Nightblade Medium Armor Magicka

Cagro · July 2015

Is it viable or does anyone have a decent PVP Nightblade Medium Armor Magicka based build? I know hybrids are no good anymore but I just like Medium but prefer to be a healer. Maybe with the new Siphoning Strikes changing coming?

Roberts3393 · July 2015

siphoning strikes change?? what is this :P and sorry i cant help you on your question im a stamina bow build

Cagro · July 2015

Siphoning Stirkes will no longer have a damage reduction and will be an activated ability.

starkerealm · July 2015

The change to siphoning strikes will actually make it less viable for a magicka nightblade, because the buff only lasts for 10 seconds. So using it will actually cost more than you'd get back. It will get you some stamina though... So there is that use. We'll have to see what ZoS does with the ability though.

Pyrocyborg · July 2015

I don't know... You can get some Magicka set bonus on medium armor, but most passives are tied to stamina and weapon damage use, with two others that increase stealth, sprint and dodge rolling efficiency. This will mean 10-15% lower damage (and healing done overall) for a slightly higher damage mitigation and better stealth, sprint and dodge. Unless you're using a stamina ability, there is no point in having passives that increase their damage or efficiency.

AFAIK, I don't think a Magicka user will have enough stamina to dodge roll often with the future changes, and with the lowest stamina pool of a magicka user, the stealth efficiency passive might, or might not be that interresting.

You'll almost better be off with heavy armor if you want better mitigation or prefer the look of medium and heavy armor. I tend to use a mix of medium-heavy and light-heavy on my characters to get the most of the set bonuses (Weapon and spell damage, mostly) and bit more damage mitigation, but I don't know how important the 500-1000 armor value is in PvP.

PBpsy · July 2015

With the new Siphoning change you will just not have much reason to use Siphoning strikes ever on pretty much any build since it stopped performing its function in a reliable way. Completely irrelevant for medium armor magicka builds. It actually reduced many of the hybrid NB capabilities also.

There are no reasons for using medium armor on any caster NB since 1.3. We are already pretty weak so no point in gimping ourselves even further. If aesthetics are your only concern you can use 1medium/1heavy legs and chest for the undaunted passives or use medium armor disguises.

Lorkhan · July 2015

no, its not viable

Lorkhan · July 2015

but of course some poeple will say yes

PBpsy · July 2015

starkerealm wrote: »

The change to siphoning strikes will actually make it less viable for a magicka nightblade, because the buff only lasts for 10 seconds. So using it will actually cost more than you'd get back. It will get you some stamina though... So there is that use. We'll have to see what ZoS does with the ability though.

Siphoning Strikes still kind of works for sustaining Syphoning NB aoe. It requires: weaving light attacks between Sap, timing SA and using pots. The problem is that along with the Stam regen nerfs blocking is almost impossible and somewhat pointless. I have managed to solo Hircine's but the run was extremely tedious. (210CP)

olemanwinter · July 2015

When the Stygian set worked before 1.6 I ran it very successfully as a magica NB.

No longer viable.

mistermutiny89 · July 2015

@olemanwinter On the subject Stygian set; every time I see it drop I just get so mad. I mean,... Medium armour?? Really?? Why?!!! Why create something that is just totally unviable? And if it were viable to begin with why not when changes are made buff and change corresponding sets? Can you imagine how amazing concealed weapon and clouding swarm would have been on a light armour magicka build with heaps of points in thaumaturge?

PBpsy · July 2015

mistermutiny89 wrote: »

@olemanwinter On the subject Stygian set; every time I see it drop I just get so mad. I mean,... Medium armour?? Really?? Why?!!! Why create something that is just totally unviable? And if it were viable to begin with why not when changes are made buff and change corresponding sets? Can you imagine how amazing concealed weapon and clouding swarm would have been on a light armour magicka build with heaps of points in thaumaturge?

Before 1.6 all melee class skills were using spell power and magcika for damage scaling but their critical was based on weapon crit. Such NB builds were actually somewhat viable for PVP .Stygian and Undaunted infiltrator are vestiges of that era.