Theorycrafting for Light Armor Magicka Nightblade - Homestead Update

HarpaxPT

Also besides running master staff, clench or reach better?

Tryxus

HarpaxPT wrote: »

What are your thoughts on master inferno staff for magblade with most builds use flamereach? Is it worth running over a set flame staff?

HarpaxPT wrote: »

Also besides running master staff, clench or reach better?

I run a Master's Ice staff most of the time for the Max Magicka bonus it gives, allowing me to stack it with Necropotence and/or the Magicka bonus from my monster set. You can choose what element you want to run tho, it's all personal preferrence.

I like Clench more than Reach, the extra effect from it is better than extra range

Whyn Aurum

Would like to share my current build and bars for 1vX NON-CP:

Am running 5 pc Spinner (front bar), 5 pc Alchemist (back bar) and 2 skoria. 5 heavy 2 light.
I used to run thief cause of the low crit chance of the build but I figured if I wanted to crit people I could just run a stygian/alchemist light armor build and burst people with 2-3 skills.

I run atronach and cost reduction enchants on jewerly. Sitting on about 1600+ regen on high elf in AZURA.

The build achieves 3k+ spell damage when i proc alchemist on the back bar.
It has 25k+ resistances with refreshing path up.
It has about 24k health (witchmother brew)
only 12% crit (very low yes, but high resource management.)
This is a setup mostly for longer fights and relying on skoria and enemies depleting their resources in order to kill them.

Bars:

inferno: reach, funnel health/swallow soul, degeneration, crippling grasp, elusive mist, ULT: bats

resto: siphoning attacks, healing ward, fear, refreshing path, merciless resolve, ULT: soul tether

Again, if you play Azura, this is the only build so far that has enabled me to feel somewhat relevant in 1vX PvP/small group. Obviously there are higher hitting builds with low survivability like stygian/alchemist but I guess it comes down to everyones preferrence.

zammo

Jitterbug wrote: »

...Same goes for Light's Champion. Aside from being insanely strong (1 BoL every second for 5 seconds, anyone?) it gives me major protection (30%) and crit damage (15%), and it only costs 100 ultimate O.o...

+1

We need to keep this quiet

SneaK

Whyn Aurum wrote: »

Would like to share my current build and bars for 1vX NON-CP:

Am running 5 pc Spinner (front bar), 5 pc Alchemist (back bar) and 2 skoria. 5 heavy 2 light.
I used to run thief cause of the low crit chance of the build but I figured if I wanted to crit people I could just run a stygian/alchemist light armor build and burst people with 2-3 skills.

I run atronach and cost reduction enchants on jewerly. Sitting on about 1600+ regen on high elf in AZURA.

The build achieves 3k+ spell damage when i proc alchemist on the back bar.
It has 25k+ resistances with refreshing path up.
It has about 24k health (witchmother brew)
only 12% crit (very low yes, but high resource management.)
This is a setup mostly for longer fights and relying on skoria and enemies depleting their resources in order to kill them.

Bars:

inferno: reach, funnel health/swallow soul, degeneration, crippling grasp, elusive mist, ULT: bats

resto: siphoning attacks, healing ward, fear, refreshing path, merciless resolve, ULT: soul tether

Again, if you play Azura, this is the only build so far that has enabled me to feel somewhat relevant in 1vX PvP/small group. Obviously there are higher hitting builds with low survivability like stygian/alchemist but I guess it comes down to everyones preferrence.

To take advantage of your Assassination Passives, you should move Merciless to your front bar, perhaps swap it for degeneration or mist. That should increase your crit..

SneaK

Your opinions on best race for LA caster Magblade?

Am leaning towards Dark Elf..

bubbygink

SneaK wrote: »

Your opinions on best race for LA caster Magblade?

Am leaning towards Dark Elf..

I think High Elf is best. More max magicka (albeit only 1%) and better recovery (even though our recovery is typically low the extra 9% still helps a lot). Dark Elves get 3% more flame damage but 2% less shock and frost damage. The thing is, on magblade nearly all of my damage is magic damage unaffected by these elemental differences. I use a flame staff so I suppose that would get 3% more damage on a dark elf. But I also use ice comet in my burst combo which would get 2% less. All in all though I don't think the elemental passives will really effect my constant damage at all - maybe half a percent or something because of my increased light attacks but this is nearly outweighed by the 1% more max magicka I get from High Elf anyway. So, to me, the 9% recovery is more useful than what I think is at best a nominal damage increase. That being said, Dark Elf and Breton are as perfectly acceptable - all three of those races will work just fine.

thankyourat

SneaK wrote: »

Your opinions on best race for LA caster Magblade?

Am leaning towards Dark Elf..

I play dark elf because recovery doesn't really stack well anymore. I play EP, and when I first got the game I didn't have any race any alliance lol. But I also sometimes flip to stamblade so the extra stamina is pretty nice. I think I'm at like 16k Stam if I use tri stat food. The flame resistance also helps you relieve some pressure from magdks and just flame damage in general (helps alot if you want to be vamp)

The benefits of Breton are also good because you will be alot more tanky because of the extra spell resistance. It won't hit as hard as high elf and dark elf though. I think all the magicka races work. I just prefer dark elf because it's better for PvE DPS while at the same time giving me stamina and flame resistance for PvP. If you want to use the destro ultimate the flange damage helps as well

SneaK

bubbygink wrote: »

I think High Elf is best. More max magicka (albeit only 1%) and better recovery (even though our recovery is typically low the extra 9% still helps a lot). Dark Elves get 3% more flame damage but 2% less shock and frost damage. The thing is, on magblade nearly all of my damage is magic damage unaffected by these elemental differences. I use a flame staff so I suppose that would get 3% more damage on a dark elf. But I also use ice comet in my burst combo which would get 2% less. All in all though I don't think the elemental passives will really effect my constant damage at all - maybe half a percent or something because of my increased light attacks but this is nearly outweighed by the 1% more max magicka I get from High Elf anyway. So, to me, the 9% recovery is more useful than what I think is at best a nominal damage increase. That being said, Dark Elf and Breton are as perfectly acceptable - all three of those races will work just fine.

thankyourat wrote: »

I play dark elf because recovery doesn't really stack well anymore. I play EP, and when I first got the game I didn't have any race any alliance lol. But I also sometimes flip to stamblade so the extra stamina is pretty nice. I think I'm at like 16k Stam if I use tri stat food. The flame resistance also helps you relieve some pressure from magdks and just flame damage in general (helps alot if you want to be vamp)

Yea, I suppose it's minimal. Going to make a Dark Elf, more flexible like rat said.

bubbygink

SneaK wrote: »

Yea, I suppose it's minimal. Going to make a Dark Elf, more flexible like rat said.

Yea Dark Elf is more flexible if you want to switch to stam or min/max for PvE. I just prefer High Elf for PvP but really you can't go wrong with any of the three main magicka races.

Jitterbug

Always go argonian.
In any facet of life.

SneaK

Jitterbug wrote: »

Always go argonian.
In any facet of life.

Actually made an Argonian NB first. Stopped at level 11 cause I hated looking at him, plus it was on EP.

Spidersnacks

I'm pretty new to the game and magblade pvp caught my eye immediately. Only thing is, just reading this thread it seems like there are so many armor sets to pick from. I'm only 160 cp so I feel like I'll be outclassed by the high cp players in cp campaigns. Are there any relatively easy to get sets/builds for non-cp campaigns for a solo/small scale player? High-trait crafted gear is sort of out of the question, but I'm fine with farming/grinding

Jitterbug

Spidersnacks wrote: »

I'm pretty new to the game and magblade pvp caught my eye immediately. Only thing is, just reading this thread it seems like there are so many armor sets to pick from. I'm only 160 cp so I feel like I'll be outclassed by the high cp players in cp campaigns. Are there any relatively easy to get sets/builds for non-cp campaigns for a solo/small scale player? High-trait crafted gear is sort of out of the question, but I'm fine with farming/grinding

If you want grind go for spinners I think.
Paired with Clever Alchemist on the back bar for potion procs it hits really hard.
That's the damage option.

I've personally found more success in a defensive option. I run Wyrd Tree back bar so cloak purges again and my front bar is Barahas Curse. It's a bit of a weird setup but I love it. Plus both sets can be farmed or bought cheapish.
An alternative to Bahraha could be transmutation or if you want damage go spinners or mothers Sorrow.

Lastly I'll recommend playing in the no cp campaigns until you find your footing, playstyle and setup.

Edit: if you are on PC eu I can craft you clever alchemist.

Spidersnacks

Decided to try 2 skoria/5 necro/5 clever. Seems to be working ok, though I'm running into people in azura's star that still take 0 damage from destro ult. Running infused necro staff because sharpened is way too expensive for me right now. I did get a sharpened inferno BSW staff a few weeks ago. Is BSW any good in pvp?

Sheuib

In my light armor builds I still use a heavy chest piece and one other heavy piece. I also use defensive weapons on the back bar. With this you get pretty decent resist.

bubbygink

Spidersnacks wrote: »

Decided to try 2 skoria/5 necro/5 clever. Seems to be working ok, though I'm running into people in azura's star that still take 0 damage from destro ult. Running infused necro staff because sharpened is way too expensive for me right now. I did get a sharpened inferno BSW staff a few weeks ago. Is BSW any good in pvp?

Burning spellweave is great in PvP - for destro/resto mag sorcs and for those light armor magblades using crushing shock it is BiS. So if you do use BSW on magblade you should use crushing shock instead of swallow soul so that you can have high BSW uptime. You just have to pay a bit more attention to your sustain (crushing shock is a lot more expensive than funnel) and be more careful with your health pool since you won't have the funnel HoT. 2 piece monster + 5 clever + 5 BSW will hit like an absolute truck.

TheBonesXXX

Currently running an Argonian Mageblade

2 blood spawn, 5 martial knowledge, 5 lich

dw/frost staff.

conceal, siphon weap, impale, crit cloak, lotus fan : soul harvest

annulment, assassin will, funnel, healing path, aoe siphon, : destro ult

probably gonna switch out for alchemists instead of martial knowledge, but my combos line up really nice and my heal bar is pretty damn sturdy for squishy turd build, I have a lich shield that I might swap out instead of duel wield and go sword and board with alchemist since ill still gain damage.

maybe ditch aoe siphon for fear and use spellpower/crit pots - put reduce alchemy on my jewelry

suggestions?

Spidersnacks

bubbygink wrote: »

Spidersnacks wrote: »

Decided to try 2 skoria/5 necro/5 clever. Seems to be working ok, though I'm running into people in azura's star that still take 0 damage from destro ult. Running infused necro staff because sharpened is way too expensive for me right now. I did get a sharpened inferno BSW staff a few weeks ago. Is BSW any good in pvp?

Burning spellweave is great in PvP - for destro/resto mag sorcs and for those light armor magblades using crushing shock it is BiS. So if you do use BSW on magblade you should use crushing shock instead of swallow soul so that you can have high BSW uptime. You just have to pay a bit more attention to your sustain (crushing shock is a lot more expensive than funnel) and be more careful with your health pool since you won't have the funnel HoT. 2 piece monster + 5 clever + 5 BSW will hit like an absolute truck.

Great. Shouldn't be too hard to farm since I have the staff already. What kind of bar set up should I have? And should I try to get a different monster set than skoria?

bubbygink

Spidersnacks wrote: »

Great. Shouldn't be too hard to farm since I have the staff already. What kind of bar set up should I have? And should I try to get a different monster set than skoria?

Yea the jewelry really isn't too hard to farm and then you'd just need one body piece as well. If you're in light armor I highly recommend pirate skelly, especially if you run solo or small groups. The 30% damage reduction is insane and the minor defile isn't a huge deal and would have even less of a negative effect on you since you're running crushing shock over funnel (whose heals would be slightly cut). If you use 2 pirate skelly + 5 clever + 5 BSW you'll have a great combo of defense and burst. When you're weapon's spell damage enchant is proced plus the burning spellweave proc plus the clever proc you're spell damage should be well over 4k. Yet the health from clever and defense from pirate skelly make you really tanky. Another good option could be 2 piece kena but this may strain your sustain too much as it will already be tougher for you to sustain with crushing shock over funnel. On that note I also highly recommend witchmothers potent brew. You just have to be real good with siphoning attacks to keep your stam topped off.

As for bar setup, magblade has a lot of good options in its toolkit and really depends on your style of play and the composition of your group. Make sure you have a destro ability on your front bar (I usually just put destro ult there for open world) along with crushing shock and merciless resolve. Another important thing to note is that since you're not using swallow soul you need to make sure you have a siphoning ability on your front bar for 8% max magicka. Cripple or Sap would both be good options. Definitely have healing ward and siphoning attacks on your resto bar. And make sure you have fear for open world. I also always make sure I have elusive mist on my bar for mobility. If you're in light make sure you have dampen as you'll need two shields. Other than that I think you can pick out what abilities you like - entropy, path, mark target, blur impale, and shade are all great abilities that I haven't yet mentioned.

Spidersnacks

bubbygink wrote: »

Spidersnacks wrote: »

Great. Shouldn't be too hard to farm since I have the staff already. What kind of bar set up should I have? And should I try to get a different monster set than skoria?

Yea the jewelry really isn't too hard to farm and then you'd just need one body piece as well. If you're in light armor I highly recommend pirate skelly, especially if you run solo or small groups. The 30% damage reduction is insane and the minor defile isn't a huge deal and would have even less of a negative effect on you since you're running crushing shock over funnel (whose heals would be slightly cut). If you use 2 pirate skelly + 5 clever + 5 BSW you'll have a great combo of defense and burst. When you're weapon's spell damage enchant is proced plus the burning spellweave proc plus the clever proc you're spell damage should be well over 4k. Yet the health from clever and defense from pirate skelly make you really tanky. Another good option could be 2 piece kena but this may strain your sustain too much as it will already be tougher for you to sustain with crushing shock over funnel. On that note I also highly recommend witchmothers potent brew. You just have to be real good with siphoning attacks to keep your stam topped off.

As for bar setup, magblade has a lot of good options in its toolkit and really depends on your style of play and the composition of your group. Make sure you have a destro ability on your front bar (I usually just put destro ult there for open world) along with crushing shock and merciless resolve. Another important thing to note is that since you're not using swallow soul you need to make sure you have a siphoning ability on your front bar for 8% max magicka. Cripple or Sap would both be good options. Definitely have healing ward and siphoning attacks on your resto bar. And make sure you have fear for open world. I also always make sure I have elusive mist on my bar for mobility. If you're in light make sure you have dampen as you'll need two shields. Other than that I think you can pick out what abilities you like - entropy, path, mark target, blur impale, and shade are all great abilities that I haven't yet mentioned.

Thank you. I'll try to farm up pirate skeleton then. Been trying skoria/bsw/clever but I'm terrible at pvp because it seems people are too tanky but can also burst me down super quick.

arkansas_ESO

I've had very good results with this build:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=12359

48.5% crit (50% if you swap Shadowrend for 1pc Iceheart), 3.2k spell damage with sets procced, 3.8k spell damage with everything procced, 5 heavy. Assassin's Will hits for anywhere from 13k to 20k, depending on the target's resists and how much impen they're running. I haven't pulled out the spreadsheets and minmaxed the build yet, either, so it could hit for higher.

One downside of this build is that you're relying on spell power pots for your Major Sorcery+Major Prophecy, which means you can't run immov or detect pots. They're also kinda expensive.

The basic concept behind this build (build for 45%+ crit chance with Shadow mundus for frequent, hard hitting crits) works for pretty much every class, magicka and stamina. I'm running a similar setup on stam NB right now and it's incredibly strong, and you can see somebody running a crit build on stam DK here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/333975/video-stamina-dragonleap-non-meta-1vx

Jitterbug

arkansas_ESO wrote: »

I've had very good results with this build:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=12359

48.5% crit (50% if you swap Shadowrend for 1pc Iceheart), 3.2k spell damage with sets procced, 3.8k spell damage with everything procced, 5 heavy. Assassin's Will hits for anywhere from 13k to 20k, depending on the target's resists and how much impen they're running. I haven't pulled out the spreadsheets and minmaxed the build yet, either, so it could hit for higher.

One downside of this build is that you're relying on spell power pots for your Major Sorcery+Major Prophecy, which means you can't run immov or detect pots. They're also kinda expensive.

The basic concept behind this build (build for 45%+ crit chance with Shadow mundus for frequent, hard hitting crits) works for pretty much every class, magicka and stamina. I'm running a similar setup on stam NB right now and it's incredibly strong, and you can see somebody running a crit build on stam DK here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/333975/video-stamina-dragonleap-non-meta-1vx

Very nice, thanks for sharing. I'm running crit mother for the same reasons... crit just seems like the most useful state in pvp right now. For damage anyway. I'm at 41% crit in heavy on azuras without major prophecy and it really opens up for some deadly combos.
Now, I dislike rng combat but in this case I'm willing to make an exception seeing as the rng is so steady, if that makes sense.
This will also put me at 72% in full light pve setup and this has proven to be the biggest boost to my scrubby DPS. (I'm really not that into pve, but it's fun with 70%+ crit :P

Subversus

How did I not see this thread earlier, magblade life

What I'm running as of last week is this following setup (I've been 1vXing in Cyro but mostly in IC as Cyro is no fun when I play):

2 infernal/pirate skeleton or 1 grothdarr 1 infernal (depending on what players are online)
5 necro body
3 ancient grace jewelry
Master's staff (still farming a fire staff, using lightning until then ) sharp with a double dot poison (or reduce cost, depending if I feel cunty or not)
Master's resto staff sharpened (would use defending if I had it )

2 reduce cost glyphs 1 regen, breton

Infused on big pieces, impen on small.

Witchmother's brew (or Mag/HP blue food, depending on if I want to max out on mag or am lazy and cba to sustain)

Bars
1: Impale, Crushing Shock/Strife (depending on what sets I use, if I use pirate skeleton I use shock if I don't I use strife), Merciless Resolve, Dampen Magic, Fear, Destro Ult
2: Syphoning attacks, Entropy, Healing ward, Elusive Mist, Shade, Soul Tether (or bats, but been using Tether lately)

I sometimes swap Mist with Cloak, put Double Take instead of Entropy and put Entropy on front bar instead of fear, as well as replace Crushing Shock with Destructive Reach.

The magicka pool is insane with this which makes the shields very nice. The regen is meh, though syphoning and the glyphs I use along with breton make this much easier.

bubbygink

Subversus wrote: »

The magicka pool is insane with this which makes the shields very nice. The regen is meh, though syphoning and the glyphs I use along with breton make this much easier.

@Subversus Cool setup! What is your max magicka with the 1 groth + 1 infernal setup? With inner light I imagine it has to be at least 55k magicka and over 50k even without. You'd have some insane dampen shields.

Subversus

@bubbygink you are correct, I get 55k without inner light, with blue food. Dampens are very big, especially since I put a lot of points into bastion haha! I really don't have any problems with the setup as it currently stands, though that will change next patch when they remove reduced cost CP and make sustaining a *** might end up replacing 1 monster piece, staves and ancient grace with seducer while keeping necro, which is a must for any magblade build imo.

Spidersnacks

Does anyone run a light armor gankblade? I've been trying things out but I'm not a fan of using mostly destruction staff skills and I feel like I'm missing out on playing stealthy class without actually using their stealth

arkansas_ESO

Spidersnacks wrote: »

Does anyone run a light armor gankblade? I've been trying things out but I'm not a fan of using mostly destruction staff skills and I feel like I'm missing out on playing stealthy class without actually using their stealth

5pc Stygian (Google Marloweath's Torment), 5pc Clever Alchemist, 2 1pc max magicka sets. Inferno heavy attack from stealth should hit for 15-19k+3k flame enchant, followed by 6k Swallow Soul.

Spidersnacks

arkansas_ESO wrote: »

Spidersnacks wrote: »

Does anyone run a light armor gankblade? I've been trying things out but I'm not a fan of using mostly destruction staff skills and I feel like I'm missing out on playing stealthy class without actually using their stealth

5pc Stygian (Google Marloweath's Torment), 5pc Clever Alchemist, 2 1pc max magicka sets. Inferno heavy attack from stealth should hit for 15-19k+3k flame enchant, followed by 6k Swallow Soul.

Will a non-sharpened stygian staff work? Both sharpened and precise are out of my budget right now.

arkansas_ESO

Spidersnacks wrote: »

arkansas_ESO wrote: »

Spidersnacks wrote: »

Does anyone run a light armor gankblade? I've been trying things out but I'm not a fan of using mostly destruction staff skills and I feel like I'm missing out on playing stealthy class without actually using their stealth

5pc Stygian (Google Marloweath's Torment), 5pc Clever Alchemist, 2 1pc max magicka sets. Inferno heavy attack from stealth should hit for 15-19k+3k flame enchant, followed by 6k Swallow Soul.

Will a non-sharpened stygian staff work? Both sharpened and precise are out of my budget right now.

You'd be better off running 2 Stygian body pieces, you'll lose 2% max magic from undaunted and 960 magic from not running a 1 pc but it's less of a damage loss than not running sharpened