Magblade brawler brainstorm

Jeezye

Struggling to put sth together.

I love hybrid melee/range setups like dw/destro, poking and setting up with range, then moving in melee into a group and burst with tether.

I feel stam versions outperform mag in terms of buff coverage, healing is subpar (swallow/sap) and barspace super tight. Also pressure and burst are meh compared to other classes. I preferred dot setups in the past but don’t see much fit here.
Trying to fit plaguebreak but compromise either on dmg or sustain.

Check out eg this Setup: https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=126001

Any ideas/ suggestions??

Rohamad_Ali

That's difficult to imagine sustain with a DW toolbar an no stamina stat. The sets have good sustain but without a base amount of stamina the damage on whirling blade is low. Just looks that way from glancing to me.

Udrath

I’m kinda interested in what dark cloak people are running. It's tough. Just keep on trying different stuff... I have gone through probably six or seven different set ups trying to make ranged/brawler work for me. I really don't like using DW cause of corrosive armor spam at the moment but works with it too.

Here's my current set up. Destro/destro. So far this is the best out of all the other stuff I have tried. Really good tooltip damage and healing, has speed and major evasion. Good pressure with a snare and major miam. You can change fire staff out for DW maces 1 nirnhoned 1 sharpened.

War maiden
Heartland conqueror
destructive impact
markyn ring-
breton-
1 light skoria
4 Light crit resist 3 Heavy reinforced
Atronach mundas

Sharpened front bar, powered back bar. Fire/frost staves. Spell power pots.

Front bar: ele drain, merciless, swallow soul, fear, phantasm escape. Ulti-incap
Back bar: refreshing path, frost clench, siphon, healthy offering, dark cloak. Ulti: soul tether

((Front bar DW:) Lotus fan, merciless, concealed(or surprise attack), sap essence, phantasm escape. ( Use tri-pots)
Pick what jewerly enchants/traits and food works for you.

fred4

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

That's difficult to imagine sustain with a DW toolbar an no stamina stat. The sets have good sustain but without a base amount of stamina the damage on whirling blade is low. Just looks that way from glancing to me.

Nope. You're one or two patches behind. We're in the hybrid meta now. Whirling Blades scales with the higher stat, e.g. the max magicka, just like everything else.

@Jeezye, you may know I'm a magblade main, but I don't think I can help with this type of build. I'll point out the obvious oversights. You put a shield on the dual wield bar and you used and enabled a Master destro in the editor without slotting Clench / Reach.

I'm using Whirling Blades myself and agree it's a good option that you can make work with that amount of stamina and sustain. It is, however, something I find myself spamming at times as targets hang on to life. You have to stop yourself earlier than a stamblade, due to limited stamina and sustain, which sometimes robs the skill of it's effectiveness or makes it extremely risky if you run your stamina down too low. Still a good option, though.

The other problem I see with Whirling Blades is your relative lack of speed, although I suppose that's what Refreshing Path is for. The radius on Blades really is quite small. I play in CP. People tend to be fast. A target trying to outrange you can momentarily sprint, whereas you can't do that while spamming Whirling Blades.

I note your build appears to be no CP by the way, but uses proc sets, e.g. it's a BG build?

I've been playing around with Asylum DW weapons, which grant up to 450 weapon / spell damage and additional speed while executing. Seeing as you're not utilizing the Master's Inferno, I would actually move Vitality or Rallying Cry to the destro bar, if you can make that work skill-wise. This would allow for Asylum DW. The way that weapon set works is, if you are in combat and you have speed already, you get weapon / spell damage (and more speed) from simply using Whirling Blades once. Running Infused jewelry without Asylum DW gives you +252 extra damage. Running purple Swift jewelry with Asylum DW and Refreshing Path would give you +288 extra damage for 5 seconds from using Whirling Blades just once. You don't need to be on the attack. As long as you're in combat you can use Whirling Blades to pre-buff (if you have the stam). It's all rather complicated, but gaining the extra damage and speed even just as you're executing plays quite well.

My own ideas on playing a "brawler" NB are quite different, even diametrically opposed. I play in CP. I play in open world. I use Cloak. I play melee with less of a ranged component, or none. I have more sustain and more speed. I am squishy af, but after playing Oakensoul, I'm now trying Lefthander's and that is shaping up to be a lot of fun, even if it's less effective. I have one build variation in the editor, which is this one:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=456482

Instead of being tanky, I start rolling. Jorvuld's is IMO key to make Lefthander's potentially viable. Prolonging the shield means that multiple rolls in a row benefit from Arcane Alacrity CP, kocking 800 off the cost.

This is subject to change. It has already changed, as I've gone back to Siphoning Attacks instead of Poison Injection for now and I've built into the stamina pool, rather than magicka. You can't get stamina up like you can get magicka on a Breton NB with the Siphoning passive, but I think (slightly) higher stamina than magicka, but more magicka sustain is the way to go on a cloaking melee magblade.

I'm a big proponent of building towards the speed cap, but using the bow has felt unexpectedly good. Rolling on the bow bar raises your average speed. Not having to cast RAT, other than to break snares, feels good.

My solution to "brawling" is that I can't stay in melee range for long, but I am a melee fighter and constantly weave in and out of combat, covering great distances with my speed the same way a stamsorc can be so annoying. Lefthander's is a tricky one. It can feel super strong and super weak at different times. The other measure I frequently use is Zoal. You don't need to be tanky, if you wear Zoal, it really is that good, although arguably you're giving away immunity. Really depends on what your goals are. I enjoy being fast, annoying and in the mix at the expense of some damage.

Not mad about the Crushing Weapon and/or Soul Tether combos, by the way, in case you're looking at my skill bar. They feel weak, at least in my build. Even though Soul Harvest / Incap is dodgeable, I'm going back to that.

fred4

Udrath wrote: »

I really don't like using DW cause of corrosive armor spam at the moment but works with it too.

Arguably DW has the best counter to Corrosive Armor (if you can hold out near the DK) and that is Flurry. Many patches ago there were some Flurry / Rending / bleed / poison builds that would melt my DK, despite Corrosive, because virtually all of their damage consisted of small hits.

OBJnoob

Forgive me I didn't read everything that's been said so far but I've been having success for about a month now on a brawler magnb so I hope my two cents helps.

Basically... Well basically I use vampire stage 3, heavy armor and some attributes into health, and I sustain with siphoning strikes, reave (passive resource restore on light attacks with incap slotted,) heavy attacks and potions.

I don't find that my ability bar is cramped I actually feel like I have more flex spots that on some of my other toons. The abilities I use are dark cloak, mist form (flex spot... Mirage would be good here,) lotus fan (flex spot, kinda a crap skill, but needed to do the ranged and melee you wanna do,) force pulse, merciless, incap. Other bar is siphoning strikes, fear, healthy offering, vigor, regent, soul tether.

Don't really wanna tell you what sets I'm wearing its kinda a meme build and its for no proc cyrodiil. And mostly I don't think the sets are important because the core concept of a brawler magnb is pretty solid.

Bad news for you? Don't think you can pull off a DW/inferno setup for the ranged and melee double offense you might want. Gonna need that resto staff. Use the morph of your burst heal that gives you minor mending... Heavy attack for major, slot as many siphoning skills on that bar as you can, and keep those HoTs rolling. Tanky. A. F.

Now you gotta choose between ranged and melee. And harder still between single target and aoe. I recommend single target, unless you routinely play with a group 4+. The aoe idea might sound tempting and powerful but I'm not sure, to be honest, the brawler magnb I'm describing is going to have enough burst to pull it off. Assuming they don't suck, somebody is gonna heal somebody, and none of the magnb skills can really be called delayed Burst... With a cast time on your ultimate I'm just not sure the bomb approach works. It takes like 3 full global cooldowns and your spell damage is only like 6k buffed so...

But you can single target kill all but the good meta players. And they can't kill you either.

Jeezye

Thx everyone. As for the mini bomb playstyle, I figured Lotus into Mist into tether works great because mist takes the cast time, people don’t expect it, and it allows to chain into aw or s2w.

Alternativ sets are plaguebreak where I actually managed to pull of some decent bombs.
Still as I’m optimizing I’m moving further away from mag brawler to crit Stamblade.

Again making it hard to justify mag over stam abilities

Jeezye

@fred4 as for application I’m mainly playing bgs until new servers are ready. If this works in no cp, you can also make it work for cp with adjustments.

As for clench, I like it a lot with aw chaining but felt I needed fear better in pressure situations with multiple enemies

Master_Kas

30k health. Every try to 1vX or even 1v1 will get you instakilled by caluurion+oakensoul or heavy attack DK Xv1 gankers (which are infesting every faction).

Unless you plan to move around permanently blocking. This patch feels nearly impossible to play a regular build.

I even killed ''good'' players on 55k hp warden in under 2 seconds the moment he dropped his block for a couple of seconds. It's ridicilous.

Jeezye

Master_Kas wrote: »

30k health. Every try to 1vX or even 1v1 will get you instakilled by caluurion+oakensoul or heavy attack DK Xv1 gankers (which are infesting every faction).

Unless you plan to move around permanently blocking. This patch feels nearly impossible to play a regular build.

I even killed ''good'' players on 55k hp warden in under 2 seconds the moment he dropped his block for a couple of seconds. It's ridicilous.

Hi Kas, that‘s not really helping. I’m fine not being able to compete with broken oaken setups, I’ll just play bgs and wait for the next nerf to roll in. However my issues/ concerns are beyond that.

30k hp is what I’ve been trying to hit anyways to get good dark cloak heals and leverage shadow passives. Anything beyond that?

Ididuz

I used this build. Rallying cry is OP for BG. https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=458541

Jeezye

Ididuz wrote: »

I used this build. Rallying cry is OP for BG. https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=458541

Great!! That’s very close to what I’m thinking of!

Couple of questions:
- I hate slotting „passive“ abilities because I think active always outperforms passive, also in terms of buff management. Therefore I’d replace camo and siphoning with fear and ambush. What’s your thoughts on slotting those skills, are they essential to you?
- why do you invest so heavily on the stamside with magicka spammables slotted?
- How does blood spawn work for you? Why not got with magma?
- Trainee is Great, I guess you just haven’t unlocked any mythics yet like me?

Ididuz

Jeezye wrote: »

Ididuz wrote: »

I used this build. Rallying cry is OP for BG. https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=458541

Great!! That’s very close to what I’m thinking of!

Couple of questions:
- I hate slotting „passive“ abilities because I think active always outperforms passive, also in terms of buff management. Therefore I’d replace camo and siphoning with fear and ambush. What’s your thoughts on slotting those skills, are they essential to you?
- why do you invest so heavily on the stamside with magicka spammables slotted?
- How does blood spawn work for you? Why not got with magma?
- Trainee is Great, I guess you just haven’t unlocked any mythics yet like me?

1. You need Major Savagery and Minor Berserk from Camo Hunter. You need Siphoning Attacks because heavy attacks is only way you restore magicka. Also you need any skill from siphoning skill line on both bar because 8% bust magicka. You dont need gap close because you have Refreshing Path. I begin fight with Path and Power Extraction. Anyway Ambush is clunky because cast time. You dont need fear because you have CC from Surprise Attack and DBoS.
2. Surprise Attack is stamina spammable.
3. Bloodspawn work great because ult gen, stam recovery and armor bonus. Minor Courage you have from Power Extraction and Minor Resolve from Mirage.
4. Yes, i dont have any DLC and bonus for my primary resourse is fine.
P.S. Sorry for my English.

Alchimiste1

I didn’t read the comments above so I don’t know if it’s already been stated but on the editor you linked

1) you have spin 2 win on a snb bar which means you can’t use it
2) you have no source of major savagery/prophecy yet it’s turned on in the editor
3) you have masters inferno but don’t have the skill to proc it
4) you have no stun

Jeezye

Hey peeps, thx for replying and the help.

I updated the build taking out older states with the obvious oversights mentioned above:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=126001

This is the setup I'm playing atm. I moved to all magicka skills for added healing. I think the build play quite nice now with chaining mist into different combos, and both a spammable on melee and ranged bar.

The only question to me is how to balance out dmg, tankiness and sustain (opimised for BGs atm, Cyro CP once servers are upgraded).

Do you have any recommendations on sets and tweaking?

WreckfulAbandon

There is no magblade or stamblade. That said, solo NB benefits more from stacking weapon dmg/stam because of Minor Savagery. Basically you want to balance the amount of stam/mag costing abilities to where it actually helps with sustain, because in order to have good regen, health, and damage your stam/mag attributes are going to be low. Power Extraction and Surprise Attack are too strong to not use imo. There are many ways to play brawlblade but good healing is required for all of them. Remember the game takes either the sum total of (mag+spell dmg) or (stam+wep dmg) to calculate tooltips. Use this to your advantage, build regen in both stats, and make sure you are putting that off stat regen to work.

Jeezye

WreckfulAbandon wrote: »

There is no magblade or stamblade. That said, solo NB benefits more from stacking weapon dmg/stam because of Minor Savagery. Basically you want to balance the amount of stam/mag costing abilities to where it actually helps with sustain, because in order to have good regen, health, and damage your stam/mag attributes are going to be low. Power Extraction and Surprise Attack are too strong to not use imo. There are many ways to play brawlblade but good healing is required for all of them. Remember the game takes either the sum total of (mag+spell dmg) or (stam+wep dmg) to calculate tooltips. Use this to your advantage, build regen in both stats, and make sure you are putting that off stat regen to work.

@WreckfulAbandon I have heard differently about how the scaling works, and after quickly testing with and without siphoning skills equipped you can still stack wepdmg+wepcrit with max magicka, thus combine max mag with minor savagery.

What sets would you recommend for such playstyle?

WreckfulAbandon

Jeezye wrote: »

@WreckfulAbandon I have heard differently about how the scaling works, and after quickly testing with and without siphoning skills equipped you can still stack wepdmg+wepcrit with max magicka, thus combine max mag with minor savagery.

What sets would you recommend for such playstyle?

That may be the case, Ive noticed odd things about the scaling that have made me question how it works more than once. For my playstyle I definitely prefer having more stamina to dodge. Either way the point is to put the bare minimum amount in your off stat and stack the rest in your "damage" attribute. I just theorycrafted my honorblade a couple of days ago so not going to spill the beans on it just yet sorry. I will at least tell you that its DW/Ice staff, uses Wretched Vitality, and uses 3x Swift.

WreckfulAbandon

Will be a little more helpful since I realized you were asking for good sets to use, not necessarily my build. Rallying Cry, Mechanical Acuity, Orders Wrath, Clever Alchemist, and Stuhns are all good sets with different pros and cons. Heartland Conquerer is ok in general but not the best for damage. Briarheart looks good but I havent used it in ages. Havent tested Way of Fire or Savage Werewolf on NB yet. New Moon is garbage imo. Pair damage sets with Wretched Vitality and youll have a solid base. There are only a couple of mythics that are useful for this playstyle imo. Dont forget about interesting Arena Weapons to backbar

gariondavey

https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=376244
Very tanky yet great burst, with offheals for brawler magblade.

Jeezye

Udrath wrote: »

I’m kinda interested in what dark cloak people are running. It's tough. Just keep on trying different stuff... I have gone through probably six or seven different set ups trying to make ranged/brawler work for me. I really don't like using DW cause of corrosive armor spam at the moment but works with it too.

Here's my current set up. Destro/destro. So far this is the best out of all the other stuff I have tried. Really good tooltip damage and healing, has speed and major evasion. Good pressure with a snare and major miam. You can change fire staff out for DW maces 1 nirnhoned 1 sharpened.

War maiden
Heartland conqueror
destructive impact
markyn ring-
breton-
1 light skoria
4 Light crit resist 3 Heavy reinforced
Atronach mundas

Sharpened front bar, powered back bar. Fire/frost staves. Spell power pots.

Front bar: ele drain, merciless, swallow soul, fear, phantasm escape. Ulti-incap
Back bar: refreshing path, frost clench, siphon, healthy offering, dark cloak. Ulti: soul tether

((Front bar DW:) Lotus fan, merciless, concealed(or surprise attack), sap essence, phantasm escape. ( Use tri-pots)
Pick what jewerly enchants/traits and food works for you.

Hey @Udrath, I kinda missed your post and it's actually a super interesting setup I was think off as well! I just found out I actually have access to Master's Frost Staff from ages ago, and I think minor brittle + major maim can be a huge nightblade asset.

To be honest, testing my latest builds I have felt very squishy with minor protection, major evasion and 25k resistances. How do you answer that with this setup?

To be fair, damage doesn't seem to be the issue in the current meta, even without much investment my ss, merciless, and ultis hit for enough to kill people. My problem is more that I'm dying along the way too easily, so frost clench sounds like a great addition.

Do you have an actual build to share here?

Udrath

@Jeezye

Expect to die a lot with most builds cause damage is really high at the moment. I’ve been messing around with a lot of builds. If you want to survive a bit longer I suggest trying out rallying cry and being fast so you can keep your distance and get in and out.

I had some fun using rallying cry and gryphon ferocity ( yeah a medium set ) with the wild hunt ring. Same bar set up but it’s nice having lots of critical resistance and 60% movement speed increase, while having a strong root. Can always drop the back bar ice staff for a resto and use mutagen or rapid in place of frost clench. Seems to be a crit meta cause most people have oakensoul and major force is really strong.

I think it’s also worth being a stage 3 vampire for the undeath passive. The build I post above is decent but not so great when out numbered.

ChunkyCat

The best way to play a Mag Nightblade brawler is to log off and play a Mag DK.

Udrath

@ChunkyCat

True or just become a ganker with caluuarion and sentry and kill other gankers lol