic, for the SD / Mag (Reinforced Body if you do 3pc).
• Adroitness: 2pc (Neck + Body) VR12 Epic Neck, body can be made Legendary, for the SD.
• Torug's Pact: 2 pc (Staves + Body) Crafted, for the SD.
• Martial Knowledge: 4/5pc (Body only) VR14, for Mag / SD / SD / 10% dmg increase every 4 sec.

I would be curious if anyone has done the math to show which of the 5pc Martial Knowledge bonus of 10% damage increase every 4 seconds or the 3pc Cyrodiil's Light Magicka set bonuses are higher applied DPS over a long duration fight. From my understanding of damage scaling via your resource pool the MK 5pc becomes higher damage than 3pc Cyrodiil's Light once you've exceeded ~22,320 Magicka.

Altyrann

Thanks, will give that a try.

Altyrann

raffai.tamasb16_ESO wrote: »

Maybe OP is looking at the wrong skills for DPS.

• Funnel Health: cheap and gives a decent HoT on caster plus 2 allies, while doing some damage. Probably it should not be the top DPS 1-button spam.
• Inner Light: 10% crit, 7% magicka, 2% magicka recovery. You don't have to slot it, but if you do that's because it gives you more advantage than other skills. I don't like this design, especially that these skills use 2 slots most of the time, but this is how it works.
• Entropy: Very cheap to cast. DoT + HoT + 20% damage buff +(2% magicka and recovery if on the active bar). It is quite nice without the DoT & HoT part even, but not absolute necessary to use (definitely not on both bars). Sap Essence still looks better for the Major Sorcery buff.
• Grim Focus is clunky, I agree on that.
• Can't comment much on the destro staff skills, haven't tried them on PTS yet.

I don't know what's the good solution for magicka NBs at the moment, haven't played it for a while now. But it always looks that your class was hit with most nerfs ever when so many things are changing. I was on the edge of rage quitting with my NB as 8 out of 12 skills on my bar were nerfed on some level. Was thinking on changing back to magicka build as it looked much better (and it still does for some purpose), or to move on another character. Now after lot of shuffling around it looks al-right. And it's not just about the skills but gear, traits, mundus.. pretty much everything needs to be changed.

Thanks for the reply. While I agree that funnel health may not look like the best choice for instant damage spam, I am not sure what else a magicka NB will have that does this job. Force Shock damage still looks very low, and I can't see other alternatives that work at range. Maybe one funnel morph could lose healing and gain damage.

Nihil

@DeLindsay Something you could try with that build, while I didn't try it at higher CP levels ( so it might not work later) I thought Funnel Health had a higher base damage then CS so it might lead to a higher damage and provide some healing ( I might have to recheck that but I thought that is what I saw).

If you are already guzzling potion you could use a crit/spell damage / mana, or crit /mana/health potion if you can find other skills that would increase your dps more then inner light and / or entropy. Destructive touch is a descent DoT now.

My 2 cents from testing some thing on a sorc and comparing it to a NB earlier ( so take with a grain of salt).

tomiffseb17_ESO

Altyrann wrote: »

Maybe one funnel morph could lose healing and gain damage.

Yes please. And make that morph scales of stamina.
But seriously, its a good idea.

Altyrann

Not commenting on the stamina morph bit...

As for the other, Cripple works as a decent DoT, but we are missing the main instant DPS, and funnel seems a good source for it. Alternatively, Agony could be replaced with something useful...

helediron

If you make that ability to scale from stamina and not have heal, it's just another Surprise Attack. We don't need two similar spammable skills, and taking away weak but still the best self heal we have is not a good choice.

I prefer this to stay magicka based healing spell. These are very cheap - even for stamina users. Swallow Soul should stay cheap and change the heal to percentage of max health, e.g. 15% per tick. Then it works equally good for stamina and magicka builds. Pure magicka DDs can use Swallow Soul, if they prefer the lower cost.

Funnel Health is the spam spell for siphoning and healer NBs and it *should* make big damage. I think it's cost and damage should be increased 50%. I would also like to see the ally cont increased to three to match four person groups.

Altyrann

Bumping up cost and damage together seems a sensible idea. I am not sure about doing that and increasing healing though. I could see one option with lower damage and aoe healing and one with more damage and self healing only.

Nihil

helediron wrote: »

Funnel Health is the spam spell for siphoning and healer NBs and it *should* make big damage. I think it's cost and damage should be increased 50%. I would also like to see the ally cont increased to three to match four person groups.

50 % is extreme no matter how you cut it, the skills base damage is already above CS, and has a lower cost... spammable skills shouldn't even compete for raw damage in comparison to DoT's or cast time skills. Otherwise those skills would become useless (unless they have other uses : entropy). 50% would most likely push it above Destructive touch and into CF non proc damage category.

Altyrann

It need not be 50%, and it may well be that this is not the only skill needing to be tweaked, but it does still feel too far behind (as an aside force shock also looks low and destructive reach seems weak for a DoT while not being usable as a spammable damage spell).

If you look at the DoTs available, Entropy lasts 14.4s, Cripple lasts 8s and Destructive Touch lasts 5s, so whatever fills the gaps in between is clearly going to have a large impact on acheievable DPS. I have mostly looked at NB and Temp (both stamina and magicka) and while temp gets a broadly similar DoT (though it manages the major prophecy buff as well, freeing a slot from inner light) it has cast time spell that gives 20% on the next spell, NB has no cast time option so funnel becomes the filler spell by default.

It could be a straight increase to damage gets you to an answer, or it could be some sort of interesting proc effect. For example, it could be that funnel does x% more damage for each DoT you have on the target. Importantly, the total effect of any changes should not be to make NB come out on top, but to bring it into line. This is both in terms of pure DPS output, but also utility, hence my suggestion earlier that the increased damage on the filler spell might come at the expense of the healing it does.

tomiffseb17_ESO

helediron wrote: »

If you make that ability to scale from stamina and not have heal, it's just another Surprise Attack. We don't need two similar spammable skills, and taking away weak but still the best self heal we have is not a good choice.

I prefer this to stay magicka based healing spell. These are very cheap - even for stamina users. Swallow Soul should stay cheap and change the heal to percentage of max health, e.g. 15% per tick. Then it works equally good for stamina and magicka builds. Pure magicka DDs can use Swallow Soul, if they prefer the lower cost.

Funnel Health is the spam spell for siphoning and healer NBs and it *should* make big damage. I think it's cost and damage should be increased 50%. I would also like to see the ally cont increased to three to match four person groups.

Obviously the stamina morph was a joke. Also its a ranged spell so no, its not like the surprise attack to me.
However transforming one morph to do a little more dmg with increased cost without any healing would be an intetesting option.

Nihil

Altyrann wrote: »

It need not be 50%, and it may well be that this is not the only skill needing to be tweaked, but it does still feel too far behind (as an aside force shock also looks low and destructive reach seems weak for a DoT while not being usable as a spammable damage spell).

If you look at the DoTs available, Entropy lasts 14.4s, Cripple lasts 8s and Destructive Touch lasts 5s, so whatever fills the gaps in between is clearly going to have a large impact on acheievable DPS. I have mostly looked at NB and Temp (both stamina and magicka) and while temp gets a broadly similar DoT (though it manages the major prophecy buff as well, freeing a slot from inner light) it has cast time spell that gives 20% on the next spell, NB has no cast time option so funnel becomes the filler spell by default.

It could be a straight increase to damage gets you to an answer, or it could be some sort of interesting proc effect. For example, it could be that funnel does x% more damage for each DoT you have on the target. Importantly, the total effect of any changes should not be to make NB come out on top, but to bring it into line. This is both in terms of pure DPS output, but also utility, hence my suggestion earlier that the increased damage on the filler spell might come at the expense of the healing it does.

I think it is more other skills need tweaking rather then FH. With it being instant cast, that heals you and team mates, that does descent damage (in comparison to FS and non class instant damage skills as I am mostly familiar with sorcs and NB's) it looks to be in a descent place. I think what ZOS tried to do tho is give you guys a "Crystal frag" in the form of grim focus. A couple things I have found not so appealing about grim focus 1) It seems to be only able to proc it once for the duration (unless I got my counts wrong) this means that the skill needs to be cast twice for each time you want your "frag proc". 2) It shares the buff of combat prayer, while for solo play this is no problem as these 2 skills are the only ones that have this buff, in group play if the healer is keeping it up on everyone already, you don't really gain any benefit from this buff and having to use 2 GCD for the proc is not really worth it.

I am just afraid that if you do increase the damage of FH, that they will take away some of the over all heal, thus weakening it as a self heal and a group heal for the NB. NB's are in a spot similar to sorcs were (before clanfare) that you don't have an instant heal and you are relying a lot on all the other small heals of your class to make up for it. I think tweaking other skills that the class has might be more of a way to increase the damage. Improving your "nuke" skill (grim focus) to make it more accessible could be a way to start, this also breaks up the tendency of spamming one skill to achieve maximum dps and requires the player to be more observant. Some other tweaks would also need to be done as this definitely wouldn't be a single fix problem.

helediron

Nihil wrote: »

helediron wrote: »

Funnel Health is the spam spell for siphoning and healer NBs and it *should* make big damage. I think it's cost and damage should be increased 50%. I would also like to see the ally cont increased to three to match four person groups.

50 % is extreme no matter how you cut it, the skills base damage is already above CS, and has a lower cost... spammable skills shouldn't even compete for raw damage in comparison to DoT's or cast time skills. Otherwise those skills would become useless (unless they have other uses : entropy). 50% would most likely push it above Destructive touch and into CF non proc damage category.

There was the cost increase for a reason: it makes it unsustainable unless used with Siphoning Attacks, which cuts the damage. With pure magicka build i can swap to 2H sword, open Wrecking Blow and it hits harder. Tested on PTS and verified by others. I compare DPS to top alternatives, not to second class ones.

If the spammable skill competes with DoTs, it's the problem of the DoT. E.g. Merciless Resolve needs two casts and does about 10K damage. That is 5K damage per cast, so it does not increase DPS at all. Because it's complex to use it is actually DPS loss. Cripple is a good DoT because it makes the 10K damage in one cast.

Altyrann

Would swapping agony for a higher dps ST spell work, either instant or cast time with damage to match either way?

manny254

DeLindsay wrote: »

What I've been testing with for ST Magicka NB build is 2 variations of current NB builds, CS and FunnelBlade. CS still achieves higher ST damage than Funnel Health does with a purely SD stacking build (I sit just below 2200 SD). CS is also more Magicka efficient if someone in the group is running Elemental Drain. Essentially the build I'm leaning towards in 1.6 is Fire Destro*/Fire Destro*:

MAIN BAR:

Ice Comet - Ult (for Magicka Controller Passive)

• Crushing Shock
• Inner Light
• Crippling Grasp (duration too short to have to bar swap all the time to roll it)
• Siphoning Attacks
• Relentless Focus (if for nothing else the +8% damage done, 2% Crit and 10% Crit ceiling)

ALT BAR:

Veil of Blades - Ult

• Impale
• Inner Light
• Evil Hunter (or Relentless Focus**)
• Siphoning Attacks (toggle off during execute phase)
• Structured Entropy (so I don't have to bar swap during execute phase)

MUNDUS: The Thief until ~50% crit then back to The Shadow (you will be over 50% again once you get 30pts in The Apprentice)

BENEFITS

• Both bars are equally effected by Magicka Controller (2 each).
• Bar 1 gets 10% Crit ceiling and 2% Crit chance.
• Bar 2 gets 10% Crit ceiling and 2/4% Crit chance.
• Bar 1 gets to use Transfer Passive for additional Ultimate gain via Crippling Grasp.
• Bar 2 gets 3% Health.
• Both bars get 8% Magicka from Magicka Flood.

DRAWBACKS

• Can't compete with Stamina DPS.
• Lots of Bar swapping which is difficult to master and hard for those with poor Latency.
• Light Armor is the new Glass canon and is super squishy.

*Fire Destro for PvE due to the Tri Focus Passive in Destruction Staff which grants +15% damage to Heavy attacks.

**I have not yet tested whether Evil Hunter would be superior DPS to Grim Focus's 8% damage increase + 2% Crit + 10% Crit ceiling. If it's determined that Evil Hunter is higher DPS then that would be the obvious choice. Will the above build be considered viable in end game post 1.6, only time will tell but if you as a Player can manage ~7K DPS (the new 1K DPS from Live 1.5.8) I think most groups will have no issue with you running a Magicka DPS build as a NB. For gear I'd suggest this setup:

• Light of Cyrodiil: 2/3pc (Rings) VR14 Epic, for the SD / Mag (Reinforced Body if you do 3pc).
• Adroitness: 2pc (Neck + Body) VR12 Epic Neck, body can be made Legendary, for the SD.
• Torug's Pact: 2 pc (Staves + Body) Crafted, for the SD.
• Martial Knowledge: 4/5pc (Body only) VR14, for Mag / SD / SD / 10% dmg increase every 4 sec.

I would be curious if anyone has done the math to show which of the 5pc Martial Knowledge bonus of 10% damage increase every 4 seconds or the 3pc Cyrodiil's Light Magicka set bonuses are higher applied DPS over a long duration fight. From my understanding of damage scaling via your resource pool the MK 5pc becomes higher damage than 3pc Cyrodiil's Light once you've exceeded ~22,320 Magicka.

If your 3rd Cyrodiil's light is gold it slightly bumps up the spell damage on the 2pc. On live it goes from 8 to 9 . I am really interested in trying out the 5pc martial knowledge. Time to make all my time farming the v14 version slightly pay off .

For builds I am really torn between funnel and cs, but I think if you do funnel you could get away without using siphoning attacks.

DeLindsay

manny254 wrote: »

If your 3rd Cyrodiil's light is gold it slightly bumps up the spell damage on the 2pc. On live it goes from 8 to 9 . I am really interested in trying out the 5pc martial knowledge. Time to make all my time farming the v14 version slightly pay off .

For builds I am really torn between funnel and cs, but I think if you do funnel you could get away without using siphoning attacks.

That's a good point on the 3pc Cyrodiil's Light and since the new meta is SD > Magicka > Crit then it's possible 3pc Cyrodiil's Light would overtake 5pc MK. I've been running both the FunnelBlade and CS build for my NB (even though DPS is my OS) since a little after 1.4 changed the Passive in the Resto tree. One thing I can say personally is I cannot run either without SA on. I've even tried Deltia's build using SS for Magicka instead of SA and I was still nearly always OOM with either CS or Funnel Health. With either build I'm always popping Magicka pots on CD, as one should on Live for the Crit bonus. I'm no where near a "top DPS" NB on Live but can manage 950-1.1K on The Mage in AA and as high as 1.4-1.5K on the Storm Atronach, though my average DPS is more like 850 (without Pot chugging).

My testing on PTS was done on a VR10 WB with and without Evil Hunter, with and without SA, with and without Relentless Focus, with CS -or- with Funnel Health and I averaged about 7.4K with my highest at 10.8K using CS. Funnel Health I could only manage 6.8K but that WB isn't a great test but since ZoS has thus far refused to give us proper Raid Boss Target dummies it's what we have to live with. Relentless Focus is clunky as it gets so it's rough to get used to.

Funnel Health is by no means a bad choice over CS and it certainly adds Healing to the group which makes Healers happy, that is unless you're up top in HR then CS is mandatory. If I had to guess, I'd put Funnel Health and CS within 3-8% of each other for sustained DPS in 1.6. The other thing I've noticed as a difference is the feedback you get while casting either. CS has a fairly hard animation and therefore is much easier to tell you've used it while stacked in a tight group on a Boss as one does on many Trial Bosses in Live. Funnel health has a very soft animation and it's almost impossible to tell you've casted it via in game feedback while stacked, thus causes weaving issues for some.

And yeah, farming VR14 MK is a pain in the a$$ but in 1.6 VR13 > VR14 actually makes a noticeable difference. If only Adroitness came in VR14 or we had another choice for that 2pc.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, all my PTS testing was done with 0 Champion Points in regards to damage increase as DPS is my OS and all my CP are in Healing and Tanking. Also, I don't have 2pc Valkyn Skoria either so that would change the build too as you'd want to be heavier DoT oriented for more Valkyn procs.

manny254

DeLindsay wrote: »

EDIT: I forgot to mention, all my PTS testing was done with 0 Champion Points in regards to damage increase as DPS is my OS and all my CP are in Healing and Tanking. Also, I don't have 2pc Valkyn Skoria either so that would change the build too as you'd want to be heavier DoT oriented for more Valkyn procs.

I have been getting very mixed feelings about skoria. I have been testing skoria alot on on my templar, and I think the way to go for it may actually be to run 5 burning spellweave. Although having my weapon and my neck piece being dead hurts me on the inside.

You could get more spell damage with a 4 pc martial and a 2pc that gives spell damage, but spell damage does not improve the damage skoria itself deals.

Hypertionb14_ESO

HIdden blade. the non stam morph... it was always stronger damage than Funnel but lacked crit due to being based on Melee crit in all forms... now that only the one morph is melee and the others are based entirely on spell it will be viable as a pure DPS spam spell.

Edit: its Concealed Weapon, Morph of veiled strike.

Samadhi

Altyrann wrote: »

... Maybe one funnel morph could lose healing and gain damage.

Swallow Soul has a % increase to all healing taken, but Funnel Health does slightly more damage.

The Swallow Soul % bonus increases by one per level for skill scaling; for Funnel Health the scaling takes place on the damage portion of the skill.

xaraan

DeLindsay wrote: »

What I've been testing with for ST Magicka NB build is 2 variations of current NB builds, CS and FunnelBlade. CS still achieves higher ST damage than Funnel Health does with a purely SD stacking build (I sit just below 2200 SD). CS is also more Magicka efficient if someone in the group is running Elemental Drain. Essentially the build I'm leaning towards in 1.6 is Fire Destro*/Fire Destro*:

MAIN BAR:

Ice Comet - Ult (for Magicka Controller Passive)

• Crushing Shock
• Inner Light
• Crippling Grasp (duration too short to have to bar swap all the time to roll it)
• Siphoning Attacks
• Relentless Focus (if for nothing else the +8% damage done, 2% Crit and 10% Crit ceiling)

ALT BAR:

Veil of Blades - Ult

• Impale
• Inner Light
• Evil Hunter (or Relentless Focus**)
• Siphoning Attacks (toggle off during execute phase)
• Structured Entropy (so I don't have to bar swap during execute phase)

MUNDUS: The Thief until ~50% crit then back to The Shadow (you will be over 50% again once you get 30pts in The Apprentice)

BENEFITS

• Both bars are equally effected by Magicka Controller (2 each).
• Bar 1 gets 10% Crit ceiling and 2% Crit chance.
• Bar 2 gets 10% Crit ceiling and 2/4% Crit chance.
• Bar 1 gets to use Transfer Passive for additional Ultimate gain via Crippling Grasp.
• Bar 2 gets 3% Health.
• Both bars get 8% Magicka from Magicka Flood.

DRAWBACKS

• Can't compete with Stamina DPS.
• Lots of Bar swapping which is difficult to master and hard for those with poor Latency.
• Light Armor is the new Glass canon and is super squishy.

*Fire Destro for PvE due to the Tri Focus Passive in Destruction Staff which grants +15% damage to Heavy attacks.

**I have not yet tested whether Evil Hunter would be superior DPS to Grim Focus's 8% damage increase + 2% Crit + 10% Crit ceiling. If it's determined that Evil Hunter is higher DPS then that would be the obvious choice. Will the above build be considered viable in end game post 1.6, only time will tell but if you as a Player can manage ~7K DPS (the new 1K DPS from Live 1.5.8) I think most groups will have no issue with you running a Magicka DPS build as a NB. For gear I'd suggest this setup:

• Light of Cyrodiil: 2/3pc (Rings) VR14 Epic, for the SD / Mag (Reinforced Body if you do 3pc).
• Adroitness: 2pc (Neck + Body) VR12 Epic Neck, body can be made Legendary, for the SD.
• Torug's Pact: 2 pc (Staves + Body) Crafted, for the SD.
• Martial Knowledge: 4/5pc (Body only) VR14, for Mag / SD / SD / 10% dmg increase every 4 sec.

I would be curious if anyone has done the math to show which of the 5pc Martial Knowledge bonus of 10% damage increase every 4 seconds or the 3pc Cyrodiil's Light Magicka set bonuses are higher applied DPS over a long duration fight. From my understanding of damage scaling via your resource pool the MK 5pc becomes higher damage than 3pc Cyrodiil's Light once you've exceeded ~22,320 Magicka.

Dang, that's the exact setup my friend and I run for armor, except I run 5pc MK and he runs the 3 pc CL. We haven't tested it on PTS yet though as it is my off-gear setup (I normally tank and run that when I go pvp or do content). If I get ahold of a 3rd CL piece I'll be testing to see which is better. (Although it is nice that if you make your CL piece gold, then it ups the spell damage rating for all three pieces, plus the extra magicka could give you a bit more dps - so I'd rather test it in the PTS if they transfer again.)

Altyrann

Samadhi wrote: »

Altyrann wrote: »

... Maybe one funnel morph could lose healing and gain damage.

Swallow Soul has a % increase to all healing taken, but Funnel Health does slightly more damage.

The Swallow Soul % bonus increases by one per level for skill scaling; for Funnel Health the scaling takes place on the damage portion of the skill.

Is the difference big enough to be meaningful? On a PTS test character it looks very small indeed. I am proposing something where one morph would see a substantial increase at the expense of healing.

Aldarenn

Why couldn't they make the stamina and magicka morphs do the exact same thing? The morphs on every class that has stamina/magicka morphs too diverse and useless for old builds.