PLEASE HELP MAGBLADE!

kaithuzar

I would like to make a recommendation that each of us state what we feel the following values “should be” in order to be effective. Then we can debate & try out each other’s thoughts.

Health:
Health recovery:
Mag:
Mag recovery:
Stam:
Stam recovery:
Spell dmg:
Spell pen:
Spell crit:
Inc crit dmg:
Crit resist:
Spell resist:
Phys resist:

The biggest one I’m wondering is how much damage & tooltip values does everyone feel comfortable with in order to “do damage”.

If we can get on the same page with fairly specific numbers then we can hone in on acceptable trade offs to enhance builds.

Give unbuffed stats & if specific buffed stats are provided please state so, as well as front bar(dmg bar) or back bar(defense bar)

kaithuzar

Front bar)

Health: 29,109
Health recovery: 600
Mag: 32,703
Mag recovery: 2,192
Stam: 13,492
Stam recovery: 908
Spell dmg: 2,127
Spell pen: 15,412 (23.2%)
Spell crit: 42.9%
Inc crit dmg: 80%
Crit resist: 3,572
Spell resist: 16,883
Phys resist: 12,758


Back bar)

Health: 30,442
Health recovery: 600
Mag: 31,056
Mag recovery: 2,166
Stam: 13,492
Stam recovery: 908
Spell dmg: 1,891
Spell pen: 12,660 (19.1%)
Spell crit: 29%
Inc crit dmg: 70%
Crit resist: 3,572
Spell resist: 19,635 (29.6+8)
Phys resist: 15,510 (23.4+8%)

These numbers definitely/obviously increase when buffed & will slightly increase further once I have re-traited & finished golding out 2 more pieces.

Datthaw

I normally play alot of different builds but I'll make one for the one I run in my most standard "destro resto meta" type.

Hp 26794
367
Mag 36780
1824
Stam 15069
765
Spell damage 2632
Spell pen 8790 (14070 with ele drain up)
Crit 35%
Crit damage 85%
Crit resist 3239
Physical 14954
Spell 16769

Those are all unbuffed stats for my more "meta" ranged build.

Datthaw

kaithuzar wrote: »

Front bar)

Health: 29,109
Health recovery: 600
Mag: 32,703
Mag recovery: 2,192
Stam: 13,492
Stam recovery: 908
Spell dmg: 2,127
Spell pen: 15,412 (23.2%)
Spell crit: 42.9%
Inc crit dmg: 80%
Crit resist: 3,572
Spell resist: 16,883
Phys resist: 12,758


Back bar)

Health: 30,442
Health recovery: 600
Mag: 31,056
Mag recovery: 2,166
Stam: 13,492
Stam recovery: 908
Spell dmg: 1,891
Spell pen: 12,660 (19.1%)
Spell crit: 29%
Inc crit dmg: 70%
Crit resist: 3,572
Spell resist: 19,635 (29.6+8)
Phys resist: 15,510 (23.4+8%)

These numbers definitely/obviously increase when buffed & will slightly increase further once I have re-traited & finished golding out 2 more pieces.

I see one thing you do different, which I have like 50 into cp, but you have more just base pen. Makes me think you run spinners and sharp where I don't run spinners and nirn.

kaithuzar

@Datthaw
Not running spinners with this build, I’ve got like 75 points in cp + lover mundus + sharp 2h

Knootewoot

I'll check mine later thus day. Are the stats when in cyro cp, or outside cyro?

kaithuzar

Knootewoot wrote: »

I'll check mine later thus day. Are the stats when in cyro cp, or outside cyro?

In cyro with cp.

fred4

I really like this idea. The caveat is that my burst comes from procs, e.g. Caluurion and Zaan. In Murkmire I ran these unbuffed stats, in CP:

Health: 21K
Health recovery: Base
Mag: 31.5K front bar, 33.5K back bar (where the shield and Willpower weapon is)
Mag recovery: 1.7K + Breton + 406 cost reduction (2x enchants) + Siphoning Attacks + Meditate
Stam: 12.5K
Stam recovery: 600
Spell dmg: 2K
Spell pen: 7.5K
Spell crit: 44%
Inc crit dmg: 80%
Crit resist: 3K
Spell resist: 13.5K
Phys resist: 9.5K

In Wrathstone these unbuffed stats, in CP:

Health: 26K
Health recovery: 1.2K
Mag: 31.5K front bar, 33.5K back bar (where the shield and Willpower weapon is)
Mag recovery: 1.55K + Breton + 527 cost reduction (2x enchants, one of which Infused) + Siphoning Attacks + Meditate
Stam: 12.5K
Stam recovery: 600
Spell dmg: 2K
Spell pen: 7.5K
Spell crit: 44%
Inc crit dmg: 80%
Crit resist: 3K
Spell resist: 13.5K
Phys resist: 9.5K
Concealed tooltip: 7.5K

Do I wish I had more stam regen? Big time! However for my playstyle Caluurion + Zaan + Skooma Smuggler are all mandatory. That is why I adopted Deep Thoughts. If I get low on stamina, I disengage, hide behind a tree and meditate. I think the biggest problem with a low stamina pool as a cloaking NB, who more often than not CAN disengage, is that you overextend. Meditate has proven much nicer for this class than I thought. Makes the game more enjoyable, since you can get back into the fight sooner.

Just a few thoughts on spell pen. Getting that from CP is horribly inefficient. I believe you need 662 for the first 1% of damage against a player. That's about 6.5 CP poiints invested. On the other hand, Master at Arms gets you +1% damage in 2 CP increments at the beginning, aside from the very first 1%, which takes 3 CP. I have not made in-depth duelling tests against a player, but I believe you have to be highly invested in other CP before you should consider Spell Erosion. The counter argument for my particular build is that spell pen buffs the procs, but you still won't see me putting a whole lot of points in there. I currently have 29 points (2618 pen). The reality is that a tanky player is a tanky player. That's got as much to do with them playing their build well as it has with their resistances. I tried the Lover mundus, but didn't feel much of a difference.

For me it's about staying on top of a player and pressuring them consistently, especially when Zaan procs. The initial burst and that Incap sound puts many on the defensive for a few seconds, which is when the squishy NB has to press their advantage. Being fast and staying on melee means players can't LoS you, nor can they get out of range, nor reflect. I tried to drop Skooma Smuggler, but immediately regretted it. Can you make it work by having Cripple on your front bar instead? Or use Lotus Fan? I guess so, but it's easier to spam / weave one ability when there is a lot of movement and perhaps some lag.

kaithuzar

So in wearing willows path & impreg (2 infused sp dmg glyphs) my unbuffed concealed is around 8k & fully buffed gets to 8.9 (this is with pot & proc’ing weapon enchant)

I don’t feel as much that the damage is low, although I would like it over 9k, it’s more that a majority of my concealed’s end up being dodged.

@fred what are your thoughts on steed mundus since it gives both speed & health recovery?
How are you getting such high unbuffed health recovery?
I already have 70 or 80 points into master at arms, where I run low at is elemental expert (27 PTS) b/c it’s so inefficient. I don’t run dots so I don’t use thaum. I have 20/21% worth I think around 50 PTS into inc crit dmg.

Kim_Angel

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=121565

fred4

Health recovery = Steed + Citrus Fillet + NB passive (+15%) + CP (+12%). I wanted the WIndrunning passive and had no need for heavy attack recovery nor stam recovery, thus 64 Arcanist and 56 Healthy.

I think the Steed is roughly where it needs to be. By no means OP, but competitive. When I want raw speed it's usually the first place I go. If you are using gold food or Troll King, you can see how that stacks nicely, but by and large I see the health regen as an added bonus.

The dodging is a big problem. I don't usually kill a player outright, not even a squishy NB, if they are at the keyboard and they have experience. Doing 5 dodge rolls in a row is common. That's why I like speed so much. You can keep up with them while spamming light attack / Concealed and eventually you hit them and finish them off. People should really Vigor into dodge, but you'd be surprised how many panic and only dodge or they just don't have that much healing power. Incap defiles after all.

I have 49 in Elemental Expert. To get from 10% to 11% in that star, you need 6 points. To get from 0 to 662 pen you need more than 6 points. Elemental Expert is inefficient. Spell Erosion is even more inefficient. Everyone just thinks it's better, because most other sources of penetration are good. No one does the math on Spell Erosion it seems.

I also always put at least 31 points (13%) into Thaumaturge to get Perfect Strike, regardless of whether I run many DOTs or not. Two reasons: One is for the 2H light attacks. The other is for the Infused Prismatic enchant on my staff, tooltip = approx. 9K damage to Undead and Daedra, because that enchant uses weapon crit.

fred4

Kim_Angel wrote: »

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=121565

An interesting contrast to my build.

+ Ability damage
+ Merciless Resolve
+ Resistances
+ Stamina pool

- Zaan
- Speed
- Snare removal
- Sustain
- Healing

Knootewoot

So basically i have for my melee magblade 3 setups i switch between. It just depends on what my experience is earlier that day. Did i run out of resources, is the server pact with tanks or are there a lot of squishies about. Currently i wear Zaan as monster helmet. (Sometimes i go ranged and wear Skoria or Iceheart) But a mainly melee

Resource build: Bright throat+Warmaiden

Magicka + recovery: 42.799 / 2311
Healh + recovery: 23121 / 245
Stamina + recovery: 10027 / 714

SD: 2459
crit: 54.3%

Spell resis: 15.804
Physical resis: 9612
Crit resis: 2013

Spell pen: 10.272

Penetration build: Warmaiden+Spinner

Magicka + recovery: 39.459 / 1836
Healh + recovery: 23121 / 245
Stamina + recovery: 10027 / 714

SD: 2610
crit: 54.3%

Spell resis: 15.804
Physical resis: 9612
Crit resis: 1515

Spell pen: 13.601

Damage build: Warmaiden+Innate Axiom

Magicka + recovery: 37.950 / 1808
Healh + recovery: 23121 / 245
Stamina + recovery: 11360/ 714

SD: 2459
crit: 57.1%

Spell resis: 15.804
Physical resis: 9612
Crit resis: 2262

Spell pen: 10.272

In all setups, concealed damage tooltip is around 9700. Mostly i wear Spinner/Warmaiden/Zaan, since the tooltip is around the same of CW, sustain is enough

Unbuffed, but with food (Witchmothers potent brew), Enemy keep bonus 4

And yes i am DW. I know my light/heavy attacks don't make sense and even if im melee a 2-hander would be better due to forward momentum, but an assassin with a huge 2-hander sword? It is just a game but it takes my character out of context for me.

Jeezye

Datthaw wrote: »

Well this patch hurt my build just a little more with argonians pot nerf. It's not really much but it was like the final kick in the ribs of the heavy argonian build I ran.

But its alot of things that make magnb weak, lack of burst heals, our shield being tied to light armor and nerfed, bow being delayed was a huge punch in the ribs, skill cost increase, removal of damage from path, snares, snares, snares, Wardens and dks pretty much shut our builds down and force melee playstyle which is painful. Concealed spam is just weak. Our only class's pressure skill is also reflectable so even though ancient knowledge got "buffed" if you want to range yoy have yo use force pulse anyway or just don't fight like 1/2 the cyro population. You either have to run alot of hots which really clogs your bar space or abuse cloak which is counted ed by the multitude of mark spamming zerglings....

Idk Ill stop I'm depressing myself

LOL this is so much me I just caught myself yesterday for 2 hours theorycrafting on how to make my lizard great again. I'm running this setup atm, gave armor master a finaly try and kept my old favourite s/b playstyle.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=81996

after getting used to it worked okayish. I still lack hots but finally have enough mobility to survive and kite outnumbered fights. also damage is great with SS, however its hard to pull off and focus the right people in heated situations. Skoria is interchangable and probably will be, and I'm kind of lacking mag sustain atm.

On another note, what do you guys feel is the preferred race for magblade atm? I feel argonian finally lost all synergies it had going to the tanky noncloak brawler, lost increased healing, NB lost passive healing both from passives and abilites so I kind of tend to race change to Breton so I at least have enough magsustain to play around with other stats.

kaithuzar

For those using armor master, it’s definitely a good choice but imo you should have dampen magicka not harness & you should have it on both bars.

Idk why everyone seems to run triune on jewelry imo it’s not as good as infused.

While I’ve had some success w/my build, citrus fillet is basically a must in the fight to counter bleeds.

I’m considering swapping both impreg & troll king out for alessian order & 1 pirate, 1 chudan, thoughts on the amount of health recovery gained?

fred4

When Infused came out, PvEers, like Gilliam the Rogue, worked out that it beat Arcane for damage. However everyone did their testing with gold jewelry on the PTS and promptly forgot that purple did typically NOT beat Arcane at the time. Gilliam said so in one of his videos. Triune gives you flat out 50% more stats and I like that it raises your stamina pool to near Shacklebreaker levels without wearing that set. If you use drinks, I think Triune and all Prismatic makes a lot of sense. The extra stam can make a difference, especially in no CP.

IMO Infused makes sense, if:

(a) You are a stam DK, because you get a lot of multipliers on weapon damage, e.g. medium armor + Major Brutality + Minor Brutality.

As a magicka nightblade you only get Major Sorcery and you can still get +15% magicka with Inner Light. I guess Infused may be better now that you get the flat racial magicka bonus, but when using shields I'd still stack magicka not spell damage. A ganker can also only really access Major Sorcery via a potion.

(b) You want to tweak your build in the resource management department to get sustain just right with, say, 1x Infused.

(c) You have a special use case for Infused, such as potion cooldown reduction, a Pelinal's build, or a lot of stamina cost reduction, for example for dodge roll sustain.

I am more partial to Swift on magblade and Protective in general. Depends on the build.

Jeezye

Well imo unless you want to stack full damage, triune and protective are the only viable traits atm since they provide 50% increased efficiency over all other traits. As a magblade with shields and dark cloak hp-based heal, its pretty obvious that triune is the goto choice.

@kaithuzar I wanted to test armor master because there's almost no magicka based damage sets that are viably one-barred. Statwise, I'd prefer Bloodspawn for resistance buffs by far, but since I don't have any choices in front-bar-only sets, I wanted to give armor master a shot. Imo it makes most sense to run it one-barred, because the gained hp is only needed to push the harness TT and the combination with the extra s/b enchat and entropy can make a nice HP increase on swap.

Anyways there's tons of different build approaches but none really matter if the base toolkit sucks as it does right now...

Iskiab

Jeezye wrote: »

Well imo unless you want to stack full damage, triune and protective are the only viable traits atm since they provide 50% increased efficiency over all other traits. As a magblade with shields and dark cloak hp-based heal, its pretty obvious that triune is the goto choice.

@kaithuzar I wanted to test armor master because there's almost no magicka based damage sets that are viably one-barred. Statwise, I'd prefer Bloodspawn for resistance buffs by far, but since I don't have any choices in front-bar-only sets, I wanted to give armor master a shot. Imo it makes most sense to run it one-barred, because the gained hp is only needed to push the harness TT and the combination with the extra s/b enchat and entropy can make a nice HP increase on swap.

Anyways there's tons of different build approaches but none really matter if the base toolkit sucks as it does right now...

Armour master is okay if you wear light. With heavy it sort of sucks. Crafted sets in general are nice because you can craft one set with heavy chest and medium legs for a bit more mitigation.

I’ve been leveling a magwarden and so far it’s superior to magblade in every possible way. I’m not 50 yet so we’ll see how it performs then, but right now if you’re a magblade I’d level one up. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been left OP intentionally to help DLC sales.

Jeezye

Iskiab wrote: »

Jeezye wrote: »

Well imo unless you want to stack full damage, triune and protective are the only viable traits atm since they provide 50% increased efficiency over all other traits. As a magblade with shields and dark cloak hp-based heal, its pretty obvious that triune is the goto choice.

@kaithuzar I wanted to test armor master because there's almost no magicka based damage sets that are viably one-barred. Statwise, I'd prefer Bloodspawn for resistance buffs by far, but since I don't have any choices in front-bar-only sets, I wanted to give armor master a shot. Imo it makes most sense to run it one-barred, because the gained hp is only needed to push the harness TT and the combination with the extra s/b enchat and entropy can make a nice HP increase on swap.

Anyways there's tons of different build approaches but none really matter if the base toolkit sucks as it does right now...

Armour master is okay if you wear light. With heavy it sort of sucks. Crafted sets in general are nice because you can craft one set with heavy chest and medium legs for a bit more mitigation.

I’ve been leveling a magwarden and so far it’s superior to magblade in every possible way. I’m not 50 yet so we’ll see how it performs then, but right now if you’re a magblade I’d level one up. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been left OP intentionally to help DLC sales.

well playing other classes isnt really a soltion. I myself have played lots of stamblade, magdk and magden recently as a break from magblade but it still has and will be more favourite class. The power difference between magdk and magblade is absolutly insane, its pretty close to the magblade playstyle I was running but has like double the dot damage, healing and burst.

Still doesn't "feel" as good as a magblade though...

zyk

I really don't want ZOS to touch Magblade. I agree they could use help, but if ZOS tries to fix them, my guess is they'll ruin everything we currently love about about the spec.

Just fix Shade, maybe give us a snare counter, but whatever you do ZOS, don't go back to the drawing board like you do so many other things needlessly.

fred4

Iskiab wrote: »

Jeezye wrote: »

Well imo unless you want to stack full damage, triune and protective are the only viable traits atm since they provide 50% increased efficiency over all other traits. As a magblade with shields and dark cloak hp-based heal, its pretty obvious that triune is the goto choice.

@kaithuzar I wanted to test armor master because there's almost no magicka based damage sets that are viably one-barred. Statwise, I'd prefer Bloodspawn for resistance buffs by far, but since I don't have any choices in front-bar-only sets, I wanted to give armor master a shot. Imo it makes most sense to run it one-barred, because the gained hp is only needed to push the harness TT and the combination with the extra s/b enchat and entropy can make a nice HP increase on swap.

Anyways there's tons of different build approaches but none really matter if the base toolkit sucks as it does right now...

Armour master is okay if you wear light. With heavy it sort of sucks. Crafted sets in general are nice because you can craft one set with heavy chest and medium legs for a bit more mitigation.

I’ve been leveling a magwarden and so far it’s superior to magblade in every possible way. I’m not 50 yet so we’ll see how it performs then, but right now if you’re a magblade I’d level one up. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been left OP intentionally to help DLC sales.

Well, I'm glad you like it, but for me there is no substitute for cloak when I'm soloing. I've played a typical magicka stacking warden: Necro / Shackle or Necro / Spinner front + vMA resto back bar. 50K magicka, 25.5K health, 12.7K Dampen shield in CP. It's powerful, but I don't know how it's holding up this patch. It's always lacked an execute and still does, unless you like the bear. It's power is blunted by that.

For me it comes down to whether you like Shalks. I don't. There is something detached about focusing on the rythm of that skill, whereas there is a greater directness to a magicka templar or a melee magblade, if that makes any sense.

Minalan

zyk wrote: »

I really don't want ZOS to touch Magblade. I agree they could use help, but if ZOS tries to fix them, my guess is they'll ruin everything we currently love about about the spec.

Just fix Shade, maybe give us a snare counter, but whatever you do ZOS, don't go back to the drawing board like you do so many other things needlessly.

I'm with you on this, but if they fix anything can we please have just one ranged skill that isn't reflectable?

Iskiab

I’m up for a redesign, right now the only thing I really like is cloak, concealed blade for cloak speed, and double take for major evasion. How bad could it be?

Lucky28

zyk wrote: »

I really don't want ZOS to touch Magblade. I agree they could use help, but if ZOS tries to fix them, my guess is they'll ruin everything we currently love about about the spec.

Just fix Shade, maybe give us a snare counter, but whatever you do ZOS, don't go back to the drawing board like you do so many other things needlessly.

i would like them to undo the changes that put magblade in this sorry state rather than changing other things to try and fix the issue the initial changes caused.

LordTareq

It’s not that sorry a state. Just has very little margin for error. There are matches where I end up with 15+ kills and 0 deaths, and others where I don’t play sharp and end up with a mere 3 kills and 4 deaths (usually my deaths are much lower than anyone else in the battleground though).
Currently levelling up a stamina dragonknight and its such easymode compared to the nightblade though. Even at level 15 using like 3 skills I was able to do very well in BG’s

Anyway back to my magblade, this week I tried battle maiden + julianos instead of fortified brass and it was horrible. Damage significantly higher of course but 9k resistance + vampire is just too fragile for melee. Rather than going back to Fortified Brass I changed Julianos for Pariah. Much better experience, really boosts survival noticeably.

Lucky28

LordTareq wrote: »

It’s not that sorry a state. Just has very little margin for error. There are matches where I end up with 15+ kills and 0 deaths, and others where I don’t play sharp and end up with a mere 3 kills and 4 deaths (usually my deaths are much lower than anyone else in the battleground though).
Currently levelling up a stamina dragonknight and its such easymode compared to the nightblade though. Even at level 15 using like 3 skills I was able to do very well in BG’s

Anyway back to my magblade, this week I tried battle maiden + julianos instead of fortified brass and it was horrible. Damage significantly higher of course but 9k resistance + vampire is just too fragile for melee. Rather than going back to Fortified Brass I changed Julianos for Pariah. Much better experience, really boosts survival noticeably.

they're in a sorry state because of their lack of self heals which jams them into a specific play style with very little room for imagination, it's a sorry state because we're talking about a class that was once the most versatile in the game.

casparian

zyk wrote: »

I really don't want ZOS to touch Magblade. I agree they could use help, but if ZOS tries to fix them, my guess is they'll ruin everything we currently love about about the spec.

They already ruined everything I loved about the spec.

Xsorus

Thinking of trying something like this on my Magblade

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=119696

HowlKimchi

Have you guys tried running a high recovery build? I'm playing around with it and it's very versatile. With high health recovery with hots, just making a bit of space is enough to get to full health.

The sustained damage is also nice because of torug's + infused. I'm not sure yet what the best enchant for damage is. Oblivion or shock maybe? Oblivion has a 3k tooltip while shock has a 6.4k tooltip.

Having very high health recovery is nice since it's always active, and you get a free slot. I'm able to run tripots and still have major prophecy and sorcery.

Check it out here:
Khajit: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=126726
Dunmer: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=126732

Jeezye

Xsorus wrote: »

Thinking of trying something like this on my Magblade

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=119696

yeah man I've played alot around with hybrid setups for the magblade too, so we get access to forward momentum heals, better light attack damage in melee and of course vigor.

However, if you fully think this trough, you'll just end up with a stamblade that maybe uses cripple to complement damage. Especially because medium is the goto armor for pelinals builds I doesnt make much sense to run the magicka counterparts anymore...