Whats wrong with my magic dk pvp build?

crooksy80 · May 2018

Hey guys so im having trouble building magic dk atm, I have 5 shackle breaker, sword shield, heavy chest legs and feet, light burning spell weave light waist hands and jewerly, without food buffs i have 1700 damage 1500 recovery, all jewlery has a recovery glyth on them, and i do have vamp, is there anyway I can make this build better? My aim is to take a good bit of damage but be able to deal and sustain, I can't even hold my own in a 1v1

JumpmanLane · May 2018

The OP didn’t mention race, I go dunmer. The fire hits hard. I go 5 light and 1 heavy 1 light.

Coming from playing StamDK (and using way too many magicka skills lol) I tended to over cast or over spam the magicka abilities a bit at first. As for stamina from blocking, breaking free I just seemed to have so much Stam I started dodge rolling too much. I was like “I can dodge roll now!”

MagDk is a great class. It’s tanky enough in light armor for you to be actually patient during a fight due to all the many sources of heals (flame lash, burning embers, Structured Entropy, DK Passives for using ultimate, Coagolating Blood). You can actually stand in front of a Zerg while buffed up, heal through a HUGE amount of damage. Step back (Daniel-San) reset the fight and wipe multiple targets. Particularly with bats if zergs are dumb enough to stand in it.

For now, I’m running SnB/SnB. Often, I use Burning talons, proc powerlash, then fossilize flame lash, Leap as a burst combo 1v1. Versus Zergs I’ll slot invigorating drain to get ulti up quick for bats. Or to leap often. It has a 12m range I think and is good for running around.

I slot Stam ravaging poisons on the front sword, magicka ravaging on the back sword just to be evil and take an odd meaningful light weave swipe at someone who gets too close. I pop immovable pots that give back health and magicka before I enter combat and whenever the cool down ends throughout a fight. This shuts down a lot of people’s Cc burst combos. Then it’s just a matter of watching your health bar. You can heal out of a lot of damage.

I use 5 seducer, 5 black rose 2 Bloodspawn. It’s good 1v1. (Duel a bunch for practice, particularly in patience, healing, resetting fights). It’s good 1vX. (buff up, yolo in, punish them in choke points or if they bunch up with bats). It’s really overperforming Xv1. (buff up, cc, burst, run them in the ground).

I solo Vivec, skirt Zergs, creep around in stealth, camp and farm nightblades and such. Sotha I 2 man or 4 man, you know small group with pals. Great fun.

Last bit of advice. Block only when you have to. Resist the urge to perma block (because you probably could perma block potatoes) Against good players you’re just wasting Stam. As for blocking put the points in cp.

Thogard · May 2018

Mag DK is not an easy class to play. The people who are good at it (I’m not one of them) make it look easy, but IMO it has the toughest resource management of all the classes because of its need for Stam to block and the trade off between mag and health through coag.

crooksy80 · May 2018

Thogard wrote: »

Mag DK is not an easy class to play. The people who are good at it (I’m not one of them) make it look easy, but IMO it has the toughest resource management of all the classes because of its need for Stam to block and the trade off between mag and health through coag.

Yh i completely understand that, I'd say im decent at dk, but something still seems very off in my build, I'm no good at builds and what sets to what glyths ect... learning as I go but I really wanna play dk, if not dk is there a build for magicka nightblade that pumps alot of power? I tried a bomb build but I don't have the money for vd swords or jewerly lol

Taylor_MB · May 2018

Sets
The two sets you have are both very good and I wouldn't worry about changing them around until you practice and gain more experience with the class.

Armour Weight and Sustain
What are your weight distributions? It was unclear in the OP so just double checking, do you have either 5 light or 5 heavy? If you have 5 light the cost reduction is awesome and you shouldn't have to worry about sustain too much. If you are in heavy then you are really going to struggle, even in CP, simply because MagDK have the most expensive skills of any class. You can make sustain in heavy easier through either back barring a staff and heavy attacking where you can or wearing 5pc Seducer, the cost reduction and magicka regeneration will make it almost the same as light armour.

Offensive Healing
Power Lash and Burning Embers are your greatest tools. Place Burning Embers on everyone of your opponents (reapplying as needed) and proc a power lash at absolutely every opportunity. These two skills are your bread and butter, they are going to be giving you heals that are tough to out DPS and keeping your opponent on their back foot.

Sword and Board
Sword and Board MagDK is very strong, but also expensive. In order to sustain your stamina you are going to need tri-stat enchants on at least all your large armour pieces and be using tri-pots (unless you are an Argonian). To minimise your block cost you'll need at least 4 sturdy (any left over make Impen).

Hope that helps! Any other specific questions just ask!

crooksy80 · May 2018

Taylor_MB wrote: »

Sets
The two sets you have are both very good and I wouldn't worry about changing them around until you practice and gain more experience with the class.

Armour Weight and Sustain
What are your weight distributions? It was unclear in the OP so just double checking, do you have either 5 light or 5 heavy? If you have 5 light the cost reduction is awesome and you shouldn't have to worry about sustain too much. If you are in heavy then you are really going to struggle, even in CP, simply because MagDK have the most expensive skills of any class. You can make sustain in heavy easier through either back barring a staff and heavy attacking where you can or wearing 5pc Seducer, the cost reduction and magicka regeneration will make it almost the same as light armour.

Offensive Healing
Power Lash and Burning Embers are your greatest tools. Place Burning Embers on everyone of your opponents (reapplying as needed) and proc a power lash at absolutely every opportunity. These two skills are your bread and butter, they are going to be giving you heals that are tough to out DPS and keeping your opponent on their back foot.

Sword and Board
Sword and Board MagDK is very strong, but also expensive. In order to sustain your stamina you are going to need tri-stat enchants on at least all your large armour pieces and be using tri-pots (unless you are an Argonian). To minimise your block cost you'll need at least 4 sturdy (any left over make Impen).

Hope that helps! Any other specific questions just ask!

Thanks for the help man, I have 2 light and 5 heavy sword and board front and back

Kartalin · May 2018

Yep, CP or no CP I run 5 light and the penetration is pretty essential to being able to secure kills, not to mention the sustain benefits. Agree with @Taylor_MB on all his comments.

FWIW I run sword & shield/resto, wizard's riposte, burning spellweave front barred, with grothdarr. Shacklebreaker is a solid set, lots of good ways to build a mDK actually.

Mihael · May 2018

Ive used the same build and I would recommend if you are going to stay in heavy switch 1or 2 of your glyphs to reduce cost and 1 to spell damage, or you can go light and have two spell damage 1 recovery glyph. I would wear valkyn if I was in heavy but if you go light use blood spawn then when you get more comfortable switch to valkyn, also starting on monday you can switch to a shackle frost staff on the back so you can get more penetration and recovery

Waffennacht · May 2018

I'm going with shackle + caluurion + Zaan

I'm using frost staff with reach and combining that with powerlash and empowering chains.

It's for BGs, but that's the plan!

Savos_Saren · May 2018

crooksy80 wrote: »

Hey guys so im having trouble building magic dk atm, I have 5 shackle breaker, sword shield, heavy chest legs and feet, light burning spell weave light waist hands and jewerly, without food buffs i have 1700 damage 1500 recovery, all jewlery has a recovery glyth on them, and i do have vamp, is there anyway I can make this build better? My aim is to take a good bit of damage but be able to deal and sustain, I can't even hold my own in a 1v1

It appears that you're not running a full 5pc armor type. So, you're missing out on the 5th passive bonus from either Heavy or Light armor.

You either need to run 5 heavy or 5 light. From what it looks like- you're trying to run a heavy armor build. So, I suggest:

Heavy head, shoulders, chest, legs, and feet. Light waist and medium gloves. That will give you the greatest benefit for resistances AND undaunted passives.

Also, if you want- you can run 5 Innate Axiom, 5 Shacklebreaker, and 2 Monster pieces for your build when Summerset comes out. I actually like Innate Axiom since it buffs all of your DK abilities (and it's only two traits to make... so jewelry crafting the pieces will be easy!)

EDIT: I'm guessing you're running a heavy helm and heavy shoulders for your monster set? If so- completely disregard what I'm saying.

jaws343 · May 2018

I've found better success running 2 fire staffs and 5 light armor with annulment for damage mitigation. With destro and light armor passives, whips and leap hit super hard and you will have real solid resource management. I also like grothdarr because it punishes melee builds for getting close.

Kartalin · May 2018

Waffennacht wrote: »

I'm going with shackle + caluurion + Zaan

I'm using frost staff with reach and combining that with powerlash and empowering chains.

It's for BGs, but that's the plan!

I’m liking the possibility of running frost staff front bar next update as opposed to sword and board and having both 5 piece sets active at all times. Do you use ele drain? It’s something I’ve used in the past but have gotten away from. Glad to see another fan of empowering chains, that’s what let’s me use grothdarr and keep opponents inside its radius.

ak_pvp · May 2018

I assume you are running 5 heavy 2 light, and tri food?

For starters, its hard to sustain on a DK, as of live, they have the worst main stat sustain tied with stamplar, so you need to play a little carefully.

The main source of sustain issues on a DK is healing. Coag blood is very expensive with no return like HTD/shrooms. Use it sparingly. Instead, rely on embers, and power lash procs, even if the latter doesn't hit it will return health. Also look into cauterize, is pretty decent solo, really low cost, and helps keep you topped up so you don't have to coag to keep safe from being bursted.

Another issue is mist, super expensive, medium results. Use only when being ulted or zaaned to move away from direct fire. It s a bad escape tool but an excelent "super block"

Use roots occasionally but don't spam, usually a root, embers, a fossilize, high stamina drain, and you have free time to not be hit and can go on the offensive. Use the maim morph of roots. Less damage taken = less healing needed = more sustain. Strafe behind them, and they won't be able to hit you as easily. (requires letting go of movement keys, and then light attacking, which stops them casting on you, so keep moving, and they can't hit you. )

JumpmanLane · May 2018

ak_pvp wrote: »

I assume you are running 5 heavy 2 light, and tri food?

For starters, its hard to sustain on a DK, as of live, they have the worst main stat sustain tied with stamplar, so you need to play a little carefully.

The main source of sustain issues on a DK is healing. Coag blood is very expensive with no return like HTD/shrooms. Use it sparingly. Instead, rely on embers, and power lash procs, even if the latter doesn't hit it will return health. Also look into cauterize, is pretty decent solo, really low cost, and helps keep you topped up so you don't have to coag to keep safe from being bursted.

Another issue is mist, super expensive, medium results. Use only when being ulted or zaaned to move away from direct fire. It s a bad escape tool but an excelent "super block"

Use roots occasionally but don't spam, usually a root, embers, a fossilize, high stamina drain, and you have free time to not be hit and can go on the offensive. Use the maim morph of roots. Less damage taken = less healing needed = more sustain. Strafe behind them, and they won't be able to hit you as easily. (requires letting go of movement keys, and then light attacking, which stops them casting on you, so keep moving, and they can't hit you. )

Great advice. Forgot about cauterize. Also choking talons debuffs them with maim. Burning talons is great for a dunmer to run. BOTH proc powerlash; so, flame lash, talons, powerlash is a great combo.

Syiccal · May 2018

hi. so I'm thinking of converting my stam dk over to mag would this work as a build, some advice needed please.
2 skoria/zaan
5 innate axiom
5 wizard reposte
s/b + resto
Thanks

JumpmanLane · May 2018

Dude, all your glyphs should be golden (even on purple armor) and magicka. Get your magicka recovery from sets and cp. If your a MAGICKA DK, really run 5 light lol. All your traits should be impen. (Sturdy shields tho).

As for Stam, use immovable pots so you won’t HAVE to break free as much. People cry about folks running pots for a reason. Cc burst is how a lot of people kill people.

As for blocking, resist the urge to permablock. With cauterize up, burning embers up, powerlash procced, and coagulating Blood as an insta-heal. Devouring Swarm as a heal. You’re gonna have plenty of heals coming in. You really shouldn’t be over-relying on block, EVEN THOUGH you can flame lash while holding block lol. I’m not saying NEVER DO IT, just don’t OVER spam ANYTHING. Lol. Put points into blocking and breaking free and sturdy shields of course. It’s all about timing.

Magdk is VERY tanky, NOT because it rolls around in heavy armor but because it has heals for days with the right set up. It can be high damage because it’s bursty. Crits kill in PvE. Burst kills in PVP.

You survive in PvP by withstanding burst. It’s why you wear impen. It’s why you have to watch your bars and go defensive at times. Then burst your target down. Usually once you can go cc, powerlash, ulti targets wipe. Against folks running immovables, focus on buffing you HOTS. And of course, line of site is your friend lol.

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Whats wrong with my magic dk pvp build?

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