My Templar has a 60% of max health damage shield (Dampen Magic) which she uses constantly and is extremely useful in either her offensive (front bar) or defensive (healer) back bar.

My Nightblade has a 30% of max health damage shield (Spiked Bone Shield also reflects damage) which is useful in group dungeons since it also creates a synergy, but the Vigor (Assault skill line, stamina heal) makes the damage shield not necessary for other purposes.

So, yes, I believe shields all have a percentage of max health component.

I have no knowledge of how a Magicka Nightblade plays since I only play a Stamina Nightblade and my one Magicka skill (Shadowy Disguise) can be cast about four times straight before I burn up my Magicka, however since my main resource pool is Stamina my Magicka pool is usually full and can give me some "invisibility" time.

I do use Shadowy Disguise constantly since it makes 100% certain that Surprise Attack hits for massive damage. Normal mobs die in one hit. Using Whirling Blade (Dual Wield line) with a group of three normal mobs one dies instantly and the others usually die before they can get off much damage. Whirling Blade is especially useful on land or in delves or public dungeons -- and group dungeons too for that matter.

RedBeard_Viking wrote: »

How do the damage shilds work these days?? i see its also based off max hp is it worth going dmg shild for non sorc at all?? I want to bring back 1st charecter magic nb main but its been so long its changed a lot.

Are we talking PvP or PvE? In PvP (CP) the health cap doesn't really come into play since they raised it to 60% for Dampen. You'd have to run a full on Necropotence 50K+ mag-stacking build before you start to worry about health and even then you're probably fine without any extra investment. The health cap mainly comes into play in PvE.

Using Dampen (I do not recommend Harness) is a valid option for magblade. Even on a low magicka build - I run one with 33K magicka in CP - having Dampen in addition to a heal makes a noticeable difference to your survivability. On a light armor PvP build I'd choose at least two from the following: Shadowy Disguise, Shadow Image, Dampen Magic.

If you're running a mag-stacking build, you should be able to use Dampen somewhat like a sorc, e.g. cast it proactively to face-tank your opponent for the next few seconds. This is especially true, if you're running with Dark Cloak, which is now just a heal, not actual cloak. The way I use it, on the other hand, is more reactively, e.g. in emergency, for example when I have Magelight on me and can't cloak right now.