Theorycrafting for Light Armor Magicka Nightblade - Homestead Update

bubbygink

psychotic13 wrote: »

X5 necro x5 alchemist x2 skoria = winning

@psychotic13 I have come around to thinking 5 necro + 5 alch is definitely the way to go. Then either 2 pirate skelly / skoria / kena depending on play style. But I am curious as to how you and others are setting up your bars on this setup since nerco would only be on the front bar. Do you use Inner Light and Annulment/Dampen on your front bar? Or do you even use Inner Light at all? It just seems to synergize so well with nerco so I am inclined to use it.

Currently I use Impale, Merciless, Swallow Soul, Fear, and Sap/Entropy on my front bar. Guess I could move Fear and my Major Sorcery source to my back bar and throw on Inner Light and Dampen. I will also need to make room for shade on back bar then too.

psychotic13

bubbygink wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

X5 necro x5 alchemist x2 skoria = winning

@psychotic13 I have come around to thinking 5 necro + 5 alch is definitely the way to go. Then either 2 pirate skelly / skoria / kena depending on play style. But I am curious as to how you and others are setting up your bars on this setup since nerco would only be on the front bar. Do you use Inner Light and Annulment/Dampen on your front bar? Or do you even use Inner Light at all? It just seems to synergize so well with nerco so I am inclined to use it.

Currently I use Impale, Merciless, Swallow Soul, Fear, and Sap/Entropy on my front bar. Guess I could move Fear and my Major Sorcery source to my back bar and throw on Inner Light and Dampen. I will also need to make room for shade on back bar then too.

This is how I have my bars:

Destro
Swallow Soul
Merciless Resolve
Impale
Dampen Magic
Destructive Touch
ULT: Soul Tether

Resto
Degeneration
Cripple
Mass hysteria
Healing Ward
Shades
Ult: whatever


I use destructive reach cause I believe you need a destro ability for the passives, and it's an extra dot for skoria. Using the back to apply DoTs/buffs and doing main damage on the Necropotence bar where the shield is

bubbygink

psychotic13 wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

X5 necro x5 alchemist x2 skoria = winning

@psychotic13 I have come around to thinking 5 necro + 5 alch is definitely the way to go. Then either 2 pirate skelly / skoria / kena depending on play style. But I am curious as to how you and others are setting up your bars on this setup since nerco would only be on the front bar. Do you use Inner Light and Annulment/Dampen on your front bar? Or do you even use Inner Light at all? It just seems to synergize so well with nerco so I am inclined to use it.

Currently I use Impale, Merciless, Swallow Soul, Fear, and Sap/Entropy on my front bar. Guess I could move Fear and my Major Sorcery source to my back bar and throw on Inner Light and Dampen. I will also need to make room for shade on back bar then too.

This is how I have my bars:

Destro
Swallow Soul
Merciless Resolve
Impale
Dampen Magic
Destructive Touch
ULT: Soul Tether

Resto
Degeneration
Cripple
Mass hysteria
Healing Ward
Shades
Ult: whatever


I use destructive reach cause I believe you need a destro ability for the passives, and it's an extra dot for skoria. Using the back to apply DoTs/buffs and doing main damage on the Necropotence bar where the shield is

Thank you for the insight. My front bar will probably look similar. Think I am just gonna put destro ult on there though to get the passive and then use Inner Light or Fear on my front bar over destructive reach. The main thing I noticed though is no siphoning attacks. I can't imagine myself running without that. Do you sustain ok without? I would think both your magicka and stamina would be strained.

psychotic13

bubbygink wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

X5 necro x5 alchemist x2 skoria = winning

@psychotic13 I have come around to thinking 5 necro + 5 alch is definitely the way to go. Then either 2 pirate skelly / skoria / kena depending on play style. But I am curious as to how you and others are setting up your bars on this setup since nerco would only be on the front bar. Do you use Inner Light and Annulment/Dampen on your front bar? Or do you even use Inner Light at all? It just seems to synergize so well with nerco so I am inclined to use it.

Currently I use Impale, Merciless, Swallow Soul, Fear, and Sap/Entropy on my front bar. Guess I could move Fear and my Major Sorcery source to my back bar and throw on Inner Light and Dampen. I will also need to make room for shade on back bar then too.

This is how I have my bars:

Destro
Swallow Soul
Merciless Resolve
Impale
Dampen Magic
Destructive Touch
ULT: Soul Tether

Resto
Degeneration
Cripple
Mass hysteria
Healing Ward
Shades
Ult: whatever


I use destructive reach cause I believe you need a destro ability for the passives, and it's an extra dot for skoria. Using the back to apply DoTs/buffs and doing main damage on the Necropotence bar where the shield is

Thank you for the insight. My front bar will probably look similar. Think I am just gonna put destro ult on there though to get the passive and then use Inner Light or Fear on my front bar over destructive reach. The main thing I noticed though is no siphoning attacks. I can't imagine myself running without that. Do you sustain ok without? I would think both your magicka and stamina would be strained.

I only run siphoning attacks in PvE, I use the food that gives magicka and magicka recovery and find I can sustain fine with it, my healths a bit low but I can manage with big shields

thankyourat

HEBREWHAMMERRR wrote: »

Just a thread I was looking for, some Magblade theory crafting! I have an idea here..a little out there but it seems enticing. I have two characters, my Magblade day 1 and just leveled a magsorc so this combo is somewhat universal for them around necro.

With changes to ice staff and blocking scaled off your magicka I got to thinking how viable it'd be to combo this with necro. The obviously tradeoff here is going to be..where's the burst if you're blocking constantly? I'm thinking a necropotence / spinners (extra max mag and pen) with an ice staff, and either skoria or some other monster set, don't have troll king or pirate skeleton yet so I was thinking if survivability was a problem bloodspawn on sorc could be nice for destro uptime.

All just theorycrafting last night but let me know thoughts. Also going to say that I realllllly need to farm amberplasm it seems very beneficial for sustain this patch.

I have thought about using ice staff dual wield sort of like how magplars are dual wield, sword and board now. I was thinking something similar to what you were saying except it was 5 spinner/5 necro/2 troll king. It would be sort of like a melee build and the ice staff back bar would allow me to block. But I figured that set up would be better on heavy armor. I'm not a big fan of disabling regen on light armor. So I was thinking a more aggresive set up with a lighting staff back bar for the extra destro ultimate damage and a flame staff front bar for pressure. I've played with only one shield before and I do fine, but with this set up you do lose healing ward. I think ice staff is better for duals you need that flame staff burst in open world. I don't think you need amberplasm worse case scenario you throw a cost reduction piece on your jewelery. If you want to use ice staff I think it would be more viable on a heavy armor build

thankyourat

psychotic13 wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

X5 necro x5 alchemist x2 skoria = winning

@psychotic13 I have come around to thinking 5 necro + 5 alch is definitely the way to go. Then either 2 pirate skelly / skoria / kena depending on play style. But I am curious as to how you and others are setting up your bars on this setup since nerco would only be on the front bar. Do you use Inner Light and Annulment/Dampen on your front bar? Or do you even use Inner Light at all? It just seems to synergize so well with nerco so I am inclined to use it.

Currently I use Impale, Merciless, Swallow Soul, Fear, and Sap/Entropy on my front bar. Guess I could move Fear and my Major Sorcery source to my back bar and throw on Inner Light and Dampen. I will also need to make room for shade on back bar then too.

This is how I have my bars:

Destro
Swallow Soul
Merciless Resolve
Impale
Dampen Magic
Destructive Touch
ULT: Soul Tether

Resto
Degeneration
Cripple
Mass hysteria
Healing Ward
Shades
Ult: whatever


I use destructive reach cause I believe you need a destro ability for the passives, and it's an extra dot for skoria. Using the back to apply DoTs/buffs and doing main damage on the Necropotence bar where the shield is

With no inner light are using crit pots? I just dropped inner light for crit pots not sure how I feel about it yet. I tried and i just can't drop spinners for necro. playing solo with all this armor around. I'm pretty much never in the negative on penetration unless I fight a sorc. Lol but sorcs are pretty easy to beat just annoying. They can't CC me and I'll root and CC then all day.

psychotic13

thankyourat wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

X5 necro x5 alchemist x2 skoria = winning

@psychotic13 I have come around to thinking 5 necro + 5 alch is definitely the way to go. Then either 2 pirate skelly / skoria / kena depending on play style. But I am curious as to how you and others are setting up your bars on this setup since nerco would only be on the front bar. Do you use Inner Light and Annulment/Dampen on your front bar? Or do you even use Inner Light at all? It just seems to synergize so well with nerco so I am inclined to use it.

Currently I use Impale, Merciless, Swallow Soul, Fear, and Sap/Entropy on my front bar. Guess I could move Fear and my Major Sorcery source to my back bar and throw on Inner Light and Dampen. I will also need to make room for shade on back bar then too.

This is how I have my bars:

Destro
Swallow Soul
Merciless Resolve
Impale
Dampen Magic
Destructive Touch
ULT: Soul Tether

Resto
Degeneration
Cripple
Mass hysteria
Healing Ward
Shades
Ult: whatever


I use destructive reach cause I believe you need a destro ability for the passives, and it's an extra dot for skoria. Using the back to apply DoTs/buffs and doing main damage on the Necropotence bar where the shield is

With no inner light are using crit pots? I just dropped inner light for crit pots not sure how I feel about it yet. I tried and i just can't drop spinners for necro. playing solo with all this armor around. I'm pretty much never in the negative on penetration unless I fight a sorc. Lol but sorcs are pretty easy to beat just annoying. They can't CC me and I'll root and CC then all day.

I use crit pots, and they're up 100% of the time as I'm using alchemist I proc it whenever available

Spinners is alright, but I dont like the idea of my 5pc being useless against any shield user, besides Necropotence gives a lot of magicka and you end up with huge shields

Foxic

I've been running 5 necro 2 grothdar 3 willpower and maelstrom inferno and resto for a while now and I find it extremely good for 1v1 and small group. I'm sitting at 51K magicka with my shades up. The eye of flame, merciless fear combo is unreal coupled with the survivability I get from my shields. Even got the emp of azuras last night with it

Whyn Aurum

I am running a light armor build with 5xNecro+5xSeducer and one piece monster like kena or infernal guardian.

The build has very high magicka and can reach up to 50k magicka buffed on a high elf. Seducer provides nice sustain. 3x spell power on jewelry, other than that divine+infused 5+1+1 with Atronach as I run Shadowy Disguise a lot which also has lower cost than dark cloak by the way. The only downside is the health i only 21k-ish on trifood which is a bit low. If you dont mind getting one shot once in a while from a pesky ganker then I do recommend this setup.

My bars are:

destro: 1.Cripple 2. Shadowy Disguise 3.Flame reach 4.Swallow Soul 5.Merciless Resolve, ULT: Meteor

resto: 1. Siphoning Attacks, 2. Mutagen or Healig Ward, 3.Fear, 4. Dampen, 5.Shade ULT: Soul Tether

thankyourat

Whyn Aurum wrote: »

I am running a light armor build with 5xNecro+5xSeducer and one piece monster like kena or infernal guardian.

The build has very high magicka and can reach up to 50k magicka buffed on a high elf. Seducer provides nice sustain. 3x spell power on jewelry, other than that divine+infused 5+1+1 with Atronach as I run Shadowy Disguise a lot which also has lower cost than dark cloak by the way. The only downside is the health i only 21k-ish on trifood which is a bit low. If you dont mind getting one shot once in a while from a pesky ganker then I do recommend this setup.

My bars are:

destro: 1.Cripple 2. Shadowy Disguise 3.Flame reach 4.Swallow Soul 5.Merciless Resolve, ULT: Meteor

resto: 1. Siphoning Attacks, 2. Mutagen or Healig Ward, 3.Fear, 4. Dampen, 5.Shade ULT: Soul Tether

Alot of people are running clench and fear. I may have to give that a try and drop crippling grasp. So I don't have to use the destro ultimate, (personal reasons) and I can keep soul harvest on my front bar.

exeeter702

bubbygink wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

Based on current pvp environments. You would be the envy of all magblades if you can legitimately say you have more than enough stamina (recovery) to meet all the dodge roll and blocking needs...

I don't that is true at all. I mean sure I can't just hold block and block cast, but I always block (or try to at least lol) the heavy hitters like meteor, incap, dark flare, crystal frag, etc. I also, of course, break free when needed. And even will dodge roll every now and then if my stamina is topped off. And I run with only 10k stamina. If you are utilizing siphoning attacks correctly you should have plenty of stamina unless you like to block cast a lot or you dodge roll a lot (which you shouldn't on a magblade).

Just above, @thankyourat echoed this sentiment as well saying: "Because of how strong siphoning attacks is letting me block most CCs and allow me to roll dodge as a magicka build." I think most experienced magblades would agree that with siphoning attacks we DO have more than enough stamina recovery to block and break-free under normal circumstances.

IF you absolutely feel you need to make room for siphoning, aside from how encumbersome it can be to upkeep in certain pvp scenarios, sure...

exeeter702 wrote: »

Frost staff defensive buffs outweigh the fire staff damage increase in my honest opinion. And with major evasion and and unchained being slightly nerfed a hard cc like fear with frost root makes kiting and playing at range that much more effective. Although yes the argument can be made that between crippling grasp root, shade swap and fear you should be ok.

As I mentioned in a post above, there certainly could be scenarios where this is true. Perhaps, for example, if you're in a very organized group that fights very outnumbered forcing you to blockcast a lot then you may prefer ice staff for survivability and you'll still be able to get kills since you're in such a coordinated group. But in my honest opinion it is in very limited situations because, as I said, magblades utilizing siphoning attacks properly typically have plenty of stamina anyway and a 8% damage bonus is HUGE.

You have it backwards, in a structured group, where you will have dedicated peels and incoming healing, the extra damage outweighs the added CC / utility. If you are running solo, the defensive options along with the longest root in the game, far outweigh the 8 percent damage boost... its not that huge lol.

bubbygink

exeeter702 wrote: »

You have it backwards, in a structured group, where you will have dedicated peels and incoming healing, the extra damage outweighs the added CC / utility. If you are running solo, the defensive options along with the longest root in the game, far outweigh the 8 percent damage boost... its not that huge lol.

In my opinion the 8% damage is pretty much always superior. I was just suggesting some possible scenario where it could make sense to run ice staff, which in my opinion, only really makes sense for Magblades if you are having to hold block and block cast. I always run solo or in small groups of about 2-4 people and I still use my flame staff in groups too.

I am not sure what the added "defensive options" of the ice staff are that you speak of. It doesn't increase my resistance or anything. As I already stated, I easily have enough stamina to block and CC break when needed. Any Magblade that is properly using siphoning attacks should. If you are running out of stamina with your flame staff then you need to learn to use siphoning attacks correctly or you are dodge rolling way too much.

Having said that, ice staff adds no value to me. And in fact it will actually hurt me because I will just be wasting magicka, the resource I use the most, to block while my stamina remains virtually full and unused except for break free. Therefore, even if flame staff was just "neutral," as in it didn't add any benefits at all, I would still probably pick it over ice staff which would just be a drain on my magicka. Given the fact I get an 8% damage boost, which is equivalent to about 600 spell damage, it is a no brainer to go with flame staff.

Lexxypwns

thankyourat wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

The health on this build is actually almost 26k. Because of alchamist and undaunted passives. And my crit resist is like 2300 which I think is pretty healthy for a light armor magblade and with a defending back bar resto my resist is almost 17k on the back bar. But all the reasons we switched to heavy are still there lol. I have been using cloak actually it's so buggy but when it works and shadow image works my survivability is very high alot of times I don't even need annulment just healing ward, but as you know those skills are buggy and don't always work. But if you are using just annulment you are going to get bursted so fast lol. I was using mist form but I felt to squishy and mist form stopped my healing and I wasn't tanky enough in light for my healing to be cut off and my regen to be stopped (not a problem in heavy because of constitution passives) so I dropped it for shade but now the snares are just ridiculous so I put on conceal weapon for more movement speed (it's actually working decent it surprised me)

The survivability with light armor magblade I think is just low, but it's very high when you skills work. I've tried all the defensive sets blood spawn (actually decent), pirate skeleton, troll King worked decently when combined with cloak. But I found all of them to have the same problem snares pin you down and burst one shots you. Or you build so defensive that you don't have any burst. What I found as a light armor magblade my best defense is having alot of burst damage and being able to use my shade to reposition. That's why i ended up settling for Kena as my 2 piece. And with all the health a crit resist on this build even in light armor you will be hard to one shot.

Great point about sustain with mist form in light. Didn't think about no resource return at all when I am in it. Used to being able to get a decent amount back from constitution. Snares are just my worst enemy in open world though (I hate tremor so much lol) and I believe mobility is key. That is why I just cannot see myself giving up mistform. Maybe a combination of doubletake/shade/etc. could help out.

Another benefit to having concealed on your bar is that it probably useful to counter the FotM magicka DKs I am sure will be everywhere. But I just don't think I could find room for it on my bar.

Also just hate using cloak since, as you said, it is so buggy. But maybe I will try it out again. @SneaK also suggested trying it out again above. Maybe I will give it another go.

Cloak is still buggy lol but works sometimes. Yea I go back and forth with mist form. I'm thinking about using it instead of annulment cause 75℅ damage reduction very strong defensible ability and I actually don't keep my damage shield up 100℅ of the time on my magblade because it puts breaks in my pressure. Also I use dark cloak which everyone thinks is weak but the 8℅ damage mitigation is very strong when multiple opponents combined with minor main from fear or image and I actually use veil of blades on my back bar as my oh crap ultimate and just too play something different it's not a bad skill either makes you very tanky when you put all of that together plus all those abilities proc shadow barrier passives, with the nerf to proc sets I think I can maybe get by without annulment. I'll have to see though. Yes concealed weapon is great against mag dks I always like to have something unflectable on my build also concealed weapon makes them not cast wings so you can sneak a spectral bow in there. I also been thinking about running cleanse instead of annulment with the nerf to proc sets. Because it will get rid of marks in addition to snares, and has a burst heal. With mist form disabling regen, cleanse and mist form shoul basically be the same resource management. Alot of this depends on if they really fixed cloak and how much burst damage does the nerf to proc sets actually reduce though

Nah, man, the minor protection on dark cloak is so short as to render it irrelevant. Even in a 5v1 it's prolly only gonna stop like 3k damage. The guaranteed crit on a spectral bow does much more for your survivability, in the form of getting kills faster. By the time you've got enough incoming damage in 2 seconds for that minor protection to be worthwhile you're at a point where you need the burst to immediately start eliminating targets or you need to try to escape

Yes I'm not completely sold on dark cloak. I can tell a difference but like you said I don't know if it's worth losing the guaranteed crit on heavy attacks and other abilities. Honestly I'm not sold on cloak as a whole. What I'm trying to do is build a light armor build that doesn't need to run annulment so I was trying out damage mitigation on cloak, but if cloak isn't going to work it's going to be difficult kind of forcing me into necroprentence, I think it possible cause as a solo magblade I still do well and get good 1vXs regularly and I even had some good ones when I dropped annulment for path. Because of how strong siphoning attacks is letting me block most CCs and allow me to roll dodge as a magicka build. Combined with major evasion, minor maim, healing ward is huge when you are low health, and two hots I found myself to be decently tanky in light armor even without dampen. The only thing that made me put it back on was cloak was unreliable and stamblades are just annoying. If cloak works I'll probably drop it completely. But I am probably going to go back to shadow cloak because heavy attack soul harvest usually hits for around 15 to 17k even more if I'm fully buffed. If they can't fix cloak though I'm probably going to have to go back to using necro again though which would be disappointing. Because I hate playing my magblade like a sorc. It's why I went heavy armor in the first place lol

If you want to use cloak for open world, I wouldn't drop dampen/harness, personally. I think you'd be better off dropping necro, taking shades off bar and putting cloak there. With Pirate 2 pc you won't need the crazy necro magika bonus tbh, since it effectively increases the size of your shields so much.

Atm, I'm playing around with dropping funnel for crushing shock. This way I can justify running 5 BSW 5 X(alch most likely) 2 Pirate.

exeeter702 wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

@HEBREWHAMMERRR I think the changes to ice staff are definitely interesting, and depending on what you're going for in your build, it could be very strong. But the thing is, with siphoning attacks, my stamina sustain is pretty great. Sure I run out every now and then if I mess up and dodge roll when I am low or something, but generally I don't have to worry too much about it. So I feel like if I used an ice staff to utilize magicka to block I would just be wasting excess stamina. i would pretty much always be full on it if I was only using it for break-frees and not blocking. For that reason I prefer the flame staff for more damage and what amounts to better magicka sustain since I'd be using be other resource for blocks.

On another note, I did notice a bit of a difference in sustain from the funnel cost increase on my heavy armor build yesterday. I only rely on wichmothers to sustain (thief mundus and no magicka recovery glyphs or bonuses) but that may be a bit tricky now. Most of the time I was ok but there was a time or two I ran out of magicka when I knew that I hadn't in similar situations before. I'm guessing transitioning over light should fix that.

Based on current pvp environments. You would be the envy of all magblades if you can legitimately say you have more than enough stamina (recovery) to meet all the dodge roll and blocking needs...

Frost staff defensive buffs outweigh the fire staff damage increase in my honest opinion. And with major evasion and and unchained being slightly nerfed a hard cc like fear with frost root makes kiting and playing at range that much more effective. Although yes the argument can be made that between crippling grasp root, shade swap and fear you should be ok.

Actually, if you're struggling to sustain your stam on mageblade you're doing something wrong.

thankyourat wrote: »

HEBREWHAMMERRR wrote: »

Just a thread I was looking for, some Magblade theory crafting! I have an idea here..a little out there but it seems enticing. I have two characters, my Magblade day 1 and just leveled a magsorc so this combo is somewhat universal for them around necro.

With changes to ice staff and blocking scaled off your magicka I got to thinking how viable it'd be to combo this with necro. The obviously tradeoff here is going to be..where's the burst if you're blocking constantly? I'm thinking a necropotence / spinners (extra max mag and pen) with an ice staff, and either skoria or some other monster set, don't have troll king or pirate skeleton yet so I was thinking if survivability was a problem bloodspawn on sorc could be nice for destro uptime.

All just theorycrafting last night but let me know thoughts. Also going to say that I realllllly need to farm amberplasm it seems very beneficial for sustain this patch.

I have thought about using ice staff dual wield sort of like how magplars are dual wield, sword and board now. I was thinking something similar to what you were saying except it was 5 spinner/5 necro/2 troll king. It would be sort of like a melee build and the ice staff back bar would allow me to block. But I figured that set up would be better on heavy armor. I'm not a big fan of disabling regen on light armor. So I was thinking a more aggresive set up with a lighting staff back bar for the extra destro ultimate damage and a flame staff front bar for pressure. I've played with only one shield before and I do fine, but with this set up you do lose healing ward. I think ice staff is better for duals you need that flame staff burst in open world. I don't think you need amberplasm worse case scenario you throw a cost reduction piece on your jewelery. If you want to use ice staff I think it would be more viable on a heavy armor build

Its worth noting that the best bet if you're running destro ult is still eye of flame. There's too many vamps in cyrodiil not to run fire.

bubbygink

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Atm, I'm playing around with dropping funnel for crushing shock. This way I can justify running 5 BSW 5 X(alch most likely) 2 Pirate.

@Lexxypwns Would love to hear your results after you've had some time to run this. I have considered doing the same. BSW is just so strong (OP really in my opinion) that I've been wanting to try this out too. Plus crushing shock has some other benefits over funnel. It is still significantly more expensive to cast and lacks a heal but I think these are much smaller issues in light than in heavy.

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Actually, if you're struggling to sustain your stam on mageblade you're doing something wrong. Its worth noting that the best bet if you're running destro ult is still eye of flame. There's too many vamps in cyrodiil not to run fire.

For these reasons (and I already posted something similar above about the easy stam sustain on magblade) I think flame staff is nearly always BiS for Magblades in PvP. No need for ice staff because we can sustain our stam for blocking easily, and shouldn't use lighting staff to run EotS because even with the 8% bonus to AoE the massive increase in fire damage to vamps makes flame staff offer more EotS damage anyway (with practically everyone running vamp now). And obviously the 8% damage for single target is great.

thankyourat

Lexxypwns wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

The health on this build is actually almost 26k. Because of alchamist and undaunted passives. And my crit resist is like 2300 which I think is pretty healthy for a light armor magblade and with a defending back bar resto my resist is almost 17k on the back bar. But all the reasons we switched to heavy are still there lol. I have been using cloak actually it's so buggy but when it works and shadow image works my survivability is very high alot of times I don't even need annulment just healing ward, but as you know those skills are buggy and don't always work. But if you are using just annulment you are going to get bursted so fast lol. I was using mist form but I felt to squishy and mist form stopped my healing and I wasn't tanky enough in light for my healing to be cut off and my regen to be stopped (not a problem in heavy because of constitution passives) so I dropped it for shade but now the snares are just ridiculous so I put on conceal weapon for more movement speed (it's actually working decent it surprised me)

The survivability with light armor magblade I think is just low, but it's very high when you skills work. I've tried all the defensive sets blood spawn (actually decent), pirate skeleton, troll King worked decently when combined with cloak. But I found all of them to have the same problem snares pin you down and burst one shots you. Or you build so defensive that you don't have any burst. What I found as a light armor magblade my best defense is having alot of burst damage and being able to use my shade to reposition. That's why i ended up settling for Kena as my 2 piece. And with all the health a crit resist on this build even in light armor you will be hard to one shot.

Great point about sustain with mist form in light. Didn't think about no resource return at all when I am in it. Used to being able to get a decent amount back from constitution. Snares are just my worst enemy in open world though (I hate tremor so much lol) and I believe mobility is key. That is why I just cannot see myself giving up mistform. Maybe a combination of doubletake/shade/etc. could help out.

Another benefit to having concealed on your bar is that it probably useful to counter the FotM magicka DKs I am sure will be everywhere. But I just don't think I could find room for it on my bar.

Also just hate using cloak since, as you said, it is so buggy. But maybe I will try it out again. @SneaK also suggested trying it out again above. Maybe I will give it another go.

Cloak is still buggy lol but works sometimes. Yea I go back and forth with mist form. I'm thinking about using it instead of annulment cause 75℅ damage reduction very strong defensible ability and I actually don't keep my damage shield up 100℅ of the time on my magblade because it puts breaks in my pressure. Also I use dark cloak which everyone thinks is weak but the 8℅ damage mitigation is very strong when multiple opponents combined with minor main from fear or image and I actually use veil of blades on my back bar as my oh crap ultimate and just too play something different it's not a bad skill either makes you very tanky when you put all of that together plus all those abilities proc shadow barrier passives, with the nerf to proc sets I think I can maybe get by without annulment. I'll have to see though. Yes concealed weapon is great against mag dks I always like to have something unflectable on my build also concealed weapon makes them not cast wings so you can sneak a spectral bow in there. I also been thinking about running cleanse instead of annulment with the nerf to proc sets. Because it will get rid of marks in addition to snares, and has a burst heal. With mist form disabling regen, cleanse and mist form shoul basically be the same resource management. Alot of this depends on if they really fixed cloak and how much burst damage does the nerf to proc sets actually reduce though

Nah, man, the minor protection on dark cloak is so short as to render it irrelevant. Even in a 5v1 it's prolly only gonna stop like 3k damage. The guaranteed crit on a spectral bow does much more for your survivability, in the form of getting kills faster. By the time you've got enough incoming damage in 2 seconds for that minor protection to be worthwhile you're at a point where you need the burst to immediately start eliminating targets or you need to try to escape

Yes I'm not completely sold on dark cloak. I can tell a difference but like you said I don't know if it's worth losing the guaranteed crit on heavy attacks and other abilities. Honestly I'm not sold on cloak as a whole. What I'm trying to do is build a light armor build that doesn't need to run annulment so I was trying out damage mitigation on cloak, but if cloak isn't going to work it's going to be difficult kind of forcing me into necroprentence, I think it possible cause as a solo magblade I still do well and get good 1vXs regularly and I even had some good ones when I dropped annulment for path. Because of how strong siphoning attacks is letting me block most CCs and allow me to roll dodge as a magicka build. Combined with major evasion, minor maim, healing ward is huge when you are low health, and two hots I found myself to be decently tanky in light armor even without dampen. The only thing that made me put it back on was cloak was unreliable and stamblades are just annoying. If cloak works I'll probably drop it completely. But I am probably going to go back to shadow cloak because heavy attack soul harvest usually hits for around 15 to 17k even more if I'm fully buffed. If they can't fix cloak though I'm probably going to have to go back to using necro again though which would be disappointing. Because I hate playing my magblade like a sorc. It's why I went heavy armor in the first place lol

If you want to use cloak for open world, I wouldn't drop dampen/harness, personally. I think you'd be better off dropping necro, taking shades off bar and putting cloak there. With Pirate 2 pc you won't need the crazy necro magika bonus tbh, since it effectively increases the size of your shields so much.

Atm, I'm playing around with dropping funnel for crushing shock. This way I can justify running 5 BSW 5 X(alch most likely) 2 Pirate.

exeeter702 wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

@HEBREWHAMMERRR I think the changes to ice staff are definitely interesting, and depending on what you're going for in your build, it could be very strong. But the thing is, with siphoning attacks, my stamina sustain is pretty great. Sure I run out every now and then if I mess up and dodge roll when I am low or something, but generally I don't have to worry too much about it. So I feel like if I used an ice staff to utilize magicka to block I would just be wasting excess stamina. i would pretty much always be full on it if I was only using it for break-frees and not blocking. For that reason I prefer the flame staff for more damage and what amounts to better magicka sustain since I'd be using be other resource for blocks.

On another note, I did notice a bit of a difference in sustain from the funnel cost increase on my heavy armor build yesterday. I only rely on wichmothers to sustain (thief mundus and no magicka recovery glyphs or bonuses) but that may be a bit tricky now. Most of the time I was ok but there was a time or two I ran out of magicka when I knew that I hadn't in similar situations before. I'm guessing transitioning over light should fix that.

Based on current pvp environments. You would be the envy of all magblades if you can legitimately say you have more than enough stamina (recovery) to meet all the dodge roll and blocking needs...

Frost staff defensive buffs outweigh the fire staff damage increase in my honest opinion. And with major evasion and and unchained being slightly nerfed a hard cc like fear with frost root makes kiting and playing at range that much more effective. Although yes the argument can be made that between crippling grasp root, shade swap and fear you should be ok.

Actually, if you're struggling to sustain your stam on mageblade you're doing something wrong.

thankyourat wrote: »

HEBREWHAMMERRR wrote: »

Just a thread I was looking for, some Magblade theory crafting! I have an idea here..a little out there but it seems enticing. I have two characters, my Magblade day 1 and just leveled a magsorc so this combo is somewhat universal for them around necro.

With changes to ice staff and blocking scaled off your magicka I got to thinking how viable it'd be to combo this with necro. The obviously tradeoff here is going to be..where's the burst if you're blocking constantly? I'm thinking a necropotence / spinners (extra max mag and pen) with an ice staff, and either skoria or some other monster set, don't have troll king or pirate skeleton yet so I was thinking if survivability was a problem bloodspawn on sorc could be nice for destro uptime.

All just theorycrafting last night but let me know thoughts. Also going to say that I realllllly need to farm amberplasm it seems very beneficial for sustain this patch.

I have thought about using ice staff dual wield sort of like how magplars are dual wield, sword and board now. I was thinking something similar to what you were saying except it was 5 spinner/5 necro/2 troll king. It would be sort of like a melee build and the ice staff back bar would allow me to block. But I figured that set up would be better on heavy armor. I'm not a big fan of disabling regen on light armor. So I was thinking a more aggresive set up with a lighting staff back bar for the extra destro ultimate damage and a flame staff front bar for pressure. I've played with only one shield before and I do fine, but with this set up you do lose healing ward. I think ice staff is better for duals you need that flame staff burst in open world. I don't think you need amberplasm worse case scenario you throw a cost reduction piece on your jewelery. If you want to use ice staff I think it would be more viable on a heavy armor build

Its worth noting that the best bet if you're running destro ult is still eye of flame. There's too many vamps in cyrodiil not to run fire.

I want to run burning spellweave as well. I farmed about 3 days for the staff and gave up. I pretty much always run conceal weapon or at least sap in open world so I can have something unreflectable, but with crushing shock being unreflectable I figured it was something to look into it would free up bar space for me as well. And then maybe use path for the hot to help with healing especially since I never run 2 shields on my magblade I use either healing ward or dampen depending on my build and then start layering hots. The thing I don't like about damage shields on magblades is the breaks in my pressure. as long as I'm relieving pressure I find hots to be superior. And it also allows me to run lower regen because shields are stupid expensive. usually if I find myself stacking shields on my magblade I'm about to die any way lol. I find it's best to just teleport away before I even get in that situation. I do slot two shields in duels though

That's a good point about the flame destro ultimate. There are alot of vampires around. That would probably more than make up for the 8℅ AOE damage increase from lighting staff. Honestly though I don't really use it anymore because it's broken lol. It's no counters too it really. What I did was put clench on my front bar and fear on my back bar and I just use soul harvest. And I'm just using old fashioned bat swarm on the back bar. It just offers me more rewarding gameplay.

Lexxypwns

exeeter702 wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

@HEBREWHAMMERRR I think the changes to ice staff are definitely interesting, and depending on what you're going for in your build, it could be very strong. But the thing is, with siphoning attacks, my stamina sustain is pretty great. Sure I run out every now and then if I mess up and dodge roll when I am low or something, but generally I don't have to worry too much about it. So I feel like if I used an ice staff to utilize magicka to block I would just be wasting excess stamina. i would pretty much always be full on it if I was only using it for break-frees and not blocking. For that reason I prefer the flame staff for more damage and what amounts to better magicka sustain since I'd be using be other resource for blocks.

On another note, I did notice a bit of a difference in sustain from the funnel cost increase on my heavy armor build yesterday. I only rely on wichmothers to sustain (thief mundus and no magicka recovery glyphs or bonuses) but that may be a bit tricky now. Most of the time I was ok but there was a time or two I ran out of magicka when I knew that I hadn't in similar situations before. I'm guessing transitioning over light should fix that.

Based on current pvp environments. You would be the envy of all magblades if you can legitimately say you have more than enough stamina (recovery) to meet all the dodge roll and blocking needs...

Frost staff defensive buffs outweigh the fire staff damage increase in my honest opinion. And with major evasion and and unchained being slightly nerfed a hard cc like fear with frost root makes kiting and playing at range that much more effective. Although yes the argument can be made that between crippling grasp root, shade swap and fear you should be ok.

thankyourat wrote: »

HEBREWHAMMERRR wrote: »

Just a thread I was looking for, some Magblade theory crafting! I have an idea here..a little out there but it seems enticing. I have two characters, my Magblade day 1 and just leveled a magsorc so this combo is somewhat universal for them around necro.

With changes to ice staff and blocking scaled off your magicka I got to thinking how viable it'd be to combo this with necro. The obviously tradeoff here is going to be..where's the burst if you're blocking constantly? I'm thinking a necropotence / spinners (extra max mag and pen) with an ice staff, and either skoria or some other monster set, don't have troll king or pirate skeleton yet so I was thinking if survivability was a problem bloodspawn on sorc could be nice for destro uptime.

All just theorycrafting last night but let me know thoughts. Also going to say that I realllllly need to farm amberplasm it seems very beneficial for sustain this patch.

I have thought about using ice staff dual wield sort of like how magplars are dual wield, sword and board now. I was thinking something similar to what you were saying except it was 5 spinner/5 necro/2 troll king. It would be sort of like a melee build and the ice staff back bar would allow me to block. But I figured that set up would be better on heavy armor. I'm not a big fan of disabling regen on light armor. So I was thinking a more aggresive set up with a lighting staff back bar for the extra destro ultimate damage and a flame staff front bar for pressure. I've played with only one shield before and I do fine, but with this set up you do lose healing ward. I think ice staff is better for duals you need that flame staff burst in open world. I don't think you need amberplasm worse case scenario you throw a cost reduction piece on your jewelery. If you want to use ice staff I think it would be more viable on a heavy armor build

Its worth noting that the best bet if you're running destro ult is still eye of flame. There's too many vamps in cyrodiil not to run fire.

thankyourat wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

The health on this build is actually almost 26k. Because of alchamist and undaunted passives. And my crit resist is like 2300 which I think is pretty healthy for a light armor magblade and with a defending back bar resto my resist is almost 17k on the back bar. But all the reasons we switched to heavy are still there lol. I have been using cloak actually it's so buggy but when it works and shadow image works my survivability is very high alot of times I don't even need annulment just healing ward, but as you know those skills are buggy and don't always work. But if you are using just annulment you are going to get bursted so fast lol. I was using mist form but I felt to squishy and mist form stopped my healing and I wasn't tanky enough in light for my healing to be cut off and my regen to be stopped (not a problem in heavy because of constitution passives) so I dropped it for shade but now the snares are just ridiculous so I put on conceal weapon for more movement speed (it's actually working decent it surprised me)

The survivability with light armor magblade I think is just low, but it's very high when you skills work. I've tried all the defensive sets blood spawn (actually decent), pirate skeleton, troll King worked decently when combined with cloak. But I found all of them to have the same problem snares pin you down and burst one shots you. Or you build so defensive that you don't have any burst. What I found as a light armor magblade my best defense is having alot of burst damage and being able to use my shade to reposition. That's why i ended up settling for Kena as my 2 piece. And with all the health a crit resist on this build even in light armor you will be hard to one shot.

Great point about sustain with mist form in light. Didn't think about no resource return at all when I am in it. Used to being able to get a decent amount back from constitution. Snares are just my worst enemy in open world though (I hate tremor so much lol) and I believe mobility is key. That is why I just cannot see myself giving up mistform. Maybe a combination of doubletake/shade/etc. could help out.

Another benefit to having concealed on your bar is that it probably useful to counter the FotM magicka DKs I am sure will be everywhere. But I just don't think I could find room for it on my bar.

Also just hate using cloak since, as you said, it is so buggy. But maybe I will try it out again. @SneaK also suggested trying it out again above. Maybe I will give it another go.

Cloak is still buggy lol but works sometimes. Yea I go back and forth with mist form. I'm thinking about using it instead of annulment cause 75℅ damage reduction very strong defensible ability and I actually don't keep my damage shield up 100℅ of the time on my magblade because it puts breaks in my pressure. Also I use dark cloak which everyone thinks is weak but the 8℅ damage mitigation is very strong when multiple opponents combined with minor main from fear or image and I actually use veil of blades on my back bar as my oh crap ultimate and just too play something different it's not a bad skill either makes you very tanky when you put all of that together plus all those abilities proc shadow barrier passives, with the nerf to proc sets I think I can maybe get by without annulment. I'll have to see though. Yes concealed weapon is great against mag dks I always like to have something unflectable on my build also concealed weapon makes them not cast wings so you can sneak a spectral bow in there. I also been thinking about running cleanse instead of annulment with the nerf to proc sets. Because it will get rid of marks in addition to snares, and has a burst heal. With mist form disabling regen, cleanse and mist form shoul basically be the same resource management. Alot of this depends on if they really fixed cloak and how much burst damage does the nerf to proc sets actually reduce though

Nah, man, the minor protection on dark cloak is so short as to render it irrelevant. Even in a 5v1 it's prolly only gonna stop like 3k damage. The guaranteed crit on a spectral bow does much more for your survivability, in the form of getting kills faster. By the time you've got enough incoming damage in 2 seconds for that minor protection to be worthwhile you're at a point where you need the burst to immediately start eliminating targets or you need to try to escape

Yes I'm not completely sold on dark cloak. I can tell a difference but like you said I don't know if it's worth losing the guaranteed crit on heavy attacks and other abilities. Honestly I'm not sold on cloak as a whole. What I'm trying to do is build a light armor build that doesn't need to run annulment so I was trying out damage mitigation on cloak, but if cloak isn't going to work it's going to be difficult kind of forcing me into necroprentence, I think it possible cause as a solo magblade I still do well and get good 1vXs regularly and I even had some good ones when I dropped annulment for path. Because of how strong siphoning attacks is letting me block most CCs and allow me to roll dodge as a magicka build. Combined with major evasion, minor maim, healing ward is huge when you are low health, and two hots I found myself to be decently tanky in light armor even without dampen. The only thing that made me put it back on was cloak was unreliable and stamblades are just annoying. If cloak works I'll probably drop it completely. But I am probably going to go back to shadow cloak because heavy attack soul harvest usually hits for around 15 to 17k even more if I'm fully buffed. If they can't fix cloak though I'm probably going to have to go back to using necro again though which would be disappointing. Because I hate playing my magblade like a sorc. It's why I went heavy armor in the first place lol

If you want to use cloak for open world, I wouldn't drop dampen/harness, personally. I think you'd be better off dropping necro, taking shades off bar and putting cloak there. With Pirate 2 pc you won't need the crazy necro magika bonus tbh, since it effectively increases the size of your shields so much.

Atm, I'm playing around with dropping funnel for crushing shock. This way I can justify running 5 BSW 5 X(alch most likely) 2 Pirate.

exeeter702 wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

@HEBREWHAMMERRR I think the changes to ice staff are definitely interesting, and depending on what you're going for in your build, it could be very strong. But the thing is, with siphoning attacks, my stamina sustain is pretty great. Sure I run out every now and then if I mess up and dodge roll when I am low or something, but generally I don't have to worry too much about it. So I feel like if I used an ice staff to utilize magicka to block I would just be wasting excess stamina. i would pretty much always be full on it if I was only using it for break-frees and not blocking. For that reason I prefer the flame staff for more damage and what amounts to better magicka sustain since I'd be using be other resource for blocks.

On another note, I did notice a bit of a difference in sustain from the funnel cost increase on my heavy armor build yesterday. I only rely on wichmothers to sustain (thief mundus and no magicka recovery glyphs or bonuses) but that may be a bit tricky now. Most of the time I was ok but there was a time or two I ran out of magicka when I knew that I hadn't in similar situations before. I'm guessing transitioning over light should fix that.

Based on current pvp environments. You would be the envy of all magblades if you can legitimately say you have more than enough stamina (recovery) to meet all the dodge roll and blocking needs...

Frost staff defensive buffs outweigh the fire staff damage increase in my honest opinion. And with major evasion and and unchained being slightly nerfed a hard cc like fear with frost root makes kiting and playing at range that much more effective. Although yes the argument can be made that between crippling grasp root, shade swap and fear you should be ok.

Actually, if you're struggling to sustain your stam on mageblade you're doing something wrong.

thankyourat wrote: »

HEBREWHAMMERRR wrote: »

Just a thread I was looking for, some Magblade theory crafting! I have an idea here..a little out there but it seems enticing. I have two characters, my Magblade day 1 and just leveled a magsorc so this combo is somewhat universal for them around necro.

With changes to ice staff and blocking scaled off your magicka I got to thinking how viable it'd be to combo this with necro. The obviously tradeoff here is going to be..where's the burst if you're blocking constantly? I'm thinking a necropotence / spinners (extra max mag and pen) with an ice staff, and either skoria or some other monster set, don't have troll king or pirate skeleton yet so I was thinking if survivability was a problem bloodspawn on sorc could be nice for destro uptime.

All just theorycrafting last night but let me know thoughts. Also going to say that I realllllly need to farm amberplasm it seems very beneficial for sustain this patch.

I have thought about using ice staff dual wield sort of like how magplars are dual wield, sword and board now. I was thinking something similar to what you were saying except it was 5 spinner/5 necro/2 troll king. It would be sort of like a melee build and the ice staff back bar would allow me to block. But I figured that set up would be better on heavy armor. I'm not a big fan of disabling regen on light armor. So I was thinking a more aggresive set up with a lighting staff back bar for the extra destro ultimate damage and a flame staff front bar for pressure. I've played with only one shield before and I do fine, but with this set up you do lose healing ward. I think ice staff is better for duals you need that flame staff burst in open world. I don't think you need amberplasm worse case scenario you throw a cost reduction piece on your jewelery. If you want to use ice staff I think it would be more viable on a heavy armor build

Its worth noting that the best bet if you're running destro ult is still eye of flame. There's too many vamps in cyrodiil not to run fire.

I want to run burning spellweave as well. I farmed about 3 days for the staff and gave up. I pretty much always run conceal weapon or at least sap in open world so I can have something unreflectable, but with crushing shock being unreflectable I figured it was something to look into it would free up bar space for me as well. And then maybe use path for the hot to help with healing especially since I never run 2 shields on my magblade I use either healing ward or dampen depending on my build and then start layering hots. The thing I don't like about damage shields on magblades is the breaks in my pressure. as long as I'm relieving pressure I find hots to be superior. And it also allows me to run lower regen because shields are stupid expensive. usually if I find myself stacking shields on my magblade I'm about to die any way lol. I find it's best to just teleport away before I even get in that situation. I do slot two shields in duels though

That's a good point about the flame destro ultimate. There are alot of vampires around. That would probably more than make up for the 8℅ AOE damage increase from lighting staff. Honestly though I don't really use it anymore because it's broken lol. It's no counters too it really. What I did was put clench on my front bar and fear on my back bar and I just use soul harvest. And I'm just using old fashioned bat swarm on the back bar. It just offers me more rewarding gameplay.

Took me like 50+ hours of farming to get that bsw inferno

Nutshotz

@SneaK

Clever/alchemist/Kena with choke or skoria is my favorite. You'll have to have 75 into staff tho. That's the downfall. With that set you'll have anywhere between 1.8-2.4k spell damage, 41k magicka and 1.5k regeneration.

As for OP. I'd do necro/lich/Kena with chokethorn or skoria. Good sustain and burst build. Plus the extra magicka from shades is nice once shades is active.

Now I run on PC. So I don't know how your playstyle is on console but what I would do is have multiple sets for different playstyles. I for one have 4 sets for ganking, 2 for grp and 3 for bombing.

I am in the process of making another ganking build cuz I'm not finding the damage outcome from stygian to be effective as my clever/elegent/Kena with choke or skoria build. I did more 3 shots with that build and killed more than I do with stygian even tho that build is meant for a ganker.

Nutshotz

@bubbygink

When I run necro/clever/skoria this is my bar set up

Front bar: swallow soul, merc, piercing mark or impale, flame reach, inner light, ult: eye of the storm/soul assault/soul harvest

Back bar: shadowy disguise, conceal, double take, cripple, dampen. Ult: soul harvest, tether, resto ult.

@kaithuzar

Kai, any thoughts for this magblade?

Lexxypwns

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

@bubbygink

When I run necro/clever/skoria this is my bar set up

Front bar: swallow soul, merc, piercing mark or impale, flame reach, inner light, ult: eye of the storm/soul assault/soul harvest

Back bar: shadowy disguise, conceal, double take, cripple, dampen. Ult: soul harvest, tether, resto ult.

@kaithuzar

Kai, any thoughts for this magblade?

Why no siphoning attacks? its far better than mark, impale, reach(but not better than fear), or conceal.

Nutshotz

Lexxypwns wrote: »

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

@bubbygink

When I run necro/clever/skoria this is my bar set up

Front bar: swallow soul, merc, piercing mark or impale, flame reach, inner light, ult: eye of the storm/soul assault/soul harvest

Back bar: shadowy disguise, conceal, double take, cripple, dampen. Ult: soul harvest, tether, resto ult.

@kaithuzar

Kai, any thoughts for this magblade?

Why no siphoning attacks? its far better than mark, impale, reach(but not better than fear), or conceal.

Cuz my back bar is my defense bar. Always has been when I run range builds. Yes you can swap cripple for siphoning attacks, and put fear in place for mark/impale, but problem with that is than you're losing an advantage against nightblades if you don't run mark and if you don't run impale you lose an execute. Which our execute is garbage but it still kinda work.

Only builds I run fear with are my sap builds which is the group build or my ganker build. That's because I HA into flame reach, into lotus fan into harvest, fear, concealed than impale


Plus with the necro/clever build if you build it correctly you can be anywhere between 1.4-1.7 regeneration and still have good spell damage.

But try putting fear in place of impale/mark and siphoning attacks in place of cripple. I can guarantee you'll pull fear and put mark or impale back on.

Nutshotz

Plus @kaithuzar. Kai knows what I'm talking about. A former guild leader always stated. Have an attack bar and a defense bar. So when you run cloak, conceal, double take, cripple, dampen. That's my resto bar, also known as my defensive bar.

Let's say you burn the opponent or two that were around you than all of a sudden you had a raid of the opposing faction come out of the blue. Having that defense bar has saved my rear end more times than I can remember.

@Lexxypwns

bubbygink

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

@bubbygink

When I run necro/clever/skoria this is my bar set up

Front bar: swallow soul, merc, piercing mark or impale, flame reach, inner light, ult: eye of the storm/soul assault/soul harvest

Back bar: shadowy disguise, conceal, double take, cripple, dampen. Ult: soul harvest, tether, resto ult.

@kaithuzar

Kai, any thoughts for this magblade?

Another necro/clever user, I am becoming more convinced that this is the way to go! I got my sharpened necro staff, just need to craft my clever this weekend and then I am going to try it out.

I am thinking about running a similar front bar with:

• EotS - gives me 8% damage bonus and is OP. @thankyourat , I totally understand your reservation to use this. I agree it feels cheesy but I don't feel guilty using it against groups when I am outnumbered. I never use it in 1v1 type situations though, I slot meteor on my back bar for the meter + bow combo for those.
• Swallow Soul
• Merciless Resolve
• Impale - I actually love this skill and think it is very good / or maybe sap if I am running in a group and need AoE damage
• Inner Light - great synergy with necro and the crit increase from this and light armor will allow me to run shadow mundus instead of thief which I have always wanted to do for more burst
• For my final slot I feel like I need to put my dampen on this bar instead of my CC. On another note, I always run fear in open world, just too good in my opinion - best open world CC in the game. So I like having fear here but just seems like I need my shield on this bar for the build to make sense. Would just have to get used to having fear on my back bar.

@PeaNutShotz It is just such a huge magicka difference from no necro / no inner light to necro / inner light. Off the top of my head I feel like that would be around 7k magicka. I get that you like to have an "offensive" and "defensive" bar (I do too) but aren't you kind of wasting one of the main benefits to necro / inner light if your only shield is on your other bar?

And I am on the same page as @Lexxypwns in regards to siphoning attacks. There are very few skills I prioritize having on my bars over this skill - probably only merciless, fear, my spamable, and a shield. It is just so good and synergizes well with merciless to make magblades benefit from light attack weaving more than any other class. As long as we keep churning out those light attacks weaves we have insane sustain (mag and stam) and a potent weapon in spectral bow.

Nutshotz

I don't run the necro/clever build that often. I did a while ago when I was more for a sustain fight when I didn't use cloak or concealed weapons and had 5 heavy clever. So the necro/clever build is a mere on how you play it. Whether it's for solo 1vx'ing or grp play. I did it for 1vx'ing. I'm not at my pc so I can't give you an exact on how my necro/ clever build bars are set up exactly. I'm just going off of memory. So I may have skills that are from different builds mixed in with what I postedo.

Now as for what you mentioned with the shield. Not really cuz necro is a pet build. Meaning shadow image (shade) is your pet. Which gives you your extra magicka.

I believe this is how I had it set up

B1: swallow, merc, impale, WoE, inner light, ult: eye of the storm, soul harvest, soul assault, tether

B2: refreshing path, shade, fear, siphoning attacks, dampen. Ult: soul harvest or resto ult


I'm like 99% sure that's how I had it set up for group play. Solo play you would need to change WoE, refreshing path to which ever skill matches your playstyle.

This build can be solo or group.

HEBREWHAMMERRR

Messed around last night with 5 necro, 5 spinner, 2 skoria and having a blast and hitting pretty hard with great burst potential. I don't have a spinners or necro flame staff though so stuck with ice staff at the moment

bubbygink

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

Now as for what you mentioned with the shield. Not really cuz necro is a pet build. Meaning shadow image (shade) is your pet. Which gives you your extra magicka.

Sure, I get how it works. But if you are running 2 Kena/or whatever + 5 Necro + 5 Clever you would have to have 5 Necro / 4 Clever on front bar (destro staff is Necro) and 4 Necro / 5 Clever on back bar (resto staff is Clever). So when you are on your back bar, where you have your 5 Clever, the 5th piece Necro won't be active. So if that is where you your shield is then it is not benefiting from the 5th piece Necro bonus or the Inner Light bonus.

HEBREWHAMMERRR wrote: »

Messed around last night with 5 necro, 5 spinner, 2 skoria and having a blast and hitting pretty hard with great burst potential. I don't have a spinners or necro flame staff though so stuck with ice staff at the moment

@HEBREWHAMMERRR That sounds interesting. So did you do 5 Spinners front and then 5 Necro back bar for big shields on it? I have thought about doing 5 necro + 5 spinners before but if I did I would just run 1 piece Kena or something similar with it because I would want both active on my front bar.

Nutshotz

The necro bonus only applies to when you have a pet active. The shield only applies to if your wear 7 light for dampen which increases your shield. I believe mine is 9 or 11k in cyrodil when in 7 light. Inner light is only meant for attacking and the 5% bonus to magicka

Nutshotz

@bubbygink

If you want, I can tonight or tomorrow upload the video showing yout the stat break down and how I have the gear and skills placed and what the stats are when necro is active and when dampen is active

Lexxypwns

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

@bubbygink

When I run necro/clever/skoria this is my bar set up

Front bar: swallow soul, merc, piercing mark or impale, flame reach, inner light, ult: eye of the storm/soul assault/soul harvest

Back bar: shadowy disguise, conceal, double take, cripple, dampen. Ult: soul harvest, tether, resto ult.

@kaithuzar

Kai, any thoughts for this magblade?

Why no siphoning attacks? its far better than mark, impale, reach(but not better than fear), or conceal.

Cuz my back bar is my defense bar. Always has been when I run range builds. Yes you can swap cripple for siphoning attacks, and put fear in place for mark/impale, but problem with that is than you're losing an advantage against nightblades if you don't run mark and if you don't run impale you lose an execute. Which our execute is garbage but it still kinda work.

Only builds I run fear with are my sap builds which is the group build or my ganker build. That's because I HA into flame reach, into lotus fan into harvest, fear, concealed than impale


Plus with the necro/clever build if you build it correctly you can be anywhere between 1.4-1.7 regeneration and still have good spell damage.

But try putting fear in place of impale/mark and siphoning attacks in place of cripple. I can guarantee you'll pull fear and put mark or impale back on.

Your execute is assassin's will... Consistent 15k+ crits. As far as having an offense bar and defense bar, that's all well and good, but the Stam sustain from siphoning attacks is going to be much more beneficial to escaping a Zerg than the movement speed of concealed IMO.

Also, after some time using it in duels I'm fairly certain I'm switching to 5 bsw+5 necro + pirate, with necro active on back bar for shields as my open world setup. Less burst than necro/alch, but crushing shock is just such a superior spam able for light armor builds(once you start stacking healing done/received OR drop pirate that's no longer the case). Gonna run some open world with it this weekend and see what I get

bubbygink

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

The necro bonus only applies to when you have a pet active. The shield only applies to if your wear 7 light for dampen which increases your shield. I believe mine is 9 or 11k in cyrodil when in 7 light. Inner light is only meant for attacking and the 5% bonus to magicka

@PeaNutShotz Yea again, I totally get that. I've run necro before. I don't think you are getting what I am saying. I'm not sure why you are fixating on the pet, I know that the 5th piece necro bonus only activates when shade is up. But my point is you need to actually be wearing all 5 pieces for it to work too (which should be obvious...)

If you are running 2 monster piece + 5 clever + 5 necro on destro/resto (as you've said you were doing) that means you are using a necro destro staff and a clever resto staff. So on your back bar, your resto bar, you only have 4 piece necro, so you aren't going to get the 5th piece bonus on the back bar. Regardless if you have your shade up or not, you aren't getting the 5th piece bonus on your back bar because you simply aren't wearing 5 pieces of necro on that bar. Additionally, you have your inner light on your front bar only so you aren't getting the magic bonus from it on your back bar either.

So your front bar, which does have 5 piece necro and inner light, will have significantly more magicka than your back bar, which doesn't have either. Shields, as I am sure you know, scale exclusively off max magicka (before factoring in other bonuses like % increase per light armor piece and champion points, etc.). So for example, if you have 48k max magicka on your front bar (where you have 5 piece necro and inner light), but only 40k max magicka on your back bar (where you only have 4 piece necro and no inner light), then it makes sense to put your Dampen on your front bar, where it will be much stronger.

thankyourat

bubbygink wrote: »

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

@bubbygink

When I run necro/clever/skoria this is my bar set up

Front bar: swallow soul, merc, piercing mark or impale, flame reach, inner light, ult: eye of the storm/soul assault/soul harvest

Back bar: shadowy disguise, conceal, double take, cripple, dampen. Ult: soul harvest, tether, resto ult.

@kaithuzar

Kai, any thoughts for this magblade?

Another necro/clever user, I am becoming more convinced that this is the way to go! I got my sharpened necro staff, just need to craft my clever this weekend and then I am going to try it out.

I am thinking about running a similar front bar with:

• EotS - gives me 8% damage bonus and is OP. @thankyourat , I totally understand your reservation to use this. I agree it feels cheesy but I don't feel guilty using it against groups when I am outnumbered. I never use it in 1v1 type situations though, I slot meteor on my back bar for the meter + bow combo for those.
• Swallow Soul
• Merciless Resolve
• Impale - I actually love this skill and think it is very good / or maybe sap if I am running in a group and need AoE damage
• Inner Light - great synergy with necro and the crit increase from this and light armor will allow me to run shadow mundus instead of thief which I have always wanted to do for more burst
• For my final slot I feel like I need to put my dampen on this bar instead of my CC. On another note, I always run fear in open world, just too good in my opinion - best open world CC in the game. So I like having fear here but just seems like I need my shield on this bar for the build to make sense. Would just have to get used to having fear on my back bar.

@PeaNutShotz It is just such a huge magicka difference from no necro / no inner light to necro / inner light. Off the top of my head I feel like that would be around 7k magicka. I get that you like to have an "offensive" and "defensive" bar (I do too) but aren't you kind of wasting one of the main benefits to necro / inner light if your only shield is on your other bar?

And I am on the same page as @Lexxypwns in regards to siphoning attacks. There are very few skills I prioritize having on my bars over this skill - probably only merciless, fear, my spamable, and a shield. It is just so good and synergizes well with merciless to make magblades benefit from light attack weaving more than any other class. As long as we keep churning out those light attacks weaves we have insane sustain (mag and stam) and a potent weapon in spectral bow.

Yea I'll use the destro ultimate if I'm at a keep and it's only like 10 of my alliance and 40 enemy alliance than I'll most definitely throw on the destro ultimate. But if I'm just rolling around haddy I usually don't use it. If I'm playing with my group I usually used veil of blades because we already got 3 destro ultimates and it's only 5 of us plus the synergy is great if we are in a tower and someone tries to bomb is on top.

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

@bubbygink

When I run necro/clever/skoria this is my bar set up

Front bar: swallow soul, merc, piercing mark or impale, flame reach, inner light, ult: eye of the storm/soul assault/soul harvest

Back bar: shadowy disguise, conceal, double take, cripple, dampen. Ult: soul harvest, tether, resto ult.

@kaithuzar

Kai, any thoughts for this magblade?

There are only 2 skills that I think are mandatory on a magblade merciless and siphoning attacks. And if you play solo blur and fear can be added. You are missing out on so much sustain by not using it. The ability to block or dodge CCs is life saving on a magblade. I would also like to add a different way of looking at your bar set up. Instead of offensive and defensive I look at it as I only have one bar with 10 abilities. With bar swap animation cancelling I chain together combos with both bars. Another thing it would prevent is going full defensive on a magblade. Going full defensive will result in your death (you may not be doing this) but I see alot of magblade try to turtle up on defense some even forget to light attack in between blocks or casting their shield which will lower the uptime on their spectral bow. Which I consider a defensive and a offensive ability because once you hit a player with it they instantly back off. Which allows all your hots to tick without enemy pressure (or with less enemy pressure if you are outnumbered). Lol sorry for the rant calling a bar a defensive bar is just one of my pet peeves on a magblade.