Magblade builds

Deathlord92

I’m still playing around with magblade builds and I haven’t finished yet. What is better for magblade high spell damage or max magic? I’m currently running high spell damage but my survivability is really bad even for magblade I think 😭

Deathlord92

This question is directed at pvp but if there’s any pvers in here I plan to try that to.

Noctus

i advice going stamblade

Deathlord92

Noctus wrote: »

i advice going stamblade

I have for 6 years and now I want to play magblade finding it very weak this patch I have played it in the past finding it very difficult this patch finding something that works.

hakan

for pvp? war maiden and sustain set. bright throat or maybe shacklebreaker.

and the usual caluurion set.

biminirwb17_ESO

I go for high magic, my Magblade has 50k. My reason is every skill I use needs it and if I run out I am ded.

Danksta

I would think stacking max mag would be more beneficial because of the 8% max mag from class passives. But that's just a guess and not based off testing.

fred4

I run high magicka on my warden in CP, e.g. 50K+. It's a pure stat-based build using just Alfiq, Necropotence, Wild Hunt and 1x Domihaus. Slot Inner Light, Dampen Magic and a Siphoning skill. This approach definitely works for magicka builds in general and magblade at least has the +8% magicka passive from Siphoning.

I know other people who build for spell damage, in which case you probably want War Maiden with a Stygian back bar and possibly a Master's destro front bar as well as - I'm guessing - Simmering Frenzy. I don't play this, but Elemental Weapon into Clench is a fairly powerful opener and your spectral bow should hit hard. I don't know what defense is like on this kind of build. Probably bad.

Then there are proc builds. Some people use Kjalnar and, aside from the guy in the other thread we both participated in, Blobsky - a long-standing EU magblade main - put up a YouTube video fairly recently with such a build.

For my own part, I'm a frustrated stamina player who likes a fast, close up visceral playstyle, but also loves magblade's ability to perma-cloak. I move around in cloak by default. Concealed Weapon + Wild Hunt + Swift puts your speed on par with dodge-rolling bow stamina builds. My objective has been to make that playstyle work on a magblade. My current build is here:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=269881

My first priority, dating back to when I was a PvP noob, was always perma-cloak sustain. I have to break even with my magicka during cloak and, these days, have the magicka to cast cast RAT in cloak as well. There is just so much freedom that comes with that. You're always at full speed. You can always bypass NPC guards completely. You never have to wait to recoup your magicka. It's kind of a short-attention-span playstyle as well as an opportunistic one. I sacrifice attack power for this, but I'm typically in the right place and ready when an opponent is low health.

In order to sustain cloak outside of combat you need to pay attention to your idle magicka regen and cloak skill cost, which is not the same as in-combat regen. I've written about this before. TL;DR: This is why I'm a Breton, am using cost reduction enchants - not magicka recovery, am wearing 6x light armor, using a high-regen drink (Ghastly), am slotting Barrier on the back bar and am using Siphoning Attacks.

I have experimented with Eternal Hunt and Hissmir Fisheye Rye in the past, e.g. high stam regen options for dodge rolling. At the end of the day I went back to slotting Dampen and felt noticeably tankier, however I feel stamina sustain is still important. In CP, with around 12.5K stamina, I prefer some stamina sustain over a higher pool. For my playstyle I need either high stam regen (1.2K) without Dampen or just over default stam regen (800) with Dampen. I currently play the latter option and a Meridia's Blessed Armor back bar. That set is pretty fantastic to get you out of trouble without putting a Shadow Image up. If you haven't looked at it lately, examine how it's been revised. It really suits magblade. It's particularly good against small-scalers. Where it can let you down is against organised groups who put out a lot of AOE.

My offense is based around Caluurion. The main combo is Cloak -> Elemental Weapon -> Light Attack -> Soul Harvest -> Fear (Caluurion). I used Lotus Fan in the past, which plays nicely, but the damage from an Elemental Weapon combo is much better, not least because Caluurion gets buffed by Soul Harvest in that combo, whereas when you open with Lotus Fan it doesn't. It's still not particularly strong burst. You will not successfully gank decent / tanky players with this, but the build plays well in open world in general.

I'm currently wearing just stat pieces to pad out the rest of the build, but you could wear Zaan or Balorgh with this. I just wanted the extra magicka and stamina. If you don't care for Meridia's, then Bright-Throat is probably the best option. That set gives you magicka for better shields and it's 5-piece bonus counts towards idle magicka regen whereas most set bonuses don't. This gives you some flexibility. You can reach 40K+ magicka with Ghastly and use 1x stamina recovery enchant on jewelry without sacrificing your perma-cloak sustain. Another interesting option is a potion cooldown extension glyph, which actually works out at +4.6 seconds (not the 3.6 indicated by the tooltip) and brings immovability to 15s and detection to 20s from a potion, increasing your "I don't need stamina" window. On the other hand you can switch to Hissmir Fisheye Rye with Bright-Throat's without completely compromising your magicka, which gives you something like 1.3K stamina regen.

Potions are a tossup between Immovable / Detection / Magicka or Major Sorcery / Detection / Magicka. I prefer the former on the whole, so no Major Sorcery in the build. The final touch is that Infused Restore Health enchant. The idea is that between Siphoning Attacks, Swallow Soul and the enchant you can stay on attack a little longer. This works sometimes. Notably you tend to win in a straight face-off with a jabbing magplar, if the magplar isn't quite full CP or simply not built as aggressive as it should be.

fred4

If you just want a stat-based build, consider a compromise like:

Necropotence (requires Shadow Image) (or Alfiq or Bright-Throat)
3x Ancient Grace
Master's flame staff front bar
Willpower back bar
Monster set of choice

Drawback: Can't fit mythic, but this is kind of the best of both worlds. Willpower + Ancient Grace is almost the same as Alfiq. You'll probably have Inner Light on the front bar, Dampen on the back bar and magicka roughly balanced between the two bars, while your spell damage will come from the Master's staff and Simmering Frenzy (if you're a vampire).

Deathlord92

fred4 wrote: »

I run high magicka on my warden in CP, e.g. 50K+. It's a pure stat-based build using just Alfiq, Necropotence, Wild Hunt and 1x Domihaus. Slot Inner Light, Dampen Magic and a Siphoning skill. This approach definitely works for magicka builds in general and magblade at least has the +8% magicka passive from Siphoning.

I know other people who build for spell damage, in which case you probably want War Maiden with a Stygian back bar and possibly a Master's destro front bar as well as - I'm guessing - Simmering Frenzy. I don't play this, but Elemental Weapon into Clench is a fairly powerful opener and your spectral bow should hit hard. I don't know what defense is like on this kind of build. Probably bad.

Then there are proc builds. Some people use Kjalnar and, aside from the guy in the other thread we both participated in, Blobsky - a long-standing EU magblade main - put up a YouTube video fairly recently with such a build.

For my own part, I'm a frustrated stamina player who likes a fast, close up visceral playstyle, but also loves magblade's ability to perma-cloak. I move around in cloak by default. Concealed Weapon + Wild Hunt + Swift puts your speed on par with dodge-rolling bow stamina builds. My objective has been to make that playstyle work on a magblade. My current build is here:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=269881

My first priority, dating back to when I was a PvP noob, was always perma-cloak sustain. I have to break even with my magicka during cloak and, these days, have the magicka to cast cast RAT in cloak as well. There is just so much freedom that comes with that. You're always at full speed. You can always bypass NPC guards completely. You never have to wait to recoup your magicka. It's kind of a short-attention-span playstyle as well as an opportunistic one. I sacrifice attack power for this, but I'm typically in the right place and ready when an opponent is low health.

In order to sustain cloak outside of combat you need to pay attention to your idle magicka regen and cloak skill cost, which is not the same as in-combat regen. I've written about this before. TL;DR: This is why I'm a Breton, am using cost reduction enchants - not magicka recovery, am wearing 6x light armor, using a high-regen drink (Ghastly), am slotting Barrier on the back bar and am using Siphoning Attacks.

I have experimented with Eternal Hunt and Hissmir Fisheye Rye in the past, e.g. high stam regen options for dodge rolling. At the end of the day I went back to slotting Dampen and felt noticeably tankier, however I feel stamina sustain is still important. In CP, with around 12.5K stamina, I prefer some stamina sustain over a higher pool. For my playstyle I need either high stam regen (1.2K) without Dampen or just over default stam regen (800) with Dampen. I currently play the latter option and a Meridia's Blessed Armor back bar. That set is pretty fantastic to get you out of trouble without putting a Shadow Image up. If you haven't looked at it lately, examine how it's been revised. It really suits magblade. It's particularly good against small-scalers. Where it can let you down is against organised groups who put out a lot of AOE.

My offense is based around Caluurion. The main combo is Cloak -> Elemental Weapon -> Light Attack -> Soul Harvest -> Fear (Caluurion). I used Lotus Fan in the past, which plays nicely, but the damage from an Elemental Weapon combo is much better, not least because Caluurion gets buffed by Soul Harvest in that combo, whereas when you open with Lotus Fan it doesn't. It's still not particularly strong burst. You will not successfully gank decent / tanky players with this, but the build plays well in open world in general.

I'm currently wearing just stat pieces to pad out the rest of the build, but you could wear Zaan or Balorgh with this. I just wanted the extra magicka and stamina. If you don't care for Meridia's, then Bright-Throat is probably the best option. That set gives you magicka for better shields and it's 5-piece bonus counts towards idle magicka regen whereas most set bonuses don't. This gives you some flexibility. You can reach 40K+ magicka with Ghastly and use 1x stamina recovery enchant on jewelry without sacrificing your perma-cloak sustain. Another interesting option is a potion cooldown extension glyph, which actually works out at +4.6 seconds (not the 3.6 indicated by the tooltip) and brings immovability to 15s and detection to 20s from a potion, increasing your "I don't need stamina" window. On the other hand you can switch to Hissmir Fisheye Rye with Bright-Throat's without completely compromising your magicka, which gives you something like 1.3K stamina regen.

Potions are a tossup between Immovable / Detection / Magicka or Major Sorcery / Detection / Magicka. I prefer the former on the whole, so no Major Sorcery in the build. The final touch is that Infused Restore Health enchant. The idea is that between Siphoning Attacks, Swallow Soul and the enchant you can stay on attack a little longer. This works sometimes. Notably you tend to win in a straight face-off with a jabbing magplar, if the magplar isn't quite full CP or simply not built as aggressive as it should be.

Thx for taking the time to write this mate appreciate it and I was actually thinking about trying ghastly buff drink next to hhhh take its the same as lave with the attributes 25 health 39 mag?

fred4

You're trying to make up for the missing health? In my current build I recoup some of that by wearing all Hakeijo, 1x / 2x Trainee and I have 4 attribute points in health. I've played with as low as 21K and as high as 25K in CP, e.g. by switching to Witchmother's. I will not lie. The higher health is nice. You're less likely to get burst. On the other hand sustain - particularly the idle sustain from Ghastly - is paramount for me personally and the damage of my build is so low, aside from Caluurion, that health is where I compromise. At the end of the day I feel that nightblade is about damage avoidance, therefore the size of your health pool is sort of irrelevant (but I am not a vampire). However, I won't go under 21K in CP and I have a really hard counter to burst in my current build by simply holding block on the back bar and activating Meridia's.

When it comes to choosing between health and magicka, I tend choose magicka. The exception is where an item is really stat-efficient, such as Hakeijo enchats, Triune jewelry and the Trainee set. That's where I like to get my health from. My current 4 attribute points in health are leftover from before I was wearing Trainee. I might move them into magicka. This is obviously for the bigger shields and damage. That said, IMO shields really only pay off once you get into the 45K+ magicka range and Dampen exceeds 10K in CP. Those are the kind of shields you IMO need to fight outside of cloak - and probably Dark Cloak. It's how my magden operates. At my magblade's level of magicka, 33K, Dampen is only ever a bandaid, used in conjuction with Healing Ward, dodge rolls and Meridia's to get me safely away and into cloak.

fred4

Just a note to say all my experience is from CP, especially when it comes to shielding builds. I believe a CP300+ character gets +20% stats. That multiplier is missing in no CP nor do you have the Bastion CP star there, yet the +20% spell damage from Major Sorcery remains available. My guess is that no CP favors spell damage-based builds or more than likely proc builds, e.g. Caluurion.