Questions about being a MagNB in Cyro?

PieMaster1 · March 2017

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For PvP, should I be a MagNB or a StamNB? I know the answer is already stam, but I would like to know if being a magicka one can work in PvP. Obviously, everyone is getting tired of these crap stam proc builds. So i think the question should be how to make a magicka work. Though if I suck and all else fails, or I am killed way too many times/one-shot, I'll just go be a stam since I know almost certainly that they can at least kill quickly.

What skills and sets should I use for being a MNB? If I can help it, I'd like to have a pool that can regen very fast (I love shadow cloak/concealed) so I can stay invisible to enemies for long periods of time if need be. Should I focus on weapon skills at all, or just the magic ones since stam won't scale?

Being a magicka variant, I know for a fact that i'm not going to gang or one shot, but rather DoT and self-healing attacks. Which brings me to armor. Should I go light, med, or heavy? Medium really offers nothing to me except for the minor stealth aspects. Light is magicka, but I would die even more so than a regular stamNB. Heavy is a good choice, for self healing AKA swallow soul since they give buffs to heals received. Should I do a mix, and if so, what combination should I choose?

I just want to be in PvP knowing what I'm doing, playing it smart and tactical. It's apparent that it'd be harder to play in Cyro, but I like the magic aspects too much and would prefer to NOT waste my skills that I picked the class for (Most skills aren't used in stam, and the ones that are used aren't as powerful/useful as they could be..Take cloak for example.)

Anyways, I appreciate any advice given. Well..I have one request. DON'T post some video of a famous youtuber and their builds. I don't want to be a copy-cat, just need some guidance, thanks.

casparian · March 2017

You should focus on class skills, Destruction Staff skills, and Restoration Staff skills.

Class skills are useful for obvious reasons. Just make sure you take the magic damage morphs.

Destruction Staff is useful for obvious reasons. There's a passive in this line that gives you +8% damage to all single-target attacks when a Destruction Staff ability is slotted and we're using a fire staff. This is huge for magblades, since so many of our attacks are single-target.

Restoration Staff is useful for two reasons: (1) Healing Ward functions as a shield and a great burst heal. (2) Restoration staff heavy attacks can't be dodge by annoying stamina users.

You also want to make sure you max out the Mages Guild skill line. Meteor is great for us (since we can Fear enemies before using it, preventing it from being blocked). Lots of other goodies there as well.

Both heavy and light armor are good options, and there are good PVP magblades in each. Heavy is nice because of the extra tankiness (obviously), but also (as you've already noticed) because it boosts our healing received, which synergizes well with skills like Swallow Soul and Degeneration. A lot of heavy armor magblades run the Spinner's set, to make up for the spell penetration we lose by not wearing light armor. But light can also work quite well, since magblades are capable of getting pretty huge shields out of Annulment (light armor skill) when running the Necropotence set (our Shadow Image counts as a pet). Pair with a tanky monster set and you have surprisingly good survivability.

If you want to read more theorycrafting about our class, have a look at this recent theorycrafting thread. Lots of helpful discussion there.

PieMaster1 · March 2017

casparian wrote: »

You should focus on class skills, Destruction Staff skills, and Restoration Staff skills.

Class skills are useful for obvious reasons. Just make sure you take the magic damage morphs.

Destruction Staff is useful for obvious reasons. There's a passive in this line that gives you +8% damage to all single-target attacks when a Destruction Staff ability is slotted and we're using a fire staff. This is huge for magblades, since so many of our attacks are single-target.

Restoration Staff is useful for two reasons: (1) Healing Ward functions as a shield and a great burst heal. (2) Restoration staff heavy attacks can't be dodge by annoying stamina users.

You also want to make sure you max out the Mages Guild skill line. Meteor is great for us (since we can Fear enemies before using it, preventing it from being blocked). Lots of other goodies there as well.

Both heavy and light armor are good options, and there are good PVP magblades in each. Heavy is nice because of the extra tankiness (obviously), but also (as you've already noticed) because it boosts our healing received, which synergizes well with skills like Swallow Soul and Degeneration. A lot of heavy armor magblades run the Spinner's set, to make up for the spell penetration we lose by not wearing light armor. But light can also work quite well, since magblades are capable of getting pretty huge shields out of Annulment (light armor skill) when running the Necropotence set (our Shadow Image counts as a pet). Pair with a tanky monster set and you have surprisingly good survivability.

If you want to read more theorycrafting about our class, have a look at this recent theorycrafting thread. Lots of helpful discussion there.

The armor explanation is what I was looking for, I think I will use heavy armor. If i use light and staffs, might as well be a sorcerer :P Is there an alternative to using the staves, though? I want to have at least some aspect of being a nightblade haha

Tryxus · March 2017

MagBlade is very much viable, though it is one of, if not, the hardest class to master effectively for PvP. Though it's def the most fun one too

You can go 4 ways with the MagBlade: Light, Gank, Bomb or Heavy.

As a Light Armor MagBlade, you have a wide variety of sets to choose from: Necropotence, Spinner, Elegant, Alchemist, Lich,... So you can mix and match the sets you feel most comfortable with. In Light Armor, you'll prob want to fight with a Destro and a Resto Staff, placing DoTs on your opponents while playing at range.

Ganking is much harder to do on a MagBlade, but still possible. With a Light set of Alchemist + Elegant/Stygian and a Fire Destro Staff, you can do a lot of damage from stealth with a Heavy Attack.

BombBlading still works: Vicious Death and a Destro Ulti can destroy zergs.

And there's Heavy Armor. I've recently experimented with the Wyrd Tree set with a lot of success if I do say so myself and I have a HP Regen build on my Sap Tank that's pretty much unkillable in 1v1

But just like with Light Armor you can go wild and try many other sets like Alchemist, Seducer, Shalk, Black Rose,...

As for weapons, a Destro + Resto Staff is imo the way to go. You can still go DW or S&B for the passives and have an extra set bonus, but I find the extra skills and utility from Destro Staff are more useful. Plus a Destro Staff enables Light and Heavy attacks from range, easier to proc Assassin's Will

You also have many useful class skills at your disposal as well. Swallow Soul being your main spammable, Crippling Grasp is a very strong DoT, Merciless Resolve will be your burst once you proc the Assassin's Will bow,... Try and mix these with the Destro + Resto Staff skills, Vampirism and Mages Guild skills

WildWilbur · March 2017

Tryxus wrote: »

Ganking is much harder to do on a MagBlade, but still possible. With a Light set of Alchemist + Elegant/Stygian and a Fire Destro Staff, you can do a lot of damage from stealth with a Heavy Attack.

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