You are probably doing everything wrong.

mNB is far better than sorc in pressure, healing and even burst since the sorc one is always countered.

What's your gear, skill set ups ?

Aedaryl wrote: »

You are probably doing everything wrong.

mNB is far better than sorc in pressure, healing and even burst since the sorc one is always countered.

What's your gear, skill set ups ?

Interesting that you should say this, Sorcs are always absolutely dominating every match I play. Seem to be able to burst people down inside a single rune cage sometimes! Crystal shards hits a lot harder than soul siphon and they have the lightning dash to escape, access to speed increase. IDK, just my subjective observation.


Anyway, about my stats:

I'm talking about BGs here so although I'm CP 320, I don't get to use any of them.

Sets are Shaklebreaker and Zaan both purple

Think my Mundus is Atronach but not sure

For food I try to get a good triple stat one but can't always afford the ingredients so sometimes just get +Stam +Mag

Damage skills are Siphon, Destro Clench, Crippling Grasp, Merciless Resolve and Incap. I also have refreshing path but tbh I struggle to get much value from it and was considering swapping for fear to keep me alive longer.

Sparr0w wrote: »

lucky_dutch wrote: »

Seem to be able to burst people down inside a single rune cage sometimes! Crystal shards hits a lot harder than soul siphon and they have the lightning dash to escape, access to speed increase. IDK, just my subjective observation.

That's because RuneCage is broken so people can't excape from it quickly. Sorcs have delayed burst with inbuilt execute, Curse>Fury>Rune>FP>Frag (+ execute) all hit at the same time, which is why you see insta kills from sorcs a bit. Takes a LOT of practice to get this perfected. Otherwise they go off at different times & the sorc stands there shield stacking away.

RE Frags hitting harder than Funnel... yeah since frags is a proc and funnel is a spammable... compare Frags with Merciless bow proc.

Escape NB's have either Image or Cloak, Image is very very effective if you can use it correctly, Cloak is great so long as no ones running detect.

Speed increase is built into NB kit, refreshing, cripple, double take etc.

Cloak is awesome obviously but there seems to be a lot of dots that knock you out of it + I seem to be permanently crippled & unlike my medium armor classes, I don't have a snare break. However, you're right, the nb does have some good ways to get away.

What about damage? Besides weaving light attacks into cripple, & siphon then using bow + incap for burst, how do I keep up high pressure? I think if i could do more damage this would help me survive too as I could put people on the defensive, right now my dmg is low so people just go all-out attack on me.

Datthaw wrote: »

What is your other set, you just have shackle and zaan down.

Working towards Calurrions but getting the rings in purple is an exercise in frustration

Uh, well.
UPD: Ok, you were talking about BG, when I'm talking about open world eh ... nvm, I'm not competent at BGs, better to wait for someone else. But I'll leave my comment here, maybe it will be helpful for someone, since thread called "Need some help with Magblade" but not "Need some help with Magblade in BGs".

lucky_dutch wrote: »

I don't feel like I'm doing anywhere near enough damage outside of the incap-bow combo (which isn't enough kill anyone that isn't under-geared).

To be honest, this combo can literally one-shot a lot of people, even competent ones in BiS gear (I mean, especially these ones, since you can't kill them just kiting and spamming skills.

I've seen you mentioned shackle and zaan as your sets but what is 3rd one?

I could advise my build, food, mundus stone etc, but the build I'm currently running is a "flat" one – pure damage, sustain from lich set and resto HA only, so... Well, ok, let's start with that, just for example

Monster set — Skoria
5 pieces body — War Maiden
3 jewelry + resto staff backbar — Lich
Destro staff front bar — Moondancer (just because I don't have master destro, max magicka from Moondancer is pretty yummy tho)

Body enchants – max magicka on small pieces, prismatic (tri stat) on big pieces

Jewelry enchant – all golden spell dmg glyphs

Now traits – all impenetrable, all jewelry are Arcane

Destro staff trait – nirnhoned
Resto staff trait – infused

Destro enchant – dunno, I'm running poisons
Resto enchant – increase spell and weapon dmg.

Food – Witchmother's Potent Brew
Mundus – Apprentice

Now, unbuffed I have something like ~2.5 spell dmg and 1400 mar regen. Don't know precise numbers of spell dmg with major sorcery, but feels like a lot, lol. Mag regen with Lich and major intellect – something like ~3k - 3.2k

That's what I meant by a "flat build" – a lot of spell dmg and mag recovery (with lich), but low stam – ~10k in noCP, low HP – something like 21k, ridiculously low stam regen as well.
But hey, it works like a charm! Still I don't recommend running War Maiden for you – just run shackle like you do now.

Now what to do as a magblade?

Let's assume you're running light armor, not so much hp, when shade, healing ward and cloak - are you only life savers.
You're pretty squishy, but very "hard to catch". No need to try to outheal yourself with siphoning, healing ward etc as your main defense – you're not a sorc when you can shieldstack and take dmg to your face – you have to try to take no dmg at all.

Your basic tactic should be: light attack -> Cripple - light attack -> Cripple -> light attack -> Cripple...did I said light attack yet?
No joking, I'm seriously. You need to light attack your enemy to proc your staff glyph (or poison), put cripple on him and go cloak. Change your position while in stealth. Do it again. And again. Don't let him attack you at all or close to it.
If you feel you have more freedom and can be more agressive – start adding some swallow soul/funnel health in your 'rotation' to increase your pressure.

Don't forget to use destro reach every 7 seconds to drain his stamina.

Your main goal is to get your bow proc. Now, when you have it, you can go very offensively with something like: Cripple -> light attack resto to proc spell dmg enchant -> fear + animation cancelling (if you can ofc) -> incap -> bow proc. 80% of the time, the enemy is dead. Especially if Skoria procced.

LoS is very important for every class, and mNB is not an exception. Try to use everything you have on the map to prevent enemy attack you, but to let you line up your combo, separate enemies if there are more than one, to take some time to ponder over tactics.


Also, improve your weapons to gold, it will boost your dmg output by a lot.

lucky_dutch wrote: »

Pijng wrote: »

snip .

This is some awesome feedback thank you! Very helpful!

What other abilities do you run on your bars then besides the ones you mentioned?

And what do you do about stuns? This is where I die (A LOT) because I have a tiny stam bar so I end-up eating the full-durations of a lot of stuns. The fact that almost all knock-down + stun abilities (rune cage, dizzying swing, stone giant etc.) are seriously bugged on console and often can't be broken free of does not help.

My skills are as follows:

Front bar:
Mass hysteria — Swallow soul — Destro reach — Merciless resolve — Cripple — ULT: Incap

Back bar:
Shadow image — Siphoning attacks — Healing ward — Shadowy disguise — Refreshing path/Rapid regeneration — ULT: Light's champion

I just don't really like to put cripple on a back bar, that's why it's on front one. Just personal preference.

My stamina pool allows me to do one break free + one roll dodge. If stun is targetable – well, I'm trying to avoid it with cloak. If not - just break free, then after 7 seconds I'll still have stamina to deal with another one. But 3rd stun could be tough, it depends:
– I can deal with enemy much earlier
– I can tryhard to evade it with cloak until I'll get enough stam
– Eat stun, can't break free, dead. Lol, sometimes it happens too
– Use tri pots and say «Yay»

Don't know anything about console, sorry

How much stamina do you have? You're running shackle – it should give a decent amount tho. Might increase it with tri stat glyphs on big body pieces as well.

Dizzy swing is the last thing I'm worried about – I'm jut trying to stay on range and go cloak after their gap closers (since these guys running 2h they have forward momentum and cripple won't be able to root them, but still cripple will give you major expedition to be more mobile against them).

Rune cage, oh. Sometimes it's enough to break free and healing ward (maybe ulty). In other situations it's worth to dodge roll after break free, cause you can be damaged with crystal frags as well. I'm usually looking at how skillful sorc is, trying to predict how good he is at combo and how much dmg he has.

Just want to mention again – these advices might be useless for BGs.

lionofjudah7 wrote: »

And that pijng dude sounds like a trash magblade . I wouldnt listen to any of his advice unless you tryna die alot

At least you could mention me