MagBlade Theorycrafting Changes Thread

fred4 · April 2020

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Question for the op pro magblades that main pvp is bright throat boast and spinners still a viable build for pvp I like balance builds high damage sustain survivability. Also please put down all the best sets etc 🙂

The best sets? I'll start a list:

Caluurion
New Moon Acolyte (single barred)
Spinner, Bright Throat's, Necropotence, Crafty Alfiq for the magicka stacker / shield user
Troll King, Zaan, Slimecraw or 2x resistance pieces
Balorgh and Vicious Death for bombing
War Maiden, Innate Axiom, Julianos, Spell Strategist, Auroran's Thunder should be decent, but single bar New Moon probably outclasses all
Nothing wrong with Shacklebreaker or Amber Plasm, but a Shade or Meditate user may not need the stam
Scathing Mage may work, but people say the uptime isn't that good
Ancient Dragon Guard may work
Blackrose or Potentates resto

fred4 · April 2020

Just to add a few thoughts on how to balance a build for damage, sustain and survivability. Pick two. Only half kidding.

Where does your survivability come from? Be clear about your playstyle. You can:

(A) Shield. Stack magicka. A good way to get damage and survivability, even if ultimately sorcs and magicka wardens are better at this.

(B) Become somewhat tanky without investing into tanky sets. Merciless Resolve: -10% damage, on and off. Shadow Image: -15% damage reduction in a duel. Blessing of Potentates: -5% damage from players, either back bar or on both bars by using a set, such as Lich, on the back bar. Temporal Guard: -8% damage on back bar.

(C) Avoid damage by being fast and elusive. Shadow Image, Cloak, Race Against Time, Swift jewelry, Concealed Weapon on Cloak bar, stamina sustain.

I wouldn't wear a tanky set on magblade. You could try Armor Master, but at any rate I go for sustain, especially stamina sustain. Having 1K stam regen for dodge rolls and break free lets you stay in the fight for longer, otherwise it is prudent to disengage more frequently and that's no fun. Dodge rolling is also a good defense. If there is a choice between wearing, for example 1x Mighty Chudan for more resistances or 1x Bloodspawn for stam regen, I choose the latter these days. I was also running Eternal Hunt on magblade until recently.

I tend to sacrifice a lot of damage to enable my playstyle. In terms of going toe to toe with good players, you probably have to go for a more traditional playstyle, using the Shade and Merciless. Investing into the opposite stat or investing into speed via Swift jewelry seems to always result in a sub-optimal build, damage-wise. This is because to get a really hard hitting build, percent multipliers come into play, such as the 8% mag from slotting a Siphoning skill plus 7% from Inner Light, or the 20% spell damage from Major Sorcery, as well as the resource multipliers from CP. These tend to pay off when you fully invest into one approach, such as stacking magicka. For example you can quite easily build for 50K+ magicka in CP, giving you much better shields and high damage. As soon as you don't fully commit to that, say because you wear Caluurion, you tend to compromise your build a lot.

Iskiab · April 2020

fred4 wrote: »

Just to add a few thoughts on how to balance a build for damage, sustain and survivability. Pick two. Only half kidding.

Where does your survivability come from? Be clear about your playstyle. You can:

(A) Shield. Stack magicka. A good way to get damage and survivability, even if ultimately sorcs and magicka wardens are better at this.

(B) Become somewhat tanky without investing into tanky sets. Merciless Resolve: -10% damage, on and off. Shadow Image: -15% damage reduction in a duel. Blessing of Potentates: -5% damage from players, either back bar or on both bars by using a set, such as Lich, on the back bar. Temporal Guard: -8% damage on back bar.

(C) Avoid damage by being fast and elusive. Shadow Image, Cloak, Race Against Time, Swift jewelry, Concealed Weapon on Cloak bar, stamina sustain.

I wouldn't wear a tanky set on magblade. You could try Armor Master, but at any rate I go for sustain, especially stamina sustain. Having 1K stam regen for dodge rolls and break free lets you stay in the fight for longer, otherwise it is prudent to disengage more frequently and that's no fun. Dodge rolling is also a good defense. If there is a choice between wearing, for example 1x Mighty Chudan for more resistances or 1x Bloodspawn for stam regen, I choose the latter these days. I was also running Eternal Hunt on magblade until recently.

I tend to sacrifice a lot of damage to enable my playstyle. In terms of going toe to toe with good players, you probably have to go for a more traditional playstyle, using the Shade and Merciless. Investing into the opposite stat or investing into speed via Swift jewelry seems to always result in a sub-optimal build, damage-wise. This is because to get a really hard hitting build, percent multipliers come into play, such as the 8% mag from slotting a Siphoning skill plus 7% from Inner Light, or the 20% spell damage from Major Sorcery, as well as the resource multipliers from CP. These tend to pay off when you fully invest into one approach, such as stacking magicka. For example you can quite easily build for 50K+ magicka in CP, giving you much better shields and high damage. As soon as you don't fully commit to that, say because you wear Caluurion, you tend to compromise your build a lot.

I go 2 and 3. One thing you haven’t mentioned is high self healing.

High self healing is what makes magwardens tanky... well that and minor protection. On my MagWarden I can brawl with only minor protection by stacking hots.

When I tried that pelinals build as a magblade my tankiness shot up because I added echoing vigor. PvP tanks also work because of high healing moreso than damage mitigation. It’s just how it looks in the UI that you aren’t taking damage, in reality you are it’s just being healed right away. I’d take high self healing over shields.

Shields preemptively are okayish, I’ve always found them best used as a way to let your hots catch up.

Deathlord92 · April 2020

fred4 wrote: »

Just to add a few thoughts on how to balance a build for damage, sustain and survivability. Pick two. Only half kidding.

Where does your survivability come from? Be clear about your playstyle. You can:

(A) Shield. Stack magicka. A good way to get damage and survivability, even if ultimately sorcs and magicka wardens are better at this.

(B) Become somewhat tanky without investing into tanky sets. Merciless Resolve: -10% damage, on and off. Shadow Image: -15% damage reduction in a duel. Blessing of Potentates: -5% damage from players, either back bar or on both bars by using a set, such as Lich, on the back bar. Temporal Guard: -8% damage on back bar.

(C) Avoid damage by being fast and elusive. Shadow Image, Cloak, Race Against Time, Swift jewelry, Concealed Weapon on Cloak bar, stamina sustain.

I wouldn't wear a tanky set on magblade. You could try Armor Master, but at any rate I go for sustain, especially stamina sustain. Having 1K stam regen for dodge rolls and break free lets you stay in the fight for longer, otherwise it is prudent to disengage more frequently and that's no fun. Dodge rolling is also a good defense. If there is a choice between wearing, for example 1x Mighty Chudan for more resistances or 1x Bloodspawn for stam regen, I choose the latter these days. I was also running Eternal Hunt on magblade until recently.

I tend to sacrifice a lot of damage to enable my playstyle. In terms of going toe to toe with good players, you probably have to go for a more traditional playstyle, using the Shade and Merciless. Investing into the opposite stat or investing into speed via Swift jewelry seems to always result in a sub-optimal build, damage-wise. This is because to get a really hard hitting build, percent multipliers come into play, such as the 8% mag from slotting a Siphoning skill plus 7% from Inner Light, or the 20% spell damage from Major Sorcery, as well as the resource multipliers from CP. These tend to pay off when you fully invest into one approach, such as stacking magicka. For example you can quite easily build for 50K+ magicka in CP, giving you much better shields and high damage. As soon as you don't fully commit to that, say because you wear Caluurion, you tend to compromise your build a lot.

I won’t be using shields it’s not my play style don’t know if that’s because im a stamblade main lol. I like to stack heals when I say I like survivability I mean using 2 different monster pieces that give resistances and use potentates bk bar protective on some jewellery pieces I obviously use shade and cloak to I also like having high regen even on magblade by that I mean magic recovery I like it between 1800 2k

fred4 · April 2020

Yeah, I forgot about the healing. Magblade isn't good at it anymore. I stack what I can. This includes:

Siphoning Attacks.
(BRP) Healing Ward or Rapid Regen, take your pick.
Swallow Soul is still the spammable of choice, due to the heal.
That Infused Restore Health enchant.
The health regen from gold food.

I now also have Barrier, though am not planning on using it actively. The problem with the above is that most of the heals come from being on the attack, but most other classes now play that game better. You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for healing on a cloaking magblade. Every other class can do the same and has better heal(s) stacked on top. If you think you can face tank someone even for a few seconds and outheal them, you have another thing coming.

Iskiab · April 2020

fred4 wrote: »

Yeah, I forgot about the healing. Magblade isn't good at it anymore. I stack what I can. This includes:

Siphoning Attacks.
(BRP) Healing Ward or Rapid Regen, take your pick.
Swallow Soul is still the spammable of choice, due to the heal.
That Infused Restore Health enchant.
The health regen from gold food.

I now also have Barrier, though am not planning on using it actively. The problem with the above is that most of the heals come from being on the attack, but most other classes now play that game better. You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for healing on a cloaking magblade. Every other class can do the same and has better heal(s) stacked on top. If you think you can face tank someone even for a few seconds and outheal them, you have another thing coming.

Yea, the heals that work only on the attack are only good in duels. There’s no big heal there, more like little heals that add up so vs 1 person it’s enough. Vs 2+ there are better options.

I’ve only been doing BGs these days and have found myself a niche where I’ll usually do well. Healer with caluurion lol.

In games where it’s myself and all new players with sub 20k health, I go full dps. Against and with more experienced players who’re tanky I’ll heal and still be able to do some combos and get some kills.

My thinking goes like this:
Melee is full of aoe spam which will knock you out of cloak
-> swop out soul harvest for meteor
Against tankier opponents you lack the burst and staying power to brawl
-> heal and wait for opportunities to strike
Fear kills your burst and you’ll never kill someone with it if they have the stamina to break free and dodge roll
-> switch to fear traps so you don’t waste a GCD fearing, then kite over your traps and time the burst around someone getting feared. Added bonus of it breaking up charges making it easier to stay at range
Self healing is too low and you’ll get out bursted by sorcs
-> use shadowy disguise and don’t brawl

If you ever try vampire I’d try Darloc. I really like the set, while crouched it’s equivalent to 1k mag, stam and health regen. You’d probably like it. It also lets me use all spell damage glyphs so my tooltips and self healing are good, healing ward scales with mag and spell damage and it makes a difference.

Metemsycosis · April 2020

This is what ive been up to, a melee build.

Shackle, necropotence, malubeth, 5h/1/1.
Full impen, triglyphs
Destro/resto; sharpened/nirn.
Trifood
1 infused spell damage
2 arcane recovery
Apprentice mundus

Twisting path - fear - merciless - concealed weapon (or swallow soul, or crushing shock) - elemental drain - soul tether

Shade - cloak - mist - cripple - regen - soul harvest

Concealed weapon sucks without dot support, and best when opponent is stunned, but survivability is overall high imo.

With regen up for 20 seconds malubeth is bound to proc, obviously the ticks are stupid, and I use path's expedition to keep the beam.

Alternate skill lay out: I actually like proxy or pulsar instead of elemental drain at times, since this build assumes many fights will end up in melee range and inevitably I will be swarmed with enemies. Haven't played no cp yet but seems easy to play though you need a lot of light attacks to do any dps, uncorking the bow proc often. The threat of it is good for fight control. Elemental drain+ cripple is vital to sustain, path+ cloak+ concealed weapon spam into fear merciless combo is how they go down...

Also noticed if you find it easy to survive running soul harvest with meteor back bar is very rewarding.

ScruffyWhiskers · April 2020

Wow, same rogues gallery of posters here.

Nice to see the flame is still being carried. Times look even more tough for Magblade. I have been taking a long break but thought I would check in to see what is going on. What do you vamp magblades think about the leaked Greymoor changes?

Fred4 are you still sneaking around with your concealed weapon?

I take it that the cast time on Soul Harvest is still there? I can' see myself coming back unless the change their mind on that. Every once in a while I watch some twitch and think hey maybe I'll reload but then I think back about that and just say no, rather play Bannerlords or something.

Edit: Holy Hell, just read the full vamp re-vamp proposal and no thanks. Not only lose the 10% regen but then add a penalty on top of that. I would have to give up spinners to go to with Shadow Dancer instead. Well maybe 2021. Cya.

Iskiab · April 2020

I was actually just thinking of a stage 4 vamp build. What are the skills that you’d need from magblade if you were to try a full vamp playstyle:
- cloak
- merciless
- siphoning ability on each bar

I think that’s all you’d need from NB to make something work. Harvest/meteor I’ll drop for the vamp Ult. Melee vs range depends on the vampire spammable, if it’s not good I’ll use swallow soul for the passive.

Metemsycosis · April 2020

I am excited to see the numbers. If you go no cloak but use vampire sprint invisibility you can stack that extra hot without losing access to the escape mechanic. Gives incentive to run higher health pools for both offense and defense -- malevolent offering or wtf it's called, dark cloak, and the vamp abilities that award spell damage for the cost of health.

Interested if you can cast these spells and remain invisible too...

(Also: Rp dreaming of blood altar and earthgore at dragonclaw)

Metemsycosis · April 2020

Running crafty/vicious death/balorgh all spell damage for zerging.

I tried everything else it's just not sustainable the *** way I play and i can actually still win 1v1s omw to a keep. Reason I don't run bombers is i hate to then run into a 1v1 situation. Even as or especially as a cloaking nb I have pride and don't like losing 1v1 if i don't have to. In a full bomber set up i have like 10 seconds left of life once discovered by anything other than a penguin with a keyboard so I get too frustrated running those setups.

Caluurion, crafty, skoria semi-ganker. ("Semi" bc you never really 100-0 anyone but this gets close)

This really is fun bc crafty gives the shield strength to endure the backlash when lag stops your hand from securing a killing blow. Skoria makes people think you might have a clue how to play since then you'll be applying lots of dots. Then find that soul harvest is like cloak RN -- all or nothing or inexplicably not working. I've gotten people for 2.5k non crit harvests and 11k crit harvests in the same night.

Heavy shackle necro malu. Considering front bar dw or 2h spinners or swap to lovers stone and add more damage on my glyphs. On this build I need need need production out of concealed weapon or swallow soul, merciless and harvest alone will not do 30k worth of damage. More like half that and I should be happy if it does. I am happy, when I can get respectable damage through my spammable.

WacArnold · April 2020

What kind of tool tips do you guys shoot for? Do you all have a spot that you like to hit at? For example in cp I really like to see swallow soul hitting over 10k with sorcery buff.

Been trying some calculations on tool tips not really sure if im doing it right. I just been comparing my tool tips to what they would hit on my character using build editor via the mitigation page.

Does anybody know the formula to calculate damage on non crits and crits?

Iskiab · April 2020

WacArnold wrote: »

What kind of tool tips do you guys shoot for? Do you all have a spot that you like to hit at? For example in cp I really like to see swallow soul hitting over 10k with sorcery buff.

Been trying some calculations on tool tips not really sure if im doing it right. I just been comparing my tool tips to what they would hit on my character using build editor via the mitigation page.

Does anybody know the formula to calculate damage on non crits and crits?

The character builder has a section on the first page where you can plug in mitigation numbers. I haven’t played around much with it.

I don’t really shoot for a tooltip amount. Usually what I do is start at with a sustain number, then add as much health, resists and stam as I can and my damage tooltip is what’s left over. I usually just tweak; start stripping out sustain and add until it’s right, always use tri stat food unless I’m wearing bright throat and add tri stat glyphs until it’s right, etc... I usually go with the most stat dense sets and then add healing, whatever, until it works.

Whenever I start with damage I’ve found it doesn’t work well. Getting high damage tooltips always looks good in the editor, but it might not play well. Stuff like swift traits on jewellery doesn’t show on the tooltip but works better than any extra stats you might get.

I don’t do housing so all my resources go into trying different gear comps or whatever. It’s an expensive way to do it, but at the end I’m usually happy.

Usually when I’m overflowing with transmutation stones I’ll try a new set, but I’ve been playing more classes and am happy with my magblade setup so have been putting my resources elsewhere.

Last time I tried a new setup it was a pelinals medium armour healer build with radiating regen and echoing vigor, hit 1.5 million healing in a couple games, but the damage sucked despite high tooltips so with inconsistent team mates in BGs I didn’t like it.

kaithuzar · April 2020

I’ve found the game to be rather unplayable in many pvp scenarios. Cyrodiil & prime time has always been bad but even in bg’s having a clear 1-2 second delay on everything or having full resources & can’t break free, can’t dodge roll, tanks & healers putting out unkillable max dps...
To avoid an aneurism I’m just going to get to the point & share my build. I’ve went full glass cannon.

2 kena, 5 front bar new moon w/2h sword & onslaught, backbar resto(potentates), 5 rattle cage, 5 light 2 heavy, 3 infused jewelry 1regen 2x sp dmg, breton
Everything is spell dmg, mundus & nirnhoned. Sustain is from siphoning & pots.

@fred4 , try it out man
When they nerf kena, balorg can also be used. If we’re going to die anyways might as well do some dmg.

This build can almost hit 6k sp dmg.
2 key tricks:
Resto infused w/sp dmg glyph
Poisons on 2h sword for minor sorcery

I hit hard but I die fast, but that’s how I have to play when the game is this messed up.

Deathlord92 · April 2020

Mark could also be very nice for the vampire build it don’t cost anything and it gives you access to major breach 🙂

Vermintide · April 2020

So after jumping into a few matches yesterday, my conclusions are as thus:

- Defence is almost literally pointless now, but then again the same seems to be true for everybody. The result seems to be a very CoD/Battlefield-ish experience where you're not supposed to be immortal, and honestly I'm kinda okay with that. Troll tank builds can eat my stanky furfag butthole.

- Doing well with War Maiden, entirely anecdotal evidence since I haven't done any numbers or anything, but it seems to carry me a little better than the old reliable Spinner. Maybe now everyone else is going glass cannon Spinner is a little redundant in the meta. Swapped a few things around and WM lets me have acceptable recovery with high tooltip values.

(I'm gonna grind out some mats and try out that set from Eleswyr everyone is talking about, but it seems like the same deal as a Kena set, which I used to use at one point- You go super saiyan for a few seconds, but you immediately run dry on magicka.)

- The above needs to be built that way to make swallow soul useful, because really stacking that with Rapid Regen (and I WISH I could find bar space for Siphoning Attacks) appears to be the only semi-useful healing we have right now. And it still isn't much. Actually, I'm starting to wonder if the old destro/restro approach for magblade even makes sense any more, I may as well go dual destro and slot siphoning instead of regen, if I'm gonna be this squishy anyway. Might try that today.

- I have slotted Soul Tether for the first time in a while, seems like we need it to escape outnumbered fights but I rarely survive long enough to get it off anyway so... Eh. Any better ideas for a backbar ult please let me know.

- Christ you're not kidding about the performance. At least three deaths thanks to the game just straight freezing. Very frustrating losing out on kills too when you're spamming your bow proc but nothing happens and suddenly everyone is at full health again...

All in all it's not quite as bad as I was expecting. But there are a lot of changes I just really don't like from the last several patches, let alone the upcoming Vamp changes. I'm not QQing about nerfs, I relish the challenge of playing on a "weak" class if anything- The problem is lots of our more fun class tools have been taken away and their buffs or effects moved into generic skills; and where they haven't, the class skill version is always more expensive or just otherwise worse somehow.

I'm looking at YOU, Race Against Time. *** you.

HEBREWHAMMERRR · April 2020

Daffen wrote: »

WacArnold wrote: »

Has anyone tried hitis hearth? I tryed dark shade and loved it for duels, but for open world i feel naked without cloak to get away from multiple people. Hitis gives 1000 recov every second and dark cloak gave me 1300.

This would only be for open world but right now i have to slot some kind of heal besides rapid, with dark cloak i didnt need that extra heal in a 1v1 so i could open a skill slot up. But even in a 1v1 i felt as though i needed the extra defense from dark cloak to survive against high damage because if i get pinned down its hard to recover.

Anyways what im trying to do is to keep the same build as i was using in duels with dark cloak except with different gear to be able to use cloak for open world. I used zdans build for duels which was new moon/lich/troll and potentate rings.

Using hitis i could use it back bar keep potentates rings. I loose 8% dr front bar but keep it on my back and loose the lich proc. What i gain is the use of cloak. The 8% front bar kind of sucks. But im not so worried about lich because with ele drain and siphoning attacks lich hardly ever procs anyways.

I know this is not the best setup, however im not very good at 1vx unless the opponents suck lol so i just cloak out of those situations anyways. In 1v1 fights i like to stay out of stealth and fight but have to have cloak when i get jumped to get out of trouble. In a 1v1 i could manage with that sustain so the only thing i would miss is the 8% dr on the front bar but keep it with temporal on back.

i hate farming dungeon sets esp weps, so im just trying to get a feel if its worth it.

Like i said open world only in duels i would use dark cloak and bgs i stack damage.

Hiti's is definately a good set, after pvping as a magblade ive come to a few conclusions: orzorga is best food for 1vx if you are not using bloodspawn, necropotence with orzorga is better than lich with sugar skulls, hiti's is better than necropotence if you used troll king with necro as you can slot an offensive monster set and put potentates.

Heres the builds ive theorycrafted and used as well as zdan's setup.
Zdan: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=215184
Necro: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=218116
Hiti's: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=218788

Ive also tried swapping necro with bright throat but i had too low stam sustain and i kepy dying because of it. Hitis was a pain to farm, i spent 5 hours doing the dungeon on normal mode just go get the resto staff.

A tip for doing 1vx on magblade is to always keep you shade up and fight out of sight from it while still beeing in range (easiest to do in towers) that way if you get bursted down you are able to teleport away and heal up. Another tip is to not use your merciless resolve proc once you have 5 stacks, the reason is that the 10% damage mitigation it gives you is really strong and its better to use it once you have a target in low hp and you are sure to hit.

Theres different combos that work against different players: test their reaction when they get feared, do they break free fast? Do they roll dodge straight away? Are they blocking straight away? If they are slow to break free you are able to soul harvest - fear - merciless and most likely kill them, if they roll dodge straight away they will probably roll dodge after soul harvest therefore i reccomend soul harvest - swallow soul - either fear or merciless after they roll dodge - merciless if u feared them.

Against blocking targets it becomes a little bit harder to finnish them off (the reason i like zaan) it really depends on if they block after soul harvest or not, if they only block when they are low hp you can use this combo soul harvest - merciless - fear - swallow soul, if you are lucky and merciless crits they will be around 20% health and they will block which is why we fear them so you are able to hit the last swallow soul or two. I also reccomend trying different combos and switch up your combo so that the enemy cant predict what you might do next.

Before you start your combo its important to see how tanky they are and bring their hp down to the % health where they dont heal up straight away and they will die from your combo and keep your buffs and debuffs up. Against really tanky targets that deal low damage i reccomend baiting them to overextend and not look at their health. An example of this is to drop your health down to 50% and act like you are going defensive while still damaging them, and right before your combo drop down to as low health without dying (depends on their damage) this method will most likely bring your target down to 40% hp and they will forget about their armor buffs and hots making it much easier for you to secure your kill.

Didn’t know what hitis was before this thread lol. Nice builds. I caught on very early from zdan that 2 piece potentate jewelry is the way to go for mnb. So many people running Swift but getting that mitigation from a 2 piece is too good to pass up. I’ve been running a mixture of necro / spinner + lich + troll king / skoria + 2 potentate mostly.

Iskiab · April 2020

Vermintide wrote: »

So after jumping into a few matches yesterday, my conclusions are as thus:

- Defence is almost literally pointless now, but then again the same seems to be true for everybody. The result seems to be a very CoD/Battlefield-ish experience where you're not supposed to be immortal, and honestly I'm kinda okay with that. Troll tank builds can eat my stanky furfag butthole.

- Doing well with War Maiden, entirely anecdotal evidence since I haven't done any numbers or anything, but it seems to carry me a little better than the old reliable Spinner. Maybe now everyone else is going glass cannon Spinner is a little redundant in the meta. Swapped a few things around and WM lets me have acceptable recovery with high tooltip values.

(I'm gonna grind out some mats and try out that set from Eleswyr everyone is talking about, but it seems like the same deal as a Kena set, which I used to use at one point- You go super saiyan for a few seconds, but you immediately run dry on magicka.)

- The above needs to be built that way to make swallow soul useful, because really stacking that with Rapid Regen (and I WISH I could find bar space for Siphoning Attacks) appears to be the only semi-useful healing we have right now. And it still isn't much. Actually, I'm starting to wonder if the old destro/restro approach for magblade even makes sense any more, I may as well go dual destro and slot siphoning instead of regen, if I'm gonna be this squishy anyway. Might try that today.

- I have slotted Soul Tether for the first time in a while, seems like we need it to escape outnumbered fights but I rarely survive long enough to get it off anyway so... Eh. Any better ideas for a backbar ult please let me know.

- Christ you're not kidding about the performance. At least three deaths thanks to the game just straight freezing. Very frustrating losing out on kills too when you're spamming your bow proc but nothing happens and suddenly everyone is at full health again...

All in all it's not quite as bad as I was expecting. But there are a lot of changes I just really don't like from the last several patches, let alone the upcoming Vamp changes. I'm not QQing about nerfs, I relish the challenge of playing on a "weak" class if anything- The problem is lots of our more fun class tools have been taken away and their buffs or effects moved into generic skills; and where they haven't, the class skill version is always more expensive or just otherwise worse somehow.

I'm looking at YOU, Race Against Time. *** you.

Yea, Cyro performance is abysmal. For BGs it’s not usually too bad, but there are some abilities that cause lag and break free doesn’t work well.

I’ll be stunned - break free - stunned again - break free - stunned again - die.

For abilities that cause lag I notice it most while in mist form. I’ll be kiting a group misting away and get lag spikes or stutters. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s like your speed disappears and you lose control of your character for a half a second while the game is trying to decide if you can be stunned or not.

So of course with some abilities causing performance issues people spam them lol. I’ve also noticed immovability pots seem to be more consistent about preventing the stutters, so it really sucks that magblade toolkit has no major sorcery so you can’t use them.

There are still really tanky builds, I wouldn’t strip out your healing. It sounds like you’re playing in beginner BGs since you just came back. Keep playing and without the healing you’ll see players who can take out a BG team solo, and you’ll be one of them lol.

Tanky builds... that are good... rely on evasion and high self healing, I can do it as a MagWarden in beginner BGs wearing no defensive set. Plow into a group and they all scatter or start healing (it’s too late once you start taking damage) and take them all out at once.

Vermintide · April 2020

Yeah, I'm gonna enjoy the potato-mashing while it lasts; but I mean, if healing feels so useless even at low MMR BGs, how utterly inadequate is it gonna feel when I get back into the big boy games?

My magblade used to have just the right level of survivability to get away with taking on a group. Now that's a deathwish even at low levels. Defensive sets like Riposte could really carry an otherwise very squishy build. They gave you enough breathing room for your self-heals to be effective, and skills like Healing Ward used to be far more potent. Not to mention Light's Champion.

The way it is right now the class just has such ridiculously poor survivability I feel like it's a waste to try spec for it. You could get the same thing without the effort if you just rolled a class that has it to begin with. There are no benefits to building a magblade that way, you're just sacrificing other things a magblade needs in order to make some janky bargain-bin blood knight.

But y'know, we deserve it because BAAAWWW STEALTH

(Caveat: Even though I like to think I've become pretty good at this over the years, my actual play time has never been enough to start reaching the top tiers. I spend maybe an hour or two every other day on the game. So your guys' experience will probably differ from mine. Just my two cents.)

Furthermore: The cast time on Soul Tether is the worst thing since the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I could maybe understand a cast time on dirty finishers like Incap, where you could animation cancel it too, but god give me strength, putting a cast time on that skill means it just gets me killed right when I need it most.

Iskiab · April 2020

Vermintide wrote: »

Yeah, I'm gonna enjoy the potato-mashing while it lasts; but I mean, if healing feels so useless even at low MMR BGs, how utterly inadequate is it gonna feel when I get back into the big boy games?

My magblade used to have just the right level of survivability to get away with taking on a group. Now that's a deathwish even at low levels. Defensive sets like Riposte could really carry an otherwise very squishy build. They gave you enough breathing room for your self-heals to be effective, and skills like Healing Ward used to be far more potent. Not to mention Light's Champion.

The way it is right now the class just has such ridiculously poor survivability I feel like it's a waste to try spec for it. You could get the same thing without the effort if you just rolled a class that has it to begin with. There are no benefits to building a magblade that way, you're just sacrificing other things a magblade needs in order to make some janky bargain-bin blood knight.

But y'know, we deserve it because BAAAWWW STEALTH

(Caveat: Even though I like to think I've become pretty good at this over the years, my actual play time has never been enough to start reaching the top tiers. I spend maybe an hour or two every other day on the game. So your guys' experience will probably differ from mine. Just my two cents.)

Furthermore: The cast time on Soul Tether is the worst thing since the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I could maybe understand a cast time on dirty finishers like Incap, where you could animation cancel it too, but god give me strength, putting a cast time on that skill means it just gets me killed right when I need it most.

What I do is use radiating regen like a buff. It’s never going to save you, but use a little evasion too so it has time to tick and it works well. I also use healing ward with shadowy disguise for some extra healing so it can tick while cloaked or stealthed. That plus Darloc has some self healing while crouched.

You’d be surprised how tanky you can be for a small investment. I don’t wear a defensive set on any of my classes except magplar, and I can brawl as a MagWarden and sorta as a MagDK.

The biggest difference over the last year or so is resistances have become garbage. All that matters is: self healing is strong or not, do you have minor protection?, do you have major evasion?, do you have a projectile defense like wings or shimmer?

Almost everything is a projectile, melee, or aoe. Evasion works vs ults, DKs and Templars. Shimmer and wings works vs sorcs and bow, speed works vs melee. High self healing lets you brawl in general.

Taking on a team solo is about whether you have the boxes ticked vs that group. I almost feel sorry for bow players when I’m on my MagWarden, you can take groups out at a time... almost, then I play my magtemplar and remember why I don’t feel sorry for them.

Vermintide · April 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

The biggest difference over the last year or so is resistances have become garbage. All that matters is: self healing is strong or not, do you have minor protection?, do you have major evasion?, do you have a projectile defense like wings or shimmer

And therein lies my point. I used to have those things, til they nerfed the skills that game me them. Magblade doesn't have the bar space to just slot something else, because so many of our skills are basic essentials, and slotting whatever world skill we would need to leaves us without another vital tool. Ask 100 magblade players, and all of them are going to have 75% identical skills slotted.

The only way for me to get projectile defence on a magblade is to log out and load up my DK instead. Other classes don't have the same issue, so what's the point trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole?

Iskiab · April 2020

Vermintide wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

The biggest difference over the last year or so is resistances have become garbage. All that matters is: self healing is strong or not, do you have minor protection?, do you have major evasion?, do you have a projectile defense like wings or shimmer

And therein lies my point. I used to have those things, til they nerfed the skills that game me them. Magblade doesn't have the bar space to just slot something else, because so many of our skills are basic essentials, and slotting whatever world skill we would need to leaves us without another vital tool. Ask 100 magblade players, and all of them are going to have 75% identical skills slotted.

The only way for me to get projectile defence on a magblade is to log out and load up my DK instead. Other classes don't have the same issue, so what's the point trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole?

Yea basicly, but cloak works too. Just not dark cloak: dark cloak’s better against brawler type melee builds or duels and shadowy disguise is better vs ranged. Dark cloak won’t hold up against even two ranged classes. What I’ve done is went pure ranged with disguise so the aoe spam doesn’t knock you out of cloak, then heal and only close when I have an opportunity. Kite over my trap, meteor right before they run over it, then go in for a cal and bow proc. They’ll break free, then block but unless they’re tanky it’ll work, even against some tanky types it’ll sometimes work, or at least put them into kite mode so a team mate with a decent execute can finish them off.

If the person isn’t standing still I don’t even fire merciless, it’s too inconsistent and I like the mitigation.

Meteor also has a distinctive sound. I’m pretty sure me using meteor distracts people so they run over the trap too.

kaithuzar · April 2020

Yea it helps to preemptively put hots on yourself before diving in.

fred4 · April 2020

I am still around for now.

@ScruffyWhiskers, I rearranged my bars some time ago, using Concealed only passively. Having to slot Cloak and Concealed on the same bar for the speed bonus is awkward. On the one hand you want to slot other skills on the same bar that you might want to cast in cloak, such as RAT and Siphoning Attacks. On the other hand you also need attacking skills on that bar. Lotus Fan with Caluurion, Impale, Merciless. Basically I concluded that Concealed + Cloak is a dead-end playstyle that doesn't really work. I now immediately bar swap for attack. This means I have the ability to go ranged after the burst and I typically do. Zaan went out the door as a result, but it's better damage, because it's easier to make it stick.

@kaithuzar, I'm sure it works, as I run into the occasional hard-hitting magblade from time to time. It's not for me. I'm having too much fun on the high-sustain, high-speed, perma-cloaking nightblade I developed. When I play nightblade, that's what I want to play and as long as Caluurion is viable, I shall continue using it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INHvd2YsOC8

fred4 · April 2020

Vermintide wrote: »

I have slotted Soul Tether for the first time in a while, seems like we need it to escape outnumbered fights but I rarely survive long enough to get it off anyway so... Eh. Any better ideas for a backbar ult please let me know.

Temporal Guard is the obvious one. I currently use Barrier to boost magicka regen on the cloaking bar.

The problem is lots of our more fun class tools have been taken away and their buffs or effects moved into generic skills; and where they haven't, the class skill version is always more expensive or just otherwise worse somehow.

I'm looking at YOU, Race Against Time. *** you.

The combination of snare removal and speed is just too good for PvP. It's the right combination of effects and I guess no one saw it coming how uncompetitive other effect combinations are. I tried Phantasmal Escape against templars. Meh.

RAT is good on every class. The fact that it costs magicka makes it better than other speed skills, such as Quick Cloak, due to not running down additional stamina while sprinting. I even use it on my stam DK.

I know what you mean, but am happy RAT exists for magplar in particular, so you don't have to go vamp.

brandonv516 · April 2020

fred4 wrote: »

Vermintide wrote: »

I have slotted Soul Tether for the first time in a while, seems like we need it to escape outnumbered fights but I rarely survive long enough to get it off anyway so... Eh. Any better ideas for a backbar ult please let me know.

Temporal Guard is the obvious one. I currently use Barrier to boost magicka regen on the cloaking bar.

The problem is lots of our more fun class tools have been taken away and their buffs or effects moved into generic skills; and where they haven't, the class skill version is always more expensive or just otherwise worse somehow.

I'm looking at YOU, Race Against Time. *** you.

The combination of snare removal and speed is just too good for PvP. It's the right combination of effects and I guess no one saw it coming how uncompetitive other effect combinations are. I tried Phantasmal Escape against templars. Meh.

RAT is good on every class. The fact that it costs magicka makes it better than other speed skills, such as Quick Cloak, due to not running down additional stamina while sprinting. I even use it on my stam DK.

I know what you mean, but am happy RAT exists for magplar in particular, so you don't have to go vamp.

Yep. No class has the excuse of "no mobility".

RaT is a top tier skill.

kaithuzar · April 2020

brandonv516 wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Vermintide wrote: »

I have slotted Soul Tether for the first time in a while, seems like we need it to escape outnumbered fights but I rarely survive long enough to get it off anyway so... Eh. Any better ideas for a backbar ult please let me know.

Temporal Guard is the obvious one. I currently use Barrier to boost magicka regen on the cloaking bar.

The problem is lots of our more fun class tools have been taken away and their buffs or effects moved into generic skills; and where they haven't, the class skill version is always more expensive or just otherwise worse somehow.

I'm looking at YOU, Race Against Time. *** you.

The combination of snare removal and speed is just too good for PvP. It's the right combination of effects and I guess no one saw it coming how uncompetitive other effect combinations are. I tried Phantasmal Escape against templars. Meh.

RAT is good on every class. The fact that it costs magicka makes it better than other speed skills, such as Quick Cloak, due to not running down additional stamina while sprinting. I even use it on my stam DK.

I know what you mean, but am happy RAT exists for magplar in particular, so you don't have to go vamp.

Yep. No class has the excuse of "no mobility".

RaT is a top tier skill.

The opposite can also be true with every class having no mobility whenever skills are bugging & you get perma-stun locked with full resources & can’t move.

fred4 · April 2020

kaithuzar wrote: »

brandonv516 wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Vermintide wrote: »

I have slotted Soul Tether for the first time in a while, seems like we need it to escape outnumbered fights but I rarely survive long enough to get it off anyway so... Eh. Any better ideas for a backbar ult please let me know.

Temporal Guard is the obvious one. I currently use Barrier to boost magicka regen on the cloaking bar.

The problem is lots of our more fun class tools have been taken away and their buffs or effects moved into generic skills; and where they haven't, the class skill version is always more expensive or just otherwise worse somehow.

I'm looking at YOU, Race Against Time. *** you.

The combination of snare removal and speed is just too good for PvP. It's the right combination of effects and I guess no one saw it coming how uncompetitive other effect combinations are. I tried Phantasmal Escape against templars. Meh.

RAT is good on every class. The fact that it costs magicka makes it better than other speed skills, such as Quick Cloak, due to not running down additional stamina while sprinting. I even use it on my stam DK.

I know what you mean, but am happy RAT exists for magplar in particular, so you don't have to go vamp.

Yep. No class has the excuse of "no mobility".

RaT is a top tier skill.

The opposite can also be true with every class having no mobility whenever skills are bugging & you get perma-stun locked with full resources & can’t move.

I find the main reason for stun lock in an otherwise lag free session is if you get stunned while, or just after, dodge rolling. It seems to take an additional GCD to break free. Sometimes I could swear that some players know to exploit this and will fossilize / fear / leap just at that moment.

Deathlord92 · April 2020

Thoughts on new moon acolyte and bright throat boast for magblade? 🤔

Vermintide · April 2020

fred4 wrote: »

Vermintide wrote: »

I have slotted Soul Tether for the first time in a while, seems like we need it to escape outnumbered fights but I rarely survive long enough to get it off anyway so... Eh. Any better ideas for a backbar ult please let me know.

Temporal Guard is the obvious one. I currently use Barrier to boost magicka regen on the cloaking bar.

The problem is lots of our more fun class tools have been taken away and their buffs or effects moved into generic skills; and where they haven't, the class skill version is always more expensive or just otherwise worse somehow.

I'm looking at YOU, Race Against Time. *** you.

The combination of snare removal and speed is just too good for PvP. It's the right combination of effects and I guess no one saw it coming how uncompetitive other effect combinations are. I tried Phantasmal Escape against templars. Meh.

RAT is good on every class. The fact that it costs magicka makes it better than other speed skills, such as Quick Cloak, due to not running down additional stamina while sprinting. I even use it on my stam DK.

I know what you mean, but am happy RAT exists for magplar in particular, so you don't have to go vamp.

RAT is good on every class, but did they have to take expedition away from all our class skills? It would have still benefited every other class just the same. Instead they nerfed a class skill and everyone just had to slot RAT instead.

Regardless of class balance, that's just anti-fun design philosophy IMO. Bring back the speed boost from cripple, bring back the old blur, and magblade would be in a much better spot for those things alone.