That tornado uses stamina so any skills in the DW sucks with a magicka build. People use DW for magicka ONLY for the damage boost from the passive.
I use destro because i like to stay at range and not use melee range skills. Plus magic regen from destro heavy attacks is nice too.

i use only a resto staff on magicka NB with dual wield on second bar for the higher spell damage .
But then it's a night blade ..

edit: depends on what class you play and personal preferences i guess

SanSan wrote: »

That tornado uses stamina so any skills in the DW sucks with a magicka build. People use DW for magicka ONLY for the damage boost from the passive.
I use destro because i like to stay at range and not use melee range skills. Plus magic regen from destro heavy attacks is nice too.

Not really... blade cloack could have some use in some builds

I'm no pve dps expert, but as best I know, this is why destro is better for a magicka NB dps at end game:

-easier to gain ultimate with ranged light attacks
-NBs use a few DoT abilities, one of which is a destro skill
-even though it is minimal, the light attacks from a fire staff do more dps than if you had 2 swords

I use the extra spell damage from duel wield for my aoe bar on my Magblade. In aoe situations, the damage from weaving isn't as important as the damage of your aoe skills. On single target dps, I use the destro staff for the reasons mentioned above.

good (max?) pve dps for magicka nb is destro staff on one bar & duel wield swords on the other bar

for PVE - you want to do the max dps possible, this shortens the encounters with enemies/boss which in turn shortens any mechanics associated with said enemy/boss. However you also need to make a choice - do you want your damage to be primarily stamina or magicka based. Hybrid builds are not viable unless your a tank. Choose a method and put everything into the resources supporting that method. With that said;

If magicka, you will want a destro/dw or destro/destro, the reasons for utilizing atleast one destro (inferno only) on your bar as a magicka nightblade dps:

1. Wall of Elements/Elemental Blockade - this is a high damage aoe that lasts 8 seconds and does about 2400+ dps per second, that's almost 20k worth of set it and forget it dps, this is a must have for any serious PVE player. You can stack this with twisting path so that you have layered damage while your doing damage.

2. Weaving, this not only adds to your dps but also gives you sustain.

3. Merciless Resolve/Grim Focus, destro makes it alot easier to proc the bow damage on this ability and seamlessly include it in your rotation, this buff should always be up regardless.

4. If you have the full scathing mage set in divines (Best in slot) you will want to use force pulse instead of funnel as you will get more opportunities to proc the set bonus.

People will run DW on their back bar for their execute (bigger damage) and active aoe's like sap essence which make the spell damage buff useful.The above advice only applies to magicka nightblades.

That is all children.

Wall of Elements (WoE) is not a superior skill on its own, in terms of single- and multi-target dps, at least relative to comparable skills like Twisting Path (which can be cast on a DW bar). Status effects (i.e. burning) are boosted in a trials setting, as is the case with a magicka DK with Engulfing Flames.

The true benefit of WoE is when it's paired with a Maelstrom Destruction Staff. Hitting any target with WoE will increase your light/heavy attack damage by a substantial amount. The common misconception here is that this benefit is only against a target effected by WoE, but such is not the case. In fact, if I cast WoE on target A, my light/heavy attacks against target B, who is across the room, are still boosted. This increase in light/heavy attack damage can easily amount to an additional 2k dps, give or take, and this is the the core benefit of using a destro staff. This benefit is not unique to NBs.

There is a catch, however. It is entirely possible and feasible to use a destro and DW:
Bar 1 (destro): Elemental Blockade (WoE), Crippling Grasp, Swallow Soul (or Force Pulse), Merciless Resolve, Inner Light, Shooting Star.
Bar 2 (DW): Twisting Path, Sap Essence (flex), Impale, Siphoning Attacks, Inner Light, Soul Harvest.

The rotation begins on the off-bar, applying Siphoning Attacks and Twisting Path, which has the longest duration of all of our DoTs. Then, swap to Bar 1, and apply WoE and Crippling Grasp. While these DoTs are running, we will weave our Swallow Souls or Force Pulses for their duration, ensuring that Assassin's Will is used whenever it procs, and always keeping the buff active. The light/heavy attack bonus is foregone as soon as we switch bars. For whatever reason, it has to be equipped for the effect to matter, which means there's neither a benefit nor a need to weave attacks on Bar 2, which as we see in the next paragraph, is basically just a buff bar with Twisting Path until execute phase. One exception to this may be the use of a spell damage glyphs on one of our swords, assuming we are in melee proximity, but any of your attacks with DW will not get the benefit of WoE, active or not. This is also how we justify using DW instead of destro on the back bar too, unless you want to run a vMA destro and WoE on both bars.

Bar 2 is used predominantly for Siphoning Attacks for sustain and Twisting Path. Until execute phase, everything else is largely irrelevant. This helps to explain why Sap Essence is a flex skill, because in vet trials like vSO, there is little to no benefit in AoE damage, so spammable AoEs are rather unimportant. We keep WoE and Twisting Path because they are just as useful in single-target combat as they are in AoEs; That is, the target(s) being affected by these AoEs will take the full damage of them, even if they are the only target. For any pull that negates the use of spammable AoEs, I recommend using Harness Magicka. There are some unique situations, such as Mantikora in vSO, where it pays off to have someone away from the group (in this case, the purpose is to bait the poison spears away from the melee and healers).

Once execute phase is reached, DoTs are often foregone. Most players I know, myself included, will reapply some or all of our DoTs at or just before execute phase, and then will not refresh them before the target dies. There is some flexibility in this strategy, and sometimes it does make a difference to reapply them once or twice more (but this largely depends on how quickly the target is going down). A good rule of thumb is to reapply a DoT if it will be able to run its full duration. When on execute bar, the increased spell damage and flat damage boost from Twin Blade & Blunt will boost your Impales, speeding along the execute process. If the execute phase is sped up enough by group damage, in various ways of course, the need to reapply those DoTs diminishes. Thus, the benefit of light/heavy attacks are foregone anyway, since we aren't reapplying WoE.