What makes MagBlades the king of DPS?

md3788 · August 2018

Curious, I've always ran a MagDk and I finally just hit 30K on a dummy parse - near perfect rotation with 100% uptime on potions and ele drain. 2x Zaan, 5x BSW, 5x Imperfect Siroria. Gold infused weapons, purple body with almost all divines and gold magicka enchants. Apprentice mundus. 380 CP. The only thing I'm missing is the 5/1/1 bonus (Currently at 6/1), gold body pieces, and a Maelstrom back bar. From what I've been reading and seeing if I throw this set on a MagBlade I should be able to crush that DPS parse. Am I at all right in thinking that? Is there something about MagBlades that make them that much better than others?

DocFrost72 · August 2018

Range,
Off heals,
Will and innate berserk,
Major slayer options,

In short they have not just good dps but utility, and that is sorely lacking with a lot of classes.

Apherius · August 2018

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Range,
Off heals,
Will and innate berserk,
Major slayer options,

In short they have not just good dps but utility, and that is sorely lacking with a lot of classes.

Good dps, utility, and very great sustain ( nothing better than a skill that restore magicka and health while doing dps + restore magicka when the skill ends).

DocFrost72 · August 2018

Apherius wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Range,
Off heals,
Will and innate berserk,
Major slayer options,

In short they have not just good dps but utility, and that is sorely lacking with a lot of classes.

Good dps, utility, and very great sustain ( nothing better than a skill that restore magicka and health while doing dps + restore magicka when the skill ends).

Honestly if siphoning strikes and morphs were mages guild abilities there'd be a pretty solid bunch of balance.

Krayl · August 2018

cool yeah i want surge and ward to be mage's guild skills also then.

md3788 · August 2018

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Apherius wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Range,
Off heals,
Will and innate berserk,
Major slayer options,

In short they have not just good dps but utility, and that is sorely lacking with a lot of classes.

Good dps, utility, and very great sustain ( nothing better than a skill that restore magicka and health while doing dps + restore magicka when the skill ends).

Honestly if siphoning strikes and morphs were mages guild abilities there'd be a pretty solid bunch of balance.

I don't think they should strip the identity of a nightblade to balance it with other classes, it would just be nice to see a little extra utility to be added to those that struggle. For a MagDk, if burning embers restored health AND magicka when it expired, I think that would be a nice touch.

Runefang · August 2018

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Apherius wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Range,
Off heals,
Will and innate berserk,
Major slayer options,

In short they have not just good dps but utility, and that is sorely lacking with a lot of classes.

Good dps, utility, and very great sustain ( nothing better than a skill that restore magicka and health while doing dps + restore magicka when the skill ends).

Honestly if siphoning strikes and morphs were mages guild abilities there'd be a pretty solid bunch of balance.

Siphoning strikes isn't that big an issue to me, the sustain it supplies is only slightly better than a lot of other similar skills in other classes.

A Magblade can weave light attacks and skills non-stop and have a magicka drain of ~1500 on a 6m dummy parse. That's sustainable. If I do that on my Magplar or Magsorc I have a drain of over 1700. That's unsustainable without sacrificing too much damage, at least on a 6m dummy.

The reason for the difference is simply the free bow proc the Nightblade gets, every 5 seconds or so they get a free skill to use. And instead of that bow proc all other classes are using another spammable which has a cost.

IZZEFlameLash · August 2018

Crits, Minor Berserk, Incap and Soul Harvest's increased damage effect and the best sustain out of all classes for DPS. Basically, NBs have the buffs that other DPS classes can only dream of.

DocFrost72 · August 2018

Krayl wrote: »

cool yeah i want surge and ward to be mage's guild skills also then.

You're barking up the wrong tree, I'd be fine without classes

md3788 wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Apherius wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Range,
Off heals,
Will and innate berserk,
Major slayer options,

In short they have not just good dps but utility, and that is sorely lacking with a lot of classes.

Good dps, utility, and very great sustain ( nothing better than a skill that restore magicka and health while doing dps + restore magicka when the skill ends).

Honestly if siphoning strikes and morphs were mages guild abilities there'd be a pretty solid bunch of balance.

I don't think they should strip the identity of a nightblade to balance it with other classes, it would just be nice to see a little extra utility to be added to those that struggle. For a MagDk, if burning embers restored health AND magicka when it expired, I think that would be a nice touch.

Also not a bad idea, but I'd like to see all specs get a *little* something to compete with the current magblade/stamblade meta.

drummindrummer · August 2018

Unfortunately I'm not so sure that will ever happen. These devs like to nerf. We will likely see a nerf to nightblades before we see a buff to anything else lol. I hope I'm wrong though

DocFrost72 · August 2018

Me too man.

TheNightflame · August 2018

BEST ranged dps
BEST master architect wearers
BEST self healing
BEST off healing

why bring anyone else *shrugs*

WrathOfInnos · August 2018

Magblades are fun to play because they can sustain a fast paced rotation. All the other classes have to play heavy attacks online, which is less fun, or build so much into sustain that they can’t do any damage. The sustain changes with Morrowind are the worst thing that’s ever happened to this game.

Stamblades are the real king of DPS, but they are melee (which newer trials punish) and offer less group utility.

ccfeeling · August 2018

Try a magblade

kadar · August 2018

Is there something about MagBlades that make them that much better than others?

They have better sustain due to siphoning attacks, Assassins Will having no mag cost, and Soul Harvest spam.
The synergy between the 20% damage increase of Soul Harvest, the huge single target hits of Assassins' Will, and Impale (in execute).
The option to use off-healing morphs without losing much damage at all.

That pretty much sums it up, IMO. 1 thing to consider too is that altho mNB has the most potential DPS atm, it also has the most difficult rotation because well...there isn't a rotation in a strict sense lol. So, OP I doubt your DPS would go up at all if you just copy/pasted that build onto a mNB.

SmellyUnlimited · August 2018

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Krayl wrote: »

cool yeah i want surge and ward to be mage's guild skills also then.

You're barking up the wrong tree, I'd be fine without classes

md3788 wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Apherius wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Range,
Off heals,
Will and innate berserk,
Major slayer options,

In short they have not just good dps but utility, and that is sorely lacking with a lot of classes.

Good dps, utility, and very great sustain ( nothing better than a skill that restore magicka and health while doing dps + restore magicka when the skill ends).

Honestly if siphoning strikes and morphs were mages guild abilities there'd be a pretty solid bunch of balance.

I don't think they should strip the identity of a nightblade to balance it with other classes, it would just be nice to see a little extra utility to be added to those that struggle. For a MagDk, if burning embers restored health AND magicka when it expired, I think that would be a nice touch.

Also not a bad idea, but I'd like to see all specs get a *little* something to compete with the current magblade/stamblade meta.

#MeToo

SmellyUnlimited · August 2018

9

md3788 wrote: »

Curious, I've always ran a MagDk and I finally just hit 30K on a dummy parse - near perfect rotation with 100% uptime on potions and ele drain. 2x Zaan, 5x BSW, 5x Imperfect Siroria. Gold infused weapons, purple body with almost all divines and gold magicka enchants. Apprentice mundus. 380 CP. The only thing I'm missing is the 5/1/1 bonus (Currently at 6/1), gold body pieces, and a Maelstrom back bar. From what I've been reading and seeing if I throw this set on a MagBlade I should be able to crush that DPS parse. Am I at all right in thinking that? Is there something about MagBlades that make them that much better than others?

With that set up, hitting 30k should be VERY doable:::: and

I’m using Siroria + Silks of Sun

Silks inferno infused flame staff / Maelstrom infused inferno staff

Zaan’s

BSW outperforms Silks by a good measure, but just haven’t gotten a Siroria or a BSW inferno in order to run those together.

Long story short: your setup is better than mine and I’m hitting about 10k more.

Some areas may need to be optimized:

Race - Dark Elf (7% to fire damage is amazing)
Mundus - (bounced between Apprentice, or Thief). Test with both and see which you prefer. For me, I ended up choosing thief.

If you can post a YouTube vid of your gear and parse, I’m sure a lot of ppl here much better than myself can provide you some constructive feedback.

#MakeMagDKGreatAgain

f047ys3v3n · August 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Magblades are fun to play because they can sustain a fast paced rotation. All the other classes have to play heavy attacks online, which is less fun, or build so much into sustain that they can’t do any damage. The sustain changes with Morrowind are the worst thing that’s ever happened to this game.

Stamblades are the real king of DPS, but they are melee (which newer trials punish) and offer less group utility.

Yep, morrowind was Wrobels big dump on the game. It still smells.

Septimus_Magna · August 2018

Grim Focus (main reason), sustain from Siphoning Strikes and +8% max magicka for slotting siphoning ability.

I’d wish that Crystal Frags would come close to the dps gain that Grim Focus offers. The skill is always one of the highest NB dps skills at a very low resource cost. Plus it gives minor beserk which buffs all other dmg you do.

kadar · August 2018

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Grim Focus (main reason), sustain from Siphoning Strikes and +8% max magicka for slotting siphoning ability.

I’d wish that Crystal Frags would come close to the dps gain that Grim Focus offers. The skill is always one of the highest NB dps skills at a very low resource cost. Plus it gives minor beserk which buffs all other dmg you do.

Out of curiosity, what kind of DPS does cfrags do on a 6m dummy parse?

Qbiken · August 2018

Basically what everyone else have been saying. Also want to add that the magblade meta (which has been a thing since morrowind) is also caused by questionable trial/dungeon design where ranged DPS in combination with high DPS, good selfheal and good selfsustain is more favourable. Magblades are the best at all those things.

Kikke · August 2018

The_Outsider wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Grim Focus (main reason), sustain from Siphoning Strikes and +8% max magicka for slotting siphoning ability.

I’d wish that Crystal Frags would come close to the dps gain that Grim Focus offers. The skill is always one of the highest NB dps skills at a very low resource cost. Plus it gives minor beserk which buffs all other dmg you do.

Out of curiosity, what kind of DPS does cfrags do on a 6m dummy parse?

Extremly rng based if I may tell you xP

Dojohoda · August 2018

Skillzz man, observation of blade buffs and keeping them up. It's not exactly eazy.

John_Falstaff · August 2018

It's a bigger issue on console, but on PC, there are multiple buff trackers and Grim Focus Counter.

But on topic - it's great sustain with multiple sources of magicka return, it's hard-hitting bow shot counting as free skill, it's a lot of self and off-healing (which synergize with other magicka that usually stacks at range), it's multitude of useful passives focused on actually useful things, it's very fast ultimate generation (that makes best use of Master Architect - another way mNBs synergize in a group). And of course the fact that there's almost no overhead for buffs and self/off healing, since those functions double down as good damage skills present in most every rotation.

Sparr0w · August 2018

King of dummy parses*

Because they have access to Minor Beserk & can sustain a light attack rotation without external help (orbs etc.)

In a raid they used to have a lot of off heals (Funnel/Path) but with the Funnel increase most have gone to FP or Ele weapon for more DPS or more sustain. I guess you could argue the cheap ulti & ulti gen giving a high uptime if wearing MA but it requires melee range.

John_Falstaff · August 2018

Oh, and another thing I didn't mention is that in newer trials, they don't have to compete with stamina DPS. Surest way to become a king of DPS - knock out half the competitors even before the race begins. ^^

code65536 · August 2018

The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that magblades are good only if played well. I see a lot of people jumping on the magblade bandwagon and then finding that they do less DPS on a magblade than on another class.

I.e., magblades have a high skill ceiling, and it's only a strong DPS class for people who can touch that ceiling.

Specifically, magblade is extremely dependent on your ability to light-attack weave.

For all other classes, if you miss weaves,

You lose damage from the light attacks.

For nightblades, if you miss weaves,

You lose damage from the light attacks.
You lose bow procs, and bow procs are your hardest-hitting ability.
You lose sustain from bow procs, because bow procs are free so the greater the ratio of bow procs to other abilities, the more efficiently you use magicka.
You lose sustain from Siphoning Attacks, which rewards weaving.

Furthermore, while most players will LA-weave 5 abilities to get their bow proc and then LA-weave the bow proc, the really good magblades will LA-weave 4 abilities and then LA-weave Merciless, and if timed properly, the LA from the Merciless weave will hit early enough to make that a bow proc. The risk is that if you mistime that, then you just end up recasting Merciless and end up losing DPS than if you had played it safe and LA-weaved 5 abilities. So the good, experienced magblades can get a 1-to-4 ratio of bow procs to other abilities instead of a more typical 1-to-5 ratio, and the more bow procs you get, the more damage and sustain that you get.

If you can't weave well--and most people playing this game can't get 0.8 LA/s--then you will not find magblades to be that strong. But for people who can perfectly weave and get that 1-to-4 ratio of bow procs, magblade will reward that level of skill very, very richly.

This is also why balancing magblade DPS is difficult. Since any direct nerfs will mostly hurt the players for whom magblade is not very strong. To ZOS's credit, they did lower the magblade ceiling a little with the changes to how Merciless stacks are saved.

(Unfortunately, my weaving is less than perfect. But I stick with magblade because that's been my main since 2015, before magblades were cool.

)

Aurielle · August 2018

code65536 wrote: »

The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that magblades are good only if played well. I see a lot of people jumping on the magblade bandwagon and then finding that they do less DPS on a magblade than on another class.

I.e., magblades have a high skill ceiling, and it's only a strong DPS class for people who can touch that ceiling.

Specifically, magblade is extremely dependent on your ability to light-attack weave.

For all other classes, if you miss weaves,
You lose damage from the light attacks.

For nightblades, if you miss weaves,
You lose damage from the light attacks.

You lose bow procs, and bow procs are your hardest-hitting ability.

You lose sustain from bow procs, because bow procs are free so the greater the ratio of bow procs to other abilities, the more efficiently you use magicka.

You lose sustain from Siphoning Attacks, which rewards weaving.

Furthermore, while most players will LA-weave 5 abilities to get their bow proc and then LA-weave the bow proc, the really good magblades will LA-weave 4 abilities and then LA-weave Merciless, and if timed properly, the LA from the Merciless weave will hit early enough to make that a bow proc. The risk is that if you mistime that, then you just end up recasting Merciless and end up losing DPS than if you had played it safe and LA-weaved 5 abilities. So the good, experienced magblades can get a 1-to-4 ratio of bow procs to other abilities instead of a more typical 1-to-5 ratio, and the more bow procs you get, the more damage and sustain that you get.

If you can't weave well--and most people playing this game can't get 0.8 LA/s--then you will not find magblades to be that strong. But for people who can perfectly weave and get that 1-to-4 ratio of bow procs, magblade will reward that level of skill very, very richly.

This is also why balancing magblade DPS is difficult. Since any direct nerfs will mostly hurt the players for whom magblade is not very strong. To ZOS's credit, they did lower the magblade ceiling a little with the changes to how Merciless stacks are saved.

(Unfortunately, my weaving is less than perfect. But I stick with magblade because that's been my main since 2015, before magblades were cool. )

This. Also, you need to have a dynamic rotation, rather than a circular rotation, to hit the big numbers. Addons that track ground AOEs and Merciless procs help with that, so if you’re on console, it’s MUCH tougher to achieve.

I tried a circular rotation with Siroria (Imperfect)/Mother’s Sorrow/Skoria/VMA inferno (pretty much BIS, in other words) on my magblade and could only achieve 37k max. That was with three Merciless procs per cast, which is apparently the best you can do as far as Merciless procs go. My petsorc hits 40k in non-BIS gear with a much more forgiving heavy attack rotation, so I have no reason to use my magblade for anything other than telvar farming.

md3788 · August 2018

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

9

md3788 wrote: »

Curious, I've always ran a MagDk and I finally just hit 30K on a dummy parse - near perfect rotation with 100% uptime on potions and ele drain. 2x Zaan, 5x BSW, 5x Imperfect Siroria. Gold infused weapons, purple body with almost all divines and gold magicka enchants. Apprentice mundus. 380 CP. The only thing I'm missing is the 5/1/1 bonus (Currently at 6/1), gold body pieces, and a Maelstrom back bar. From what I've been reading and seeing if I throw this set on a MagBlade I should be able to crush that DPS parse. Am I at all right in thinking that? Is there something about MagBlades that make them that much better than others?

With that set up, hitting 30k should be VERY doable:::: and

I’m using Siroria + Silks of Sun

Silks inferno infused flame staff / Maelstrom infused inferno staff

Zaan’s

BSW outperforms Silks by a good measure, but just haven’t gotten a Siroria or a BSW inferno in order to run those together.

Long story short: your setup is better than mine and I’m hitting about 10k more.

Some areas may need to be optimized:

Race - Dark Elf (7% to fire damage is amazing)
Mundus - (bounced between Apprentice, or Thief). Test with both and see which you prefer. For me, I ended up choosing thief.

If you can post a YouTube vid of your gear and parse, I’m sure a lot of ppl here much better than myself can provide you some constructive feedback.

#MakeMagDKGreatAgain

I’ll look into getting a YouTube video together. And yes I am a dark elf. I supposed my rotation is just not that great as I’ve been practicing for a while. It’s gone up as I was stuck in the mid 20s but 30k is my ceiling so far. Could you let me know what your CP distribution is?

Danksta · August 2018

*kings of mag dps

John_Falstaff · August 2018

@Danksta , of course magblade is a king of mag dps, by definition. In their endless wisdom of combat balancing, ZOS have designated stamblade to be kings of stam dps... Quoting a bosmer tour guide from Elden Root, "...isn't that exciting". ^^