MagBlade Theorycrafting Changes Thread

GhostofDatthaw

You could... I've been thinking about using moon Hunter alot and you could tie it into a build like that. You roll, heavy, procs, poison, procs, damage buff, bow. Thing is timing it all. It all comes down to actually trying it

Iskiab

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

You could... I've been thinking about using moon Hunter alot and you could tie it into a build like that. You roll, heavy, procs, poison, procs, damage buff, bow. Thing is timing it all. It all comes down to actually trying it

Pelinal + bright throat 2h onslaught 5m - 2L with all weapon damage glyphs is actually a good build but I’ve only tried it in no-CP. In CP magicka gets a boost in performance so there are better options I think. I was just going for stupid high damage numbers in no-CP.

fred4

Iskiab wrote: »

I was thinking a setup similar to fred’s with RAT, healing ward or harness magicka and Shadowy Disguise might work well.

No more Dampen for me, only Healing Ward with Blackrose resto. I don't miss it. My bars are also re-arranged from the last UESP build I posted. I am now playing around with foods: Bear Haunch, as it's so much more stat-dense than Fisheye Rye. 1.4K stam regen with Amber Plasm in CP, 1.1K health regen. My max stats are complete crap, but it works for me. Changing the bar setup was golden. I had to give up some speed. I'm not sure about that yet. It feels objectively better having the higher health and health regen, better for brawling, but I love top speed and sustain.

I am conscious of having to watch other players better and about my movement. Trying to move into and through other players more as it seems a better way of avoiding attacks than trying to outrange them at times.

Iskiab

I should probably try heavy again for a higher health pool, but I’m finding crit good. With CPs stats are higher and you get the crit and crit modifier bonus. It allows you to devote a set to crit and with the shadow mundus you get nasty crits. Issue is moreso the sustain and defense you need as a magblade to be effective. Iceheart helps a bit but it’s honestly better on a class with less sustain issues, even with the extra crit mod from being a NB.

I managed to whack someone with an 18k onslaught doing something similar with stam plus onslaught. Impregnable armour is less popular and with the shadow mundus you can still get a 50% plus crit modifier against builds with 3k crit resists.

fred4

Build update for what it's worth:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=183610

I don't pay much attention to high tooltips. Even though ostensibly a ganker, I prefer attrition-based gameplay. That is where Zaan comes in. Caluurion on it's own only kills noobs and AFK players. It can't crit.

Since procs can't crit and my tooltips are so low, I never paid much attention to the high crit of my build. Shadow Mundus might be an option at the cost of yet more speed. You're giving me ideas, but I already know I'll hate the lack of speed.

Instead of Inner Light one could do the Kristofer ESO thing and slot Camouflaged Hunter for the Minor Berserk from a flanking attack.

GhostofDatthaw

Iskiab wrote: »

I should probably try heavy again for a higher health pool, but I’m finding crit good. With CPs stats are higher and you get the crit and crit modifier bonus. It allows you to devote a set to crit and with the shadow mundus you get nasty crits. Issue is moreso the sustain and defense you need as a magblade to be effective. Iceheart helps a bit but it’s honestly better on a class with less sustain issues, even with the extra crit mod from being a NB.

I managed to whack someone with an 18k onslaught doing something similar with stam plus onslaught. Impregnable armour is less popular and with the shadow mundus you can still get a 50% plus crit modifier against builds with 3k crit resists.

I've tried some onslaught builds and they work alright. It's just a little awkward what you do before and after the onslaught. So how do you play it, are you melee with concealed spam? Or are you playing a skirmish style with swallow on resto bar building mercy stacks. The pen is nice but you have to have a bow up or something to follow up big and hope the opponent doesn't just roll twice or w/e till the duration ends

GhostofDatthaw

I'll say this though, dark cloak is absolutely pathetic. Now that I have level up some skill lines on my wood elf and made him the Regen build I took my argonian and went the other route light armor shield dark cloak. OMG. In bgs it was ticking for 750....7...5...0. like that's a total joke even with the 8% mit.

casparian

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

put it on friggin double take because they don't want to give a class a maj exp snare removal and lose profit from psijic

Sorc says hello.

Metemsycosis wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Quick question, has anyone tried the vampiric drain? I’ve never tried it but building around it as your stun and heal could be decent.

Its stun isnt reliable and the damage is negligible but the heal works with the rest of the kit.

When was the last time you used Vamp Drain? It ticks very hard nowadays.

GhostofDatthaw

We speak American round here

casparian

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

We speak American round here

Hush or I'll Beschleunigend your Entzug

GhostofDatthaw

Question did he animation cancel it or did he have to let it channel

I remember using it for the stun and animation cancel it in lowbie when I had no other options

casparian

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

Question did he animation cancel it or did he have to let it channel

I remember using it for the stun and animation cancel it in lowbie when I had no other options

It's not my screenshot, just what someone posted in a discord. It looks like the 13k one is from multiple ticks.

Maulkin

casparian wrote: »

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

put it on friggin double take because they don't want to give a class a maj exp snare removal and lose profit from psijic

Sorc says hello.

Sorc will not have Major Exp and Snare Removal on the same skill either. You will need two skills, Ball of Lightning and Boundless Storm, same as MagBlade.

Iskiab

casparian wrote: »

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

Question did he animation cancel it or did he have to let it channel

I remember using it for the stun and animation cancel it in lowbie when I had no other options

It's not my screenshot, just what someone posted in a discord. It looks like the 13k one is from multiple ticks.

Yea, 5 ticks. A build designed to work on someone’s stamina could be interesting. It looks like if someone can’t break free each tick in that situation would hit for 2.4k.

So keep trying it and cancel the channel until they’re out of stamina.

Kaysha

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

We speak American round here

What language is "American"?

Iskiab

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

I should probably try heavy again for a higher health pool, but I’m finding crit good. With CPs stats are higher and you get the crit and crit modifier bonus. It allows you to devote a set to crit and with the shadow mundus you get nasty crits. Issue is moreso the sustain and defense you need as a magblade to be effective. Iceheart helps a bit but it’s honestly better on a class with less sustain issues, even with the extra crit mod from being a NB.

I managed to whack someone with an 18k onslaught doing something similar with stam plus onslaught. Impregnable armour is less popular and with the shadow mundus you can still get a 50% plus crit modifier against builds with 3k crit resists.

I've tried some onslaught builds and they work alright. It's just a little awkward what you do before and after the onslaught. So how do you play it, are you melee with concealed spam? Or are you playing a skirmish style with swallow on resto bar building mercy stacks. The pen is nice but you have to have a bow up or something to follow up big and hope the opponent doesn't just roll twice or w/e till the duration ends

Sorry, didn't see your question. I open with onslaught, need to make sure it lands or the lack of pen will really suck.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=166272

Hasn't been fine tuned, bright throat lets me hit the regen/etc.. targets I want but it's nice to use shalks for ult gen. 2 hander gives nice stats; balorg is better for ganking, iceheart is better for defense, take your pick. I'm also noob at magblade dps, I usually heal, this was an alt project. Wood elf might actually work better in a build that's designed to pvp and not gank with iceheart.

Balorg in the editor looks good but you know, unless you're used to low defense (which I am not) it's squishy. No-CP 10k concealed weapon tooltips is neat though.

P.S - I also hate low recovery builds, I think I switched to the atro mundus. Some other options are leeching strikes instead of Siphoning on the front bar, and drop Ele weapon if you don’t like it for cloak... but I like: Ele - lotus - LA - concealed

HowlKimchi

I'm back after a 5 day trip and I've been craving some magblade gameplayyyyyyyyyyy. I wonder how the meta has changed within those 5 days?

Pijng

CP distribution request

Hey guys, I've been playing no-cp for my whole eso "career". But a few days back I was signed up for some duel tournament and realised I don't have a clue on how to distribute my cps for pvp and especially for duels.

I'm running this build rn and I'll definitely use it on duels – https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=180530

Can I ask for help? Despite it would be perfect to get help for the whole distribution (don't get your hopes up), it'd be awesome to receive some hints/general advices as well so I can start with something rather than a blank sheet.

Thanks in advance

Iskiab

Pijng wrote: »

CP distribution request

Hey guys, I've been playing no-cp for my whole eso "career". But a few days back I was signed up for some duel tournament and realised I don't have a clue on how to distribute my cps for pvp and especially for duels.

I'm running this build rn and I'll definitely use it on duels – https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=180530

Can I ask for help? Despite it would be perfect to get help for the whole distribution (don't get your hopes up), it'd be awesome to receive some hints/general advices as well so I can start with something rather than a blank sheet.

Thanks in advance

Well, I’m not a dueling expert or anything but I played a lot of no-CP pvp and switched to CP. Here are some differences I noticed:
- Crit builds are more of a thing in CP land. There are crit boosts in the CP trees that help people’s crit rate and you can get really high crit modifiers
- Burst damage and healing is a lot higher. Where in no-CP getting an 18k dizzy is way on the high end, I’ve been hit by 17k synergies in CP land
- Cost of break free, dodge rolling and blocking CPs really help those kind of builds. Sustain is much higher helping sustain resources too.

I’m not a dueler so can’t help much but I’d say:
- 3k crit resists min
- Lots of points into reducing direct damage
- Split evenly between physical, magical and dots
- Lots of points into reducing the cost of break free and your favourite defensive move block or dodge roll

As a guess most of the dot specs will be out early except Templars. Expect lots of dizzy spammers with onslaught and Templars using BRP resto back bar, jabs and dots.

HowlKimchi

Pijng wrote: »

CP distribution request

Hey guys, I've been playing no-cp for my whole eso "career". But a few days back I was signed up for some duel tournament and realised I don't have a clue on how to distribute my cps for pvp and especially for duels.

I'm running this build rn and I'll definitely use it on duels – https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=180530

Can I ask for help? Despite it would be perfect to get help for the whole distribution (don't get your hopes up), it'd be awesome to receive some hints/general advices as well so I can start with something rather than a blank sheet.

Thanks in advance

I'd replace the monster set with an offensive one. I'd also use willpower front bar since lich procs even just on the backbar. Also, always alot CP such that they are closest to full numbers. CPs get round down so 19.89% is the same as 19%.


As for the CPs get around 2.8k crit resist, around 40 thick skinned and Ironclad, around 32 hardy and ele def. Expert Defender as well

Master at arms aim for 64 or greater, staff expertin the 30s, 7 in blessed, get around 40 to 60s of elfborn, ele expert, and spell erosion,

Get befouled to as high as you can while having decent spread for magicka recovery. best way to help with stam management as a mag toon is not with stam recovery CP but with cost reduction CPs of breakfree (gonna do this a lot in duels put in a lot), roll dodge, and block.


As a general tip, CPs have diminishing returns (pumping 100 points into one stat is almost never worth it), so a good idea to get a feel for your CP allotment is to spread them around the 30 to 70 range.

GhostofDatthaw

Idk about that build man, I haven't dueled seriously in like over a year but you are going to be up against alot of Templars and dks. Imo you should run btb and necro or spinners with bs monster, you are going to need a shield, and hots to deal with the dots. Btb just because the stam, and then clever alch is a good damage set but I personally don't like it, I would suggest swapping it. You need light armor for the shield the and the pen otherwise these serious duel builds will melt you, and you will not dent them. The thing about magnb dueling is control the fight, once they gain control you lost. Keep you shade up and kite kite kite. I would also drop the fear for clench because it is better in duels imo and allows for nice ranged bow lands.

fred4

Pijng wrote: »

CP distribution request

Hey guys, I've been playing no-cp for my whole eso "career". But a few days back I was signed up for some duel tournament and realised I don't have a clue on how to distribute my cps for pvp and especially for duels.

I'm running this build rn and I'll definitely use it on duels – https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=180530

Can I ask for help? Despite it would be perfect to get help for the whole distribution (don't get your hopes up), it'd be awesome to receive some hints/general advices as well so I can start with something rather than a blank sheet.

Thanks in advance

I play open world CP. By all means take a look at my current build:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=183610

(1) Read up on CP jump points. It's not enough to know that they are rounded down. Look up the exact tables at an established site, such as Alcast's.

(2) I concur on 3K Impen, or close to it. You get there with Impenetrable gear traits + Resistant CP in the Steed tree. I tend to always run 66 Ironclad against burst, such as Dizzy, plus 54 Resistant. This gets you to 3K Impen and unlocks the last passive in that tree, the little block shield, which would incidentally stack with the Psijic block shield, if you were using that.

(3) Avoid Medium / Light / Heavy Armor Focus and Spell Shield. Those CP are inefficient. In general I only put leftover points into those. They DO become somewhat more efficient when you run a higher resistance build, e.g. a heavy armor build, such as yourself. Still I wouldn't put more than about 10 points into Heavy Armor Focus and Spell Shield. I did the math on that once. Also, with Onslaught prevalence, you are arguably better off focusing on Hardy / Ele Defender and leaving Armor Focus and Spell Shield at zero.

(4) Seeing as you don't run shields, you can avoid Bastion and go heavier into the Lady tree than me. The reason Hardy and Elemental Defender are unbalanced in my build is because I am a Breton. In your case, keep them balanced. Possibly as much as 49 Hardy, 49 Ele Defender and 40 Thick Skinned. I get away with less Thick Skinned, since Shadowy suppresses DOTs.

(5) Befoul is important when using Soul Harvest. I put 39. You have to check at what points this actually bumps up the Soul Harvest Major Defile tooltip, so this is about more than checking general CP jump points, but also Soul Harvest Defile jump points.

(6) The reason I go so heavily into the Lover tree is that I like the Windrunning passive. As a heavy armor build with no stamina and health regen to speak of, I would NOT aim for that. Leave Mooncalf and Healthy at zero, but invest decently, maybe 56 points, into Arcanist, and some - maybe 19 - into Tenacity.

(7) 56 into Warlord, 56 into Shadow Ward as a heavy armor build. The split between Shadow Ward (blocking) and Tumbling (dodge rolling) really depends on your playstyle, though. With your low stam regen, I'd favor blocking over dodge rolling. The rest of the green trees is up to you.

(8) The main mag-build damage tree is the Apprentice. Ele Expert 49 and Elfborn 56 is pretty standard for me. This stacks with the 66 from Master-at-Arms in the Atro tree. You want to push that to 66 to get the most out of Assassin's Will. With just one DOT, Thaumaturge is probably OK at 40, like me. Spell Erosion could be pushed a little higher than me. In theory, the math says the points can be pretty evenly spread between Ele Expert, Master-at-Arms and Spell Erosion for best results. With your low crit, you can afford to take points out of Elfborn and spread them elsewhere, compared to me.

(9) Some people pay attention to the Tactician and Exploiter passives. Perhaps not so much Tactician, but Exploiter on a mag build. This would fit in with a build that had more DOTs and some way to proc off balance.

Pijng

Jeez, thanks a lot to you guys. I'll try this out, hope I'll find my golden spot.

HowlKimchi

Pijng wrote: »

Jeez, thanks a lot to you guys. I'll try this out, hope I'll find my golden spot.

Don't stress too much about it though. As long as the spread is decent, go ahead and duel/play/practice. CPs don't make a great player.

HowlKimchi

Love the buff grim focus is gonna get. The removal of the travel time makes it so much easier to hit after fear. Lots of people gonna complain about this in the future I bet.

I'll take it and keep using it until the skill gets nerfed again lol

GhostofDatthaw

Yeah it's a nice buff. Already has a flame thread in pts

fred4

HaruKamui wrote: »

Pijng wrote: »

Jeez, thanks a lot to you guys. I'll try this out, hope I'll find my golden spot.

Don't stress too much about it though. As long as the spread is decent, go ahead and duel/play/practice. CPs don't make a great player.

Yes and no. I play the same character on PC NA as on PC EU. On EU I am CP810+. Templar Jabs have crit me for 2.1K, maybe 2.2K at the most. On PC NA I was around CP350 when Jabs crit me for 2.9K in one case. I have NEVER been hit for anywhere near that high on PC EU. That's one hell of a difference. Same gear, same build. The only difference was CP.

Also: Ever played in no CP IC and soloed some of the bosses there? Big, big difference. Imperial Physique + something like Fortified Brass is almost a must. Sure, if you are really good at PvE you can probably still nuke them efficiently, but in order to feel the same level of comfort as in squishy gear, in CP, you have to go quite tanky and high-stat in no CP.

I cannot say what happens when you don't know much about CP and do them only roughly right. I can tell you that CP make a big, big difference compared to using none at all or only having half CP. Extreme mistakes, like sinking all red CP into Heavy Armor Focus and Spell Shield, would also be disastrous.

You are correct that gameplay is most important, however I have looked at enough combat logs to know that in a direct 1v1, were you not leaning on Cloak and Shade, other classes can have a huge damage and defense advantage over magblade. I hit a stamplar for 5K Caluu + 2.4K Soul Harvest. That's my burst. He hits me with 1.5K per individual jab, 2K when they crit. As a melee magblade, that's an impossible fight. Add a Burning Light proc and his spammable is the same as my burst.

The game is hugely imbalanced in specific matchups. IMO Pijng was correct to ask.

Some further examples. I struggled to complete vMA on my low CP NA character. It took some experiments before I settled on Julianos + Bright Throat + 2x resistance monster pieces (Pirate + Lord Warden). The extra resistance, combined with 2x damage sets clinched it. It flipped the last round from being forced into defense and losing into being able to stay on offense and winning. I have long observed the same in PvP. There comes a point, if you push and push and push for damage (which you must) where your offensive window shrinks to nothing and your effectiveness collapses. The better you understand CP, the more can you take your character to the point just before that happens.

Khyleo has a duelling tournament video on YouTube that I watched some time ago. He had ruled out a huge amount of skills he deemed unbalanced. A nightblade dominated the early rounds until it ran into the mag DK who won the tournament. The power-shift was very palpable. This had nothing to do with l2p. The nightblade did everything it could, including relentless use of the shade, which it had to, as it was forced into defense by the better offensive / defensive ratio of the DK in that matchup. IMO you need all the edge you can get, because you will run into builds that utterly outclass you in specific 1v1s. I can't remember whether this was before or after the wings change. I have a feeling wings were banned and the DK still thrashed the NB.

Iskiab

Those dueling tournaments are actually a good tutorial. The rules that is, basicly look at what’s barred from duels and use those in solo play outside duels. Profit.

HowlKimchi

fred4 wrote: »

HaruKamui wrote: »

Pijng wrote: »

Jeez, thanks a lot to you guys. I'll try this out, hope I'll find my golden spot.

Don't stress too much about it though. As long as the spread is decent, go ahead and duel/play/practice. CPs don't make a great player.

Yes and no. I play the same character on PC NA as on PC EU. On EU I am CP810+. Templar Jabs have crit me for 2.1K, maybe 2.2K at the most. On PC NA I was around CP350 when Jabs crit me for 2.9K in one case. I have NEVER been hit for anywhere near that high on PC EU. That's one hell of a difference. Same gear, same build. The only difference was CP.

I didnt mean that CPs didnt matter. I said, as long as the CP spread is okay, you'll do fine as long as you practice your character.

Never did I say that a CP 300 is not at a disadvantage against a CP810, check my comment again xD

fred4

HaruKamui wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

HaruKamui wrote: »

Pijng wrote: »

Jeez, thanks a lot to you guys. I'll try this out, hope I'll find my golden spot.

Don't stress too much about it though. As long as the spread is decent, go ahead and duel/play/practice. CPs don't make a great player.

Yes and no. I play the same character on PC NA as on PC EU. On EU I am CP810+. Templar Jabs have crit me for 2.1K, maybe 2.2K at the most. On PC NA I was around CP350 when Jabs crit me for 2.9K in one case. I have NEVER been hit for anywhere near that high on PC EU. That's one hell of a difference. Same gear, same build. The only difference was CP.

I didnt mean that CPs didnt matter. I said, as long as the CP spread is okay, you'll do fine as long as you practice your character.

Never did I say that a CP 300 is not at a disadvantage against a CP810, check my comment again xD

Sorry, I knew you'd say that and you are right. I used your post as a springboard to go off on various tangents and, in doing so, I misrepresented what you said. Sorry.

That said, I do think practice / experience / gameplay is equally important to overall buildcraft (of which CP is a part) or maybe 60% practice, 40% buildcraft. When a noob hits me like a wet noodle, it's often the case that they can't string together a proper burst. On the other hand I also notice a huge variation, from player to player, in the damage numbers of individual attacks that I take from them and that I dish out to them. It's to the point where I sometimes don't know how people do it, when I look at combat logs. Some are flat out tanky, no healing, no blocking, yet they dish out huge damage. No I'm not talking about Corrosive Armor or Onslaught. I'd recognise that. It could simply be Fury, but all in all I am convinced there are still things I don't know about. Possibly bugs and exploits, like allocating your CP in a certain order, and so on.

I CAN pass on the things I do know about. I terms of CP I would particularly stress staying away from the Armor Focus and Spell Shield points, certainly while Onslaught and Corrosive are in common use. The Exploiter passive is another one of those quite strong things that some people integrate into their playstyles.