Damage Disparity

fred4

I play a light armor magblade. As magblades go, my damage is pretty high. Some stats to put this into context (these are all unbuffed, no crouch):

Magicka: 40K
Health: 22K
Spell Damage: 2.1K
Spell Crit: 44%
Impen: 2K
Spell Resist: 15K
Physical Resist: 9.3K
Spell Penetration: 14K without Mark Target

Swallow Soul tootip: 8K
Soul Assault: 66K
Dampen Magic: 7.8K

I am full CP and have 48 points (15%) each in Bastion, Elemental Defender, and Hardy. Even though I use the shield a lot, not going full into Bastion feels better to me.

So this is fine; it's a build that relies heavily on stealth for defense, and I'm enjoying it. My question is, how do I deal - can I deal? - with builds that have still substantially higher damage than me. For example some stamblades. Here are some data points from a recent fight with one:

ME:
Light Attack: 1.25K (non-crit)
Fiery Weapon Enchant: 1.7K (non-crit)
Swallow Soul, non-crit: 3K (non-crit)
Swallow Soul, crit: 4.5K (crit)

HIM:
Viper's Sting: almost 4K
Ambush: 5.3K (crit)
Surprise Attack: 6K (non-crit, empowered from Ambush)
Surprise Attack: 7.5K (crit, unempowered)
Dawnbreaker, 1 DOT tick: 2.4K (crit)

Note, in particular, the difference between our spammables.

This type of fight feels entirely unfair, and I venture to say it's not because of their skill, but because of their build. Even though they can't crit my shields, they can rip through them in one second. If they get a Viper proc, a weapon enchant proc, a bleeding axe proc, a DOT tick, and throw in a light attack, they can do it for sure. This throws me. I might shield spam when I am focused by multiple players. I don't expect to do so against just one. If I am forced to shield spam, I might as well just run away. I have no time for attacking. More so, my counter-attacks aren't strong enough to put them under serious pressure, and they know that. In a straight up damage exchange, they win within 3 seconds.

Players who have this much damage are a problem to me. I have faced them in a tankier setup, wearing Vampire's Cloak (8% damage reduction) and using the Shade (15% damage reduction), yet the feeling of being overpowered remained. You might argue that such players likely have no sustain, but that counts for nothing when the damage differential is this high and the fight this short.

I am at odds whether to even try and do something about this. That is to say, I do not wish to change my build. I very much prefer high damage myself. I am neither tanky, nor do I have sorc-size shields. When I am uncloaked, I better deal high damage.

Do you find you have the same problem? What can I do, gameplay-wise, to deal with players like these?

Biro123

Do they have more damage - or just more mitigation (heavy armour vs your light?)

If they do have no sustain, then shield may be your answer until they start running low on stam - then you hit back

fred4

You tell me whether it's possible to have that much damage in heavy armor. I suspect not. I can tell you they used Viper and Velidreth. I hear you, but shielding is expensive. Shield spamming is usually a preamble for trying to get back into cloak, for me. It is not sustainable.

I typically run without the Shade and without Merciless Resolve, two finicky abilities that I personally hate. Instead I rely on passives by having a Siphoning, Destro, and Assassination ability on the bar, along with Inner Light. Not unlike this stamblade; after all his Surprise Attack hits extraordinarily hard. Most builds simply don't hit me anywhere near that hard.

When I switched from stam DK to magblade, shields felt very powerful. However, I think they have a ceiling. At the high-end, tankiness is achieved foremost via damage mitigation, as it probably should be. Shielding and healing both hit a ceiling earlier, in my experience (albeit I have not played magplar). I have the same problem with my medium armor stam DK, who relies on healing (and some inherent tankiness from DK / Nord) for defense. It's powerful, but it can be overwhelmed by people who run very high damage builds. They are vulnerable themselves, but their damage forces you so much on the defensive, your offense collapses and your healing or shields can't cope. I never properly learned how to deal with such builds. The advice I got from a stamblade, once, was to counter-attack. When you look at the damage differential, though, I don't think this is viable.

My stamina pool is 11.5K. I don't block. I was quickly disabused of that notion when I switched from stam DK to magblade. I shield and reserve my stamina for break free and the occasional tumble, which I can't help myself doing. Does anyone block on an Inferno staff magblade build? I tried ice staff, once, and quickly abandoned it again. The hit on the magicka pool was horrendous. It felt much worse than blocking with my stam DK.

fred4

Well, I just defeated this player in a straight-up fight. It was odd, since I basically just outshielded him (nearly died) and funneled him down. No Ulti, no Impale, no Merciless, nothing fancy. He didn't seem to have much healing. Perhaps shielding and eventual counter-attack really was the key. Piercing Mark was extremely helpful.

THEDKEXPERIENCE

You can totally get that much DPS in heavy armor. The key to that is to use Julianos heavy. Also, you need to look for stuff that multiplies. For example ... I have 3 mage guild abilities on my main DPS bar, 2 pieces of Willpower and a full set of Grace of the Ancients (4% bonus to magic). I also run 2 intentionally mismatched monster pieces for 2 one piece bonuses.

Put all of that together and my Magplar has 50,631 magic without Undaunted 9. You'll have to make a few sacrifices, I have a slightly lower crit chance than you and have about 1000 crit resist, but my Harness Magicka shield is around 9500 in PVP so it's not a big deal.

Also, and this is gonna sound weird, but you'll never reach your character's full potential if you're wearing a proc set.

Metemsycosis

You have the strategy right, imo. The stamblades that beat me one on one either gank or they out heal/mitigate my burst and then counter thereby keeping me strictly defensive. That's not good since I'm in light armor -- I have found the maim of mass hysteria really helps, because you know they're using fear. You can't afford to let them up another 15% damage on you. If you're a vampire elusive mist helps like crazy against dawnbreaker (but woe is you if you get cleanly hit by that ultimate ). Yes funnel health is pivotal. If you're consistent its hot should almost always pull you from execute range and it's still inexpensive and doesn't require melee range.

fred4

Thanks for that information, DK. I've been looking for a set other than Necropotence to boost my magicka, and completely overlooked Grace of the Ancients.

I am pretty much married to Skooma Smuggler on the off bar, since I love the semi-permanent speed buff. I run an odd build using destro / 2H in order to use Forward Momentum. This means I am pretty much married to Troll King to fill in for a lack of Healing Ward. I don't want to be a vampire for role-playing reasons. I've tried all manner of overland sets for the main set, including Spinner's (which I currently use), Vampire's Cloak (good, more defensive) and Necropotence (possibly best, but requires Shade).

Minno

fred4 wrote: »

Thanks for that information, DK. I've been looking for a set other than Necropotence to boost my magicka, and completely overlooked Grace of the Ancients.

I am pretty much married to Skooma Smuggler on the off bar, since I love the semi-permanent speed buff. I run an odd build using destro / 2H in order to use Forward Momentum. This means I am pretty much married to Troll King to fill in for a lack of Healing Ward. I don't want to be a vampire for role-playing reasons. I've tried all manner of overland sets for the main set, including Spinner's (which I currently use), Vampire's Cloak (good, more defensive) and Necropotence (possibly best, but requires Shade).

As a Templar also running skooma, I officially welcome you to the "non-stam/non-vamp" mobility club! Right now it's just us 2 members(so far that I know), but you have already learned how addictive that cheap speed boost is!

Sadly light armor is still a pain in the butt, especially against penetration sources. But if you use that shield, use a cheap cyro health immunity pot, and kite most players, you will be in a good place regardless of armor.

fred4

Yay ! I love that set. I also tried Wyrd on the off bar. Theoretically that's nice to purge as you cloak, but I love Skooma more. Speed is normally only available with stam-centric potions. I use Detection / Magicka / Immov or Spell Power potions. Detection mixes REALLY nicely with the speed buff while you survey an area in cloak.

Minno

fred4 wrote: »

Yay ! I love that set. I also tried Wyrd on the off bar. Theoretically that's nice to purge as you cloak, but I love Skooma more. Speed is normally only available with stam-centric potions. I use Detection / Magicka / Immov or Spell Power potions. Detection mixes REALLY nicely with the speed buff while you survey an area in cloak.

Yup! And theoretically you can pair windrunner passives to Sprint more reliably because under how unrestricted you are with the major expedition buff. Need a free 10% boost to mag Regen? Just Sprint for a second. Though it's not for most builds.

There's other non DMG sets one can pair with smugglers, but you need reliable burst combos to work with those.

THEDKEXPERIENCE

Rapid Manuevers is actually my only stamina ability and it takes 7 of my 9k stamina to cast. Haha. I do have Windrunner active though so I'm probably in the 99th Templar speed percentile.

They really do make it hard on us that want to be fast. Even with a perfect mount I always feel like I'm running in quicksand without rapids.

aLi3nZ

You Should be Running these skills below.

You can burst players down like this:put down down refreshing path, throwing out a swallow soul, light attack bwtween use of any skill using, flameclemch to knock them over then assaisins will then ultimate while they are laying helpless on the ground. You should find thst burst on par with stam nightblade.

You should also put on healing ward then slapping on harness magika over the top when you are hit with this kind of damage.

Inferno staff master or vma sharpened or defending if you want to be more tank, flame clench harness magika, dark cloak, double take, assaisins will or mercillice resolve, swallow

Healing ward, refreshing path, spell power pots, mage light, soul tether or soul harvest

davey1107

I run a stamblade. The damage listed for your oppoent actually doesn't seem that high. I'm not maxing with super hard sets or anything, and I could get above that output. The stamblades specialty is single target dps...they'll always outshine you. What I fear from a magblade is them stacking too Many AOEs amdmusing fear to snare me. If they can keep me out of stealth they have a shot. Grothdar can lead to my death. A well-timed destro ultimate.

But more than abilities, the only magblades that give me trouble are players who know how to play like nightblades. Any nightblade who comes at me face to face like they're a DK or Templar is going to die. But if they are constantly disappearing, getting in a shot, disappearing, and moving all the heck over the place...then they have a shot.

fred4

aLi3nZ, you are describing a fairly meta approach. Those are some fairly specific recommendations - your playstyle, I'm guessing - that make it sound like that's the only way to go. Nope. It's not for me. I deliberately gave up the resto staff for access to Forward Momentum, which I prefer. I'm not using Merciless, because I find it too finicky and no fun. The last time I put it on the bar, in place of Impale, I immediately regretted it.

Besides, my point was not really about burst, but the large disparity between our spammables. I have since run into a different stamblade who was both tankier and hit even harder. My Swallow Soul = 2.8K (I'm guessing 4K crit), his Surprise Attack 8.2K crit, unempowered. That is fairly crazy to me. This is not an ult. It's not a telegraphed, now and then, Merciless proc. It's his spammable! On the other hand - and I'm totally going to contradict myself now - this stamblade was not wearing proc sets and felt less of a threat overall. I guess I'll stop complaining and complain about proc sets instead, like everyone else .

The biggest difference to my success over the last couple of days has been the use of Immov pots from the get go. This means I don't have Major Sorcery anymore. I guess that goes to show damage isn't everything.

davey1107, I agree with you and, oddly, I find your general comments more helpful. They are reinforcing what I had begun to do anyway, weaving in and out of cloak. We don't have sorc-size shields, nor DK tankiness. Although some NBs spec more for health and mitigation (Kena), I quite like my squishy build. I don't use AOE to knock you out of stealth, but Detect pots and Piercing Mark.

As long as I can outshield someone, while not backed into outright spamming, that's a facility stam builds don't have and their higher damage is fine, I guess. I mean, that's exactly how the game was designed, right? It's when you meet your anti-build, that's when I have a problen. It might be that the other player simply has you sussed, but you're sometimes left wondering whether there is a general balance issue.

aLi3nZ

I main a sorc, my secondary toon is mageblade. This burst fighting style on mage blade is extremely fun once you get the hang of it. Problem is, you have to be very fast and it requires more skill then mage sorc imo. I didn't like assaisins will at first as well but seeing how it can do 15k crit hits, it's basically an ultimate ability waiting for you to get the timing right to utilize properly. It's very good in pvp.

Placing down refreshing path and throwing out swallow soul then chucking on a damage shield will make you appear very tanky due to strong heals over time. You can cloak out of sticky situation, then setup your hots and prepare your massive burst. All the best mage blades do this from what I have seen in pvp and duels. FRIGHT aka Kena I think is one of the best I have fought. Lasted like 15 mins and was very close. Only because I was wearing pirate skelly on my sorc.With the right gear it's very possible to match and beat stam blades.

Brutusmax1mus

What's your​ assassin's will hit for? That's how you out burst someone. I can plan on a huge chunk of damage with a heavy and AW proc going off. 2.1k spell damage buffed is very low if you're trying to build for damage. You should be around 2.6k of you want to out damage a stam blade built for damage.

Tulach

Not to sound harsh but you are built like a RPr. There is no way you are going to survive in PVP against real opponents if you have the mindset that you cant do something because you dont like how it feels or looks. Fix your gear sets, practice your rotations, and pick your fights wisely. You shouldnt need any defense at all with a magblade if you do it right. If your opponent is living for more then 4 seconds you are doing it wrong. If they dont die within 4 seconds cloak out, reset the fight and try again. At no time should you be thinking about how big your shields are or, how tanky you are or using something like soul swallow.

You are using a mindset of standing still and building for sustain then wonder why you cant kill anyone in pvp. You are using a tank mentality wearing mismatched ganker dps gear; paired with tanking skills.

How can you even compare swallow soul with surprise attack? How about you compare it to the same skill like concealed weapon instead of a skill that heals you as well as does dps. I find your post and complaints actually offensive. Im not here to tell you what to play or what to do, but please do not come here to complain that you cant wear anything you want while roleplaying and role your face on your keyboard to have everyone you see in pvp die instantly because you are a magblade.

fred4

Tulach, good God, did that make you feel better?

Brutusmax, like I said, those are unbuffed stats.

Rikkof

NB one shoting from stealth otehr players has got to be removed from game, asap
this is not pvp, this is a sad joke

Xvorg

Rikkof wrote: »

NB one shoting from stealth otehr players has got to be removed from game, asap
this is not pvp, this is a sad joke

What about DK one shoting ?