NB Magicka ST DPS (PvE)

Altyrann

Now just need a ranged version of soul harvest...

Samadhi

Father wrote: »

Its really hard for magicka nb right now to farm trash like in 1.5 due to sap essence nerf with the cooldown on heals.
...

Nerf or bug?
Thought that the heal was working correctly when it has less than 6 mobs, but is bugging out when it hits more than that.

Critborn

Altyrann wrote: »

Thanks, Critborn. Will give that a go. Which ultimate were you actually casting? Did you use the 20 percent bonus from soul harvest or was it just for the extra ultimate generation?

I have soul harvest on my main bar for the 2% crit and ult gen I don't use it at all.

Altyrann

Fair enough. The 20% damage bonus looks like it may also be an interesting option but the range limitation doesn't fit well with ranged magicka play style and having to cast every 50 ultimate would mean missing a fair few funnel health or force pulse casts.

olemanwinter

NB is no longer fun to play.

/thread.

cya later. Maybe they'll fix it when they relaunch it again and it goes F2P in 8 months.

helediron

New favourite ST rotation is to keep Piercing Mark up and do Fiery Clench, Crippling Grasp, 5*Funnel Health. That is easy rotation, gives 7k DPS and has stun&knock utility. Build is 4martialVR13, 3Torug, 2Adroidness, 2Cyrodiil's Light, 3*magicka cost reduce, 1H,1M,5L, Shadow. Firestaff precise, disease, Fiery Clench, Crippling Grasp, Funnel Health, Piercing Mark, Inner Light, Veil, 120 CP: Tower/Magician 20, Lover/Arcanist 20, Apprentice/Elfborn 26, Apprentice/Blessed 4, Ritual/Thaumaturge 10, Lady/Light Armor 30, Lady/Hardy 10. Those CPs are just slapped in without too much thought, just to get crit% passive.

Fiery Clench has now 17 meters range. I dropped Entropy because pots will give same buff. As an alchemist i can make my pots and can have major Sorcery nearly constantly on from Spell Power pots. Although they give also Major Prophecy, the magicka increase from Inner Light is too important to miss.

Just for fun, i turned all CP on. I was able to solo Craglorn bosses and did see 15k DPS.

kaithuzar

There isn't too much reason to run clench & funnel. Since both are insta-cast, you would do more dmg picking one & rotating in medium/heavy attacks.

Nihil

kaithuzar wrote: »

There isn't too much reason to run clench & funnel. Since both are insta-cast, you would do more dmg picking one & rotating in medium/heavy attacks.

With the change to clench it is now a descent DoT that works well to increase dps, the damage per cast is > then funnel. When testing Sorc and NB dps I actually used destro/destro set up with destructive reach on both bars so I could have 2 versions of the dot ticking, then with my NB I threw in crippling too, and as they have similar / same duration I could just reapply all of them at the same time.

Altyrann

At the moment I am running Desto/Desto with the following skills:

Buffs: Inner Light on both bars

Debuffs: Weakness to Elements (20s) (only if running Force Pulse)

DoTs: Structured Entropy (14.4s), Crippling Grasp (8s) and Destructive Reach (5s)

Instant Damage - Funnel Health OR Force Pulse (Force Pulse appears to do a small amount more damage but the cost is significantly higher)

Other: Dark Shades (17.3s), Twisting Path (11.5s)

Execute: Impale (on both bars for Assassination tree passives)

Ultimate: Shooting Star on both bars

Normally I would find it fun to weave lots of DoTs with different durations, but with weapon swapping still being clunky, and the requirement to have Inner Light and some sort of assassination ability on either bar I am struggling with the rotation. Anyone worked out a good way to balance the bars to keep swapping to a minimum?

Thanks

asteldian

I would bin destructive touch, put paths on main bar. I would use assassin ulti on main bar for passives so impale only on bar 2.
Weapon swap would only be near every 20s for shades and elemental weakness and using ultimate when up.
Not sure how much damage loss losing touch would be.

DeLindsay

DeLindsay wrote: »

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)

Alright did several Vet Dungeons on Live 1.6 tonight to test this setup and what the new Health metas are. I was able to do ~7K DPS with SA on constantly but damn if Relentless Focus isn't clunky as crap. Hopefully once I get it down (good rotation) I'll do better with it because it certainly adds DPS, and now that Magicka builds lost Flawless Dawnbreaker for a passive damage increase, we get stuck with GF. Here are some of the changes I made to make things easier to deal with, the constant weapon swapping is horrible since you have so many buffs to keep up that all vary time wise.

MAIN BAR:

Ice Comet - Ult (I use this more than Veil tbh)

• Funnel Health
• Inner Light
• Crippling Grasp
• Structured Entropy
• Relentless Focus

ALT BAR:

Veil of Blades - Ult

• Impale
• Inner Light
• Evil Hunter (or Relentless Focus against normal NPCs)
• Spell Symmetry
• Shadow Image

Health meta I'm going with for Vet Dungeons is 19K for DPS/Healers and 25K for Tanks who are hard capped for Resistance/Armor, even if it takes Major + Minor Wards to reach 32,500. You could very likely get away with 18K if you're careful and a non-Vampire but that's pushing it. I got hit for 18.5K with a conal fire attack I didn't see coming while in 7/7 Light Armor doing DPS and it killed me because I wasn't topped off at that time. That's with 1pc of Legendary Nirnhoned, 1% in Spell Shield and 11 points in Elemental Defender plus a single Legendary Fire resist Glyph.

I changed my 2 Rings from 64 Spell Damage to 200 Magicka cost reduction and it went reasonably well, I only had to SS a few times each Boss fight. That left me with 2014 Spell Damage before Structured Entropy. I made this change because I noticed using SA I was rarely ever below 85% Magicka on Boss fights. Unfortunately I didn't check my DPS with this changed build nor did I get very good at the Clunky McClunk that is Relentless Focus. Also, Shadow Image doesn't do much for DPS but there really isn't anything else to put in that spot other than Structured Entropy again or something like a shield. Hope this helps.

manny254

It was nice that spindle was the pledge to day, and gave me an excuse to do a dps test.

F7sus4

helediron wrote: »

New favourite ST rotation is to keep Piercing Mark up and do Fiery Clench, Crippling Grasp, 5*Funnel Health. That is easy rotation, gives 7k DPS and has stun&knock utility.

7k is nothing. This is how much Heavy Armored DK can do while just standing and doing nothing, but tanking.

helediron

F7sus4 wrote: »

helediron wrote: »

New favourite ST rotation is to keep Piercing Mark up and do Fiery Clench, Crippling Grasp, 5*Funnel Health. That is easy rotation, gives 7k DPS and has stun&knock utility.

7k is nothing. This is how much Heavy Armored DK can do while just standing and doing nothing, but tanking.

And that is exactly the problem with full magicka NBs now. We probably need to abandon these builds.

DeLindsay

helediron wrote: »

And that is exactly the problem with full magicka NBs now. We probably need to abandon these builds.

Once Players get better at their builds over the coming weeks I imagine we'll see Magicka NB DPS doing ~10-12K ST. Keep in mind most Players that changed to something new for 1.6 (DPS setup) are doing absolute crap for DPS right now. Sure they might get impressive numbers on Blood Spawn where they have nothing to do but mash buttons but have those same people link their DPS from High Kinlord Rilis in Vet BC or The Wisp Mother in AA and I guarantee you they won't be 15-17K like some were pushing on PTS with 2H builds. Yes, Stamina DPS will likely outperform Magicka DPS on just about all fights post 1.6 but that doesn't mean Magicka DPS has no place. There are Players running Funnel Health that are already seeing 6-7K HPS while they DPS, a very nice addition of Healing done for the group.

Also, I have yet to see any Tank doing more than about 2K DPS on any ST Boss fight so not sure where this "Heavy Armored DK can do 7K DPS while doing nothing, but Tanking" comment comes from @F7sus4.

F7sus4

helediron wrote: »

And that is exactly the problem with full magicka NBs now. We probably need to abandon these builds.

Well, I shouted for it already. Not many came with the same suggestions providing PTS feedback, now it's a bit too late and ZOS think they did a great job.

In fact, they didn't even had the opportunity to fully understand and address the issues. The best was done was to adapt a few of my suggestions into 1.6 - like Transfer passive cooldown reduction and Wise Mage set un-nerf (it provided 1% Spell Crit bonuses in 1.6, now it is 3.5%) etc. But that's simply not enough.

Essentially, our current issues are the result of death-nerfing Light Armor and god-buffing Heavy Armor. They failed miserably to reach a "golden middle" in the terms of balance. Instead, they just flipped it up-side down, now Light Armor sucks and Heavy Armor is OP.

The best advice to keep Magicka NB builds alive so far is to mix 2-4 pieces of Heavy Armor (e.g. Storm Knight's set) into Light Armor Magicka build and enjoy the great survivability. You can cover 100% of the losses (Spell Cost reduction, Spell Crit and Magicka Regeneration from Light Armor) by investing into appropriate Champion Point passives.

Zershar_Vemod

I pretty much went this build after some researching online; though I am some distance from getting Wise Mage / Aether gear..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UEfXfXo03Q

DeLindsay

F7sus4 wrote: »

They failed miserably to reach a "golden middle" in the terms of balance. Instead, they just flipped it up-side down, now Light Armor sucks and Heavy Armor is OP.

ZoS is the worst company I've seen at balancing things. With them it's literally one extreme or the other and "happy middle" doesn't exist.

DeLindsay

So I have tweaked my build some and now agree with one of the posters that said cost reduction and removal of SA, it's pro even in Trials. I changed from (2) SD Glyphs, 3rd is Fire, to (2) Cost reduction and removed SA from my bars entirely and I never OOM now using the Funnel Health build. I also changed to The Mage Mundus and average 8-10.5K HPS in Trials thanks to Funnel Health. My ST DPS is still a work in progress (6-8.5K), but I can say for sure now that Relentless Focus IS a DPS increase over not using it. My Guild ran AA repeatedly tonight to train everyone since you cannot just stack-n-whack anymore and one full run I took it off my bars and my DPS went down (only a little) but my HPS went down quite a bit thanks to Funnel Health no longer gaining the +8% damage. To give a comparison one of the 2 Healers was doing 33K HPS so getting 10K with just Funnel Health on a DPS build is very helpful.

F7sus4

@ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom:

I'd kindly ask you to read this thread - it's not very long:
http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/help-magicka-based-nightblade-1-6-transition

As I told you - Magicka Nightblade crucial DPS ability (Funnel Health/Swallow Soul) does way too less damage. We don't need cost reduction for it, we need more damage on it! But you didn't listen. So there are the results here now; TLDR:

It is the first time I see something good from 1.6 for Magicka NB,

Still 8-9k dps is very bad since you have a min-max character with 100+ CP and perfect gear, while stamina NB, magicka Sorc and every DK can do with ease 10-14k.

8k-ish DPS with 2200 Spell Damage and 30k Magicka is just laughable. So are your 1.6 "balances". Essentially, thank you for wasting a character I spent 2000+ hours developing, alone with the rest of fellow NB casters.

I'm really surprised people so meekly switched to 2-handed OP mode without even pointing ZOS how wrong their actions were.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Also, the new Light Armor survivability is just laughable, but that's the other story. If Heavy Armored DK/Sorc can take the whole instance of Skyreach Catacombs (including chest mini-quest) and kill them without even blocking, and Light Armor NB casters die 1-shoted to 2-3 groups (and still casting shields, e.g. Ward Ally all the time) when not even being able to deal more damage than them then something went wrong. But again, that's just other story. Great balance, my salutation!

eliisra

F7sus4 wrote: »

helediron wrote: »

New favourite ST rotation is to keep Piercing Mark up and do Fiery Clench, Crippling Grasp, 5*Funnel Health. That is easy rotation, gives 7k DPS and has stun&knock utility.

7k is nothing. This is how much Heavy Armored DK can do while just standing and doing nothing, but tanking.

Yeah, it's sad. I keep seeing people posting 7-8.5k NB dps, thinking it's "decent". But with my sorc and DK(using magicka build) I get 11-12k dps easily, that's while still learning, missing DoT timers, bird dying and so on.

Than again Funnel is a bit of a support build, it always did around 5-10% less than actual dps builds. Reason it does even less now can maybe be related to CP? You cant boost it by putting point in Apprentice, so no 12% spell crit or auto crit after block. You need to put points in Thaumaturge for higher magic dmg, but 10 and 30 points in Ritual will boost physical damage and weapon crit

So when comparing and testing, might be better looking at a NB destro spec instead? I still think you're going to be a bit behind other classes, based on skills you have to mess around with, but maybe the gap will be less? I honestly haven't touched my magicka NB since the update, it's to depressing. But guess I have to give it a go so I know what improvements to ask for.

manny254

eliisra wrote: »

F7sus4 wrote: »

helediron wrote: »

New favourite ST rotation is to keep Piercing Mark up and do Fiery Clench, Crippling Grasp, 5*Funnel Health. That is easy rotation, gives 7k DPS and has stun&knock utility.

7k is nothing. This is how much Heavy Armored DK can do while just standing and doing nothing, but tanking.

Yeah, it's sad. I keep seeing people posting 7-8.5k NB dps, thinking it's "decent". But with my sorc and DK(using magicka build) I get 11-12k dps easily, that's while still learning, missing DoT timers, bird dying and so on.

Than again Funnel is a bit of a support build, it always did around 5-10% less than actual dps builds. Reason it does even less now can maybe be related to CP? You cant boost it by putting point in Apprentice, so no 12% spell crit or auto crit after block. You need to put points in Thaumaturge for higher magic dmg, but 10 and 30 points in Ritual will boost physical damage and weapon crit

So when comparing and testing, might be better looking at a NB destro spec instead? I still think you're going to be a bit behind other classes, based on skills you have to mess around with, but maybe the gap will be less? I honestly haven't touched my magicka NB since the update, it's to depressing. But guess I have to give it a go so I know what improvements to ask for.

[img][/img]



More practical dps for dungeons and vet dsa sits around 10-11k. The 4-5k healing out you normally get is nothing to ignore either.

DeLindsay

As we're all still learning the new 1.6 metas (rotations, gear, stats, champ points, etc) we're getting better at DPS. The only 2 things I'd like to see happen with Magicka NB is for them to change Grim Focus to a toggle or at least increase it's duration to 30 sec and fix Assassin's Will's animation, it's clunky McClunk right now, they could also increase it's passive damage done to 10%. The second thing is something someone else noted, maybe have them increase the damage done of Funnel Health by a little bit, 5-15% while also increasing the cost by the same. These are very small changes that would help NB Magicka DPS as well as NB Healers (Funnel Health change). Not that NB Healers really need the help right now, but I wouldn't be against the change.

manny254

DeLindsay wrote: »

As we're all still learning the new 1.6 metas (rotations, gear, stats, champ points, etc) we're getting better at DPS. The only 2 things I'd like to see happen with Magicka NB is for them to change Grim Focus to a toggle or at least increase it's duration to 30 sec and fix Assassin's Will's animation, it's clunky McClunk right now, they could also increase it's passive damage done to 10%. The second thing is something someone else noted, maybe have them increase the damage done of Funnel Health by a little bit, 5-15% while also increasing the cost by the same. These are very small changes that would help NB Magicka DPS as well as NB Healers (Funnel Health change). Not that NB Healers really need the help right now, but I wouldn't be against the change.

Agree that assassins will is pretty bad right now. Not to mention the buff it gives you is the same buff combat prayer gives. So in a serious trial where that 8% really matters you would not need it anyway.

helediron

If the Funnel is buffed and cost increased, it would be good. But then it's no longer sustainable without Siphoning Attacks. The damage increase must be big enough to overcome SA debuff. Ten percent buff plus SA debuff would be zero net effect. We need 30% more oomph.

Another good skill to buff would be Crippling Grasp. I think ZOS fears any burst damage increases because that would unbalance PvP. That's why they buffed sorc Liquid Lightning. Similar buff to NB mages would come via Crippling Grasp. Make it e.g. last longer and each tick hits 9% harder, similar to DK Unstable Flame.

Whatever the changes are, the skill damages of mage NB must be increased. I spent tens of hours testing everything on PTS. I went through all skills methodologically and wrote several suggestions. Now i feel i have exhausted all options. There is nothing left to improve. The DPS is simply too low.

NB class is made to live without shields and burst heals. NB mages should live through high DPS, mitigation and trickle healing. Because of that the class should be competing of the #1 DPS spot. Now they have fallen to last spot in DPS race, and their survivability collapses. I think the central error ZOS made was that they nerfed Veil, Funnel and Sap, all of the core skills, at the same time and the combined effect was devastating.

helediron

... and i hate my current dual wield nirn caster build. It's an abomination of exploits.

Ysne58

I would dearly love to see Agony changed to a useful skill.

I'm managing with Funnel Health the way it is. I would be happy if they did increase the damage it does even if that meant increasing the cost some too.

Code2501

Ysne58 wrote: »

I would dearly love to see Agony changed to a useful skill.

Plenty of quick minor tweaks they could try

• give caster a Major Empower buff on cast
• apply minor/major Defile debuff for duration of dot
• apply minor/major Breach debuff for duration of dot
• apply minor/major Maim debuff for duration of dot

Add some of these as morphs and players might have some potential use for it. A spell who's description is "Shackle an enemy in torment" is just crying out to be a debuff.

DeLindsay

helediron wrote: »

If the Funnel is buffed and cost increased, it would be good. But then it's no longer sustainable without Siphoning Attacks. The damage increase must be big enough to overcome SA debuff. Ten percent buff plus SA debuff would be zero net effect. We need 30% more oomph.

Another good skill to buff would be Crippling Grasp. I think ZOS fears any burst damage increases because that would unbalance PvP. That's why they buffed sorc Liquid Lightning. Similar buff to NB mages would come via Crippling Grasp. Make it e.g. last longer and each tick hits 9% harder, similar to DK Unstable Flame.

Crippling Grasp is another way to look at it yeah, keep the cost the same though and increase it's damage by ~8-10%.

As far as Funnel Health getting a small increase (say 5-15%) and having it's cost increased to match, it wouldn't be an issue whatsoever. Right now I can maintain Magicka in a pure SD build without using SA or SS with (2) cost reduction Glyphs. With (1) I only have to use SS every once in a while, but nothing like in 1.5.8 when I had zero choice but run SA 100%. They'd need to increase things in baby steps so as not to end up ramping abilities up way to far, 5-15% for FH and/or 8-10% for Cripple would be quite a reasonable first step. That and fixing Grim Focus so that it works better, and gives us a buff separate from that of Combat Prayer (or just no buff at all, straight dmg increase).

F7sus4

helediron wrote: »

If the Funnel is buffed and cost increased, it would be good. But then it's no longer sustainable without Siphoning Attacks. The damage increase must be big enough to overcome SA debuff. Ten percent buff plus SA debuff would be zero net effect. We need 30% more oomph.

Spell Symmetry is your friend too, so are Magicka cost reduction on the jewerly.

But I guess all Magicka NBs agree that increasingly more damage needed on Funnel Health/Swallow Soul.

It's also worth noting that Structured Entropy/Degeneration +20% Spell Damage boost doesn't solve the problem for most of the people (even though the bonus seems nice) and there's a good reason for it - you break your spell rotation for too long when reapplying it, since it lasts too short. There's a difference in plus, but nothing groundbreaking. Definitely more damage on Funnel Health is needed - it's as simple as that.

Ysne58 wrote: »

I'm managing with Funnel Health the way it is.

You don't. You're just not fully aware of the fact what numbers your character should be able to perform.

DeLindsay wrote: »

The only 2 things I'd like to see happen with Magicka NB is for them to change Grim Focus to a toggle or at least increase it's duration to 30 sec and fix Assassin's Will's animation, it's clunky McClunk right now, they could also increase it's passive damage done to 10%.

They won't solve the problem this way and there is a good reason for it. It would allow Stamina builds to take more advantage from using Funnel Health and developers wouldn't allow that. A greater cost on Magicka ability, however, will prevent that from happening and this is the way it should be done.

DeLindsay wrote: »

The second thing is (...) maybe have them increase the damage done of Funnel Health by a little bit, 5-15% while also increasing the cost by the same.

Yes, that's obvious. +1 and for that.