Maintenance for the week of October 12:
• PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – October 12, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) – 8:00AM EDT (12:00 UTC)
• Xbox One: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – October 14, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) – 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®4: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – October 14, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) – 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
• PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – October 12, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) – 8:00AM EDT (12:00 UTC)
• Xbox One: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – October 14, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) – 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®4: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – October 14, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) – 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
The Markarth DLC and Update 28 base game patch are now available to test on the PTS! Read the full patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/pts/
Total dark: a re-review and build for wolf hunter.
Baconlad
✭✭✭✭✭
Hey everyone. Bacon here again. Just wanted to give my thoughts on total dark in my resent usage.
Normally, when ZoS changes a skill I love, I get a bit upturned. I try to force myself to use the skill for an extended period of time in order to experience all of it's possible uses. In the past, it was the staff changes and how they reflected on my magplar playstyle...still hate staves though...
Most recently though I've been using total dark as a staple on my max damage, burst magplar in BGs and Cyrodil.
I've been playing variations of this build for about three years. Swapping from a traditional DW, SnB magplar to a DW 2H stamplar, to a DW resto max damage build. I used to play some blazing shield tank in there as well but let's face it...that's dead this year...
I was even called out by a particular player in cyrodil for my obsession with trying all that templar had to offer, in his you tube builds. As a templar with a million builds but I ducked at all of them haha. And while I am no where near the best, i try...XD i dont do YouTube videos yet. Dont know how! Maybe i will attempt it soon.
Anyway this is a rebuild of my max damage, zero regeneration, bad defense ranged build. I keep going back to it...its just so much fun.
Let's start with the stats
Max magic - 34k
Max health - 22k
Max stam - who cares? Learn to manage it!
Magic regen - 800...buffed...yes...
Spell damage - ~3.6k buffed
Crit - 47%
Spell pen - 9.7k
Gear
5L/1/1
7 mag enchants all impen
-Soulshine - chest, two rings (infused spell damage) two swords (nirn, sharp)
-warmaiden - four body, one neck (infused spell damage)
Skills (DW bar)
-Dark flare: after the nerf, many say go fire destro, and I'm sorry...I dont like destro DW for life baby. Not as hard hitting as last build I had...but still amazing. Important to note. You dont spam this. Spamming will not get you the kill, but will get you killed. Only cast at range or with total dark on ur enemy.
-Inner light: you cant run vampires bane, but I'd rather run less skills to activate. Easier rotation, easier to go defensive.
-radiant destruction: this skill has been buffed and in my opinion VERY balanced! It feels great but can still be countered.
-javelin: for when total dark wouldn't work, when it target is not attacking anything. Or running.
-soul assault: 90k tooltip? Yes please.
Skills (resto bar)
-extended ritual: um...yeah
-rune focus: both morphs are great! Recently buffed
-introspection: two seconds of cast will get you from zero to full almost stamina, you play the build kite style, so when your able to LoS and half resources, pop this for a few seconds. It really is amazing and allows me to not build any sustain into my build.
-race against time: stamina levels are hard to manage. This helps, and allows you to sprint like a stambro! Makes you faster than most form...but it's still not as good, better just to mist if you can, mostly chosen for minor crit damage.
-honor the dead: yeah man...dont know what to say.
-undo/ resto ult: both great
So, the goal of this build is not survival. The goal is to kill, and kill fast. Not giving much opportunity to fight back. And punishing players who blindly rage into full damage and dont pay attention to debuffs on them.
I got sick of trying to build for defense, damage and sustain all in one. I didnt feel the magplar had enough built in defense. But zenimax recentlyish changed total dark that made playing like a slow magsorc possible. At first I fought against it. " NOT A TRUE CC", "WASTED IMMUNITY" you could see my posts about it on these forums. So I begin to try it...slotting it over javelin on my traditional magplar build. At first...I didnt really understand where to use it. When to hit it properly, and fought against it. But after like...3 months I began to notice a change...I was too survivable!
So I took off sword and board, and slotted resto staff, dropped some sustain so that I could use apprentice mundus and resto heavies for sustain. I noticed that I wasnt much less survivable than with sword and board. I completely stopped slamming block and forced myself to feather block instead. My heals were much more potent in myself with resto...didnt need sword and board anymore!
So I kept looking at where I could drop defenses and sustain and gain damage. Summer set dropped and I grinded psijic out. Slotted introspection...dropped desert rose for warmaiden...wow, I was even more offensive and even though sustain was more difficult...I thought myself when to use introspection and when to use resto heavies...
I dropped hakeijo enchants to test max mag....WOW...not much noticed! Didnt need the extra stamina with introspection.
It was around this time, leveling race against time for LOLZ, that I decided to just go full balls to the walls damage and see what happens!!
Rebuild my toon with dark flare instead of jabs. Dropped vampire to get away from mist form reliance. I decided to play my new zombie creation OUT of stealth, unlike previous iterations of him. I would play like I had 20k of damage shields, out there, in the midst of the battlefield...and would learn it. Many top tier deulers, 1vXers i spoke to told me to stop wasting time...I was going to be a piece of paper...I was scared. Scared of not being on a competitive level, respected and feared...but kept pushing anyway
My first test of this current build would be a battleground. A deathmatch...go figure. After having learned the whole playstyle, when to use what...I'll tell you...i wrecked face
Players couldn't even try to defend against it. I'd kill one, two, then three players at a time. Introspection up, then jump back in attempting to stay away from friendlies where I could, to test it to the extreme. Final tally, 26 kills to 4 deaths.
Stambroz would charge me, get eclipsed, flared and javelined before they could hit me. RD then dead.
Magsorcs would frantically spam shields after a volley of damage abilities that eclipse turned around on them. Just to get to 20% health in a matter of two seconds and drop to a massive radiant destruction.
Taking the build to cyrodil gives similar results.
All in all, I feel the build has become truly mine. I've slowly added more and more damage, taken out more and more defense. And accually not felt much squish than I did before.
The build is not easy...its extremely reactive. Best to total dark when you know burst is incoming. You find yourself on defense bar, spamming skills while ur opponent has cc immunity...but once the immunities up, flip around and go ham. Immovable pots can win the fight for the enemy though...that's definitely a counter as ur defense relies on total dark!
I wrote this long wall of text in Hope's to encourage others to begin looking past the "meta" try different things out. Build your own!
If you do want to see the build in action, a very similarly built player named niekas on PC NA DC has a few videos out. There's a few skill differences and he chooses to stealth much more...but it's basically the same! Give him a look him up on youtube. (Promise I didn't copy him. Me and niekas have been building the same for two years almost now...all without any discussion. Haha, great minds think alike. Hes a great player.)
Thanks guys! See you in cyrodil
Edited by Baconlad on September 15, 2018 3:25PM Normally, when ZoS changes a skill I love, I get a bit upturned. I try to force myself to use the skill for an extended period of time in order to experience all of it's possible uses. In the past, it was the staff changes and how they reflected on my magplar playstyle...still hate staves though...
Most recently though I've been using total dark as a staple on my max damage, burst magplar in BGs and Cyrodil.
I've been playing variations of this build for about three years. Swapping from a traditional DW, SnB magplar to a DW 2H stamplar, to a DW resto max damage build. I used to play some blazing shield tank in there as well but let's face it...that's dead this year...
I was even called out by a particular player in cyrodil for my obsession with trying all that templar had to offer, in his you tube builds. As a templar with a million builds but I ducked at all of them haha. And while I am no where near the best, i try...XD i dont do YouTube videos yet. Dont know how! Maybe i will attempt it soon.
Anyway this is a rebuild of my max damage, zero regeneration, bad defense ranged build. I keep going back to it...its just so much fun.
Let's start with the stats
Max magic - 34k
Max health - 22k
Max stam - who cares? Learn to manage it!
Magic regen - 800...buffed...yes...
Spell damage - ~3.6k buffed
Crit - 47%
Spell pen - 9.7k
Gear
5L/1/1
7 mag enchants all impen
-Soulshine - chest, two rings (infused spell damage) two swords (nirn, sharp)
-warmaiden - four body, one neck (infused spell damage)
Skills (DW bar)
-Dark flare: after the nerf, many say go fire destro, and I'm sorry...I dont like destro DW for life baby. Not as hard hitting as last build I had...but still amazing. Important to note. You dont spam this. Spamming will not get you the kill, but will get you killed. Only cast at range or with total dark on ur enemy.
-Inner light: you cant run vampires bane, but I'd rather run less skills to activate. Easier rotation, easier to go defensive.
-radiant destruction: this skill has been buffed and in my opinion VERY balanced! It feels great but can still be countered.
-javelin: for when total dark wouldn't work, when it target is not attacking anything. Or running.
-soul assault: 90k tooltip? Yes please.
Skills (resto bar)
-extended ritual: um...yeah
-rune focus: both morphs are great! Recently buffed
-introspection: two seconds of cast will get you from zero to full almost stamina, you play the build kite style, so when your able to LoS and half resources, pop this for a few seconds. It really is amazing and allows me to not build any sustain into my build.
-race against time: stamina levels are hard to manage. This helps, and allows you to sprint like a stambro! Makes you faster than most form...but it's still not as good, better just to mist if you can, mostly chosen for minor crit damage.
-honor the dead: yeah man...dont know what to say.
-undo/ resto ult: both great
So, the goal of this build is not survival. The goal is to kill, and kill fast. Not giving much opportunity to fight back. And punishing players who blindly rage into full damage and dont pay attention to debuffs on them.
I got sick of trying to build for defense, damage and sustain all in one. I didnt feel the magplar had enough built in defense. But zenimax recentlyish changed total dark that made playing like a slow magsorc possible. At first I fought against it. " NOT A TRUE CC", "WASTED IMMUNITY" you could see my posts about it on these forums. So I begin to try it...slotting it over javelin on my traditional magplar build. At first...I didnt really understand where to use it. When to hit it properly, and fought against it. But after like...3 months I began to notice a change...I was too survivable!
So I took off sword and board, and slotted resto staff, dropped some sustain so that I could use apprentice mundus and resto heavies for sustain. I noticed that I wasnt much less survivable than with sword and board. I completely stopped slamming block and forced myself to feather block instead. My heals were much more potent in myself with resto...didnt need sword and board anymore!
So I kept looking at where I could drop defenses and sustain and gain damage. Summer set dropped and I grinded psijic out. Slotted introspection...dropped desert rose for warmaiden...wow, I was even more offensive and even though sustain was more difficult...I thought myself when to use introspection and when to use resto heavies...
I dropped hakeijo enchants to test max mag....WOW...not much noticed! Didnt need the extra stamina with introspection.
It was around this time, leveling race against time for LOLZ, that I decided to just go full balls to the walls damage and see what happens!!
Rebuild my toon with dark flare instead of jabs. Dropped vampire to get away from mist form reliance. I decided to play my new zombie creation OUT of stealth, unlike previous iterations of him. I would play like I had 20k of damage shields, out there, in the midst of the battlefield...and would learn it. Many top tier deulers, 1vXers i spoke to told me to stop wasting time...I was going to be a piece of paper...I was scared. Scared of not being on a competitive level, respected and feared...but kept pushing anyway
My first test of this current build would be a battleground. A deathmatch...go figure. After having learned the whole playstyle, when to use what...I'll tell you...i wrecked face
Players couldn't even try to defend against it. I'd kill one, two, then three players at a time. Introspection up, then jump back in attempting to stay away from friendlies where I could, to test it to the extreme. Final tally, 26 kills to 4 deaths.
Stambroz would charge me, get eclipsed, flared and javelined before they could hit me. RD then dead.
Magsorcs would frantically spam shields after a volley of damage abilities that eclipse turned around on them. Just to get to 20% health in a matter of two seconds and drop to a massive radiant destruction.
Taking the build to cyrodil gives similar results.
All in all, I feel the build has become truly mine. I've slowly added more and more damage, taken out more and more defense. And accually not felt much squish than I did before.
The build is not easy...its extremely reactive. Best to total dark when you know burst is incoming. You find yourself on defense bar, spamming skills while ur opponent has cc immunity...but once the immunities up, flip around and go ham. Immovable pots can win the fight for the enemy though...that's definitely a counter as ur defense relies on total dark!
I wrote this long wall of text in Hope's to encourage others to begin looking past the "meta" try different things out. Build your own!
If you do want to see the build in action, a very similarly built player named niekas on PC NA DC has a few videos out. There's a few skill differences and he chooses to stealth much more...but it's basically the same! Give him a look him up on youtube. (Promise I didn't copy him. Me and niekas have been building the same for two years almost now...all without any discussion. Haha, great minds think alike. Hes a great player.)
Thanks guys! See you in cyrodil