[Build] Magicka melee NB (updated the 14/07/2015)

Erondil

Hi all,
I'm Dennegor, a NB playing on EU, and currently running a magicka melee build. Most of NBs droped this kind of build when 1.6 came because it felt weak, but I think I figured out some ways to make it competitive again. I've been asked a lot in game about my setup, my gear or my skillbar, and since I'm not a secretive player, I decided to show my build here. It's a duel/1vX build that works great aswell in very small scale (2/3/4).
It's my setup, the one that fits me the best which doesnt mean it will fit you well, so don't hesitate to make some tweaks.

Atributes and gear :

The objective of this build is to have a very high burst (almost glass canon) to be able to kill in few seconds, but with several tools to improve your ressource sustain. In this sense, all my attributes points and enchants are in magicka and I picked atronach as mundus.
Gear :

• 4 pieces of the healer (jewelry+belt) with reduce cost enchants
• 4 pieces martial knowledge (hat shoulders shoes and hands)
• 1 heavy chest and 1 medium legs of magnus, nirnhoned
• 2 swords of magnus nirhorned, one diesease and one drain stamina enchant
• 1 restro staff of magnus, weighted with magicka drain enchant. Weighted because you will use heavy attack quite a lot to get magicka back.
  

I'm bosmer but the best would be altmer. Vampirism is usefull for clouding swarm but I don't recommend it if its the first time you play magicka melee in 1.6 (damages are too high)
Those are my unbuffed stats with purple bufffood in a full-red cyrodiil :

Skill bars :

1st bar dual wield :

1. Teleport strike : your gap closer dont morph it lotus fan sucks for burst and you cant manage the stamina cost of ambush
2. Relentless Focus : Here for buffs (the bow never proccs) I was using impale before but I figure out that in 1.6 , impale is useless with new health pools, 1 concelead weapon is most of the time enough if the target is under 25%, and good duellers never stay under 25% loong enough to use impale. Those lasts days I've been switching it a lot with proximity detonation, which is quite funny and very helpfull for burst
3. Concelead weapon : your main dps skill
4. Dark cloak : you will use it a lot to mitigate damages because you are with 5 light armor, in 1vX when I'm not bursting someone down I'm always cloaking/moving/shielding. The inconvenient is that Piercing Mark will be a death sentence in a 1vX, if you can't kill the NB who marked you in the 20 next seconds.
5. Sap essence : grants the major sorcellery buff, good aoe and needed for siphon passives
6. Soul harverst : very low cost/high monotarget damages the heal debuff helps a lot to kill someone whenever there is an ennemy magicka templar.

2nd bar restro staff :

1. Healing ward : Huge shield and the best heal you have access to
2. Crippling crasp : Very good dot and the speed bonus permite to kite much easier (what this bar is made for, kite and survive)
3. Shadow image : Best way to make cloak works, huge troll potential, for me too fun to pass out
4. Fear : ofc.
5. Harness magicka : very good shield agaisnt magicka players, helps a lot for magicka sustain in 1vX. When I duel stamina players I swich it for double take.
6. Clouding swarm if you are vamp or soultether if you are not : at the same time an "oh crap" button and very good damages (as nb bosmer I have 20% more dmg on all my attacks when I'm in clouding swarm)

Champion points :

I currently have 309 CP

• The mage : Apprentice : 1 in spell erosion, 20 in elfborn, 9 in blessed (you want the 12% crit bonus)
  The rest in thraumaturge until you reach 100 (all your damages are magic)
  
• The thief : The tower : 30 points in magician
  The lover : 4 in Mooncalf 30 in arcanist (and the next points in arcanist or mooncalf)
  The shadow : 39 in thumbling
  
• Warrior : The steed 10 in spell shield, 1 in resistant
  The lady : 1 in Light Armor focus, 15 in Hardy, 4 in Thick Skinned, 41 in Elemental Defender (because Im vamp)
  The lord : 30 in bastion 1 in Quick Recovery

Thats it, once again, its my setup doesnt mean it is the best setup for you, so tweak it or do whatever you want with it

Edit : Some clips I recorded with this build https://youtube.com/watch?v=OJxCAPmnAYk
I hope it helped you to go back to your loved magicka melee NB
PS : Forgive my bad english, french here^^

Dennegor

Johngo0036

Hey dude,

Chewbucca from DC here,
Bumped into you a few times and lost most of the fights.... lol..

Awesome build, awesome player,

Yes i agree with you on the point you try to make regarding its a build that works for you,
Not everyone can play with another persons build,
Use it as a guide.

Minsc

One of the best ( if not the best ) remaining magicka NBs in EU

Can you add a video as well?

Erondil

Johngo0036 wrote: »

Hey dude,

Chewbucca from DC here,
Bumped into you a few times and lost most of the fights.... lol..

Awesome build, awesome player,

Yes i agree with you on the point you try to make regarding its a build that works for you,
Not everyone can play with another persons build,
Use it as a guide.

Thanks! Yes, its exactly that, a guide or an example of what works, not a model you have to reproduce identically.

Minsc wrote: »

One of the best ( if not the best ) remaining magicka NBs in EU

Can you add a video as well?

Thats an huge consideration thanks! I would like to add a video but sadly, my computer cant handle fraps with eso in medium qualitie without a lot of annoying fps drops, and it would be too ugly for a video in low graphism imo

Chikenuget

Do you rely on burst, sustained fighting, tactician, or a combination of any of these?

Erondil

Chikenuget wrote: »

Do you rely on burst, sustained fighting, tactician, or a combination of any of these?

Depends a lot of the situation. In duel I need to keep a pressure on the adversary so he can't really attack, I rarely use cloak but try to be always melee attacking him, I just switch bar to refresh my harness (agaisnt a sorc) or my healing ward (agaisnt a stamina user) and y cripple. But even with this sustained fight I need a burst phase if the opponent is good, which I always start full magicka with an ultimate up.
In 1vX, its not a sustained fight but a heavy burst that I need to kill an opponent (because with 5 light damages you take are huge and there might be healers in the group you're fighting) and then a lot of kite during what I take care to refresh my shields, crippling crasp and use shadow image/cloak a lot. If I fail on a first burst phase I make sure to start my second with full ressources and an ultimate up to secure (almost) the kill. I los a lot in 1vX tho, I use rock, three or walls a lot... bridges or gates are my paradise :P

alakmir

hehehehe

cschwingeb14_ESO

Drop relentless focus and sap for entropy and strife? Lack of empower seems like a lost opportunity, plus the 8%health. It does leave you low on AE damage though

Separate question, would you use blood spawn instead of engine? I find that engine is terrible for builds that rely on invisibility,, as it can completely give you away and nirn is great with armor buffs like shadow barrier and blood spawn

Erondil

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

Drop relentless focus and sap for entropy and strife? Lack of empower seems like a lost opportunity, plus the 8%health. It does leave you low on AE damage though

Separate question, would you use blood spawn instead of engine? I find that engine is terrible for builds that rely on invisibility,, as it can completely give you away and nirn is great with armor buffs like shadow barrier and blood spawn

I prefer by far sap essence instead of entropy, because I have an aoe use when I meet an ennemy stacked group of 4+ and the major sorcellery buff last longer than the entropy one (Edit : it doesnt). Its also very usefull to finish a NB that tries to cloak in melee. More than that, I dont find a use to strife in a melee build, the heal is quite low and damages aswell, while buffs from relentless focus, 8% more damages on concelead weapon and 10% stamina recovery makes a pretty huge difference (and much better imo). The major empowerement from entropy dont worth it imo, you use 1 GCD for 20% more damages on your next attack... It could be good for burst but in openworld I have already enough burst to kill most of ppl anyway.

About bloodspawn, I was using it back in 1.5 but they nerfed it and now I have to be always with a shield up/cloaking/dodging (much more than in 1.5 because the damages you take are really huge now) so it wouldnt proc a lot (it doesnt proc on shields). I really need engine guardian because as you can see, my magicka recovery is quite low for a full magicka spec (1k) and I'm already oom a lot, eventhough my spells are cheap. Btw the fact that it can procc in stealth is really annoying tbh, but not enough to drop it.

ToRelax

Erondil wrote: »

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

Drop relentless focus and sap for entropy and strife? Lack of empower seems like a lost opportunity, plus the 8%health. It does leave you low on AE damage though

Separate question, would you use blood spawn instead of engine? I find that engine is terrible for builds that rely on invisibility,, as it can completely give you away and nirn is great with armor buffs like shadow barrier and blood spawn

I prefer by far sap essence instead of entropy, because I have an aoe use when I meet an ennemy stacked group of 4+ and the major sorcellery buff last longer than the entropy one. Its also very usefull to finish a NB that tries to cloak in melee. More than that, I dont find a use to strife in a melee build, the heal is quite low and damages aswell, while buffs from relentless focus, 8% more damages on concelead weapon and 10% stamina recovery makes a pretty huge difference (and much better imo). The major empowerement from entropy dont worth it imo, you use 1 GCD for 20% more damages on your next attack... It could be good for burst but in openworld I have already enough burst to kill most of ppl anyway.

About bloodspawn, I was using it back in 1.5 but they nerfed it and now I have to be always with a shield up/cloaking/dodging (much more than in 1.5 because the damages you take are really huge now) so it wouldnt proc a lot (it doesnt proc on shields). I really need engine guardian because as you can see, my magicka recovery is quite low for a full magicka spec (1k) and I'm already oom a lot, eventhough my spells are cheap. Btw the fact that it can procc in stealth is really annoying tbh, but not enough to drop it.

I am pretty sure the major sorcery from Entropy lasts longer than the tooltip states, probably 20 seconds, too - or, I know my spell damage value in character sheet doesn't change when the DoT expires but a bit later, just haven't tested wether the actual damage stays buffed, but I would guess so.

Derra

ToRelax wrote: »

Erondil wrote: »

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

Drop relentless focus and sap for entropy and strife? Lack of empower seems like a lost opportunity, plus the 8%health. It does leave you low on AE damage though

Separate question, would you use blood spawn instead of engine? I find that engine is terrible for builds that rely on invisibility,, as it can completely give you away and nirn is great with armor buffs like shadow barrier and blood spawn

I prefer by far sap essence instead of entropy, because I have an aoe use when I meet an ennemy stacked group of 4+ and the major sorcellery buff last longer than the entropy one. Its also very usefull to finish a NB that tries to cloak in melee. More than that, I dont find a use to strife in a melee build, the heal is quite low and damages aswell, while buffs from relentless focus, 8% more damages on concelead weapon and 10% stamina recovery makes a pretty huge difference (and much better imo). The major empowerement from entropy dont worth it imo, you use 1 GCD for 20% more damages on your next attack... It could be good for burst but in openworld I have already enough burst to kill most of ppl anyway.

About bloodspawn, I was using it back in 1.5 but they nerfed it and now I have to be always with a shield up/cloaking/dodging (much more than in 1.5 because the damages you take are really huge now) so it wouldnt proc a lot (it doesnt proc on shields). I really need engine guardian because as you can see, my magicka recovery is quite low for a full magicka spec (1k) and I'm already oom a lot, eventhough my spells are cheap. Btw the fact that it can procc in stealth is really annoying tbh, but not enough to drop it.

I am pretty sure the major sorcery from Entropy lasts longer than the tooltip states, probably 20 seconds, too - or, I know my spell damage value in character sheet doesn't change when the DoT expires but a bit later, just haven't tested wether the actual damage stays buffed, but I would guess so.

It does last 20 seconds - atleast the last time when i´ve tested that.

Erondil

Oh ok, thanks to precise it, TT isnt very clear about that, I should not trust them^^

pjwb16_ESO

But...
But...
You cant dodge so much as me bro

Lava_Croft

No Purge means you are a free kill as Magicka Nightblade.

Whyn Aurum

A mark on yourself usually means a death sentence unless you're good with the shade kiting. So yeah, purge is a nice thing to have if you're relying on stealth in your playstyle

Erondil

pjwb16_ESO wrote: »

But...
But...
You cant dodge so much as me bro

How many cloaks until you are oom?

Lava_Croft wrote: »

No Purge means you are a free kill as Magicka Nightblade.

So kill me.

Whyn Aurum wrote: »

A mark on yourself usually means a death sentence unless you're good with the shade kiting. So yeah, purge is a nice thing to have if you're relying on stealth in your playstyle

When I'm fighting more than 4 ennemies yeah, I die quite often by mark unless I can los/kite with shadow image long enough. In 1v1 I don't rely on cloak so much, in 1v2-3 I can manage to kill the NB fast.
But I die most of the time in a 1v4+ anyway, I rely on cloak a lot to dodge/move/reshield but I never leave the fight, even when a 1v2 turns into a 1v10 I can't prevent myself to jump in and try to get a kill instead of just cloak away, eventhough I die in 99% of the case.
With a sixth slot I would use it, but its too situationnal imo to drop another skill.

Lava_Croft

Erondil wrote: »

So kill me.

I'm in Thornblade every single day, don't recall having seen you since at least 1.6. But sure, I'll mark you if I run into you!

Erondil

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Erondil wrote: »

So kill me.

I'm in Thornblade every single day, don't recall having seen you since at least 1.6. But sure, I'll mark you if I run into you!

Yes I decided to leave TB after the first reset post-1.6 because it was too laggy everyday. Now I switch between differents campaigns to try to find a non-laggy interesting pvp

cschwingeb14_ESO

I didn't think about how all the misses from dodge/invis would also keep blood spawn from proccing. I still think that Engine Guardian is fairly bad for you, as vamp kills the 1 set bonus, and the way I read the 2-piece bonus is: 3.33% chance on skill activation to give me something I need.

Have you considered Adroitness 5 piece while dropping engine? It would be really hard to make up the spell damage without VR14 Stygian daggers or a masters GS (and using 2-piece tourogs armor for medium/heavy), but the regen would be very high.

ToRelax

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

I didn't think about how all the misses from dodge/invis would also keep blood spawn from proccing. I still think that Engine Guardian is fairly bad for you, as vamp kills the 1 set bonus, and the way I read the 2-piece bonus is: 3.33% chance on skill activation to give me something I need.

Have you considered Adroitness 5 piece while dropping engine? It would be really hard to make up the spell damage without VR14 Stygian daggers or a masters GS (and using 2-piece tourogs armor for medium/heavy), but the regen would be very high.

Engine Guardian spheres can proc every 6.5 seconds and since they very often proc right when the previous one expires, I think they can "proc" while one is active, just wait until the current one disappears. Also, both stamina and magicka are useful in most situations, since you can just use the resource that gets filled up, thus regaining some of the other one. The healing proc isn't always bad either, but obviously not always that great.

Erondil

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

I didn't think about how all the misses from dodge/invis would also keep blood spawn from proccing. I still think that Engine Guardian is fairly bad for you, as vamp kills the 1 set bonus, and the way I read the 2-piece bonus is: 3.33% chance on skill activation to give me something I need.

Have you considered Adroitness 5 piece while dropping engine? It would be really hard to make up the spell damage without VR14 Stygian daggers or a masters GS (and using 2-piece tourogs armor for medium/heavy), but the regen would be very high.

I will try once I have some gold to run 5 adroitness d stygian daggers as you advice. But dwemer is really really not bad. As Elo said, every proccs are usefull, I dont only use it for the magicka one : stamina is basically free rolldodge for 6 seconds, magicka is free skills for 6 sec, and health one, eventhough I'm a bit disappointed when it proccs on health, is better than nothing. Basically, it will proccs more than 3 times/min so its ~250-300 recovery of every ressources. More than that, it annoys the ennemy in duels because the tab target isnt very effective and they might hit the dwemer instead of me if I stay next to him. To be honnest with you, I thought it was a *** set until I found my first shoulders 1 month ago, I tried it, I loved it.

Cody

I made mine breton.

still a work in progress.

cschwingeb14_ESO

Stygian daggers don't seem to exist at VR14, and I can't even find any VR12. I need to test the engine guardian proc chance. Last time i used it was in 1.5, and the amount restored is better now. For Adroitness, the best setup I can think of is:

5/5 Adroitness (neck, 4 armor)
4/5 magnus (DW -sharp/nirn, 2 armor-nirnhoned, med and heavy)
1/2 Blood spawn (head or shoulder)
2/5 Cyodiil light (rings)
1 resto staff. Magnus or Master

This gives:
2x magicka
3x spell damage
2x magicka regen
1x stam regen
620 magicka and stam every 5 sec (at best)

This would allow for dropping Atronauch mundus and going with Apprentice. The extra penetration is significant and should make up most of the lost damage from lower spell damage.

Erondil

Cody wrote: »

I made mine breton.

still a work in progress.

Breton is good too.
Imo the best races for this build are Altmer>Bosmer>Breton>rest if you want to be vamp with clouding swarm, Altmer>Breton>rest if you don't.

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

Stygian daggers don't seem to exist at VR14, and I can't even find any VR12. I need to test the engine guardian proc chance. Last time i used it was in 1.5, and the amount restored is better now. For Adroitness, the best setup I can think of is:

5/5 Adroitness (neck, 4 armor)
4/5 magnus (DW -sharp/nirn, 2 armor-nirnhoned, med and heavy)
1/2 Blood spawn (head or shoulder)
2/5 Cyodiil light (rings)
1 resto staff. Magnus or Master

This gives:
2x magicka
3x spell damage
2x magicka regen
1x stam regen
620 magicka and stam every 5 sec (at best)

This would allow for dropping Atronauch mundus and going with Apprentice. The extra penetration is significant and should make up most of the lost damage from lower spell damage.

Gonna try for sure. I already planned to test with Apprentice over Atronach if one day ZOS makes a race change (to be altmer).

Erondil

Some clips I recorded with this build wednesday. Graphisms are quite low, sorry about that but can't do better atm
click

Bodycounter

Wouldn't Dunmer be the best suited race for this build? I don't see why Altmer should be better than Dunmer or Breton.

pjwb16_ESO

Magicka Reg + Max Magicka from High Elf is much better then reduced Fire Damage (worthless in 1.6) and that bit of Stamina

Erondil

Bodycounter wrote: »

Wouldn't Dunmer be the best suited race for this build? I don't see why Altmer should be better than Dunmer or Breton.

Lets take a look at dunmer passive :

• 9% max magicka : cool
• 6% max stamina : useless for this build, 500 stamina more ont change anything
• flame resist : worthless in 1.6 because its ridicusly low compared to new values
• flames damages : worthless because I don't use any skill with flam damages

So the only interesting pasive as dunmer is the 9% max magicka (unless they adapt the flame resist to new values).
Breton passives :

• 10% max magicka
• 3k spell resist
• 3% spell cost reduction

Altmer :

• 10% max magicka
• 10% max magicka regen
• 4% more elemental damages

The only difference that matters for us is those 10% magicka regenaration instead of 3% spell cost reduction and 3k spell resist. 3k spell resist could be nice but harness doesn't beneficit from spell resist and its our main defence against magickal attacks. 3% spell cost reduce isn't that interesting because our spell are already quite cheap (it would be 40-50 cost reduc on concelead weapon), while altmer is ~100 magicka regeneration. Even supposing you use 1 concelead weapon every sec we gain more magicka from those 100 magicka recovery.

Kerioko

Nice build, I do something similar, yet tend to run funnel health as my primary dps skill!

Bodycounter

Flame resist is actually that low since 1.6? Seems like something, that i have to watch again. But thanks for answering.
Strange, that Breton's spell resist to all kinds of sources is higher than Dunmer's fire resist alone.

Erondil

Kerioko wrote: »

Nice build, I do something similar, yet tend to run funnel health as my primary dps skill!

Thanks

Bodycounter wrote: »

Flame resist is actually that low since 1.6? Seems like something, that i have to watch again. But thanks for answering.
Strange, that Breton's spell resist to all kinds of sources is higher than Dunmer's fire resist alone.

I don't know if its intended but they left dunmer flame resist passive with the same value than in1.5 while all stats have been multiplicated by ~7-8. So dmg it mitigates are almost nothing.