Enslaved wrote: »

Vosital wrote: »

When I try to PvP on an mDK, it feels like I am just randomly throwing out abilities. An engulfing flames here, a talons next, maybe a petrify whip combo or so if they don't have CC immunity. The problem is, I don't know when to use what abilities when. I really have no idea when should be applying DoTs, spamming whip, or ulting.

Like most classes seem to have an optimal "rotation" to apply on someone they see. For example, a Stam NB might look something like:

Mark Target > Ambush > Incap > Suprise Attack spam until execute range > Killers Blade

For mDKs, what would an ideal "rotation" look like? Let's say you encounter someone 1v1 in Cyrodiil, what skills do you use on them and in what order?

Well, to be honest, you need to use dots if you are mDK. Sorry about that.

First off, wings might be savior if enemy is magicka based caster. If ganker, most likely you will have to break free, use talons on enemy and coagulating blood on yourself, or game over. What you want next is to breath fire on them, hit them with whip when they are under talons for 2 times, apply burning embers and buff yourself, lol. Flames of oblivion ftw. Once your magicka is down the drain, drink either immovability pot or tri stat one, use leap or shifting standard on eneny and repeat all. Do try to lad some light or even heavy attacks between skills and you wont be melted. Petrify is nice, but if you plan to use it, do it just before you want to leap on them, so they cant block it.

You want 2 dots all the time on your enemies - engulfing flames and burning embers. Talons are there to proc your whip and to reduce enemy's damage by 15%. It is very usefull. And I would pick flames of oblivion over inner light any day on my mDK, at least on one bar.

Dapper Dinosaur wrote: »

As someone that only goes into PVP to set up the monthly transmute stone drop, when I'm on my mag DK I just follow zergs and chain people into us, and I don't even have the extended range morph. I also have the magelight slotted so when I hook a nightblade, they're dead period. Works like a dream. I basically play as a "Chaser", using my chains, magelight, and mount to prevent anyone from getting away while I let everyone else around me do most of the nuking, although I'm not entirely incapable of defending myself either.

DDuke wrote: »

mDK has a lot of combos - how well they work depends on how you've built your character.

For instance, with high enough damage you can:

1. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant
2. Empowering Chains (gets you Major Empower for next damaging attack)
3. Fossilize
4. Flame Lash (gets Empower), procs Off Balance for extra dmg
5. Power Lash
6. Leap

or:

1. Molten Armaments
2. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant
3. Inferno Staff Heavy Attack
4. Empowering Chains (gets you Major Empower for next damaging attack)
5. Inferno Staff Heavy Attack lands with Empower
6. Fossilize
7. Flame Lash, procs Off Balance for extra dmg
8. Power Lash
9. Leap

or just (usually enough to kill squishier players):

1. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant
2. Empowering Chains
3. Leap (gets Empower)

or if you're already in melee range...

1. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant (yeah, there's a theme here...)
2. Fossilize
3. Flame Lash (procs Off Balance for extra dmg)
4. Leap (gets extra dmg from Off Balance)
5. Power Lash

...and a dozen other variations. You'd also do well to try and land your mDK burst with Flames of Oblivion projectiles to really maximize the burst damage.


As for rotation, it's just about using Flame Lash, keeping DoTs & buffs up and then landing one of those combos. Oh, and making sure to Fossilize on cooldown.


I hope this helps.

DDuke wrote: »

Vosital wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

mDK has a lot of combos - how well they work depends on how you've built your character.

For instance, with high enough damage you can:

1. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant
2. Empowering Chains (gets you Major Empower for next damaging attack)
3. Fossilize
4. Flame Lash (gets Empower), procs Off Balance for extra dmg
5. Power Lash
6. Leap

or:

1. Molten Armaments
2. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant
3. Inferno Staff Heavy Attack
4. Empowering Chains (gets you Major Empower for next damaging attack)
5. Inferno Staff Heavy Attack lands with Empower
6. Fossilize
7. Flame Lash, procs Off Balance for extra dmg
8. Power Lash
9. Leap

or just (usually enough to kill squishier players):

1. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant
2. Empowering Chains
3. Leap (gets Empower)

or if you're already in melee range...

1. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant (yeah, there's a theme here...)
2. Fossilize
3. Flame Lash (procs Off Balance for extra dmg)
4. Leap (gets extra dmg from Off Balance)
5. Power Lash

...and a dozen other variations. You'd also do well to try and land your mDK burst with Flames of Oblivion projectiles to really maximize the burst damage.


As for rotation, it's just about using Flame Lash, keeping DoTs & buffs up and then landing one of those combos. Oh, and making sure to Fossilize on cooldown.


I hope this helps.

Awesome post, thanks. I noticed that Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant is pretty important. This procs 100% whenever you light or heavy attack someone right? Does direct damage like whip also proc it?

I bet it is a lot easier to proc with destro too. I am looking at your build video with destro/resto and it looks very cool. How do you think it will change next patch? Will the same sets be used?

Yeah, it procs 100% on light/heavy attacks (and weapon skill line abilities), as long as your enchantment isn't on cooldown (each enchant has its own cooldown). Whip & other class skill line abilities don't proc enchants.

With infused resto staff on off bar, you get a 5s cooldown on the weapon dmg enchant and since it has 5s duration as well it'll be available for every combo. Then you swap to main bar (where you've got shock enchant hopefully on destro staff) & if the shock enchant procs concussion (40% chance with destro staff) that's another +8% dmg dealt to the target.

Little things, but they add up when you need to burst people down :P


Regarding my build, I don't think I'll be changing it much - we'll see how the patch progresses. Zaan will be an option, but I think its cooldown is too long and effect too slow to work in open world. In duels it'll probably replace Skoria (assuming it doesn't get changed before it hits Live).

DDuke wrote: »

Vosital wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Vosital wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

mDK has a lot of combos - how well they work depends on how you've built your character.

For instance, with high enough damage you can:

1. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant
2. Empowering Chains (gets you Major Empower for next damaging attack)
3. Fossilize
4. Flame Lash (gets Empower), procs Off Balance for extra dmg
5. Power Lash
6. Leap

or:

1. Molten Armaments
2. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant
3. Inferno Staff Heavy Attack
4. Empowering Chains (gets you Major Empower for next damaging attack)
5. Inferno Staff Heavy Attack lands with Empower
6. Fossilize
7. Flame Lash, procs Off Balance for extra dmg
8. Power Lash
9. Leap

or just (usually enough to kill squishier players):

1. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant
2. Empowering Chains
3. Leap (gets Empower)

or if you're already in melee range...

1. Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant (yeah, there's a theme here...)
2. Fossilize
3. Flame Lash (procs Off Balance for extra dmg)
4. Leap (gets extra dmg from Off Balance)
5. Power Lash

...and a dozen other variations. You'd also do well to try and land your mDK burst with Flames of Oblivion projectiles to really maximize the burst damage.


As for rotation, it's just about using Flame Lash, keeping DoTs & buffs up and then landing one of those combos. Oh, and making sure to Fossilize on cooldown.


I hope this helps.

Awesome post, thanks. I noticed that Proc Weapon Dmg Enchant is pretty important. This procs 100% whenever you light or heavy attack someone right? Does direct damage like whip also proc it?

I bet it is a lot easier to proc with destro too. I am looking at your build video with destro/resto and it looks very cool. How do you think it will change next patch? Will the same sets be used?

Yeah, it procs 100% on light/heavy attacks (and weapon skill line abilities), as long as your enchantment isn't on cooldown (each enchant has its own cooldown). Whip & other class skill line abilities don't proc enchants.

With infused resto staff on off bar, you get a 5s cooldown on the weapon dmg enchant and since it has 5s duration as well it'll be available for every combo. Then you swap to main bar (where you've got shock enchant hopefully on destro staff) & if the shock enchant procs concussion (40% chance with destro staff) that's another +8% dmg dealt to the target.

Little things, but they add up when you need to burst people down :P


Regarding my build, I don't think I'll be changing it much - we'll see how the patch progresses. Zaan will be an option, but I think its cooldown is too long and effect too slow to work in open world. In duels it'll probably replace Skoria (assuming it doesn't get changed before it hits Live).

Awesome. I plan on trying out this build tonight.

So basically you always begin the fight with a resto light or heavy attack so that the weapon damage increase bonus applies? That sounds good but most of the time in your videos I am seeing you engage with a Elemental Drain > Chains > etc, not swapping to your resto staff until much later in the fight. I am a bit confused as to do immediately when finding a player to attack.

Yeah, I try to put elemental drain up first always (when I remember >.<), so every consequent attack benefits from the Major Breach (worth 8% dmg).

I should absolutely practice what I preach & try to keep a higher up time on weapon dmg enchant, though often it's too inconvenient to weapon swap and not even necessary - but it's still good to know you can get the weapon dmg enchant active every time you do so.

The whole prebuffing with weapon dmg enchant is more apparent in duels, where people are tanky enough to require that extra bit of dmg to get through their defenses.

Vosital wrote: »

I noticed that you went 75 into Thaumatage as most DKs do, however in Blob's video he said he did some tests and found that you end up with more damage skilling into the other trees and not worrying about getting that exploiter passive. What are your thoughts on this?

I'll refer you to this post I made on PTS forums:

DDuke wrote: »

Subversus wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

ak_pvp wrote: »

ztyhurstub17_ESO wrote: »

I don't know why everyone is even arguing about it. The devs probably already know how they're going to fix it and it will probably be something that ruins lash in pvp and pve equally as bad. Everyone should go ahead and plan to use the other morph...

It would be nice if they could just make it consume off balance on players so it would go back to the way it is on live when in PvP.

We feel that molten whip isn't seen as a good choice. Therefor, we nerfed power lash to make molten a more interesting choice.

TBH, I'm considering molten since some weeks ago. Open World you rarely use power lash due to CC break so you use more flame lash. Off course, power lash can decide a fight, but putting 75 points into Thaum just to get an extra 10% dmg? I prefer using those 75 points into apprentice constelation or in MoA

And no, mDK DoTs are not worth 75 points into thaum. On a temp it seems a better option

I don't think many mdks at all put 75 into thaum anymore, despite playing with power lash.

Well, here's some math on why it's a good idea actually (even more so next patch, as Off Balance isn't immediately consumed by the Lash):

In my case, I've spread CPs equally across the other passives in order to avoid diminishing returns.
37 Elemental Expert (9% dmg)
28 Elborn (12% crit dmg)
29 Spell Erosion (3.955% dmg)
56 Master-at-Arms (20% direct dmg)
5 Staff Expert (3% light/heavy attack dmg)

...and 75 thaumaturge (23% DoT dmg)

Now what would happen if I dropped thaumaturge to... let's say 28 points:
-11% DoT dmg, -10% Power Lash dmg (and any other dmg that happens during the Off Balance period)
+2% direct dmg (Master-at-Arms to 66 points)
+4% dmg (Elemental Expert to 64 points)
+3% crit dmg (Elfborn to 37 points)
+0,111% dmg (Spell Erosion to 30)

I'd have 3,9% less burst damage during the combo (0,9% if that burst crits, 35% crit chance) & a lot of the sustained damage would be gone with DoTs ticking for 6,9% less & critting for 3,9% less.


So yeah, I already think 75 thauma is BiS CP allocation (atleast if you care about burst), next patch it'll be even better as it doesn't get consumed immediately.

And as they add more CPs, the better idea it becomes to put 75 points there... for instance, next patch the difference will be down to 2% direct dmg, 3% dmg & 2% crit dmg with those 10 extra points.

Basically 75 thauma let's you maximize the burst damage of magicka DK, while also maximizing the DoT damage on non-burst periods. It does lead to smaller Flame Lashes outside burst period, but that's a very small part of mDK damage imo.

DDuke wrote: »

Vosital wrote: »

Ah okay, that makes sense. On few last things I'd like to know:

Aren't shields still uncrittable? If so, isn't full impen kinda wasted? I feel like just going divines or something might be better in that case.

They are, though if the damage of an attack surpasses the shield strength, then the remaining part of it can gain crit dmg modifier (it's kind of weird how it works). But yeah, you won't always have a shield up, so impen becomes very necessary to not get bursted down.
Full impen gear gets you 27% crit resistance, where as full divines gets you 150 spell dmg (around 2% dmg).

Vosital wrote: »

And is shock enchant on main bar really better then fire enchant?

Yup. Let's you proc the Concussion status effect for Minor Vulnerability on target (40% chance every time your enchant goes off).
Fire enchant would proc the Burning status effect, of which you've already got almost 100% uptime thanks to all the fire damage mDK has.
My build for example has a 20% chance on every whip, embers, chains cast to proc the 4s long effect, 10% chance to proc it with Engulfing Flames or Leap cast, 6% chance of proccing it from any Embers DoT tick & 2% chance of proccing it from any Engulfing Flames DoT tick.

I recommend reading this:
https://alcasthq.com/status-effects-eso/

Very good information to know when making builds (kudos to @Alcast for writing them down) :P