Melee Magblades

kaithuzar

You don’t even need heavy...once again I’ll post my build:
5L 2H

5 spinner (2h sword, sharpened)
5 impreg
2 willpower
Whatever random resto you want; defending

(This is the reason to gold your armor, max resistances)
2 heavy reinforced (chest & legs)
5 light nirnhoned
3 infused jewelry, 1 reduce cost, 2x spell dmg

Atro mundus (mag recovery, I think it’s atro, maybe I’m wrong)
Citrus fillet
All tri-stat glyph except for maybe 1 big piece or 1 big & 1 small keep as max magic, you want to balance it out at ~40k mag & ~13k stam

Front bar:
Sap, Merciless, forward momentum, concealed, mage light, soul harvest

Back bar:
Cloak, psijic skill that gives movement speed & inc crit dmg, fear, healing ward, leeching strikes(stamina morph), psijic ult that gives 8% dmg mit or resto ult.

There is some leeway you could swap 2 willpower for monster set but I like max magic. It’s super tanky but can hit like a truck as well if all buffs are up.
I’ve got 15k+ spell pen, well over 3k (I think 3.4k crit resist), ~25k buffed resistances, 24-25k health; overall it’s probably the best I can come up with for melee magblade; then again, that’s why I’m running it...

I’ve got like 61 points into inc crit dmg cp & ~64 points into befoul. ~64 or so in arcanist & 56 in mooncalf to balance out my stam sustain

If you have trouble sustaining with 1800 magic recovery (high elf & vamp) then take a resource so you’ll have 2k+

This can probably be improved upon but I haven’t found anything I like better or want to swap.

If you don’t wanna run vamp then that’s another build maybe I’ll mention tomorrow, too tired now.

ChefZero

PickleRick wrote: »

2h+Resto is still BiS for melee mageblade post Murkmire.

I think your best choice is to stack damage 5 Spinners+5 Caluurion+2 Balorgh with VMA resto. 3x swift gives you tons of mobility and you use that and shade while working around the Caluurion and Balorgh cooldowns. Remember that Spinners and the Flame Blossom 4pc are the only equipment options to increase the damage of your proc sets. I like Balorgh because you’ll add a ton of damage to your incap before your Caluurion procs which adds another 20% damage increase.

There’s an argument for dropping Spinners for Julianos Mechanical Acuity and using Onslaught, since a successful kill will ensure you have a huge defensive buff and access to your resto ult for escaping, but that’s a pretty niche build which will require very specific CP to be as effective as a generic incap setup

ChefZero

kaithuzar wrote: »

You don’t even need heavy...once again I’ll post my build:
5L 2H

5 spinner (2h sword, sharpened)
5 impreg
2 willpower
Whatever random resto you want; defending

(This is the reason to gold your armor, max resistances)
2 heavy reinforced (chest & legs)
5 light nirnhoned
3 infused jewelry, 1 reduce cost, 2x spell dmg

Atro mundus (mag recovery, I think it’s atro, maybe I’m wrong)
Citrus fillet
All tri-stat glyph except for maybe 1 big piece or 1 big & 1 small keep as max magic, you want to balance it out at ~40k mag & ~13k stam

Front bar:
Sap, Merciless, forward momentum, concealed, mage light, soul harvest

Back bar:
Cloak, psijic skill that gives movement speed & inc crit dmg, fear, healing ward, leeching strikes(stamina morph), psijic ult that gives 8% dmg mit or resto ult.

There is some leeway you could swap 2 willpower for monster set but I like max magic. It’s super tanky but can hit like a truck as well if all buffs are up.
I’ve got 15k+ spell pen, well over 3k (I think 3.4k crit resist), ~25k buffed resistances, 24-25k health; overall it’s probably the best I can come up with for melee magblade; then again, that’s why I’m running it...

I’ve got like 61 points into inc crit dmg cp & ~64 points into befoul. ~64 or so in arcanist & 56 in mooncalf to balance out my stam sustain

If you have trouble sustaining with 1800 magic recovery (high elf & vamp) then take a resource so you’ll have 2k+

This can probably be improved upon but I haven’t found anything I like better or want to swap.

If you don’t wanna run vamp then that’s another build maybe I’ll mention tomorrow, too tired now.

What's the point about running clock and concealed on different bars?

kaithuzar

ChefZero wrote: »

PickleRick wrote: »

2h+Resto is still BiS for melee mageblade post Murkmire.

I think your best choice is to stack damage 5 Spinners+5 Caluurion+2 Balorgh with VMA resto. 3x swift gives you tons of mobility and you use that and shade while working around the Caluurion and Balorgh cooldowns. Remember that Spinners and the Flame Blossom 4pc are the only equipment options to increase the damage of your proc sets. I like Balorgh because you’ll add a ton of damage to your incap before your Caluurion procs which adds another 20% damage increase.

There’s an argument for dropping Spinners for Julianos Mechanical Acuity and using Onslaught, since a successful kill will ensure you have a huge defensive buff and access to your resto ult for escaping, but that’s a pretty niche build which will require very specific CP to be as effective as a generic incap setup

Too squish for my liking. Solo play is mostly dead now, but I still like to take on greater numbers whether solo or grouped.

WreckfulAbandon

It's a tougher playstyle but so kitey. You'd be surprised how much you can actually "brawl" with such limited dodge roll capacity. Every build has a weakness you can exploit. Good mSorc is a bit tough but you can easily stay alive long enough to get your bow up and try to kill them. And just wait till next patch :'(

Resto is for getting your bow up and wearing them down, disease enchant on here is very effective. Got spell/wep power on 2h which is the burst bar. Some classes you want to run low on stam before you go in for the kill unless you get a window beforehand. Stamsorc/stamplar come to mind here. If its a super BAMF high weapon dmg build I will literally cripple, cripple, shade, cripple if I need to to get some clearance. Some classes you can play aggressively against like medium stamblade if you mark them. You got the tools to deal with everyone in one way or another. It's not the easiest playstyle but it's effective solo if you know what you're doing. And it's real satisfying when you get that perfect Tether+bow combo on a meta stam build.

good open world solo build:
5 necro
5 amberplasm
1 domihaus
1 shadowrend

Swift is great with concealed weapon for that fat cloak speed.

PickleRick

I would absolutely not run any defensive sets on melee mageblade now that Mark reveal is gonna be 5 seconds. You just have to be careful with positioning and shade usage, but the higher damage is worth being squishy because you have no pressure, only burst

Jeezye

I'm kinda surpised noone so far has mentioned s/b as an effective main bar weapon. I created several threads a while ago about the state of formerly called saptanks, that is tanky melee magblade, and s/b still performs realtively well for melee magblades in my opinion. I personally hate the stealth playstyle, since you usually get jumped by too many people and stealth is broken too easily for nongank builds. Dark cloak really works wonders with high crit and 30k + health, which is easily achievable with s/b's bonus enchant and skoria.

That been said, I have not found any build whose power level was statisfying to me. I think the problem that melee magblades suffer is that most damage is too easily avoidable via dodge/refelct/absorb and defenses are too lackluster without the common shieldstack playstyle.

Yeah its really frustrating, I've ran through all different gear combinations and have played my magblade since beta, but the only viable playstyle I found is as a group utility healer with subpar damage

Jeezye

ohh and dont forget you loose TONS of damage with 2h/dw/s+b because your light attacks hit like a noodle, especially with the previous LA buffs. I never understood why magicka only has 2 weapon lines while stamina has 4...

PickleRick

Jeezye wrote: »

ohh and dont forget you loose TONS of damage with 2h/dw/s+b because your light attacks hit like a noodle, especially with the previous LA buffs. I never understood why magicka only has 2 weapon lines while stamina has 4...

Because Magika has a wider array of usable class skills

Datthaw

Snip

HowlKimchi

kaithuzar wrote: »

You don’t even need heavy...once again I’ll post my build:
5L 2H

5 spinner (2h sword, sharpened)
5 impreg
2 willpower
Whatever random resto you want; defending

(This is the reason to gold your armor, max resistances)
2 heavy reinforced (chest & legs)
5 light nirnhoned
3 infused jewelry, 1 reduce cost, 2x spell dmg

Atro mundus (mag recovery, I think it’s atro, maybe I’m wrong)
Citrus fillet
All tri-stat glyph except for maybe 1 big piece or 1 big & 1 small keep as max magic, you want to balance it out at ~40k mag & ~13k stam

Front bar:
Sap, Merciless, forward momentum, concealed, mage light, soul harvest

Back bar:
Cloak, psijic skill that gives movement speed & inc crit dmg, fear, healing ward, leeching strikes(stamina morph), psijic ult that gives 8% dmg mit or resto ult.

There is some leeway you could swap 2 willpower for monster set but I like max magic. It’s super tanky but can hit like a truck as well if all buffs are up.
I’ve got 15k+ spell pen, well over 3k (I think 3.4k crit resist), ~25k buffed resistances, 24-25k health; overall it’s probably the best I can come up with for melee magblade; then again, that’s why I’m running it...

I’ve got like 61 points into inc crit dmg cp & ~64 points into befoul. ~64 or so in arcanist & 56 in mooncalf to balance out my stam sustain

If you have trouble sustaining with 1800 magic recovery (high elf & vamp) then take a resource so you’ll have 2k+

This can probably be improved upon but I haven’t found anything I like better or want to swap.

If you don’t wanna run vamp then that’s another build maybe I’ll mention tomorrow, too tired now.

1 domi + 1 infernal guardian gives way more stats than 2 willpower tho.

also, I'd put concealed and cloak on the same bars, maybe switch sap with entropy and put it on the back bar. Or better yet, use the cheap AP spell power pots, and put crippling grasp instead.

kaithuzar

@HaruKamui
Thanks for the suggestions, I’m using sap front bar because of siphoning passive to get more magic, I don’t recall if I can “double dip” with mages guild abilities since I already have mages light front bar.

I’ll add up the stats from domi + something else & see how that compares. I don’t really need the stam from domi as I’m sitting at 13k but I’ll check it out.

Arthalion1

Ok, so, I saw this thread yesterday and it made me want to set up a melee magblade. I therefore did some theory crafting and came up with:

Armour:

5 light shacklebreaker
1 mighty chudan helm (heavy)
1 valkyn skoria shoulder (medium)

All tri stat glyphs

Jewellery- robes of transmutation all damage glyphs - arcane

Front bar 2 x Willpower swords

Back bar 1 x transmutation resto staff

Skill bars

Front

1. Inner light (preferred) or crippling grasp
2. Lotus fan - I did some testing with healing path but I prefer lotus
3. Concealed weapon
4. Mass hysteria
5. Merciless resolve
6. Ulti - soul harvest- but use whatever

Back

1. Shadow image
2. Rapid regeneration
3. Healing ward
4. Shadowy disguise
5. Structured entropy
6. Ulti - soul tether

Race - Breton

Food - witchmothers brew

Mundus- apprentice

The stat page looks great and performed great. In my first bg (not premade group) I scored 14 kills 9 assists 1 death.

I certainly think melee magblade is viable but would recommend focusing on defences if you intend to play solo or small man, which is the reasoning behind this build. The damage is still excellent but my resists were around 25k with 3.5k crit resist which means it's a very tanky light armour build.

mojomood

There are a lot of interesting takes on melee magblade here. I mainly play in Sotha on mine so targets are not as tanky but sustain can be tough. I've found that I almost never go to my resto bar defense. It's always buffs and charging up a Merciless. I think that is because I run 3 swift. I know that is a loss on damage, but for that, I don't find that I need shade (which really helps with a crowded bar) and I can focus on damage sets. I've tried a lot of combinations but they've all been shackle plus something. I'm seriously considering going Innate in place of Shackle. The extra damage would be nice and I can add a couple tri-glyphs to make up the max stam. Stam recovery will be my only place I'll have to play without. Probably Innate plus War Maiden.

Ultimately, I've found it to be the most enjoyable build and playstyle. The burst can be tough against a tanky stam character since it's so back-end loaded and against a magDK because cripple is reflectible. Tanky mag enemies aren't that hard if you pressure their stam. Once you get a fear on them that they can't break, they're dead. It can be easier in Sotha but still takes practice. When you do find a group of potatoes though, its soooo nice.

And in Capture the Relic, it can be OP. Cloak to get to the relic, resto bubble, FM, 3 swift, and enough stam to sprint back.

brandonv516

Arthalion1 wrote: »

Ok, so, I saw this thread yesterday and it made me want to set up a melee magblade. I therefore did some theory crafting and came up with:

Armour:

5 light shacklebreaker
1 mighty chudan helm (heavy)
1 valkyn skoria shoulder (medium)

All tri stat glyphs

Jewellery- robes of transmutation all damage glyphs - arcane

Front bar 2 x Willpower swords

Back bar 1 x transmutation resto staff

Skill bars

Front

1. Inner light (preferred) or crippling grasp
2. Lotus fan - I did some testing with healing path but I prefer lotus
3. Concealed weapon
4. Mass hysteria
5. Merciless resolve
6. Ulti - soul harvest- but use whatever

Back

1. Shadow image
2. Rapid regeneration
3. Healing ward
4. Shadowy disguise
5. Structured entropy
6. Ulti - soul tether

Race - Breton

Food - witchmothers brew

Mundus- apprentice

The stat page looks great and performed great. In my first bg (not premade group) I scored 14 kills 9 assists 1 death.

I certainly think melee magblade is viable but would recommend focusing on defences if you intend to play solo or small man, which is the reasoning behind this build. The damage is still excellent but my resists were around 25k with 3.5k crit resist which means it's a very tanky light armour build.

Just wanted to comment on a red flag that stood out:

Why go 1pc Chudan, 1pc Skoria? You could go 2pc Chudan and get the same bonus as 1pc Skoria plus you get the 2pc bonus for Chudan.

(2 items) Gain Major Ward and Major Resolve at all times, increasing your Physical and Spell Resistance by 5280.
(2 items) Adds 1206 Max Health

Also wanted to comment on Chudan for MagBlade. I think it's a bad choice because you can get Major Resolve/Ward by cloaking, fearing, and spamming Concealed.

kaithuzar

brandonv516 wrote: »

Arthalion1 wrote: »

Ok, so, I saw this thread yesterday and it made me want to set up a melee magblade. I therefore did some theory crafting and came up with:

Armour:

5 light shacklebreaker
1 mighty chudan helm (heavy)
1 valkyn skoria shoulder (medium)

All tri stat glyphs

Jewellery- robes of transmutation all damage glyphs - arcane

Front bar 2 x Willpower swords

Back bar 1 x transmutation resto staff

Skill bars

Front

1. Inner light (preferred) or crippling grasp
2. Lotus fan - I did some testing with healing path but I prefer lotus
3. Concealed weapon
4. Mass hysteria
5. Merciless resolve
6. Ulti - soul harvest- but use whatever

Back

1. Shadow image
2. Rapid regeneration
3. Healing ward
4. Shadowy disguise
5. Structured entropy
6. Ulti - soul tether

Race - Breton

Food - witchmothers brew

Mundus- apprentice

The stat page looks great and performed great. In my first bg (not premade group) I scored 14 kills 9 assists 1 death.

I certainly think melee magblade is viable but would recommend focusing on defences if you intend to play solo or small man, which is the reasoning behind this build. The damage is still excellent but my resists were around 25k with 3.5k crit resist which means it's a very tanky light armour build.

Just wanted to comment on a red flag that stood out:

Why go 1pc Chudan, 1pc Skoria? You could go 2pc Chudan and get the same bonus as 1pc Skoria plus you get the 2pc bonus for Chudan.

(2 items) Gain Major Ward and Major Resolve at all times, increasing your Physical and Spell Resistance by 5280.
(2 items) Adds 1206 Max Health

Also wanted to comment on Chudan for MagBlade. I think it's a bad choice because you can get Major Resolve/Ward by cloaking, fearing, and spamming Concealed.

That’s why I’ve traditionally gone 1 pirate & 1 chudan so that I can stack that with the shadow passive buffs.

kaithuzar

@HaruKamui ,
So my intention with 2 willpower was that ultimately I would make them both gold but since that’s taking forever & you brought up a good point with domihaus I’ve at least for now switched it up.
(My impreg & spinner jewelry is already gold so small increase there, instead of waiting)

Instead of 2 willpower I went 1 domi & 1 chokethorn. Previously I was at 1800 regen which was fine IF you kept up continuous to put you at/over 2k but I’ve just found it easier to be at 2k now & not care so much; #LazinessFTW

The domi allowed me to use less tri-stat glyphs to keep my magic pool decent ~40k & still use 2 infused sp dmg for good dmg & my 1 infused reduce cost.

I think previous I only had 1 infused sp dmg & the other arcane to balance out magic but with this alteration I can do 2 infused sp dmg.

Anyways thanks!

Arthalion1

brandonv516 wrote: »

Arthalion1 wrote: »

Just wanted to comment on a red flag that stood

Also wanted to comment on Chudan for MagBlade. I think it's a bad choice because you can get Major Resolve/Ward by cloaking, fearing, and spamming Concealed.

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. The passive is exactly why I'm not using 2 piece chudan. I'm guessing a lot of casual players may not have access to a chudan helm anyway, as I think that dungeon is still relatively hard? I did also try 1 piece pirate which is a really nice resist boost, but I preferred the extra health.

Arthalion1

Argh I'm quite a noobie when it comes to forums. Above is my reply, not an extract from your quote!

HowlKimchi

kaithuzar wrote: »

@HaruKamui
Thanks for the suggestions, I’m using sap front bar because of siphoning passive to get more magic, I don’t recall if I can “double dip” with mages guild abilities since I already have mages light front bar.

I’ll add up the stats from domi + something else & see how that compares. I don’t really need the stam from domi as I’m sitting at 13k but I’ll check it out.

kaithuzar wrote: »

@HaruKamui ,
So my intention with 2 willpower was that ultimately I would make them both hold but since that’s taking forever & you brought up a good point with domihaus I’ve at least for now switched it up.
(My impreg & spinner jewelry is already gold so small increase there, instead of waiting)

Instead of 2 willpower I went 1 domi & 1 chokethorn. Previously I was at 1800 regen which was fine IF you kept up continuous to put you at/over 2k but I’ve just found it easier to be at 2k now & not care so much; #LazinessFTW

The domi allowed me to use less tri-stat glyphs to keep my magic pool decent ~40k & still use 2 infused sp dmg for good dmg & my 1 infused reduce cost.

I think previous I only had 1 infused sp dmg & the other arcane to balance out magic but with this alteration I can do 2 infused sp dmg.

Anyways thanks!

Glad it's working out! Yeah, sap is definitely good to have front bar because of the passive. I ran it for a while along with overwhelming surge and grothdar to deal with those dodgeroll spamming stamblades. My issue with it is that it's hard to proc major sorcery using the skill. That's why im running crippling graps on the front bar to act as the siphoning skill and the "gap closer" with major sorc coming from the cheap AP pots.

HowlKimchi

Arthalion1 wrote: »

Ok, so, I saw this thread yesterday and it made me want to set up a melee magblade. I therefore did some theory crafting and came up with:

Armour:

5 light shacklebreaker
1 mighty chudan helm (heavy)
1 valkyn skoria shoulder (medium)

All tri stat glyphs

Jewellery- robes of transmutation all damage glyphs - arcane

Front bar 2 x Willpower swords

Back bar 1 x transmutation resto staff

Skill bars

Front

1. Inner light (preferred) or crippling grasp
2. Lotus fan - I did some testing with healing path but I prefer lotus
3. Concealed weapon
4. Mass hysteria
5. Merciless resolve
6. Ulti - soul harvest- but use whatever

Back

1. Shadow image
2. Rapid regeneration
3. Healing ward
4. Shadowy disguise
5. Structured entropy
6. Ulti - soul tether

Race - Breton

Food - witchmothers brew

Mundus- apprentice

The stat page looks great and performed great. In my first bg (not premade group) I scored 14 kills 9 assists 1 death.

I certainly think melee magblade is viable but would recommend focusing on defences if you intend to play solo or small man, which is the reasoning behind this build. The damage is still excellent but my resists were around 25k with 3.5k crit resist which means it's a very tanky light armour build.

Glad it's working out for ya! For me tho, id choose 2h over dual wield all the time, even in BGs because of FM. Especially in cyro where everyone and their mother is throwing their snares at you. I'd put cloak with concealed as well for the quick stealth movespeed and put hysteria on my backbar. It's pretty easy to weapon swap cancel hysteria and having cloak in the front bar enables the stun part of concealed weapon to be a more reliable CC.

Your approach is interesting, i might try it out like this:

1 heavy shacklebreaker chest,
1 medium shacklebreaker legs,
3 more light shackle breaker pieces,
1 chudan + 1pirate skeleton

backbar trans,
frontbar willpower!

I've always been a fan of transmutation set on my magplar, ill switch it to my magblade for now.

Thanks!

Arthalion1

Great. See what you think. This performed very well for me with very little training. Let me know how you get on!