PvP mageblade help/options

LittlePinkDot

So I'm working on my PvP mageblade and I'm wondering if I should be melee or ranged. It depends on the skills I use.
It's hard to decide because it's so hard to hit anybody in the first place. I swear buttons are late firing or not firing at all sometimes.

She's a dunmer vampire. I have that CP star where you regen health for every ultimate point you have. I regen more health than the skill blood for blood uses, so blood for blood is practically free. I need to use lotus fan for a gap closer. And I use impale for an execute.
Shadowy disguise and grim focus. All that is on the same bar. But I'm thinking of getting rid of grim focus because I would never get 5 light attacks on a target to use it. If the target isn't dead and ganked before that point I'll probably be dead anyway.

My other option is to be ranged and use swallowing soul+ impale and simmering frenzy.

My gear is spell strategist and the set I can't remember the name of but when you have a drink buff active you get a bunch of magicka recovery. And Valkyn Skoria.

And yes I need the sustain set. I'm a resource hog, that's why I never do a no CP anything. Even pve, doesn't matter what role, damage dealer, tank, healer doesn't matter which.

fred4

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

So I'm working on my PvP mageblade and I'm wondering if I should be melee or ranged. It depends on the skills I use.

Magblade is arguably hybrid melee / ranged, because it's ultimates (Soul Harvest / Soul Tether) are melee as are Concealed Weapon or Mass Hysteria for the stun. It is possible to work around that with Meteor and Flame Clench. I personally find it hard to say no to Soul Harvest / Incap Strike. I like a cheap ultimate.

Hitting someone multiple times with Concealed Weapon or Surprise Attack is difficult. Opponents roll, streak or are simply fast these days. Then there is lag. Surprise Attack is bread and butter for stamblades. I think it works better for them, because by the time you have specced a viable build, stamblade is still stronger than magblade and, therefore, requires fewer hits to secure a kill on average.

It's hard to decide because it's so hard to hit anybody in the first place.

I play a melee / ranged magblade. While you typically want to split skills to yield an offensive and a defensive bar, I find this doesn't really work for magblade. I run dual-wield / destro. The dual-wield bar boosts spell damage to about 1K higher than destro, which benefits procs. It includes Concealed Weapon, Shadowy Disguise, Soul Harvest and Caluurion. In other words I typically open with a gank, such as Light Attack -> Soul Harvest -> Concealed Weapon (+stun +Caluurion). Thereafter I anticipate that people back off and switch to my ranged bar, which includes Swallow Soul, Merciless Resolve and Impale. I aim to execute players from range. This plays well not just because your opponent may back off, but because you may want to back off too. If I attack someone at the edge of a zerg, I'll go in close on the melee bar, then I back off running backwards while trying to finish off the target. The drawback (in my build) is not having a ranged stun to coincide with Assassin's Will. On the other hand Assassin's Will into Impale times well, due to the Assassin's Will delay. It's nice to have Will on the ranged bar.

It may seem strange having two spammables. Splitting attack skills across two bars also has a drawback when, like me, you run Magelight. You want it on both bars. However in my long career as a magblade main, I eventually had to concede that I can't come up with anything better. Whatever I did, I ended up with some skill duplication between the two bars. On the other hand, my setup has the following advantages:

1. Radiant Magelight on both bars yields gank stun protection regardless of which bar you are on.
2. Concealed Weapon is also the stun in my build. It is not just a spammable.
3. Swallow Soul is also the HOT in my build. It is not just a spammable. If you shoot Swallow Soul at an NPC in IC or at a sorc's Ball of Lightning, the heal is substantial.

I swear buttons are late firing or not firing at all sometimes.

In the case of Assassin's Will there is a 400ms delay built into the skill, same as for ultimates. It could also be lag. The only solution to lag is to go into an empty Cyro campaign, Imperial City or a BG.

She's a dunmer vampire. I have that CP star where you regen health for every ultimate point you have. I regen more health than the skill blood for blood uses, so blood for blood is practically free.

I suppose you know that health regen is doubly nerfed in PvP, e.g. due to Battle Spirit and vampire. If that works to maintain Blood for Blood, well OK. In general I would not take that CP star anymore, especially if using a cheap ultimate.

I need to use lotus fan for a gap closer.

A gap closer is nice. As a rule of thumb I would play with a gap closer and Shadow Image and be slow or I would invest into speed, e.g. Celerity (CP), green out of combat speed CP, Wild Hunt, Swift jewelry, Concealed Weapon on the Cloak bar, Race Against Time. In the latter case you will be able to ditch Lotus Fan and Shadow Image for other skills. In the former case you will possibly have higher damage. Investing fully into speed (and recoveries) takes a toll on your damage.

And I use impale for an execute.

Historically I believe many nightblades have eschewed Impale for Grim Focus, due to lack of bar space. I certainly would run one of those skills if not both.

But I'm thinking of getting rid of grim focus because I would never get 5 light attacks on a target to use it. If the target isn't dead and ganked before that point I'll probably be dead anyway.

Grim Focus - awkward skills in general - is one of the reasons why people say nightblades have a high skill ceiling. I have avoided the skill for a long time, because of it's awkwardness. There is, however, no denying that some of the best nightblades, also stamblades, use that skill. It's probably not possible to kill better players without it in a duel. Let's say you're running Balorgh, Incap Strike and Clever Alchemist. I have certainly been taken out by nightblades suddenly generating huge burst with that type of setup.

My other option is to be ranged and use swallowing soul+ impale and simmering frenzy.

Ranged and melee is not mutually exclusive on a magblade. Simmering Frenzy is an option, perhaps combined with a Master flame staff to get your spell damage up. Not something I have really explored. The feedback I have gotten in previous patches from a friend that did was that magblade is still lacklustre. That's been the general refrain. I think the class has gotten better with the change to Malevolent Offering, but stamblade still has the edge.

If this begs the question: Why play magblade? - It feels different to play. There are advantages to cloak sustain and it IMO has a more pronounced hybrid melee / ranged character. There are bow stamblades of course, but the (decent) player who mixes up Snipe with a good melee rotation is pretty rare in my experience. On the other hand, if you're thinking of going purely ranged, you might be better off playing a sorc .

My gear is spell strategist

It's single target, ties you to that target and doesn't really have the duration for you to successfully backbar it. It does not improve your heals (other than Swallow Soul). I can think of any number of sets that are, if not outright better, then certainly more rounded. A Master's destro, Stygian, Innate Axiom, War Maiden (does not improve healing, but applies to all targets all the time), maybe even Spinner's. If you have the set and don't want to farm, there's probably not that much in it, but it would not be my choice. My choice (of course, hehehe) is Caluurion. On the other bar I use Innate Axiom, one of the few sets that has a double bonus on the 3 piece (magicka + stamina). I like my stamina!

And Valkyn Skoria.

Not sure how Skoria stacks up now that it can crit again. It had been pretty nerfed. Suits a magblade historically alright, esp. when you run Crippling Grasp and Degeneration, which you might do in a pure ranged build. As I play hybrid melee / ranged, I use Zoal. My only concession to defense. So good on nightblade, if you want a defensive set.

and the set I can't remember the name of but when you have a drink buff active you get a bunch of magicka recovery. And yes I need the sustain set. I'm a resource hog, that's why I never do a no CP anything.

I'm the same, because I like perma-cloaking. However I use only damage sets and full spell damage enchants, because I get sustain from the Atro mundus and from a very high value drink (Hissmir Fisheye Rye). Two reasons. One is that your out of combat sustain is calculated differently to the in combat sustain by the game engine. Most sustain sets don't work when you're permanently cloaking outside of combat. Don't know about yours. The other is that I value stamina sustain very highly for my hybrid melee / ranged playstyle. If you play like a stamblade and you play without Shadow Image, you need it for dodge rolls. I have also, after years of dithering, given up crit resist entirely in favor of running all Well Fitted. This is viable in light armor now. I'm not looking back. I do get one shot sometimes, but I find fully committing into damage avoidance the better bet than trying to be tanky on average. Some people go the latter route and they also stack (resto) heals. I believe that can be viable too. It comes down to what playstyle you like or are accustomed to. For what it's worth, my current build is here:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=401286

LittlePinkDot

fred4 wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

So I'm working on my PvP mageblade and I'm wondering if I should be melee or ranged. It depends on the skills I use.

Magblade is arguably hybrid melee / ranged, because it's ultimates (Soul Harvest / Soul Tether) are melee as are Concealed Weapon or Mass Hysteria for the stun. It is possible to work around that with Meteor and Flame Clench. I personally find it hard to say no to Soul Harvest / Incap Strike. I like a cheap ultimate.

Hitting someone multiple times with Concealed Weapon or Surprise Attack is difficult. Opponents roll, streak or are simply fast these days. Then there is lag. Surprise Attack is bread and butter for stamblades. I think it works better for them, because by the time you have specced a viable build, stamblade is still stronger than magblade and, therefore, requires fewer hits to secure a kill on average.

It's hard to decide because it's so hard to hit anybody in the first place.

I play a melee / ranged magblade. While you typically want to split skills to yield an offensive and a defensive bar, I find this doesn't really work for magblade. I run dual-wield / destro. The dual-wield bar boosts spell damage to about 1K higher than destro, which benefits procs. It includes Concealed Weapon, Shadowy Disguise, Soul Harvest and Caluurion. In other words I typically open with a gank, such as Light Attack -> Soul Harvest -> Concealed Weapon (+stun +Caluurion). Thereafter I anticipate that people back off and switch to my ranged bar, which includes Swallow Soul, Merciless Resolve and Impale. I aim to execute players from range. This plays well not just because your opponent may back off, but because you may want to back off too. If I attack someone at the edge of a zerg, I'll go in close on the melee bar, then I back off running backwards while trying to finish off the target. The drawback (in my build) is not having a ranged stun to coincide with Assassin's Will. On the other hand Assassin's Will into Impale times well, due to the Assassin's Will delay. It's nice to have Will on the ranged bar.

It may seem strange having two spammables. Splitting attack skills across two bars also has a drawback when, like me, you run Magelight. You want it on both bars. However in my long career as a magblade main, I eventually had to concede that I can't come up with anything better. Whatever I did, I ended up with some skill duplication between the two bars. On the other hand, my setup has the following advantages:

1. Radiant Magelight on both bars yields gank stun protection regardless of which bar you are on.
2. Concealed Weapon is also the stun in my build. It is not just a spammable.
3. Swallow Soul is also the HOT in my build. It is not just a spammable. If you shoot Swallow Soul at an NPC in IC or at a sorc's Ball of Lightning, the heal is substantial.

I swear buttons are late firing or not firing at all sometimes.

In the case of Assassin's Will there is a 400ms delay built into the skill, same as for ultimates. It could also be lag. The only solution to lag is to go into an empty Cyro campaign, Imperial City or a BG.

She's a dunmer vampire. I have that CP star where you regen health for every ultimate point you have. I regen more health than the skill blood for blood uses, so blood for blood is practically free.

I suppose you know that health regen is doubly nerfed in PvP, e.g. due to Battle Spirit and vampire. If that works to maintain Blood for Blood, well OK. In general I would not take that CP star anymore, especially if using a cheap ultimate.

I need to use lotus fan for a gap closer.

A gap closer is nice. As a rule of thumb I would play with a gap closer and Shadow Image and be slow or I would invest into speed, e.g. Celerity (CP), green out of combat speed CP, Wild Hunt, Swift jewelry, Concealed Weapon on the Cloak bar, Race Against Time. In the latter case you will be able to ditch Lotus Fan and Shadow Image for other skills. In the former case you will possibly have higher damage. Investing fully into speed (and recoveries) takes a toll on your damage.

And I use impale for an execute.

Historically I believe many nightblades have eschewed Impale for Grim Focus, due to lack of bar space. I certainly would run one of those skills if not both.

But I'm thinking of getting rid of grim focus because I would never get 5 light attacks on a target to use it. If the target isn't dead and ganked before that point I'll probably be dead anyway.

Grim Focus - awkward skills in general - is one of the reasons why people say nightblades have a high skill ceiling. I have avoided the skill for a long time, because of it's awkwardness. There is, however, no denying that some of the best nightblades, also stamblades, use that skill. It's probably not possible to kill better players without it in a duel. Let's say you're running Balorgh, Incap Strike and Clever Alchemist. I have certainly been taken out by nightblades suddenly generating huge burst with that type of setup.

My other option is to be ranged and use swallowing soul+ impale and simmering frenzy.

Ranged and melee is not mutually exclusive on a magblade. Simmering Frenzy is an option, perhaps combined with a Master flame staff to get your spell damage up. Not something I have really explored. The feedback I have gotten in previous patches from a friend that did was that magblade is still lacklustre. That's been the general refrain. I think the class has gotten better with the change to Malevolent Offering, but stamblade still has the edge.

If this begs the question: Why play magblade? - It feels different to play. There are advantages to cloak sustain and it IMO has a more pronounced hybrid melee / ranged character. There are bow stamblades of course, but the (decent) player who mixes up Snipe with a good melee rotation is pretty rare in my experience. On the other hand, if you're thinking of going purely ranged, you might be better off playing a sorc .

My gear is spell strategist

It's single target, ties you to that target and doesn't really have the duration for you to successfully backbar it. It does not improve your heals (other than Swallow Soul). I can think of any number of sets that are, if not outright better, then certainly more rounded. A Master's destro, Stygian, Innate Axiom, War Maiden (does not improve healing, but applies to all targets all the time), maybe even Spinner's. If you have the set and don't want to farm, there's probably not that much in it, but it would not be my choice. My choice (of course, hehehe) is Caluurion. On the other bar I use Innate Axiom, one of the few sets that has a double bonus on the 3 piece (magicka + stamina). I like my stamina!

And Valkyn Skoria.

Not sure how Skoria stacks up now that it can crit again. It had been pretty nerfed. Suits a magblade historically alright, esp. when you run Crippling Grasp and Degeneration, which you might do in a pure ranged build. As I play hybrid melee / ranged, I use Zoal. My only concession to defense. So good on nightblade, if you want a defensive set.

and the set I can't remember the name of but when you have a drink buff active you get a bunch of magicka recovery. And yes I need the sustain set. I'm a resource hog, that's why I never do a no CP anything.

I'm the same, because I like perma-cloaking. However I use only damage sets and full spell damage enchants, because I get sustain from the Atro mundus and from a very high value drink (Hissmir Fisheye Rye). Two reasons. One is that your out of combat sustain is calculated differently to the in combat sustain by the game engine. Most sustain sets don't work when you're permanently cloaking outside of combat. Don't know about yours. The other is that I value stamina sustain very highly for my hybrid melee / ranged playstyle. If you play like a stamblade and you play without Shadow Image, you need it for dodge rolls. I have also, after years of dithering, given up crit resist entirely in favor of running all Well Fitted. This is viable in light armor now. I'm not looking back. I do get one shot sometimes, but I find fully committing into damage avoidance the better bet than trying to be tanky on average. Some people go the latter route and they also stack (resto) heals. I believe that can be viable too. It comes down to what playstyle you like or are accustomed to. For what it's worth, my current build is here:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=401286

Well I'm definitely thinking about switching from spell strategist to clever alchemist. I'm using spell power potions for major sorcery and major prophecy. I didn't want to use a bar slot for magelight.

But I can't stand shadow image.

I think I use shadowy disguise to replace dodge roll most of the time.
I'm on PS5 and I use a different button setting than what the default is. I have to push R3 to dodgeroll because I switched the X button to bar swap. It makes dodgeroll a bit cumbersome.
The default bar swap button is normally the left D-pad button, but that requires you to take your thumb off left stick that controls movement. Which is why I switched it, because otherwise I would have to stand still for a second everytime I needed to bar swap.
Now the left D-pad is sneak.

I don't think she's particularly good at sustaining long term. I would need to be able to gank the target before they had a chance to turn and hit me. I would prefer to not be in the position where I needed to dodgeroll in the first place.

She uses a resto backbar. I played her through greymoor and the reach, I discovered that with swallowing soul as spammable, the swarming scion ultimate on front bar and that CP star that gives health regen per ultimate I can sustain simmering frenzy for 10-12 seconds. Turn it off, use resto backbar for fast heal, then back to simmering frenzy. But of course I was testing this out on overland pve. Perhaps I would need crippling grasp for a ranged cc.
I don't use soul harvest because she stays at distance and I need swarming scion. But your idea of a melee/ranged hybrid makes me wonder if I should put soul harvest on backbar if I can also find backbar space for concealed weapon... But with a resto staff it might be moot.
I don't particularly like going to backbar if my simmering frenzy is still on.

As for gap closer I find it easier to actually hit somebody in melee range that way. If I could sneak up on them I could go without a gap closer for melee. I think it's because she's a vampire she has no movement penalty for sneak. She's not sprinting, but she can do the normal run while in sneak. And I have the CP perk that reduces detection radius in sneak.
I'm leaning towards staying ranged so I don't need to waste a bar slot on lotus fan.

fred4

A couple of random thoughts:

• My most frequent and easily winnable fights are against other nightblades. One way or the other someone will win. Stalemates are rare, because nightblades tend to be squishy. Unless one of them manages to cloak away that is. I permanently slot Detection / Spell Power / Magicka potions. This is why I don't get my crit from a potion.
• I do not view Shadowy Disguise as a replacement for dodge rolls. If you don't use Shadow Image you need dodge rolls and all the speed you can muster to make Shadowy Disguise work. Dodge rolls enable Shadowy Disguise. One is not a replacement for the other. That said, if your playstyle focuses purely on ganks and/or is purely ranged, maybe that's different. My experience is, of course, based on the mixed melee / ranged build that I play.
• If you want to gank people from range, you should probably look into using heavy attacks and/or light / medium attacks + Elemental Weapon (Psijic) as an opener.
• Simmering Frenzy will make you squishy. Some gankers run it, perhaps with a set like Titanborn (since all sets have hybrid stats now). If you've tested that in PvE, bear in mind that Battle Spirit cuts your health regen in half. You might look into a set called Darloc Brae, although you probably want something to stack more spell damage instead.

LittlePinkDot

fred4 wrote: »

A couple of random thoughts:

• My most frequent and easily winnable fights are against other nightblades. One way or the other someone will win. Stalemates are rare, because nightblades tend to be squishy. Unless one of them manages to cloak away that is. I permanently slot Detection / Spell Power / Magicka potions. This is why I don't get my crit from a potion.
• I do not view Shadowy Disguise as a replacement for dodge rolls. If you don't use Shadow Image you need dodge rolls and all the speed you can muster to make Shadowy Disguise work. Dodge rolls enable Shadowy Disguise. One is not a replacement for the other. That said, if your playstyle focuses purely on ganks and/or is purely ranged, maybe that's different. My experience is, of course, based on the mixed melee / ranged build that I play.
• If you want to gank people from range, you should probably look into using heavy attacks and/or light / medium attacks + Elemental Weapon (Psijic) as an opener.
• Simmering Frenzy will make you squishy. Some gankers run it, perhaps with a set like Titanborn (since all sets have hybrid stats now). If you've tested that in PvE, bear in mind that Battle Spirit cuts your health regen in half. You might look into a set called Darloc Brae, although you probably want something to stack more spell damage instead.

Ahhh yes elemental weapon. I do have that as another option.
Does elemental weapon do more damage than swallow soul?
And if she's just a ranged ganker, can I get rid of merciless resolve? At least off my front bar.

fred4

Elemental Weapon is a way of generating burst, because it only lands when your light or medium attack lands. Not sure whether it would work with a full flame staff heavy attack from range or whether that would take too long and Elemental Weapon expires. Although it can be used as an alternative to a spammable, I view it as a burst skill for ganking. For example you could try running Elemental Weapon AND Swallow Soul. The timing will work out such that Elemental Weapon plus your light / heavy attack plus Swallow Soul will all land in the same second. Will that be enough to kill someone? I don't think so. You might, however try something like Elemental Weapon, light / medium attack into Flame Clench (or a vamp stun), maybe with a Master destro and Caluurion. I don't really know what the best combos for ranged builds are, but Elemental Weapon is one of the skills you might experiment with.

PvP is all about burst - stacking damage into one GCD (global cooldown / 1 second) by using delayed skills, such as Elemental Weapon, and possibly proc sets. Caluurion, specifically, has a delay plus a travel time, which is why I attack from melee range for my burst with that set, avoiding the travel time. At any rate, that set or another proc set are among the options, should you so choose. Skoria, though, is more of a pressure set. Not controlled burst. The benefit of Caluurion is that a nightblade can control the burst, e.g. because the first attack from cloak is a guaranteed crit - the proc condition of the set. It's a little more complicated, because it now only procs from light / heavy attacks and you need to test whether that's the first thing that hits in your rotation, with your weapon and your weapon's typical projectile travel time. This is one of the reasons I use dual-wield. Also be mindful that ZOS are not allowing all possible combinations of proc sets to fire simultaneously anymore, if you're going down that route.

fred4

If you really don't want to use Merciless Resolve, then either Caluurion or a heavy attack flame staff build or an Elemental Weapon burst build are the next best things that I know. You might also do the old Flame Clench into Meteor combo, but that is pretty hit and miss and you probably want Merciless in that case. That approach would put you in sorc territory. A good sorc, playing that type of build, will dump a Meteor into Streak, turn 180 degrees and dump a Crystal Frag on you. Not to mention they probably cursed you and may have the delayed sorc execute running on you as well. That's up to 4 skills landing simultaneously on the target (Meteor, Curse, Mage's Fury, Crystal Frags). That's what it takes. How can you compete with that as a nightblade?

Sorc is harder to play in the sense that you need to get your combos down. Sorc is the original delayed burst class. Once you've learnt the class I believe it is easier than magblade. You don't have Cloak, but Streak is an incredibly easy-to-use, reactive skill. Nightblades are probably easier to get going with, but harder to master. Shadow Image requires forethought and Merciless Resolve is a mini-game in and of itself. Those are the things that make nightblade harder or, depending on how you look at it, simply more awkward. Aside from that, nightblade is arguably a pressure class. All skills are very direct. There are no true delayed burst skills. You simply get +20% damage for 6 seconds after Incap / Soul Harvest. That's your burst. Easy to use.

The problem is that only stamblade really works that way, at least historically. A typical, viable stamblade has the pressure to put many targets on the defensive and win. Magblade builds, while I believe the gap has narrowed, not so much. The class has just been plain weak in PvP for a long time outside of niche roles, e.g. bombing. You might theory-craft a build that, on paper, looks as good as a stamblade only to find it's not viable defensively or doesn't perform as well offensively. At least historically. I don't play enough these days to say how true that still is.

At any rate, one of the ways around lack of burst has been Caluurion. Only nightblade has the capability to control that set's proc condition for predictable burst. Of course nowadays, with the hybridization of the game, the set is also viable on stamblades. Will magblade ever close the gap?

fred4

I haven't watched this yet, but my opinions usually align with this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tf4KHzhKUQ

Ididuz

Maybe you will be interested my night blade bg build. https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=378195

gariondavey

Always a very detailed and insightful post @fred4

Wandering_Immigrant

Like fred4 my Nightblades (mag & Stam) don't adhere to the typical frontbar = offense, backbar = defense setup. Instead they're built more like with two frontbars, one melee the other ranged. My general strat is to use my ranged bar from the edge of the action to test who the squishies are so that when I move in close I know who to target to deal the most damage and secure a kill or two. I do sort of consider their melee bar to be their main bar since they have better stats on it mainly from dual wield passives, but they're both capable of getting kills from ranged so I'll stay ranged when it's prudent and still contribute.

The stamblade is my more experienced of the two, he's been my main for four years now. The magblade I only levelled a few months ago and only got him setup a way I like a few weeks ago, so I'm still making tweaks on him. I had tried a few setups on magblade, originally I tried giving him the 1h&s backbar treatment, but that wasn't going anywhere for me. I then tried for a while to make staff/staff work, which had a couple of ok iterations, but never felt completely comfortable to me. Eventually I decided since I know how to play stamblade I would just mimic what I do on stamblade as a base setup and work on it from there.

They do have a lot of differences though. In a way they're sort of yin and yang opposites, conceptually the same but they go about it in different ways.

I have noticed as well that magblade has more sustain issues than stamblade. For that I'm wearing Grundwulf monster set, this helps not only with mag sustain but also Stam which is necessary for the way I'm playing him. I also like that the one piece bonus is crit chance, this is in line with what I do on my stamblade who wears wild hunt ring in favor of a monster set, but wears one piece slimeclaw for the crit chance. I find magblade doesn't need wild hunt because they get the speed boost from concealed weapon while stealthed, which is when you want a boost the most anyway. And of course stamblade doesn't need the sustain so this is using the same amount of slots differently for a similar outcome.

For five piece sets I'm wearing war maiden with heartland conquerer. Weapon traits for heartland bonus is sharpened restro staff and melee bar is dual maces one nirned the other precise. The only drawback to war maiden it that it doesn't boost my dual wield light and heavy attacks, but 600 spell damage to all my abilities is worth it imo, and all my abilities are magic damage. This is vastly different from my stamblade who wears assassin's guile with stuhn's, but of course spell damage is harder to come by than weapon damage, and this setup gives me 4400 spell damage unbuffed, which isn't bad for mag I think.

Skills is where I'm still experimenting some, but I like how he plays atm. Melee bar is concealed weapon and spectral bow as attacks, this is about as simple of an offense as there is, which makes it easy to keep track of spectral bow stacks. I also keep my shadowy disguise and siphoning attacks on this bar since I don't run a gap closer and instead use cloak for my approach into melee range. This is the opposite of my stamblade who runs ambush on his melee bar with cloak and siphoning on his bow bar used primarily as an escape tool. This change is because my stamblade feels more competent against multiple opponents so flying into a group kamikaze style doesn't worry me on stamblade and I like the mobility ambush gives me going from one opponent to the next, whereas on magblade I feel I need to take a more measured approach, so I don't bother with lotus fan. The final slot on my melee bar is healthy offering which I have to say I love being able to use as a self heal, prior to the change to healthy offering as a self heal I was running swallow soul in its place for the HoT. It was effective as well, but I do think healthy offering will be better.

My staff bar I have elemental attack as my primary attack and I use it the same way my stamblade uses snipe, to locate the squishies. I also run caltrops on my magblade for the breach, I've never liked the mark target abilities while playing stamblade, and I'm trying to give it another chance on magblade because I want the major berzerk from mark target, but for now it's just easier to go with what I know. Staff bar also has phantasmal escape atm, yesterday it was race against time, idk which I prefer so I've been going back and forth, but snare and immobilize immunity is a must on any mobile build, and since I run basic spell power pots instead of immovable pots I'll likely continue switching between these two options. I also run rapid regeneration on the staff, it's really why I have the restro staff with war maiden setup in the first place. Though with healthy offering in my setup now I'm considering changing to radiating Regen since currently it feels like I have two burst heals when I'd prefer to combine a burst heal with a longer duration HoT. Last slot on my staff is shaping up to be a flex spot. I'd like to work in one of the magika detonation morphs for a delayed burst ability, but that would only really be effective in large scale fighting. The last BG I did I had crippling grasp in this slot, it was useful. I could also work swallow soul back into my build by putting it here if I want. There's other options here as well.

Anyway that's what I'm doing on my magblade, which I'm also still working out some, and if you read all of that then thanks for taking the time. I hope it can give you some ideas on different ways to utilize your Nightblade.