Magic Breton nightblade dual wield?

Unit117

Is it possible to make a good magic focused Breton nightblade that used duel wield? I want to make a character like Mirabelle Motierre of the dark brotherhood.

If so what build would I go for as far as sets go.

AbysmalGhul

Whether it's great or not, go for it. RP FTW!

merevie

You can make one. The mage blade did just get very, very nerfed.
There is no timeline for the class to be 'balanced'.
Light/swords/resto is an easy start point.
Blade is squishy or low damage - have to be comfortable with that.

Unit117

merevie wrote: »

You can make one. The mage blade did just get very, very nerfed.
There is no timeline for the class to be 'balanced'.
Light/swords/resto is an easy start point.
Blade is squishy or low damage - have to be comfortable with that.

That’s unfortunate. What would be some sets you would recommend I pair together?

ArchMikem

Magic uses Spell Damage. Dual Wield uses Weapon Damage. Unless you are going to make an actual hybrid the only way DW will benefit you is using two Swords for the damage done passive, however your heavy attacks wont sustain your magic.

This set might interest you.

https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Pelinal's+Aptitude+Set

Radiance

I tried that for a while with my Temp when I first started the game and it will severely cripple your DPS ability. Unless you have a hybrid build and split your attributes between Magic and Stam, it wont be very effective. Weapon attacks and skills will be weak and limited in usage with low resources and Light attacks unfortunately play a big role and are dependent on your main attribute. We have been asking for a new spellsword/rune/ spellbook weapon type that allows for melee magicka builds but I don't think we're going to get it at this point in the game...


In short, you should be fine for open world/ solo content but don't go into group settings where you're expected to perform a role and not expect to get judged, flamed and kicked and die a little inside... lol

Uryel

Nightblade gets nerfed to high heavens every single patch, and people call that "fair" because apparently the class is OP.

Still, I enjoy my stamblade, even though the nerf is highly notable, and my wife enjoys her Brteton dual wielding magblade too. What we slightly less enjoy is sthat, as we mostly play duo together, the recent nerfs have a heavy impact on us. The decision to "balance" (ah ah ah !) Nightblade skills debuffs accross the board so that you need more people to bring the same thing to the party (actually advicaded as a way to avoid overlaps in large groups, and thus not taking into account small groups) has a major impact on people playing in less-than-4-people situations.

phaneub17_ESO

Might work with the new Dark Elf racials since they're evenly split both ways, combine with 5pc Shacklebreaker, 5pc Sload, and whatever 2pc set of your choosing.

Massacre_Wurm

Radiance wrote: »

We have been asking for a new spellsword/rune/ spellbook weapon type that allows for melee magicka builds but I don't think we're going to get it at this point in the game...

Yep. I wanna to have ability to make Elven Hero-like builds. Like what the hell ? The only reason i am here is that awesome trailers. But in reality i am limited to dumb staff.

Unit117

ArchMikem wrote: »

Magic uses Spell Damage. Dual Wield uses Weapon Damage. Unless you are going to make an actual hybrid the only way DW will benefit you is using two Swords for the damage done passive, however your heavy attacks wont sustain your magic.

This set might interest you.

https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Pelinal's+Aptitude+Set

Oh cool I’ll give it a try. What would be good to pair it with?

ExistingRug61

My suggestion would be to stay completely magicka focused on your skills/build but just use dual wield as the front bar weapon. MagNB has several skills that look like melee weapon attacks despite being magicka (Concealed weapon, Lotus fan, even Impale to a lesser extent) so I find these skills "fit" well with dual weapons in the sense they still feel like you are using the dual weapons despite not actually using dual wield skills.

Dual wield will give you slightly higher base spell damage from your weapons than a staff and if you use dual swords you can still benefit from the Twin Blade and Blunt passive as this will increase the damage of all skills, but the much bigger downside is you lose out a lot on light attack damage and can't regen magicka on heavy attacks. So you will need a staff back bar to be able to get magicka back on heavy attacks, either Resto for healing if playing solo or PVP or maybe Destro for AOE in group PVE.

You can also try to slightly increase your light attack damage with dual wield by using sets that give both magicka/spell damage and stamina/weapon damage as these will bump up your dual wield light attack a bit while still being pretty good for magicka skills. The idea is to find ones that don't give up too much magicka/spell damage to get the stamina/weapon damage (@phaneub17_ESO's suggestions of Shacklebreaker is a good example, whereas I find Pelinals to give up too much). This does probably work better in PVP than PVE as you will find more use for the extra stamina in PVP, whereas in PVE its simply such a lot of potential damage to give up.

This playstyle used to be a lot more viable, but changes and balancing through the last few years (half enchant strength for DW, increase light attack scaling, extra set piece for 2H/Staff) have made it less so. Still a fun way to play though and is one of my preferred PVP open world builds just because of the style.

Unit117

ExistingRug61 wrote: »

My suggestion would be to stay completely magicka focused on your skills/build but just use dual wield as the front bar weapon. MagNB has several skills that look like melee weapon attacks despite being magicka (Concealed weapon, Lotus fan, even Impale to a lesser extent) so I find these skills "fit" well with dual weapons in the sense they still feel like you are using the dual weapons despite not actually using dual wield skills.

Dual wield will give you slightly higher base spell damage from your weapons than a staff and if you use dual swords you can still benefit from the Twin Blade and Blunt passive as this will increase the damage of all skills, but the much bigger downside is you lose out a lot on light attack damage and can't regen magicka on heavy attacks. So you will need a staff back bar to be able to get magicka back on heavy attacks, either Resto for healing if playing solo or PVP or maybe Destro for AOE in group PVE.

You can also try to slightly increase your light attack damage with dual wield by using sets that give both magicka/spell damage and stamina/weapon damage as these will bump up your dual wield light attack a bit while still being pretty good for magicka skills. The idea is to find ones that don't give up too much magicka/spell damage to get the stamina/weapon damage (@phaneub17_ESO's suggestions of Shacklebreaker is a good example, whereas I find Pelinals to give up too much). This does probably work better in PVP than PVE as you will find more use for the extra stamina in PVP, whereas in PVE its simply such a lot of potential damage to give up.

This playstyle used to be a lot more viable, but changes and balancing through the last few years (half enchant strength for DW, increase light attack scaling, extra set piece for 2H/Staff) have made it less so. Still a fun way to play though and is one of my preferred PVP open world builds just because of the style.

Thank you so much for the explanation. It really helps. I’ll give it a shot 🙂