Is there any way to make mNB viable in Cyrodil ?

Andre_Noir

Just trying to play it right now and even without large experience I feel like it's a trash class. Barely can even scratch a random warden and just runs oom while he can just 2-shot me. And all of this with 14k-17k penetration from items.
So is there ANY possible way to make mNB work except healbot with restro ?

gariondavey

Problem is most of your abilities can be easily dodge rolled. Exceptionally skilled mag nbs can still remain relevant, but if you aren't absolutely top tier at the spec, it will feel very weak.

xylena_lazarow

gariondavey wrote: »

Problem is most of your abilities can be easily dodge rolled. Exceptionally skilled mag nbs can still remain relevant, but if you aren't absolutely top tier at the spec, it will feel very weak.

And even then, the same player would be stronger on a magsorc.

Really wish mNB had a reliable burst self heal so it wasn't married to resto or confined to narrow builds.

HowlKimchi

I find that melee magblade is the way to go this patch in no proc cyro. The cc and damage of concealed weapon is so good

Vizirith

The problem with magblade is a lack of real defensive options. Cloak really isn't that good if that's all you have, it's powerful but magblade lacks the sheer cabability of movement and evasion possibility on a stamblade. Good stamblades can use shade, cloak and most importantly high movement speed and dodgeroll to mitigate alot of damage. Magblades only have the first 2.

Also major evasion is incredibly powerful. If you have the bar space you can try slotting mirage (major evasion + 3k resists). But then you are really tight on bar space. But most stam builds do run maj evasion and for good reason.
20% damage reduction against:
- Stamcro's blastbones (main burst damage)
- Most of a magcro's damage presuming meta builds
- Both wardens sub assault/deep fissure (main burst damage)
- Templars jabs (most of their damage)
- Dk's leap

It is very effective against everything besides nb's and sorcs.

MrDenimChicken

Andre_Noir wrote: »

Just trying to play it right now and even without large experience I feel like it's a trash class. Barely can even scratch a random warden and just runs oom while he can just 2-shot me. And all of this with 14k-17k penetration from items.
So is there ANY possible way to make mNB work except healbot with restro ?

right now? no

once procs come back though, magblades will be good at ganking again. Magblades that run caluurion can one shot people from stealth, and magblades that run viscious death can one shot a large group of clustered players.

Those are the 2 playstyles that will work. But unfortunately, they are very cheesy, gimmicky builds that rely on procs. Right now magblades can't do well in open world play because their damage is average, easily avoidable, and needs to be constantly focused on one singular target over a duration to be effective. They can't just go backbar, put their defenses up, front bar, boom 1-2-3 combo kill someone in 2 seconds (like many other classes). They need a whole light attack/swallow soul weave leading to their bow, and they gotta hope the bow is enough dmg to bring them to almost 0, because they have no execute, the swallow soul is easily dodged...so those players at 20% health just heal up easy. Their defenses are also just average.

fred4

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

Magblades that run caluurion can one shot people from stealth.

Not really, no. If you can muster up the spell damage, then maybe. However, if you play an actual, viable melee(ish) Caluurion ganking build, you will want good magicka and stamina sustain as well as high speed. You will not come near the magic spell damage number to match Caluurion on live. Nor is that build a one shot build anyway, not now, not ever. On current live I feel it is actually the best it's ever been, but that only means I feel close to having the power of a stamblade without truly matching it. Yes, that build more or less one-shots unsuspecting, inexperienced players. Not experienced (meta) players though.

I suppose it is possible to manage your resources and push spell damage by playing a more stop / start playstyle than mine, for example by cloaking to LoS safety and using Meditate. I've done that in the past. The problem is that the fun-factor is low. I like to stay in the fight. As I've mentioned elsewhere, it is not even the lack of a heal that's holding me back. It's the fact that both Healing Ward and Rapid Regen uncloak you. This invariably forces you to spend more magicka and time on cloak than you would otherwise would. Sometimes the lack of healing will get you killed, e.g. when the opposition successfully detects you. In that sense it's part of the class balancing act for Shadowy Disguise. Mostly, however, it's just a pain that takes you out of the fight (boring) and leaves your partner(s) out to dry while you find LoS to apply Healing Ward / Rapid Regen behind. Maybe if I was using Shadow Image (which I rarely do), I would feel slightly differently about this, though the need for LoS against a gap closing build (including DK leaps) or a streaking / overloading sorc would IMO still be real.

Metemsycosis

"LFG"

DrSlaughtr

Here's how I do magblade and woop people.

Fortified Brass body. Spinners staff and jewels. Crit repost back bar sword and shield. End up with around 45k+ mag. High resistances. Always keep your hots going. Stay in stealth unless you're actively attacking and don't put yourself in bad situations.

All you wanna do is set up your Merciless Resolve with light attacks from afar. When it procs, stealth, crit your spectral arrow, lotus fan, stealth, south harvest, impale if needed. Most can be killed with this except for some wardens and DKs. And pick your targets better. Don't bother trying to 1v1 someone with more health and resistances than you can kill in your burst.

Crash427

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Here's how I do magblade and woop people.

Fortified Brass body. Spinners staff and jewels. Crit repost back bar sword and shield. End up with around 45k+ mag. High resistances. Always keep your hots going. Stay in stealth unless you're actively attacking and don't put yourself in bad situations.

All you wanna do is set up your Merciless Resolve with light attacks from afar. When it procs, stealth, crit your spectral arrow, lotus fan, stealth, south harvest, impale if needed. Most can be killed with this except for some wardens and DKs. And pick your targets better. Don't bother trying to 1v1 someone with more health and resistances than you can kill in your burst.

If the person you're fighting isn't otherwise engaged, or brain dead, they'll just dodge or block your whole combo.

ResidentContrarian

Most of my kills on my mag NB are secured with light and heavy attacks - very similar to mag DK, and very telling of just how good the class is...

Can't even rely on the skills in the class; it's a meme at this point.

And the defense, also like mag DK, is also bad if you're actually wearing light armor.

It's "kill or be killed" except the other guy that is usually a sorc, warden, or necro, can still 2-shot you while you might take over 10 hits to kill them. That's ignoring their self-heal, better sustain, better defensive options, pets, etc. that make the encounter much harder for you than them.

Nice balance, right? Some people really like no-proc. Wonder why?

Tommy_The_Gun

NB actually has a 2 main issues that make the class clunky and difficult to play imho:
- We have a cast time and travel time on core NB dmg dealing abilities.
- We have bugged and unreliable defensive skill (cloak) that is way too easy to counter vs countering other classes defensive abilities.

Stam NB is better, but only because it can roll-dodge more times vs mag NB and can use a lot of non-class stamina abilities as a substitute for lacking class toolkit. But in general it has same core problems as mag NB - cast / travel time on burst combo & bugged defensive skill (cloak). On the other hand I am guessing that once proc sets will be back, mag NB will actually be better than stam (bombing), while killing single target will be way harder.

FrancisCrawford

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

Andre_Noir wrote: »

Just trying to play it right now and even without large experience I feel like it's a trash class. Barely can even scratch a random warden and just runs oom while he can just 2-shot me. And all of this with 14k-17k penetration from items.
So is there ANY possible way to make mNB work except healbot with restro ?

right now? no

once procs come back though, magblades will be good at ganking again. Magblades that run caluurion can one shot people from stealth, and magblades that run viscious death can one shot a large group of clustered players.

Those are the 2 playstyles that will work. But unfortunately, they are very cheesy, gimmicky builds that rely on procs. Right now magblades can't do well in open world play because their damage is average, easily avoidable, and needs to be constantly focused on one singular target over a duration to be effective. They can't just go backbar, put their defenses up, front bar, boom 1-2-3 combo kill someone in 2 seconds (like many other classes). They need a whole light attack/swallow soul weave leading to their bow, and they gotta hope the bow is enough dmg to bring them to almost 0, because they have no execute, the swallow soul is easily dodged...so those players at 20% health just heal up easy. Their defenses are also just average.

Why isn't Impale an execute? Bar space? Dodgebility? Bugs?

DrSlaughtr

Crash427 wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Here's how I do magblade and woop people.

Fortified Brass body. Spinners staff and jewels. Crit repost back bar sword and shield. End up with around 45k+ mag. High resistances. Always keep your hots going. Stay in stealth unless you're actively attacking and don't put yourself in bad situations.

All you wanna do is set up your Merciless Resolve with light attacks from afar. When it procs, stealth, crit your spectral arrow, lotus fan, stealth, south harvest, impale if needed. Most can be killed with this except for some wardens and DKs. And pick your targets better. Don't bother trying to 1v1 someone with more health and resistances than you can kill in your burst.

If the person you're fighting isn't otherwise engaged, or brain dead, they'll just dodge or block your whole combo.

It's not a brawler build... You operate from stealth.

Andre_Noir

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Why isn't Impale an execute? Bar space? Dodgebility? Bugs?

25% border makes it almost useless

butterrum222

The only way to deal real damage is with a bow proc, I wish it didn’t have to be casted first and collected stacks at all times while in combat because it tends to expire at critical moments. Even if it got the stam version treatment to last a minute that would be some help. Once you have a bow proc, I like doing a heavy flame staff into spammable then meteor, fear bow proc. Gotta be close but it’s a mean combo but it’s heavily dependent on bow proc

Crash427

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Crash427 wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Here's how I do magblade and woop people.

Fortified Brass body. Spinners staff and jewels. Crit repost back bar sword and shield. End up with around 45k+ mag. High resistances. Always keep your hots going. Stay in stealth unless you're actively attacking and don't put yourself in bad situations.

All you wanna do is set up your Merciless Resolve with light attacks from afar. When it procs, stealth, crit your spectral arrow, lotus fan, stealth, south harvest, impale if needed. Most can be killed with this except for some wardens and DKs. And pick your targets better. Don't bother trying to 1v1 someone with more health and resistances than you can kill in your burst.

If the person you're fighting isn't otherwise engaged, or brain dead, they'll just dodge or block your whole combo.

It's not a brawler build... You operate from stealth.

From stealth you still have a warning sound on merciless and the travel time. You still have a warning sound on soul harvest and a cast time. Best chance is to CC them and hope the game is laggy enough they can't break free.

DrSlaughtr

Don't know what to tell you. I rarely get caught.

Also magNB can wear some or even all heavy armor unlike stam ganks. Who really need all medium.

HowlKimchi

IMO magblades are really good right now if you opt for the no cloak HoT morph.

I understand that this isnt the way some people want to play magblades, and that you prefer going invisible. I'd agree that that magblade variant does need a bit more help defensively because it lacks a good burst heal. You could slot more stamina recovery and use the resto staff aoe burst heal, but at that point I'd say roll a stamblade instead. That's perma cloak tax tho: we get perma cloak but we're not good fighting toe to toe. The thing is stamblades dont have this disadvantage because they still have access to rally and a lot of dodge rolls, while also having enough magicka to keep cloaking. Ever since they didnt need to slot hysteria for a good cc, stamblades have had an excess of magicka, which they are using purely for defensive purposes now.

So I do agree that cloak magblades are in a bad spot IF you play frontlines (but they aren't designed to play like that) and not move as an assassin. If you position and play well though, you will never get caught, and I find myself always surviving after a messy fight if I have the cloak morph + shade. The big downside is you can't peel for your party because of how bad your healing is when under pressure.

But for the HoT cloak morph variant tho... It's very strong right now both defensively and offensively. It's the easiest class to 1vX with for me. The shade is VERY very strong if you know how to use and abuse it. The hots are so strong that you can keep up the pressure a lot of the times and concealed really does deal a lot of damage just by weaving it with light attacks. I find myself getting kills with it in cyro without even needing to use the spectral bow. Soul Tether is my preferred ult because it works well as a finisher. After hitting them with a concealed weapon (with cc) into bow proc, I find that they usually dodge no matter the class they use, so you catch it with the ult. You could use destro staff for the major breach and still be melee with concealed weapon, or you can use dual wield for a lot more damage. Ever since the cp changes, dual wield light and heavy attacks deal good damage even as a magicka build.

Vizirith

Magsorcs are what magblades wish they could be. Better burst, survivability an mobility. Seriously just go magsorc and be stage 4 vamp or something and invis around if you need to.

IAmIcehouse

Magblade can hold it's own in small fights--weak, but can hold it's own. Unless your bombing, magblade is trash in large fights.

Magblade can work in OW, but it plays very differently than the other classes, so if you're playing like you play your warden or sorc, then you're not gonna have fun.

But to be clear, it's absolute trash right now and is outclassed by all other specs. But doesn't mean you can't make it work.

Lughlongarm

I have Dueled some nasty magicka NB on PTS. The strongest one was actually a melee magicka NB. No idea was his build, but he was very tanky and lashed tons of damage in a short time.

spacefracking

Yeah, it is highly doable. I've logged at least 50 played days on a mNB in cyrodiil, and have tried all of the no-proc/proc set setups, and this has been working very handily for me:

Gear:
5x spinner's
5x amber plasm
1x pirate skeleton monster mask (armor bonus, in heavy)
1x mighty chudan (armor, in heavy)

Traits:
5x armor well fitted
2x infused (head and chest)
3x protective jewelry

Gear enchants
7x armor health enchants
3x spell damage on jewelry

Weapons
Front bar: inferno staff, with sharpened, and spell/weapon damage enchant
Back bar: resto staff, with defensive, and Magicka steal enchant

The abilities are the real key here:
Front bar, damage bar:
1: Shadowy disguise for stealth
2: Lotus fan for gap closing
3: Concealed weapon for stun/spammable/melee
4: Swallow soul for ranged/ticking self heal
5: merciless resolve bow proc for second part of burst combo

FB ulti: Soul harvest go apply major defile and first move in burst combo

Back bar, for defenses, debuffs, and heals:
1: reapers mark/elemental drain/etc for major breach application
2: free slot, I rotate between radiating light from mages guild, siege shield from support, and others
3: Twisting path to increase speed. Great for zooming a group around a tower/rock/etc to kill farmers
4: rapid regeneration for ticking self heal
5: blessing of protection for spammable burst heal, and applies minor resolve

Ulti: I run soul tether for damage, but resto ulti can work for extra survivability if you want.

With major + minor resolve up, back bar resists are 36k/33k

Front bar, 19k pen, 4500 spell damage

Champ points slottables:
Blue:
+10% direct damage
+15% crit damage from behind
+10% crit damage
-10% direct damage

Red:
Armor
Regen
Slippery (auto break free)
+10% damage reduction while cc'd

Mundus
Always run the Lover

Combat
If 1 v 1 ing, the idea is basically
Offense
Pre buff merciless resolve
Reapers mark to apply major breach
Lotus fan debuff/gap close to apply +5% vulnerability + dot
Keep swallow soul always ticking
Get merciless resolve to 5
Concealed weapon stun, into soul harvest, into merciless resolve bow proc. Often I just use the stun to put distance for the defensive combo

Defence:
Rapid regen for ticking heal
Twisting path to put some distance, also stuns
Spamming blessing of protection to keep minor resolve up, and to burst heal over and over.

I run stage 3 vamp

that's about it. If someone actually gives this a try, lmk on here, or shoot me a tell in game. Would be neat if some one actually tried it lol. I think it's about as good as magnb gets in this meta. Can use dark cloak instead of shadowy disguise if you don't need stealth (I do tho, and it's very strong with vamp)


Cheers,
Space

Kaysha

What Regeneration values do you get with this setup ?
To get to 4500 spelldamage you use potions, right?

Sedare38

Andre_Noir wrote: »

Just trying to play it right now and even without large experience I feel like it's a trash class. Barely can even scratch a random warden and just runs oom while he can just 2-shot me. And all of this with 14k-17k penetration from items.
So is there ANY possible way to make mNB work except healbot with restro ?

We magblades are in a very bad place. I relied on procs for burst and without them I have swapped to higher magicka and penetration. It's okay. I can solo some things, but mostly not. They out sustain me and also out damage and heal me. Our heals suck. our damage is easily dodged and there's just not enough buffs/debuffs/ damage on a magblade to really do what we could do in og procs.

U30 is gonna screw us further b/c procs will be a shell of their former selves and Magicka is much harder to get higher damage on than stamina, so yeah. Stamblades could have better procs using magicka proc sets than a magblade . . . ZOS hosed the magblade/nightblade as they tend to do every patch.

spacefracking

Kaysha wrote: »

What Regeneration values do you get with this setup ?
To get to 4500 spelldamage you use potions, right?

I use alliance spell draught. I looked more closely, and it's only 4200, but still.

Regen is great. Amber plasm's 5 piece is 276 stam, mag, and health Regen. No sustain problems at all. Usually don't need to heavy attack from my backbar, but if there's a lull, I do occasionally.