MagBlade Theorycrafting Changes Thread

kaithuzar · January 2020

fred4 wrote: »

"You can now only queue as a solo player into Battlegrounds."

This change seems huge to me and might just make life a bit easier for nightblades. No pre-made coordinated groups.

Check my post here... it's still going to be hell to deal with:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/508964/battle-ground-changes-solo-queue#latest

kaithuzar · January 2020

fred4 wrote: »

Scathing looks like 100% uptime, as long as you are in combat. Unlike, say, Spell Strategist, this will buff healing, but then again Swallow Soul keys off damage done, so it's a wash there.

I still think New Moon is better than scathing because of the added pen.
The cost is offset by breton + 1 reduce cost enchant.

kaithuzar · January 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

brandonv516 wrote: »

Changes to solo queues only in BGs will be awesome for Magblades.

There will still be many coordinated players (especially at a higher MMR) but without the premade balls I'll be dominating even more lol.

Maybe PC-EU is different. On PC-NA there aren’t a lot of premades, and the ones you see aren’t dominant players. High MMR is mostly solo players who play together naturally without queueing together.

There is at least 1 BG guild pcna & I would vote the queuing is currently 2-3 players going in together for high mmr bgs.

kaithuzar · January 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

See the PTS notes? Thoughts?

Main things:
- some set changes that might help a bit, hard to tell from notes
- Scathing mage might be good
- Dizzy will stun off balance targets, off balance will have a CD so will be up 1/3 of the time
- Single target abilities will be able to target people in stealth

Overall? Hard to say, I think things will be worse overall. Expect things to be harder 1v1, the last time dizzy stunned was when I quit magblade

We got 1 change while warden at least had 2, all other classes had multiple things. Just the fact of ONLY having 1 thing changed good or bad, implies they aren't planning on doing anything. #SadFace
There will likely be some availability for troll builds, but as far as magblade as a competitive, fair/straight up fighter, no dice.

Iskiab · January 2020

kaithuzar wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

See the PTS notes? Thoughts?

Main things:
- some set changes that might help a bit, hard to tell from notes
- Scathing mage might be good
- Dizzy will stun off balance targets, off balance will have a CD so will be up 1/3 of the time
- Single target abilities will be able to target people in stealth

Overall? Hard to say, I think things will be worse overall. Expect things to be harder 1v1, the last time dizzy stunned was when I quit magblade

We got 1 change while warden at least had 2, all other classes had multiple things. Just the fact of ONLY having 1 thing changed good or bad, implies they aren't planning on doing anything. #SadFace
There will likely be some availability for troll builds, but as far as magblade as a competitive, fair/straight up fighter, no dice.

Yea, I think so too. Last time dizzy stunned was what killed dark cloak BG builds.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is BRP DW on mag classes. With the cost reduced it’s a lot cheaper then a dodge roll or blocking. IDK how to take advantage of it yet.

I don’t really get how the magden changes will play out. Magplar changes will hit kiting Magplars and push more towards S&B back bar, so mainly a playstyle change aimed at reducing cross healing I think.

I think damage will be up across the board making shade and mist mandatory. Stam damage burst will be up making melee more dangerous.

I didn’t see any Vampire notes which is odd. Vampire meshes well with magblade so they might be adding some skills that would help magblades.

kaithuzar · January 2020

@Iskiab

vamp USE to mesh well w/nightblade, i don't think that's going to be the case this time.

Metemsycosis · January 2020

Shade and mist will still be potent no?

fred4 · January 2020

kaithuzar wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Scathing looks like 100% uptime, as long as you are in combat. Unlike, say, Spell Strategist, this will buff healing, but then again Swallow Soul keys off damage done, so it's a wash there.

I still think New Moon is better than scathing because of the added pen.
The cost is offset by breton + 1 reduce cost enchant.

IMO, if you're not eating the cost of New Moon by single barring it and adding heavy attacks or Meditate as needed, that set is highly questionable. However, I'm no longer saying Scathing will be great on magblade. Would have to test how much it procs in an actual magblade build.

Langeston · January 2020

fred4 wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Scathing looks like 100% uptime, as long as you are in combat. Unlike, say, Spell Strategist, this will buff healing, but then again Swallow Soul keys off damage done, so it's a wash there.

I still think New Moon is better than scathing because of the added pen.
The cost is offset by breton + 1 reduce cost enchant.

IMO, if you're not eating the cost of New Moon by single barring it and adding heavy attacks or Meditate as needed, that set is highly questionable. However, I'm no longer saying Scathing will be great on magblade. Would have to test how much it procs in an actual magblade build.

Agreed. In every case I've tried it, Spinner's has been the clear winner. (I'm sure there are use-cases where the opposite is true, but not in any of mine.) It's faulty logic to say "the cost is offset" by changing races — that's not how it works.

Iskiab · January 2020

Langeston wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Scathing looks like 100% uptime, as long as you are in combat. Unlike, say, Spell Strategist, this will buff healing, but then again Swallow Soul keys off damage done, so it's a wash there.

I still think New Moon is better than scathing because of the added pen.
The cost is offset by breton + 1 reduce cost enchant.

IMO, if you're not eating the cost of New Moon by single barring it and adding heavy attacks or Meditate as needed, that set is highly questionable. However, I'm no longer saying Scathing will be great on magblade. Would have to test how much it procs in an actual magblade build.

Agreed. In every case I've tried it, Spinner's has been the clear winner. (I'm sure there are use-cases where the opposite is true, but not in any of mine.) It's faulty logic to say "the cost is offset" by changing races — that's not how it works.

You’ll need to drop spinners imo after the patch. The pen will be uncompetitive with the amount of spell damage you can get from other sets.

kaithuzar · January 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Scathing looks like 100% uptime, as long as you are in combat. Unlike, say, Spell Strategist, this will buff healing, but then again Swallow Soul keys off damage done, so it's a wash there.

I still think New Moon is better than scathing because of the added pen.
The cost is offset by breton + 1 reduce cost enchant.

IMO, if you're not eating the cost of New Moon by single barring it and adding heavy attacks or Meditate as needed, that set is highly questionable. However, I'm no longer saying Scathing will be great on magblade. Would have to test how much it procs in an actual magblade build.

Agreed. In every case I've tried it, Spinner's has been the clear winner. (I'm sure there are use-cases where the opposite is true, but not in any of mine.) It's faulty logic to say "the cost is offset" by changing races — that's not how it works.

You’ll need to drop spinners imo after the patch. The pen will be uncompetitive with the amount of spell damage you can get from other sets.

Example?

I think molag kena is going to be much better now that the cost is reduced. Spinner should be at/around top tier as always.

Iskiab · January 2020

kaithuzar wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Scathing looks like 100% uptime, as long as you are in combat. Unlike, say, Spell Strategist, this will buff healing, but then again Swallow Soul keys off damage done, so it's a wash there.

I still think New Moon is better than scathing because of the added pen.
The cost is offset by breton + 1 reduce cost enchant.

IMO, if you're not eating the cost of New Moon by single barring it and adding heavy attacks or Meditate as needed, that set is highly questionable. However, I'm no longer saying Scathing will be great on magblade. Would have to test how much it procs in an actual magblade build.

Agreed. In every case I've tried it, Spinner's has been the clear winner. (I'm sure there are use-cases where the opposite is true, but not in any of mine.) It's faulty logic to say "the cost is offset" by changing races — that's not how it works.

You’ll need to drop spinners imo after the patch. The pen will be uncompetitive with the amount of spell damage you can get from other sets.

Example?

I think molag kena is going to be much better now that the cost is reduced. Spinner should be at/around top tier as always.

Well, a lot of it is guesswork as always. I just think 500 sp > 3k pen, especially with buffs up. There are now multiple sets that give great uptime on high spell damage amounts.

Iskiab · January 2020

One set I tested that’s interesting is that draygrin’s set. From the tooltip it looked sort of crappy, but I wanted to get a better look just in case.

The way it works is the proc puts a debuff on your target so they take 500 more damage from everything, including any existing dot ticks. I have a feeling it’ll be popular amongst ranged magblade builds who like dots if that’s your thing. Templars will all be wearing kena so expect less rituals.

The proc rate is pretty low at 10%, but still decent I guess if enough dots are on someone.

Akinos · January 2020

i used to use kena on magblade back when i first started to play it solo alot, don't quite remember my build though but it worked well with destro melee spec. i'm so hype its getting a buff, along with my favorite spell damage set, clever alch

Iskiab · January 2020

Akinos wrote: »

i used to use kena on magblade back when i first started to play it solo alot, don't quite remember my build though but it worked well with destro melee spec. i'm so hype its getting a buff, along with my favorite spell damage set, clever alch

Yea, Kena will be a no brainer. On offense it’ll proc and on defense you don’t light attack much so don’t have to eat the cost.

I’m thinking clever alchemist, molag kena and darloc maybe. Pure ranged because burst is about to go through the roof.

Langeston · January 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Scathing looks like 100% uptime, as long as you are in combat. Unlike, say, Spell Strategist, this will buff healing, but then again Swallow Soul keys off damage done, so it's a wash there.

I still think New Moon is better than scathing because of the added pen.
The cost is offset by breton + 1 reduce cost enchant.

IMO, if you're not eating the cost of New Moon by single barring it and adding heavy attacks or Meditate as needed, that set is highly questionable. However, I'm no longer saying Scathing will be great on magblade. Would have to test how much it procs in an actual magblade build.

Agreed. In every case I've tried it, Spinner's has been the clear winner. (I'm sure there are use-cases where the opposite is true, but not in any of mine.) It's faulty logic to say "the cost is offset" by changing races — that's not how it works.

You’ll need to drop spinners imo after the patch. The pen will be uncompetitive with the amount of spell damage you can get from other sets.

Example?

I think molag kena is going to be much better now that the cost is reduced. Spinner should be at/around top tier as always.

Well, a lot of it is guesswork as always. I just think 500 sp > 3k pen, especially with buffs up. There are now multiple sets that give great uptime on high spell damage amounts.

Are you taking the magicka into account? With 2192 magicka, (2520 w/ a Siphoning ability & Magelight) and the 129 SD, I think the 3450 pen from Spinner's is still competitive. Penetration is almost always more useful than SD in my experience.

kaithuzar · January 2020

Who else is gonna try elf bane + zaan + onslaught if they don’t nerf it?

kaithuzar · January 2020

fred4 wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Scathing looks like 100% uptime, as long as you are in combat. Unlike, say, Spell Strategist, this will buff healing, but then again Swallow Soul keys off damage done, so it's a wash there.

I still think New Moon is better than scathing because of the added pen.
The cost is offset by breton + 1 reduce cost enchant.

IMO, if you're not eating the cost of New Moon by single barring it and adding heavy attacks or Meditate as needed, that set is highly questionable. However, I'm no longer saying Scathing will be great on magblade. Would have to test how much it procs in an actual magblade build.

Yea I don’t mean scathing is bad, just that you pretty much have to use it with crushing shock, & it’s super annoying when fighting nightblades because they cloak for the duration of the proc then you have to proc again. If it could be kept up based on dots that would be fine like “while the dot is active aka doing damage, because cloak would suppress the dot & the buff would fall off, but when they came out of cloak if the dot was still on them, it would re-apply the buff w/o you needing to recast the dot.

Iskiab · January 2020

kaithuzar wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Scathing looks like 100% uptime, as long as you are in combat. Unlike, say, Spell Strategist, this will buff healing, but then again Swallow Soul keys off damage done, so it's a wash there.

I still think New Moon is better than scathing because of the added pen.
The cost is offset by breton + 1 reduce cost enchant.

IMO, if you're not eating the cost of New Moon by single barring it and adding heavy attacks or Meditate as needed, that set is highly questionable. However, I'm no longer saying Scathing will be great on magblade. Would have to test how much it procs in an actual magblade build.

Yea I don’t mean scathing is bad, just that you pretty much have to use it with crushing shock, & it’s super annoying when fighting nightblades because they cloak for the duration of the proc then you have to proc again. If it could be kept up based on dots that would be fine like “while the dot is active aka doing damage, because cloak would suppress the dot & the buff would fall off, but when they came out of cloak if the dot was still on them, it would re-apply the buff w/o you needing to recast the dot.

I tested it, it’s still pretty bad. Even on a magplar I found the proc unreliable. I’d look more at clever alchemist in a hit and run playstyle.

kaithuzar · January 2020

::sigh::
Seems like the only way to be successful is to hop on the cheese bandwagon, proc sets here I come!

Iskiab · January 2020

kaithuzar wrote: »

::sigh::
Seems like the only way to be successful is to hop on the cheese bandwagon, proc sets here I come!

I don’t think you absolutely need proc sets. With that being said clever alchemist and smuggler has a synergy if you like potion cooldown reduction. Do you consider that a proc set?

kaithuzar · January 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

::sigh::
Seems like the only way to be successful is to hop on the cheese bandwagon, proc sets here I come!

I don’t think you absolutely need proc sets. With that being said clever alchemist and smuggler has a synergy if you like potion cooldown reduction. Do you consider that a proc set?

eh, kind of due to there being a pre-req which has to happen & downtime for which you may be a sitting duck.
But I mean your typical definition of proc sets, it's going to be the best bet, imo.

Iskiab · January 2020

kaithuzar wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

::sigh::
Seems like the only way to be successful is to hop on the cheese bandwagon, proc sets here I come!

I don’t think you absolutely need proc sets. With that being said clever alchemist and smuggler has a synergy if you like potion cooldown reduction. Do you consider that a proc set?

eh, kind of due to there being a pre-req which has to happen & downtime for which you may be a sitting duck.
But I mean your typical definition of proc sets, it's going to be the best bet, imo.

Yea, I think that’ll be a good combo.

I’m thinking either:
- Darloc + clever + Kena
- Scooma + Clever + Kena
- NMA + Darloc + Kena

Clever alchemist can be tricky. There’s an incentive to go 3x potion speed glyphs to bring the CD down to 30 seconds, but that’s a lot of spell damage lost, maybe just one reduction to bring the cooldown to 40 seconds. 2x swift for mag is about perfect. It’ll take some getting used to and tweaking to find the sweet spot.

Hopefully there’s be another source of major sorcery somewhere. Sap sucks, and the mage guild dot sucks too. Most of these builds would work best with tri stat or immovable + mag + Crit.

fred4 · January 2020

Skooma Smuggler was one of my favorite sets, before we had RAT. These days I think you're better off not blowing one of your 5-pieces on that, but using it for sustain (Bright-Throat's, Lich, Amber Plasm, whatever you fancy) to help sustain RAT. In that sustain you get something far more generally useful than the Skooma 5-piece.

fred4 · January 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

Clever alchemist can be tricky. There’s an incentive to go 3x potion speed glyphs to bring the CD down to 30 seconds, but that’s a lot of spell damage lost, maybe just one reduction to bring the cooldown to 40 seconds. 2x swift for mag is about perfect. It’ll take some getting used to and tweaking to find the sweet spot.

Fengrush did some experiments with a "thirsty Argonian" build once. I got the impression that can be competitive. If I was making a build like that, I'd try going all in, meaning Infused potion cooldown reduction to 21s, full or near full uptime on things like Clever Alchemist, CC immunity, Major Vitality, Lingering Health, and so on. Wouldn't be a nightblade build that dips in and out of combat, but a brawler warden / DK / stamplar. You can either take advantage of near full uptime on otherwise nerfed buffs, such as the above, or alternate potions to stack more 45 second effects. My impression from Fengrush was that, while such a build can be competitive, it is however not OP. Besides not having an Argonian, it's the price of potions that has held me back from ever trying this.

Iskiab · January 2020

fred4 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Clever alchemist can be tricky. There’s an incentive to go 3x potion speed glyphs to bring the CD down to 30 seconds, but that’s a lot of spell damage lost, maybe just one reduction to bring the cooldown to 40 seconds. 2x swift for mag is about perfect. It’ll take some getting used to and tweaking to find the sweet spot.

Fengrush did some experiments with a "thirsty Argonian" build once. I got the impression that can be competitive. If I was making a build like that, I'd try going all in, meaning Infused potion cooldown reduction to 21s, full or near full uptime on things like Clever Alchemist, CC immunity, Major Vitality, Lingering Health, and so on. Wouldn't be a nightblade build that dips in and out of combat, but a brawler warden / DK / stamplar. You can either take advantage of near full uptime on otherwise nerfed buffs, such as the above, or alternate potions to stack more 45 second effects. My impression from Fengrush was that, while such a build can be competitive, it is however not OP. Besides not having an Argonian, it's the price of potions that has held me back from ever trying this.

I see what you’re saying. I was more thinking of tying the sets around a playstyle.

So run around with 1k mag regen and darloc to return your resources while sneaking as a vampire. Use that set to tank your sustain and gain it all back while sneaking around..

Then sneak around and when you want to fight do it in 20 second intervals and hide again. Use the shade as your timer, when the shade almost needs to be refreshed pop shade and peace out waiting for your CDs to be back up.

Doing it this way you could probably get an extra 1K spell damage, which a magblade needs to have competitive damage. Purely a solo playstyle.

ThePedge · January 2020

Amber Plasm, Spinners, Zaan
22k Spell Pen in noCP, means Zaan has pretty much full damage.
Fear or Vamp Drain for stun and they're dead.

fred4 · January 2020

Clever Alchemist kind of died for nightblades when they prevented it from activating outside of combat.

brandonv516 · January 2020

fred4 wrote: »

Skooma Smuggler was one of my favorite sets, before we had RAT. These days I think you're better off not blowing one of your 5-pieces on that, but using it for sustain (Bright-Throat's, Lich, Amber Plasm, whatever you fancy) to help sustain RAT. In that sustain you get something far more generally useful than the Skooma 5-piece.

Yeah that set is not nearly as useful as it once was.

Completely agree here.

fred4 · January 2020

Just for amusement: Skooma Smuggler once shared it's implementation with Refreshing Path. This lead to Refreshing Path granting you another 30 seconds of Major Expedition, if Skooma Smuggler had been activated once. You could even take that set off. As long as you kept up Path every 30 seconds, you had permanent Major Expedition.