Help me make my Magblade PvP playable

LadySinflower · April 2019

I am interested in a little bit of PvP once in a while. For the event I was given some advice and made armor. It does not seem to be working. I have been practically one-shotted by every player that hits me. I have to rely on crafted gear before I can farm something else. I can do any 6-trait set. Some 7s, 8s and 9s only select pieces. So here's what I crafted for myself. It's not helping me stay alive to fight back.

Head - light - fortified brass - impen - prism glyph
Chest - heavy - Shacklebreaker - impen - prism glyph
Shoulders - light - Fortified brs - impen - max health glyph
Waist - light - Shacklebreaker - impen - max health glyph
Hands - light - Torug's Pact - impen - max health glyph
Legs - heavy - Shacklebreaker - impen - prism glyph
Feet - light - Shacklebreaker - impen - max health glyph
Necklace - Torug's Pact - Protective - recover health glyph
2 rings - Torug's Pact - Protective - recover health glyph
Main - Lightning Staff - Shacklebreaker - Sharpened - life drain glyph
Backup - Inferno Staff - Shacklebreaker - Sharpened - life drain glyph

All the armor is purple. The necklace is blue and the rings are green (best I can do). Both staves are gold.

I use purple food, tristat. Don't have ingredients for clockwork or recipe for witchmothers. I carry potion with invisibility, recover health, and unstoppable. I don't use it before a fight; generally just to recover. I rely heavily on annulment and swallow soul for healing which is why I kept 5 armor pieces light.

I prefer to fight at range but in PvP most people run close to you. I'd like a chance to hit them once before I'm dead. I don't really have a PvP playstyle yet.

What would you suggest I craft to make this setup better? Thanks.

EDIT: Lots of great advice has been given for farmed sets and weapons to go after. Thank you for that but it doesn't help me today, right now. Please help me with CRAFTED sets which I can make and use while I work on getting the better stuff. Thanks.

LadySinflower · April 2019

Delete

Kadoin · April 2019

That's a tall order...Where are all the PRO magblades? I suck at the class except...when healing or tanking

Alucardo · April 2019

Personally I prefer Armor Master on my magblade. Currently I run

2 Blood Spawn
5 Shackle (Bright Throat is also nice if you don't require the extra stam sustain)
5 Armor Master (Back bar)
Infused Willpower inferno front bar. You can obviously replace this with a destro of your choice. I just like the extra stats from willpower.

Good sustain, nice damage, high ult uptime, lots of resistances

Datthaw · April 2019

LadySinflower wrote: »

I am interested in a little bit of PvP once in a while. For the event I was given some advice and made armor. It does not seem to be working. I have been practically one-shotted by every player that hits me. I have to rely on crafted gear before I can farm something else. I can do any 6-trait set. Some 7s, 8s and 9s only select pieces. So here's what I crafted for myself. It's not helping me stay alive to fight back.

Head - light - fortified brass - impen - prism glyph
Chest - heavy - Shacklebreaker - impen - prism glyph
Shoulders - light - Fortified bras - impen - max health glyph
Waist - light - Shacklebreaker - impen - max health glyph
Hands - light - Torug's Pact - impen - max health glyph
Legs - heavy - Shacklebreaker - impen - prism glyph
Feet - light - Shacklebreaker - impen - max health glyph
Necklace - Torug's Pact - Protective - recover health glyph
2 rings - Torug's Pact - Protective - recover health glyph
Main - Lightning Staff - Shacklebreaker - Sharpened - life drain glyph
Backup - Inferno Staff - Shacklebreaker - Sharpened - life drain glyph

All the armor is purple. The necklace is blue and the rings are green (best I can do). Both staves are gold.

I use purple food, tristat. Don't have ingredients for clockwork or recipe for witchmothers. I carry python with invisibility, recover health, and unstoppable. I don't use it before a fight; generally just to recover. I rely heavily on annulment and swallow soul for healing which is why I kept 5 armor pieces light.

I prefer to fight at range but in PvP most period run close to you. I'd like a chance to hit them once before I'm dead. I don't really have a PvP playstyle yet.

What would you suggest I craft or change to make this setup better? Thanks.

Magblade is the hardest class to play in pvp right now. Unless you are knowledgeable about pvp, and have very good shade use chances are you will always get roflstomped. Magnbs are hurting but they my favorite, I will give you two armor setups I have found that work well for different playstyes

High mobility high damage low survivability
5 pc spinners
5 pc calu (front bar)
Vma resto
1 domI
1 kena/balg (just sp buff)

Heavy armor well rounded
5 pc seducer
5 pc spinners (front bar)
Vma resto
Bloodspawn

The calu build is self explanatory

The seducer build still uses shadow cloak, relies on fears and shade still but with bs and heavy I can brawl a bit before I hit shade. It's good for groups with soul harvest in front bar the ultimate regeneration is killer.

Edit just realized you said you wanted crafted. So I would say calu is out the window. If you want a heavy build I would suggest the seducers, it does not need the vma to survive it's just nice to have. Also shackle breaker is a great craft able pvp set.

Iskiab · April 2019

Just so you don’t have to change too much and get you started. Try 5 pieces of fortified brass. Change your rings to fortified brass, you can leave them white if you want to see if you like it, the glyphs are more important than the colour of the ring.

Put all magicka recovery glyphs on your rings. Change all your health runes to magicka runes, keep all your prismatic glyphs. I would make another staff and use a restoration staff on your back bar if you can.

The most important thing is how you setup and use your skills. Try something like this:

Front bar:
Harness Magicka - swallow soul - impale - shadowy disguise - destructive reach - ultimate: soul harvest

Back bar:
Rapid regen - Siphoning Attacks - mass hysteria - shadowy disguise - double take - ultimate: Soul Siphon

Here’s the important part. Stay with your team mates/group. If you think you’re going to be attacked use harness magicka. If you are being attacked use shadowy disguise (and you’ll need to hit it every 3 seconds until you’re safe). Use rapid regen if you need to heal. There are better builds but this should be enough so you don’t blow up so fast you can’t learn anything.

NightAngel690 · April 2019

Ft is good for flat resistance, armour master is definitely a viable option. Torugs pact, no. Switch it for bright throats for now. That’s if you plan to do light armour destro/resto.
I have yet to test it out but I know that’s what 90% of the players I talk to run on any mag toon. If you want to play in cloak, run caluurions/ spinners for sure.
For helms, I would do either 2 bloodspawn or 1 pirate 1 Chudan/warden for no cloak or 1 domihaus/ 1 grothdar for cloak. The extra magic will come in handy

stamdammered · April 2019

Just something that hasn’t been touched on. You should abuse Shade. It’s key to staying alive as a light Armour mnb, not the easiest skill to get used to but very important. You have to place it before you enter a fight and not after. If things get too hot, jump to your shade and stealth away to regroup.

Edit: Also I would drop the lightning staff and run Inferno Frontbar/Healing staff backbar. Your sets aren’t bad but I didn’t find torugs pact to be ideal for myself, I like bright throats/shackle/Valkyn skoria if you want to use force pulse and destructive reach or bright throats/innate axiom/1 pirate skeleton/1 chudan if you want to use swallow soul and fear. The pirate skeleton and chudan definitely made a difference for me at least. Next two sets I’m trying are spinners and Armour master

kaithuzar · April 2019

I suggest going to the character screen & hitting the “delete character” button.
The way this game is headed, at least according to the PTS, you won’t be able to make it in PvP

LadySinflower · April 2019

Thanks everyone! It seems like very few actually remembered that I said I need crafted sets at the moment. It would obviously take some time to get any of those other sets or weapons farmed. Bright throat is something I get quite a bit since I've been playing in Murkmire. I get a lot of blue pieces, rarely any purple. I did find a master chest in a Murkmire delve once and got a purple staff out of it. Don't remember if It's bright throat or not. It's probably still in the guild store since nothing is moving with the event on.

So what you're mostly saying is that my Magblade is too squishy for PvP so my best option is to learn to use my shade and run away? Actually I just got shade and morphed it, have been practicing. But I practice with mindless NPCs not people who think. Whenever someone (in PvP) attacks me I just kind of freeze and let them kill me. Or my next instinct is to start firing off my staff which doesn't seem to phase them. Fear is my new favorite skill with NPCs. It's so funny to see them flip out and run away! I then start firing off - forget the name - the skill with spectral bow. By the time they are done freaking out and come back at me the bow is ready and I kill them with it. It also works dealing with several NPCs. I'm trying to use the bow skill and the shade together but need practice. How will other players react to my throwing fear at them?

What is the deal with inferno staff? I like the lightning staff because I hit them with the lightning and it stays on them / tracks them when they jump away. It reacts immediately whereas the inferno staff takes a few seconds to fire off a heavy attack. I use heavy attack to keep my bar full. I don't really know how to use a restoration staff and haven't leveled the skill line. But I can start.

I also found a few builds online and have dropped the annulment from my bar for PvP. This means I can now run all heavy if I need to.

Again, please, CRAFTED sets are what I'm looking for. I will try to get the others recommended but they won't help me today. But I can craft CP160 armor today. I know crafted sets aren't the best for this but pretend you had a toon with no farmed stuff. You didn't have time or skill to farm ANYTHING and needed something today. That's what I need advice on, please. If you want to tell me the best farmed sets in addition to crafted, thank you. It gives me something to work on outside of PvP. I'm still primarily going to be a PvE player.

Thank you again.

ItsNebula · April 2019

LadySinflower wrote: »

Thanks everyone! It seems like very few actually remembered that I said I need crafted sets at the moment. It would obviously take some time to get any of those other sets or weapons farmed. Bright throat is something I get quite a bit since I've been playing in Murkmire. I get a lot of blue pieces, rarely any purple. I did find a master chest in a Murkmire delve once and got a purple staff out of it. Don't remember if It's bright throat or not. It's probably still in the guild store since nothing is moving with the event on.

So what you're mostly saying is that my Magblade is too squishy for PvP so my best option is to learn to use my shade and run away? Actually I just got shade and morphed it, have been practicing. But I practice with mindless NPCs not people who think. Whenever someone (in PvP) attacks me I just kind of freeze and let them kill me. Or my next instinct is to start firing off my staff which doesn't seem to phase them. Fear is my new favorite skill with NPCs. It's so funny to see them flip out and run away! I then start firing off - forget the name - the skill with spectral bow. By the time they are done freaking out and come back at me the bow is ready and I kill them with it. It also works dealing with several NPCs. I'm trying to use the bow skill and the shade together but need practice. How will other players react to my throwing fear at them?

What is the deal with inferno staff? I like the lightning staff because I hit them with the lightning and it stays on them / tracks them when they jump away. It reacts immediately whereas the inferno staff takes a few seconds to fire off a heavy attack. I use heavy attack to keep my bar full. I don't really know how to use a restoration staff and haven't leveled the skill line. But I can start.

I also found a few builds online and have dropped the annulment from my bar for PvP. This means I can now run all heavy if I need to.

Again, please, CRAFTED sets are what I'm looking for. I will try to get the others recommended but they won't help me today. But I can craft CP160 armor today. I know crafted sets aren't the best for this but pretend you had a toon with no farmed stuff. You didn't have time or skill to farm ANYTHING and needed something today. That's what I need advice on, please. If you want to tell me the best farmed sets in addition to crafted, thank you. It gives me something to work on outside of PvP. I'm still primarily going to be a PvE player.

Thank you again.

Inferno for 1 specific reason..
Destro passives. Having an inferno staff equipped, your single target abilities deal more damage. MagBlade is single target

LordTareq · April 2019

Magblade makes for a nice onslaught gank build also.

LadySinflower wrote: »

Thanks everyone! It seems like very few actually remembered that I said I need crafted sets at the moment. It would obviously take some time to get any of those other sets or weapons farmed. Bright throat is something I get quite a bit since I've been playing in Murkmire. I get a lot of blue pieces, rarely any purple. I did find a master chest in a Murkmire delve once and got a purple staff out of it. Don't remember if It's bright throat or not. It's probably still in the guild store since nothing is moving with the event on.

So what you're mostly saying is that my Magblade is too squishy for PvP so my best option is to learn to use my shade and run away? Actually I just got shade and morphed it, have been practicing. But I practice with mindless NPCs not people who think. Whenever someone (in PvP) attacks me I just kind of freeze and let them kill me. Or my next instinct is to start firing off my staff which doesn't seem to phase them. Fear is my new favorite skill with NPCs. It's so funny to see them flip out and run away! I then start firing off - forget the name - the skill with spectral bow. By the time they are done freaking out and come back at me the bow is ready and I kill them with it. It also works dealing with several NPCs. I'm trying to use the bow skill and the shade together but need practice. How will other players react to my throwing fear at them?

What is the deal with inferno staff? I like the lightning staff because I hit them with the lightning and it stays on them / tracks them when they jump away. It reacts immediately whereas the inferno staff takes a few seconds to fire off a heavy attack. I use heavy attack to keep my bar full. I don't really know how to use a restoration staff and haven't leveled the skill line. But I can start.

I also found a few builds online and have dropped the annulment from my bar for PvP. This means I can now run all heavy if I need to.

Again, please, CRAFTED sets are what I'm looking for. I will try to get the others recommended but they won't help me today. But I can craft CP160 armor today. I know crafted sets aren't the best for this but pretend you had a toon with no farmed stuff. You didn't have time or skill to farm ANYTHING and needed something today. That's what I need advice on, please. If you want to tell me the best farmed sets in addition to crafted, thank you. It gives me something to work on outside of PvP. I'm still primarily going to be a PvE player.

Thank you again.

You can go a couple of ways. Thankfully some of the better sets are crafted so no problem there. First you need to decide how you want to play. As a magblade you have a couple semi-viable options. You can go as a pvp-tank/healer, in which case you want heavy armour, of which 1 set must be a defensive set such as impregnable, pariah or fortified brass (crafted). The other set you have many options, I especially like shacklebreaker (crafted).
Sword/shield or frost staff on one bar and resto staff on the other bar. Don't go overboard with health despite the 'tank', in ESO your damage stat also buff your heals, so its often better to have modest health but high magicka/spellpower.

Alternatively you can go ranged damage, in which case inferno staff + resto staff works fairly well. In this case you use light armor and at least 1 damage set such as spinners. Julianos is a good crafted alternative. The other set you can go for either sustain, defense or damage.
Finally you can play as a melee magblade, which is the most difficult to master. In this case you use 2-hander with forward momentum on one bar, and a staff (most use resto, but I use frost staff) on the other bar. If you go this route you will need to become either a glass cannon that can kill others in 3 hits, or invest in significant sustain and defense at the cost of damage.
Next patch the only reason to do this however is for fun or to run an Onslaught gank build (basically you buff up your damage so much that the Onslaught ultimate can one-shot most people from stealth), as inferno staff will be better in all regards than a melee weapon.

Ideally you are wearing 5 light, 1 heavy (chest) 1 medium (legs) or 5 light 2 heavy.

Some basic beginner info for magblade PvP:

1. Even on a magicka character you need at least 10-12k stamina, preferably a bit more even (15k is a nice number imho). This allows you to dodge roll when needed and still have enough stamina to break CC. Or break CC and dodge roll away.
2. You need mobility. Steed mundus is great, or 2 rings with the swift trait (or both!). I always try to get at least 10% extra movement speed, it makes a world of difference.
3. Sustain is key to surviving unless you go for a gank build. Get it to about 1800 for your magicka. You can go a bit less if you slot siphoning strikes, but imho don't go below 1500.
4. The Psijic order meditate skill is super useful for magblades, as we can cloak around a corner and pop it to quickly restore our resources.

Insco851 · April 2019

Alucardo wrote: »

Personally I prefer Armor Master on my magblade. Currently I run

2 Blood Spawn
5 Shackle (Bright Throat is also nice if you don't require the extra stam sustain)
5 Armor Master (Back bar)
Infused Willpower inferno front bar. You can obviously replace this with a destro of your choice. I just like the extra stats from willpower.

Good sustain, nice damage, high ult uptime, lots of resistances

Swap BS out for Zaan or Valkyn for better kill potential. Noob mnb gonna have a hard time getting kills without a proc imo.

Also, Steed Mundus or 2 swift jewls make the class way easier to survive on.

1700 mag recovery at the least.

Iskiab · April 2019

Both prior posts are excellent advice. I heavily recommend heavy fortified brass or Pariah if you go healer, at least to start you’ll need heavy.

Only difference of opinion is if you go healer the best options are either Resto/Ice staff and use Ice blockade or Resto/2 hander for forward momentum. Magblade healers play differently then other classes and being elusive is your best defense. 2 handers are better for pure healers, Ice staff for mixing in some damage.