Magicka Nightblade PvP Build (Sotha Sil)

havingacow

Just my build for magicka nightblade:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zw-2Qic3vfI&

Just wanted to put a quite thing here, just summarizing the video.

Sets: 6 light armour, 1 heavy. 2 divines, 5 impen.

Twice-Born Star (Body Pieces)
Alteration Mastery (Jewelry (1 magicka recovery, 2 spell damage), Resto Staff, one body piece)
Shoulder (Molag Kena) Master's Inferno Staff (Front Bar) (If you don't have, just use Alteration Mastery Destro Staff, or Maelstrom Staff)
Alteration Mastery Restoration Staff (Back Bar)

Twice Born Star is always active, using Atronach and Apprentice Mundus Stones. Alteration Mastery only active when on the back bar.

Food: Max Health & Max Magicka, or Witchmother's Potent Brew
Pots: Immovable + magicka + spell crit or spell damage + spell crit + magicka

Front Bar Abilities:
Elemental Drain (for major breach and minor magickasteal)
Funnel Health (damage and health back)
Merciless Resolve (8% more damage done, Assassin's Will Bow for slow and damage) This ability can be swapped with leeching strikes, if you feel you do enough damage, and don't have enough sustain
Flame Reach (Because of Master's Staff and distance 41 metres)
Impale (Execute)
Soul Assault (Ultimate, slow and crazy single target)

Back Bar:
Harness Magicka (shield and magicka back)
Mirage (Major Evasion 15% dodge + extra minor resistances)
Structured Entropy (health back + 20% spell damage + small DoT+ + 8% extra health)
Healing Ward (major heal + shield)
Shadowy Disguise (use to *** out and get away)
Soul Tether (Ultimate, heal + damage + stuns enemies + AoE)

Other sets I would use instead of Alteration Mastery:
1. Amber Plasm (never tested, looks amazing though)
Wyrd Tree
Transmutation (if you want more resistance)
Lich (If you feel you have enough stamina)
Permafrost

can't use Shacklebreaker due to no jewelry, otherwise I would.

Other notes:
I know I don't have a cleanse/purge, but I have found I can just shield through almost anything, even coldfire ballista shots.
You want to have your magicka at close to 2k or above.
I'll be uploading a video shortly for the sustain.

Feel free to ask any questions about the build.

Taylor_MB

Your commentary is hilarious, Fugly.

I have nothing useful to add, just that, haha.

fred4

I don't know whether detailed criticism is welcome, but here I go. I was going to call it feedback, but then realised I am being quite critical. I hope this will at least be interesting at a technical level.

First off, I play in CP, almost strictly small-scale, mostly in IC.

I ran a somewhat similar build using Funnel, Flame Reach, Impale, and Soul Assault, in the past. You don't specifically mention Merciless combos, and even suggest swapping that out for Leeching Strikes. Most people I meet insist that Merciless is what makes magblade gameplay. As someone who, perhaps like you, did not build rigorously around that, I had to eventually concede that they have a point. Specifically the ranged abilities, Funnel and Flame Reach, are weak sauce. There will be a fair amount of experienced players (in CP at least) - DPS players, not tanks / healers - who you will not scratch and will never get into execute range with those alone.

Soul Assault has it's unique strengths and weaknesses. I killed a lot of players with it, but it leaves you exposed, and unless perhaps you spec it into crazy 100,000 tooltip damage in CP, experienced players simply know how to counter it. It is this ceiling, it's inability to deal with experienced players, that eventually caused me to move on. My tooltip, in CP, was around 60,000 unbuffed, up to 70,000 buffed.

On the subject of stamina regen, I find 600 too low. I've become comfortable with 800, e.g. 1 line of stam regen from the likes of Shacklebreaker or Bloodspawn, and CP. Even so, that's in conjunction with Immovability pots. I wouldn't even entertain anything else, neither Spell Power pots, nor Lingering Health pots, for a light armor magblade.

Unlike Alteration Mastery, Amber Plasm will only really work on both bars. Not much of an issue for you, with Twice Born Star also forcing you into a 5/5/1 setup, but you'd have to give up your Master's staff.

I've used Leeching Strikes in the past, but recently discovered that the healing from that ability uses weapon critical chance. It significantly underperforms, compared to Siphoning Attacks. I would probably only use it in CP with at least 30 points invested into Thaumaturge for the 12% weapon crit passive. A quite effective alternative for stamina management are the 5.5 second resource poisons that also return stamina to you.

Not sure why you're running Structured Entropy over Degeneration, and on the same bar as your one shadow ability. Your health is unbalanced, e.g. you'll lose the Structured Entropy health bonus as soon as you bar swap. I would use Degeneration.

Since you mentioned Transmutation as an alternate set, I would say scrap that and go with Wizard's Riposte. Unless you're talking about group utility, where one person wears Transmutation, the other Riposte, then Riposte > Transmutation in a shielding build. Transmutation does nothing for you while your shields hold. Riposte reduces damage before it hits your shields. It will debuff all enemies around you. Technically shields can be crit, it's just that crits do no extra damage against shields. So, yes, Riposte will activate, even if you are shielded.

The final thing I'll say is that your build has too low mobility and escape potential for my taste. Not a single speed buff. No Concealed Weapon, Crippling Grasp, Refreshing Path, nor Double Take. No Mist Form, Shadow Image, nor Forward Momentum. I personally prefer pairing Cloak with some of the above.

Qbiken

I´ve become a little fond of Transmutation + Wizards Riposte + Monster helm of your choice

* 5 Wizard´s Riposte:
- 3 Jewels (2 Spell-damage, 1 reduce magicka cost)
- 1 Body (Impenetrable)
- Infernostaff (Frontbar)

* 5 Transmutation:
- 4 Body (Impenetrable)
- 1 Restostaff (defending, backbar)

* Monster helmet: Skoria, Chudan, Bloodspawn

Fronbar: Impale , Funnel Health, Inner light, Merciless Resolve, Mark target (flex spot). Ultimate: Incap/soultether/meteor
Backbar: Blur, refreshing path, degeneration, rapid regen, healing ward, fear. Ultimate: Restoult

You won´t deal insane amount of damage but people will have a very hard time killing you. Works good in both cp and no cp

havingacow

fred4 wrote: »

I don't know whether detailed criticism is welcome, but here I go. I was going to call it feedback, but then realised I am being quite critical. I hope this will at least be interesting at a technical level.

First off, I play in CP, almost strictly small-scale, mostly in IC.

I ran a somewhat similar build using Funnel, Flame Reach, Impale, and Soul Assault, in the past. You don't specifically mention Merciless combos, and even suggest swapping that out for Leeching Strikes. Most people I meet insist that Merciless is what makes magblade gameplay. As someone who, perhaps like you, did not build rigorously around that, I had to eventually concede that they have a point. Specifically the ranged abilities, Funnel and Flame Reach, are weak sauce. There will be a fair amount of experienced players (in CP at least) - DPS players, not tanks / healers - who you will not scratch and will never get into execute range with those alone.

Soul Assault has it's unique strengths and weaknesses. I killed a lot of players with it, but it leaves you exposed, and unless perhaps you spec it into crazy 100,000 tooltip damage in CP, experienced players simply know how to counter it. It is this ceiling, it's inability to deal with experienced players, that eventually caused me to move on. My tooltip, in CP, was around 60,000 unbuffed, up to 70,000 buffed.

On the subject of stamina regen, I find 600 too low. I've become comfortable with 800, e.g. 1 line of stam regen from the likes of Shacklebreaker or Bloodspawn, and CP. Even so, that's in conjunction with Immovability pots. I wouldn't even entertain anything else, neither Spell Power pots, nor Lingering Health pots, for a light armor magblade.

Unlike Alteration Mastery, Amber Plasm will only really work on both bars. Not much of an issue for you, with Twice Born Star also forcing you into a 5/5/1 setup, but you'd have to give up your Master's staff.

I've used Leeching Strikes in the past, but recently discovered that the healing from that ability uses weapon critical chance. It significantly underperforms, compared to Siphoning Attacks. I would probably only use it in CP with at least 30 points invested into Thaumaturge for the 12% weapon crit passive. A quite effective alternative for stamina management are the 5.5 second resource poisons that also return stamina to you.

Not sure why you're running Structured Entropy over Degeneration, and on the same bar as your one shadow ability. Your health is unbalanced, e.g. you'll lose the Structured Entropy health bonus as soon as you bar swap. I would use Degeneration.

Since you mentioned Transmutation as an alternate set, I would say scrap that and go with Wizard's Riposte. Unless you're talking about group utility, where one person wears Transmutation, the other Riposte, then Riposte > Transmutation in a shielding build. Transmutation does nothing for you while your shields hold. Riposte reduces damage before it hits your shields. It will debuff all enemies around you. Technically shields can be crit, it's just that crits do no extra damage against shields. So, yes, Riposte will activate, even if you are shielded.

The final thing I'll say is that your build has too low mobility and escape potential for my taste. Not a single speed buff. No Concealed Weapon, Crippling Grasp, Refreshing Path, nor Double Take. No Mist Form, Shadow Image, nor Forward Momentum. I personally prefer pairing Cloak with some of the above.

In the title, I put "Sotha Sil" so this is more of a no-CP build. I said in the video I haven't really tested the build in CP campaigns.

I guess I should've also put that this toon is not pvp only, I run him in PvE for end game content, for trials, dungeons, and such. I only get 30k dps in PvE group situations, so it's not great either, I don't have him spec'd specfically for PvE or PvP, that's why I'm not running skills like Refreshing Path, I have the Twisting Path morph, I opt'd for more survival than for damage. Same with structured entropy, I have a terrible amount of health without it in PvE which is why I have structured.

Also, I found that I don't need tons of AoE to be successful, though there is zerging in Sotha Sil, it's not like Vivec where it's more zerg vs zerg. Moreover, I said in the video as well, it's not meant for 1v1, I'm not going to be pumping out tons of damage, just enough. It's for small scale PvP more than anything. Not to say that you can't be successful with large group PvP, just by hanging back a little bit and targeting enemies.

In regards to the stamina, I have rarely died to being stunned and unable to break-free or something in regards to stamina, more often than not it's a larger group of players, or a few really good players that will overpower me and my shields. The 600 stam recovery may be low, but like I said in the video, Alteration Mastery gives me that extra 6% break free cost/dodge roll/blocking/ult/sprinting, on top of my ability costs. So it's okay for me.

I don't understand the need for major expedition, you can just cloak away from enemies regardless if you need to *** out. Cloak is enough to get you out of almost every situation.

But yeah, I was looking at wizard riposte as well.

Here's a video of different some random pvpin on the magblade: https://youtu.be/pXHqzboHyks

Lexxypwns

Qbiken wrote: »

I´ve become a little fond of Transmutation + Wizards Riposte + Monster helm of your choice

* 5 Wizard´s Riposte:
- 3 Jewels (2 Spell-damage, 1 reduce magicka cost)
- 1 Body (Impenetrable)
- Infernostaff (Frontbar)

* 5 Transmutation:
- 4 Body (Impenetrable)
- 1 Restostaff (defending, backbar)

* Monster helmet: Skoria, Chudan, Bloodspawn

Fronbar: Impale , Funnel Health, Inner light, Merciless Resolve, Mark target (flex spot). Ultimate: Incap/soultether/meteor
Backbar: Blur, refreshing path, degeneration, rapid regen, healing ward, fear. Ultimate: Restoult

You won´t deal insane amount of damage but people will have a very hard time killing you. Works good in both cp and no cp

Imo, this is the absolute BiS for destro/resto mageblade. It works in no-CP with witchmothers or ghastly eye bowl and in CP with either of those foods or tri-stat food depending on your jewelry glyphs. I've run literally every single remotely interesting set you can put on a mageblade in basically every possible configuration. When I want pure performance and I'm not in a group with someone running 1 of these 2 sets then riposte/trans is unquestionably my go to, with skoria for solo and BS as soon as its duo+. The issue that you run into, however, is that a lot of people are drawn to these sets so in a group environment SOMEONE is gonna have to change their gear up or you're going to be overlapping buffs and build really inefficiently.

The damage gets slept on a lot, but you're sitting at 3k with berserker enchant and you've got really nice DoTs and the added pressure of destro weaves. If you're smart about your combos then you'll put out much more damage than opponents expect. If you're fighting against this build and not carefully watching yourself all it takes is a couple simultaneous DoT ticks timed with a reach-will-ulti combo and its GG in a hurry.

havingacow wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

I don't know whether detailed criticism is welcome, but here I go. I was going to call it feedback, but then realised I am being quite critical. I hope this will at least be interesting at a technical level.

First off, I play in CP, almost strictly small-scale, mostly in IC.

I ran a somewhat similar build using Funnel, Flame Reach, Impale, and Soul Assault, in the past. You don't specifically mention Merciless combos, and even suggest swapping that out for Leeching Strikes. Most people I meet insist that Merciless is what makes magblade gameplay. As someone who, perhaps like you, did not build rigorously around that, I had to eventually concede that they have a point. Specifically the ranged abilities, Funnel and Flame Reach, are weak sauce. There will be a fair amount of experienced players (in CP at least) - DPS players, not tanks / healers - who you will not scratch and will never get into execute range with those alone.

Soul Assault has it's unique strengths and weaknesses. I killed a lot of players with it, but it leaves you exposed, and unless perhaps you spec it into crazy 100,000 tooltip damage in CP, experienced players simply know how to counter it. It is this ceiling, it's inability to deal with experienced players, that eventually caused me to move on. My tooltip, in CP, was around 60,000 unbuffed, up to 70,000 buffed.

On the subject of stamina regen, I find 600 too low. I've become comfortable with 800, e.g. 1 line of stam regen from the likes of Shacklebreaker or Bloodspawn, and CP. Even so, that's in conjunction with Immovability pots. I wouldn't even entertain anything else, neither Spell Power pots, nor Lingering Health pots, for a light armor magblade.

Unlike Alteration Mastery, Amber Plasm will only really work on both bars. Not much of an issue for you, with Twice Born Star also forcing you into a 5/5/1 setup, but you'd have to give up your Master's staff.

I've used Leeching Strikes in the past, but recently discovered that the healing from that ability uses weapon critical chance. It significantly underperforms, compared to Siphoning Attacks. I would probably only use it in CP with at least 30 points invested into Thaumaturge for the 12% weapon crit passive. A quite effective alternative for stamina management are the 5.5 second resource poisons that also return stamina to you.

Not sure why you're running Structured Entropy over Degeneration, and on the same bar as your one shadow ability. Your health is unbalanced, e.g. you'll lose the Structured Entropy health bonus as soon as you bar swap. I would use Degeneration.

Since you mentioned Transmutation as an alternate set, I would say scrap that and go with Wizard's Riposte. Unless you're talking about group utility, where one person wears Transmutation, the other Riposte, then Riposte > Transmutation in a shielding build. Transmutation does nothing for you while your shields hold. Riposte reduces damage before it hits your shields. It will debuff all enemies around you. Technically shields can be crit, it's just that crits do no extra damage against shields. So, yes, Riposte will activate, even if you are shielded.

The final thing I'll say is that your build has too low mobility and escape potential for my taste. Not a single speed buff. No Concealed Weapon, Crippling Grasp, Refreshing Path, nor Double Take. No Mist Form, Shadow Image, nor Forward Momentum. I personally prefer pairing Cloak with some of the above.

In the title, I put "Sotha Sil" so this is more of a no-CP build. I said in the video I haven't really tested the build in CP campaigns.

I guess I should've also put that this toon is not pvp only, I run him in PvE for end game content, for trials, dungeons, and such. I only get 30k dps in PvE group situations, so it's not great either, I don't have him spec'd specfically for PvE or PvP, that's why I'm not running skills like Refreshing Path, I have the Twisting Path morph, I opt'd for more survival than for damage. Same with structured entropy, I have a terrible amount of health without it in PvE which is why I have structured.

Also, I found that I don't need tons of AoE to be successful, though there is zerging in Sotha Sil, it's not like Vivec where it's more zerg vs zerg. Moreover, I said in the video as well, it's not meant for 1v1, I'm not going to be pumping out tons of damage, just enough. It's for small scale PvP more than anything. Not to say that you can't be successful with large group PvP, just by hanging back a little bit and targeting enemies.

In regards to the stamina, I have rarely died to being stunned and unable to break-free or something in regards to stamina, more often than not it's a larger group of players, or a few really good players that will overpower me and my shields. The 600 stam recovery may be low, but like I said in the video, Alteration Mastery gives me that extra 6% break free cost/dodge roll/blocking/ult/sprinting, on top of my ability costs. So it's okay for me.

I don't understand the need for major expedition, you can just cloak away from enemies regardless if you need to *** out. Cloak is enough to get you out of almost every situation.

But yeah, I was looking at wizard riposte as well.

Here's a video of different some random pvpin on the magblade: https://youtu.be/pXHqzboHyks

I'd urge you to consider adding some group support sets to your mageblade loadout for small group PVP. Talk with your group mates and see who is running what and where you can fill holes. If your group doesn't have someone proc'ing trans then its worth consideration, same for riposte, troll king, and SPC. Mageblade can be really strong with a wide variety of builds but in a small group the impact you can personally make on a mageblade while wearing sets that also augment your team members is very hard for other builds to match. When I run small group I'm usually in 5 Trans/5 SPC/2 BS, this covers my personal defense quite well while also augmenting my damage and the damage of my team mates, with the beautiful thing being that it requires virtually no change to my skill bars or play style to proc these support sets.

Alaztor91

What trait do you guys use on the inferno staff?

Qbiken

Alaztor91 wrote: »

What trait do you guys use on the inferno staff?

Sharpened or infused in my opinion

Lexxypwns

Alaztor91 wrote: »

What trait do you guys use on the inferno staff?

If using a poison nirn is BiS, otherwise infused, precise, sharpened in that order.

Azurya

it is obvious, this needs to be nerfed!