Khajiit in Malacath Meta

Faulgor · February 2021

Is anyone still playing Khajiit?
Pretty much every build these days recommends Malacath's Band of Brutality, but that would negate a hefty chunk of Khajiit's racial passives. Do you make that sacrifice, or do you have a different build specifically for Khajiit?

Worst thing is, mine is a DK. Yes, I know. No, I don't want to race change. So I've been deliberating how to make a worthwhile stamDK out of him without using Malacath. Next patch will see a buff to the Khajiit passive by 2%, as well as a change to axes that increases crit damage by 8%. Combined with the Shadow Mundus and Minor Force, it might work. My idea was to use Mechanical Acuity on one bar, which could conceivably even work in Heavy Armor, and then go to town for 5 seconds. In the downtime, Critical Rush might be a worthwhile spammable.
But I wonder if it's worth investing so much in your "strength" or rather cut your losses and use Malacath despite your inherent crit bonus? Or neither?

One positive might be that with the ubiquity of Malcath, impenetrable is less desirable to run for most players, so the occasional crit build could become all the more devastating. idk.

Urzigurumash · February 2021

I say invest into the strengths and see how it pans out. I think a Crit Damage StamDK can work quite well, even in Heavy, if you make sure to save the Mech Acuity buff for when Leap or Corrosive are ready. Shadow sign, frontbar Mech Acuity Battle Axe, Monster set, and an Ult Gen set - either backbarred with a Mythic, or bothbarred with a backbar 2 piece. I'd like to say Balorgh is an easy choice, it's great with Leap, but it's not great with Corrosive since some of its budget was moved towards Penetration.

We tend to not do much damage without Leap or Corrosive anyhow, it's just an even narrower window of opportunity building around Mech Acuity and Crit Damage, but with possibly more damage during that window. The only thing that might be hard to make up for compared to running the Warrior or Steed signs in Heavy, or the Shadow in Medium, is the loss of HPS, since your Crit Chance will be so low in Heavy, you might not get many Crit Heals.

Maybe, alternatively, equip Malacath, wear Heavy, use a Greatsword or Maul, take a standard StamDK mundus, and slot on your frontbar: Flames of Oblivion or Camo Hunter, Green Dragon Blood or Cauterize (if you choose Camo Hunter), Vigor, D Swing, Executioner. This would let you take advantage of Malacath+Heavy and still get some extra HPS out of the Khajiit passive by having Flames/Camo Hunter on the same bar as your Heals, but you'll have to put Breath and Claw on your backbar. It would be really nice if Cauterize gave us Major Savagery, that would make this idea much better I think. I would expect sub-optimal results from this compared to the Mech Acuity idea, or equipping Malacath and not slotting Flames/Camo Hunter, so you can put GDB / Cauterize / Vigor on the backbar and Breath / Claws on the front.

Of course, you could go the much simpler route of just wearing a Medium build without Malacath, but that could be rough in BGs or Solo Cyro/IC. Still maybe just try some defensive 5 pieces in Medium, Daedric Trickery is pretty good right now for that.

Urzigurumash · February 2021

All that being said I think the only reason Malacath is so popular is because it buffs procs. If you can get to 40% crit chance I don't think it's worth it without proc sets on, even without Crit Damage modifiers. You could always try wearing Advancing Yokeda on your body, or something, and taking the Thief Sign, and you could still get some mileage out of the Khajiit passive in Heavy without messing with Mech Acuity.

Faulgor · February 2021

Urzigurumash wrote: »

I say invest into the strengths and see how it pans out. I think a Crit Damage StamDK can work quite well, even in Heavy, if you make sure to save the Mech Acuity buff for when Leap or Corrosive are ready. Shadow sign, frontbar Mech Acuity Battle Axe, Monster set, and an Ult Gen set - either backbarred with a Mythic, or bothbarred with a backbar 2 piece. I'd like to say Balorgh is an easy choice, it's great with Leap, but it's not great with Corrosive since some of its budget was moved towards Penetration.

We tend to not do much damage without Leap or Corrosive anyhow, it's just an even narrower window of opportunity building around Mech Acuity and Crit Damage, but with possibly more damage during that window. The only thing that might be hard to make up for compared to running the Warrior or Steed signs in Heavy, or the Shadow in Medium, is the loss of HPS, since your Crit Chance will be so low in Heavy, you might not get many Crit Heals.

Maybe, alternatively, equip Malacath, wear Heavy, use a Greatsword or Maul, take a standard StamDK mundus, and slot on your frontbar: Flames of Oblivion or Camo Hunter, Green Dragon Blood or Cauterize (if you choose Camo Hunter), Vigor, D Swing, Executioner. This would let you take advantage of Malacath+Heavy and still get some extra HPS out of the Khajiit passive by having Flames/Camo Hunter on the same bar as your Heals, but you'll have to put Breath and Claw on your backbar. It would be really nice if Cauterize gave us Major Savagery, that would make this idea much better I think. I would expect sub-optimal results from this compared to the Mech Acuity idea, or equipping Malacath and not slotting Flames/Camo Hunter, so you can put GDB / Cauterize / Vigor on the backbar and Breath / Claws on the front.

Of course, you could go the much simpler route of just wearing a Medium build without Malacath, but that could be rough in BGs or Solo Cyro/IC. Still maybe just try some defensive 5 pieces in Medium, Daedric Trickery is pretty good right now for that.

Medium with Daedric Trickery was actually what I had in mind! Probably in combination with Bloodspawn and Torc. I'm not a huge fan of heavy armor, just thought it was noteworthy MA would still work pretty good with it.
You already mentioned the reasons why I decided against Balorgh. I also considered frontbaring the 2h ulti for penetration, but I'm not up to date why people don't use it anymore. Besides, Leap is too nice to skip.

On the few characters I use Malacath, I like the consistency it gives. Depending on the enemies' crit resist, crit builds might be better over time, but as long as most fights are built around burst, you quite often also get a dud and no crits in your heavy-hitting abilities.

But, as we're going to start a couple of no-procs weeks soon, I'm holding off crafting the sets for now and just wanted to collect some ideas.

Urzigurumash · February 2021

Faulgor wrote: »

Medium with Daedric Trickery was actually what I had in mind! Probably in combination with Bloodspawn and Torc. I'm not a huge fan of heavy armor, just thought it was noteworthy MA would still work pretty good with it.
You already mentioned the reasons why I decided against Balorgh. I also considered frontbaring the 2h ulti for penetration, but I'm not up to date why people don't use it anymore. Besides, Leap is too nice to skip.

On the few characters I use Malacath, I like the consistency it gives. Depending on the enemies' crit resist, crit builds might be better over time, but as long as most fights are built around burst, you quite often also get a dud and no crits in your heavy-hitting abilities.

Maybe most players have switched to Berserker Rage, since it jives with Balorgh better. It has a clunky cast time, but so does Leap. For me Leap is quite unreliable right now, maybe it takes 5 attempts to cast, and I have better results if I just wait for Corrosive.

If you're not set on Heavy Armor and comfortable in Medium I'd just roll with that and a 40%+ crit chance and forget Malacath, but the Mech Acuity + Shadow sign idea is worth giving a try I think. What you say about consistency with Malacath is true, but nobody is going down to 8k Leaps and 4k Dizzy Swings, really. In some ways it's better to just continually roll the dice until you can hit that 12k Leap.

Alternatively just equip Syvarra's, Crimson, and Malacath, and don't worry about what class or race you're playing.

I think survivability in Medium Daedric is sometimes better than in many heavy damage sets, of course there's some RNG on this set, but that Major Heroism is also quite nice.

Doczy · February 2021

hello i am khajit magblade

but i can damage max 6k even with crits. stamalacath guys spams 6k

Goregrinder · February 2021

Yeah my NB is still khajiit. I Race changed him to orc, but swapped back to kitty kat. The stealth bonus is just too good for open world ganks, plus it makes swapping between Magblade and Stamblade easier than running orc or nord or something. If you run a build with malacath then obviously Khajiit's crit bonus becomes wasted, so for brawler builds using malacath def race change.

But for any NB that runs cloak or stealths around a lot, the stealth bonus is still so valueable imo. I can't count how many times I've spotted other stealthers around me before they even knew I was there. Some of them I've literally got right behind, and they had no clue. Khajiit paired with a set that gives stealth bonuses (like darloc brae) is just so good, I will run khajiit on NB until khajiit is nerfed to the ground or some other race gets stealth bonuses.

Waffennacht · February 2021

If no Malacath

Acuity

Grimlok_S · February 2021

Waffennacht wrote: »

If no Malacath

Acuity

That's pretty much been my experience testing anything crit related this patch. Stamplar feels awful with Mala, Acuity has just enough oomph to make it work.

I ran a medium Mdw +EV body + Acuity 2h + balorg Nord DK for a bit during mayhem, honestly really satisfying to get those crit leap combos, but power and tankability felt pretty low outside of acuity.

Heavy or med Khajiit w/ bloodspawn might pull it off better with the coming changes, but the extended cooldown on Acuity has me pretty disappointed.

The biggest issue I find is that Mala + Proc sets provide instant + consistent damage whereas with Acuity you have to do a bit more prebuff to make the most of it. In which time a MalaProc build can force you into the defensive and you end up wasting the window.

DK deals with this better than most with Battle Roar, but yeah, it's frustrating that MalaProc builds are so effective out of the gate.

AY actually looks good for Stamplar, if not for the windup time. Proc builds don't seem to have any of the drawbacks that come with building for Crit.