Thanks man.

I was missing my magika NB since I switched to stamina, and made a new NB that I wasn't looking forward to making a caster. Nice to see melee can still work, tho I'm sure I'll still suck at it

Lol ok dude so not bad, your right it's not dead just gimp... Dude I get what your getting at I've tried it it's really alright man but either go Stam with sword and board or go destruction resto! The defense benefits do not
Out way the offensive. Destro ability a with all magica even one and even the penetration passive. Just a more highly skilled player there is significantly less benefit to your sword an board now unless your jacking points into bashing passive in champion! Plus weaving not bad but not the same...

I already have a new and improved version of this build, which is taking advantage of some other powerful mechanics with the nb.
Concealed damage isn't as high as I think a melee range skill should be, but I'll use it if its all I got.
I will do more testing and will update this build.
The new build will get nerfed, I guarantee it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz6pAqzDor4
Here is the Updated build, try things out though people. Some things might work better for you that dont work so well for me.

Max Magicka/magicka regen will always be better than spell power as 1 spell power only = 2 damage as long as you are considering a pvp build. I say a good spread of dedication should be 70% max magica/ 10% cost reduc/ 10% regen/ 5% spell power. Though I have been playing imperial, so it is probably different for other Races.
I like tripots because they increase my stam recovery, which is a very important part of any magica build. Also, I use a controller so I dont really have the privilege of effectively swapping pots and tripots are the most versatile. Also, armor and spell res really isn't that important tbh, I look at it like spell power. Its nice to have, but not mandatory. The one medium headpiece is for that undaunted passive.

I do like the idea of using 2h weapon. I was using destroy but no destroy skills. 2h raises my spell power quite a bit more now and the passive for next attack doing more damage is great. I have to completely disagree with spell power not being important though. Magicka regen is completely proportional to magicka cost. If your skills cost next to nothing you don't need to focus a lot of magicka regen. If you don't use a lot of cost reduction magicka regen is more important.

Think of it this way, if I have a skill that costs 700 magicka and have 1400 magicka regen, its no different then using cost reduction and having the skill cost 500 magicka and have 1000 magicka regen. I can cast just as much and have just as much sustain because its proportioned properly. In this case I can focus more on spell power than magicka regen. For a real example, my funnel health costs only 398 magicka to cast. With my potion I have a magicka regen of almost 1300. I almost never run out of magicka, even when using my other skills, which are similar to yours. Because I don't need to use armor set bonuses to raise my magicka regen I can focus on spell power instead. Last night with my potion I was hitting 2900 spell power in chillrend (5% DMG from offensive scroll as well) and concealed weapon tool tip was around 6200 DMG and when I combined it with the heavy attack from 2h the damage was massive and was more in line with what stamina builds are hitting for right now (which is a lot).

Light armor is extremely squishy right now. ZoS was obviously scared of repeating pre-1.6 where everyone ran around in light armor. Because of this it is supremely important to build your magicka build as the glass cannon it should be. If the sustain is already there, don't waste chances to increase damage. Having a large magicka pool is great as well, helps with both sustain and damage.

I made two weapons one with defending and one with sharpened. I like the little extra protection and with shadow barrier it helps but its not as huge as some would think. Sharpened is nice but would be way better if spell erosion from the apprentice tree worked so it would stack. At this point I believe the nirnhoned trait would be the best of both worlds...I just have another month before the trait is finished lol.

I REALLY want to try caltrops on the bar but it costs over 7200 stamina for me. I have 12.6k stamina and even as a werewolf I just can't bring myself to use stamina for anything other than break free and dodge roll.

I suggest degeneration WAY over sap unless you are group tanking and doing organized runs into a keep where your group is like a locust swarm. Degeneration is best IMO because you SHOULD be LA/MA/HA weaving and you get some really decent heals to add to HoTs from rapid regen and/or funnel health. Though I've been using spell power pots for my spell power degeneration still finds its way to my bar here and there.

I do have a question though, does the next attack mean skill or even a LA or HA? I wonder if it would be possible to cast degeneration, HA with 2h and literally supercharge concealed weapon. Would only work if HA didn't use the attack buff from degeneration/mages passive.

akray21 wrote: »

I just noticed that empower and major sorcery stack... so using entropy you get a 20% damage on the next attack, plus 20% spell power for 12 seconds... It is hard to decide between this and sap essence...

deepseamk20b14_ESO wrote: »

I suggest degeneration WAY over sap unless you are group tanking and doing organized runs into a keep where your group is like a locust swarm. Degeneration is best IMO because you SHOULD be LA/MA/HA weaving and you get some really decent heals to add to HoTs from rapid regen and/or funnel health. Though I've been using spell power pots for my spell power degeneration still finds its way to my bar here and there.

I do have a question though, does the next attack mean skill or even a LA or HA? I wonder if it would be possible to cast degeneration, HA with 2h and literally supercharge concealed weapon. Would only work if HA didn't use the attack buff from degeneration/mages passive.

Even doing Entroy > Cloak > Concealed Weapon is good. 20% spell damage from Entropy + 20% on next attack from Might of the Guild + 10% damage from stealth from Master Assassin. That is a 50% increase in damage to concealed weapon. So if you are getting 5k normal hits you get it to hit for 7,500.

akray21 wrote: »

Even doing Entroy > Cloak > Concealed Weapon is good. 20% spell damage from Entropy + 20% on next attack from Might of the Guild + 10% damage from stealth from Master Assassin. That is a 50% increase in damage to concealed weapon. So if you are getting 5k normal hits you get it to hit for 7,500.

So, for single-target burst, would there be any benefit to taking Entropy or its morphs over Swallow Soul?

It seems that Swallow Soul and Concealed Weapon would do more damage inside a smaller window than trying to buff Concealed Weapon with Entropy ---> Cloak.

Is there something I'm missing? I'm asking because I genuinely don't know. Thanks!

akray21 wrote: »

Xinthisis wrote: »

Max Magicka/magicka regen will always be better than spell power as 1 spell power only = 2 damage as long as you are considering a pvp build. I say a good spread of dedication should be 70% max magica/ 10% cost reduc/ 10% regen/ 5% spell power. Though I have been playing imperial, so it is probably different for other Races.
I like tripots because they increase my stam recovery, which is a very important part of any magica build. Also, I use a controller so I dont really have the privilege of effectively swapping pots and tripots are the most versatile. Also, armor and spell res really isn't that important tbh, I look at it like spell power. Its nice to have, but not mandatory. The one medium headpiece is for that undaunted passive.

Do you know the conversion for both max magicka and spell power to damage?

^ I'd be interested in this as well. As a magicka DK, I run 3 heavy 4 light, and with entropy up I have over 2500 spell dmg. Stats are only 23k H, 17k M and 14k S. I run a drink so that I can actually manage my resources instead of running out after 30 seconds and being SOL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Aasy4_qyc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0b5oEyoeOg

@Samuel_Bantien Sup zendro.
Your build is strong man.

Very interesting build - will have to give this a try some time.