Magblade -one set for all "Jack-o'-Trades for learning" - Oppinions please

Æterny

After leveling all classes to 50, both mag and stam i can say that my favorite is Magblade. And i plan to focus on PvP, but im still low CP (300ish) and i want to do all the game's content -ONCE-, since i love the lore and want to experience it, i really hate dungeons and trials, i can't have fun facing the very same mechanics over and over and wiping because someone messed up on a time scheduled mechanic...
I plan on doing dailie veteran pledges, but i can't stand set farming, specially have to farm a PvP and a PvE set, with each trait for each piece. I have a Julianos and a war maiden's set, but i feel real squishy and severely punished by the tyniest mistake, and when you are learning thats really tilting.
So i did some research and this was what i tought the most jack-o'-trades.

The main goal is:
1)Easy to get
2)Learn how to PvP, this will provide me large resource pool for all stats, so i won't be 2 slapped and die before try do to something, or not to be hard punished for spamming an expensive skill on desperation.
3)Don't become a burden on Vet Dungeons and pull at least 20-25k dps single target
4)Use it till i get good or have a *** ton of money to buy whatever is stronger and gold it all.


Head - Heavy - Molag kena - Infused - Tri Stat
Shoulder - Medium - Domihaus - Impen - Tri Stat
Chest - Light - Twice-Born - Infused - Tri Stat
Legs - Light - Twice-Born - Infused - Tri Stat
Hands - Light - Twice-Born - Impen - Magicka
Boots - Light - Twice-Born - Impen - Magicka
Belt - Light - Twice-Born - Impen - Magicka
Neck - Jewel - Willpower - Arcane - Spell Power
Ring 1 - Jewel - Willpower - Arcane - Spell Power
Ring 2 - Jewel - Willpower - Arcane - Spell Power
Staff 1 - Fire - Master - Infused - Shock (A random one
Staff 2 - Resto - Random - Nirn - Weapon Damage

Mundus: Apprentice + Mage
Stats : 64 Magicka
Race : Altmer

CP: Currently at 300ish, just trying to get the 30 pts bonus on each tree for now.

Well thats it, appreciate any further tips you guys can provide. Thanks in advance!

lynog85

5 shackle 4 necro 2 skoria

thankyourat

So two builds I would recommend are 5 axiom or julianos(heavy)/ 5 riposte/2 skoria and light armor 5 spinner/5riposte/2 skoria. Both these sets are really effective and cheap to set up. Getting good at PvP will make your dps go up as well just from pvping I got over 35k on my first dps test. Both heavy and light armor are good PvP, but for pve always use light

Lexxypwns

Lich+Shackle+1 Domi+vma resto(use a random resto until you farm it). Amber+Shackle 1 Domi is also great if you don’t want to farm the vma resto.

Lich front bar, 3x spell damage glyphs, apprentice or mage mundus, tri-stat food, spell power pots(if you don’t have these, drop impale)

Nirn Destro with Double DoT poisons

Impale, reach, strife, merciless, shadow image, incap(yes incap, even though it’s the stamina morph)
Harness, healing ward, cloak, cripple, rapid regen, resto ult

Perfect magika sustain, 18k stam, 3k spell damage, ~46k magika. The amber setup will probably have to drop 1 damage glyph for magika recovery though.

Brutusmax1mus

To complete in both pvp and pvp with 1 set up I'd use:

Necro +julianos with skoria monster. Fire Destro/ resto and adjust mundus for recovery or damage as needed. Very easy toget that set up until you get stuff lexy said above me.

Æterny

I notice that no one quite appreciate Twice Born set... Is that set so bad? Even giving bonus to 3 stat pool + a free mundus that could be a flex penetration or stat boost?

fred4

I like being able to swap sets. For example, if I am in Imperial City, and I have more than 10K Tel Var on me, I swap to Imperial Physique. Twice Born Star requires you to wear it at all times, or you have to ride to a mundus stone when you put it back on (last I checked). I consider that unusable, therefore I ruled it out a long time ago for myself.

I am CP720. I know that some people achieve 40K+ DPS on a target skeleton, but I am unable to do it. The best I have managed is 28K, self-buffed, and that's with completely different armor sets from my PvP gear, different food, different mundus, different weapon types, different skill layout, and all Divine traits instead of Impen. A single setup for both PvP and PvE is not viable. If you die easily in PvP, then, aside from experience, it could be because you are wearing non-impen PvE gear.

Requirements for a PvE DPS generally require you to stack spell damage. Stamina is hardly important or can be supplemented with shards from your healer. The Apprentice mundus is probably the best choice, along with Divines gear. I run double destro and my only defense is a single shield in PvE. Other than that, I rely on the healer.

PvP requirements are totally different. Unless you always play in large groups, you want to be self-sufficient. You need damage, healing, defense, and sustain. This mirrors vMA requirements somewhat, but with the twist that you'll almost certainly want to use Impenetrable gear, or possibly some Well-Fitted, but almost certainly not Divines. PvP sets to consider for a magblade include:

Shacklebreaker
Amber Plasm
Bloodthorn
Wizard's Riposte
War Maiden
Valkyn Skoria
Blood Spawn
Pirate Skeleton
1x Domihaus

There are many others, of course. The key point is that you need stamina to break free. Especially in no CP, your stamina is under severe pressure. I highly recommend Impenetrable gear with prismatic enchants. Prismatic enchants give you 50% each of stamina, magicka, and health, compared to other enchants. In total that means you gain 50% free stats compared to other enchants. Since stamina is so important in PvP, even on a magicka character, using prismatics on at least the big pieces is a no brainer and another area where PvE gear differs. This is also why Shacklebreaker, Amber Plasm, and Bloodthorn are good PvP sets.

If you choose to play a ranged build, you will likely go destro / resto. If you want survivability, you need Healing Ward. Light's Champion is also a good choice for your off-bar ulti. The bane of such a build is being snared or rooted, however. You might work around that with Shadow Image and Mist Form. On the other hand, if you're like me and don't want to become a vampire, that may lead you adopt a 2H / resto build, like myself. I use Immovability potions and Forward Mometum so I cannot be snared or rooted and may escape sticky situations by cloaking and being able to move.

PvP builds are very different from PvE. One set for all that includes 25K DPS in PvE, but also PvP with decent survivability, is not viable IMO. One setup for PvP and one for PvE may work, but even then you will probably want to carry different jewelry options, e.g. with different enchants, to tweak your build between CP and no CP.

fred4

I had another look over your proposed gear. I noticed you have already adopted some impenetrable and prismatic gear. Master staff is also good.

Like I said, I don't believe a truly universal PvP / PvE gear setup is viable, but if you really want to have a shot at that, then stacking magicka is the way the way to go. The only way you get away from using (some) Impen gear is to improve the size of your shield. For that you want to have 50K+ magicka, in CP, and Dampen Magic. I'm not saying such a build will be easy to play. Basically it works for me on mag warden, but mag warden does this thing where it offsets all incoming damage with healing via Living Trellis, which makes them tankier than magblade. I also run the Bull Netch on the warden, which means she has the least stamina issues of all my magicka toons.

The way I know you can get to 50K+ magicka is Shacklebreaker / Necropotence / Domihaus. You need the 10% racial mag passive, 8% class passive, Inner Light, and pet (Shadow Image) which you have. That gets you to just 50K, even without the Mage mundus and Infused gear. At CP720 and with full Undaunted Mettle, at least. Twice Born Star + Necropotence might work with Mage Mundus. This might allow you to go all Divines, which is what you should really do with Twice Born. So that would be:

1x Domihaus, 5x Twice Born, 5x Necro on the resto bar (where you will also put Dampen Magic), 4x Necro + Master staff on the destro bar.

Your staff traits should really be swapped. Resto staff should be infused for maximum boost from spell damage enchant. Destro should be Nirn. Shock enchant is a good choice. I like prismatic enchant on the staff, cause there are so many vampires, and it helps in Imperial City.

I'd be a bit concerned about your sustain. I usually run the Atro mundus. I know you will run either Siphoning Attacks or Leeching Strikes. You don't mention food.

fred4

By the way, the Master staff is great if you want to run Flame Reach / Clench as a spammable. It is also super-nasty as an ice staff, because there is no real immunity to the root, other than Forward Momentum. However I most associate that staff with sorcs, who don't have a class spammable. It saves them a skill slot usually occupied by Crushing Shock / Force Pulse, and gives them a CC. I suppose the same is true for NB, but it's hard to say no to the Swallow Soul / Funnel heal, and to Mass Hysteria as CC, because that goes through block. Don't get me wrong, I like Flame Reach a lot, and many people use it. However, if you also plan to run Swallow Soul / Funnel, there is no real need for the Master staff.

fred4

Here is someone running Twice Born Star, so maybe you are on to something:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4pznYUJ274

It is on a shield-stacking sorc, but he mentions running it on other classes, so maybe check out his videos. As far as I know, this guy is a good theory crafter. He also tends to build around Ghastly Eye Bowl, which is what I do.

fred4

If you haven't used the UESP build editor, use it:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData

Upon comparing Twice Born Star with Shacklebreaker for one of my own characters, I can tell you I won't be using Twice Born. You can push health and magicka higher with it, but you lose crit resistance and stamina regeneration. That may work on a shield stacking sorc, but I know it won't work for my magblade.

As I've said, the closest you can get to sorc shield-strength territory is with Necropotence and Dampen, not Harness. This would allow you, in principle, to go all Divines, which is where Twice Born starts to pay off. Such a build would be brittle, however. If / when your shield fails, and you for some reason can't cloak, you will be annihilated. I usually run 2K impen to mitigate that, and I run Wizard's Riposte as one of my options. I also run Pirate Skeleton and Riposte on my magplar. That monster set takes you into heavy armor strength tankiness, while allowing you to remain a light armor shielding build. It was heavily used by sorcs in previous patches, and consequently nerfed to not activate while you're shielded. As a non-shield-stacking non-sorc build I find it still works well, however.

Æterny

Well

Æterny

fred4 wrote: »

If you haven't used the UESP build editor, use it:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData

Upon comparing Twice Born Star with Shacklebreaker for one of my own characters, I can tell you I won't be using Twice Born. You can push health and magicka higher with it, but you lose crit resistance and stamina regeneration. That may work on a shield stacking sorc, but I know it won't work for my magblade.

As I've said, the closest you can get to sorc shield-strength territory is with Necropotence and Dampen, not Harness. This would allow you, in principle, to go all Divines, which is where Twice Born starts to pay off. Such a build would be brittle, however. If / when your shield fails, and you for some reason can't cloak, you will be annihilated. I usually run 2K impen to mitigate that, and I run Wizard's Riposte as one of my options. I also run Pirate Skeleton and Riposte on my magplar. That monster set takes you into heavy armor strength tankiness, while allowing you to remain a light armor shielding build. It was heavily used by sorcs in previous patches, and consequently nerfed to not activate while you're shielded. As a non-shield-stacking non-sorc build I find it still works well, however.

Well, thats a lot of information. Thank you for that.
I will play a ranged magblade style of character, using witchmother's brew and swallow soul as spammable. I can get about 1.6k Magicka Regen using julianos. wich will be the same with this set.

All i want is to be able to break free and dodge roll a couple times, have a sweet hp pool and don't be a burden on Pledges. I don't plan on min/max, become emperor or push 40k dps for now. All i want is to make it simple, so i can focus on every content while i enjoy the lore, explore all the areas. And spend some time doing PvP when i feel like.

The necropotence + twice born that you mentioned seems interesting, but i can't rely on something that requires me to have a target so i can cast shadow to get the value for a limited time.
the Shacklebreaker + Twice born feels more attractive tho, but is it better than Twice Born + Julianos for exemple?

The guy on the video uses pretty much the same config, exception for the resto staff's trait and all set pieces being divines, i plan on having 4 Impen and 4 Infused (for the tri stat glyphs), unless its very bad and divines are 100% the way to go.


The True doubt is: is this set so bad that i can ignore it 100% and go for something else without have to do 50 Dungeon runs farming one or spend 1 million on Guild store? Can this works?

fred4

Æterny wrote: »

The necropotence + twice born that you mentioned seems interesting, but i can't rely on something that requires me to have a target so i can cast shadow to get the value for a limited time.

I understand. That said, once Summerset comes around, Shadow Image will no longer require a target. Also, Shadowrend (monster set) has a really high uptime and counts as a pet. I don't mean to push that set on you, just let you know the options. I've even used Necropotence as a 4 piece with Skoria, as lynog85 suggested. High magicka = bigger shields. That kind of setup is pretty competitive with Willpower, but has bigger shields.

the Shacklebreaker + Twice born feels more attractive tho, but is it better than Twice Born + Julianos for exemple?

Neither of those combos are actually possible right now. You'd have to wait for jewelry crafting in Summerset.

The guy on the video uses pretty much the same config, exception for the resto staff's trait and all set pieces being divines, i plan on having 4 Impen and 4 Infused (for the tri stat glyphs), unless its very bad and divines are 100% the way to go.

The best way to figure that out is to go to the UESP build editor, substitute various choices, and see what kind of stats you get. Just bear in mind it's not always 100% accurate.

I am not a big fan of Infused for PvP. A person who lands a critical attack on you does 1.5 times normal damage. 1.6 times, if they are a nightblade. 1.8 times if they spent their CP properly. 2.0 times in extreme cases, if they add things like Rearming Trap. Each Impenetrable piece knocks almost 4% off that crit damage modifier. 7 pieces of Impenetrable gear will knock a "normal" attacker's 50% stronger critical attack down by about 27%, e.g. so it is only 23% stronger. More importantly it knocks a "standard" nightblade's 80% crit modifier back down to a more manageable 53%. Impenetrable is very good value in PvP, compared to every other trait. While it is true that shields cannot be crit, the only build that can rely on that taking care of all critical damage is a shield stacking sorc, because their shields will hold most of the time. This is not typically the case with a nightblade.

The next best trait, IMO, is Well-Fitted. However avoiding damage by dodge rolling is more difficult than shielding. You need to be very selective about that.

The True doubt is: is this set so bad that i can ignore it 100% and go for something else without have to do 50 Dungeon runs farming one or spend 1 million on Guild store? Can this works?

I mainly think it's bad, because as soon as you take it off, it forgets the second mundus stone. Once you put it back on, you have to go to that mundus stone to re-enable it.

All i want is to be able to break free and dodge roll a couple times.

Yeah ... about that. Don't dodge roll. Or be very, very selective. I played stamina when I started the game, and I really, really had to force myself to stop dodge rolling when I switched to magicka. You have to be so selective about it. By default, a nightblade has about 640 stamina regen. I find that is not enough. I like to have at least 800, in other words one stamina regen buff, for example from Blood Spawn or Shacklebreaker. Or even a jewelry enchant, if I'm not wearing those sets. I also like to have 12K stamina, but 14K+ is better. Basically, only if you're wearing something like Shacklebreaker and Amber Plasm together can you think about more regular dodge rolling. And this is with 16% break free and 16% roll dodge cost reduction from CP I'm talking about. If I go into no CP with my build as is, things get way, way worse.

This will not be immediately obvious to you, because it varies tremendously between fights. However a single competent dueller will CC you every 7 seconds, like clockwork, and he will run you out of stamina and kill you, because you can't break free. There are a couple of workarounds to this:

* You can slot a poison that restores stamina to you.
* You can slot an enchant that does the same (weaker).
* You can use Leeching Strikes. Many people do this, but I don't recommend it. The healing from Leeching Strikes uses your weapon critical modifiers, not spell critical, which means your heals will crit less often and be weaker than if you used Siphoning Attacks. In other words, if you're using this skill, I recommend Siphoning Attacks, gimp your magicka regen elsewhere, if you have too much of that, but get stamina regen from a set bonus or enchant.
* You can (try to) cloak away and wait for your stamina to come back, before they get a chance to CC you. However, I find abandoning an otherwise winnable fight a very unsatisfactory solution.
* Of course you must have the Medicinal Use alchemy passive and use potions. So either stamina can come from a potion, such as a tri-pot, or you use my favorite potion, which is Immovability / Detection / Magicka. If you are low on stamina, use the Immovability potion, so you can't be CCd.

I will play a ranged magblade style of character, using witchmother's brew and swallow soul as spammable. I can get about 1.6k Magicka Regen using julianos. wich will be the same with this set.

For reference, I have 1.9K regen. But that's not the full story. I like being able to perma cloak, in other words cloak every 2.9 seconds, before cloak runs out. Not only is this stronger than crouch - you are truly invisible, even if you are right on top of an enemy - but you also move faster than normal, if you have Concealed Weapon slotted. If you want to do that, you need to get your sustain from these sources:

Atronach mundus
Ghastly Eye Bowl (Witchmother's is not as good)
1x cost reduction jewelry enchant

This is as a Breton. Altmer may work out slightly differently. The point is that magicka recovery enchants on jewelry, and magicka recovery from item sets, such as Shacklebreaker, Amber Plasm, Seducer, etc. etc. do not help you with your out of combat magicka regen. And most of the time when you're skulking about or stalking someone as a nightblade, you are out of combat. This is why I build around Ghastly Eye Bowl.

fred4

I forgot the Escapist's Poison. It gives you 4.4 seconds of CC immunity, so that's another option to manage your stamina.

And actually forget Shadowrend on Nightblade. You don't want to go into Cloak only for the Clannfear to give away your position. Unless you are planning on playing without Cloak.

Æterny

Thank you for all the infos, helpful indeed