Does MA/VMA gives me better gear than what I currently have (especially the weps) ?

vpy · October 2017

The following screenshots is of my main Stamblade which can tell where is he and what is equipped.

He is having a 2H/2H Gold (both of them) with Purple Night Mother/Night Terror.

He is not into any group PVE content..mainly stealth assassin (lil bit of PVP) in overland content.

Recently I came to know about something called MA/VMA that is designed for solo players also.

But I am not sure about the rewards of MA/VMA as I already have purple gear with gold weps.

So will it be beneficial (with respect to damage outputwise) to try out MA/VMA ?

GrigorijMalahevich · October 2017

As a nightblade you want damage, not damage return after your enemies hit you.

Furthermore, I think with such gear you will struggle quite a bit in vMA

Why you have double 2H on bars? For PvE vMA dual wield and bow will massively increase your DPS. For PvP MA bow and vMA two hand are good, but then you need to think about your sets vma/ma weapon main bar will not allow you to use 2 5x sets and monster set, you would have to go with 5x + agility set+monster set or 5x+5x or 5x+5x+2monster with one of the 5x sets being s&b back bar...

Just imho

Asardes · October 2017

Isn't transmutation a bit odd set on a stamina character? It does give critical resistance, but you are gimping your stats severely if you are stacking magicka ones on a stamina character. Also 214 CP is pretty low for attempting vMA. You can try but I reckon you will probably struggle to finish the 1s arena won't pass the 2nd awith such a sub-optimal build, and that's only the warm-up, as they generally get progressively harder as you advance. 2H/2H is useless, and even more useless with the sets you are rocking now. You need a bow on the backbar to do decent AoE since endless hail is your highest parsing skill. On a NB there's basically no reason to go 2H since you have a spammable/debuff, an execute/heal and an instant AoE/buff as class skills with stamina morphs. Seeing you have gear from PvP sets you must have unlocked vigor for sure so you will have little issue healing with that but your DPS will suck so badly you will run out of resources and be overwhelmed by mobs anyway. Most sets in there are pure decon garbage anyway, worth only the tempers and style material you get from them. The only marginally useful one is Winterborn, which is a magicka set that works well on some warden builds due to the CC, but of a stamina NB will be even less useful than the sets you are already rocking. As for the Maelstrom weapons, those are only rewarded by Veteran completion and only the 2H is useful, but not for stamina NB, since the class usually slots ambush at gap closer, not Stampede/Critical rush. With the removal of the weapon damage from the said weapons, they will be better off using a 5p set weapon, and a mismatched monster set with a stamina recovery/maximum stamina/weapon damage bonus.

In short: With your current you will not be able to do vMA and there's little reason to do, apart from the achievement and some drops you will use on another character. Doing nMA is pretty useless since it's so weak compared to vet it teaches you absolutely nothing.

Lord_Eomer · October 2017

Well VMA on stam blade is not very easier and would be a painful struggle at 214 CP.

Also VMA weapons are nerf with CWC patch (many may dis argue but these weapons lost their charm)

its not best anymore to spend huge time for, you can try MA and surely can do this without much trouble.

ArchMikem · October 2017

Was gonna question the gold Transmutation Axe, but then noticed youre wearing two 5pc sets which are basically taking up all your slots so it doesnt really matter what set that weapon is.

But anyway, Maelstrom is nothing like PvP. But the weapons loot is good.

Hixtory · October 2017

First, you are not doing any PVE group content, so no you don't need to change your gear, as of right now there's absolutely anything you can't do even naked.

But, if you want to start doing dungeons and other stuff, first change your gear. There's nothing coming from PVE content that will do crit damage, absolutely nothing, not even dungeons (normal, vet, even HM), and trials (sames as before). So you are not helping your toon at all.

My initial recommendations.

1. Change to a crafted set, 5 piece body:

Chest, infused/divines: Heavy armor (night mothers, hundings rage)
Legs, infused/divines: Med armor (night mothers, hundings rage)
hands, divines: Med armor (night mothers, hundings rage)
Boots, divines: Med armor (night mothers, hundings rage)
Waist: divines: Med armor (night mothers, hundings rage)

Purple all the gear

2. Change the other 2 pieces to another crafted set:

Head: Infused/divines: Med armor (Eternal hunt, Night silence)
Shoulders: divines: Light armor (Eternal hunt, Night silence)

Purple all the gear

WHY 1 heavy 1 light?: there's an amazing passive you get from doing undaunted content: dungeons, trials, etc. It will increase up to 6% every resource pool if you use at least one piece of each (5 med, 1 heavy, 1 light - 5 light, 1 heavy, 1 med - 5 Heavy, 1 light, 1 med - or a combination of all, but you lose the passives of each armor weight if you use less than 5 pieces of one of the weights)

3. You can keep 2h, but I really recommend changing to dual wield:

Dagger: Infused (Eternal hunt, Night silence)
Axe: Sharpened (Eternal hunt, Night silence)

Change to dual wield is recommended because:
* You already have a gap closer: Ambush
* You get a powerfull AOE skill of stamina toons: Steel Tornado
* You get a powerfull DOT: Rending slashes
* You get a powerfull damage mitigation skill: Blade Cloak
* You get 1 more piece of a set

Night Silence

(2 items) Adds 1096 Max Stamina

(3 items) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery

(4 items) Adds 833 Weapon Critical (More crit)

Eternal Hunt

(2 Items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina

(3 Items) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery

(4 Items) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery (More sustain)

Purple the weapons, you don't need gold if you are not pushing your dps

4. Use Bow in backbar

Bow: Precise/Sharpened/Infused (Eternal hunt, Night silence)

You only need 2 skills from the bow, Endless hail and Poison Arrow.

Purple the weapons, you don't need gold if you are not pushing your dps

5. Buy Agility Jewelry:

This used to be BIS, and was super expensive, now you can find the rings and neck for aprox. 10k ea. So is not a big investment and is an amazing set, just make sure that:

*Jewelry is robust
* As you are a bosmer you have 20% stam recovery increase, so you can go ahead and buy 2 truely superp glyph of increased damage and enchant the 3 pieces to get more dps.

6. Use the Lover mundus stone

As you are doing solo content, penetration is king, there's nothing better, not even warrior in your case so use the Lover. When you are ready to go to dungeons you might want to change, but not necessarily as some tanks don't run Pierce armor, Ice staffs (not kidding, even double slotted) so Lover still is better. Only when you get to endgame trials or even organized dungeons Warrior will outperform.

As for VMA, DON´T GO in there yet, you clearly are learning still the basics and VMA is a ***, go in there in normal mode and is a breeze (easy af) but in vet mode is ridiculous difference of difficulty, and again you dont have the gear neither know the basics in game.

In VMA you have to do all, damage, heal, avoid reds, avoid to get one shoted and some stages are horrible RNG based, you will hate it and feel bad that might even make you quit the game lol (WE ALL HAVE BEEN THERE).

Do this and you will se how PVE content gets even more easy.

Best of Luck

eso_nya · October 2017

vpy wrote: »

He is not into any group PVE content..mainly stealth assassin (lil bit of PVP) in overland content.

For that kind of content vma weaps r not beneficial at all.
Okay, they might be somewhat beneficial, but:
To "learn" how to beat vma, u will need around two weeks.
Plan for an additional 400 runs to get one desired weapon. with next patch that can go down a bit, due to traitchange incoming.

Try vma, if its fun for u, go ahead and a grind a weapon there. If it isnt, the weapons u might get at the end wont be worth the time u spend there not having fun.

Specifically, as u seem to like 2h axes, the ones from vma r making the Critical Charge skill (and its morphs) stronger.

Asardes · October 2017

Yes, vMA is quite unforgiving on stamina NB. You need high DPS to burst everything before it bursts you. For example if you don't burst Voriak fast enough so he goes straight up, you will most likely die when he summons the crematorial, and starts throwing skulls and lich crystals. You need to burst the crystals upstairs fast, in one go, before the soul churn breaks you (if you go down you will get probably rekt by the Crematorial and lich crystals) since you don't have any spell resistance passives. I also highly recommend not going there as vampire, since you will get rekt by fire in some arenas unless your gameplay is really stellar and you avoid the damage. So unless you know the class inside out, have proper gear and are pulling at least 30K self buffed on the 6M target dummy you should stay away from vMA. And by proper gear I something suited for PvE DPS, like Hunding's Rage, Night Mother's Gaze (crafted), Spriggan's Thorns, Briarheart (dropped, BoE) or even Vicious Ophidian (you can farm normal Craglorn trials since everyone is forming groups for those in zone chat). Also grab one of the monster sets there. I'd recommend Kra'gh since Fungal Grotto 1 is probably the easiest vet dungeon.

So your setup should be made up of a crafted set (3 body pieces, 2/1 weapons), one dropped set (2 body pieces, 3 jewelry) - weapons from overland sets with good traits are expensive. Use all divines armor with stamina enchants, main hand dagger infused with poison glyph, offhand precise with weapon damage glyph, bow backbar with infused trait and weapon damage glyph (until you get the Maelstrom one). Use at leas 5 pieces of medium armor, but you can wear up to 2 in other weights for extra resources from undaunted mettle passive, preferably 1 heavy, 1 light, but also 2 heavy will do. For starters you will want to have 17-18K health. So shift some points there. If you wear all medium and don't put points into health you will be left with about 16K, even less while you are under 300 CP.

Good skills to use:
Front bar: Killer's Blade | Surprise Attack | Power Extraction | Deadly Cloak | Camouflaged Hunter || Flawless Dawnbreaker
Back bar: Poison Injection | Endless Hail | Resolving Vigor | Relentless Focus | Leeching Strikes || Ballista or Incapacitating Strike

Killer's Blade - execute skill does more damage to low health enemies, also heals you when the target dies
Surprise Attack - spammable skill, does good damage and also reduces enemies resistance (major fracture)
Power Extraction - AoE damage, also gives you weapon damage buff (major brutality)
Deadly Cloak - does some AoE damage, reduces damage taken from AoE by 25%, really good mitigation
Camouflaged Hunter - you only slot this for more critical chance and weapon damage (major savagery)
Poison Injection - DoT, does more damage to low health enemies
Endless Hail - DoT AoE, your strongest skill
Resolving Vigor - your main heal
Relentless Focus - buffs your damage (minor berserk) and can proc a skill that does really high damage if you hit the enemy with 5 light or heavy attacks
Leeching Strikes - restores health and a bit of stamina from light and heavy attacks