heavy or light armor for magblade

WarLord2905

Just wondering whether I should go 5 heavy & 2 light on my magblade for PVP or continue with my current 5 light 2 heavy all impen setup? I have only just changed to this set and I have not upgraded anything past purple as it cost a lot of gold or hours upon hours of grinding to change to cp160 gear but I keep seeing discussions from both sides. Doesn't seem like a lot of good players are running 5 heavy on magblade videos, usually 7 light with drop pieces such as necropotence or vicious death or 5H,1L,1M if they have the undaunted passive or 5L,2H crafted gear such as twice born, or alchemist.

I currently run 2 Heavy (chest/legs), 5 light all impen but have only just started using this, so too early to say if I like it or not.

Front bar (duel wield) 5 Julianos, 4 magnus, 3 willpower
Back Bar (resto) 3 Julianos, 5 magnus, 3 willpower

Anyone run a magblade with a similar set up and what type of gear works best you

Clyde_Arrowny

Personally I tend to run solo and prefer staying at range so I run a destro/resto build with 5 Kagrenac, 3 Willpower, 2 Torug, and 1 Kena which works quite nicely, but I still haven't decided whether I prefer 5L 2H or 5L 1H 1M,. In my opinion the added regen and penetration from light armour is way more useful than the mitigation heavy armour provides. I'd worry about being too squishy running all light and the only time I've ever considered running 5 heavy is if I were to run Imperial physique. Which setup you choose largely depends on how you're wanting to play tbh, but if you want to tank in a group then you should run 5 heavy.

WarLord2905

No I don't want to tank, I generally run solo and have fun ganking people (cue haters). I just find if I jump in to a 1vs2 or 3 I get wrecked quickly. I was wearing all light infused spec'd into spell damage and max magicka which worked well in PVE and bursting a single target from stealth but not so well in all other situations. I am hoping running 2H, 5L all with impen my survivability will be a lot better all round.

AGrz5585

Going from say divined/infused to all impen is like night and day.

If your running impen it's a lot different.

I run 5l/2h on my magplar with all impen and I'm tanky enough

Clyde_Arrowny

Keep in mind though that you could run infused on large pieces since shields like dampen magicka negate crits

WarLord2905

@AGrz5585 that's exactly what I was running, same magnus & julianos set up but with infused and divines and all light. when you say running impen is different do you mean better or worse?

AGrz5585

Better... lot better

Berenhir

You will need to adjust your playstyle when running heavy armor. Though your mitigation is higher and your shadow barrier is constantly up you lose penetration, magicka sustain and spell critical.

You have to rely on heavy staff attacks to recharge your magicka which renders dual wield more or less useless as you will definitely need the additional sustain and penetration from destro staff and the reduced cost and ultimately generation of strife weaving.

Another issue is the loss of crit. Though with impen meta the use of offensive crit is not as great as it used to be, magblades are dependent on the constant crit of HoTs, especially when NOT able to cloak.

The problem of magicka sustain comes into play whenever you are not getting hit to proc heavy armor passive. So cloaking away or shield spam will be a problem when your magicka was already drained by active fighting. Try running the annulment morph that gives back magicka together with siphoning attacks and MA/Strife weaving.

You might want to run tavas 5pc with Mirage to enable a constant veil of blades/soul tether/devouring swarm for additional annoyance.

Brutusmax1mus

If you're finding yourself in positions where you're under constant attack heavy armor will be fine. If you're good at during at range and evading attackers then you should stick with light armor for sure.

Heavy armor only benefits ranged classes if they are under attack. Light armor always helps. Keep in mind the crit you lose effects your healing. Regen on hit when your cloaking away is pointless.

Heavy works great with magicka nightblade saptanks.

Erondil

Light. At least 5-1-1 if you want to benefit from undaunted but 7 lights makes sense since it increases dampen strength by 12% which is really nice. On top of 6% reduce cost, 8% regen etc.And as you said because of dropped sets you dont always have the choice.

WarLord2905

I ran with the new set up last night, 2H, 5L all impen. The gear is only purple ATM but it was awesome, had plenty of damage, regen and was able to escape and survive a 3 man stamplar onslaught which I have never been able to do on my night blade and especially my sorc. Definitely the right call going 2 & 5 for my play style. Thanks for the feedback all

Nestor

I always run 2H/5L on my casters. I do the Legs and Chest in Heavy and mixing in light for everything else almost always works for any Racial Style, other than perhaps Redgaurd Heavy, at least at lower levels (subCP100 I guess now). As that Heavy Chest piece pretty much requires the Heavy Shoulders to look right.

Stoopid_Nwah

Ganking-I run 5L, 1H, 1M
Ranged/group build-probably just stick with a light armour setup
Solo non-gank/bombing- I found more success running 5H, 2L and using destro/resto...it allowed me to feel like I didn't have to cloak everywhere and could take on more opponents.

Going the heavy armour route is just a different playstyle. I'd say try it out and compare to see which matches your style best.

Mac10murda

Heavy if you want to die with no resources and light if you want to die with full resources

Torbschka

Mac10murda wrote: »

Heavy if you want to die with no resources and light if you want to die with full resources

Hahaha xD best

kaithuzar

I run a unique build different from everyone else: (everything golden, all impen except sash)
5 heavy 2 light, tristat food, atro mundus, vamp

head - elf bane
pants - elf bane - prismatic enchant
chest - elf bane - prismatic enchant
boots - elf bane
shoulder - kena
gloves - seducer
waist - worm cult
neck - worm cult (sp dmg enchant)
ring1 - worm cult (sp dmg enchant)
ring2 - worm cult (sp dmg enchant)
sword1 - worm cult - (sharpened)
sword2 - seducer - (sharpened)
resto staff - worm cult (defending)

bar1 - sap, lotus fan, impale, concealed, inner light

bar2 - cloak, immovable brute, swallow soul, resto bubble, prolonged suffering (morph of agony)

enjoy,
-Kai

Brutusmax1mus

Take immovable of that second bar and put cripple and just use potions.

kaithuzar

Potions won't account for 20% reduce cost to break free, try going up against a magicka dk that is spamming petrify on you.

I swap between typical spell damage + sp crit pots for increased burst & tri-pots for all stat recovery depending on the situation.
Immovable pots just aren't worth it because I have immovable. If I remove immovable it would be for magicka harness or siphoning attacks depending on who I'm fighting. ( obviously magicka harness for sorcs )

thankyourat

I run 7 light lol. I've tried heavy armor I didn't like it. It didn't pack enough punch for me. I think on a magblade it's best to use light armor and just use snares and misdirection to keep you alive.