Why do people think magblade is bad?

OBJnoob

Okay so this might come off as more of a rant or me sharing my build but… please keep in mind, I just want to know why people say magblade is bad.

I’ve never been a good nightblade… let me start there. Tried stam and mag before… just utter crap at it. Always feels like you’re revealed when you’re trying to invis… always taking way too much damage… somehow not doing enough damage even though I’ve sold out hard for it?? But so like two weeks ago I’m bored because all my good characters are stam and I’ve been playing the same stamdk for like two campaigns in a row. Blarg. So I go outside to do… something that helps me think -cough- and I’m thinking. I’m thinking man, magdks are insanely OP right now. Why is that? I don’t like being 100% meta I like being 75% meta… what can I do to emulate this on another class?

‘This’ being the combustion passive. Insane resource restore that lets you just completely neglect sustain and still thrive. Long story short (you wish,) I figured I could do it with a magblade. A heavy armor, stage 3 vamp magblade. Siphoning strikes and the passive ability ‘reave’ for having incapacitating strike ultimate slotted which restores like 100 mag and stam every time I land a light attack.

Add to that the constitution passive, being a high elf, some minor magicka steal… anyway. My magblade walks around no cp cyrodiil with less than 1k mag and stam recovery. Seriously like 800 and 700 I don’t even know they don’t exist. I do use a reduce cost glyph. The recovery is there it’s just built right in people choose not to use it.

Anyway depending on the exact sets, traits, weapons you can get from between 6 to 7k weapon damage and that’s probably not fully including 5 full weapon damage stacks of merciless. Wearing sets like rattle cage, black rose, shalks… like really mid level niche stuff honestly but it’s butter.

I don’t use invis on him I use dark cloak. I use a resto staff. You can’t tell me magblade has bad healing. You can’t tell me they have bad defense. You get your major buff just for using abilities you’d already be using. Built in minor protection… people build right away from it… bonuses to healing done, an excellent multi target defensive stun. Dark cloak, vigor, regen, and healthy offering is a LOT of heals.

The only problem, I repeat, the only problem is that people can dodge basically all of my attacks. Which is fair because otherwise they wouldn’t have a chance. And I can sustain and heal forever and they’ll eventually make a mistake. It’s just… a good class. And I don’t know why when I read other threads even if it’s not about nightblades somebody mentions magblades in particular need a lot of help.

Someone explain that to me. Could it be that only one style of magblade is kinda hurting right now and going invisible just isn’t worth it??

geonsocal

variety is the spice of life...the possibilities with a magblade build can be really fun, and serve different roles within cyrodiil...

i personally like the whole never have to die if you don't want to aspect of the magblade...you can mess with folks hard like that, both small scale and larger battles...

the only tough point at times is ending up the only one left at losing siege battles and having to ride away somewhere else...

Udrath

I think it’s because people dislike using spectral bow and the class involves a lot of weaving. I main magblade and it took me a while to understand I need to be shooting it as soon as possible, unless I’m planning to burst someone I can’t kill through sustained damage. Some people will sit on spectral bow every soul harvest or so long they have to recast it - 40 seconds and they’ve shot maybe 1.

I wish you didn’t have to cast merciless focus twice to use it. It should become useable after 5 light attacks, not cast it then do 5 light attacks/heavies

xDeusEJRx

Nightblade has gotten hit so hard with nerfs that has completely gimped magblade, they are hurting more than stamblade is. Magblade doesn't have anything in the way of burst outside the classic nightblade Death Stroke into Merciless focus combo. But it's a super predictable combo and 9 times out of 10 once you go for death stroke they'll panic roll or panic heal and the bow will miss 90% of the time.
The bow is just clunky af in all honesty. Being a projectile and having slow travel time makes the ability really bad.
Concealed weapon is garbage unless you use cloak, if you play dark cloak like I prefer on magblade there's no difference from the base morph at all versus Surprise attack morph which deals way more damage.
Lotus fan also feels like a worse version of ambush after the changes to ambush to get Empower, Minor vulnerability and minor berserk.
The nightblade nerfs adding cast times to every ultimate plus lotus fan/ambush also makes it hard to land combos on people too. Like if people CC you at the right time they can interrupt your ultimate with their cc screwing your combo.
I also feel like the heavy attack sustain thing NB gets from siphoning attacks is also a little goofy in pvp because it requires you to be offensive to maximize sustain from it but obviously you get a short burst window to even be offensive.


Magblade has access to A LOT of good buffs and passives but the problem is that the class just doesn't play well anymore after all the nerfs to the nightblade class, which hurt magblade more than stam even when magblade is worse than stamblade is in pvp. The best thing magblade got in a long time was a burst heal, before then magblade had basically nothing going for it except for occasional burst if they could get it off.

Right now magblade just feels like a worse stamblade, they don't even have better healing anymore because of hybridization

WaywardArgonian

The reason people say it is because when you try to work around the weaknesses of a Magblade, most players will eventually reach the conclusion that they are better off just rolling a Stamblade instead.

There are some good Magblade builds out there, and some fantastic players who excel at Magblade regardless of the meta, but in the end it often seems like a lot of dedication for relatively little payout. I played Magblade for a year straight, in the ganker, melee bomber and ranged bomber varieties, but when I finally made the switch to Stamblade, it just took a few weeks of getting used to before I found myself outperforming my former Magblade self.

They still make for good bombers, but by now they're far from having a monopoly on that playstyle. I will say, though, that having a good Magblade in an organized group can absolutely make the difference, so they still have their place in the game.

OBJnoob

@WaywardArgonian what magblade weaknesses? Not being facetious honestly want to know what weaknesses does a magblade have that is solved by going stam?

@xDeusEJRx so I mean I agree with a lot of your points... Ulti cast times are dumb, merciless is slow... Lotus fan is really glitchy. I just don't think it adds up to making the class weak. I’ve been playing dual wield for a couple days and have indeed come to hate lotus fan… it basically just doesn’t work to be honest… probably just going to go back to inferno staff trying to land melee light attacks has always been impossible for me in pvp anyway.

Good players dodge the bow sometimes… a lotta times… when it’s important… yeah, they do. But as I said in the original post I think the magblade just has so much sustain and self healing that it doesn’t even matter you can just try again and again and again.

And uh… in response to @Udrath i use a different approach with my merciless resolve I do tend to hold it but not necessarily because I can only think of using it after my ulti but more because I’m aware of the 300-500 weapon damage it grants me and I like to hang on to that for healing.

In fact, so many fights stalemate these days, I find that the best way to kill good players is to let yourself get low on health so they’re selling out on offense, perhaps forget to reapply buffs, probably not on their ‘emergency’ bar and then just thwack them in the face with a merciless. It’s actually a rather big burst heal. And depending on which ulti you’re using… if it’s not incap then there’s no reason to use the ulti first… you can spectral bow and then soul tether them for an undodgable stun.

I dunno. It’s not important. My only point is I feel like I’m tanky enough to try lots of different things until something works.

exeeter702

Just out of curiosity, before I go further on this topic, could you tell me what sets in particular you are running when you say you are able to sustain and tank most encounters in pvp?. Likewise, just to be clear, you mention no cp, then mention general 7kish SD in another section of your post with a couple sets mentioned. Is this entirely from a no cp perspective?

Metemsycosis

Do people think it's bad?
I still find the class squishy for solo play when you try to build for damage and cloak but pretty solid if you stack hots (I've seen some shield users too), or for group play in both support and bombing roles Still one of the strongest gankers and in 1v1 scenarios I'd say assassin's will is one of the highest tooltips in the game. I agree with above poster that magblades thrive off pressuring opponent with assassin's will.

OBJnoob

@exeeter702 this discussion doesn't have to be only about no cp but yes that is the bulk of my experience. At the moment I'm running war maiden dual wield and rattlecage heavy body. Have about 6.7k spell damage with some average combination of continuous attack and merciless stacks. That's off the character sheet so... Doesn't even include the 600 from war maiden. I've also had success with black rose body and shalks weapons... Charged inferno staff, and this drops the spell damage down to more like 6k.

And just to be clear I'm not trying to say magblades are s tier nor am I saying I'm amazing. When I say I can survive and sustain I'm not talking about 1vx, and I'm not talking about beating magdks that know what they're doing. I am however talking about occasionally 1v3 against 'decent' players, beating an emporer 1v1, and basically just winning all sorts of 1v1s against sorcs, wardens, and templars played by people I play against every night and consider to be roughly my exact skill level.

exeeter702

OBJnoob wrote: »

@exeeter702 this discussion doesn't have to be only about no cp but yes that is the bulk of my experience. At the moment I'm running war maiden dual wield and rattlecage heavy body. Have about 6.7k spell damage with some average combination of continuous attack and merciless stacks. That's off the character sheet so... Doesn't even include the 600 from war maiden. I've also had success with black rose body and shalks weapons... Charged inferno staff, and this drops the spell damage down to more like 6k.

And just to be clear I'm not trying to say magblades are s tier nor am I saying I'm amazing. When I say I can survive and sustain I'm not talking about 1vx, and I'm not talking about beating magdks that know what they're doing. I am however talking about occasionally 1v3 against 'decent' players, beating an emporer 1v1, and basically just winning all sorts of 1v1s against sorcs, wardens, and templars played by people I play against every night and consider to be roughly my exact skill level.

And when you say "heavy" magblade, you are in fact referring to 5 peice? And lastly when monster set do you prefer to use?

BazOfWar

OBJnoob wrote: »

@exeeter702 this discussion doesn't have to be only about no cp but yes that is the bulk of my experience. At the moment I'm running war maiden dual wield and rattlecage heavy body. Have about 6.7k spell damage with some average combination of continuous attack and merciless stacks. That's off the character sheet so... Doesn't even include the 600 from war maiden.

Is this in no proc - no cp? If so would you mind sharing the full build because i am trying to move away from my stamblade main.

Nemeliom

I play my magblade as a ganker and it's performing perfectly well. My K/D ratio is always higher than with any other class I play.
You get to choose not only who to kill, but when to kill, and that can change a whole battle into a win for your team.

Burst wise, as a ganker, is almost 1 shot. Sometimes 2, when you get someone unaware.

OBJnoob

Ooo, good discussion, I like questions.

Yes I’m wearing 5 pieces heavy. 6 maybe. I’m no proc remember so I don’t use a monster set. Got 1 molag Kena light shoulder. I’m wearing markyn ring of majesty with a 2 stack. I doubt that’s optimal it’s literally the first thing I threw on and it’s worked fine, been experimenting with other stuff first.

@BazOfWar id be glad to make a detailed write up of exactly what I got going on. Let me do it later tonight when I can actually look at my character sheet I don’t want to fudge any numbers. Thank you for asking.

OBJnoob

Okay so yeah, I’m looking at the stat sheet about to do this write-up and I don’t see anything that special… which like, again, I’m not a super good player I just think the class performs well. We’ll just start off with the basics

High elf

Attributes - 44 magicka 20 health

29k mag - 632 mag recovery
31k hp - stage 3 vampire
18k stam - 591 stam recovery

5916 spell damage - 3516 penetration
20k spell resist 19k physical


^____ All of those stats are unbuffed, standing at the gate in ravenwatch. So the major resolve I get for free basically by using dark cloak and mass hysteria(which I didn’t do here,) I keep one on each bar for ease of access, besides which it adds to our overall hp through passives, but remember since I’m wearing 5 heavy so the buff lasts 13.5 seconds. The major sorcery I already have because of rattle cage. So the spell damage is true, but unbuffed by merciless resolve, continuous attack, weapon damage glyph, or war maiden. So we’re talking about 7k.

Okay what else needs explaining… the recoveries are garbage, right? Again that’s unbuffed… goes up a bit after potions and I normally use tripots. Resto staff heavies are your best friend for several different reasons, I use one infused reduce spell cost jewelry glyph, siphoning strikes, the constitution passive from heavy armor, and have incapacitating strike on one bar whether you use it or not so you can get mag and stam return on light attacks. Weaving is important to this build but it’s a magblade so you already knew that lol. Anyway you’ll find that your recovery is actually pretty good so long as you play patiently. Your out of combat recovery is another story lol.

Gear:
Shalks Resto Staff, powered, increase spell damage glyph. (Any other staff might be better but the 2pc bonus of +health is actually beneficial to maximizing our benefit of being vampire. Anyway it’s just what I had, this build isn’t min maxed it has lots of little flaws)
Dual wield war maiden swords, Nirn main hand sharpened off, flame and shock enchants. (Maces would be better, no heals really on the front bar anyway)

Heavy reinforced Tristat rattle cage helmet
“ “ “ “ chest
Light impen molag Kena shoulder, magicka
Light impen war maiden waist, health
Heavy reinforced rattle cage gauntlets, tristat
“ “ “ “ greaves, tristat
“ “ “ “ sabatons, health

War maiden necklace, spell damage enchant, protective trait
War maiden ring, infused spell damage
Markyn ring of majesty, infused reduce spell cost

Okay one last thing I guess my abilities… that’s kinda the key I think because, really, I’ve gone through lots of sets and it all works well. What I’m currently using is probably my least favorite… build lacks a little mobility, much easier sustaining with ranged light attacking I highly recommend an inferno staff and any set with bonuses to spell damage and max health. Whatever you choose, you’ll lose some damage front bar but gain healing power back bar most likely… and being able to use more than just magic damage isn’t a bad thing. I had good luck running black rose body, shalks inferno… sustain was even better, and with a charged inferno staff and force pulse (the one that interrupts is actually kinda cool, you find more and more uses for it even against just guards on flags,) as a spammable those 3 status effects were lethal to opponents in 1v1 scenarios. And still had like 6k spell damage.

FB: dark cloak, elusive mist, lotus fan, arterial burst, merciless, soul tether
BB: siphoning attacks, mass hysteria, healthy offering resolving vigor, rapid regen, incap

Last notes: again… highly recommend inferno staff, you can ditch lotus fan and use what’s it called mirage for major evasion instead and it’ll help you sustain by landing light attacks. You can ditch rattle cage if you want to use spell power pots constantly that’s what I was doing in the beginning it worked fine I just hated taking resources by myself without popping a potion because I was trying to save ap lol.

The point of this write up… well, the point is because someone asked, but it is also to show not the strength of me or my build but the magblade class. It is very flexible in my opinion… but, perhaps, restricted to a tanky subset. But then again the meta is what the meta is and that’s got nothing to do with magblades. I just think they have the right passives to warrant wearing heavy armor, built in sustain and access to buffs, and the ability to synergise with vampire.

geonsocal

great write up, thanks for taking the time to write it out

fred4

I'm not surprised to hear heavy armor standup NB is at least decent. I've never gotten around to playing that. For me the point of PvP magblade has been to cloak and to sustain cloak better than a stamblade. This, of course, results in entirely different build patterns. Light armor and Atro mundus are mandatory for sustain in my build.

Even though I vaguely agree that magblade has been weak, this is largely historical. I'm not complaining. I believe hybridisation has become more meta on nightblades than any other class. I play a melee magblade with Whirling Blades at present. That's one way of dealing with the difficulties of the melee playstyle. Your targeting doesn't always need to be 100% accurate and you hit dodge rollers with AOE. Oakensoul appears pretty damn strong for my playstyle. Whether I'll retain that long term remains to be seen.

geonsocal

my best heavy armor magblade brawler experience was with torug's pact and sloads...

they closed that oblivion damage loop, but, while it lasted it was a blast...

DrNukenstein

It's not that magblade is bad, it's just that stamblade synergizes with the class kit better from a blow people up perspective

-Minor savagery only helps non ult physical skills
-Surprise attack has built in minor fracture
-you can get the mag scaling for damage on stamina skills now for free damage and bottomless cloaks at the cost of a small stamina pool
-Camo hunter was historically more of a stamina skill until now, still costs stamina. It synergizes too perfectly with the kit to not have front barred
-Rally/momentum was in a similar place to camo hunter and still is the only non pot way for the class to get brut/sorc out of combat
-Magblade bow proc makes a louder sound than stamblade bow proc meaning it's dodged more often
-For a long time, resolving vigor was the classes most reliable self heal. stamina skill
-impale has too much travel time to be useful
-Melee magblade is S-tier cool, but runs out of steam fast due to melee heavies not giving magicka.

The only advantages Magblades have over stamblades are move speed in stealth and the ability to go all in on Magicka. It can be argued that melee magblades have a better resource economy when it comes to breaking free, crouching and rolling since they don't use stamina otherwise, but they'll need to do that more often since they have a harder time dropping people in a single combo.

All that said though, Concealed weapon gives such good mobility that magblade isn't bad compared to stam especially if you care more about target access than extreme damage. You just give up a lot of damage for that lot of mobility

OBJnoob

I guess I’m just not seeing why exactly the hypothetical stamblade is benefitting from hybridized skills but the hypothetical magblade wouldn’t be. I guess because concealed weapon gives mobility which is indispensable so you can’t use surprise attack for the fracture? I mean it’s probably true you couldn’t sustain it as a spammable… I dunno, I’m not using either version. But yes I’m sure melee stamblade outperforms melee magblade that would kinda be fair I think. But I’ve definitely gone on the record as saying inferno is better so no argument from me there. Some of the points just kinda don’t apply to me though… I am using vigor, for example. I’m not using impale and it has nothing to do with the travel time. I’m wearing rattle cage which is one way to get major sorcery out of combat. I think about half your points allude to a shadowy disguise play style though which, you know, if stamblade does it better then so be it I feel like magblade is a better brawler. Or a ‘stamblade’ using a boatload of magicka heals and buffs lol. Otherwise I just don’t see how you’d survive. I predict vigor and rally won’t get you far without invis.

Udrath

I mean I hate to say it, but there’s really not many sets that are great on magblade. The new crafted set is decent, and all the gank sets are a lot better on stamblade now. I really don’t notice a huge difference between sets anymore. I’ve done high crit, high pen, high spell damage, double proc, min-max...they all kinda feel the same. A least magblade can heal pretty good. Def good in ball group and group play as support/healer. Soul tether and sap are always good to have

fred4

OBJnoob wrote: »

I guess I’m just not seeing why exactly the hypothetical stamblade is benefitting from hybridized skills but the hypothetical magblade wouldn’t be. I guess because concealed weapon gives mobility which is indispensable so you can’t use surprise attack for the fracture? I mean it’s probably true you couldn’t sustain it as a spammable… I dunno, I’m not using either version. But yes I’m sure melee stamblade outperforms melee magblade that would kinda be fair I think. But I’ve definitely gone on the record as saying inferno is better so no argument from me there. Some of the points just kinda don’t apply to me though… I am using vigor, for example. I’m not using impale and it has nothing to do with the travel time. I’m wearing rattle cage which is one way to get major sorcery out of combat. I think about half your points allude to a shadowy disguise play style though which, you know, if stamblade does it better then so be it I feel like magblade is a better brawler. Or a ‘stamblade’ using a boatload of magicka heals and buffs lol. Otherwise I just don’t see how you’d survive. I predict vigor and rally won’t get you far without invis.

There's a recent forum post on class rankings, apparently the consensus of a bunch of PvPers on a Discord, that put hybrid NB at the top of the available options. That's how I tend to look at NB now. We're all just hybrids. If you're a pure magblade, that may be a rarity. I've run Whirlwind on my magblade as the execute, Crushing Weapon for the pen, and Relentless Focus because it doesn't drain my magicka when I'm cloaking and pre-buffing it.

Your playstyle is really quite different to what I imagine a lot of people run and old school with heavy armor emphasizing the self-healing and attrition playstyle pioneered by Kena. The heal of choice on many a stamblade (and magblade), now, is Healthy / Shrewd Offering, though. Not Rally. Maybe not even Vigor. There is also a speed meta. People made a fuss about that when Summerset came out and Swift got nerfed. Now we have Celerity CP, green CP for out of combat speed, still Swift, Wild Hunt, and Race Against Time. On average people are faster than they once were. What am I trying to say? As a melee magblade you have to keep up. This is also your defense. If you get hunted down with detection potions, that's too bad, but by and large Cloak, very high speed and a single heal - Shrewd Offering - works. If you combine that skill with a 1H+S back bar you can hold out quite well against burst until you get an opportunity to move away. Should you use Shadow Image that's fair enough too, but outright speed combned with occasional block-healing also works. My personal preference is to combine that with Zoal. Compared to you I'm super squishy and I only have a single self-heal, but Zoal lets me drop into the middle of a fight and make it back out, because any attempt to burst me typically ends up with everyone around me getting stunned. Did I mention Slippery CP? Completely different playstyle to yours, of course.

You surmised that people think magblade is bad and that an old-fashioned stand-up heavy armor attrition build might be the answer. Both of those things are IMO only partially true. Not all of us think magblades are bad and I think both of our approaches work. I agree with using a destro staff, by the way. I would use it, if I had a better AOE skill than Sap Essence. A destro staff with Swallow Soul is the better option for the IC mix of PvP with PvE. Right now I prefer dual wield (Whirling Blades).

[EDIT] FYI: I'm not a bombblade. I'm a single-target melee magblade using Concealed and Caluurion.

divnyi

OBJnoob wrote: »

‘This’ being the combustion passive. Insane resource restore that lets you just completely neglect sustain and still thrive. Long story short (you wish,) I figured I could do it with a magblade. A heavy armor, stage 3 vamp magblade. Siphoning strikes and the passive ability ‘reave’ for having incapacitating strike ultimate slotted which restores like 100 mag and stam every time I land a light attack.

200 resource/sec isn't old combustion level of OP. It's nerfed combustion level of OP. In group fights, if you landed AoE on 2 targets, you had like 50% chance to proc, which is 500 reso/sec average. 3 targets - 64%, so 640 average.

OBJnoob

@udrath the bulk of my experience is no proc cyrodiil so I don’t have a whole lot to say about a lack of snazzy sets for magblade. You’re almost certainly right. I might however try to convince you that ravenwatch is the best location to compare class balance in a vacuum. If magblades are good in ravenwatch but not in gray host are we honestly going to blame the magblade class for that? I will say that I play battlegrounds as well, two or three a night, and I’ve been using my no proc setup because I’m eso broke and lazy. My toon does better in bgs than in cyrodiil to be honest… probably just because solo random has a slightly lower average skill level than the hardcore 20v20v20 player base that’s in ravenwatch every night. And you’re guaranteed to not be massively outnumbered. I dunno if my build would get better or worse if I incorporated some proc sets… but I know that theirs doesn’t bother me too much.

@divnyi i know that brother it’s nevertheless a similar build tactic is it not? Say I’m wearing black rose with 6 heavy… I’m not looking at my Xbox right now so this math is going to be very bad… but I think that’s be about 800 every 4 seconds for the constitution passive. So 200 a second. Plus let’s say I’m actually landing a light attack every second… 100 a second (let’s keep in the back of our mind that I’m getting mag and stam not just mag.) I honestly have no idea what the actual value of siphoning strikes is per second let’s just say another 100. Since the magdk is using charged probably let’s pretend I am too and give me a little minor magicka steal. I mean that’s 500 a second which equates to 1000 recovery. Some of the things aren’t magblade specific of course so one could argue that magdks could do that as well, but I’m not trying to say magnb is better than magdk, nor am I trying to say they have better sustain. I’m offering the idea that they can fit into the current meta… which is a high health vampire high spell damage meta… very well. And not to be argumentative but what happens if suddenly it’s not a 3v3 fight it’s a 1v1 fight? The combustion numbers you quoted gets cut in third mine stays the same.

@fred4 i wasn’t suggesting vigor and rally were the nightblades preferred healing I was actually kinda scoffing at the thought. Anyway… yes our builds are very different, mobility is my toons weakness. I use mist form like a snare removal tbh instead of using it to hardcore kite I kinda rapidly flash it on and off almost like block to avoid the sub assaults and dawn breakers I’m lucky enough to see coming. Saves bar space because I don’t feel the need to use race against time or mirage for major evasion. I’m glad to hear that some people think magblade is good… B+ or A- in my book all day. And I’m keenly aware of the hybrid meta that’s kinda what’s confusing me about everyone saying stamblade is better. Where does stamblade end and magblade begin? People are talking about mobility, invis, gank potential and certain stam morphs being better. Which are all fair points but most of those same people are coming from the standpoint that magblade needs help, as evidenced by stamblades performance. I find it ironic and kinda amusing that someone would build a hybrid stat and recovery stamblade capable of shrewd offering and shadowy disguising all over the place but never consider, “instead of spamming 1 mag skill every 3 seconds for a massive drain why don’t I try a different play style and with the same mag recovery use a resto staff and the huge amount of mag healing at my disposal.” If you want to gank go ahead and gank (not talking about your build, just in general, and not suggesting people have to play meta either that’s boring,) but to me meta isn’t tanking. Meta is high health high mitigation high healing high burst. Magblade has all of it and more. They don’t go from A- to trash tier just because the bow proc is dodgeable… not in my book. I think the bow proc being dodgeable is much more annoying for invis nightblades than it is for me. They feel the need to 2-shot everyone to death, think it’s the only way to play, and feel the class is broken when they can’t do it. Me coming from classes that don’t get guaranteed crits from stealth, lol, I’m used to having my attacks dodged and blocked. The fact that people actively defend against me doesn’t ruin my experience lol

aurelius_fx

the problem with magblade is that potential damage doesn't means much when it's a combo way harder to consistently land than the combo more popular brawl classes, all your hardest hitting abilities are loud, dodgeable and heavily telegraphed.

it requires perfect LA weave to pretty much toss all your eggs in one basket just to focus on a single target at a time, magblade might not be 'bad' in theory, you'll just have a more pleasant time with a class that doesn't requires you to go through frustrating silly gimmicks just to have a chance at doing single target damage. all of that is considered okay to ZOS because they're afraid of indirectly buffing stealthy players

that pushes the class identity mostly into ganking (where it performs well, but stamblade is more popular for a reason) and bombing (where necro performs better)

fred4

OBJnoob wrote: »

I find it ironic and kinda amusing that someone would build a hybrid stat and recovery stamblade capable of shrewd offering and shadowy disguising all over the place but never consider, “instead of spamming 1 mag skill every 3 seconds for a massive drain why don’t I try a different play style and with the same mag recovery use a resto staff and the huge amount of mag healing at my disposal.”

This is the crux of the issue alright. I'm not sure that nightblades - stamblades - don't run 2H / resto, by the way. For all I know that's what other people mean by hybrid and they think that's strong because of heal stacking. To me that's kind of alien. I've always found blocking with 1H+S more defensively sound than resto, and Shrewd Offering a pretty damn strong, spammable heal. I favor reactive skills, a single heal. This keeps my bar space down and naturally enabled Oakensoul in the current patch for my playstyle. The fact that mythic easily fits into my playstyle is another reason I can't complain.

I suppose the question is: Is a nightblade without Cloak and, to a lesser extent, Shadow Image, still a nightblade? I don't see what the attraction of playing a build like yours is. I have 4 other classes to play a slow, stand-up build and use Mist Form on (I'm excepting sorc). Classes that don't rely on the Grim Focus mini-game, which I loathe. People want to spam that amusing 3 second massive drain skill on magblade, because it's an iconic skill that gives nightblade it's identity and makes it different from everything else. When I log on to my nightblade, that's what I want to play.

There are a couple of reasons why some people may say nightblade is weak and I don't. If you measure classes purely by their 1v1 performance, maybe that's their conclusion. Perhaps especially if they don't play your build. This is one of the reasons I personally don't go to duelling anymore. My nightblade is an open world character.

Not to put too fine a point on it, squishy cloaking nightblade works because of the thing some people hate about it. The hit and run playstyle. This playstyle requires a short time to kill or, at the very least, enough offensive pressure to keep the target on defense for a few seconds and mask the nightblade's squishiness. It is a very binary proposition. If the fight turns, or even if the initial gank doesn't do enough damage, the nightblade knows they can't keep trading blows. They need to (temporarily) Shade or Cloak away, otherwise they die. The ability to disengage from the fight is very powerful, but it also makes you acknowledge your own weakness. Lots of fights end in stalemate, but stalemating on a (squishy, cloaking) nightblade means actively abandoning the fight. I think maybe this leads some people to thinking nightblade is weaker than it actually is. The fact that your defense isn't tankiness, but that you may consciously need to bail out on a (squishy, cloaking) nightblade to produce a stalemate. That said, the best ones have learnt to push the hardest, before they Shade or Cloak. The learning curve is real and applies even to otherwise good players. Some may simply lack affinity for nightblade. From watching him occasionally, I think Deltia may be one of those for example. He puts magblade at (or near) the bottom and might benefit from trying your build.

I often play solo. I never got heavily invested in sorc, so I can't speak to that class. For me nightblade - magblade - is the best class, the one I consistently make the most AP (and Tel Var) with in open world, the one I die the least with, the one that makes soloing viable. This is why I have to acknowledge that magblade is a good class, perhaps even a great class. That said, my expectations are also tempered by the fact that I think the class - that playstyle - needs to be balanced on a knife-edge. Healthier for the game that hit and run not be the single most effective thing in open world, like perhaps stamblades in some older patches, but that it is slightly weak in actual combat.

divnyi

@OBJnoob I'm not saying it's impossible to play NB bruiser, just factchecked your sustain numbers from class. Heavy Armor is the same on all classes, so I don't count in that. Combustion on single targets will proc with increased chances from enchants, single target hits or guaranteed on embers.

For me, I don't see what's the selling point of NB bruiser.
There are no unique buffs or offensive skills compared to other classes imo.
Like, yeah, you can stack healing. But you can do that on other class bruisers too.

fred4

divnyi wrote: »

For me, I don't see what's the selling point of NB bruiser.

I agree, but I want to play devil's advocat for one moment. In the early days a guy called Kena made a video that seemed somewhat influential. He argued that magblade, and I think a heavy armor bruiser magblade, was best placed to outsustain and outheal other classes in a straight up clash. Of course this was at a time when Funnel Health and Siphoning Attacks were both seriously broken, but it was probably a video in answer of the same question. Do nightblades need to rely on Cloak?

I've been in the occasional fight where I've outhealed a jabbing templar with Swallow Soul and Siphoning Attacks at key moments. Quite possibly a lower level or badly specced templar, but those fights seemed like an echo of what Kena was saying. Nightblade retains increased flat, passive resource regen. It retains some small healing from Swallow Soul and Siphoning Attacks. It has some interesting healing that people rarely rely on, such as from Assassin's Will. @OBJnoob is giving magblade merely an A- to B+. He's not implying magblade is super strong, but maybe there's something there.

Still I agree that Will is clunky, single target, dodgeable, where Blastbones and Shalks are both AOE and DK bursts you with the strongest AOE, gapcloser, everything ult in the game. What top players take most pride in tends to be 1vX. That's probably a factor in their evaluation. When did you last see a magblade do that, aside from bombing? Soul Tether alone isn't good enough. Come to think of it, maybe Soul Tether -> Executioner is the way to go, but DK will still be better for that simple burst. Probably the only consistently viable class for a 2 skills in 1 GCD burst. The other classes all combine 3 skills into a single GCD and half of those skills are undodgeable AOE and easier to proc than Will. Even me using Whirlwind as an execute drives home how much easier it is to secure a kill with AOE.

fred4

And for those who don't know what I'm talking about when I refer to cramming x number of skills into a single GCD, I'm talking about the 400ms ulti delays. Most of the time players moan about those, but they do tighten up DK burst. In general they allow you to stack an execute after an ultimate, which frequently occurs in the same GCD as the ultimate or so shortly afterwards that players can't break free from the stun of, say, take Flight. If you've ever seen your health bar drop in two stages from a DK leap, with you unable to do anything about that, that's not lag. That's due to the ult delay and the DK comboing with Executioner.

Alas, with magblade, these subtle ways in which classes perform or don't perform have been systematically nerfed. Soul Tether used to stun through block. Now I believe it doesn't. People used to combo Soul Tether with Will. Now both are delayed. They used to Fear before Will. Timing-wise that's now even worse. Because Assassin's Will / Scourge now has the same 400ms delay as ultimates, and Mass Hysteria does not, targets now have time to break free from Fear and dodge roll the bow proc.

If you're in a straight up duel or any fight where you have the luxury of spending time on a single target, then you will hit your bow proc by the law of averages. Some duellers are very good and never make mistakes, but in most fights you get your chance. There are also all sorts of opportune moments in AvA where you may have a proc ready to hit a target with. The bow proc into an execute is much the same strength, if not more, than an ultimate into an execute, and it times well. That's just not much talked about. Historically, due to bar space, many people have never slotted both the bow and execute together. Maybe that's part of the problem, but to me the benchmark remains DK leap. That ultimate is known and sometimes maligned for being super strong and overloaded. High damage, gap closer and CC. The CC is key. Current DK strength notwithstanding, I think this is just right. DK needs it to be that strong to make a 2 skill in 1 GCD burst work, where other classes stack 3 skills (or more in case of magsorc). The evolution of the timing issues surrounding the bow proc is IMO another of the reasons people regard magblades as weak.

OBJnoob

@divnyi yes it’s fair to say the heavy armor doesn’t count. I think we’re focusing a little too hard on the comparison of magdk and magnb though. I thought it was a parallel that I could reference to help me explain how on a magnb you can gain more tanky ness and/or damage by neglecting textbook sustain in favor of passive sustain. I mean… especially as I say it again, it still makes perfect sense to me.

I think you have a fair point though. Well no, you’ve made several fair points. The ulti cast times, predictability loudness and delay of combo. And most recently you’ve basically said ‘why play a bruiser nb what makes it fun or unique anybody can wear heavy armor and a resto staff they have nothing unique.’

In one skill I have 13.5 seconds of major resolve, minor protection, and a max hp scaling HoT. In another skill I have major evasion and snare removal. Have in class access to minor vulnerability and minor mending. Multi target reliable stun. Major defile. Heal, restore resources, and prepare your burst simply by landing light attacks.

It’s plenty unique and plenty powerful. Perhaps not as iconic as being able to go invisible… but yknow, to each their own. Combing through the battlefield looking for the one enemy who’s not a 30k+ hp pariah vampire so you can gank him then come on the forums to talk about how magblade needs help they’re only good with caluurions… I mean… or doing some plaguebreak vicious death bomber thing… honestly I thought people would be glad to know there’s an alternative.

And that’s a low blow and argumentative… I’m not TRYing to say nightblades shouldn’t be able to gank in a balanced meta nor am I suggesting you are one such person who’s had those thoughts… but you’re a pretty avid forum goer, haven’t you seen the same comments as me? Don’t you think they are numerous?

Problem: tank meta.
Victim: stealth burst nightblade
Solution: become a tank
Additional Facts: you’re well equipped

@fred4 i read your posts I think we understand each other. I’m curious where would nb fall on a class tier list for you? One like yours? One like mine? A talented stam ganker?

Udrath

@OBJnoob all my experience is only battlegrounds and no-cp. I do bomber builds in cp but only during midyear. I personally feel having a least 40-50% crit chance makes everything smoother for magblade and have been doing so for years. I’m running a ranged build at the moment with torugs pact/orders wrath/1 slimcraw/torq of tonal. 3 heavy reinforced rest light with thief Mundas and spell power crit pots. Perfected maelstrom restoration for BGs. Destro/resto/dark cloak. Orders wrath is a pretty good new set for magblade.

However there is a lack of variety on critical chance sets and we have no set similar to senches bite which would be HUGE for magblade. ZOS also recently nerfed crit all around. Mechanical acuity was the last good proc set and it was nerfed.

Also if you like watching magblade no-cp pvp videos I strongly suggest checking out Heresya he plays the class perfectly but haven’t seen in new vids for a while on YouTube. He shows all his builds after or before gameplay and his videos helped me with what abilities I should try using on my bar, and strong set ups for different situations if you were looking to invest in some new sets (poor guy lol)

fred4

Udrath wrote: »

However there is a lack of variety on critical chance sets and we have no set similar to senches bite which would be HUGE for magblade.

Huh? You know everything is hybrid now, right?