Bloodmage Reborn - PTS 2.1 update for the NB healer!

Kerioko · August 2015

OVERVIEW:

The purpose of this build is adapting my 1.6 NB healer into a build viable for all content in the upcoming Imperial City DLC. This is in no way a min/max build for max dps, healing, or leaderboard runs. That being said, this build will still achieve above average dps (10K sustained) and healing to function as either a primary dps of healer for 4-man dungeons and small group pvp. The build also shines in raid groups as a third healer that can swap between dps and healing as needed.

RACE:

Argonian is my preferred race. The 6% health, 9% incoming heals, and 8% stat regen on pots fits really nice with the overall purpose of this build. Bretons, Altmer, and Dunmer also make excellent NB healers due to their magicka based passives.

Vampire is also chosen as it synergies well with both NB and magicka based builds. The stealth speed buff and resource regen is welcomed as a NB healer, and the skills mist form and clouded swarm synergies well with this build!

ATTRIBUTES, MUNDUS, STATS:

For PVE, you want to focus on around 35K magicka, 20K health, 10K stamina, with 2K spell damage and 50% spell crit with blue food and mage light. Use different combinations of enchants, mundus stones, and attribute points to meet these numbers.

For PVP, I recommend purple food with stats around 30K magicka, 25K health, and 12K stamina, with 2K spell damage and 40% crit. You may wish to drop mage light for cloak and fear in pvp. This will give you a viable CC and escape, and also give you access to the shadow barrier passive for more resistance.

Useful mundus include:
- Mage - more magicka (best all around)
- Apprentice - spell damage (more dps focused)
- Ritual - added healing (more healer focused)
- Atronach - Magicka Regen (for better sustain)

GEAR:

This gear set-up is 7/7 light armor. This makes this build very glass cannon in terms of resistance, but this disadvantage is negated by certain skills.

Meritorious Service Set - Nice set for a magicka build that turns purge into an awesome support skill. This will also help make up for some of the resistance lost by not having any heavy or medium armor pieces.

Healer's Habit - Great magicka based set that provides 3 pieces of jewelry. This set will also boost the heals of our dps skills, allowing us to maintain decent heals while fully focused on dps. Start with reduced spell cost enchants on jewelry and swap with spell damage as you get better with resource management.

Master Resto Staff - Extra magicka plus gives stamina when casting springs. Your tanks will thank you!

Master Daggers - The extra weapon damage also applies to your spell damage. This means your funnel health and sap essence will hit like a truck! Duel Torug's Pact swords may slightly be better as long as you don't light attack. If you plan to weave light attacks, use the master daggers for the added weapon damage and crit!

CHAMPION POINTS:

Apprentice (Mage) 10 in Blessed (+healing), 10 in Spell Erosion (+ spell pen), 10 in Elfborn (+crit dmg) - unlocks 12% spell crit passive with 30 points
Apprentice (Ritual) All extra in Thaumaturge to boost magicka effectiveness - unlocks 12% weapon crit with 30 points (for duel wield light attacks)
Thief (Tower) - half in Magician (reduced spell cost)
Thief (Lover) - half in Arcanist (+ magicka regen)
Warrior (Steed) - 10 in Block Expertise (reduce block cost)
Warrior (Lord) - 10 in Quick Recovery (+ incoming heals) - synergies with argonian passive
Warrior (Lady) - All extra in Elemental Defender (reduce elemental damage) - offset fire damage for being a vampire

SKILLS:

BAR 1: Offensive Healing - Sharpened (or Infused) Master Daggers

1. Funnel Health - Primary single target dps spam. It is very cheap and can crit for over 10K with this build. Another thing that makes funnel spamming a valid heal is that it refreshes the heal every cast, meaning you can bypass the 2 second cooldown. On critical hits, heals can range anywhere from 3-5K with this build (1-2K with 2.1 PVP debuffs). We also get 8% magicka for having any siphoning skill on our bar.

2. Sap Essence - Gives us both major sorcery and major brutality. This means our duel wield light attacks will hit just as hard as staff light attacks, making light attack weaving nice with this build. This skill is also getting a damage boost in 2.1, putting it on par with impulse and making it a viable AOE damage skill. The healing sustained from spamming this skill on multiple mobs is almost on par with healing springs ticks making it a viable off-heal for trash fights.

3. Impale - Mainly here to provide all the dps boosts from the assassin skill line passives (10% stealth and crit damage, 3% crit). Aside from that, it is an awesome range execute that will crit for 20K and returns magicka on kill!

4. Efficiency Purge - Combining the support and vampire regen passives, give this build an extra 20% magicka regen for having a support and vampire skill on your bar. Aside from being our main dot (and mark) removal skill, purge will also activate the resistance buff from the meritorious service set.

5. Inner Light - 10% spell crit + about 7% magicka and some extra regen with passives. I run tri-pots, so this comes in handy!

Ult. Clouded Swarm - Gets the 10% stealth spell damage buff making it hit quite hard. Also makes you invisible for 5 seconds so can be used as an escape skill if needed.

Bar 2: Defensive Healing - Defending Master Resto Staff

1. Healing Springs - Our primary group and tank heal. Its cheap and stacks on itself for nice burst heals and synergies with master staff to provide group with extra stamina for blocking. Illustrious healing works well to if you want to stack it with a Sap spam!

2. Mutagen - Our main HoT to stack with funnel health. Rapid regen is good, but I prefer the safety net of mutagen's burst since I swap between dps and healing a lot.

3. Healing Ward - "Oh ***" button for when someone gets in trouble. Replace with Combat Prayer for more coordinated groups. Ward really shines when paired with mist form as an escape tool when being focused.

4. Elusive Mist - Mobility + 75% reduced incoming damage. Best way to make up for our lack of mitigation when we get focused. Is canceled with block when needed!

5. Inner Light - Same as above. Replace with cloak and fear when running in PVP pug groups!

Ult. Reviving Barrier - Awesome group damage shield that works with meritorious service bonus giving you 30 sec of damage shield with healing, and 15 seconds of increased resistances.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This build is focused toward small group play. While it can function solo or in raid groups, more viable set-ups are recommended. For PVP, this is one magicka NB build that does not center around the use of cloak + double take. While this is a very successful escape tool, I find it to have little use in coordinated group fighting in IC as detect pots and radiant mage light render it useless. Cloak also benefits more of a glass cannon gank build, while this is more of a sustained dps/healing build that uses attrition to win 1vX battles.

ryanmjmcevoy_ESO · August 2015

Thief (Tower) - half in Warlord (reduced spell cost)

I think that's a typo. Warlord is stam cost, Magician is magika cost. Otherwise, interesting build, thanks for the write up

Kerioko · August 2015

ryanmjmcevoy_ESO wrote: »

Thief (Tower) - half in Warlord (reduced spell cost)

I think that's a typo. Warlord is stam cost, Magician is magika cost. Otherwise, interesting build, thanks for the write up

Edited: You are correct, thanks for the catch!

Septimus_Magna · August 2015

Interesting build but I dont get the Meritorious 5-set, even if you use purge on a regular basis the small resist increase probably isnt very noticable.

Have you co considered any of these new sets?
The new Prayer 5-set, which has a 5% change to give allies a damage shield when you heal them.

Spell Power Cure 5-set, which gives allies a spell damage buff if you heal them at 100% heath.

Scathing mage 5-set, which has a 10% change to give a huge spell damage boost if you crit.

Or overwhelming 5-set, which gives 1x magicka, 2x spell damage and a 8% change to proc extra damage if you activate a class skill.

Note, these sets may come in different armor weights and none of these sets are craftable to my knowledge.
At least prayer and overwhelming seem to come in light, I cant imagine why scathing mage would come in medium.

OGLezard · August 2015

Scathing mage would make a very good hybrid build. That's what I belive their intent was. Or so it seems, to me, to be that way

Kerioko · August 2015

Prayer shawl isn't a new set but it is a real nice set for DK healers that shield stack heals. Given that this is a PVP/PVE build, Prayer Shawl would become useless with the new changes to shields in PVP.

As far as the spell power cure, its only 3 seconds and only helps magicka based dps. It becomes a useless set if you run with stamina dps.

For the overwhelming surge and scathing mage, these are great sets for PVE max magicka dps builds. However, they would become useless when I am purely focused on healing and spamming resto staff skills, since I would not be doing critical damage or using class skills.

I would probably run a 4 piece (replacing my martial knowledge) overwhelming surge for a max spell damage set-up with 3 arch mage, 2 cyrodiil light, and 2 torug's pact for straight PVE dps. This would be a set-up for the traditional NB-lock that uses funnel and cripple rotation with destro staff.

If the Scathing Mage in indeed a medium armor set, this would be an awesome set to bring back the old NB magicka melee build from pre-1.6. Merciless resolve would decimate enemies when this set procs.

As a healer though, I don't like sets that have % proc chances, because you can't always depend on the proc when you need it. I like the meritorious service because it has a guaranteed proc. Plus, while 3K group resistance might not seem like much in PVE, in PVP it is a lot better given the 50% debuff to healing and shields. Given it takes around 30K resist to get 50% damage reduction, the 3K resist is like a constant 5% damage reduction for your group!

Savos_Saren · August 2015

I actually think you'd be better off with 5 pieces of Scathing Mage, 2 Torug's Pact, and 3 jewelry pieces of Willpower. Keep the Master's Resto and Master's Daggers, though.

My reasoning for Scathing Mage is this:

Your primary DPS/Heal would be Funnel Health. REMEMBER, Funnel Health's actual heal comes from a % of the damage done to an enemy. So, you want VERY high damage and VERY high crit rate. Scathing Mage offers both. With the damage bonuses of Mage, Pact, Willpower, and the Master's Daggers- you're talking about a Funnel Health shot that hits like a truck and throws out heavy healing!

I'd suggest utilizing The Apprentice for your Mundus Stone and invest your CP wisely.

I'd also go with 5 light, 1 heavy, and 1 medium (yes- one medium). You'd get the 6% health/magicka/stam bonus from the Undaunted skill line and the extra stam/sneak from the medium passive actually helps!

I'll be rolling a Dunmer (Dark Elf) since I do plan on utilizing the Vampire skill line. The racial passive of fire protection and extra magicka suits this build well.

Please let me know what you think!

Kerioko · August 2015

I tested both the Scathing Mage and the Overwhelming surge set, My findings are:

-This is with v16 argonian NB template with 300CP, 7 piece armor set and willpower jewelry and weapons so it is far from optimized.

Scathing mage worked best with destro/resto as you want to incorporate light attack weave with funnel health to have a better shot at keeping the buff up. I tried the set with the thief mundus (now gives 12% crit) and was able to get to 73% spell crit. With destro, I found I was able to keep the buff up 50-75% of the time and my funnel health averaged 10K. With duel daggers, I didn't light attack weave. This lead to less casts and the buff was only up 25-50% of the time. When the buff was up, funnel hit like a truck, but overall average dmg of funnel was only 8K.

Overwhelming Surge had slightly about the same dps and heals on average, but was alot more consistent. Funnel stayed pretty at around 8-10K average.

From this my conclusion would be to run Scathing Mage if you plan on running destro/resto or duel resto with the thief mundus and Overwhelming surge if you plan on running duel wield with the apprentice mundus.

Savos_Saren · August 2015

Does the Scathing Mage buff not proc off of critical hits from Funnel Health?

I would imagine that two precise Master's Daggers would compensate for a single resto/destro staff.

Can you not just spam Funnel Health to keep the buff up?

Savos_Saren · August 2015

I'd imagine that with the new release, a NB Healer would max out as:

Molag Kenya- head and shoulders (hvy/hvy or hvy/med)

5 pcs of Scathing Mage- light

2 rings of Cyrodiil's Light or Wrath of the Imperium

3 pcs of Willpower Set- necklace and two precise daggers

omfgitsbatman · August 2015

@Kerioko, This build is interesting, but I do believe it has some fundamental issues that could be resolved pretty easily. It would be great to get with you either in a teamspeak or through private messages to discuss this build before you release a copy of it for the live servers.
I have played a magicka nightblade for quite some time in almost every different venue (Competetive trials, 4 man content, small group and zerg pvp, and solo pvp). I have done both healing and dps in every aspect of the game as well.
I was going to put out a build of my own a little bit after live came out, but I believe that we could collaborate and release a build that is that much better.

Hit me up in a pm if you're interested.

Kerioko · August 2015

@omfgitsbatman yeah, I am interested, there are definitely some ways to improve the build I provided!

I did some more testing with the new changes to molag kena, and this set is awesome for magicka NBs due to funnels low base cost and our ability to run siphoning strikes. I can see it a great two piece to use when we really need to turn on some burst heals...ie, double tap light attack then spam some massive springs for 6 seconds!

Draehl · August 2015

It's an intriguing build, but I wish they devs would quit releasing asymmetrical shoulder armor for these 2 pieces sets. You're absolutely killing it for the OCD/borderline OCD players among us...