What is going on with magblade rotation?

Glelirm

I just reactivated after over a year break, and have always played a magblade. And I couldn't be more disappointed coming back. The most optimal PvE rotation currently consists of maintaining 5 DoTs and 3 buffs, which means 8 out of your 10 abilities are a timer you have to keep track of, all on top of making sure you fire off assassin's will every 5th auto. This is the furthest thing from fun.I play on PC, and I don't even get to enjoy any boss fight because my eyes are glued to 8 ticking bars on my screen keeping track of when I need to refresh something. It isn't overly difficult with PC addons, but I couldn't even imagine doing this on console. Please note this isn't a "qq my damage isn't good enough post." I do fine in that department. It is just simply the rotation feels awful to play. I doubt it'll happen, but fingers are crossed this gets some attention next expansion. Like seriously, even dropping one or preferably two of these from the most optimal rotation would go such a long way.

I don't browse the forums often, so apologies if this has been brought up before. But I figure any amount of noise to the subject couldn't hurt. Curious to hear if other magblades agree, or if this is just me?

zvavi

I mean... A lot of skills are now on 10 seconds timer, your bow proc is in 5 gcd timer, if anything magblade is now plain...

Nevasca

You don't need 5 dots. The damage you gain from Degeneration is very minimal, you can safely drop it, unless you are counting shade as a dot, I don't consider a dot due to the high duration. Magblade since I can remember always used Crippling, Trap beast (now Barbed Trap), Twisting Path and Blockade. 4 dots since forever.

Tip: You can drop crippling grasp and lose like 500 DPS for a more comfortable rotation. You could also switch to Stamblade and use 3 dots: Endless Hail, Barbed Trap and Shade. Rendering/P.Injection/Soul Trap are very optinal.

Glelirm

Littlebluelizard wrote: »

You don't need 5 dots. The damage you gain from Degeneration is very minimal, you can safely drop it, unless you are counting shade as a dot, I don't consider a dot due to the high duration. Magblade since I can remember always used Crippling, Trap beast (now Barbed Trap), Twisting Path and Blockade. 4 dots since forever.

Tip: You can drop crippling grasp and lose like 500 DPS for a more comfortable rotation. You could also switch to Stamblade and use 3 dots: Endless Hail, Barbed Trap and Shade. Rendering/P.Injection/Soul Trap are very optinal.

Trust me. I wish I could play stamblade, as it looks far more fun to me. But based on the logs, they are performing comically bad in trials right now. And while you are correct they always had a lot of dots, this was somewhat justified by the fact they were top DPS. This is no longer the case, and shade/orb were introduced to the rotation. It is just too many for the payoff. Mag dks and mag/stamcros are far easier to play for what you get currently. Sorcs are even easier than that when they are meta. If they don't want magblade as top dps, fine. But add some QoL stuff so you don't have to put in 2x the work of everyone else for mediocre damage.

Faulgor

Glelirm wrote: »

This is the furthest thing from fun.I play on PC, and I don't even get to enjoy any boss fight because my eyes are glued to 8 ticking bars on my screen keeping track of when I need to refresh something. It isn't overly difficult with PC addons, but I couldn't even imagine doing this on console. Please note this isn't a "qq my damage isn't good enough post." I do fine in that department. It is just simply the rotation feels awful to play.

Word. I almost made a topic about this a few weeks ago, maybe I should have.

All dynamic rotations with a few exceptions (Stamplar with Power of the Light, Magsorc with Crystal Fragments) suck, because they have no in-game cues. I refuse to have to rely on addons, which means I haven't really played Nightblades since they removed Haste for Grim Focus ... looking at timers in your HUD also goes against the original design philosophy of having a clean UI that doesn't distract from the game world.

Seriously, why is there no proper visual or audio cue when Grim Focus hits 4/5 stacks? Same for Bound Armaments - why is the only visual cue transparent purple floating daggers that become nigh invisible in front of my Hurricane and other effects? And that's just the proc skills, not even the DoTs.
It's just really sloppy game design.

Kahnak

Glelirm wrote: »

Littlebluelizard wrote: »

You don't need 5 dots. The damage you gain from Degeneration is very minimal, you can safely drop it, unless you are counting shade as a dot, I don't consider a dot due to the high duration. Magblade since I can remember always used Crippling, Trap beast (now Barbed Trap), Twisting Path and Blockade. 4 dots since forever.

Tip: You can drop crippling grasp and lose like 500 DPS for a more comfortable rotation. You could also switch to Stamblade and use 3 dots: Endless Hail, Barbed Trap and Shade. Rendering/P.Injection/Soul Trap are very optinal.

Trust me. I wish I could play stamblade, as it looks far more fun to me. But based on the logs, they are performing comically bad in trials right now. And while you are correct they always had a lot of dots, this was somewhat justified by the fact they were top DPS. This is no longer the case, and shade/orb were introduced to the rotation. It is just too many for the payoff. Mag dks and mag/stamcros are far easier to play for what you get currently. Sorcs are even easier than that when they are meta. If they don't want magblade as top dps, fine. But add some QoL stuff so you don't have to put in 2x the work of everyone else for mediocre damage.

I think the only reason the logs for Stamblade look so bad right now is because all of the meta-chasers that were previously playing Stamblade are now playing Stam Necromancer because Stamblade is no longer top dog. In relation to other classes damage potential, it's not nearly that bad, but it's certainly not where it used to be.

Magblade is actually in a pretty good spot right now. Your issue with the rotation has been my issue with NB since I've started playing the game - I don't find a rotation based around Merciless Resolve/Relentless Focus particularly fun or rewarding. Right now there are options that are more effective and simpler to play. That being said, I have a feeling that the release of Greymoor will address some of the current issues with NB, because there are a lot of people that are unhappy with their performance in PvP and in PvE. While I'll agree that they could use a buff, as someone who started his ESO experience playing Mag Sorc in PvE, I'm not particularly bothered by the fact that someone else is occupying the bottom rung this time 'round.

Anyone that has played MMO's for an extended period of time understands that classes get buffed and others get nerfed and I myself can adapt pretty easily by simply choosing another class to play. I realize that's not the case for everyone. NB has spent an entire chapter in it's current state - it has done it's time. For something that I would classify as an 'advanced class', I believe that a difficult or complex rotation should be rewarded with subsequent efficacy and increased damage potential relative to other classes that are more accessible to the average player. I fully expect to see them receive a juicy buff when the Greymoor PTS is released.