Magicka DK Makeover: No CP Edition

NBrookus

I've been tinkering with different builds on my Magicka DK for small group-oriented play in Azura's. Black Rose and Reactive were not good at all; Kagneracs was a bit better. The build I have been happiest with is dual sword and board Bloodspawn + Seducers, with 3 piece Willpower + 2 Potentates on my offensive bar and 2 Willpower + 3 Potentates on my defensive bar. However this build still suffers from some weaknesses:

• Magicka regen and/or magicka pool is too low. I usually die when I run out of magicka and have no chance to regen. By comparison, when I go into Haderus my magicka regen problems are gone but I am more likely to die to burst damage.
• Very reliant on magicka/spellpower/crit pots or tripots. See point above. Especially true if I am trying to save an ult.
• Often can't burst down players solo. Templars are particularly tough as they can out-heal my damage with BoL and it's hard to get them down low enough to effectively burst with a CC & ultimate.
• Unless it's a coordinated attack where I go in first, I often arrive at the fight when it's almost over. I am running shield charge to help with this problem, but it's risky to jump into a fight with a depleted stamina pool.

On the other hand, the build is fairly tanky and generates ultimate pretty quickly, especially if I am getting hit by multiple players. I feel like I need to either fully vest into tankiness or increase my spell damage at the probable loss of survivability. That said, I don't want to turn her into a destro/light armor DK.

Suggestions would be appreciated. Screenshot is unbuffed except for trifood and emp buffs (which are significant). I don't have my Undaunted Mettle yet on this character.

Armitas

Azuras is my new guest home. I have been using black rose and blood spawn there and I feel that they work. The difference is that I use drinks instead of food. Drinks with 1800+ constitution means I don't run out of magicka unless I am attacking a fleeing opponent, in which case the double restore passive from resto and heavy armor can restore most of it.

While your magicka and health will be low from drinks, the stamina from drinks, and constitution will allow you to damage brake regularly with block and you can also run reverberating bash for the defile and CC. I run around 13% befoul in the CP line with it, and according the forums befoul is additive so it works fairly well(doesn't work in Azuras though). What happens is that you lower your damage by losing the magicka from food, BUT you make more of your damage STICK by lowering their ability to overcome your damage. With the stam recovery from drinks, and black rose you won't have to worry about running out stam from using reverberating bash. It makes for a semi hybrid build that utilizes stamina for the defile rather than straight damage.

Death is when dps is greater than hps (mostly). You can either do more dps with food, or you can lower hps with defile sustained by drinks, and that is how i'm using blackrose and drinks. When I made the decision to go that route it seemed to me that lowering hps would be more efficient than the investment in dps to reach the same point. It's unconventional but it works solidly.

AverageJo3Gam3r

@Armitas I tend to save CC until I can burst with deep breath+fossilize+meteor+lash combo. I've thought about reverbatinf bash, but haven't tried it for the reason I don't want them CC immune when my ultimate is built up since I try to use them on cool down. I did try fasallas guile a while back but missed the spell power that willpower+torugs gives you.

Draxys

Doesn't desert rose have jewelry now with the new towns update? At first glance, it seems like seducer desert rose bloodspawn could be nice for sustain

Armitas

AverageJo3Gam3r wrote: »

@Armitas I tend to save CC until I can burst with deep breath+fossilize+meteor+lash combo. I've thought about reverbatinf bash, but haven't tried it for the reason I don't want them CC immune when my ultimate is built up since I try to use them on cool down. I did try fasallas guile a while back but missed the spell power that willpower+torugs gives you.

It doesn't work as good as fossilize but you can get meteor to work with it. You have to cast meteor first, then reverb bash right away.

Lokey0024

How do you kill anyone with BR on a magika build? Glass cannon builds have a difficult time, i cant imagine a stamina heavy armor set.

NBrookus

I appreciate the feedback @Armitas. I'll try Black Rose again, but my experience was that I was dead long before any extra regen was helping. With all max magicka enchants, that puts my health at 22k (WITH emp buffs) and magicka at 22k; could swap out for health and/or tristat glyphs but then I'd be out of mana in about 5 abilities. I imagine the gold wrothgar food would fix both issues, but I've already sold my soul to the alchemist; farming/buying perfect roe to make the food would mean a lot more time "working" and less time playing.

Lokey0024 wrote: »

How do you kill anyone with BR on a magika build? Glass cannon builds have a difficult time, i cant imagine a stamina heavy armor set.

If I am being tanky for a group, I don't worry much about damage; I focus on CC so the heavy hitters can do the killing. In Black Rose my damage is actually higher than when in heavy Seducer.

Draxys wrote: »

Doesn't desert rose have jewelry now with the new towns update? At first glance, it seems like seducer desert rose bloodspawn could be nice for sustain

The updated Akavari Dragonguard set looks more appealing to me; whether the 5 piece would be worth an extra 5% ult reduction over 3 piece potentate is hard to say without testing, though.

Armitas

Yeah if it puts you at 22k health I wouldn't do it. Im at 25k health (without emp) 25k magicka so I have a good safe zone. (spell damage is over 3k).

AverageJo3Gam3r

@Armitas does reverb go through block? That's what makes fossilize so effective is that you can cast the meteor then CC them through block before it hits.

Armitas

AverageJo3Gam3r wrote: »

@Armitas does reverb go through block? That's what makes fossilize so effective is that you can cast the meteor then CC them through block before it hits.

It doesn't. If you do it fast enough you can stun them before they begin to block though.

You may like shattering rocks better. It can proc off balance even if its the target. With no cooldown on powerlash itself you can get 2 powerlashes rather than just 1 every 5 seconds. It can also set anyone else nearby off balance as well which can result in a lot of healing when you are outnumbered. No one runs out of stam anymore for fossilize to wreck them, at least on cp campaigns anyway. On Azuras even my talons seem to hold people.

Waffennacht

I know DKs that use SnB, that disorienting move, and roots and defile. Gotta CC break and dodge roll to get outta there...

It seems pretty good... esp when I then eat a meteor...

I gotta L2Block more...

Mitsumi

This is the reason I run destro/resto on my mdk.

I use heavy/light attacks is my main dps couple with dots.

This means that I only use magicka to spam talons, and/or heal/shield stack.

Pretty OP.

Fully charged attack with molten orna+ fire buffs+burning embers(pretty much dont even need to heal) while players just sit there inside talon

Running full heavy too, and never have to worry about sustain.

I also have destructive reach slotted, to drain stamina even faster+it provides dot that go well with your other dots.

I have yet to lose to anyone 1v1 with this build. Oh, non vet.

Tried this build in Scourge and killed two guys at 300-400 CP's with my char at lvl 34. LOL

My char is imperial and all my stats are higher than what you posted even in non vet.

My spell dmg i think is around 2.3-2.5k...armor at 27k and magicka recovery at 1600+

-___-

That's the problem with the main stream sets is that everyone's made it a standard and nobody wants to experiment with the craftable sets anymore.

mdk has no burst, yet everyone keep insisting on spamming flame whip to try and do burst just to run out of magicka, and notice the enemy's hp didn't go down one bit

NBrookus

Armitas wrote: »

Yeah if it puts you at 22k health I wouldn't do it. Im at 25k health (without emp) 25k magicka so I have a good safe zone. (spell damage is over 3k).

Full undaunted I assume, but what are you running with jewelry and weapons to hit those stats with 3k damage in Azuras?

Mitsumi

My mdk health is at 29.5k with tri food, and over 30k using blue >___>

All my stats significantly higher at lvl 45 lol. And you're using gold/purple set, mines all blue. I'll see if i can get specifics when i get home.

Armitas

NBrookus wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

Yeah if it puts you at 22k health I wouldn't do it. Im at 25k health (without emp) 25k magicka so I have a good safe zone. (spell damage is over 3k).

Full undaunted I assume, but what are you running with jewelry and weapons to hit those stats with 3k damage in Azuras?

No actually all 7 heavy to make the most out of black rose, but I'm a nord with 1 glyph in health and 1 tristat glyph.

Torugs pact s/b with spell damage enchant, 3 will power using spell damage, a cost reduction, and a recovery. Using apprentice with 1 divine (because golden vendor) and spell power pots. Once I get enough hits on me for wrath it gets up to 3k. iirc I have around 20 attribute points in health. I'm not sure why our health is so different unless it's all from nord.

NBrookus

Well, with the Black Rose on I have 1 tristat and 1 health glyph, but no Nord health buff. That's tiny tho. Those 20 attribute points will do it no doubt. Unfortunately that's not a gear load-out change depending on if I'm grouped, solo or in Haderus, that's a pilgrimage to that awful building in Deshaan.

I will have to ponder if I think the extra spell damage is worth giving up 10% faster Standards.

NBrookus

Maybe the Nord health buff really is OP, @Armitas ! To get to 25k health without emp in Azuras, I have to drop 17 attribute points into Health, 2 more hakeijos and 3 more health enchants, leaving me with 17k magicka. The regen is awesome, but I don't think 17k magicka will work.

I can certainly see running Black Rose + Bloodspawn + Potentates/Willpower or Willpower/Torugs in Haderus with tri-state drink tho.

Armitas

NBrookus wrote: »

Maybe the Nord health buff really is OP, @Armitas ! To get to 25k health without emp in Azuras, I have to drop 17 attribute points into Health, 2 more hakeijos and 3 more health enchants, leaving me with 17k magicka. The regen is awesome, but I don't think 17k magicka will work.

I can certainly see running Black Rose + Bloodspawn + Potentates/Willpower or Willpower/Torugs in Haderus with tri-state drink tho.

My bad. Looks like I got confused between azura stats and TF stats. health is 24.5k Magicka 21.5k for azuras with emp. it's 25/25 with CP no emp.

NBrookus

Armitas wrote: »

NBrookus wrote: »

Maybe the Nord health buff really is OP, @Armitas ! To get to 25k health without emp in Azuras, I have to drop 17 attribute points into Health, 2 more hakeijos and 3 more health enchants, leaving me with 17k magicka. The regen is awesome, but I don't think 17k magicka will work.

I can certainly see running Black Rose + Bloodspawn + Potentates/Willpower or Willpower/Torugs in Haderus with tri-state drink tho.

My bad. Looks like I got confused between azura stats and TF stats. health is 24.5k Magicka 21.5k for azuras with emp. it's 25/25 with CP no emp.

Okay, I was starting to wonder if something was wrong with my toon! Those stats make sense.

I did take the Black Rose to TF for a while today after putting all my attributes back into magicka. Really nice stam regen with this set.