Magblade or stamblade for pvp?

worrallj · February 2020

I just finished leveling a new nightblade for pvp. I leveled as a magblade and enjoyed it, but of course once you hit 50 it's like being a big fish from a small pond getting dropped into the ocean. Getting smashed now. Im wondering if I'd have more luck making him a bow sniper. Any thoughts on differences between the play styles?

Mrs_Malaka · February 2020

My two cents:
I've been playing nightblades since the launch of ESO.
After lots of years of playing both PvE and PvP aspects of the game (group and solo content) I can say that I prefer stamblade for PvE content, and magblade for PvP content. I have tried both ways with all sorts of interesting combinations of races, skills, sets, drugs (just kidding), yada yada bla bla, but when it comes down to it in Cyrodiil, on my nightblade characters I enjoy these aspects:
1. stealthiness
2. being able to get the one up on people (except tanks, they are tough nuts usually)
3. and get away with it, without a trace
So to me, I always want to survive. To get in there, take them out or at least annoy the crud out of them, then hop back into the shadows in one piece.
For this to work, I go magblade so I have a large pool of magicka to use for cloaking in and out of situations with mostly no issues.
When I did try stamblade, though, I always made sure to carry around a stack of invisibility + speed potions.
The choice is up to you but first think about what you want your nightblade to do, and what would be the best way to obtain your mission

tsaescishoeshiner · February 2020

I haven't played stamblade in PvP, but I really like magblade. The ability to backbar a resto staff and slot in Regeneration + Combat Prayer is totally team-saving in battlegrounds. In matches where I get ~500k damage, I tend to also get 150k healing just from hitting those two skills every now and then. The majority of battleground teams lack any group heals--and you don't even need to play a dedicated healer.

It's also fun to be able to use more of the class abilities, though Nightblade has a LOT of stam morphs. Specifically, Swallow Soul and the ranged execute (Impale) give you the flexibility to play fully from range as magicka. Personally, I use Flame Clench for a mid-ranged stun. It's a short stun, but makes timing Grim Focus, Soul Harvest, and Impale a lot easier. I don't even use Cloak anymore :o

There are honestly equally as many benefits to playing stam, but that's what I like about mag.

Mayrael · February 2020

Stamblade is way more easy and intuitive to play. It can use combination of cloak and dodge, add on top of it shade and there you go, you have recipe for very elusive character. Magblade as all magicka classes is very vulnerable to stamina drain, each roll dodge and break free have to be calculated.

On top of this stamina has a bit wider range of options when it goes to good equipment (with new incoming).

With Turn evil as a new, better version of mass hysteria, stamblade is better in almost every, aspect. The only 2 things that magblade does better is healing (as a dedicated healer) and permacloaking.

There is a reason why about 70-80% NBs in Cyrodiil and BGs are stamblades - it's simply easier to play than magblade. How do I know? I play both. But don't get to excited. Stamblade is still one of the hardest to master specs, and only then, when totally mastered can try to compete with classes like stamcro/standen or even stamplar.

fred4 · February 2020

I stuck with my magblade for a very simple reason initially. It lets you perma-cloak and avoid fights altogether. If you see a zerg in Cyro or half a dozen people on a flag in IC, you don't have to engage. This tends to be important, if there is a role-playing element to your game and you don't want your character to die or, perhaps, you hate respawning somewhere else and hate the travel-time you may incur in Cyro.

The option of having infinite cloak sustain is a hallmark of magblades. One of the main differences to stamblades is that magblades move fast and continuously in cloak, whereas the typical dodge rolling, bow-wielding stamblade only moves fast outside of cloak and slows down considerably in cloak. This makes for some quite different-feeling escape mechanics. It also makes it so stamblades have to be a lot more circumspect. On magblade I can loiter near a resource flag, in cloak, waiting for people to leave, then quickly close the gap to the last straggler and gank them. I am totaly unencumbered by the NPCs, which detect and fire on crouching players, but not cloaking ones. A stamblade has to be much strategic about their positioning. A perma-cloaking magblade traverses the battlefield at great speed and with near-total impunity until she decides to fight.

RAT, Concealed and some Swift allows you to travel at speeds comparable to an unleveled horse. This can be useful as a beginner, because you will be fast enough to go after people on such horses, which are inevitably also beginners that you have a chance of killing. You're also quite protected from ganks, since no one sees you, which lets you get away with a low health, high-sustain build, for example by using Ghastly Eye Bowl as a food. You're able to loiter in keeps or other NPC-infested places, without drawing any aggro, even if you're right under the NPCs nose. Stamblade, on the other hand, is more easily detected, as crouching does not protect you from NPC guards. The ranged ones will fire at you from quite a distance. Crouching also leaves you much easier to detect by players, especially magblades, who you don't see coming and who will accidentally run across you and detect you.

I find high sustain nice to play as you can freely weave in and out of cloak in combat and you never have much of a buff cycle and you rarely need heavy attacks or things like Meditate. It makes for very responsive gameplay. The downside is that, if you push it very far - which I do - you lose a lot of raw damage. I run a Caluurion build, which makes up for some of that damage loss by being a proc that scales independently from your stats.

Pauls · February 2020

Both are fine if you build them properly, both versions can be gankers, face to face brawlers and something between with active usage of cloak.

Iskiab · February 2020

Do you like mag or stam better?

I started on magblade and got decent with it. I then tried making a stamblade, and since I always play mag stamblade ends up too different than what I’m used to. I just do better on mag toons and always end up switching them to mag.

I’d stick it out with magblade and forget about stamblade unless you like the playstyle of stamblade better. Effectiveness aside, I also think magblade is more fun.

Vietfox · February 2020

Just play what you enjoy the most. Personally i almost exclusively play magicka characters because i like to use as many class skills as i can.
Be aware though, it's tough to master a magblade and be succesful with it, but if you can do it you'll be fine with any other class.

Karmen · February 2020

I think if you want to play as a magblade, you have to play it only from distance with the right skills. Some skills like concealed weapon or lotus fan are just here to destroy your hopes.

Iskiab · February 2020

Karmen wrote: »

I think if you want to play as a magblade, you have to play it only from distance with the right skills. Some skills like concealed weapon or lotus fan are just here to destroy your hopes.

Yea, this is true. With weak self healing trying to melee in any spec as a magblade is a bad idea. Magblade has become a ranged class best played with using lots of healing abilities on your back bar and no melee skills except for using concealed weapon, and that’s just for the passive.

It’s also a good idea to play a magblade just to hone your skills. After playing a magblade you’ll wreck people on any other mag class.

SpiderCultist · February 2020

keep in mind nightblades probably have the highest skill curve, I mean, it's not about smashing buttons and win

Karmen · February 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

It’s also a good idea to play a magblade just to hone your skills. After playing a magblade you’ll wreck people on any other mag class.

This is also true for stamina imo

fred4 · February 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

Karmen wrote: »

I think if you want to play as a magblade, you have to play it only from distance with the right skills. Some skills like concealed weapon or lotus fan are just here to destroy your hopes.

Yea, this is true. With weak self healing trying to melee in any spec as a magblade is a bad idea. Magblade has become a ranged class best played with using lots of healing abilities on your back bar and no melee skills except for using concealed weapon, and that’s just for the passive.

It’s also a good idea to play a magblade just to hone your skills. After playing a magblade you’ll wreck people on any other mag class.

As you might guess, I disagree ... somewhat. As long as you use Soul Harvest or Tether as your ultimate and Fear as your stun, you have to go into melee range for your burst (or gank). Nightblade has a ranged spammable, burst (Will) and execute, so you don't have to stay at close range. I find it most effective to play mixed, unless you want to go with Meteor as your ult and, say, Flame Clench as your stun, which I haven't tried.

While I've been Cripple-spammed very effectively on my templar, that was when I was attacked by a group. You won't keep a Toppling / Sweeps spamming templar totally off you, so you will need to devise a method to deal with that (depending on how squishy you are). The typical ones involve the shade or outright speed (not 100% effective on it's own). I agree about using Concealed only passively, though.

Iskiab · February 2020

Karmen wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

It’s also a good idea to play a magblade just to hone your skills. After playing a magblade you’ll wreck people on any other mag class.

This is also true for stamina imo

I don’t know how fun stamblade is, but for magblade it sounds like it’s a bad trade off but you’ll have fun on a magblade while learning it.

My first main was a magblade and I got up to high MMR. I switched classes and have tried a bunch of other mag classes and my MagWarden and Magtemplar get in high MMR games sometimes but not consistently.

Anyways, I pulled my old main out of retirement yesterday and went right into a high MMR BG. The players are mostly the same names so I could compare magwarden vs magtemplar vs magblade, the output gap is pretty big between the three with the magblade coming in way under the other two.

It’s still a lot of fun, if you’re a rager then magblade isn’t for you, if you just want to have fun and like being elusive plus high risk gameplay then magblade’s definitely fun.

TheFM · February 2020

Magblade is considerably weaker than stamblade atm simply due to the fact that stamina is out performing magicka by a wide margin atm, and with the new update and sets the situation will be even more stamina centric.

PERSONALLY i enjoy my blinkblade which is magicka based, but I know if I face a stam warden, stam necro, or templar atm I will likely be toast because those classes are BEYOND broken atm.

TheFM · February 2020

fred4 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Karmen wrote: »

I think if you want to play as a magblade, you have to play it only from distance with the right skills. Some skills like concealed weapon or lotus fan are just here to destroy your hopes.

Yea, this is true. With weak self healing trying to melee in any spec as a magblade is a bad idea. Magblade has become a ranged class best played with using lots of healing abilities on your back bar and no melee skills except for using concealed weapon, and that’s just for the passive.

It’s also a good idea to play a magblade just to hone your skills. After playing a magblade you’ll wreck people on any other mag class.

As you might guess, I disagree ... somewhat. As long as you use Soul Harvest or Tether as your ultimate and Fear as your stun, you have to go into melee range for your burst (or gank). Nightblade has a ranged spammable, burst (Will) and execute, so you don't have to stay at close range. I find it most effective to play mixed, unless you want to go with Meteor as your ult and, say, Flame Clench as your stun, which I haven't tried.

While I've been Cripple-spammed very effectively on my templar, that was when I was attacked by a group. You won't keep a Toppling / Sweeps spamming templar totally off you, so you will need to devise a method to deal with that (depending on how squishy you are). The typical ones involve the shade or outright speed (not 100% effective on it's own). I agree about using Concealed only passively, though.

I found using race against time coupled with concelead and sprint, with shacklebreaker crafty alfiq and slimecraw works well. But you are 100 percent a glass cannon and if you get caught out you have to bail tf out. Altmer also works well for this because every other time you use cloak you get stamina back, or any other class ability for that matter.

Bucky_13 · February 2020

I'd say it depends on whether you're more comfortable with mag or stam classes. I started playing as a magblade in PvP but eventually went stamblade since that's the spec I play better and have more fun with, have mained it since the start in PvE.

Cirantille · February 2020

Played both, I prefer Magblade

You can perma cloak

If using invisibility one - you can peek at many stuff without people catching you, scouting etc

If using dark cloak - heal and survivability is pretty great

x48rph · February 2020

Pauls wrote: »

Both are fine if you build them properly, both versions can be gankers, face to face brawlers and something between with active usage of cloak.

Um, while you can make a face to face brawler out of a NB, thanks to all the changes and nerfs, in it's current state, your at a huge disadvantage in my opinion since literally every other class can do it better.

TheFM · February 2020

x48rph wrote: »

Pauls wrote: »

Both are fine if you build them properly, both versions can be gankers, face to face brawlers and something between with active usage of cloak.

Um, while you can make a face to face brawler out of a NB, thanks to all the changes and nerfs, in it's current state, your at a huge disadvantage in my opinion since literally every other class can do it better.

Yeah if you dont build glass cannon on nbs atm, you are pretty much gimped into oblivion.

fred4 · February 2020

TheFM wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Karmen wrote: »

I think if you want to play as a magblade, you have to play it only from distance with the right skills. Some skills like concealed weapon or lotus fan are just here to destroy your hopes.

Yea, this is true. With weak self healing trying to melee in any spec as a magblade is a bad idea. Magblade has become a ranged class best played with using lots of healing abilities on your back bar and no melee skills except for using concealed weapon, and that’s just for the passive.

It’s also a good idea to play a magblade just to hone your skills. After playing a magblade you’ll wreck people on any other mag class.

As you might guess, I disagree ... somewhat. As long as you use Soul Harvest or Tether as your ultimate and Fear as your stun, you have to go into melee range for your burst (or gank). Nightblade has a ranged spammable, burst (Will) and execute, so you don't have to stay at close range. I find it most effective to play mixed, unless you want to go with Meteor as your ult and, say, Flame Clench as your stun, which I haven't tried.

While I've been Cripple-spammed very effectively on my templar, that was when I was attacked by a group. You won't keep a Toppling / Sweeps spamming templar totally off you, so you will need to devise a method to deal with that (depending on how squishy you are). The typical ones involve the shade or outright speed (not 100% effective on it's own). I agree about using Concealed only passively, though.

I found using race against time coupled with concelead and sprint, with shacklebreaker crafty alfiq and slimecraw works well. But you are 100 percent a glass cannon and if you get caught out you have to bail tf out. Altmer also works well for this because every other time you use cloak you get stamina back, or any other class ability for that matter.

I was 100% specced into speed, including all gold Swift, Steed mundus, Concealed, RAT, the works. As fast as you can get. I also had and still have some stam regen for dodge rolls. Then I switched to Eternal Hunt, in light armor, on magblade. For non-shade, non-Mist users, everything else pales. Yes, I'm still specced into speed on top of that - this goes without saying - although I had to give up the last iota of it and switch from the Steed to the Atro.

EDIT: For clarification, I'm talking about the kind of mixed melee / ranged, super squishy, but wants to brawl like a medium stam build we both appear to run.

TheFM · February 2020

fred4 wrote: »

TheFM wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Karmen wrote: »

I think if you want to play as a magblade, you have to play it only from distance with the right skills. Some skills like concealed weapon or lotus fan are just here to destroy your hopes.

Yea, this is true. With weak self healing trying to melee in any spec as a magblade is a bad idea. Magblade has become a ranged class best played with using lots of healing abilities on your back bar and no melee skills except for using concealed weapon, and that’s just for the passive.

It’s also a good idea to play a magblade just to hone your skills. After playing a magblade you’ll wreck people on any other mag class.

As you might guess, I disagree ... somewhat. As long as you use Soul Harvest or Tether as your ultimate and Fear as your stun, you have to go into melee range for your burst (or gank). Nightblade has a ranged spammable, burst (Will) and execute, so you don't have to stay at close range. I find it most effective to play mixed, unless you want to go with Meteor as your ult and, say, Flame Clench as your stun, which I haven't tried.

While I've been Cripple-spammed very effectively on my templar, that was when I was attacked by a group. You won't keep a Toppling / Sweeps spamming templar totally off you, so you will need to devise a method to deal with that (depending on how squishy you are). The typical ones involve the shade or outright speed (not 100% effective on it's own). I agree about using Concealed only passively, though.

I found using race against time coupled with concelead and sprint, with shacklebreaker crafty alfiq and slimecraw works well. But you are 100 percent a glass cannon and if you get caught out you have to bail tf out. Altmer also works well for this because every other time you use cloak you get stamina back, or any other class ability for that matter.

I was 100% specced into speed, including all gold Swift, Steed mundus, Concealed, RAT, the works. As fast as you can get. I also had and still have some stam regen for dodge rolls. Then I switched to Eternal Hunt, in light armor, on magblade. For non-shade, non-Mist users, everything else pales. Yes, I'm still specced into speed on top of that - this goes without saying - although I had to give up the last iota of it and switch from the Steed to the Atro.

Oh yeah, speccing too much into anything can be bad. I too use the atro mundus =D cuz if you arent able to sustain that cloak, you are dead meat as a magblade.

worrallj · February 2020

Thanks everyone, really great input here. It sounds like the basic difference is magblade is usually more of a survivability expert with high sustain and perma cloak, while stamblade usually has easier big damage combos.

I think I'm gonna give stamblade a whirl! Can always spec back.

zom414 · February 2020

i've decided to stick my toe into a bit of PVP and not sure what skills to use. I have shacklebreaker and bright throats at the moment and only Ilambris for a monster set. I've been looking at pvp builds and most of them go for builds just dealing with pvp but I want to be able to also do the storyline and kill the mobs within IC. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what skills I should be using?

Iskiab · February 2020

zom414 wrote: »

i've decided to stick my toe into a bit of PVP and not sure what skills to use. I have shacklebreaker and bright throats at the moment and only Ilambris for a monster set. I've been looking at pvp builds and most of them go for builds just dealing with pvp but I want to be able to also do the storyline and kill the mobs within IC. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what skills I should be using?

NB builds follow a pattern:
- you can never have everything you need
- always shadowy disguise
- weapon or guild skills are almost always better
- your self healing is bad so you’re reliant on evasion and speed to survive
- always merciless because the mitigation is handy, and the damage is good on stunned targets who can’t dodge it, I don’t fire mine unless I know it will hit

So when making a build; try and build to have cloak, use the least amount of NB skills possible to unlock the passives. That’s how I do it and it works out okay.

fred4 · February 2020

zom414 wrote: »

i've decided to stick my toe into a bit of PVP and not sure what skills to use. I have shacklebreaker and bright throats at the moment and only Ilambris for a monster set. I've been looking at pvp builds and most of them go for builds just dealing with pvp but I want to be able to also do the storyline and kill the mobs within IC. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what skills I should be using?

Run a PvP build. Play in CP. IC mobs are pushovers. Even the bosses can be comfortably soloed with a PvP build. A DD build, of course, not a tank or healer. Nothing wrong with Bright Throat's + Shackle, but I'd go for (farm) Troll King instead of Illambris. Flame staff + Resto staff.

fred4 · February 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

zom414 wrote: »

i've decided to stick my toe into a bit of PVP and not sure what skills to use. I have shacklebreaker and bright throats at the moment and only Ilambris for a monster set. I've been looking at pvp builds and most of them go for builds just dealing with pvp but I want to be able to also do the storyline and kill the mobs within IC. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what skills I should be using?

- weapon or guild skills are almost always better

Oh, come on now. Are you depressed over your NB?

Most NBs run Swallow Soul over Crushing Shock or Elemental Weapon and for good reason. Two of the ultimates are good. Fear is good. The Shade is good. Siphoning Attacks is good. Impale is good. I'd even rate Lotus Fan for my build.

Nope, that is seriously bad advice. Zom, you have to bear in mind that Iskiab plays healers or, at a minimum, my impression is he plays builds that have some healing component and group synergy. From that perspective maybe he's right, I don't know. From a solo nightblade perspective, which is what I play, he's completely off the mark.

- always merciless because the mitigation is handy, and the damage is good on stunned targets who can’t dodge it, I don’t fire mine unless I know it will hit

Merciless doesn't do it for me as a defense. I would not slot it just for that reason and certainly, if you wear Caluurion, it is not an essential skill. Otherwise, though, you pretty much need it to kill decent players, but if your goal is to quest, survive and kill noobs, I wouldn't bother.

Other than that, I agree with Iskiab.

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Magblade or stamblade for pvp?

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