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pve magDK questions

ArcaneBlue
ArcaneBlue
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so I've levelled my dunmer magDK to lvl 50 and I have capped CPs. the character currently wears 5 silks of the sun (incl. jewelry pieces) , 5 julianos and 1 molag kena.
I'll be honest, I am not pulling great deal of damage. 20k at best.

front bar
engulfing flames, molten whip, fire blockade, molten weapons, impulse (don't know which morph to pick), standard of might

back bar
healing springs, mutagen, combat prayer, flames of oblivion, inhale (unmorphed), soul assault

should I swap out/ change any of my gear pieces or skills? how can I make my DPS better? how should I distribute my CPs?
thanks in advance!



edit: spelling and stuff



Edited by ArcaneBlue on October 30, 2017 12:15AM
#teamEmeric
  • Thestephenmcraeub17_ESO
    It's my understanding that a pretty standard rotation is something like...

    Eruption > Rearming trap > Flames of Oblivion
    Bar swap
    Engulfing flames > blockade > Burning Embers > Whip x5 > EF > Blockade > BE > whip x2
    Bar swap

    Light attack weave between ever skill

    Repeat, dropping Standard of Might whenever it's up (on your backbar) and frontbar Meteor for the mages guild passives.

    I do my rotation a bit differently than this, cause I backbar a lightning staff instead of two inferno (and I would recommend you swap your restore for an inferno on the back) but I stack all my AOEs on the backbar for the 8% extra damage from the Destruction staff passives, then my single targets on the front for the same 8% fire damage passives.

    Hope this helps :)
  • SupremeRissole
    SupremeRissole
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    Mine runs:
    5 piece Burning Spellweave
    4 piece Infal (gold jewelry)
    2 piece Grothdarr (1 heavy 1 medium)

    All max magicka glyphs except 1 health on head piece due to running witchmothers.
    Infused chest, rest is gold divines.
    Spell damage glyphs on jewelry.


    Lightning staff back bar: (precise)(berserker glyph)
    Eruption, molten armaments, harness magicka (swapped for ele drain for parses) rearming trap, flames of oblivion. Elemental Rage

    Now rearming trap is my "flex point" meaning that what I slot there is situational. E.g if Im going to take more damage I'll use volatile armour, if the tank isnt very good at controlling adds or isnt a DK ill slot chains.

    Inferno staff front bar: (infused)(flame glyph)
    Blockade of fire, engulfing flames, burning embers, flame lash, inner light. Shooting Star.

    Using spell power pots and witchmothers potent brew only for playing solo or parsing, in group content I have enough off balance to sustain with millet soup.

    Rotaion is really easy only barswapping every 15-16 seconds.

    1. armaments, la, rearming, la, eruption, la, flames of oblivion (barswap)

    2. La, blockade, la engulfing flames, la burning embers, la, whip, la, whip, la, whip, la, whip.

    I do part one first, then 2 x laps of part two before restarting rotation.
    If I get low on magicka I'll substitute a couple of whips for a heavy attack.
    I only use shooting star.

    Constant 28k parses, when I get my weaving solid It will crack 30k
    With off balance present I think it will bump up to 33k. Not the greatest dps, very similar to what alcast put out a few months ago but it really shines in groups and is very fun to play.
  • Insanepirate01
    Insanepirate01
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    The above pretty much covers everyrhing. Just to add you should drop your standard once your dots are down, bumps up your dps I solo parse 35k solo with the grothdarr infal and bsw setup. Use pots soon as they're off cool down and heavy attack where you would do two whips in the rotation if you fall low on Magicka. In general magdk aren't in a very good place right now but you can parse well.
  • SupremeRissole
    SupremeRissole
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    Due to running blockade on front bar I can't run standard due to needing a destro ability slotted for the Ancient Knowledge passive, (hence the shock destro ulti which I don't use). Haven't tried dropping shooting star for it, I feel that the mages guild passives are too good for sustain. Willing to test different ultis though standard looks like it can do a bit.

    Forgot to mention after pressing Shooting Star, in the 1-2 second delay before it hits you can do light attack and then inner light to proc empower on the initial hit of the ulti. :)
  • ArcaneBlue
    ArcaneBlue
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    thanks everyone_ super helpful :) I run a healer 95% of the time so even with 690 CPs DPSing is hard for me! :D
    #teamEmeric
  • Saint314Louis1985
    Saint314Louis1985
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    running 5bsw 4 aether 2 llambris with ia flame staff (infused w/ shock) & vma lightning staff (nirn)

    i dont have a vma flame staff so i run lightning and it seems that llambris is better with that combo

    hitting 35k parses every time solo but i use a different rotation than has been mentioned

    eruption - la - lightning wall - la - trap - la - FoO - barswap
    la - engulfing - la - embers - la - whip - la - whip - barswap
    la - lightning wall - barswap - la - whip - la - whip -
    la - engulfing - la - embers - la - whip - la - whip - repeat

    drop standard when you see fit

    Not my original rotation so thanks to the guildies that helped me out!
  • jkolb2030
    jkolb2030
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    Mine runs:
    5 piece Burning Spellweave
    4 piece Infal (gold jewelry)
    2 piece Grothdarr (1 heavy 1 medium)

    All max magicka glyphs except 1 health on head piece due to running witchmothers.
    Infused chest, rest is gold divines.
    Spell damage glyphs on jewelry.


    Lightning staff back bar: (precise)(berserker glyph)
    Eruption, molten armaments, harness magicka (swapped for ele drain for parses) rearming trap, flames of oblivion. Elemental Rage

    Now rearming trap is my "flex point" meaning that what I slot there is situational. E.g if Im going to take more damage I'll use volatile armour, if the tank isnt very good at controlling adds or isnt a DK ill slot chains.

    Inferno staff front bar: (infused)(flame glyph)
    Blockade of fire, engulfing flames, burning embers, flame lash, inner light. Shooting Star.

    Using spell power pots and witchmothers potent brew only for playing solo or parsing, in group content I have enough off balance to sustain with millet soup.

    Rotaion is really easy only barswapping every 15-16 seconds.

    1. armaments, la, rearming, la, eruption, la, flames of oblivion (barswap)

    2. La, blockade, la engulfing flames, la burning embers, la, whip, la, whip, la, whip, la, whip.

    I do part one first, then 2 x laps of part two before restarting rotation.
    If I get low on magicka I'll substitute a couple of whips for a heavy attack.
    I only use shooting star.

    Constant 28k parses, when I get my weaving solid It will crack 30k
    With off balance present I think it will bump up to 33k. Not the greatest dps, very similar to what alcast put out a few months ago but it really shines in groups and is very fun to play.

    Why do you run armaments if you don't use heavy attacks? If you aren't running heavy attacks then armaments is just a wasted skill and adding to your rotation time - would probably be poppin 30k without it in your current rotation.

    EDIT: if you're using armaments for the spell dmg buff, you can get that from potions along with crit - it's more efficient anyway.
    Edited by jkolb2030 on November 1, 2017 1:29PM
  • Narvuntien
    Narvuntien
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    *shrug* might as well add myself into the mix.
    Dark elf MagDk. 47 Mag, 17 Hp
    5 BSW 5 Julianos 1 slimecraw. All Mag. All inferno staffs. Infused, fire, front and Nirnhorned, spell damage, Back.
    Witchmothers brew

    Bar 1
    engulfing flames, burning embers, Whip, elemental blockade, inner light. DK Standard
    Bar 2
    Eruption, flames of oblivion, elemental drain/harness magicka, Spiky armor. Molten Armaments. Elemental Rage

    First you set up all your buffs lay your Dots and begin.

    Elemental blockade, engulfing flames, burning embers, Whip, whip,
    Elemental blockade, engulfing flames, burning embers, Heavy attack
    Eruption, Flames of oblivion. Then the start again.

    Every 3rd rotation you need to reapply elemental drain and every 4th molten armaments. Ulti when available.

    light attack between every skill.

    I don't use rearming trap, I tried to use it in a trial and I just couldn't, I didn't want to get close enough to the boss to use it and I need my stamina to block or roll whenever I got trapped in the red. Whille ele drain is fair for self buff I don't think the trap is realistic.

    I just don't have enough magicka sustain to use any additional skills and I really need that heavy attack or I run dry...
    Edited by Narvuntien on November 2, 2017 12:32PM
  • Saint314Louis1985
    Saint314Louis1985
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    Narvuntien wrote: »
    *shrug* might as well add myself into the mix.
    Dark elf MagDk. 47 Mag, 17 Hp
    5 BSW 5 Julianos 1 slimecraw. All Mag. All inferno staffs. Infused, fire, front and Nirnhorned, spell damage, Back.
    Witchmothers brew

    Bar 1
    engulfing flames, burning embers, Whip, elemental blockade, inner light. DK Standard
    Bar 2
    Eruption, flames of oblivion, elemental drain/harness magicka, Spiky armor. Molten Armaments. Elemental Rage

    First you set up all your buffs lay your Dots and begin.

    Elemental blockade, engulfing flames, burning embers, Whip, whip,
    Elemental blockade, engulfing flames, burning embers, Heavy attack
    Eruption, Flames of oblivion. Then the start again.

    Every 3rd rotation you need to reapply elemental drain and every 4th molten armaments. Ulti when available.

    light attack between every skill.

    I don't use rearming trap, I tried to use it in a trial and I just couldn't, I didn't want to get close enough to the boss to use it and I need my stamina to block or roll whenever I got trapped in the red. Whille ele drain is fair for self buff I don't think the trap is realistic.

    I just don't have enough magicka sustain to use any additional skills and I really need that heavy attack or I run dry...

    mag dk is considered melee therefore trap is definitely usable. i use it in every dungeon/trial i run including vMOL. hell thats the only reason i made this character (to chain in the twins fight). you have to be in melee range to use burning embers anyways
    Edited by Saint314Louis1985 on November 2, 2017 12:40PM
  • Qbiken
    Qbiken
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    To be honest, only place I use my magDK is in Maelstrom arena. For magDK to be competitive in PvE I think a few things need to change, my suggestions (not all at the same time necessarily):

    * Revert the changes to Battle Roar and helping hands:
    A change that was overkill with Morrowind. MagDK more or less relied on these passives to sustain even before Morrowind.

    * Remove the need to use Flame-lash + off-balance support
    Unless you run a heavy attack build on a magicka DK, you´re forced to run Flame-lash, and you also need to make sure that you´re in a group that runs lightning blockade (or you can run it yourself) to proc off-balance/concussion. Without this you simply can´t sustain as a magicka DK. I´ve seen one of Nos´s videos where he uses Molten Whip on a 3 million target skeleton. At the end of the pars he´s almost out of magicka, and that is with a few heavy attacks in his rotation + drain.

    Flame-lash is also very un-reliable because of a few reasons. Not all enemies can be set off-balance in order to proc power lash. Off-balance is consumed by heavy attacks and the icon that shows you that power-lash can be used will appear and disappear back and forth several times/second which will cause you to not get the power-lash of, and just a usual flame-lash which will cost you magicka.

    The reason magDK´s are rarely used in trials at the moment isn´t because their Power-lash consumes the off-balance effect (All heavy attacks from stamDK, Magsorcs etc....consumes off-balance as well). The reason is because melee stamina character´s outperform magicka melees by a lot at the moment.

    * Change the Combustion passive to a reduced cost passive:
    Change it so that your Ardent Flame skills costs less against enemies affected by any status effect. This or simply lower the magicka cost for magicka DK´s spam-able abilities.

    Unless you really want to try out magicka DK, I would reconsider the class until ZOS buff the class for PvE.
  • AngelFires333
    AngelFires333
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    Narvuntien wrote: »
    *shrug* might as well add myself into the mix.
    Dark elf MagDk. 47 Mag, 17 Hp
    5 BSW 5 Julianos 1 slimecraw. All Mag. All inferno staffs. Infused, fire, front and Nirnhorned, spell damage, Back.
    Witchmothers brew

    Bar 1
    engulfing flames, burning embers, Whip, elemental blockade, inner light. DK Standard
    Bar 2
    Eruption, flames of oblivion, elemental drain/harness magicka, Spiky armor. Molten Armaments. Elemental Rage

    First you set up all your buffs lay your Dots and begin.

    Elemental blockade, engulfing flames, burning embers, Whip, whip,
    Elemental blockade, engulfing flames, burning embers, Heavy attack
    Eruption, Flames of oblivion. Then the start again.

    Every 3rd rotation you need to reapply elemental drain and every 4th molten armaments. Ulti when available.

    light attack between every skill.

    I don't use rearming trap, I tried to use it in a trial and I just couldn't, I didn't want to get close enough to the boss to use it and I need my stamina to block or roll whenever I got trapped in the red. Whille ele drain is fair for self buff I don't think the trap is realistic.

    I just don't have enough magicka sustain to use any additional skills and I really need that heavy attack or I run dry.
    ..

    Thank you!
  • Cybercore_Death
    Cybercore_Death
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    Hey man (apologies as this is a loooooong post but i've tried to be as detailed as i can for you).

    First things first, CP's (based on 690 but we can tailor the most important bits for you at a lower CP level and of course its always up for criticism if there are any tweaks that would make it better):

    Tower - 2 Warlord
    Lover - 11 Mooncalf / 75 Arcanist / 65 Tenacity
    Shadow - 37 Tumbling / 40 Shadow Ward
    Apprentice - 37 Elfborn / 34 Spell Erosion / 49 Elemental Expert
    Attronach - 35 Staff Expert
    Ritual - 75 Thaumaturge
    Steed - 34 Ironclad / 54 Spell Shield
    Lady - 23 Light Armour Focus / 27 Hardy / 23 Thick Skinned / 49 Elemental Defender
    Lord - 20 Bastion


    Now, with the gear i use a 5-0-2 setup as i find it more beneficial overall for stats (5-1-1 will still be fine but the extra health and resistance are too good to pass up imo)

    Front bar - Shock staff of Martial Knowledge - Charged (for more off balance) - Shock or Fire enchant (i use shock)
    Back bar - Shock staff of Martial Knowledge - Nirnhoned (for that massive spell damage increase) - Weapon damage enchant

    Head and Shoulder - Ilambris - Divines - Both heavy - Max mag enchant

    Chest, Legs, Feet - Martial Knowledge (Only comes in light, and the 4 piece offers a good spell damage increase) - Divines - Max mag enchants

    Hands, Belt - BSW (Only comes in light and its pretty much up straight back up on cool down) - Divines - Max mag enchants

    Neck, Rings - BSW (Arcane, though i've never seen them drop in anything else anyway) - Spell damage enchants


    With skills there are 2 setups i use (though the second one i haven't practiced the rotation much so i dont always nail it quite right). As i'm an Xbox player i've labelled the buttons that i use to but you can ignore these if you're a PC player. Also note that LA stands for Light Attack and these can be replaced with Heavy Attacks if you find you're running low on Magicka.

    Skills and rotation 1 (my main)

    Bar 1:

    X - Flame Lash
    Y - Engulfing Flames
    B - Burning Embers
    LB - Inner Light (passives only)
    RB - Elemental Blockade
    Ult - Shooting Star (purely for passives, though i do swap out for warhorn sometimes if its needed in trials etc)

    Bar 2:

    X - Harness Magicka (sometimes swapped for Elemental Drain or Volatile Armour depending)
    Y - Eruption
    B - Flames of Oblivion (swapped out for Draw Essence for trash mobs)
    LB - Inner Light (passives only)
    RB - Molten Armaments
    Ult - Elemental Rage

    Start on back bar - Molten Arms > LA > Eruption > LA > Flames > Bar Swap
    Engulfing > LA > Embers > LA > Blockade > Lash then LA (x 5/6) > LA > Engulfing > LA > Embers > LA > Blockade > LA then Lash (x3) > Bar Swap and repeat

    I usually drop Rage as soon as BSW procs (on Eruption or Flames). Molten i re apply every second full rotation.


    Skills and rotation 2 (massive AoE damage, easier rotation but bar swapping more often)

    Bar 1:

    X - Elemental Drain (could be swapped for Harness Magicka or Flame Lash depending)
    Y - Engulfing Flames
    B - Burning Embers
    LB - Inner Light
    RB - Rearming Trap
    Ult - Shooting Star (passives, could be swapped for Warhorn as before)

    Bar 2:

    X - Elemental Blockade
    Y - Eruption
    B - Flames of Oblivion
    LB - Inner Light
    RB - Molten Armemants
    Ult - Elemental Rage

    The rotation is a little bit of a pain cos of the bar swaps but it does make sense once it gets going and does some monster AoE damage as well. I've also linked in a video of a dude from the forums doing it as it makes more sense when you see it in action lol

    Molten Arms > Bar Swap > Drain > Bar Swap > Flames > Bar Swap > Trap > Bar Swap > Rage > Blockade > LA > Eruption > Bar Swap > HA > Embers > HA > Engulfing > Bar Swap > Blockade > LA > Flames > Bar Swap > HA > Embers > HA > Engulfing > LA > Trap > Repeat


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQd1cguJV1w&t=1s


    Lastly, my race is Dunmer (cos i have a thing for Dunmer lol) and i'm a Vamp stage 4 (cos i'm too lazy to keep it managed at stage 3). Also i used Solitude Salmon and Millet Soup for Max Mag and Health.

    I dont think i've missed anything off but if you have any questions let me know. I hope this helps for you.

    With all gear procs active your stats will be as follows:

    Magicka - 39k
    Health - 18.8k
    Stamina - 10.5k

    Mag Recovery - 750
    Health Recovery - 180
    Stamina Recovery - 580

    Spell Damage 4396
    (With BSW and Weapon Damage glyph proc. 3979 with just BSW proc)
    Spell Crit - 45.7%
    Weapon Damage - 1977
    Weapon Crit - 32%

    Spell Resist - 19.9k
    Physical Resist - 12.7k
    (Note that these will be higher if you have Volatile Armour on ad Active)
    I'm a Dunmer DK Damage Dealer - My that's a lot of D's
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