MagBlade Theorycrafting Changes Thread

Moonsorrow

Did test Marauder`s on several combos, most decent (for my playstyle) was:

1p Domi/1p Pirate
5p BtB
Perfected Asylum Inferno front bar (Sharpened) with Immovable/Stam Poison
Marauder`s jewelry and back bar Resto. (Defending) Berserker glyph, not infused, but oh well..

A fresh feeling to play without BRP resto after a while lol. Lazy to go into full detail, but highligts:

+ Damage is quite decent, every 2nd Crushing Shock puts Burning, M.Vuln and Minor Maim on enemy, weaving lights and getting ready to AW combo, high pressure.

+ Running all spell dmg glyphs on jewelry, sustain enough from Ele Drain, btB, drink & Marauder obviously has 2x mag regen on it.

+ Marauder bar also makes me more often just move fast and not "perma cloaking" around all the time like usually, still.. can enjoy both too at the same time for MOAR speeds.

+ You live with Regen, Cloak, Resto ulti, Dampen & speed. Or die trying to bar swap at primetime. Magblade thuglife.

+ When someone pops a Detect Pot.. Well, Marauder`s Haste still makes me fast and can kite/LoS until can get back to offensive when massive blob gives up trying to chase you.

Conclusion: not perhaps the best setup i`ve played on my Magblade, bar space was a bit tight and took a while to get it the way i liked it, but fun and efficient still. Vulnerable to lag and the annoying random loadscreens though since rather squishy if not ninjaing between bars like a proper Magblade has to haha. You all know how it is.

Stay illusive brothers & sisters.

GhostofDatthaw

I don't know how y'all don't like shade. That is my favorite skill, I aspire to be a total shade ninja, absolutely my favorite magnb skill

Iskiab

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

I don't know how y'all don't like shade. That is my favorite skill, I aspire to be a total shade ninja, absolutely my favorite magnb skill

It’s good but it’s all about setting. If you’re say tower trolling it’s great. People might not have gap closers or any dots so you can go to town and take full advantage of it.

If you’re in a BG or against multiple people in solo/small group specs I don’t find it useful or too much of an investment to make it work. Getting separation from the shade with high incoming damage can be hard so I found I needed mist form too. If you aren’t in a tower or something like that people will camp the shade, I know I keep an eye on it ready to gap close it and burst.

It takes about a GCD for the port to finish I think it is, and any dots will keep ticking.

thankyourat

WacArnold wrote: »

@thankyourat

Tryed that build It does feel tanky. However, I still feel like my damage is lacking. I did a bunch of duels tonight trying it out, I feel better using this setup then my other build. But I dont see how you get a 24k tool tip mine is 20.8k with 50k magicka. I do not have infused on my restro staff with a damage enchant, is that adding 3k damage?

My bar setup is: shade, ele drain, fear, swallow, merciless, sHarvest
Siphoning, rapid, dampen, rat, cloak, TG

I dont like fear anymore since I dont have lotus fan, prolly switch that out for the destro kockback skill. Its probably me not setting up combos very well, I have never been good at a static rotation. Im a mess right now trying to juggle all the skills, need a lot more practice with this setup.

But if there is anyway to pump out more damage please let me know. I couldn't break through any sorcs shields, but I think if I can get ranged cc that might help.

BTW for anybody on xbox there is a cp bug with shields not increasing.

What’s your race, what Mundus are you using and are you adding in continuous attack. I use a infused berserk glyph on the back bar as well. With everything procd it should put your bow at 24k. There are Some players I still can’t burst down but that’s pretty standard for a open world build on all classes. If you want more damage my 1v1 build is spinner/necro/slime crawl with 2 regen glyphs and shadow mundus stone. I don’t like it for Cyrodil because the sustain is a bit on the low side the damage is way higher though.

You can also switch out troll king for a offensive monster set but you’ll lose a good deal of survivability. Sorc shields are impossible to break through if they build defensive. Anyone with black rose resto or dual wield are also impossible to kill. Defense in the game is out of control this patch. I would keep fear on your bar just in case you come up against a dodge roll or block build.

GhostofDatthaw

Iskiab wrote: »

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

I don't know how y'all don't like shade. That is my favorite skill, I aspire to be a total shade ninja, absolutely my favorite magnb skill

It’s good but it’s all about setting. If you’re say tower trolling it’s great. People might not have gap closers or any dots so you can go to town and take full advantage of it.

If you’re in a BG or against multiple people in solo/small group specs I don’t find it useful or too much of an investment to make it work. Getting separation from the shade with high incoming damage can be hard so I found I needed mist form too. If you aren’t in a tower or something like that people will camp the shade, I know I keep an eye on it ready to gap close it and burst.

It takes about a GCD for the port to finish I think it is, and any dots will keep ticking.

I find the more you use it, the better you get with taking advantage of it. And if people camp the shade, then cool I kite out further, they just strung themselves out more. If you use it alot it's useful everywhere not just towers, I can make people chase me all over in flat ground with no los just by shade and dodge roll. Shade ruins melee builds because you can just kite them in circles and force them to gap spam. And in small groups I use it to reposition myself around. It just takes alot of foresight to what your objective is, but I find the skill amazing in all forms of play from cyro to duels.

Kim_Angel

Stil My favorite Build/Combi of Sets , and it works pretty well without any swift or stuff , RAT used right with a Dogderoll and Cloak , all Fine
BRP Would be nice but i dont have one ... so Flex on Backbar also can get Shade in somewhere , depends if i play Small Group or Solo.
And forgive me iam still an Old School MeeleMB :P

Caluu/BTB Version
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=147790

BTB/Spinners Version
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=190264


Love
Kim

Langeston

fred4 wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

brandonv516 wrote: »

I tried out Marauder's Haste finally. The speed buff is nice and easy to proc, but I just feel that my build is lacking by trying to use a utility set.

So back to my bread and butter.

I tried it too. You lose so much stat compared to wearing something like Bright-Throat's. The clincher for me was that I use RAT. Given the choice of RAT -> dodge roll -> Cloak or Healing Ward -> dodge roll -> Cloak (I play with a fair amound of stam regen), I find RAT is basically fine, as is Healing Ward without the speed at different times. The set would probably suit a build that uses the light armor shield. Then again, you lose so much mag and thereby weaken your shield. It's just not very good.

It's frustrating that shield size is tied to magicka and that healing is tied to damage stats. Everything pushes you towards optimizing your basic stats. Many things that are nice to play result in a damage or healing / shielding deficit that nerfs you pretty hard.

What if you back bar Marauder's with Willpower on the front bar?
Or, if your other set is something like Spinner's, front bar that, back bar Marauder's, with 2 willpower rings.

Those are all good ideas, but it doesn't change the fact that you can swap out Marauder for Bright Throat's in all those setups...

EDIT: Well, OK, you would usually double-bar Bright-Throat's, Alfiq or Necro. The real problem with back barring Marauder is that the BRP resto is too good.

...and have two things:

(1) A ton more magicka, good for your shield(s). Shields really only come alive when you're over 40K or, better yet, 50K magicka. That's where you actually start to feel tanky from using shields alone. Talking about warden and magblade here, not sorc.

(2) Bright Throat's gives you some IDLE MAGICKA REGEN from the 5-piece. On paper the regen from Marauder's looks almost the same, but it is not. The higher idle magicka regen translates into better sustain for RAT when the combat engine considers you out of combat while you're cloaking. This is what really kills the Marauder set for me as a perma-cloaking magblade. I can gain a higher top speed by using it, but my RAT sustain suffers. I also cannot stack RAT and the Marauder speed in a single GCD and I need the snare removal. So it doesn't do anything for me when I most need it, at least not in a build that uses shields reactively (Healing Ward) rather than proactively (Dampen / Harness). I feel ExistingRug is right. Swift is better and all Swift + Concealed + Steed + RAT already gets you pretty close to the speed cap.

Well as I said, I'd likely never use Marauder's or swift because it would be too much of a drop in damage for me. I was simply throwing out possible ideas for someone wanting to use the set.

My question to you though: how do you run steed & swift while still being able to actually kill people? If I did that I'd lose 4196 penetration from the Lover and roughly 2.9k magicka from the arcane trait on my jewelry. That's more damage than Spinner's gives me! I'd love to be able to be that quick, but I just don't see how it could be viable.

I use Slimecraw/Bright Throat's/Spinner's — all Divines — w/ Lover, a Sharpened Inferno, & Ghastly Eye Bowl. I do well but there are definitely builds I simply just can't kill because they can out-heal my damage — and I'm already as glass cannon as I can get. I feel like just the switch to swift/steed would absolutely cripple me.

What sets do you use?

[edit] Also, what do you mean by "idle magicka regen"?

Langeston

Kim_Angel wrote: »

Stil My favorite Build/Combi of Sets , and it works pretty well without any swift or stuff , RAT used right with a Dogderoll and Cloak , all Fine
BRP Would be nice but i dont have one ... so Flex on Backbar also can get Shade in somewhere , depends if i play Small Group or Solo.
And forgive me iam still an Old School MeeleMB :P

Caluu/BTB Version
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=147790

BTB/Spinners Version
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=190264


Love
Kim

I run Spinner's/BTB and your health /stamina & resistances completely put mine to shame. (I only run 2 tri-stat glyphs, Ghastly Eye Bowl, & my monster sets are all damage so that's to be expected.) I'm ranged though, so I can usually get away with it. I wish I could run with such [relatively] low regen like you do, alas I cannot. (I use 1 recovery & 2 spell cost reduction glyphs.)

I'm curious why you chose the Atronarch and 2 spell damage glyphs rather than the Lover & all magicka recovery glyphs. (Especially on your Caluurion setup, which I would think would definitely benefit more from the extra penetration.)

Right now I'm running with the Lover & get 17.5k penetration & it really helps quite a bit. (Sometimes I swap to the Shadow, which can be pretty brutal against light/medium armor since I run all divines, but it kinda blows against all the tanks running around.)

fred4

Idle magicka regen is the magicka regen you have while not in combat. It appears to be something like twice the magicka regen from:

(a) Your base regen
(b) Your racial passives
(c) The Atro mundus (if used)
(d) Food / Drink (if it includes mag regen)
(e) The 5-piece bonus from Bright Throat's (if used)

but NOT magicka regen you get from armor sets (other than something like Lich 5-piece) nor jewelry enchants. One of the incomprehensible quirks of the combat engine. If you get Harven's Extended Stats on PC, it will display it. Note that cloak can take you out of combat pretty quickly, especially if you are not in a group. That is when the idle regen comes into play.

fred4

Langeston wrote: »

My question to you though: how do you run steed & swift while still being able to actually kill people? If I did that I'd lose 4196 penetration from the Lover and roughly 2.9k magicka from the arcane trait on my jewelry. That's more damage than Spinner's gives me! I'd love to be able to be that quick, but I just don't see how it could be viable.

I use Slimecraw/Bright Throat's/Spinner's — all Divines — w/ Lover, a Sharpened Inferno, & Ghastly Eye Bowl. I do well but there are definitely builds I simply just can't kill because they can out-heal my damage — and I'm already as glass cannon as I can get. I feel like just the switch to swift/steed would absolutely cripple me.

What sets do you use?

I was using Caluurion, Zaan, BTB and Blackrose resto. Right now I'm trying something tankier. Build is on the previous page in this thread.

I do not think you can kill everyone you meet in open world. At least not on magblade. Not talking about outright tanks. Most small scalers are either too tanky to kill by a single player - BS / Fury / Seventh / 1H+S back bar makes for an incredibly tanky DK or warden - or because they know how to defend. I take that as a given. I attack everyone, but my expectations are pretty low. The clip I posted is from the IC event. A lot of not so good players there.

fred4

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

I don't know how y'all don't like shade. That is my favorite skill, I aspire to be a total shade ninja, absolutely my favorite magnb skill

It’s good but it’s all about setting. If you’re say tower trolling it’s great. People might not have gap closers or any dots so you can go to town and take full advantage of it.

If you’re in a BG or against multiple people in solo/small group specs I don’t find it useful or too much of an investment to make it work. Getting separation from the shade with high incoming damage can be hard so I found I needed mist form too. If you aren’t in a tower or something like that people will camp the shade, I know I keep an eye on it ready to gap close it and burst.

It takes about a GCD for the port to finish I think it is, and any dots will keep ticking.

I find the more you use it, the better you get with taking advantage of it. And if people camp the shade, then cool I kite out further, they just strung themselves out more. If you use it alot it's useful everywhere not just towers, I can make people chase me all over in flat ground with no los just by shade and dodge roll. Shade ruins melee builds because you can just kite them in circles and force them to gap spam. And in small groups I use it to reposition myself around. It just takes alot of foresight to what your objective is, but I find the skill amazing in all forms of play from cyro to duels.

I believe you, but I'm in the camp where I simply hated the shade from day one and continue to do so. That's due to never learning, sure. I have a mental block when it comes to toggles. This includes the shade, Merciless, Frags (to a lesser degree) and the default keybinding for bar swap. When you press a key, one definite thing should happen, not one of two things. If the shade could be rebound so that setting it down and porting to the shade were two different keys, I would reconsider. Mercifully this can be done with the bar swap keys.

I'm a key spammer. I press keys multiple times until something happens, at least during defensive play. The unresponsiveness of the game drives me nuts. This especially refers to lag, but there are also other weird anomalies. For example bar swap often seems unresponsive for a couple of seconds when you've just loaded into the game or, sometimes, into a new area. Happens every time I go down from IC districts into the sewers, for example.

When word processing was in it's infancy, most word processors offered an insert mode and an overwrite mode, which was toggled, for example, using the Insert key on the keyboard. Default was insert mode, the behaviour of every program today. Write something and it gets inserted at the caret (cursor) position. Overwrite mode meant you would overwrite existing text at that position. Word processors either do not offer that feature anymore or people don't use it today, because ergonomically toggles are s h * t. General computing has evolved away from that sort of thing, yet here is ZOS. I know why they did it. It's because this game has a console version with limited input options and because gamers tolerate bad ergonomics to a degree.

At any rate, with so many builds to choose from and the existence of Caluurion and RAT, I thankfully do not have to use what I vehemently disagree with as a programmer from a design standpoint. I end up immediately porting to the shade I just set or using Merciless / Assassin's Will in unintended ways. Hate both, even with all the usability improvements to Merciless.

WacArnold

thankyourat wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

@thankyourat

Tryed that build It does feel tanky. However, I still feel like my damage is lacking. I did a bunch of duels tonight trying it out, I feel better using this setup then my other build. But I dont see how you get a 24k tool tip mine is 20.8k with 50k magicka. I do not have infused on my restro staff with a damage enchant, is that adding 3k damage?

My bar setup is: shade, ele drain, fear, swallow, merciless, sHarvest
Siphoning, rapid, dampen, rat, cloak, TG

I dont like fear anymore since I dont have lotus fan, prolly switch that out for the destro kockback skill. Its probably me not setting up combos very well, I have never been good at a static rotation. Im a mess right now trying to juggle all the skills, need a lot more practice with this setup.

But if there is anyway to pump out more damage please let me know. I couldn't break through any sorcs shields, but I think if I can get ranged cc that might help.

BTW for anybody on xbox there is a cp bug with shields not increasing.

What’s your race, what Mundus are you using and are you adding in continuous attack. I use a infused berserk glyph on the back bar as well. With everything procd it should put your bow at 24k. There are Some players I still can’t burst down but that’s pretty standard for a open world build on all classes. If you want more damage my 1v1 build is spinner/necro/slime crawl with 2 regen glyphs and shadow mundus stone. I don’t like it for Cyrodil because the sustain is a bit on the low side the damage is way higher though.

You can also switch out troll king for a offensive monster set but you’ll lose a good deal of survivability. Sorc shields are impossible to break through if they build defensive. Anyone with black rose resto or dual wield are also impossible to kill. Defense in the game is out of control this patch. I would keep fear on your bar just in case you come up against a dodge roll or block build.

I am a dark elf using attronoch mundus. No I wasn't adding continuous attack that all makes sense I knew I was missing something.

Well that makes me feel better that there are just some people that are pretty much impossible to kill. I have been dueling lately with setups trying to find what I like. The first day I did alright and thought I was in a decent spot, however after doing more duels the last few days its clear that my win percentage is extremely low.

Seems like there are about 5% of builds that I can beat 85% of builds that we just fight and fight forever until I eventually get caught in a good combo, 5% that straight up wreck me, and then there are 5% of builds that we cant kill each other.
The 85% duels are usually duels that i'm just not doing enough burst to kill, while I have enough defense to just stay alive unless they line everything up right.

I feel like a nbs burst does not happen frequently enough. Esp when Im trying to save merciless for just the right time while using it as defense.

For example against most classes I dont do enough damage with swallow to get their health down enough to use merciless and sHarvest for a kill. That's a problem.

Sorc is constantly bursting, frags procs often and curse goes off every 4 to 8 sec? Mayby im wrong on time buts its often. So they are able to continually beat someones health bar down and they dont really have to Spam their spammable.

Templars have 1 burst skill POL (POL happens frequently) and an ultimate, however their Spammable (sweeps/jabs) do work and pile on alot of damage plus their bust skill happends often.

So I dont want them nerfed by any means I say that to say this, there are two types of burst options that are working in this game. The devs need to decide how they want magblade to work. Do they want to rework a skill and make it work like curse to pair with merciless and use continual burst theory. Or do they want to buff our spammable and make burst work like templars?

Because right now magblade has none of these and burst is happening to rarely because I can hit a merciless even for 10k and before I can even use a ulti they are full health again. Now you can make a argument this is because of cast time on ulti, I agree that is a prob as well, but I would argue that in the long run magblade would be better using the same theory as sorc or templar over a cast time removal. Because your still going to be in a situation where bursting takes to long to be ready that by the time your ready to burst the enemy has so much health that your burst wont kill anyway. However if it happened often you would be wearing the enemy down until a burst killed them like a sorc does.

Magblade is stuck in a spot thats not on par with the games direction and needs a update. Thats just my opinion maybe im wrong but it sure seems thats the root of all the trouble for me. I guess thats why cal is so popular to get that burst its almost like a curse going off. Downside is Curse is a skill and you can stack damage sets to help while we have to use a whole set to get it. Oh and it does not go off every 4 or 5 seconds.

WacArnold

fred4 wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

Shade, I hate that skill so much. I try anything and everything not to use it. I always double cast it and instantly teleport to it.

This! This is why I hate the skill too, especially in lag. I'm not fond of the Merciless mini-game either.

The alternative to using the shade is RAT and speed in general. Perhaps my build will suit you? I play a ganker who wants to brawl when she can, especially in the latest iteration. It's a build for having fun more so than be competitive at duelling. You won't kill decent players with this in a 1v1, but I really don't know what that would take. In terms of dealing with sorcs, the only thing I can recommend is fearing them like clockwork, which will sort out the mediocre ones from the good ones eventually. The only post that impressed the heck out of me and who I believe may play a truly competitive magstamblade is this one:

[ As an aside: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/501408/stamina-nightblade-iron-cannon-pvp-build-1vx-2vx-video-max-possible-damage-build-dragonhold/p1 ]

If you look at the stats of my build, well, they're complete s h * t, but it's a Caluurion build and the crit is decent, so there's that. It also just plays well:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=191290

The basic attack combo is Lotus Fan -> Fear (+ Caluurion) -> Soul Harvest -> Swallow Soul -> Impale.

I used to run Zaan, but with my current bar layout I find that I back away from the target after Soul Harvest. It's more consistent damage than attacking with Concealed, which I ran before, which compensates a little for the lack of Zaan.

So I was looking at how I could get some tankiness into the build and decided to try the recently buffed Endurance. Still testing this, but I like it. Might go back to simply Bright Throat's and Troll King, but the idea behind running the resistance pieces is to be tankier against burst.

I've written about speed and sustain before. Very briefly, this build is optimised for perma-cloaking and casting a fair amount of RAT in cloak. You need cost reduction for that. Speed, stamina sustain and cloak has great synergy. Unless the stamplar you're facing (bane of my existence) is really, really good (and using detect pots), RAT cancelled into dodge roll into cloak gets you away from them, although you do have to juggle the direction, sometimes rolling through them. I have gotten into the habit of cancelling either RAT or Healing Ward with a dodge roll. This is doable in CP. In no CP this playstyle requires a bigger stam pool really.

Don't underestimate the Infused health restore enchant, both for damage in such a low stat build and for the healing. You have to keep up Siphoning Attacks as well. Stacking Swallow Soul, the enchant, SA and the health regen allows you to face tank at least some templars without constantly having to break off the attack and trying to get out of range. In general with the speed and sustain, this build is about relentlessly staying on target. That said, you do have to cloak or fear and run the proper combo as appropriate. One of my mistakes has been forgetting about the resistances from the shadow skills.

I've posted the following video before. Nothing new to see here, but in case you haven't read the whole thread. This is an earlier iteration of the build with Concealed as the main damage source and two shields, but I think it illustrates the difference speed and stam sustain makes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dxsUVeGGLc

Wow that speed is sexy. Im going to farm caluurion I really want to try that set as well. Like I said in an above post im starting to feel like you need something to help burst more frequent. Could you imagine how your build would be if merciless didnt take all that bs to proc and you added that?

Iskiab

WacArnold wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

@thankyourat

Tryed that build It does feel tanky. However, I still feel like my damage is lacking. I did a bunch of duels tonight trying it out, I feel better using this setup then my other build. But I dont see how you get a 24k tool tip mine is 20.8k with 50k magicka. I do not have infused on my restro staff with a damage enchant, is that adding 3k damage?

My bar setup is: shade, ele drain, fear, swallow, merciless, sHarvest
Siphoning, rapid, dampen, rat, cloak, TG

I dont like fear anymore since I dont have lotus fan, prolly switch that out for the destro kockback skill. Its probably me not setting up combos very well, I have never been good at a static rotation. Im a mess right now trying to juggle all the skills, need a lot more practice with this setup.

But if there is anyway to pump out more damage please let me know. I couldn't break through any sorcs shields, but I think if I can get ranged cc that might help.

BTW for anybody on xbox there is a cp bug with shields not increasing.

What’s your race, what Mundus are you using and are you adding in continuous attack. I use a infused berserk glyph on the back bar as well. With everything procd it should put your bow at 24k. There are Some players I still can’t burst down but that’s pretty standard for a open world build on all classes. If you want more damage my 1v1 build is spinner/necro/slime crawl with 2 regen glyphs and shadow mundus stone. I don’t like it for Cyrodil because the sustain is a bit on the low side the damage is way higher though.

You can also switch out troll king for a offensive monster set but you’ll lose a good deal of survivability. Sorc shields are impossible to break through if they build defensive. Anyone with black rose resto or dual wield are also impossible to kill. Defense in the game is out of control this patch. I would keep fear on your bar just in case you come up against a dodge roll or block build.

I am a dark elf using attronoch mundus. No I wasn't adding continuous attack that all makes sense I knew I was missing something.

Well that makes me feel better that there are just some people that are pretty much impossible to kill. I have been dueling lately with setups trying to find what I like. The first day I did alright and thought I was in a decent spot, however after doing more duels the last few days its clear that my win percentage is extremely low.

Seems like there are about 5% of builds that I can beat 85% of builds that we just fight and fight forever until I eventually get caught in a good combo, 5% that straight up wreck me, and then there are 5% of builds that we cant kill each other.
The 85% duels are usually duels that i'm just not doing enough burst to kill, while I have enough defense to just stay alive unless they line everything up right.

I feel like a nbs burst does not happen frequently enough. Esp when Im trying to save merciless for just the right time while using it as defense.

For example against most classes I dont do enough damage with swallow to get their health down enough to use merciless and sHarvest for a kill. That's a problem.

Sorc is constantly bursting, frags procs often and curse goes off every 4 to 8 sec? Mayby im wrong on time buts its often. So they are able to continually beat someones health bar down and they dont really have to Spam their spammable.

Templars have 1 burst skill POL (POL happens frequently) and an ultimate, however their Spammable (sweeps/jabs) do work and pile on alot of damage plus their bust skill happends often.

So I dont want them nerfed by any means I say that to say this, there are two types of burst options that are working in this game. The devs need to decide how they want magblade to work. Do they want to rework a skill and make it work like curse to pair with merciless and use continual burst theory. Or do they want to buff our spammable and make burst work like templars?

Because right now magblade has none of these and burst is happening to rarely because I can hit a merciless even for 10k and before I can even use a ulti they are full health again. Now you can make a argument this is because of cast time on ulti, I agree that is a prob as well, but I would argue that in the long run magblade would be better using the same theory as sorc or templar over a cast time removal. Because your still going to be in a situation where bursting takes to long to be ready that by the time your ready to burst the enemy has so much health that your burst wont kill anyway. However if it happened often you would be wearing the enemy down until a burst killed them like a sorc does.

Magblade is stuck in a spot thats not on par with the games direction and needs a update. Thats just my opinion maybe im wrong but it sure seems thats the root of all the trouble for me. I guess thats why cal is so popular to get that burst its almost like a curse going off. Downside is Curse is a skill and you can stack damage sets to help while we have to use a whole set to get it. Oh and it does not go off every 4 or 5 seconds.

Yup, pretty much. On my Templar against your average NB I don’t need the burst ability TBH. Sweeps is enough to finish off most NBs without an ultimate because they build glassy.

There’s more issues then that too I think. Comparing both classes after playing them both.

1. I build 1k less mag regen on my templar and do fine, that lets me stack spell damage jewellery glyphs and hit harder. Sustain is bad on magblade
2. Templars have very little projectiles. As a templar I can take down DKs no problem solo, so if you’re itching to finally be able to kill one I’d try templar
3. Self healing on magblade is bad. I do more damage and healing spamming sweeps then dark cloak and swallow soul combined

I play glassier then most Templars but I do die more as a templar then magNB. As a templar when you’re outnumbered it’s a lot tougher without cloak.

Sorc... well... only deluded sorcs don’t think they aren’t stronger then magblade in every sense.

WacArnold

Iskiab wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

@thankyourat

Tryed that build It does feel tanky. However, I still feel like my damage is lacking. I did a bunch of duels tonight trying it out, I feel better using this setup then my other build. But I dont see how you get a 24k tool tip mine is 20.8k with 50k magicka. I do not have infused on my restro staff with a damage enchant, is that adding 3k damage?

My bar setup is: shade, ele drain, fear, swallow, merciless, sHarvest
Siphoning, rapid, dampen, rat, cloak, TG

I dont like fear anymore since I dont have lotus fan, prolly switch that out for the destro kockback skill. Its probably me not setting up combos very well, I have never been good at a static rotation. Im a mess right now trying to juggle all the skills, need a lot more practice with this setup.

But if there is anyway to pump out more damage please let me know. I couldn't break through any sorcs shields, but I think if I can get ranged cc that might help.

BTW for anybody on xbox there is a cp bug with shields not increasing.

What’s your race, what Mundus are you using and are you adding in continuous attack. I use a infused berserk glyph on the back bar as well. With everything procd it should put your bow at 24k. There are Some players I still can’t burst down but that’s pretty standard for a open world build on all classes. If you want more damage my 1v1 build is spinner/necro/slime crawl with 2 regen glyphs and shadow mundus stone. I don’t like it for Cyrodil because the sustain is a bit on the low side the damage is way higher though.

You can also switch out troll king for a offensive monster set but you’ll lose a good deal of survivability. Sorc shields are impossible to break through if they build defensive. Anyone with black rose resto or dual wield are also impossible to kill. Defense in the game is out of control this patch. I would keep fear on your bar just in case you come up against a dodge roll or block build.

I am a dark elf using attronoch mundus. No I wasn't adding continuous attack that all makes sense I knew I was missing something.

Well that makes me feel better that there are just some people that are pretty much impossible to kill. I have been dueling lately with setups trying to find what I like. The first day I did alright and thought I was in a decent spot, however after doing more duels the last few days its clear that my win percentage is extremely low.

Seems like there are about 5% of builds that I can beat 85% of builds that we just fight and fight forever until I eventually get caught in a good combo, 5% that straight up wreck me, and then there are 5% of builds that we cant kill each other.
The 85% duels are usually duels that i'm just not doing enough burst to kill, while I have enough defense to just stay alive unless they line everything up right.

I feel like a nbs burst does not happen frequently enough. Esp when Im trying to save merciless for just the right time while using it as defense.

For example against most classes I dont do enough damage with swallow to get their health down enough to use merciless and sHarvest for a kill. That's a problem.

Sorc is constantly bursting, frags procs often and curse goes off every 4 to 8 sec? Mayby im wrong on time buts its often. So they are able to continually beat someones health bar down and they dont really have to Spam their spammable.

Templars have 1 burst skill POL (POL happens frequently) and an ultimate, however their Spammable (sweeps/jabs) do work and pile on alot of damage plus their bust skill happends often.

So I dont want them nerfed by any means I say that to say this, there are two types of burst options that are working in this game. The devs need to decide how they want magblade to work. Do they want to rework a skill and make it work like curse to pair with merciless and use continual burst theory. Or do they want to buff our spammable and make burst work like templars?

Because right now magblade has none of these and burst is happening to rarely because I can hit a merciless even for 10k and before I can even use a ulti they are full health again. Now you can make a argument this is because of cast time on ulti, I agree that is a prob as well, but I would argue that in the long run magblade would be better using the same theory as sorc or templar over a cast time removal. Because your still going to be in a situation where bursting takes to long to be ready that by the time your ready to burst the enemy has so much health that your burst wont kill anyway. However if it happened often you would be wearing the enemy down until a burst killed them like a sorc does.

Magblade is stuck in a spot thats not on par with the games direction and needs a update. Thats just my opinion maybe im wrong but it sure seems thats the root of all the trouble for me. I guess thats why cal is so popular to get that burst its almost like a curse going off. Downside is Curse is a skill and you can stack damage sets to help while we have to use a whole set to get it. Oh and it does not go off every 4 or 5 seconds.

Yup, pretty much. On my Templar against your average NB I don’t need the burst ability TBH. Sweeps is enough to finish off most NBs without an ultimate because they build glassy.

There’s more issues then that too I think. Comparing both classes after playing them both.

1. I build 1k less mag regen on my templar and do fine, that lets me stack spell damage jewellery glyphs and hit harder. Sustain is bad on magblade
2. Templars have very little projectiles. As a templar I can take down DKs no problem solo, so if you’re itching to finally be able to kill one I’d try templar
3. Self healing on magblade is bad. I do more damage and healing spamming sweeps then dark cloak and swallow soul combined

I play glassier then most Templars but I do die more as a templar then magNB. As a templar when you’re outnumbered it’s a lot tougher without cloak.

Sorc... well... only deluded sorcs don’t think they aren’t stronger then magblade in every sense.

Oh I agree with 1, 2, and 3 for sure.

I have a templar use him strickly for farming dungeons and pve stuff. All that power sounds great, but like you said outnumbered is hard. After only playing nb in pvp omg lol I dont even know how to defend without cloak. I'm worthless without my crutch.

WacArnold

Eh after reading my reply I started to remember what somebody said about how its because of cloak that magblade is the way it is. I mean think about we are able to get out of ALOT of situations that would be death for other classes. Do you guys think cloak is whats stopping devs from changing nbs? Do you think it would be fair that we can escape like that while doing so much damage?

Before I started playing I had a friend that played that told me about this game when it first came out on pc. He said stamblades where the best class for pvp in the game. If anybody remembers how they were back then was it truly overpowered to have that much damage with cloak?

GhostofDatthaw

fred4 wrote: »

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

I don't know how y'all don't like shade. That is my favorite skill, I aspire to be a total shade ninja, absolutely my favorite magnb skill

It’s good but it’s all about setting. If you’re say tower trolling it’s great. People might not have gap closers or any dots so you can go to town and take full advantage of it.

If you’re in a BG or against multiple people in solo/small group specs I don’t find it useful or too much of an investment to make it work. Getting separation from the shade with high incoming damage can be hard so I found I needed mist form too. If you aren’t in a tower or something like that people will camp the shade, I know I keep an eye on it ready to gap close it and burst.

It takes about a GCD for the port to finish I think it is, and any dots will keep ticking.

I find the more you use it, the better you get with taking advantage of it. And if people camp the shade, then cool I kite out further, they just strung themselves out more. If you use it alot it's useful everywhere not just towers, I can make people chase me all over in flat ground with no los just by shade and dodge roll. Shade ruins melee builds because you can just kite them in circles and force them to gap spam. And in small groups I use it to reposition myself around. It just takes alot of foresight to what your objective is, but I find the skill amazing in all forms of play from cyro to duels.

I believe you, but I'm in the camp where I simply hated the shade from day one and continue to do so. That's due to never learning, sure. I have a mental block when it comes to toggles. This includes the shade, Merciless, Frags (to a lesser degree) and the default keybinding for bar swap. When you press a key, one definite thing should happen, not one of two things. If the shade could be rebound so that setting it down and porting to the shade were two different keys, I would reconsider. Mercifully this can be done with the bar swap keys.

I'm a key spammer. I press keys multiple times until something happens, at least during defensive play. The unresponsiveness of the game drives me nuts. This especially refers to lag, but there are also other weird anomalies. For example bar swap often seems unresponsive for a couple of seconds when you've just loaded into the game or, sometimes, into a new area. Happens every time I go down from IC districts into the sewers, for example.

When word processing was in it's infancy, most word processors offered an insert mode and an overwrite mode, which was toggled, for example, using the Insert key on the keyboard. Default was insert mode, the behaviour of every program today. Write something and it gets inserted at the caret (cursor) position. Overwrite mode meant you would overwrite existing text at that position. Word processors either do not offer that feature anymore or people don't use it today, because ergonomically toggles are s h * t. General computing has evolved away from that sort of thing, yet here is ZOS. I know why they did it. It's because this game has a console version with limited input options and because gamers tolerate bad ergonomics to a degree.

At any rate, with so many builds to choose from and the existence of Caluurion and RAT, I thankfully do not have to use what I vehemently disagree with as a programmer from a design standpoint. I end up immediately porting to the shade I just set or using Merciless / Assassin's Will in unintended ways. Hate both, even with all the usability improvements to Merciless.

I see what ya mean, I try to not button spam since I am normally trying to either weave something or animation cancel or what have you. I think what might make a big difference in play style is just key binding honestly. I have 3 of my skills keyed off to my mouse wheel and the other two on mouse side buttons. This helps me have much better control over skills and movement at the same time imo

fred4

WacArnold wrote: »

Eh after reading my reply I started to remember what somebody said about how its because of cloak that magblade is the way it is. I mean think about we are able to get out of ALOT of situations that would be death for other classes. Do you guys think cloak is whats stopping devs from changing nbs?

Yes, but stamblade has been stronger than magblade for a long time. Magblade has IMO been the victim of nerfs directed at stamblades (Incap stun) and sorcs (shields). Stamblade was historically much better at upfront damage - ganking - than magblade, not least when Surprise Attack gave Major Fracture. Traditional magblade playstyles, on the other hand, have been oxymoronic. Cloak forever, but have to uncloak for 5 seconds to generate your burst. Caluurion fixes that. It lets you play like a stamblade ganker, although it's power still doesn't match a good stamblade.

I've played melee magblade forever, because I felt I needed Forward Momentum back in the day. That spec has always been weak. There were some options, such as dual-wield and Torug's Pact when DW enchants were stronger, but they were still pretty meh. Since then the melee spec has gradually been buffed. First via Caluurion and Zaan. Then by getting RAT, which freed you up to go destro and get much better light attacks. Then by getting Minor Vulnerability on Lotus Fan, which buffs Caluurion. On the other hand we've also lost a lot of sustain. The loss of stamina sustain from Siphoning Attacks is something that really killed the damage of my build, as I feel forced to run dual-regen drinks. At least it's much more fun to play with good stam sustain. Less precautionary cloaking while waiting for stam. Such a mixed bag of nerfs and buffs has left magblade still pretty weak overall, IMO.

Assassin's Will is often quoted as being the hardest hitting skill in the game outside of ultimates, but that's BS when every other class is comboing stuff. How do you combo Assassin's Will? I believe Soul Tether once stunned through block, so people used to run that combo. Incap stunned, so that was an option. Both are gone or at least I haven't seen a good Tether combo player in a long time. Meteor is too telegraphed. Opponent just needs to hold block. It's practically automatic. So let's say you do Meteor -> Fear -> Assassin's Will. Haven't tried, but nope. I doubt that will hit in a single GCD. I guess Cloak -> Concealed -> Assassin's Will is a possibility that would stun, do damage, proc Caluurion and hit with Assassin's Will all in one GCD. Haven't tried that, but it would be temperamental. Can be blocked and countered with Hurricane, Noxious Breath, and so on.

fred4

Actually Meteor -> Fear -> Assassin's Will would mirror what sorcs do with Streak. Of course they probably have Curse, Mage's Fury and a Frags proc cooking as well, so I don't know.

jimijac0me

@fred4 If you’re vamp try meteor>accelerating drain>will

Block cancel the drain and you’ll add 1-2 ticks of drain plus the stun will let meteor hit and your will hit. That’s a fair bit of burst

ExistingRug61

WacArnold wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

Shade, I hate that skill so much. I try anything and everything not to use it. I always double cast it and instantly teleport to it.

This! This is why I hate the skill too, especially in lag. I'm not fond of the Merciless mini-game either.

The alternative to using the shade is RAT and speed in general. Perhaps my build will suit you? I play a ganker who wants to brawl when she can, especially in the latest iteration. It's a build for having fun more so than be competitive at duelling. You won't kill decent players with this in a 1v1, but I really don't know what that would take. In terms of dealing with sorcs, the only thing I can recommend is fearing them like clockwork, which will sort out the mediocre ones from the good ones eventually. The only post that impressed the heck out of me and who I believe may play a truly competitive magstamblade is this one:

[ As an aside: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/501408/stamina-nightblade-iron-cannon-pvp-build-1vx-2vx-video-max-possible-damage-build-dragonhold/p1 ]

If you look at the stats of my build, well, they're complete s h * t, but it's a Caluurion build and the crit is decent, so there's that. It also just plays well:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=191290

The basic attack combo is Lotus Fan -> Fear (+ Caluurion) -> Soul Harvest -> Swallow Soul -> Impale.

I used to run Zaan, but with my current bar layout I find that I back away from the target after Soul Harvest. It's more consistent damage than attacking with Concealed, which I ran before, which compensates a little for the lack of Zaan.

So I was looking at how I could get some tankiness into the build and decided to try the recently buffed Endurance. Still testing this, but I like it. Might go back to simply Bright Throat's and Troll King, but the idea behind running the resistance pieces is to be tankier against burst.

I've written about speed and sustain before. Very briefly, this build is optimised for perma-cloaking and casting a fair amount of RAT in cloak. You need cost reduction for that. Speed, stamina sustain and cloak has great synergy. Unless the stamplar you're facing (bane of my existence) is really, really good (and using detect pots), RAT cancelled into dodge roll into cloak gets you away from them, although you do have to juggle the direction, sometimes rolling through them. I have gotten into the habit of cancelling either RAT or Healing Ward with a dodge roll. This is doable in CP. In no CP this playstyle requires a bigger stam pool really.

Don't underestimate the Infused health restore enchant, both for damage in such a low stat build and for the healing. You have to keep up Siphoning Attacks as well. Stacking Swallow Soul, the enchant, SA and the health regen allows you to face tank at least some templars without constantly having to break off the attack and trying to get out of range. In general with the speed and sustain, this build is about relentlessly staying on target. That said, you do have to cloak or fear and run the proper combo as appropriate. One of my mistakes has been forgetting about the resistances from the shadow skills.

I've posted the following video before. Nothing new to see here, but in case you haven't read the whole thread. This is an earlier iteration of the build with Concealed as the main damage source and two shields, but I think it illustrates the difference speed and stam sustain makes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dxsUVeGGLc

Wow that speed is sexy. Im going to farm caluurion I really want to try that set as well. Like I said in an above post im starting to feel like you need something to help burst more frequent. Could you imagine how your build would be if merciless didnt take all that bs to proc and you added that?

@WacArnold - Given you're on Xbox NA like me, if you're going to farm Caluurion definitely try to get some guildies or friends to run it with you so you can just do it quick. I really struggled to find people to run Fang Lair (Aus timezone for me doesn't help) and ended up pugging through group finder a lot and it was the slowest thing ever.

Iskiab

jimijac0me wrote: »

@fred4 If you’re vamp try meteor>accelerating drain>will

Block cancel the drain and you’ll add 1-2 ticks of drain plus the stun will let meteor hit and your will hit. That’s a fair bit of burst

Can confirm, this is a good combo. Blew me up twice in 1v1s, it hits especially hard if you’re a vampire. Works on almost any mag class.

Meteor hasn’t been popular for a while too so newer players like me (started with summerset) aren’t used to seeing it so get caught without blocking.

jimijac0me

Iskiab wrote: »

jimijac0me wrote: »

@fred4 If you’re vamp try meteor>accelerating drain>will

Block cancel the drain and you’ll add 1-2 ticks of drain plus the stun will let meteor hit and your will hit. That’s a fair bit of burst

Can confirm, this is a good combo. Blew me up twice in 1v1s, it hits especially hard if you’re a vampire. Works on almost any mag class.

Meteor hasn’t been popular for a while too so newer players like me (started with summerset) aren’t used to seeing it so get caught without blocking.

Can also go Soul Harvest > Drain > Bow if you prefer SH and get the dmg buff from SH.

I think drain is a bit overtuned but works a bit better than fear atm I feel. Lose that great defensive aoe stun of fear and take a bit more DK/fire dmg as a vamp so still a compromise I suppose

GhostofDatthaw

You have to keep in mind how to proc shadow barrier without fear also. Unless you cloak alot, fearing on CD is always the best way to keep that buff

WacArnold

fred4 wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

Eh after reading my reply I started to remember what somebody said about how its because of cloak that magblade is the way it is. I mean think about we are able to get out of ALOT of situations that would be death for other classes. Do you guys think cloak is whats stopping devs from changing nbs?

Yes, but stamblade has been stronger than magblade for a long time. Magblade has IMO been the victim of nerfs directed at stamblades (Incap stun) and sorcs (shields). Stamblade was historically much better at upfront damage - ganking - than magblade, not least when Surprise Attack gave Major Fracture. Traditional magblade playstyles, on the other hand, have been oxymoronic. Cloak forever, but have to uncloak for 5 seconds to generate your burst. Caluurion fixes that. It lets you play like a stamblade ganker, although it's power still doesn't match a good stamblade.

I've played melee magblade forever, because I felt I needed Forward Momentum back in the day. That spec has always been weak. There were some options, such as dual-wield and Torug's Pact when DW enchants were stronger, but they were still pretty meh. Since then the melee spec has gradually been buffed. First via Caluurion and Zaan. Then by getting RAT, which freed you up to go destro and get much better light attacks. Then by getting Minor Vulnerability on Lotus Fan, which buffs Caluurion. On the other hand we've also lost a lot of sustain. The loss of stamina sustain from Siphoning Attacks is something that really killed the damage of my build, as I feel forced to run dual-regen drinks. At least it's much more fun to play with good stam sustain. Less precautionary cloaking while waiting for stam. Such a mixed bag of nerfs and buffs has left magblade still pretty weak overall, IMO.

Assassin's Will is often quoted as being the hardest hitting skill in the game outside of ultimates, but that's BS when every other class is comboing stuff. How do you combo Assassin's Will? I believe Soul Tether once stunned through block, so people used to run that combo. Incap stunned, so that was an option. Both are gone or at least I haven't seen a good Tether combo player in a long time. Meteor is too telegraphed. Opponent just needs to hold block. It's practically automatic. So let's say you do Meteor -> Fear -> Assassin's Will. Haven't tried, but nope. I doubt that will hit in a single GCD. I guess Cloak -> Concealed -> Assassin's Will is a possibility that would stun, do damage, proc Caluurion and hit with Assassin's Will all in one GCD. Haven't tried that, but it would be temperamental. Can be blocked and countered with Hurricane, Noxious Breath, and so on.

I do agree alot of magblade nerfs are indirect nerfs comming from nerfs associated towards stamblades.

Ah yeah dude when I first starting learning pvp with the magblade was when dueling first came out, it was the only way I could get in alot of fights 1 on 1 to start learning and practicing combos. Yes soul tether was un-blockable and that combo with merciless was my favorite finishing move. To see the enemy kneel at your feet before you finished him with merciless was priceless. That was when heavy armor was badass and you could never get pinned down because of siphoning restoring stam.

I haven't really tried tether like that anymore. Back then it felt like swallow did damage and between that and a dot or so you could wear down opponents pretty easily to get them into burst range. But now it feels like I need to use sHarvest for the damage and the extra damage to even scratch enimes. Back then damage was good in heavy you could run spinner/jullianos and hit hard. But we lost alot like you said.

Iskiab

WacArnold wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

Eh after reading my reply I started to remember what somebody said about how its because of cloak that magblade is the way it is. I mean think about we are able to get out of ALOT of situations that would be death for other classes. Do you guys think cloak is whats stopping devs from changing nbs?

Yes, but stamblade has been stronger than magblade for a long time. Magblade has IMO been the victim of nerfs directed at stamblades (Incap stun) and sorcs (shields). Stamblade was historically much better at upfront damage - ganking - than magblade, not least when Surprise Attack gave Major Fracture. Traditional magblade playstyles, on the other hand, have been oxymoronic. Cloak forever, but have to uncloak for 5 seconds to generate your burst. Caluurion fixes that. It lets you play like a stamblade ganker, although it's power still doesn't match a good stamblade.

I've played melee magblade forever, because I felt I needed Forward Momentum back in the day. That spec has always been weak. There were some options, such as dual-wield and Torug's Pact when DW enchants were stronger, but they were still pretty meh. Since then the melee spec has gradually been buffed. First via Caluurion and Zaan. Then by getting RAT, which freed you up to go destro and get much better light attacks. Then by getting Minor Vulnerability on Lotus Fan, which buffs Caluurion. On the other hand we've also lost a lot of sustain. The loss of stamina sustain from Siphoning Attacks is something that really killed the damage of my build, as I feel forced to run dual-regen drinks. At least it's much more fun to play with good stam sustain. Less precautionary cloaking while waiting for stam. Such a mixed bag of nerfs and buffs has left magblade still pretty weak overall, IMO.

Assassin's Will is often quoted as being the hardest hitting skill in the game outside of ultimates, but that's BS when every other class is comboing stuff. How do you combo Assassin's Will? I believe Soul Tether once stunned through block, so people used to run that combo. Incap stunned, so that was an option. Both are gone or at least I haven't seen a good Tether combo player in a long time. Meteor is too telegraphed. Opponent just needs to hold block. It's practically automatic. So let's say you do Meteor -> Fear -> Assassin's Will. Haven't tried, but nope. I doubt that will hit in a single GCD. I guess Cloak -> Concealed -> Assassin's Will is a possibility that would stun, do damage, proc Caluurion and hit with Assassin's Will all in one GCD. Haven't tried that, but it would be temperamental. Can be blocked and countered with Hurricane, Noxious Breath, and so on.

I do agree alot of magblade nerfs are indirect nerfs comming from nerfs associated towards stamblades.

Ah yeah dude when I first starting learning pvp with the magblade was when dueling first came out, it was the only way I could get in alot of fights 1 on 1 to start learning and practicing combos. Yes soul tether was un-blockable and that combo with merciless was my favorite finishing move. To see the enemy kneel at your feet before you finished him with merciless was priceless. That was when heavy armor was badass and you could never get pinned down because of siphoning restoring stam.

I haven't really tried tether like that anymore. Back then it felt like swallow did damage and between that and a dot or so you could wear down opponents pretty easily to get them into burst range. But now it feels like I need to use sHarvest for the damage and the extra damage to even scratch enimes. Back then damage was good in heavy you could run spinner/jullianos and hit hard. But we lost alot like you said.

I’m not sure I buy the whole stamblade led to magblades getting nerfed. If there are good Stamblades out there dominating it’s not in PC-NA.

I actually think it was magblade healers that led to a bit of nerfs. Stamblades might have contributed to the cost increases on a lot of abilities so they can’t use them as much, but I think that’s it.

jimijac0me

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

You have to keep in mind how to proc shadow barrier without fear also. Unless you cloak alot, fearing on CD is always the best way to keep that buff

I use Dark Cloak instead of Shadow, that does the trick for me

WacArnold

Iskiab wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

Eh after reading my reply I started to remember what somebody said about how its because of cloak that magblade is the way it is. I mean think about we are able to get out of ALOT of situations that would be death for other classes. Do you guys think cloak is whats stopping devs from changing nbs?

Yes, but stamblade has been stronger than magblade for a long time. Magblade has IMO been the victim of nerfs directed at stamblades (Incap stun) and sorcs (shields). Stamblade was historically much better at upfront damage - ganking - than magblade, not least when Surprise Attack gave Major Fracture. Traditional magblade playstyles, on the other hand, have been oxymoronic. Cloak forever, but have to uncloak for 5 seconds to generate your burst. Caluurion fixes that. It lets you play like a stamblade ganker, although it's power still doesn't match a good stamblade.

I've played melee magblade forever, because I felt I needed Forward Momentum back in the day. That spec has always been weak. There were some options, such as dual-wield and Torug's Pact when DW enchants were stronger, but they were still pretty meh. Since then the melee spec has gradually been buffed. First via Caluurion and Zaan. Then by getting RAT, which freed you up to go destro and get much better light attacks. Then by getting Minor Vulnerability on Lotus Fan, which buffs Caluurion. On the other hand we've also lost a lot of sustain. The loss of stamina sustain from Siphoning Attacks is something that really killed the damage of my build, as I feel forced to run dual-regen drinks. At least it's much more fun to play with good stam sustain. Less precautionary cloaking while waiting for stam. Such a mixed bag of nerfs and buffs has left magblade still pretty weak overall, IMO.

Assassin's Will is often quoted as being the hardest hitting skill in the game outside of ultimates, but that's BS when every other class is comboing stuff. How do you combo Assassin's Will? I believe Soul Tether once stunned through block, so people used to run that combo. Incap stunned, so that was an option. Both are gone or at least I haven't seen a good Tether combo player in a long time. Meteor is too telegraphed. Opponent just needs to hold block. It's practically automatic. So let's say you do Meteor -> Fear -> Assassin's Will. Haven't tried, but nope. I doubt that will hit in a single GCD. I guess Cloak -> Concealed -> Assassin's Will is a possibility that would stun, do damage, proc Caluurion and hit with Assassin's Will all in one GCD. Haven't tried that, but it would be temperamental. Can be blocked and countered with Hurricane, Noxious Breath, and so on.

I do agree alot of magblade nerfs are indirect nerfs comming from nerfs associated towards stamblades.

Ah yeah dude when I first starting learning pvp with the magblade was when dueling first came out, it was the only way I could get in alot of fights 1 on 1 to start learning and practicing combos. Yes soul tether was un-blockable and that combo with merciless was my favorite finishing move. To see the enemy kneel at your feet before you finished him with merciless was priceless. That was when heavy armor was badass and you could never get pinned down because of siphoning restoring stam.

I haven't really tried tether like that anymore. Back then it felt like swallow did damage and between that and a dot or so you could wear down opponents pretty easily to get them into burst range. But now it feels like I need to use sHarvest for the damage and the extra damage to even scratch enimes. Back then damage was good in heavy you could run spinner/jullianos and hit hard. But we lost alot like you said.

I’m not sure I buy the whole stamblade led to magblades getting nerfed. If there are good Stamblades out there dominating it’s not in PC-NA.

I actually think it was magblade healers that led to a bit of nerfs. Stamblades might have contributed to the cost increases on a lot of abilities so they can’t use them as much, but I think that’s it.

At least the stun from incap and minor berserk I would attribute to stamblades. Everybody was complaining about being ganked, and now with so much healing and defense those would probably be back on par.

Iskiab

WacArnold wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

Eh after reading my reply I started to remember what somebody said about how its because of cloak that magblade is the way it is. I mean think about we are able to get out of ALOT of situations that would be death for other classes. Do you guys think cloak is whats stopping devs from changing nbs?

Yes, but stamblade has been stronger than magblade for a long time. Magblade has IMO been the victim of nerfs directed at stamblades (Incap stun) and sorcs (shields). Stamblade was historically much better at upfront damage - ganking - than magblade, not least when Surprise Attack gave Major Fracture. Traditional magblade playstyles, on the other hand, have been oxymoronic. Cloak forever, but have to uncloak for 5 seconds to generate your burst. Caluurion fixes that. It lets you play like a stamblade ganker, although it's power still doesn't match a good stamblade.

I've played melee magblade forever, because I felt I needed Forward Momentum back in the day. That spec has always been weak. There were some options, such as dual-wield and Torug's Pact when DW enchants were stronger, but they were still pretty meh. Since then the melee spec has gradually been buffed. First via Caluurion and Zaan. Then by getting RAT, which freed you up to go destro and get much better light attacks. Then by getting Minor Vulnerability on Lotus Fan, which buffs Caluurion. On the other hand we've also lost a lot of sustain. The loss of stamina sustain from Siphoning Attacks is something that really killed the damage of my build, as I feel forced to run dual-regen drinks. At least it's much more fun to play with good stam sustain. Less precautionary cloaking while waiting for stam. Such a mixed bag of nerfs and buffs has left magblade still pretty weak overall, IMO.

Assassin's Will is often quoted as being the hardest hitting skill in the game outside of ultimates, but that's BS when every other class is comboing stuff. How do you combo Assassin's Will? I believe Soul Tether once stunned through block, so people used to run that combo. Incap stunned, so that was an option. Both are gone or at least I haven't seen a good Tether combo player in a long time. Meteor is too telegraphed. Opponent just needs to hold block. It's practically automatic. So let's say you do Meteor -> Fear -> Assassin's Will. Haven't tried, but nope. I doubt that will hit in a single GCD. I guess Cloak -> Concealed -> Assassin's Will is a possibility that would stun, do damage, proc Caluurion and hit with Assassin's Will all in one GCD. Haven't tried that, but it would be temperamental. Can be blocked and countered with Hurricane, Noxious Breath, and so on.

I do agree alot of magblade nerfs are indirect nerfs comming from nerfs associated towards stamblades.

Ah yeah dude when I first starting learning pvp with the magblade was when dueling first came out, it was the only way I could get in alot of fights 1 on 1 to start learning and practicing combos. Yes soul tether was un-blockable and that combo with merciless was my favorite finishing move. To see the enemy kneel at your feet before you finished him with merciless was priceless. That was when heavy armor was badass and you could never get pinned down because of siphoning restoring stam.

I haven't really tried tether like that anymore. Back then it felt like swallow did damage and between that and a dot or so you could wear down opponents pretty easily to get them into burst range. But now it feels like I need to use sHarvest for the damage and the extra damage to even scratch enimes. Back then damage was good in heavy you could run spinner/jullianos and hit hard. But we lost alot like you said.

I’m not sure I buy the whole stamblade led to magblades getting nerfed. If there are good Stamblades out there dominating it’s not in PC-NA.

I actually think it was magblade healers that led to a bit of nerfs. Stamblades might have contributed to the cost increases on a lot of abilities so they can’t use them as much, but I think that’s it.

At least the stun from incap and minor berserk I would attribute to stamblades. Everybody was complaining about being ganked, and now with so much healing and defense those would probably be back on par.

Yeah that’s true. People usually build tankier these days so burst might not be an issue, IDK. That playstyle is total hit or miss; you either take someone down or they dodge roll away and ignore you, or detect pot and run you down.

Everyone’s relatively happy but stam losing dizzy and NBs. People are tankier and with no stealth NBs glassy sorcs can burst and streak away with impunity.

I think it’s probably good the gank style is weak. Too many complaints, just need to give NBs a bit more out of stealth support. Ganking and high burst/healing gameplay like ESO leads to small changes making a big difference. On my templar a 100 to 20% gank attempt (which would be on the very strong end) can be negated in 2 GCDs, increase that so I’d be ganked and cyrodiil will be full of NBs.

GhostofDatthaw

They hit magnb from pvp stamblade in the damage department, the pve magnb killed pvp magnb healing tho I would happy if they gave swallow mending back but that's never gonna happen...