Magicka DK lacks a good single target ultimate (unless you want to be a meteor or soul assault spammer), dragonleap is bad for magicka because it champion scales as a physical attack, meaning youd have to split points between two trees, reducing the effectiveness of both.

They also lack direct single target spike damage. What this means, is magicka DK suffers from lack of burst potential, making light armor almost arbitrarily bad for PvP in the current environment. Youre better off just applying dots and outlasting your opponents vs trying to burst them, DK just doesnt have many options there.

Sure you could wind up some destro heavies, play the range game, but a good sorc or magblade is going to win that fight. DK's main strength via class skills lies within melee distance, indeed some of their best skills are all 8m range or less (including both dependable self heals in burning embers and inhale)

Also due to lack of mobility youre going to find the armor values of light to basically mean youre a quickly killed glass cannon with no survivability whatsoever, especially vs stam builds.

Most strong DKs today are heavy users for this reason. You lack spell pen, but you gain loads of sustain via constiution and not having to self heal as hard.

The only time I can see a LA DK being strong in PvP is if its a group synergy build with dedicated healers all over it keeping it alive, because one dizzying swing and youre going to feel it, whereas the heavy DK is going to laugh in the face of that blocked 3k uppercut and apply even more pressure damage until that pesky stam spammer backs off.

All that being said, magicka DK is currently the weakest class for 1v1, its actually stronger the more opponents it has. and is top notch for being the first in for group fights. Almost immune to range, tanky as hell, and still putting down AoE pressure damage. Light cant do that, not anymore.

Light PVE
Heavy PVP

@DKsUnite This one is for you

If I were to go heavy on a mag DK or templar, what does everyone think is a good set to run with? Would be using it with 2 skoria, 2 torugs (dw and SnB), and probably willpower jewelry... unless there is better options

Elf Bane Set Heavy armor.

But as Soris says, your still going to get tore up from max Stam/sharpened builds etc. But its still a bit better then all light.

I still think they need to improve HA but what we got was a small improvement.

LEVEL 50 CHAMPION 160

(2 items) Adds 967 Max Magicka

(3 items) Adds 129 Spell Damage

(4 items) Adds 129 Spell Damage

(5 items) Increases duration of your damaging fire effect by 2 seconds.

I prefer light armor for the smallman/solo for cost reduction and regen.

Hulkamania Heavy for group play.

Rylana wrote: »

Soris wrote: »

Just keep in mind heavy armor = light armor against stamina builds with sharpened maces and major/minor breach.
30k armor becomes around 14k before even champion points.

Spell penetration is alot harder to stack though.

And light armor becomes literally zero. People always parrot about the armor reductions, but damn ill take 14k armor over zero.

Yes but light armor utilise shields better + more magicka return from harness in addition to having better penetration crit and cost reduction etc. So there is that.

Honestly it takes a lot longer for me to kil light armor shield stacker dk than a heavy armor one.

With the current standing of dk, your question is actually would you rather smother soggy noodles on your opponent or use a slightly stronger noodle but be made of wet tissue.

Magicka DK is useless in groups and very bad for solo (*compared to other classes).... So there is that.

I wouldn't say mag dk is dead in and out of a group. On black water the only trouble I run into are mag plars. They out heal my dps so easily. All other classes you can lock them down with cc and talons.
Love it when nightblades try to click away haha you can't escape my inhale

Heavy armor with sword and shield, for the tankiness. Dks are great at mitigating damage so it's better to spec into that area than specing for damage.