Magicka Templar vs Nightblade vs Dragonknight

kmfdm

I've been playing Stamina Warden DD for a few years now, but the situation seems hopeless, I cant reach single target boss dps of other classes no matter how hard I try--and based on the DPS rankings, the class is about 20% worse than the mean dps of all classes. I've been thinking of rerolling a new character to Magicka Templar, Nightblade, or Dragonknight.
I'd like to ask, which of the three is the most flexible one in terms of switching between various modes (trials, dungeons, and solo) without needing to constantly respec morphs, and in terms of the enjoyment of the rotation, if that can be even objectified (for instance, warden rotation is quite fun).

Luke_Flamesword

With constant changes to fundamental mechanics, you can say what's good today, but you never know what will be after couple months Even one new set adjusted to specific class can completely change meta. I advice you to just analyze every class skill just to see with what you will dealing and pick class which looks most fun to you

fred4

I'm a PvPer, so my information is second hand. That said, the last I saw on YouTube recently, magblade is currently top of the heap.

Drdeath20

Dont reroll as a magblade bcz they are fun and have awesome skills. You wont ever want to play your warden again. Reroll as a maplar or magdk, it will make you appreciate your warden more

Everest_Lionheart

Magplar is the easiest to learn. You have 1 bar builds that will work fine in solo or 4 man dungeons. The 2 bar builds for trial and vet dungeons are easy enough to use as well. Rotations are easy, spam sweeps all day and recast dots/AOE’s. The drawback to magplar is that it’s just a little too easy. To reach top end DPS you’ll need elemental weapon from psijic (more on this later) and ele weapon is tough to get the timing. Still it’s as easy a rotation gets with minimal switching of skills to play all content.

MagDK hits way harder than magplar and the rotation is a little more involved. It requires more bar swaps and is a bit more dynamic. You will also have to play in melee range which will feel familiar to you Stamden (I also main Stamden by the way.) The drawback to MagDK and it’s play style is that you will be in melee range wearing light armour with a low stam pool which means more shields/mitigation to stay in the fight. This is a drain on you mag pool which is the other difficulty with MagDK and that is sustain. For that you’ll want skills like spell symmetry which trades hp for mag meaning you’ve really got to keep an eye on all 3 of your pools because of you hit that skill at the wrong time you are dead. A group with strong heals you don’t have to worry, but it’s a skill I barely use outside of trials. In dungeons I would rather slot an extra heal or volatile armour in place for more mitigation. With MagDK you may want to switch your spamable from trials to solo/4man setups. I use whip in trials but all other content use burning embers. I also use skills like molten armaments outside of trials and talons when I’m solo. I also parse with beast trap but use channel accel in content. I play with introspection when I solo also because it’s often strong enough to heal through most dmg while recovering mag.

Can’t comment on magblade. I play stamblade and love it but the rotation is harder. I’ve heard magblade rotation is tough as well.

Now here’s the rub on mag toons whichever you pick. Grinding mages and psijic guilds skill lines can be a nightmare. You need all the books from your alliance zone plus about 4 other zones to max out the skill line. And psijic you need to run the quest line which is basically a world tour of Tamriel searching for a bunch of portals. The little skull thing that is your companion for the whole this is funny, but the quest line is a real drag. Now you could just grind for skills, but honestly you should get them to 10 for passives for things like extra mag, reduced cost and bonus dmg for those skills. With add ons you can get the books fast. If you are on console like me get a companion app or have fun googling it all. Psijic try to get a guildie to taxi you to all the wayshrines to grab the portals. After the 3rd or 4th quest you can see the devs got lazy and put the portals close to wayshrines. The first couple though you gonna be running a lot, hope you have your mount upgraded!

Anyway good luck whatever you choose!

kmfdm

Thank you, that is exactly the kind of information I needed.

Firstmep

Actually stamden is going to do pretty well amingst Stam dds next patch.

kmfdm

Firstmep wrote: »

Actually stamden is going to do pretty well amingst Stam dds next patch.

Firstmep wrote: »

Actually stamden is going to do pretty well amingst Stam dds next patch.

Really? What are they changing?

Qbiken

If you´re talking in terms of PvE, magicka nightblade as been top tier for years now and I don´t see anything drastic changing for them in the next update. So if you want a safe choice, magicka nightblade is a safe and easy playable choice (don´t listen to the players saying magblade is hard to play in PvE due to merciless bow proc mechanic, it´s not as much rocket science as people claim it to be).

And stamden is really good next patch for PvE.

kmfdm

Qbiken wrote: »

If you´re talking in terms of PvE, magicka nightblade as been top tier for years now and I don´t see anything drastic changing for them in the next update. So if you want a safe choice, magicka nightblade is a safe and easy playable choice (don´t listen to the players saying magblade is hard to play in PvE due to merciless bow proc mechanic, it´s not as much rocket science as people claim it to be).

And stamden is really good next patch for PvE.

Yes, I decided to try magblade. I had a stamblade leveled up with all the guilds finished, I just spent a race token and its basically ready for action right now. Anyway, what is actually changing with the stamden (2H) in the next patch? I cant find any information on that.

zvavi

kmfdm wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

Actually stamden is going to do pretty well amingst Stam dds next patch.

Firstmep wrote: »

Actually stamden is going to do pretty well amingst Stam dds next patch.

Really? What are they changing?

Sub assault will hit twice every cast, essentially adding a spammable in rotation every 6 seconds, which is a pure dps gain.

BXR_Lonestar

I'd play as a magknight or a magblade. Magplars are really strong right now, but unfortunately, when the 3 second cooldowns for AOE's come out for live, that is going to represent a significant nerf to DPS templars, and its going to require a rework in order to make them viable again for the dps role.

VoidCommander

Stamplars next patch will be hitting 95k dps by using dawnbreaker, jabs, and barbed trap, all on a single bar. I dodn’t believe it until I tested it out for myself. I am changing my main magplar to a stamplar next patch for the first time ever in the 6 years I’ve played. Turns out Deadly + Advancing yokuda + selenes is broken as hell.

IneedaDollar

So here is my opinion on that topic in general.
What class you should play depends on the content and the level of play you are aiming for.
1. Doing vet Content: Play whatever you like! It realy doesn't matter as long as you know how to play your class.
Stamina Warden is perfectly fine. There's no DPS spec currently in the game that is too bad to be played.
2. Doing HM Trials and Triple achievements: Have at least one mag and one stamina DD to adapt to the meta or be able to race change your current character.
Adding a Magblade is definetly a good choice but other magicka classes are perfectly fine as well.
3. Going for score push: Your guild will ask you to play a big variety of classes and specs so having every class available is a good idea.

Vevvev

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

With MagDK you may want to switch your spamable from trials to solo/4man setups. I use whip in trials but all other content use burning embers.

Could also have an ally that can apply off balance to foes and go with Flame Lash. Every cast of Power Lash deals more damage for half the cost, and it also heals you making the light armor at melee range not as bad. Since it deals flame damage it can proc burning which gives 500 magicka back as well.

Everest_Lionheart

Vevvev wrote: »

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

With MagDK you may want to switch your spamable from trials to solo/4man setups. I use whip in trials but all other content use burning embers.

Could also have an ally that can apply off balance to foes and go with Flame Lash. Every cast of Power Lash deals more damage for half the cost, and it also heals you making the light armor at melee range not as bad. Since it deals flame damage it can proc burning which gives 500 magicka back as well.

I running molten whip, haven’t tried the flame lash morph. For me the only time health gets sketchy is when we run 3DD and one tank in vet trials where I will slot coagulated blood for the emergency heals. We mess around a lot and try all running the same class sometimes. Managed vMoS with 4DK the other night. 2 mag DD, 1 stam DD and DK tank. Only the indrick boss kept tripping us up because it was buggy. Same group we did vet Frostvault with 4 wardens. Stam dd, mag dd, tank and healer. Fun group to test the limits of certain classes with.

Vevvev

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

With MagDK you may want to switch your spamable from trials to solo/4man setups. I use whip in trials but all other content use burning embers.

Could also have an ally that can apply off balance to foes and go with Flame Lash. Every cast of Power Lash deals more damage for half the cost, and it also heals you making the light armor at melee range not as bad. Since it deals flame damage it can proc burning which gives 500 magicka back as well.

I running molten whip, haven’t tried the flame lash morph. For me the only time health gets sketchy is when we run 3DD and one tank in vet trials where I will slot coagulated blood for the emergency heals. We mess around a lot and try all running the same class sometimes. Managed vMoS with 4DK the other night. 2 mag DD, 1 stam DD and DK tank. Only the indrick boss kept tripping us up because it was buggy. Same group we did vet Frostvault with 4 wardens. Stam dd, mag dd, tank and healer. Fun group to test the limits of certain classes with.

Understandable, its just the Flame Lash morph to me is the sustain version with Molten Whip as the pure DPS version. Flame Lash can outperform Molten Whip but it requires a constant stream of off balance, stunned, or immobilized foes to constantly proc Power Lash. I recommend trying it out sometime and seeing whether you like it or not.

oscarovegren

https://youtu.be/F_zL90HMeR8

Stamden damage in PvE is skyrocketing next patch. 114k DPS

FrancisCrawford

I'm trying to understand the argument that Magplar with Sweeps is easy, but Mag DK has the disadvantage of requiring you to be in melee range. Huh????

Also, true soloing with a Magplar is harder than it sounds, because blocking and the channeled skill of Sweeps are an awkward pairing.

Everest_Lionheart

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I'm trying to understand the argument that Magplar with Sweeps is easy, but Mag DK has the disadvantage of requiring you to be in melee range. Huh????

Also, true soloing with a Magplar is harder than it sounds, because blocking and the channeled skill of Sweeps are an awkward pairing.

You can channel sweeps while standing in your channel focus with its extra mitigation while your crit hit proc Iceheart for an additional shield. You are healing while dealing damage with increased mitigation and a free shield. It’s pretty much immortal except to one shot mechanics. So forget blocking and just power through the incoming damage. Most one shot mechs have a tell, learn those and roll dodge out of the sweeps and block.

The other thing is distance. Sweeps you can stand further away than you can with the DK rotation. 8M for sweeps. Molten whip and burning embers has 5M range. Most of us are using channeled accel outside of parsing so we don’t have to get up in the bosses face to set the trap which is pretty useless in mobile fights anyway. That extra distance you can stay off the boss gives you more time to react and make sit easier to get out of some of the larger ground AOE’s. In most cases you can just take a small step backward and get back in without really breaking rotation. MagDK depending where you are in rotation it might mean pausing mid rotation because you are forced out of range.

Vevvev

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

The other thing is distance. Sweeps you can stand further away than you can with the DK rotation. 8M for sweeps. Molten whip and burning embers has 5M range.

Technically all 5 meter range abilities DKs have is buffed to 7 meters. Templar has only a 1 meter range advantage over a Dragonknight.

FrancisCrawford

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I'm trying to understand the argument that Magplar with Sweeps is easy, but Mag DK has the disadvantage of requiring you to be in melee range. Huh????

Also, true soloing with a Magplar is harder than it sounds, because blocking and the channeled skill of Sweeps are an awkward pairing.

You can channel sweeps while standing in your channel focus with its extra mitigation while your crit hit proc Iceheart for an additional shield. You are healing while dealing damage with increased mitigation and a free shield. It’s pretty much immortal except to one shot mechanics. So forget blocking and just power through the incoming damage. Most one shot mechs have a tell, learn those and roll dodge out of the sweeps and block.

The other thing is distance. Sweeps you can stand further away than you can with the DK rotation. 8M for sweeps. Molten whip and burning embers has 5M range. Most of us are using channeled accel outside of parsing so we don’t have to get up in the bosses face to set the trap which is pretty useless in mobile fights anyway. That extra distance you can stay off the boss gives you more time to react and make sit easier to get out of some of the larger ground AOE’s. In most cases you can just take a small step backward and get back in without really breaking rotation. MagDK depending where you are in rotation it might mean pausing mid rotation because you are forced out of range.

Hmm. I don't just have trouble on a magplar with one-shots. It's also the ordinary knockdowns. Do you favor avoiding those two, or just eating them?

Everest_Lionheart

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I'm trying to understand the argument that Magplar with Sweeps is easy, but Mag DK has the disadvantage of requiring you to be in melee range. Huh????

Also, true soloing with a Magplar is harder than it sounds, because blocking and the channeled skill of Sweeps are an awkward pairing.

You can channel sweeps while standing in your channel focus with its extra mitigation while your crit hit proc Iceheart for an additional shield. You are healing while dealing damage with increased mitigation and a free shield. It’s pretty much immortal except to one shot mechanics. So forget blocking and just power through the incoming damage. Most one shot mechs have a tell, learn those and roll dodge out of the sweeps and block.

The other thing is distance. Sweeps you can stand further away than you can with the DK rotation. 8M for sweeps. Molten whip and burning embers has 5M range. Most of us are using channeled accel outside of parsing so we don’t have to get up in the bosses face to set the trap which is pretty useless in mobile fights anyway. That extra distance you can stay off the boss gives you more time to react and make sit easier to get out of some of the larger ground AOE’s. In most cases you can just take a small step backward and get back in without really breaking rotation. MagDK depending where you are in rotation it might mean pausing mid rotation because you are forced out of range.

Hmm. I don't just have trouble on a magplar with one-shots. It's also the ordinary knockdowns. Do you favor avoiding those two, or just eating them?

I still end up playing most of the mechanics and blocking, dodge rolling what I can. Seeing as I play a mix of mag and stam toons solo I’ve learned what most of the tells are. I do get caught sometimes when there is an element of RNG involved but the pattern is still there for all the fights where mechanics matter. Some knockdown mechs are a matter of sidestepping out of range which you can do while casting sweeps, a couple hits may not land but it is what it is.

The only thing that drives me crazy is the hit size of some of the skills. I can be 2-3 steps out of some boss charge/pin abilities and still get knocked down or pinned. Any of the bosses that channel the hands reaching up from the ground you need to allow a larger buffer than the aoe circles show. I’ve even been behind some enemies when they channel up their charge and still get knocked back. It’s these mechanical mysteries that frustrate me more than anything.

Of course when it doubt you can alway kite and roll to the side. It’s a strain on your stam but a better “oh crap” bailout than a knockdown followed by a leap and another knockdown as some bosses bring to combat. But again if you know the timing of the mech you can heavy attack, block and get back to sweeping.

That sweep thing bugged the hell out of me for the longest time too, so I adapted to it.

dddy8122

I’ll throw in my vote for Magicka Nightblade, they have a lot of survival in their class kit and also the option to avoid fights completely with cloak.

Rotation is a little tough at first but it’ll become second nature before long.

Second place goes to Magicka Templar.