Magicka Dragonknight - Need Advice

KostasDragonborn

I am seeking advice from v16 players, preferably Magicka DK's on how to become less squishy without sacrificing all of my damage (which is already low for pvp Magicka DK's).

I mostly play PVP now, and I win the majority of 1v1 encounters. I have been playing ESO since July 2015 and have 199 CP.

See screenshots for overview of my build.

What bothers me is my lack of survival, low physical resistance, and getting killed by stamblades or dawn breakers in group fights almost instantly. Fear or mass hysteria, whatever stuns the NB's use I am unable to CC break 80% of the time, with full stamina. During this unbreakable stun period I take multiple physical damage hits that I cannot withstand and ultimately I die. I've been playing a lot of IC, so I'm back in the fight quickly, when I catch a Nightblade solo they are going down. I can get them out of stealth, I can keep the pressure on, I can even withstand them stunning me when I can break free, but overall I feel too squishy. I don't need a L2P comment, just some advice on what sets I could run with the upcoming patch, or how I could change my setup.

I've been running v16 5x Kagrenac, 1 Kena, 2x Torug, 3x Willpower Jewelry. 5 Light 1 Medium 1 Heavy

I'm a Vamp, I keep Devouring Swarm on both bars, I need the mana regen, and I'm using Atronach mundus.

2H = Stampede, Flame Lash, Burning Embers/ Talons/Draw Essence, Fossilize, and Inner Light (sometimes I throw Caltrops and Cinder Storm)

Resto bar = Proximity Detonation, Hardened Armor, Blessing of Restoration, Ward Ally, Inner Light. (sometimes Scales or Harness Magicka)

Stats displayed are with Inner Light and tri-stat food active.


Stats displayed are with Inner Light, tri-stat food, and Hardened Armor active.


I am considering running 4 Magnus 5 Kagrenac 3 Willpower with dual wield for attack bar, and Sword and Board for back bar for the update with Kagrenac's, or Julianos (although it seems like a Sorc set). Also have considered running both bars Sword and Board, but am afraid to lose so much spell damage, and Green Dragons blood sucks. Also if I give up vamp I lose mana regen, stalker, and bat swarm, just to withstand dawnbreaker?!

Advice is appreciated!!!!

Jitterbug

While I'm no expert I'll just chime in to bump your thread:

It seems to me you're doing it right, I think magicka DKs are just in a bad spot right now, so my advice is to ride it out until the bad weather clears and you get some much needed buffs.

Let me just ask though, have you tried running in heavy armor? How does/would that effect your playstyle and/or survivability?

KostasDragonborn

Jitterbug wrote: »

While I'm no expert I'll just chime in to bump your thread:

It seems to me you're doing it right, I think magicka DKs are just in a bad spot right now, so my advice is to ride it out until the bad weather clears and you get some much needed buffs.

Let me just ask though, have you tried running in heavy armor? How does/would that effect your playstyle and/or survivability?

Thanks for responding. I haven't tried running heavy because I fear losing magicka sustainability. I could make a heavy set but it would be expensive, and I have just accumulated enough gold and mats to make new legendary gear for the update. Would love to see some stats from Magicka DK's running heavy!!!

Jitterbug

Maybe a setup with heavy armor and drinks in stead of food could work. Might give you some much needed survivability. But, I am just guessing here.

Jitterbug

You could try it out even in v14 gear just to see how it feels.

KostasDragonborn

Thanks for the advice, I will give it a go.

Jitterbug

KostasDragonborn wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, I will give it a go.

Please post with your findings. I'm curious as to the viability of magicka builds in heavy armor.

LoreRiley

Reroll a Stam DK and Spam WB only thung worth anything for DK

KostasDragonborn

LoreRiley wrote: »

Reroll a Stam DK and Spam WB only thung worth anything for DK

Reroll is not a solution for my Magicka DK. I tried a Stam DK on PTS and hated it. Stam DK's don't even use any of the classes abilities. IMO DK was designed for Magicka.

KostasDragonborn

Jitterbug wrote: »

KostasDragonborn wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, I will give it a go.

Please post with your findings. I'm curious as to the viability of magicka builds in heavy armor.

I will look in the guild bank for some v14 Heavy...but to emulate exactly what I'm wearing now would still be too expensive just for testing. That's why it would be awesome if some DK's who play in heavy and are Magicka DK's would post here!!! I know of one, maybe I can get him to post when I see him in game @Vanzen

@Etaniel would be cool to hear from as well.

puffy99

5 Elf Bane V16, 3 Piece Magnus 14 all purple, willpower, High Elf, I am about 1400 Magicka recovery with Inner Light. about 120 champ points i believe..
Elf bane is expensive still plus the legendary magicka enchants are at least 17K. PS4/NA

If the fight lasts over 15-20 seconds you most likely are going to have to down a spell pot which can get expensive,
but your phsy resist will be at least 5K higher, but most likely your spell power will drop 20% or so. I am Destro/Restro so I might be burning more Magicka than you though since you have a 2H, and maybe you can leverage that.

I could probably gain a bit more magicka recovery on my rings instead of the Healthy bonus shopping for the cost red/or magicka bonus I guess but but I like having at least 18.5K health with bi-food.

This setup i feel has a pretty good balance between power and survivability. Will just keep looking for ways to get it to legendary on the pieces.

KostasDragonborn

puffy99 wrote: »

5 Elf Bane V16, 3 Piece Magnus 14 all purple, willpower, High Elf, I am about 1400 Magicka recovery with Inner Light. about 120 champ points i believe..
Elf bane is expensive still plus the legendary magicka enchants are at least 17K. PS4/NA

If the fight lasts over 15-20 seconds you most likely are going to have to down a spell pot which can get expensive,
but your phsy resist will be at least 5K higher, but most likely your spell power will drop 20% or so. I am Destro/Restro so I might be burning more Magicka than you though since you have a 2H, and maybe you can leverage that.

I could probably gain a bit more magicka recovery on my rings instead of the Healthy bonus shopping for the cost red/or magicka bonus I guess but but I like having at least 18.5K health with bi-food.

This setup i feel has a pretty good balance between power and survivability. Will just keep looking for ways to get it to legendary on the pieces.

look at my stats in the screenshots above, compare them to your stats. which of your stats outperform mine? Comparatively, taking into consideration my gear is all v16 legendary. My spell damage is high enough so I use tri-pots. Your health is too low for PVP IMO.

I used to play Destro, but you get more spell damage and tool tip damage using a 2 Hander on your spell damage and your tooltip damage. The only stamina based ability I use is Stampede from two hander for a gap closer. With the update 2 Hander and Dual Wield both give you more spell damage than a staff (2.1 and Osinium).

Thanks for posting!

xarguideb17_ESO

I'm having the same issue on my mag dk, too squishy even without vampirism. What about 5 piece armor master light set? Anyone tried that?

Moglijuana

I've basically been using the same bar set up as you, but keep switching back to Destro/Resto because I have too much fun with Molten Armaments. The only difference really is instead of inner light I use structured entropy on my attack bar, and igneous shield on my back bar. A quick Igneous -> Healing ward -> Combat prayer not only heals me well enough to survive a good amount of burst, but I also get the 8% dmg increase which lets me counter attack after a cc.

Wollust

Well my setup which I tried out was 5 Kagneracs, 1 Blood Spawn, 1 Kena, 3 Willpower and 2 Torugs. Sword and Shield and Restostaff. I have the Setup in 5h/1l/1m and 5l/1h/1m. Big pieces infused with Prismatic enchant, nirnhoned weapons, 2 SD enchants on jewelry and 1 reduced cost-

I found heavy to be working fine, with a bit reduced sustain though. I could fight multiple enemies without running out of resources over an extended period of time (Battle Roar ), but could feel the drain of course because of the higher skill cost and lower regen. I did not have to worry a lot about random stam NB (except maybe those with +4.5k weapondamage ), defense seemed to be good in heavy.
I found it important to have some constant healing going like rapid regen and of course the flame leash proc, so that I could focus on doing damage instead of going too much into defense. Actually I went playing for a day without any burst heal, but rather with flame leash, rapid regen and deep breath. Worked better than expected. But yeah, nothing beats blessing of restoration or Healing ward.
Killing vampires worked great, against other targets the damage output was rather meh in heavy armor. I didn't try out light armor much so I can't compare it properly. But from what I've heard from those that are still playing magicka DK currently, light armor seems to be more of their choice than heavy. I stopped playing my DK as magicka for now, till ZoS decides to do some balancing (which will be after Orsinium from what we know).

The only thing I did was trying out the heavy setup and the light setup on my nightblade, and well, sustain was quite big of a difference, but I could definitely take a few more hits in heavy. Should be the same for the DK I guess.

And well.. I'm a high-cp player, so my sustain, defense and damageoutput is both kinda better by default.. so comparison might be a bit hard in that case..

Lokey0024

Run heavy, purge fracture, use immovable morph that reduces break free cost, just dont cast it, as well as stack cp into reduce cost of breakfree/dodge roll. Chip away at targets if 1v1, set up a burst utilizing your ultimate. Use max stat food, regen thru heavy armor passives and battle roar. Block ALOT, but cc game has to be on point to make them spend resources. This worked for me for a bit, but i like stam better, more bursty and mobility.

1Grumpy_dunmer1

Testing my survivability in 4 elf bane 4 magnus 3 willpower 1 molag Kena
I went 5 heavy 2 light but I'm trying to figure out how to get closer to your spell damage.
This was my first test of elf bane I've had a few crazy encounters with this gear. https://youtu.be/pEvrUrcxXFs

puffy99

For the OP isn't your screen shot from IC so you are getting health/battle leveled buffs?

KostasDragonborn

Wollust wrote: »

Well my setup which I tried out was 5 Kagneracs, 1 Blood Spawn, 1 Kena, 3 Willpower and 2 Torugs. Sword and Shield and Restostaff. I have the Setup in 5h/1l/1m and 5l/1h/1m. Big pieces infused with Prismatic enchant, nirnhoned weapons, 2 SD enchants on jewelry and 1 reduced cost-

I found heavy to be working fine, with a bit reduced sustain though. I could fight multiple enemies without running out of resources over an extended period of time (Battle Roar ), but could feel the drain of course because of the higher skill cost and lower regen. I did not have to worry a lot about random stam NB (except maybe those with +4.5k weapondamage ), defense seemed to be good in heavy.
I found it important to have some constant healing going like rapid regen and of course the flame leash proc, so that I could focus on doing damage instead of going too much into defense. Actually I went playing for a day without any burst heal, but rather with flame leash, rapid regen and deep breath. Worked better than expected. But yeah, nothing beats blessing of restoration or Healing ward.
Killing vampires worked great, against other targets the damage output was rather meh in heavy armor. I didn't try out light armor much so I can't compare it properly. But from what I've heard from those that are still playing magicka DK currently, light armor seems to be more of their choice than heavy. I stopped playing my DK as magicka for now, till ZoS decides to do some balancing (which will be after Orsinium from what we know).

The only thing I did was trying out the heavy setup and the light setup on my nightblade, and well, sustain was quite big of a difference, but I could definitely take a few more hits in heavy. Should be the same for the DK I guess.

And well.. I'm a high-cp player, so my sustain, defense and damageoutput is both kinda better by default.. so comparison might be a bit hard in that case..

thanks for the reply! I am about to try 5 heavy v15 Black Rose 3 Torug (2 Sword and Board bars) 1 Kena, 3 Will Power jewelry with 1 Mag Regen and 2 SD enchants. Also about to drop vamp. This is experimental, and I foresee me hitting like a wet noodle and returning to 5L1M1H.

I may still test by getting someone to craft me 5 Kagrenac in Heavy....already depleting my mats...

KostasDragonborn

Lokey0024 wrote: »

Run heavy, purge fracture, use immovable morph that reduces break free cost, just dont cast it, as well as stack cp into reduce cost of breakfree/dodge roll. Chip away at targets if 1v1, set up a burst utilizing your ultimate. Use max stat food, regen thru heavy armor passives and battle roar. Block ALOT, but cc game has to be on point to make them spend resources. This worked for me for a bit, but i like stam better, more bursty and mobility.

will try this, ty!!!

puffy99

1Grumpy_dunmer1 wrote: »

Testing my survivability in 4 elf bane 4 magnus 3 willpower 1 molag Kena
I went 5 heavy 2 light but I'm trying to figure out how to get closer to your spell damage.
This was my first test of elf bane I've had a few crazy encounters with this gear. https://youtu.be/pEvrUrcxXFs

Losing the 5 heavy CP passive though right?
Spell damage going down is going to be unavoidable I believe...

KostasDragonborn

puffy99 wrote: »

For the OP isn't your screen shot from IC so you are getting health/battle leveled buffs?

Yes, this is the "PVP and Combat Skills Forum".

puffy99

Ok, yeah my 18.5 was just with food, not battle leveled..gl

KostasDragonborn

1Grumpy_dunmer1 wrote: »

Testing my survivability in 4 elf bane 4 magnus 3 willpower 1 molag Kena
I went 5 heavy 2 light but I'm trying to figure out how to get closer to your spell damage.
This was my first test of elf bane I've had a few crazy encounters with this gear. https://youtu.be/pEvrUrcxXFs

Interesting video. I also have SD enchants on both rings, and you are losing a few hundred spell damage by not using Dual Wield or 2 Hander. If I equip Sword and Board I lose a few hundred SD.

1Grumpy_dunmer1

puffy99 wrote: »

1Grumpy_dunmer1 wrote: »

Testing my survivability in 4 elf bane 4 magnus 3 willpower 1 molag Kena
I went 5 heavy 2 light but I'm trying to figure out how to get closer to your spell damage.
This was my first test of elf bane I've had a few crazy encounters with this gear. https://youtu.be/pEvrUrcxXFs

Losing the 5 heavy CP passive though right?
Spell damage going down is going to be unavoidable I believe...

If I had a way to hit just a bit harder I would have 0 complaints. I may try LA and bloodspawn. Using ultimate for regen and finisher and spec towards all spell damage for enchants

KozawahGaming

I'm starting a Magicka DK and I'm only about Level 19 or 20 but I go two heavy (Chest and Legs) 5 light. That way you are a little less squishy but still have the Light Armor Passives active.

KozawahGaming

Plus I think you'll want to move some stats into Health. At least 28k health will help with the squishy factor.

KostasDragonborn

KozawahGaming wrote: »

Plus I think you'll want to move some stats into Health. At least 28k health will help with the squishy factor.

I'm about to try this, put a bit more stats into health, and run 5L2H. I just ran with 5 heavy, 2 light, and without vamp and it felt slow and immobile. The little bit of extra resistance I had didn't matter. I was still taking 10k dawn breakers, 9k impale, and a crap load of physical damage with almost 19k physical resistance from Hardened armor. Nightblades are ridiculous right now, just stupid. I tried drinks with that setup then my resources were too low, even battle leveled they are way too low. I tried food, then the regen was stupid low.

The fact that DK has no major expedition is also puzzling.

1Grumpy_dunmer1

KostasDragonborn wrote: »

1Grumpy_dunmer1 wrote: »

Testing my survivability in 4 elf bane 4 magnus 3 willpower 1 molag Kena
I went 5 heavy 2 light but I'm trying to figure out how to get closer to your spell damage.
This was my first test of elf bane I've had a few crazy encounters with this gear. https://youtu.be/pEvrUrcxXFs

Interesting video. I also have SD enchants on both rings, and you are losing a few hundred spell damage by not using Dual Wield or 2 Hander. If I equip Sword and Board I lose a few hundred SD.

Ooohhh now I see I dint think that spell damage gained from 2h/dual wield showed on tool tip. Silly mistake there maybe I will level those skill lines soon and do some experimenting.

RoamingRiverElk

One thing to consider is how much of the time you are using a damage shield - igneous, harness magicka, healing ward / ward ally - because as far as I know, attacks won't crit for the part that the damage shield mitigates, and the damage shield part of the mitigation does not benefit from armor or spell resistance.

Magicka DKs seem to really need *everything* if possible, magicka, health, stamina, magicka regen and stamina regen, and it would help if one could block.

Personally I like light armor more because I use magicka skills a lot, so I need it for the sustain. On that kind of a setup, I wouldn't go less than 25k max health in Cyrodiil, 27k would be even better. (5 light, 1 med, 1 heavy for the Undaunted passive. I use food unless I'm tanking)

Inner light takes up valuable spots, personally I would rather use Dragon Fire Scale and something else.

My bars for small group play in the Imperial City are something like:
Wings - Igneous Shield - Burning Talons - Flame Lash - Draw Essence - Clouding Swarm
Elusive Mist - Healing Ward - Blessing of Restoration - Proximity Detonation - Cinder Storm / Coagulating Blood / Extended Chains / Fossilize / Harness Magicka / Something - Shifting Standard . I do like Shooting Star and Ferocious Leap too and use them sometimes.

Unbreakable CC is unbreakable CC - even as a sorc with a shield up you can then die to a burst if you can't break free. There's that new Tel Var stone armor that reduces damage taken while CC'd, but I'm not sure it would be worth it to use that, sacrificing some other set for it.

I use dual wield for the extra spell damage and armor slot. If you have enough health, you could look into speccing into healing initiated / received through CP and sets, but magicka DKs definitely benefit from high CP - 350+ or more. If you solo then I imagine you do need a lot of spell damage / max magicka to be able to finish them off. That then does come with the cost of survivability / sustain, I don't really think there's a way around it. Magicka DKs then being the most vulnerable to very heavy hitting stamina builds. I think the Healer set (only comes as v13/v14 ), Willow's Path and Twice-Born Star can be good sets to consider if you don't want to go for spell dmg. Most magicka DKs do seem to want to go for high spell dmg though. ^^

KostasDragonborn

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

One thing to consider is how much of the time you are using a damage shield - igneous, harness magicka, healing ward / ward ally - because as far as I know, attacks won't crit for the part that the damage shield mitigates, and the damage shield part of the mitigation does not benefit from armor or spell resistance.

Magicka DKs seem to really need *everything* if possible, magicka, health, stamina, magicka regen and stamina regen, and it would help if one could block.

Personally I like light armor more because I use magicka skills a lot, so I need it for the sustain. On that kind of a setup, I wouldn't go less than 25k max health in Cyrodiil, 27k would be even better. (5 light, 1 med, 1 heavy for the Undaunted passive. I use food unless I'm tanking)

Inner light takes up valuable spots, personally I would rather use Dragon Fire Scale and something else.

My bars for small group play in the Imperial City are something like:
Wings - Igneous Shield - Burning Talons - Flame Lash - Draw Essence - Clouding Swarm
Elusive Mist - Healing Ward - Blessing of Restoration - Proximity Detonation - Cinder Storm / Coagulating Blood / Extended Chains / Fossilize / Harness Magicka / Something - Shifting Standard . I do like Shooting Star and Ferocious Leap too and use them sometimes.

Unbreakable CC is unbreakable CC - even as a sorc with a shield up you can then die to a burst if you can't break free. There's that new Tel Var stone armor that reduces damage taken while CC'd, but I'm not sure it would be worth it to use that, sacrificing some other set for it.

I use dual wield for the extra spell damage and armor slot. If you have enough health, you could look into speccing into healing initiated / received through CP and sets, but magicka DKs definitely benefit from high CP - 350+ or more. If you solo then I imagine you do need a lot of spell damage / max magicka to be able to finish them off. That then does come with the cost of survivability / sustain, I don't really think there's a way around it. Magicka DKs then being the most vulnerable to very heavy hitting stamina builds. I think the Healer set (only comes as v13/v14 ), Willow's Path and Twice-Born Star can be good sets to consider if you don't want to go for spell dmg. Most magicka DKs do seem to want to go for high spell dmg though. ^^

Thank you for the feedback and lessons learned.

I dropped vamp for less vulnerability to fire damage and picked up Sword and board for more physical resistance, damage mitigation through blocking, and overall survival. The down side is that I lost mana regeneration by dropping vamp, bat swarm, and stalker. Now I sneak like a turtle, I mean quite honestly how does anyone walk around in stealth at a snails pace like that?

I tried to run sword and shield on both bars but igneous shield and spamming dragon blood was depleting my mana and I couldn't sustain it. Now, I will try sword and shield for the attack bar only, and resto healing on the other bar. I also lost 236 base spell damage by slotting sword and shield instead of 2H. I need to play more to see if all of these negatives are going to make up for all of these set backs. If I want to gain some mana regen to get back up in the 1600 range (bare minimum IMO), I will have to sacrifice 129 spell damage if I switch out torugs for say Magnus set (super expensive to craft 3 piece legendary v16/enchants/etc), or just switch out 1 SD glyph on a ring and lose 174 SD (cheaper adjustment).

My recovery values are completely shot M1496 H349 S519. I will need to play more in my usual small group to ascertain if I can be useful by surviving a bit more, doing pathetic damage, and running out of steam. If not, I will just go back to hitting like a DK should be able to (without having to be made of paper), and being squishy as @#$%.