Undaunted Heavy Attack PVP Build (Magplar and MagDK)

RiskyChalice863

I’ve developed a very interesting build that uses the Undaunted Infiltrator and Undaunted Unweaver sets in tandem. The concept is fairly similar to Xynode's Easy Sorc, but it's a bit different (it's not a Sorc build, for one, and it uses different sets) and I'm more focused on PVP.

The Basics

The concept is fairly simple: You want to buff up your heavy attack damage as much as possible, and then proc off balance on the enemy in order to just melt them with lightning heavy attacks. This build actually can really melt people. And you can basically ignore Magicka sustain in your build entirely, because you'll actually gain Magicka during your damage combo. You also can potentially build for a good bit of defense without giving up very much damage.

The basis for the build is as follows:

You run the Undaunted Infiltrator and Undaunted Unweaver sets. When procced, each of these sets adds just over 1100 damage to each tick of a channeled lightning heavy attack. There are 4 ticks. So, between the two of these, you add about 9000 damage to your lightning heavy attacks--which are do damage in an AOE. When an enemy is off balance, the damage they take from heavy attacks goes up 70% (80% if you've got the exploiter passive). Therefore, on an off balance enemy, these two sets combine to add over 15,000 damage to your heavy attacks--and that number is higher the more additional damage buffs you have on your heavy attacks. Regardless of class, the concept is to do one of two things: (1) proc the two sets and then pump in large AOE damage from a distance with your heavy attacks, or (2) get in and proc off-balance on someone and absolutely melt them. Since you're a heavy attack build, your sustain will be great. And the fact that you'll be topped up on magicka a lot will really help your defense, along with the fact that you can build for a lot of defense without losing much firepower.

At the moment, I'm using it on my Magplar, but I think the MagDK may be even better for it due to Molten Armaments. I'll describe below what I've built so far (along with some possible alternatives), then also describe what I plan to do with this on my MagDK once I've leveled him, and also give a brief description of how this has worked in the BGs I've played with it.

Magplar Build

The idea with the Magplar is basically to use Restoring Focus as a cheap and effective way to proc Undaunted Unweaver, and use Toppling Charge to stun and proc off balance (as well as proc Undaunted Infiltrator if need be) all in one. The basic combo would be Restoring Focus --> Purifying Light or Reflective Light --> Toppling Charge --> 1 or 2 heavy attacks --> maybe Radiant Oppression. And in terms of defense, if you're put on the defensive, you'll typically have a really high magicka pool left and Extended Ritual, Living Dark, and Honor the Dead, so it's very survivable.

My item setup is not 100% ideal yet. But in an ideal world, I think you'd have an Undaunted Infiltrator staff, two pieces of Undaunted Infiltrator jewelry, and an Undaunted Infiltrator chest piece. You'd then have Undaunted Unweaver hands, belt, legs, and boots, along with an Undaunted Unweaver jewelry piece. You then want one light and one heavy piece for a monster set. I'm using one piece Pirate Skeleton and one piece Lord Warden, just for the permanent resistance bonuses, but that's up to you, and there are many other solid options. Since it's PVP, I think having all the armor be impenetrable is ideal (though I've only got four impenetrable pieces on this build at the moment). In terms of enchants and jewelry/weapon traits, this is kind of up to you. I've tested it with: (1) all magicka glyphs on my armor except one health glyph; (2) all spell power glyphs on my jewelry; (3) all arcane traits on my jewelry; and (4) a precise weapon. However, a huge component of your damage is from the two sets, and that damage isn't affected by spell damage or magicka. So you could add some protective or healthy traits to the jewelry, and/or some more healthy or prismatic defense glyphs on the armor, and not lose a ton of damage. You could even run stamina recovery glyphs to help with breaking free and whatnot. You could also put Bloodthirsty glyphs on, since that would scale with the damage from your sets. In terms of the weapon trait, Precise is just what dropped for me, but I actually think Precise and Sharpened are clearly your two best bets, since they'll actually affect the Infiltrator and Unweaver set damage. On the back bar, I’ve got Precise since, again, that’s what dropped, but Defending may be better.

In terms of Mundus, I think The Lover is the best. Again, spell penetration actually affects the Infiltrator and Unweaver set damage. So do the crit damage and crit chance bonuses from The Shadow and The Thief, but I think The Lover is a bit better.

In terms of race, I'm a High Elf with this. I think that's probably the best one, since it helps your overall damage more than any other race (though I think Khajiit is probably very close), actually helps a lot with stamina sustain from the Spell Recharge passive, and I believe that same passive's 5% damage reduction applies when heavy attacking. But there are other options that would be good as well. Dark Elf would work. Khajiit would work because the critical damage scales with the set damage. And Nord would actually be decent to add some bulkiness.

In terms of food, I think tri-stat food is best. You certainly don't need magicka recovery from your food/drink.

For potions, it will ultimately depend on what you've got on your bar. You could cover Major Prophecy, Major Sorcery, and immovability with your skills--in which case you'd use tri-stat potions. But you could also leave a gap in your skills that you fill with a potion if you’d like. I’ll note that I think Major Prophecy is more important than Major Sorcery here because it scales with the set damage.

I'm not listing CP here, since I've tested this exclusively in BGs and so I haven't put much of any thought into the CPs.

For skills, here's what my bar looks like (with some discussion of alternatives below):

Front Bar: Restoring Focus, Toppling Charge, Honor the Dead, Reflective Light, Radiant Oppression, Eye of the Storm
Back Bar: Extended Ritual, Radiating Regeneration, Honor the Dead, Living Dark, Elusive Mist, Life Giver

There's a lot of flexibility there though. The only real must-haves are Restoring Focus, Toppling Charge, Honor the Dead, and Extended Ritual. A few thoughts on the skills below:

- I like to double bar Honor the Dead because I find it helps me react to burst damage just that little bit quicker, but you can definitely slot something like Purifying Light on the front bar instead.
- Especially if you slot Purifying Light, you could perhaps switch out Reflective Light for Inner Light, but I probably wouldn't (the reason I say you'd especially do that if you've got Purifying Light is that you definitely want at least one ranged Magicka ability you'll use on the front bar, to proc Undaunted Infiltrator).
- You could also swap out Radiant Oppression for Structured Entropy. Major Sorcery isn't actually a huge boost to your heavy attacks on this build, so it's not strictly necessary to have it, but it's a very good ability. I do get some use out of Radiant Oppression, but Structured Entropy could be better overall.
- Rapid Regen is probably better than Radiating Regeneration for PVP. But I also use my Magplar to heal dungeons, and don't want to switch the morph.
- Elusive Mist is surely better than Race Against Time--I'm just not a vampire. But I think I probably will make this character a vampire, in order to use Elusive Mist.
- The front bar ult is really up to you. I like Eye of the Storm and I think it synergizes very well with this build since you can cast it, then use Restoring Focus and Toppling Charge to proc your two sets and gap close and stun right as Eye of the Storm starts going off. But Crescent Sweep would be good, as would Devouring Swarm and the Mage's Guild ult.
- You could potentially get away with going sword and board on the back bar, and replacing Life Giver with Spell Wall. You'd no longer be able to run Regen, but that would open up a spot for sure for Structured Entropy and you'd at least get a bit of a heal over time from that.

Magicka Dragonknight build

For the most part, this build would be the same as above. I think it would be even stronger than the Magplar, but I've not yet tested it out and there would be downsides compared to the Magplar.

The main difference is just the skills. MagDKs would obviously use Molten Armaments. This would add massive damage to the already hard-hitting heavy attacks. I've not yet leveled my MagDK, but I think the damage on this would be extremely high. The way you'd proc off balance is Empowering Chains --> Fossilize --> Lava Whip (either morph).

The MagDK's damage would be much higher, but it would have a more drawn out process to create off balance. Whereas the Templar can gap close, stun, and proc off balance all with one skill, the DK would require three skills to do all of that. Therefore, the MagDK would have to play a little less aggressively, because if you get aggressive against a group, you could be punished before you've really had a chance to do much. Of course, the MagDK can actually do almost as much damage heavy attacking at a distance as a Magplar could against an off balance enemy (50% bonus from Molten Armaments vs. 70% bonus from off balance).

The MagDK also doesn't have quite as strong of survival tools this patch. Again, though, you can stay back and still deal massive damage, so it may not be harder to survive overall.

Finally, the MagDK would have a bit more of an annoying time proccing Undaunted Unweaver. There's no real obvious cheap stamina ability for the MagDK to spam in PVP to proc the set. You could use Vigor, even though it'd be a pretty weak heal on a magicka character. The best option may just be Noxious Breath though. You'd often just be using it on nothing, but it can get really cheap, and if you use Molten Whip, then having Noxious Breath as part of your setup would make your burst stronger. Your stamina sustain would take a hit from having to use Noxious Breath a bunch, but you'll get 990 stamina each time you use Fossilize and Molten Armaments. You could take a stamina recovery glyph in a jewelry piece as well if you find it's an issue--the lost spell damage won't be a huge deal.

Here's what I'd think the skills could be:

Front Bar: Noxious Breath, Empowering Chains, Molten Whip, Fossilize, Molten Armaments
Back Bar: Efficient Purge, Rapid Regen, Coagulating Blood, Volatile Armor, Elusive Mist, Life Giver

There are other ways to do it, but there's a bit less flexibility than on the Magplar, since your combo requires basically everything I listed on the front bar. If the Empowering Chains --> Molten Whip --> Fossilize combo is too unwieldy, one thing I might try is replacing Fossilize with Stone Giant. Stone Giant is a worse ability, but it may be that Molten Armaments is enough damage to basically melt people from afar if I can just stun them. And if they happen to be close, I could still proc off balance (albeit maybe a bit less reliably than you can with Fossilize since you don’t have the immobilize after the stun). This wouldn’t be as good in a 1v1, but it’s possible it’s better in a group context where you don’t necessarily want to be jumping in and taking time using two abilities before really doing your damage.

How It Has Worked For Me

I've played this with my Magplar. The results have been pretty good. I'm far from the best player—so I do come across players who are simply better than me. But I have had very good games with it. And I’ve managed to win 1v1’s against players that I can absolutely tell are better than me.

A few thoughts on it:

- The damage is good. If people are pretty squishy, they can basically be deleted by a Purifying Light/Reflective Light --> Toppling Charge --> 1 heavy attack and then maybe a couple ticks of another heavy attack or Radiant Oppression. People who are tankier can sometimes survive and get away if I attack them at full health, but not if I’ve got any support with me and typically not if they don’t have some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card (as in, cloak, streak, etc.) or catch me with a stun when my stamina is low. If they can’t find some way to get away or to keep me stunned for a while, it’s extremely difficult for someone to live through two off-balance heavy attacks and an execute. If they live through it, then they’re a pretty tanky build and have dumped away a lot of resources to survive, while I’ve literally gained magicka. I can't wait to see what the damage from the MagDK is like, since it's going to be significantly higher.

- The magicka sustain is incredibly good. You get over 7.2k magicka back from a heavy attack against an off balance opponent in no-CP. This means your damage combo literally gains you magicka. And if you kill people with your heavy attack—which you will—you’ll get another 3600 magicka back from the destruction staff passives. The only time you can really run out of magicka is if you’ve really been put on the back foot by people for a very long time. Overall, it’s the best magicka sustain I’ve ever had on any build that does even remotely similar damage.

- The stamina sustain is actually really good for a magicka build. You’ve got Restoring Focus. You’ve got the High Elf passive that will almost always restore stamina, since your magicka will be high. And you’ve got the Undaunted Unweaver set giving you over 2k extra stamina to work with. You’ll be using Restoring Focus more than is necessary (in order to proc Undaunted Unweaver), so the net stamina return on it isn’t quite optimal, but this is still one of the best magicka builds I’ve played in terms of stamina sustain. And honestly, given how a lot of your damage doesn’t scale with the spell damage stat, I’m thinking of possibly adding a stamina regen glyph or two to my jewelry, just to basically make this build incredibly strong against CC.

- The survivability is good. It’s a light armor build and doesn’t have a massive amount of health, so obviously it’s not the highest survivability possible. But with the defensive monster set combo I’m using along with Restoring Focus obviously always being up, the resistances are actually pretty good. Toppling Charge gives you minor protection for 6 seconds. You’ve got Extended Ritual, Living Dark, Regen, and Honor the Dead—all great defensive abilities. The resto ult is a fight reset basically. And I think Elusive Mist will add a lot of survivability once I get it. The key, though, is really the sustain. It’s basically impossible to catch me without a boatload of magicka to use to survive. There were players that were better than me that were able to get the drop on me and kill me a few times, but it typically would take them a very drawn out fight to do it when I’m pretty sure they’d have done so quicker against me on another build. There have also been some people that have been able to burst me down quickly, but that’s mostly just been lethal arrow and poison injection causing desyncs. I did play one stamden who repeatedly burst me down quickly, but that player was really good, and it was also in my first game on the build when I had no impen gear, no defensive monster set (so my resistances were over 5k lower), and wasn’t using the resto ult. As I mentioned above, though, I think one could build in more survivability into this build without actually giving up a ton of damage.

Final Notes

This is a very long post, but I do have some thoughts on this for PVE as well. I don’t think the Magplar would be very good with it since the benefit of being able to gap close, stun, and set off balance with one ability doesn’t really matter in PVE. However, I think the MagDK would be quite good. You’d use a Maelstrom lightning staff, with an Undaunted Infiltrator staff on the back bar. You'd proc Undaunted Unweaver with Beast Trap--which is a great ability anyways and is on the Easy Sorc build too. This would be similar to the Easy Sorc build, but with fewer shock abilities to proc off balance, but Molten Armaments for a permanent 50% heavy attack damage bonus. That should equal more single-target damage against bosses than the Easy Sorc can achieve, and probably still more AOE damage against groups of trash mobs, especially if someone else is using lightning damage. I think it would be very strong.

I also note that the Easy Sorc build uses Infallible Mage. I've read that that set only affects the damage on the last tick of the lightning staff's damage. I don't have it to test, but I did watch Xynode's latest Easy Sorc video, and I believe he said that too. If so, I do wonder whether a build using Infallible Mage is outdamaged by a build with Undaunted Unweaver, despite Infallible Mage having better bonuses otherwise for DPS. If not, then, if you're able to get it, Infallible Mage would be optimal over Undaunted Unweaver, and this would basically become a DK version of the Easy Sorc. Either way, you could slot Mystic Orb instead of Daedric Tomb (which Xynode suggests as an alternative anyways), Eruption instead of Liquid Lightning, Volatile Armor instead of Boundless Storm, Inner Light instead of Bound Armaments, Dampen Magic instead of Hardened Ward, and Molten Armaments instead of Mage's Wrath. In other words, the skill setup would basically be the same except you slot Molten Armaments instead of the execute.

RiskyChalice863

One additional thing I will note: This build is definitely susceptible to interrupts. If someone consistently gets interrupts off on you (with Crushing Shock, Toppling Charge, etc.), then you could possibly have trouble with sustain, since you need to finish the heavy attack to get magicka back. It wouldn't kill your damage, though, since you do a ton of damage throughout your channeled heavy attack, meaning that interrupting you during it doesn't cut off all the damage or anything. So far, I've not seen anyone consistently interrupt me, though, and it'd be hard for people by themselves to interrupt me all that much when my combo starts with a stun. It's something someone could build for against you in a duel though, of course.

Also, the skill bar I say I use on my Magplar should say Race Against Time instead of Elusive Mist. My Magplar isn't currently a vampire so I don't have Elusive Mist, but I think it'd be much better than Race Against Time, and I do intend to change that to Elusive Mist. And I meant to put Ferocious Leap as the front bar ult for the DK version. It could be Eye of the Storm too, but I think Ferocious Leap is best due to the lack of an execute.

OwnerOfSuccuby

Just 1 thing.

Moltan armaments DO NOT WORK correct after update 5.1.5. They buged it with lightning staff with no information in patch notes.

And there are 3+ my topicks about it on forum. But they do nothing to fix it.

robpr

You might also go absolute cancer, like Knight Slayer + UI

OwnerOfSuccuby

robpr wrote: »

You might also go absolute cancer, like Knight Slayer + UI

Torug pact + knight slayer was old pvp tank meta. Why is infiltrator better for example?

Torug will give you dps more than infiltrator with out working moltan armaments.

Yes it work good with moltan armaments - but it is buged now and do not work correct.

RiskyChalice863

I don’t think Torug’s gives more damage than Undaunted Infiltrator or Unweaver. It should be close on a single target, especially if you take into account the secondary effect you’d be more likely to proc with Torug’s. But I believe it would still be lower, and it would definitely be lower in terms of AOE damage. It’s something I want to test out as well though.

Masel

I'm playing a similar build in pvp right now, with a charged vMA lightning staff front bar (shock enchant), undaunted infiltrator resto staff back bar with retraited jewelry and torugs on body. It is a lot of fun to play and very effective.

Monster set can be Zaan or Chudan, depending on group/solo. All impen ofc.

You definitely want to use power lash. Set enemies off-balance with blockade+enchant and then heavy attack, stun them with the heavy at the end and then follow up with a nice power lash. You'd be surprised how long ppl stay in your blockade...

You have lots of resources through heavies and can go for more damage that way. Use resto for heals and defense, cauterize, embers, engulfing.

malistorr

I don't PVP. And I have no experience really playing weapon-using stam based characters or any type of hybrid character. However I use the UI and IA sets for my heavy attacking non-pet using mag sorc. UI and IA are both for mag characters (other than the 4th-item set bonus of UI for weapon damage that everyone has grumbled about for years). I also plan to use the Maelstrom lightning staff as soon as I get it. My heavy attack damage will be very nice I'm sure. It's already pretty good.

It just seems to me like characters need to go either all mag or all stam to be most effective. For example, if I get more max mag or more spell damage, either 1 will increase my damage done for most sorc skills and for my staff attacks. And the same goes for more weapon damage or more stamina for people using those skills/classes I believe. So wouldn't a hybrid character be hurt (at least in dps) by trying to split up their resources to part weapon damage/stamina and part spell damage/max magic? In theory at least, it seems like that should result in overall lower damage attacks. But again I haven't tried this.

It seems like the 2 stamina bonuses of UU are a waste since they don't buff lightning staff attacks, and won't boost any other skills that get their buff from spell damage and max. mag.. And you have to use a stam ability to even proc. the bonus to heavy attacks. IMO if you want to go mag, go all in. Might as well choose a High Elf, Vampire, Mag sorc. because of all the passives and racial skills that boost staff damage. Also, IA has so many bonuses that IMO it's the best set for any magic character who's going to use a staff, period. And UI does waste that 1-slot, but as Xynode and many others (including me) have tested, there's no better way to boost Heavy Attack damage (for a mag sorc). (Even QE isn't as good and you can't use Sergeant's Mail with a destruction staff (I tried)). I remember I read that Dragon Knights are really good with heavy attacks because of certain class bonuses/skills, but other than that, I just can't imagine another class being better with staff damage than a mag sorc. But just look at the bonuses for the IA set vs. the UU set and I don't think there's any comparison on which one is better for destruction staff dps in general. And IA heavy attack bonus doesn't need a stam ability used to proc. which is nice since you already have to use a mag ability to proc. the heavy attack bonus of UI.

RiskyChalice863

Masel wrote: »

I'm playing a similar build in pvp right now, with a charged vMA lightning staff front bar (shock enchant), undaunted infiltrator resto staff back bar with retraited jewelry and torugs on body. It is a lot of fun to play and very effective.

Monster set can be Zaan or Chudan, depending on group/solo. All impen ofc.

You definitely want to use power lash. Set enemies off-balance with blockade+enchant and then heavy attack, stun them with the heavy at the end and then follow up with a nice power lash. You'd be surprised how long ppl stay in your blockade...

You have lots of resources through heavies and can go for more damage that way. Use resto for heals and defense, cauterize, embers, engulfing.

That's interesting. I kind of assumed wall of elements wouldn't work well to proc off balance in PVP, just because it'd be hard to keep people in it. But using a charged shock enchant would basically mean they wouldn't have to stay in it very long. I'll definitely give that a try, especially once I get a vMA lightning staff.

Major_Lag

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

I kind of assumed wall of elements wouldn't work well to proc off balance in PVP, just because it'd be hard to keep people in it.

AFAIK the WoE telegraph is bugged and doesn't show most of the time. It pretty much never shows in heavy lag (primetime).

RiskyChalice863

malistorr wrote: »

I don't PVP. And I have no experience really playing weapon-using stam based characters or any type of hybrid character. However I use the UI and IA sets for my heavy attacking non-pet using mag sorc. UI and IA are both for mag characters (other than the 4th-item set bonus of UI for weapon damage that everyone has grumbled about for years). I also plan to use the Maelstrom lightning staff as soon as I get it. My heavy attack damage will be very nice I'm sure. It's already pretty good.

It just seems to me like characters need to go either all mag or all stam to be most effective. For example, if I get more max mag or more spell damage, either 1 will increase my damage done for most sorc skills and for my staff attacks. And the same goes for more weapon damage or more stamina for people using those skills/classes I believe. So wouldn't a hybrid character be hurt (at least in dps) by trying to split up their resources to part weapon damage/stamina and part spell damage/max magic? In theory at least, it seems like that should result in overall lower damage attacks. But again I haven't tried this.

It seems like the 2 stamina bonuses of UU are a waste since they don't buff lightning staff attacks, and won't boost any other skills that get their buff from spell damage and max. mag.. And you have to use a stam ability to even proc. the bonus to heavy attacks. IMO if you want to go mag, go all in. Might as well choose a High Elf, Vampire, Mag sorc. because of all the passives and racial skills that boost staff damage. Also, IA has so many bonuses that IMO it's the best set for any magic character who's going to use a staff, period. And UI does waste that 1-slot, but as Xynode and many others (including me) have tested, there's no better way to boost Heavy Attack damage (for a mag sorc). (Even QE isn't as good and you can't use Sergeant's Mail with a destruction staff (I tried)). I remember I read that Dragon Knights are really good with heavy attacks because of certain class bonuses/skills, but other than that, I just can't imagine another class being better with staff damage than a mag sorc. But just look at the bonuses for the IA set vs. the UU set and I don't think there's any comparison on which one is better for destruction staff dps in general. And IA heavy attack bonus doesn't need a stam ability used to proc. which is nice since you already have to use a mag ability to proc. the heavy attack bonus of UI.

Things are a little different in PVP, in my opinion. Magicka characters still need plenty of stamina, since you'll need to break free, block, dodge, and sprint. A magicka character that has really low stamina and low stamina recovery will run out of stamina very quickly if the enemy tries to CC them every time they lose CC immunity. And being stunned without CC immunity is very frequently a death sentence. So, at least in my view, the two stamina bonuses on Undaunted Unweaver are actually useful. It's not necessary completely ideal, but it's definitely not useless either. The weapon critical bonus on Undaunted Infiltrator, however, is useless.

Major_Lag

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

Magicka characters still need plenty of stamina, since you'll need to break free, block, dodge, and sprint.

Yep, and this is where this build shows good potential.
Since magicka sustain is so great, you can spam dark deal on a magsorc for near-infinite stamina sustain too. And Streak a lot as well.

Also because of how the lightning HA damage scales very poorly with spell damage, using 1 or more stam regen glyphs should be a perfectly viable option - in fact it sounds like a very good idea.

Looks like I need to get back on PTS and do some serious dummy testing

RiskyChalice863

What really intrigues me is the possibility of running a Dragonknight build where you basically derive the vast majority of your damage from the sets combined with Molten Armaments and off balance, alongside high spell penetration, and then just otherwise focus on survivability--meaning resistances, health, and stamina recovery.

I created a build on paper that would do that pretty well, I think.

The idea is the same as in my OP, except you change the race and some traits. In terms of changes, you'd go Nord (though High Elf would still be solid actually). You'd take two stamina recovery enchantments on the jewelry. And you'd take one healthy and two protective glyphs on the jewelry. The front bar lightning staff would be sharpened. I also used Bloodspawn as the monster set for this, but that's not a huge deal.

The results on a no-CP build, on paper at least, were as follows (assuming everything epic, rather than legendary):

Damage

On paper, you wouldn't think you'd do a ton of damage, since you'd only have 25,633 magicka and 1550 spell damage, buffed up.

But with your sets procced and Molten Armaments on, you'd do 20,482 base damage with a lightning heavy attack. That would go up to 30,040 damage on an off balance enemy. You'd also have a 2339 shock damage weapon enchant which could go off every 4 seconds of heavy attacking, and proc minor vulnerability 40% of the time basically. You'd have a very high 10,292 spell penetration. You could have 33.7% weapon crit if you put Cauterize on your front bar, though you might want to use Coagulating Blood instead. Anyways, as an example, let's say you attack someone with 20,000 spell resistance and full impen gear. If they're off balance, one full heavy attack (including enchant damage) would, on average, do 15,000 damage, and just over 16,000 damage if minor vulnerability procced. Each heavy attack takes 2.2 seconds, so that's about 6800-7350 damage per second. That's a ton of damage. You'd do more like 10,570 damage with a heavy attack against an enemy that isn't off balance (or 11,415 if minor vulnerability procs). That'd be about 4800-5200 damage per second. And note that there's an AOE component to all of this, so you'd basically do crazy dot damage to groups of people.

And glass cannon builds would just get melted. If we assume only like 14000 spell resistance and no impen gear, your heavy attack when they're off balance would do 17,855 damage, and like 19,280 damage if minor vulnerability procs.*

Defense

Despite how high the above damage is, you could get tons of defense from this build. If Bloodspawn procs, you'd have 32,317 spell resistance and 27202 physical resistance. That could go even higher if you put a Defending weapon on the backbar.
You've also got full impen. You probably also want to go vampire for Elusive Mist, so you'll get extra damage mitigation when low health (though obviously that comes with a vulnerability to flame damage).

You've got 22,692 health, which combined with your resistances and impen gear would make you difficult to burst down.

Perhaps most importantly, you've got ridiculous stamina sustain. To begin with, you've got a pretty big 16,619 stamina pool to work with. And, with your potion up, you've got a really high 1275 stamina recovery. You'll be using Noxious Breath every 10 seconds to proc Undaunted Unweaver, so that will take up 174 stamina a second. But you also will get 990 stamina every time you use Fossilize and Molten Armaments. Let's assume you use Molten Armaments every 30 seconds and Fossilize every 10 seconds. That's 132 stamina per second from that. Then there's Battle Roar. Between being a Nord, having Bloodspawn on, and getting ult from using Earthen Heart abilities, you'll have super high ult gen. I'll save you the math, but assuming you are damaged once every second and use Fossilize and Molten Armaments as often as I described above, you're looking at an average total of about 4.7 ult per second--which comes out to 216 stamina per second if you use your ult pretty much instantly. Let's assume you don't and round down to 200 stamina per second. Your potion gives you another 6618 stamina every 45 seconds, for 147 per second. Constitution from one piece of heavy armor gives 27 stamina a second. Subtracting off the 174 stamina per second from using Noxious Breath and including your stamina recovery, you're looking at about 970 stamina regen every second. With that kind of stamina regen, you could literally break free from a stun every 7 seconds (which I believe is the length of cc immunity), and still have 199 stamina per second to work with without even hitting your stamina pool at all. Considering you could run Elusive Mist and/or Purge to deal with snares and immobilizes--and your Magicka sustain would be able to handle using those quite a bit--you could basically use that extra stamina sustain for blocking or sprinting. In other words, for instance, I'm pretty sure you could basically break free from stuns off cooldown, purge or mist off tons of immobilizes and snares, and block an attack every 9 seconds, all while having your stamina bar stay topped off (obviously it wouldn't really stay topped off all the time in the sense that it'd go down and then Battle Roar and potions would top it back up again, but you get the point). And if you did eat at your stamina bar somehow, you'd have 16,619 stamina to work with.

With low magicka and spell power, your tooltip on your heals wouldn't be super strong. But heals basically are all relative to your resistances. Healing a certain amount of damage with zero resistances is much different than healing that same amount when you have 30k resistances. Overall, I'm pretty sure your effective healing would, if anything, actually be slightly stronger than if you built this more for damage.

Conclusion

I think you could build a Dragonknight heavy attack PVP build in no-CP that:

(1) does really strong dot damage in an AOE;
(2) can melt people quick with a Fossilize --> Whip --> Heavy Attack combo (with Leap to finish them off if need be);
(3) has extremely high magicka sustain from being a heavy attack build that procs off balance a lot and also gets magicka back from kills with the heavy attack;
(4) has high enough stamina sustain to break free every time your cc immunity comes off, still have a good bit of stamina sustain left for other things like blocking and dodging, and also an almost 17k stamina pool;
(5) has over 32k spell resistance and 27k physical resistance, and possibly 35k spell resistance and 30k physical resistance on your backbar with defending; and
(6) has almost 23k health.

That seems like a pretty great all around build to me. It would lack extreme burst, in the sense of having 3 things land at once and instantly kill someone. But you could certainly have over 20k damage land on someone reasonably bulky in like a 2.5 second span (for instance, heavy attack on off balance enemy + fossilize damage going off + leap).

_________________________________________


* The only problem with this is that I think one of the posters above is right that Molten Armaments just got bugged in the last patch. Testing it on my character that I'm leveling, it looks like the channeled attacks may only be being buffed by 5% instead of 50%, while the damage on the final attack still gets buffed the full 50%. I assume this is a bug, since there was nothing on it in the patch notes, and I think accidentally doing 5% instead of 50% is probably a pretty easy error to have made.

Sarousse

Knight Slayer is bugged right now, it only procs on NPC.

Major_Lag

Sarousse wrote: »

Knight Slayer is bugged right now, it only procs on NPC.

Thanks, that's nice to know, will save me a bunch of pointless testing

So it looks like UI+UU+Maelstrom lightning staff should be the go-to setup here.

IMO, a good heavy attack build is worth its weight in gold in Cyrodiil primetime... since light/heavy attacks are the only form of damage that works at all reliably in those circumstances.
Ideally it should also be a 1 bar build, because of barswap being frequently impossible as well; or at least it should fall back gracefully to being a 1-bar build if the need arises.

I'll have to try this on my magsorc main - using a magsorc for this is great due to the "free" damage mitigation (pets), and the high mobility also helps a lot.

Bashev

The best setup is Scoria, Torug, VMA lit staff and UI. Back bar charged resto UI.

[Now] That build works well on Sorc, Templar and Warden.

Molten Armaments are bugged right now.

Lotus Flower is also bugged and it doesnt heal on semi-charged channeled heavy attack.

malistorr

Major_Lag said that "lightning HA damage scales very poorly with spell damage".

I was under the impression that it's never been higher/better. What are you basing this statement on? Does damage with 1H or 2H weapons scale better with weapon damage? I'm asking because I honestly don't know. I don't play those types of characters. I'm just a mag sorc. I've just never heard anyone make the above statement before and wanted to know what information/facts it's based on.

Major_Lag

My understanding is that it "scales poorly" because the HA buff sets increase the heavy attack tick damage by a constant value which is not subject to any scaling whatsoever.

So only the base damage of the tick scales, not the bonus. At least, that's how I presume it should be functioning. (needs testing!)

Edit: to clarify, my initial statement about the scaling being poor was meant to apply only to HA buff builds like this one.
On "normal" builds which do not buff HA damage specifically, staff HA damage indeed scales normally with spell damage.

WaltherCarraway

Sergeants mail + Elegance + MLK

malistorr

The heavy attack buff from Sergeants does not work on destruction staves. I tested this myself. If it did work I'd probably be using that set right now. And both IA and UI sets buff HA from dest. staves more than QE. That's been tested by many people.

RiskyChalice863

So there’s a few updates on this:

- Molten Armaments is bugged and definitely isn’t giving a damage boost on anything but the last damage tick of a lightning heavy attack. I thought it was giving 5% instead of 50% on those ticks, but I was forgetting that Molten Armaments gives major sorcery as well, so I think that’s what was giving the small damage boost. I also don’t really think it’s quite giving a 50% boost on the last tick either. It seems like a bit above 40%, which would be consistent with a 40% buff plus major sorcery. I’m not sure the exact issue but it’s definitely bugged—which obviously puts a bit of a damper on a DKs damage with this build at the moment. Hopefully that’ll get fixed.

- Someone in another thread confirmed that Infallible Aether buffs every tick of damage from a lightning heavy attack, not just the last one. Its damage buff to heavy attacks is a bit less damage than Undaunted Unweaver still. But it’s got better other bonuses for damage, and you don’t have to use a stamina ability to proc it. The end result is that the heavy attack damage will be very similar in terms of damage in PVP, but Infallible Aether will buff your other abilities a bit more (two crit bonuses instead of one, and a spell damage bonus), will be less clunky to utilize, and will proc minor vulnerability more. In exchange, Undaunted Unweaver has two stamina bonuses. So Infallible Aether is probably better than Undaunted Unweaver, but it’s much harder to get and the overall difference doesn’t seem like it’d be massive to me. It’s probably more helpful on the DK than the Templar, because the Templar doesn’t really have a problem proccing Undaunted Unweaver, due to having Restoring Focus—which would be a must-have for the build IMO regardless of whether you’re using Undaunted Unweaver or Infallible Aether.

Related to the above, the other thing to note is that for people who can run trials, it may actually be more painless to go with an Infallible Aether + Undaunted Unweaver combo, just because that means you can mix and match sets (since both sets are light armor) and aren’t forced to try to farm the lightning staff and jewelry all from one particular set like you are with Undaunted Infiltrator (since it’s medium armor). That could make getting the fear for this build less time consuming.

RiskyChalice863

I’ve continued having more and more success with this build on my Magplar by the way, including a BG that ranked as probably my most dominant ever. Specifically, I just had a BG with 23 kills, 20 assists, and 1 death. I had another game just before that where I had second most kills in the server, most assists (and overall participated in the most kills), and died zero times while everyone else in the server died multiple times. I’ve also had multiple other pretty good games (things like 2nd or 3rd most kills and 2nd or 3rd most damage in the server, and a few deaths but not a ton, even on losing teams).

There are players for whom the above types of games are possible with essentially any build because they’re just really good. But I want to emphasize that I’m decent but definitely not a great player. The results I’m getting with this build are, for me, very good. I don’t know if it would scale up to be very good for extremely good players. It’s a relatively easy build to get the most out of, but maybe its ceiling isn’t super high. Also, I do wonder if the lack of mobility while channeling would leave one particularly vulnerable in high MMR games. It’d certainly make burst combos a bit easier to land on you.

For me, though, the combination of burst damage on single targets, AOE dot damage, extremely good sustain, and great survivability is just extremely good. And I think the survivability will get even better once I go vampire and get Elusive Mist.

Finally, I’ll note that I’ve tried out dropping Purifying Light and Radiant Oppression and slotting two dots (reflective light and soul splitting trap at the moment, but Structured Entropy is probably even better—I just don’t have it on this character yet). The results have improved thus far. The problem with Radiant Oppression for me was that it’s just really buggy in terms of targeting. It’ll often target someone at like a 45 degree angle from me when I’ve got the cursor directly on someone else who is quite low. And if someone is off balance, heavy attacks don’t do much less damage anyways, and if it targets the wrong person, there’s AOE so they die anyways. I don’t love taking Purifying Light off the bar, but the dots just seem stronger.

Major_Lag

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

I’ve continued having more and more success with this build (...)

...watch out for incoming heavy attack builds nerf???

But more seriously, I think part of the reason is that HA builds are rather uncommon in PvP from what I've seen so far, and repeatedly heavy attacking enemy players is normally seen as a sign of a noob/zergling and not someone who poses any serious threat.

Also the counterplay options are quite limited:

• blocking will eat your resources really quickly (unless you're a tank),
• shields will melt like butter under that kind of pressure,
• IIRC, roll dodge does not work against channeled HAs, and even if it did you could only dodge some of the ticks.

TL;dr - the combination of significant damage output and massive sustain is quite OP.

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

So Infallible Aether is probably better than Undaunted Unweaver, but it’s much harder to get and the overall difference doesn’t seem like it’d be massive to me. It’s probably more helpful on the DK than the Templar, because the Templar doesn’t really have a problem proccing Undaunted Unweaver, due to having Restoring Focus—which would be a must-have for the build IMO regardless of whether you’re using Undaunted Unweaver or Infallible Aether.

On a magsorc I'd probably use Hurricane to proc UU buff, and get Major Exp from RAT instead, this would give me Minor+Major Exp.
Also NBs REALLY hate Hurricane, so it's all good

(edit: oops typo)

RiskyChalice863

Major_Lag wrote: »

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

I’ve continued having more and more success with this build (...)

...watch out for incoming heavy attack builds nerf???

But more seriously, I think part of the reason is that HA builds are rather uncommon in PvP from what I've seen so far, and repeatedly heavy attacking enemy players is normally seen as a sign of a noob/zergling and not someone who poses any serious threat.

Also the counterplay options are quite limited:

• blocking will eat your resources really quickly (unless you're a tank),
• shields will melt like butter under that kind of pressure,
• IIRC, roll dodge does not work against channeled HAs, and even if it did you could only dodge some of the ticks.

TL;dr - the combination of significant damage output and massive sustain is quite OP.

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

So Infallible Aether is probably better than Undaunted Unweaver, but it’s much harder to get and the overall difference doesn’t seem like it’d be massive to me. It’s probably more helpful on the DK than the Templar, because the Templar doesn’t really have a problem proccing Undaunted Unweaver, due to having Restoring Focus—which would be a must-have for the build IMO regardless of whether you’re using Undaunted Unweaver or Infallible Aether.

On a magsorc I'd probably use Hurricane to proc UU buff, and get Major Exp from RAT instead, this would give me Minor+Major Exp.
Also NBs REALLY hate Hurricane, so it's all good

(edit: oops typo)

Haha, yeah one of the things I get great joy out of from this build is thinking about how confused people must be when they see something like 12k damage from a heavy attack in the death recap in a BG. They must be so confused, because you'd think someone is a real n00b if all you see them doing is basically using Toppling Charge and then heavy attacking. And you'd be so confused when they melt you.

As for Hurricane, I think it's right that that's the right move to proc UU on a Sorc. The anti-nightblade aspect of it is actually really good. Probably the biggest thing I've had real trouble with on this build is good nightblades. Against bad nightblades, I can just survive some initial burst, stun them with Toppling Charge, and then delete them immediately because they are really squishy. Against the good ones, they just put me on the defensive right away with an attack/stun from stealth, and while I can typically survive their initial attack, I use up a lot of magicka healing up, and then when I toppling charge into a heavy attack, they break free and then go into stealth typically before the heavy attack ends (meaning no magicka return from the heavy attack). And then they just rinse and repeat, and they eventually wear me down. The very best ones I've come across also fear me the moment I use Toppling Charge on them, even if I stun them with it. I think they must be using Manifestation of Terror to do that, otherwise I don't understand how I get feared the moment I stun them. The big issue, though, is basically that they just go into stealth before I can get the kill, and my current incarnation of the build has nothing to get them out of stealth, so they can just keep wearing me down. It's enough of an issue that I'm thinking, in games where there are good nightblades, I might slot Radiant Magelight on my front bar, or maybe Solar Barrage, or use detect potions or poisons. Hurricane is good counter too.

RiskyChalice863

Reading the preview of the next update, it sounds like Warden’s Dive ability is now going to set people off balance if they’re more than 12 meters away. This would instantly make Warden a very good choice for this kind of build IMO. They’d become the other class that could reliably proc off balance at range. They also already have strong synergy for this with Lotus Blossom healing and with the ability to get pretty high flat boosts to damage by slotting Bird of Prey and other Animal Companions abilities. I think the combo might just be for the Magden to use Cutting Dive to proc both off balance and Undaunted Unweaver and proc Undaunted Infiltrator with whatever magicka ability you want to use in your combo (Fetcher Infection, Arctic Blast, Deep Fissure, etc.).

The Warden would have a lot of strong healing while using this and would be able to melt people from afar better than any other build due to the ability to proc off balance from afar. But they’d struggle a bit to do lots of damage in a fight up close, because they’d still have no great way to proc off balance (though they could try using a Charged staff and Wall of Elements for that purpose). So you’d need to play it quite a bit differently than I play this with my Magplar (which is really aggressive, constantly jumping at people with Toppling Charge). It could turn out to be the most powerful class for the build though, if Molten Armaments stays bugged.

Sergykid

never had problems against people that heavy attack, they just become easy targets. During the channel of ur HA i can do much dmg to u or CC u. And the 15k dmg on a HA is 5-6k in pvp, while during 3 sec will result in a max 2k dps while making u vulnerable.

Basically it's just an easy way for zerglings to be half useful from a safe distance.

RiskyChalice863

Sergykid wrote: »

never had problems against people that heavy attack, they just become easy targets. During the channel of ur HA i can do much dmg to u or CC u. And the 15k dmg on a HA is 5-6k in pvp, while during 3 sec will result in a max 2k dps while making u vulnerable.

Basically it's just an easy way for zerglings to be half useful from a safe distance.

I think you’re vastly underestimating the damage this can do. With the Undaunted Infiltrator and Undaunted Unweaver sets, you can easily build 15k base damage on your lightning heavy attack in no-CP while building a decent bit of defense into your build as well. When you proc off balance, that goes up 70% to about 25,500. Your heavy attack will also proc your enchant, for an additional 2339 damage. That’s about 27,839 base damage over the course of one lightning heavy attack. A heavy attack lasts 2.2 seconds, so that’s the equivalent of 12,654 base damage per second—again, in no-CP. That’s a lot. For comparison, that’s roughly equivalent to the damage per second of Puncturing Sweeps plus its Burning Light procs, except it gains you magicka back instead of costing magicka, and is easier to land all the damage (though, of course, Sweeps heals you and has a 70% snare).

How much damage does that actually amount to on people in no-CP? Well let’s assume we’re facing someone who has 20,000 spell resistance—not the peak people get in no-CP, of course, but also not at all low—and all impenetrable gear. You can easily get the base damage I mentioned while going for sharpened weapons and The Lover Mundus Stone, so you would have 10,292 penetration. That means the enemy would effectively have 9708 resistances, or 14.71%. Combined with the 50% from battle spirit, and the 27,839 base damage becomes 11,872 damage. But you will also get crits. Your crit rate can easily be 33.7% just from the gear itself, major prophecy, and light armor. I’m doing this on a Magplar, so my crit damage in no-CP is 60%. With an enemy in all impen gear, that would actually be 35.5% crit damage. A 33.7% chance of getting 35.5% extra damage amounts to about a 12% average damage boost. So that gets the average damage up to 13,292 damage. And if you’ve got a shock enchant, then 40% of the time, you’ll also have applied minor vulnerability immediately, so that would go up to 14,356 damage. Since heavy attacks last 2.2 seconds, that’s basically 6000-6500 dps. Way more than the “max 2k dps” you suggested.

It is certainly true that it makes you vulnerable, though. And, for the moment at least, you can’t reliably proc off balance in PVP without being up close, so you do have to get in the thick of things and then make yourself relatively vulnerable by not blocking and also having a lower movement speed while channeling. So that’s definitely a trade off, and it’s a trade off that similarly justifies why Puncturing Sweeps does so much damage. But you simply can’t argue that it’s not a lot of damage. I’ll also note that it doesn’t make you that vulnerable, in the sense that you don’t absolutely need to finish the channel to get your damage. You get damage throughout the channel, so if you see you need to block something during your heavy attack, you can still do so without losing damage. You only lose out on the magicka recovery from a fully charged heavy attack.

Major_Lag

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

For comparison, that’s roughly equivalent to the damage per second of Puncturing Sweeps plus its Burning Light procs, except it gains you magicka back instead of costing magicka, and is easier to land all the damage (though, of course, Sweeps heals you and has a 70% snare).

The importance of this cannot possibly be overstated. Roughly similar damage but it GIVES you resources back.

Also Sweeps is melee range, whereas staff HA is a max range attack.
In solo situations it hardly matters, but when in a group that can make quite a difference.

Sergykid

got any video against a decent pvper that you own him?

The_Lex

....and now the forum PvP begins. It was only a matter of time.

RiskyChalice863

Sergykid wrote: »

got any video against a decent pvper that you own him?

I don’t have any videos of me playing this. And I’m not sure that I could own a really good PVPer. I’m a decent player but not a great one, so even with a good build, I’m not going to own really good players. In more drawn out fights, I make a lot of mistakes. I tend to assume that anyone I do own can’t actually be a great player.

Anyways, I’d say anecdotally a few things:

- I’ve had a few BG games with this where there was someone who was really good and just dominating the server, and I have either been the only person to actually kill that person including in 1v1 situations (think a game where someone has like 25 kills and 3 deaths and all three deaths came from me), or forced the person into several long fights that I eventually lost but had almost won or where one of us always runs away eventually. That may not sound like much, but for me to actually go toe to toe with really dominant players and maybe only fall a little short is an accomplishment. There’s no build where I’d own those people—I’m just not good enough yet.

- The thing I probably have the most trouble with is good nightblades. It’s really the only class where a good player will consistently actually get the better of me. They put me on the back foot with an attack from stealth (often with an assassination ult), fear trap me when I try to toppling charge them, and stealth away briefly when I do actually damage them a bunch—often before I finish my heavy attack, meaning no magicka restore. I just eventually get worn down. I’m thinking that I’ll slot Radiant Magelight or maybe Solar Barrage when there’s a good nightblade so that I can actually press my advantage more easily without having them stealth and reset the fight. I’ve not tried it out yet, but I think that would help a lot. They could still shade away, I suppose, but I think they’d put a lot less pressure on me if they relied on shading away when I got them low.

- The only other thing I’ve had real trouble with is bursty stam builds using Dizzying Swing. But I’ve not had a huge problem with them ever since I added 1 piece Lord Warden, 1 piece Pirate Skeleton to the build and put impen on most of my gear. And any problems I do have are mostly a l2p issue, I think, because I’m just not great at reacting to Dizzying Swing to prevent the stun. With that said, this build probably is a little susceptible to those builds since it’s easier to line up a DS on someone who is channeling an ability and therefore moving slower. Again though, I only had real problems on an earlier inferior incarnation of the build. Right now, I’d say most of my deaths to those people just come from having desynced.