I'm more curious to know what your recovery is.

And I'm assuming you're a Templar? In any case need to know your skills and rotation that you use, can have high damage but doesn't really mean anything if you can't capitalize on it.

I agree with Waffennacht. Take a look at my build:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=21097

I normally play in CP, but removed the CP from the above for comparison purposes. This is one of my more aggressive setups. Note:

* I am wearing light armor for the sustain, crit, and penetration. My spell penetration, without Mark, is 14K.

* Major Sorcery is coming from a potion in this particular setup. However I also recommend Immovability potions.

* Note I have 1.6K magicka recovery, as well as a ton of cost reduction from light armor, being a Breton, and two cost reduction enchants ... and this is my CP setup. This level of recovery works pretty well for no CP too. The reason I go for cost reduction is to be able to perma-cloak, in CP, and run a slight magicka surplus while doing so (out of combat). If you are not concerned with that, I would go for more recovery over cost reduction.

* As I have 3.6K more magicka than you, this makes up for about 340 spell damage. My equivalent spell damage, at your level of magicka, is thus 2440, but I have more penetration and crit.

* IMO it is better to stack magicka, rather than spell damage, as it gives you bigger shields. If you are using the shade, consider the Necropotence set. A shield size of 10K makes a noticeable difference over an 8K or lesser shield. I am told shields are more viable in CP, than in no CP. As a light armor build, I prefer using both Harness Magicka and Healing Ward, unless I have other major sources of healing in the build, such as Troll King. Harness is a very noticeable boon to sustain against magicka opponents, thus I prefer it over Dampen.

Well, that's it, as far as the build goes. The first thing that sprung to mind, though, is what I often notice against inexperienced duelling opponents. They don't keep up the pressure. When I look at the FTC combat logs, afterwards, they are playing too defensively, not hitting me often enough. In a light armor build, I think that comes down to finding your balance between shielding and attacking. Also magicka NB is somewhat weak in terms of raw damage. The potential is there, but you have to work for it. Typically this involves comboing an ultimate with Merciless Resolve.

I note you are using Concealed Weapon. Playing melee magblade is hard, IMO. Are you using a staff or dual-wield? If the latter, you are missing light-attack damage. Always weave light attacks between your other abilities. I think it's much easier to achieve decent damage with an Inferno staff and Funnel Health. It hits slightly less than Concealed, but don't underestimate the healing, the convenience of attacking from a distance, the harder hitting light attacks from staff, and the cheapness of Funnel.

In theory, magblade is designed to burst people with a Fear / Merciless / Ultimate combo, once you've softened them up a bit with Crippling Grasp and your spammable weave. A lot of people do this, and I think it yields the best results. Do not expect to burst them quickly, ganking style, like stamblades do. Magblade needs patience.

The alternative is doing what I do, and that's Soul Assault. I have the front bar (which is bar 2, in my build) carefully set up for maximum damage, by including Inner Light, a siphoning, a destro, and an Assassination ability. I'll try to get peope's health down some, by using a Funnel weave, applying Flame Reach for DOT and CC, and marking them, if necessary. If I get them halfway down, I Soul Assault. Often this enough. If they get into the 25% range, I obviously start spamming Impale and, yes, you often have to spam that, for example when sorcs shield.

I don't expect to kill everyone, but I do not expect the tankier players to kill me either.

I'm not that experienced with magblade, but usually when I see people not doing damage on players is because they dont use cc's or apply enough constant pressure.

At range you can slot shock reach from the destro skill line and it offers a ranged cc and a small dot. Up close you have the best cc in the game fear, use it!

Make sure you have your buffs up, cc them, then burst them down with constant pressure and be sure to cc them EVERY 7 seconds.

The cc will help drain their stamina and give you a chance to burst them. The dot will help keep them from cloaking and also helps negate any heal over times so more of your burst damage goes through.

I would recomend trying to raise your penetration. You can do this through light armour passive, cp allocation, sharpened weapons, or crusher enchant to lower enemies resistance. It's not gonna help on shield stackers, but will make a big difference on tanky players.

Wish i could help more on magblade skills, but Im sure some people here can chime in on that or theres always youtube.

Thogard wrote: »

It took me four years before I was brave enough to journey out into cyro, and now I'm top 10 in the PC NA BG leaderboards (not that that means I'm amazing at PvP)

Nah, that just means you're a mag sorc, right ? (For those who don't know, mag sorcs tend to steal all the kills by casting Mage's Fury).

What do I mean by margins? Let me give an example

I totally agree with your description, very well made point. If you out-danage someone by 1K, relative to their damage and healing, you'll kill them within 20 seconds (at 20K health). Of course people burst to try and speed things up, but fundamentally I think your description is very true. It's the prime reason why inexperienced players don't compete well, as they haven't found the balance between mitigation, healing, and damage, that gives them the best bang for the buck. Especially when I see them not heal at below half-health for a few seconds, I know they're probably new to PvP and I will have an easy kill. The exception are stamblades with insane damage, or shield-stacking sorcs.

By the way, I learnt to PvP by duelling, when One Tamriel came out. Nowadays, on PC EU, you'll always find duellers at the Bergamo wayshrine in Alik'r Desert. They tend to be fairly hardcore though. Personally I like finding people at (or just beyond) my own level, although that tends to happen naturally as well. If you beat someone (or get beat) marginally, they tend to come back for more duels. This will give you an appreciation of the different classes.

Other nightblades can be easy kills, but those that are - especially stamblades - might put out insane damage to put you on the defensive. Mark Target is your friend against them, as are shields (in a light armor build).

Against jabbing templars, 1H + S low slash spammers / Tremorscale users, and Talon-spamming DKs, I like running 2H, for Forward Momentum, which neutralises their roots and snares. I posted my destro / resto build, but am currently running Destro / 2H, open world (I use Troll King, then, to fill in some missing healing).

DKs will often run Take Flight / Ferocious Leap, these days, which they'll follow up (speculatively) with Executioner to try and suddenly burst you down. Keep your shields / health up, even if they seem harmless / tanky at first.

DKs that use wings are the bane of destro magblades. I try Concealed Weapon, but as my build isn't centered around that, I don't really have a chance against good ones. You might do better with your Concealed / DW build, using Fear as a CC, rather than my Flame Reach.

You should have a good chance against sorcs, except when they're a pet sorc wearing Necropotence + Imperial Physique in IC. For those I find my magblade too weak, whereas I might take them on with my magwarden, who has 52K magicka and big shields herself. The key to any pet sorc fight is to tab-target the sorc ... and stay away from the scamp. Mag warden has a big advantage, to be honest, since you will point Deep Fissure in the general direction and regularly damage or take out the pets as well. You CAN go after the twilight to try and cut the sorc off from their healing, but I don't usually find it worth it, cause they recast. You might spam Crushing Shock against any sorc to prevent them from Dark Dealing / Dark Conversion, or casting pets. This, again, fits more naturally into a magwarden or magsorc than a magblade build.