Magblade skill scaling

malicia · December 2017

Hi people,

I'm leveling a magblade for PvP use, seems like a super fun class to play. But I'm a bit at a loss as to how skill scaling works.

Spectral bow: will that scale of max magica, weapon power or spell power? If I put it on a DW bar with two swords, will it be better off than on a destro bar? Will it be influenced by DW's Dual Wield Expert passive? Will making the DW weapons nirnhorned affect Spectral Bow's damage?

Swallow Soul: basically the same question. Will it do more damage from a Destro staff bar or from a DW bar? I'd likely put it on a Destro bar so as to be able HA weave it with the Destro staff, but I would like to understand the general scaling a bit better.

Thanks!

Izaki · December 2017

All skills that cost magicka scale with Max Magicka, Spell Damage, Spell Crit Chance, Spell Crit Damage and Spell Penetration.

All skills that cost stamina scales with Max Stamina, Weapon Damage, Weapon Crit Chance, Weapon Crit Damage and Physical Penetration.

All ultimates scale with the highest of each value.

Now each weapon, grants you both Weapon Damage and Spell Damage. Meaning that when you equip a Destro staff with no other gear, you'll get 1335 Spell AND Weapon damage (or 1535 of both values) if the staff is Nirnhoned. Same goes for DW, 2H, etc. So in essence, yes you will get more stats out of equipping DW swords.

As far as DW passives go however, no, only Weapon Damage will be affected by Dual Wield expert, since it specifically states Weapon Damage and not both Spell and Weapon damage. But that passive isn't that good or important anyway. The real important passive is Twin Blade and Blunt. Now when you equip swords, this passive will grant you a flat 5% increase to ALL your damage, including magicka abilities, like Swallow Soul and Merciless Resolve. But if you equip a Mace, you'll only get extra Physical Penetration, not both Physical and Spell penetration, same with Daggers, you'll only get Weapon Crit Chance from this passive, not both Spell and Weapon Crit.

Now, DW vs Destro, highly depends on your build. In terms of overall damage, Destro and DW are more or less the same, since while you do get an extra 200 Spell Damage with Swords, the Destro passives offer you 8% more single target damage if you use a Fire staff (which is what you should be using for PvP on any class that wants to use a Destro staff). So its basically: 8% flat single target damage vs 200 extra weapon damage and 5% flat damage. In the end, DW is slightly better. The real benefit of using Dual Wield, is that it allows you to have 1 extra set bonus, therefore, giving you more raw stats and more damage than Destro staff would. HOWEVER: DW, 2H, 1H&S Light and Heavy attacks only scale with the same things as stamina skills. Destro and Resto Light and Heavy attacks only scale with the same things as magicka skills. So in the end, Destro would actually net you more overall DPS since it allows for weaving in between your abilites. This is why you don't see magicka builds using DW swords in PvE. In PvP, since burst is the way you get your kills, there can be some debate and in different situations, different things will be better.

Better or not is dependant on what your build is. In most cases, Destro staff is the way to go, due to the fact that Light and Heavy attacks are a big part of the way that you get your burst: the Spectral Bow. Without the Spectral bow, your burst is almost non existant. And Light attacks are also a huge way to put pressure on your target while you weave them with Swallow Soul and other abilites. So I would personally go for Destro staff. But you should check with people like @NightbladeMechanics who really know the class in PvP and all the different variants of builds.

Just as an example: you could use your Merciless Resolve on the DW bar and your Swallow Soul on the Resto Staff bar, so you'd buff your Merciless, Light attack weave with Resto staff your Swallow Soul and then shoot your Bow proc from the DW bar. Tons of different possibilites really.

I would however say that if you're begining on Magblade in PvP, just slot a Destro staff. Much more, user friendly and it will really teach you weaving which is a key technique in damage dealing in all aspects of the game.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · December 2017

all the following assumes you are talking about grim focus (http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Grim_Focus) when you say spectral bow.

Spectral bow: will that scale of max magica, weapon power or spell power?

when you have the morph, "Merciless Resolve" the bow uses spell damage, max magic, spell pen and spell crit. you have the morph "Relentless Focus", the bow use weapon damage, max stam, weapon pen and weapon crit to scale.

If I put it on a DW bar with two swords, will it be better off than on a destro bar?

there is little reason for a magic user not to use a destro staff there's days, you will get 8% more damage from a fire destro AND you can light and heavy attack from a distance.

Will it be influenced by DW's Dual Wield Expert passive?

assuming you mean the twin blade and blunt passive here, the 5% extra damage from dual swords does increase the damage done and you will have higher overall spell with dual sword, so you tooltip with the Assassin's Will from Merciless Resolve (that is the what you can the "Spectral Bow's ") but you give up light and heavy attacks from a distance and the magic return on heavy from a destro.

Will making the DW weapons nirnhorned affect Spectral Bow's damage?

when dual wielding, you NEVER want both weapon sto be nirn, the main one sure but the off hand nirn only adds 12 weapon and spell damage, you want infused these days, as it actually cuts your main hands enchant cool down time in half as well. so if you do choose to use dual swords, use sharpened or infused on the off hand and nirn on the main hand.

everything that i have said about Merciless Resolve, goes for swallow soul(ie using spell damage, max magic, spell pen and spell crit), though i would rethink the morph choice, the extra healing you get is almost nothing compared to the funnel health and the healing that you can do when you are in a group. i would always choose funnel unless you are a pure solo player, ie nothing but ganking or strictly vMA.

malicia · December 2017

@Izaki and @Lightspeedflashb14_ESO - thanks so much for your replies, that was exactly what I was looking for. Normally I PvE, and there the metas are fairly clear cut. This time I'd like to really see what suits me and play around with the build, and the info you gave will help so much with that!