ThePhantomThorn wrote: »magblade sucks these days.
but, if your up 2 it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8LdRdEw7W4
best player i have ever seen.
Ganking. Almost everything else can be done better easier on a different class.
Look: A PvEer. How quaint!phoenixkungfu wrote: »Jesus, nothing eazy. Magic blade is amazing here is a universal build for every class damage damage dealer. I just cant take it anymore. Go high crit. Mother sorrow and treasure hunter. If your not in the mode to farm mother sorrow and jul(crafting set). This set up works on every class. Mother sorrow pairs with alot of sets. Just make sure your crit is over 50%. The higher the crit the better. Shadow is best boon in high crit build. Good luck
I'm an aforementioned magblade main. Current build:
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=197810
This works in CP and no CP. I mostly play in CP IC and Cyro. No illusions. I have the same problem as you: TTK is too high against decent players or you can't kill them at all. Being just decent myself is perhaps reflected in the build. Fun to brawl with on account of the mobility and stam sustain, but not geared for maximum damage. I've pretty much accepted my limitations at this point.
I'll say a couple of things about this type of build. Forget Darloc Brae and forget Zaan. Darloc is completely redundant. It's a sustain set. If you want sustain and high sneak / cloak uptime on a magblade, you're better off building for that differently. If you want damage, you need a damage set instead and I'd probably get my sustain from a mix of Shade, Cloak and Meditate.
As to Zaan: I ran it for a good long time. If your preferred attack is Concealed, there is some sense to it. The problem is, you want the speed, you'll have Cloak on that bar too. You have Cloak on that bar, you probably want RAT and/or Siphoning Attacks on that bar to use in Cloak. You want to activate Caluurion, you want Lotus Fan on that bar. You have no room for more attack skills, such as Inner Light, Merciless or Impale. I find Impale (spam) important to finish off the majority of players and it's quite effective with Caluurion. If someone is hanging on by shielding or via Mist Form, another Caluurion proc can finish them off during Impale spam.
The upshot: Building for Concealed does not work. It's a dead skill other than for the speed and against the occasional flappy DK. Having your attacks on the other, ranged, bar works far better. Your playstyle changes, though. You go in for the burst, for example Lotus Fan -> Fear (Caluurion) -> Soul Harvest, but then you or your target backs off as you try to finish with Swallow Soul / Impale / Merciless. It's safer and more versatile for you, as you can try to execute from range while your target is retreating back into their zerg. I find it plays a lot better than trying to stay on top of people. That basically kills Zaan in my build.
Healing is a big issue. You run Caluurion, you get crit and spell damage. I wouldn't sneeze at the crit. You examine my build in detail, you'll see my stats and Swallow Soul tooltip is complete crap. Nonetheless it plays well and that's, in part, due to the crit, I think. Anyhow, you take it as far as I did, you have Caluurion, a lot of speed (Steed, all Swift) and the high (1.3K) stam sustain, you lose so much magicka, shields (Dampen) are useless. That's why I only have Healing Ward. Still beats Rapid Regen in my tests at low health, at least with the Blackrose resto. So healing: I'm following the old mantra of healing while attacking. Siphoning Attacks is important as is the Infused Restore Health enchant, not to be overlooked. Infused enchants fit in with low stat builds especially.
You may notice that I am not a vamp (for RP reasons) and I don't use the shade. I make up for that with very high speed and with stamina sustain for some roll dodging. You could absolutely build for more damage by forgoing speed and sustain. If you do that, you'll IMO need the shade. I just like the freedom that comes from sustaining perma-cloak. This is more of a Cyro and IC than a BG thing, as it allows you to completely avoid aggro from NPCs at all times, e.g. in IC and in keeps. It also allows you to get away with very low health, since a high-speed perma-cloaking - not crouching! - magblade is very difficult to detect and gank. For me those are huge quality of life benefits and why I build magblade this way.
We come, then, to sustain. Like I said: Forget Darloc. Too many compromises with that set. Not enough stats. I've gone back and forth between sets like Buffer of the Swift, Spinner, Auroran's Thunder, but at the end of the day nothing, and I mean nothing, beats Bright-Throat's, at least for what I'm trying to accomplish. Point 1: You need the magicka when you give up so much of it elsewhere. Point 2 is about the vagaries of the combat engine. If you cloak a lot, you will transition between being in combat and out of combat. Sources of magicka sustain that work in both cases include the Atro mundus, drinks, cost reduction and the 5-piece bonus from Bright-Throat's and only that one. The regen from sets like Amber Plasm does not work outside of combat. Lich, as used by the guy in the above video, would leave you permanently low if, like me, you move around in cloak by default.
I don't think a lot of people go for my exact playstyle. The benefits are that I'll outsustain everyone in CP or no CP. If you find yourself in a duelling situation that swings some fights for you. I'm also quicker than most other builds at changing my position and taking opportunities. The most obvious example is going after riders, but it works great in general on any loose and disorganised battlefield that isn't dominated by organised ball groups. One of the key strategies is to pop up everywhere and never stay in one place where people have become alert. Lotus Fan is my opener. I've tried for more burst by adding Elemental Weapon + light attack before Lotus Fan. Technically that creates more burst, as verified on a target skeleton, but it still only scratches alert, tanky players.
I'm an aforementioned magblade main. Current build:
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=197810
This works in CP and no CP. I mostly play in CP IC and Cyro. No illusions. I have the same problem as you: TTK is too high against decent players or you can't kill them at all. Being just decent myself is perhaps reflected in the build. Fun to brawl with on account of the mobility and stam sustain, but not geared for maximum damage. I've pretty much accepted my limitations at this point.
I'll say a couple of things about this type of build. Forget Darloc Brae and forget Zaan. Darloc is completely redundant. It's a sustain set. If you want sustain and high sneak / cloak uptime on a magblade, you're better off building for that differently. If you want damage, you need a damage set instead and I'd probably get my sustain from a mix of Shade, Cloak and Meditate.
As to Zaan: I ran it for a good long time. If your preferred attack is Concealed, there is some sense to it. The problem is, you want the speed, you'll have Cloak on that bar too. You have Cloak on that bar, you probably want RAT and/or Siphoning Attacks on that bar to use in Cloak. You want to activate Caluurion, you want Lotus Fan on that bar. You have no room for more attack skills, such as Inner Light, Merciless or Impale. I find Impale (spam) important to finish off the majority of players and it's quite effective with Caluurion. If someone is hanging on by shielding or via Mist Form, another Caluurion proc can finish them off during Impale spam.
The upshot: Building for Concealed does not work. It's a dead skill other than for the speed and against the occasional flappy DK. Having your attacks on the other, ranged, bar works far better. Your playstyle changes, though. You go in for the burst, for example Lotus Fan -> Fear (Caluurion) -> Soul Harvest, but then you or your target backs off as you try to finish with Swallow Soul / Impale / Merciless. It's safer and more versatile for you, as you can try to execute from range while your target is retreating back into their zerg. I find it plays a lot better than trying to stay on top of people. That basically kills Zaan in my build.
Healing is a big issue. You run Caluurion, you get crit and spell damage. I wouldn't sneeze at the crit. You examine my build in detail, you'll see my stats and Swallow Soul tooltip is complete crap. Nonetheless it plays well and that's, in part, due to the crit, I think. Anyhow, you take it as far as I did, you have Caluurion, a lot of speed (Steed, all Swift) and the high (1.3K) stam sustain, you lose so much magicka, shields (Dampen) are useless. That's why I only have Healing Ward. Still beats Rapid Regen in my tests at low health, at least with the Blackrose resto. So healing: I'm following the old mantra of healing while attacking. Siphoning Attacks is important as is the Infused Restore Health enchant, not to be overlooked. Infused enchants fit in with low stat builds especially.
You may notice that I am not a vamp (for RP reasons) and I don't use the shade. I make up for that with very high speed and with stamina sustain for some roll dodging. You could absolutely build for more damage by forgoing speed and sustain. If you do that, you'll IMO need the shade. I just like the freedom that comes from sustaining perma-cloak. This is more of a Cyro and IC than a BG thing, as it allows you to completely avoid aggro from NPCs at all times, e.g. in IC and in keeps. It also allows you to get away with very low health, since a high-speed perma-cloaking - not crouching! - magblade is very difficult to detect and gank. For me those are huge quality of life benefits and why I build magblade this way.
We come, then, to sustain. Like I said: Forget Darloc. Too many compromises with that set. Not enough stats. I've gone back and forth between sets like Buffer of the Swift, Spinner, Auroran's Thunder, but at the end of the day nothing, and I mean nothing, beats Bright-Throat's, at least for what I'm trying to accomplish. Point 1: You need the magicka when you give up so much of it elsewhere. Point 2 is about the vagaries of the combat engine. If you cloak a lot, you will transition between being in combat and out of combat. Sources of magicka sustain that work in both cases include the Atro mundus, drinks, cost reduction and the 5-piece bonus from Bright-Throat's and only that one. The regen from sets like Amber Plasm does not work outside of combat. Lich, as used by the guy in the above video, would leave you permanently low if, like me, you move around in cloak by default.
I don't think a lot of people go for my exact playstyle. The benefits are that I'll outsustain everyone in CP or no CP. If you find yourself in a duelling situation that swings some fights for you. I'm also quicker than most other builds at changing my position and taking opportunities. The most obvious example is going after riders, but it works great in general on any loose and disorganised battlefield that isn't dominated by organised ball groups. One of the key strategies is to pop up everywhere and never stay in one place where people have become alert. Lotus Fan is my opener. I've tried for more burst by adding Elemental Weapon + light attack before Lotus Fan. Technically that creates more burst, as verified on a target skeleton, but it still only scratches alert, tanky players.
I'm not dismissing Darloc out of hand. I have tried it for farming Psijic on my DK and I briefly tried it on my magblade in PvP.
In PvE I found it "meh". You still aggro mobs, just less easily.
In PvP, on a magblade, it's pointless:
(1) Crouch is not invisibility. Cloak is far superior. If you're cloaking, you don't need Darloc to sustain crouch running.
(2) It's no use in combat. You're not crouching in combat. Skills knock you out of crouch.
So you like it to cloak away and recover? That might be reasonable, if it weren't for Meditate. If you're into that playstyle, you're IMO far better off wearing a damage set plus all damage glyphs, while using Cloak / Shade + Meditate for sustain.
The cooldown is 10 seconds, not 20.My only problem with these setups is the reliance on caluurions to kill anything which feels like a 20 second leash. If it had a lower cooldown i would love it as i used caluurion when it first came out and timing it with soul harvest merciless and skoria was difficult but super fun. Problem is with the 20 second cooldown...
My only problem with these setups is the reliance on caluurions to kill anything which feels like a 20 second leash. If it had a lower cooldown i would love it as i used caluurion when it first came out and timing it with soul harvest merciless and skoria was difficult but super fun. Problem is with the 20 second cooldown i feel like i can out perform it with raw stats, i have been contemplating darloc brae as a more obvious inclusion to add another heal and good sustain, but again feel as though i have to sacrifice a lot of magicka to run it which again forces shorter engagements. I suppose i should share what ive been running :
Bright throat body all impen with magicka enchant
Crafty jewelry swift and front bar weapon infused with disease enchant
Brp resto back bar, infused with weapon damage enchant
Jewelry enchants swap between damage and recovery depending on cp and non cp environment
Monster helm trades between thurvokun, zaan and balorgh situationally. Thurvokuun and zaan both have defensive and offensive aspects. Thurvokun for heal spammers. Zaan for everybody else. Balorgh and patience against higher skill opponents.
Steed mundus.
At work so cant remember exact bar settup but on back bar i have concealed weapon radiating regen (duration of heal allows engagements to last a little longer and endure a bit more risk) cloak, resto barrier and i believe mirage(?) Snare removal and major evasion are both super important. Front bar is lotus ,merciless ,fear, swallow, and recently impale. Ulti is soul harvest, back bar ulti is flexible and situational. My combo usually is lotus, fear soul harvest, swallow spam, impale. Sometimes ill wait to fear until after soul harvest if i want to use merciless. With cast times its hit or miss. It hits fairly hard but has no reliable burst and relies on relentless aggression and commitment when you do engage. Which is challenging because you are made of glass.
Also im a vampire and i use light attack cripple on back bar to proc weapon damage and keep pressure from dots.
Unfortunately despite hitting quite hard in general, stacking major and minor defial still can not out pace the heals of these templars,