Hey Magblades! How's Murkmire for you?

Datthaw

Btw I have been trying to make heavy armor work soooooooooo much. Last night for *** and giggles i threw back on my spinners/necro/TK gear...... totally outperformed heavy. I need to do more testing, could just have been a mayhem potato fatm

brandonv516

I worked on a melee Magblade over the weekend and had both success and failure. As predicted it is terrible against premade ball groups but excels against 1 to 2 man fights. It's a very risky build that is highly dependent on choosing the right battles and maintaining elusiveness.

I used the same sets as my Destro/Resto Magblade: Caluurions and Spinners. For my monster set I used Pirate Skeleton.

Dual wield sword bar (yes DW!):
Shadowy Disguise
Race Against Time
Crippling Grasp
Concealed Weapon
Merciless Resolve
ULT: Incap

Resto bar:
Mutagen
Healing Ward
Fear
Deep Thoughts
Siphoning Attacks
ULT: Resto Ultimate

I have some video of it in Battlegrounds that I will share. I will say that if we get some much needed buffs next patch, melee Magblade has the potential to come back strong. It's very fun to play but can be a bit frustrating.

mursie

i don't understand the point of melee magblade if not to use forward momentum. I applaud the dw effort but seems like all risk with no reward.

Koolio

mursie wrote: »

i don't understand the point of melee magblade if not to use forward momentum. I applaud the dw effort but seems like all risk with no reward.

I ran a DW MNB for so long I actually just got used to being snared all the time. With the recent nerf to duration of most snares they don’t bother me so much.

This also got me so familiar with them I no longer use snare removal on a Heavy armor Stam sorc either

brandonv516

mursie wrote: »

i don't understand the point of melee magblade if not to use forward momentum. I applaud the dw effort but seems like all risk with no reward.

Two weapon enchants
Faster light/heavy attacks
Higher spell damage
Fun factor
Asethically pleasing

When you are in Cloak, you can heavy attack, get both weapon enchants off, and still stun with Concealed Weapon.

Additionally I find Forward Momentum at 4s now to be less valuable and too cost intensive for magicka classes.

Finally, I tried to make it work but I can't find room on my damage bar.

Shadowy Disguise - need
Race Against Time - need Major Expedition
Crippling Grasp - need Siphoning skill
Concealed Weapon - need
Merciless Resolve - still valuable even with nerfs so need

It would be easy if I could run Destro/2H but the self healing just isn't there for that build.

Knootewoot

I user to run Kragnerac Hope with Warmaiden and Skoria or the ugly leatherhead.

Worked fine, but now I run

Spinner, brightbloat and skoria.

I didn't find swords for brightbloat so use a staff. I don't know what others run for penetration (I have unbuffed 12k spell penetration)

So far I like it. I only have trouble with shieldstackers and very tanky Dk's. And some uberhealing Templars.

But I don't feel ashamed. If I die, I die. Melee magblade is hard sometimes. I do switch to ranged when sieging a keep though.

Edit: lots of typos because I'm on my phone in a wobbly train.

Jeezye

How come only dw and 2h are mentioned when talking about melee nightblade? I myself have always run S/B for various reasons:

- more flat resistances and only small cut in spelldamage
- extra armor glyph (health for dark cloak, magicka for harness)
- cheap bash cancels for extra damage
- highly needed damage reduction through blocking when pressured
- i like being tanky *cough .. old saptank .. cough*

also leeching strikes helps a lot with stamina management

NyassaV

Update, I swapped to a bowtard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ6L4omudnE

Knootewoot

NyassaV wrote: »

Update, I swapped to a bowtard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ6L4omudnE

Another one bites the dust...

ScruffyWhiskers

Knootewoot wrote: »

I only have trouble with shieldstackers and very tanky Dk's. And some uberhealing Templars.

Hehe. Yes. QFT +1 When Mayhem ends it's back to mostly these guys though.

Datthaw

Jeezye wrote: »

How come only dw and 2h are mentioned when talking about melee nightblade? I myself have always run S/B for various reasons:

- more flat resistances and only small cut in spelldamage
- extra armor glyph (health for dark cloak, magicka for harness)
- cheap bash cancels for extra damage
- highly needed damage reduction through blocking when pressured
- i like being tanky *cough .. old saptank .. cough*

also leeching strikes helps a lot with stamina management

I was trying a snb build with naga shaman, plague doctor and zaan. I found (and totally from my average player perspective) that the damage is completely lacking. I tried tO build around dark cloak and hots and found it to be just sub-par. The only item I was missing that may have made a difference is black rose resto.

As far as the 2h / dw discussion goes. I have always felt more comfortable running 2h builds as more of as range on back bar style. Dw magnb I'm lotus fan, concealed spam etc. But with 2h I play a more ranged keep fm up cloak around and proc mercy from funnel weaves on resto bar with hots ticking. Only going to 2h for the damage combo

Metemsycosis

Tbh the only reason I don't do snb mnb is I always think of Ninja turtles.
And then I can't take my own toons very seriously.

Iskiab

One thing I want to try is the Stygian set. It’s a medium armour set that gives some spell damage and raw stamina, but the 5 piece bonus is really nice. Whenever you attack from invisibility you get a 20 percent damage boost.

My thinking is 5 Stygian, Asylum staff, ice heart and 5 lich on the back bar only, with the gear of 5 light, 1 med and 1 heavy.

I bought a couple gold rings but the issue is the the starting trait is stamina. I’d have to transmute the rings to swift or magicka. I might hit like a wet noodle, I’m not sure the final stats will be strong enough to PK anyone. A 20 percent damage buff and auto crit from cloak sounds good, but if the base is low the damage will still suck.

Datthaw

Iskiab wrote: »

One thing I want to try is the Stygian set. It’s a medium armour set that gives some spell damage and raw stamina, but the 5 piece bonus is really nice. Whenever you attack from invisibility you get a 20 percent damage boost.

My thinking is 5 Stygian, Asylum staff, ice heart and 5 lich on the back bar only, with the gear of 5 light, 1 med and 1 heavy.

I bought a couple gold rings but the issue is the the starting trait is stamina. I’d have to transmute the rings to swift or magicka. I might hit like a wet noodle, I’m not sure the final stats will be strong enough to PK anyone. A 20 percent damage buff and auto crit from cloak sounds good, but if the base is low the damage will still suck.

I think people used to run a heavy attack build with elegant, stygian, and inferno heavies

Iskiab

Really? Weird. With that combination my rotation would be crushing - cloak - crushing- cloak - etc... when I pvp as a magblade I cloak spam. I might try combining a pen set, IDK.

Metemsycosis

Try
Stygian + caluurions, if you can

Cloak+ concealed (9k) plus soul harvest (9k)+ caluurions (9k) should just about ko anyone under 27k health.

Calboy

Anyone running sap essence? I really dislike using pots for major sorcery and find entropy such a boring skill and play style. Sap is fun, gives me a spammable in outnumbered situations and when people are running around me and also offers survivability. It also combos so smoothly with lotus and fear

Datthaw

Calboy wrote: »

Anyone running sap essence? I really dislike using pots for major sorcery and find entropy such a boring skill and play style. Sap is fun, gives me a spammable in outnumbered situations and when people are running around me and also offers survivability. It also combos so smoothly with lotus and fear

Sap is trash imo. Magnb should not be in the middle of the action like that unless you're a pure troll tank. From my experience if you build a brawler you have 0 damage, and extremely nerfed healing. And damage builds are way to squishy to stand in a pack and spam it.

I have yet to find a decent brawler build since healing has been nerfed.

Knootewoot

How much spell penetration does one general have?
I'm on 12k .

How do people get 4500 spelldamage? I'm usually around 2k, with 45k magicka. Unbuffed though. That's with spinner and brighthroat. My concealed tooltip is 9200.

Yesterday I made some great kills. Today I could not put a dent in anyone , and all my ranged attack got dodged. It was really frustrating after a while.

Oh well, dust of and try again.

Edit: I might try Stygian and elegance and just do heavies from stealth. Would be fun if I can shoot siegers this say.

NightAngel690

Jeezye wrote: »

How come only dw and 2h are mentioned when talking about melee nightblade? I myself have always run S/B for various reasons:

- more flat resistances and only small cut in spelldamage
- extra armor glyph (health for dark cloak, magicka for harness)
- cheap bash cancels for extra damage
- highly needed damage reduction through blocking when pressured
- i like being tanky *cough .. old saptank .. cough*

also leeching strikes helps a lot with stamina management

Not to mention the fact that you have access to the poor man’s reflective scales. *cough cough* please buff! *cough cough*

Datthaw

NightAngel690 wrote: »

Jeezye wrote: »

How come only dw and 2h are mentioned when talking about melee nightblade? I myself have always run S/B for various reasons:

- more flat resistances and only small cut in spelldamage
- extra armor glyph (health for dark cloak, magicka for harness)
- cheap bash cancels for extra damage
- highly needed damage reduction through blocking when pressured
- i like being tanky *cough .. old saptank .. cough*

also leeching strikes helps a lot with stamina management

Not to mention the fact that you have access to the poor man’s reflective scales. *cough cough* please buff! *cough cough*

Snb might actually be good front bar on healer. I need to testy, my Feely feels are tingling.

Calboy

So more testing. Basically I have come to the conclusion that melee magblade with swords and concealed speed is the funnest spec in the game and merciless resolve is the most clunky and terribly designed skill in the game.

I tried melee with a destro staff equipped but it didn't feel right and bars got too clogged with a destro skill and always just ended up spending too much time at range.

The hardest thing I'm struggling with is just not enough damage (heavy armor, no merciless) and no burst heal. Cloak is amazing but I have no real way to get my health up quickly. My damage is still very good but it's not enough to prevent anyone with skill from turning and burning me unless I cloak away. I tried light armor but it's simply too squishy and I hate using wards, they simply are not fun.

The healing ward nerf is absolutely brutal for this spec.

dominguero96

Knootewoot wrote: »

How much spell penetration does one general have?
I'm on 12k .

How do people get 4500 spelldamage? I'm usually around 2k, with 45k magicka. Unbuffed though. That's with spinner and brighthroat. My concealed tooltip is 9200.

Yesterday I made some great kills. Today I could not put a dent in anyone , and all my ranged attack got dodged. It was really frustrating after a while.

Oh well, dust of and try again.

Edit: I might try Stygian and elegance and just do heavies from stealth. Would be fun if I can shoot siegers this say.

I can get to 3800 + 450 from war maiden which is fair enough but I dont recommend it. Magblades don't have enough base damage so adding more spell damage won't be enough, other classes will kill you with less stats. I recommend a damage + regen, sadly getting the highest damage isn't worth it at all.

I have tried a lot of builds and the two builds I use:
- valkyn + Necro + bright throats or shacklebreaker if u need stamina
- kena + spell strategist + bright throats

With the next racial nerfs my dunmer will suffer from stacking max magicka so I'll use the second build

Datthaw

Speaking of the racial changes I'm *** pissed off. They nerfing argonian, my magnb playstyle of heavy armor argonian brawler has been completely destroyed over the last couple patches.

*** zos

Jeezye

Datthaw wrote: »

Speaking of the racial changes I'm *** pissed off. They nerfing argonian, my magnb playstyle of heavy armor argonian brawler has been completely destroyed over the last couple patches.

*** zos

I'm actually thinking of chaning my argonian NB too.. Reduced incoming healing really sucks, and I think NB should have a regen perk in their race because of the 15% passives. Since I am usually spamming skills, I'm heavily thinking of rocking a breton next.

ScruffyWhiskers

I think scruffy might be a kitty cat again and this long Dunmerian nightmare will soon be over.

Iskiab

Meh, you guys were deluded if you thought Argonians would stay a good magblade race. Nothing in the lore points to them being good for the magblade style, they’re a one trick pony with that potion passive.

High elves on the other hand look perfect for magblades now.

Iskiab

Anyone tried amber plasm plus Stygian? If you go Stygian and spam invisibility you need a ton of magicka regen.

Jeezye

Iskiab wrote: »

Meh, you guys were deluded if you thought Argonians would stay a good magblade race. Nothing in the lore points to them being good for the magblade style, they’re a one trick pony with that potion passive.

High elves on the other hand look perfect for magblades now.

nightblade aren't just about stabbing your foe's backs every time they drop their guard, but also about sapping live out of their enemies and sustaining through leeching health *sap sap sap*. therefore, argonians actually make a very good fit for the class, and according to the game's lore everything race combination should be playable as you like.

Iskiab wrote: »

Anyone tried amber plasm plus Stygian? If you go Stygian and spam invisibility you need a ton of magicka regen.

which decent magblade even spamms cloak ...

ScruffyWhiskers

A long time ago I ran Stygian and loved it. Then they did the stam/magicka split and the set was always awkward. It had some weird bugs when it was modifying max magicka and spellpower. At least I think that's what it was. I'm old so I don't remember things as well. Then they switched it back to 20% damage and you could do 3 jewelry and 2 weapons so not have to wear multiple mediums. I remember running around Coldharbour farming chests.

Problem is that you can't do the old magelight empower + stygian surprise attack anymore. So it's really not worth it. I would rather run spinners or war maiden and get a solid bonus to my opener and whatever follow up attacks I can manage.

Now if they were to turn it into a monster helm 2nd piece effect?