MagDK solo outnumbered PvP build for summerset. The "Broken OP pot addict."

ak_pvp

Preface: This is utilizing infused jewlery glyphs. However this build is based of them working as intended. So 8s potion reduction per piece. And a total portion cooldown of 21s. DK gets an extra 200ish regen next patch, matching them with templars and NBs. For the most part, everything else DK PvP end will remain the same, but the massive meta changes create some seriously unbalanced monsters

Gear: 5/1/1 heavy. Backbar S/B clever alchemist, front bar, 2h sword of willpower, Innate axiom/shacklebreaker/Julianos, and valkyn skoria/zaan. Race: Lizard wizard or maybe dunmer. Stone: Apprentice or mage. Food: Clockwork citrus filet, or tri food.

Front offense bar: Power whip, fossilize, embers, inner light, forward momentum. Ult: Leap
Back defense bar: Choking talons, Dragon blood, cauterize, entropy, volatile. Ult: Shield ulti

Explanation: Going for 3x infused with potion cooldown glyph is quite a high damage loss, (A max loss of 834 spell damage if using 3x infused spell damage jewlery) however, that can be remedied by swapping out your current sustain set for clever alchemist, giving a burst of 653 spell damage every 21s for 15s. Since PvP is quite burst oriented, it won't be too problematic of a loss. Both buffed its a loss of about 218 spell damage during when CA is up. The benefits do outweight the losses though don't worry.

With such a low potion cooldown, you get to run 2x potions. The option I will be going for is Base: Health, mag, immovable, and Additional: Stam, speed immovable. This allows you to trade the small loss in damage for major expedition, extra stamina and stamina regen, and increased immovable uptime. Which will be 50%+ You can also run lingering speed pots, which are pretty damn strong, without losing magicka sustain. If you are an argonian you will get 235 extra magicka and stamina regen equivalent on top of your already 204 worth regen.

This build will have no resource problems, since you can only be stunned half the time, and you will be using FM to stop snares and roots, and the 2h passive and major stam potion buff gives you an extra 50% stam regen, that is safe, and mag pot, no reliance on mist, the combustion buff and argonian makes magicka incredibly easy to sustain. Survivability with argonian, choking talons, heavy armour, cauterize pseudo HoT, not being CC'd and not being vampire (So less fire/dawnbreaker damage, and health regen gain) becomes insanely strong.

The damage will be pretty high too, innate is high damage, a 2h willpower sword on the damage bar, and having to spec a lot less into sustain means you can run more into magicka. Since this build will be very mobile, zaan works on it too, however I don't personally like it, due to how hard it is to maintain when outnumbered, and it will have a high down time. Valkyn you will have 4/5 dots on average, burning, volatile (+damage return procs it) embers, and entropy.

A similar build can be ran on very nearly everything honestly, and I won't be surprised if it gets a quick painful nerfbomb, since it allows the return of "everything" builds. NBs can use it to buff their ult gen too.

ak_pvp

Reserved for possible future changes.

Kartalin

This sounds pretty amazing as described. I'm liking the uptime of CA (71%!!!) and the inherent sustain that argonians will have (part of why I made my magdk an argonian). I could see the potion chugging getting expensive lol but I like the concept of alternating potions to respect the uptime of buffs like speed and such. Could even do spell crit instead of immovable if we wanted to swap something in for inner light, but the extra magicka and other mage guild passives are very nice.

What are your thoughts on vampire, and possibly using bats instead of shield ult? Or is the point of shield ult that it's cheaper? I could see going frost staff (without the "block using magicka" passive) with bats as an alternative.

ak_pvp

Kartalin wrote: »

This sounds pretty amazing as described. I'm liking the uptime of CA (71%!!!) and the inherent sustain that argonians will have (part of why I made my magdk an argonian). I could see the potion chugging getting expensive lol but I like the concept of alternating potions to respect the uptime of buffs like speed and such. Could even do spell crit instead of immovable if we wanted to swap something in for inner light, but the extra magicka and other mage guild passives are very nice.

What are your thoughts on vampire, and possibly using bats instead of shield ult? Or is the point of shield ult that it's cheaper? I could see going frost staff (without the "block using magicka" passive) with bats as an alternative.

I currently use vamp+bats, and is probably my favorite ult, heals a lot, damage is pretty decent, reveals NBs, but as of recently my builds have been going towards passive defense, so less damage from fire/dawn and an effective HoT of 500 from health recovery (Gotta make elder dragon useful somehow) seems a bit better defensively.

I was also thinking of going innate, which doesn't buff bats, to make up extra for the damage loss from argonian and glyphs

Taylor_MB

Been doing a lot of "solo outnumbered PvP" on the pts eh?

ak_pvp

Taylor_MB wrote: »

Been doing a lot of "solo outnumbered PvP" on the pts eh?

Nah, but I have tested things (i.e. 2h, dropping vamp, CWC filet, cauterize, low base regen, argonian) on live and done a bit of maths. Mishmash them together and you get just a bit overpowered.

raasdal

Yeah, ever since i heard / saw the Potion Cooldown thing, i immediately thought about three things;

Argonian
Clever Alchemist
Immovability Potion / Tristat

Sustain for days (Equivalent of app. 200 extra regen from Argonian, 350 extra from potion) and with permanent Clever Alchemist and permanent Immovability. Gonna be fun.

Waffennacht

1. I absolutely love how you are analyzing the correct trait performance
2. Very insightful and has me pondering quite a bit

What are the odds this goes live? (Most important question I have)

Have you considered some of the new potions?

Last thoughts are, in your build, you've invested a lot into the potion aspects of the build. I'm wondering if you... Say drop the alchemist for BSW or equivalent keep the same set up, but take advantage the 2,3 set bonus (rather than health from alchemist) how would that affect things ?

Kartalin

Waffennacht wrote: »

Say drop the alchemist for BSW or equivalent keep the same set up, but take advantage the 2,3 set bonus (rather than health from alchemist) how would that affect things ?

BSW is very interesting in the next update because it automatically procs burning on our foes which activates the new DK passive that gives us resources back when that happens.

In the setup discussed here it would likely mean we lose the willpower magicka from that 2h.
.

ak_pvp

Waffennacht wrote: »

1. I absolutely love how you are analyzing the correct trait performance
2. Very insightful and has me pondering quite a bit

What are the odds this goes live? (Most important question I have)

Have you considered some of the new potions?

Last thoughts are, in your build, you've invested a lot into the potion aspects of the build. I'm wondering if you... Say drop the alchemist for BSW or equivalent keep the same set up, but take advantage the 2,3 set bonus (rather than health from alchemist) how would that affect things ?

I think it will probably be nerfed somehow, not sure how. Base potion cool down glyphs are balanced, and infused with all else is too, CA is fine as well, but I think they are most likely to nerd the latter, since sets are so abundant, and I doubt they will nerfed their new trait so soon.

As for BSW, I would say its definitely pretty good on paper, but I don't know how good in practice. Measuring in effective spellpower:

Constant,so factoring in uptime: BSW at max proc chance (525x0.66+129+1096/10.5) work out to 579 effective spell power. * Clever alchemist (653 x 0.71) works out to 466.

Burst, so no factoring in cooldowns, will be 653 for clever alchemist vs 758 for burning spellweave.

*

The 4pc for both will only be active backbar for both, so not really worth on the front bar. Both have their merits back bar for healing.

The issue is that BSW has to be procced every 12s instead of 21, and only has an 8s uptime vs 15. Meaning it's quite finicky. Then because bsw has a 20% chance it will probably fall a bit behind. Also my build only has 2 fire damage skills (+burning, leap and valkyn) and only one of those is guaranteed to be up on back bar.

Of course I could run bsw both bars, but then I'd lose willpower's 133 effective spell power. Putting burst at 786+2k (no 4 piece) health for CA and 758+3% crit( for BSW. And constant at 599 for CA vs 579 for BSW.

All in all if you could have a build that can proc BSW on cooldown on the back bar, then it's better for damage, by about 100-120 at the cost of 2k health. If you can't proc it enough, it becomes worse than alchemist, and isn't worth running front bar to make up for low proc.

Waffennacht

@ak_pvp what do you think about using burning talons over choking? Maim is good, (but say if you are in a group with riposte) burning would add another fire dmg dot for bsw

Edit: the more I think about it, the more I wanna go, alchemist, axiom, zaan