Magblade performance this patch

Metemsycosis · October 2020

I come across 3 magblades
Gankers
Bombers
And hot-stackers that hop around and poke till they can try to land assassins will or soul harvest or both and usually come off as unkillable till you pressure them hard.

Weak sauce ATM. Need greater mobility and just a few slightly higher tooltips.

fred4 · October 2020

Sergykid wrote: »

slimecraw caluurion and war maiden. Still some people simply mock me by standing still and outhealing it. Others escape with 1k hp and start rolling forever. Everything is dodgeable, can't hit with anything, not even a reliable CC (fear is melee, so no).

I think Fear is the best with Caluurion. You have to go in for Soul Harvest anyway ... or are you using a different ultimate? Try Shadowy -> Elemental Weapon -> Light Attack -> Soul Harvest -> Fear (Caluurion). You're stacking Elemental Weapon with Soul Harvest and Caluurion hits while the enemy is feared and was forced to drop block. Fear also CCs other players (that are not currently immune) amd NPCs (flag guards) around the target.

The issue is that people move so fast these days that, if you're running after them while doing this, they tend to outrange Fear. I also play a more defensive and higher speed build than you. No room for Wild Hunt in your setup unless you're somehow back-barring Caluurion. If you're front-barring Caluurion and you want to keep (most of) the damage, I'd back bar Stygian, giving your room for 1x mythic (Wild Hunt) and possibly 1x Trainee.

Going into melee range is not possible against organised groups and perhaps it's not great in BGs, but I wouldn't know. I'm a CP open world player. That's what I can talk about. Against small scalers or unorganised players, melee is possible. It's only a question of doing it for a while so you can judge how early or late you have to get out. Certainly if I don't do any damage, because that DK blocked or popped Corrosive or rallied right back up, I abandon immediately. My preferred option is high speed, snare removal, dodge rolls, cloak and, these days, my Blessed Armor back bar if I really misjudged the situation. The conventional alternative is Shadow Image. Alternatively, if your target runs away, then you're in business, since your follow up attacks are ranged. The same goes when youi're targeting someone in or near a group. In that case you back away as you try to execute.

People who just outheal or outtank you ... who is to say they can be killed by any equally skilled opponent on another class? That could just be an endless duel. As a nightblade things are different. The opponent could decide to attack and kill you. Don't let that aggravate you. It was your fight to draw by backing off. A nightblade draws fights by doing that. Elusiveness is your defense. Any other class draws by getting embroiled in a potentially endless duel and, believe me, if you get tired of that, but you don't want to die and the other guy isn't backing down, then it just becomes a question of who gets bored more easily. At least as a nightblade you can simply move on.

As to the endless dodge rollers, it's annoying, but if that's really all they're doing (not even healing), you do tend to hit them eventually. Otherwise that's their defense, right? Take a leaf and play the elusive game yourself. I've played my magblade with anything up to 1.3K stam regen by combining Bright-Throat's with a double-regen drink (Hissmir Fisheye Rye). It's an option. Of course, if you don't want to compromise your damage then stick with Shadow Image.

fred4 · October 2020

Metemsycosis wrote: »

Weak sauce ATM. Need greater mobility and just a few slightly higher tooltips.

We made a comprarison of stamblade and magblade builds using Spriggan / Bone Pirate vs Spinner / Bright-Throat's in another thread using the UESP build editor. The conclusion was that the theory-crafted magblade was almost competitive with the stamblade in terms of damage numbers, but we reckoned the stamblade was far more playable. (Melee) magblades struggle to get the same playability into the build and that's why they tend to compromise their stats and resort to sets like Caluurion.

A key point was the comparison between Rally and Siphoning Attacks. Rally acts as a burst heal, as a sustain skill and a source of Major Brutality. Siphoning Attacks, for all it's benefits, is a weaker skill. It offers sustain and healing, if you manage to stay on attack. It's virtually no help when you're on the defensive. It's not a burst heal - cloaking magblade has none - and it doesn't give you Major Sorcery, limiting your choice of potions or lowering your damage. Rally is a far more efficient PvP skill than anything magblade has. Efficient skills save bar space and GCDs. For Siphoning Attacks to catch up it would, IMO, have to gain Major Sorcery and a small burst heal on re-activation, along the lines of Living Trellis.

This would also fix the next problem, magblade's reliance on resto staves to heal. Stamblades can either go with bow, which gives them Major Expedition without using a skill slot or they can use 1H+S to become tankier. These options are locked out for magblade.

Talking about speed, a medium armor stamblade sprints faster and can dodge roll on the bow bar to gain Major Expedition. Magblade needs to slot a skill, Race Against Time. There really isn't another option. RAT gives you the two things you need most, speed and snare removal, but look at the choice magblade has in a single GCD. She can dodge roll and heal without snare removal nor speed or she can dodge roll and cast RAT, but not heal. Stamblade, on the other hand, gets the speed from the bow passive whatever it does, with even more speed as a woodelf. In a single GCD she can dodge roll, heal with Vigor and gain Major Expedition or dodge roll and gain snare removal, speed and Major Evasion from Shuffle. That is more than magblade can do in a single GCD. Nightblades are about damage evasion. Stamblades are better at it, because they can do more in one GCD.

Of course, you might argue that magblades can shield and I can attest that using Dampen is much more effective than using dodge rolls and Healing Ward alone. Bear in mind, however, that a stamblade has Rally as well as Vigor and much better dodge roll sustain. Shields are IMO the light armor build's answer to dodge rolls, but yet again we a have a defensive mechanic that requires a skill slot for magblades, whereas a stamblade can manage without. Dampen is also a skill that really only comes into it's own at very high magicka in CP. Other than that your priority still tends to be to engage and disengage, with Dampen helping you to not die before you get back into cloak.

Another problem with magblade speed is Concealed Weapon. I am convinced there isn't a good build that puts Concealed and Cloak on the same bar. Shadow Disguise naturally fits on your back bar along with buff skills you can cast in cloak that don't uncloak you, namely RAT and Siphoning Attacks, not to mention the resto heal(s) you're running. Concealed should be on your front bar, where it would synergise with Inner Light and Assassin skills that give more crit. Having to slot Concealed on the same bar as cloak for the speed is holding magblade back or, in the case of my own build, results in a dead skill used purely for the passive.

Next we come to the efficiency of Camouflaged Hunter. The fact that the Minor Berserk only lasts 5 seconds hardly matters in PvP. They're the 5 seconds that actually count and that coincide with the Incap buff. Inner Light and Camou Hunter may be perfectly balanced for PvE. In PvP Camou Hunter is just plain stronger on account of +3% weapon damage and Minor Berserk versus just +7% magicka.

Finally there is a quality of life issue I wouldn't underestimate: You can cast Rally in cloak. You can't cast Rapid Regen or Healing Ward in cloak. If I am nearly dead on my magblade and I have a sorc curse or templar Purifying Light on me, I am praying to cloak to a safe spot to cast Healing Ward, because the damn skill uncloaks me. If I uncloak early I'm going to get streaked or Toppling Charged and killed.

fred4 · October 2020

The above laundry list probably looks longer than it really is. If it was up to me to fix magblade for PvP, I would simply start with the following:

Add Major Sorcery to the base skill of Siphoning Strikes. Won't be any good to stamblade, which we don't want to buff, but some magblades may want to use Leeching Strikes for the stamina sustain.

Add a small burst heal to Siphoning Attacks on reactivation or expiry, something in line with it's cheap cost, e.g. not very big and not something that plays like other classes, but large enough that you make playing with Dampen + Siphoning Strikes (+ Cloak) viable and magblades could ditch the resto staff. It has to be spammable, like Living Trellis, not an escalating value heal, like Rally. This needs to be a self-heal only and scale with magicka and spell damage, making it useless to stamblades.

This would have so many knock on effects. It would free you up to use tri-pots, yet have Major Sorcery. It would free up a skill slot previously occupied by a resto heal. It would allow you to ditch the resto staff for an ice staff or 1H+Shield, taking advantage of the blocking passive. It would allow you to back bar something like Elemental Drain when using the ice staff. It would be a heal that does not uncloak you.

The other change would be to have the Concealed +25% speed buff active, even when Concealed and Cloak aren't slotted on the same bar. This would turn someone like me into a true melee magblade again and free up another skill slot in my particular build. Extra skill slots will mean extra damage via skills like Elemental Drain, Inner Light or something else.

Metemsycosis · October 2020

Great write up, @fred4

You can't weapon switch and keep the concealed speed buff? BB RAT-->cloak--> weapon switch to FB --> full speed? Annoying to have to switch but a permanent +25% speed sounds a little OP.

I like the idea of siphoning attacks being a magblade rally-esque skill. I hope it gains traction, especially the semi burst self-heal part. Idc about major sorcery because we can level alchemy to 50 and get a high uptime on the buffs and have access thru sap essence. I understand that skill isn't fantastic outside of a bombing context tho.

fred4 · October 2020

Metemsycosis wrote: »

Great write up, @fred4

You can't weapon switch and keep the concealed speed buff? BB RAT-->cloak--> weapon switch to FB --> full speed? Annoying to have to switch but a permanent +25% speed sounds a little OP.

I like the idea of siphoning attacks being a magblade rally-esque skill. I hope it gains traction, especially the semi burst self-heal part. Idc about major sorcery because we can level alchemy to 50 and get a high uptime on the buffs and have access thru sap essence. I understand that skill isn't fantastic outside of a bombing context tho.

Thank you!

The idea of the Concealed change would be to gain +25% speed still only while cloaking or crouching, but that you gain that buff even if Concealed is slotted on the other bar. The only change would be that you don't have to slot Concealed and Shadowy Disguise on the same bar.

As regards the Major Sorcery, Sap Essence is not something any magblade other than a bomber has room for by and large. However a bomb typically starts off with Proxy Det plus ultimate with Sap Essence only being cast afterwards. Having Major Sorcery on that skill neither suits bombers nor gankers nor any magblade I can think of, not even in PvE. If it's a trash fight, attack power usually isn't a problem. If it's a boss fight, would you really want to cast Sap Essence at all?

Yes, you can get 100% uptime on Major Sorcery via potions, but this limits you to certain potions, notably not Immovable potions and not tri-pots. It also affects the timing of your potions. Rather than reserving them for emergencies or simply when your resources are down, you will tend to quaff them at the beginning of fights. This is something I do anyway, because I find immovable potions before ganking invaluable, but it's another limitation that decreases magblade survivability options or that compromises their damage. A stamblade can get Major Brutality from Rally upfront. That means potions aren't on cooldown and they are free to use tri-pots as a "get out of jail" card later.

Crash427 · October 2020

Not that it really matters, but these days with mech acuity being the popular choice for bombers you should be hitting sap essence before the bomb instead of after

Metemsycosis · October 2020

So you mean as long as it's slotted both bars are affected, no switching necessary. That would be really cool.

fred4 · October 2020

Metemsycosis wrote: »

So you mean as long as it's slotted both bars are affected, no switching necessary. That would be really cool.

It sounds like your char is a vampire and you use crouch as much as cloak, if not more. It's probably more of a nice to have in that case. My character, however, is not a vamp and never will be for role-playing reasons. I have the speed penalty from crouch, thus I always just cloak. Having to put Shadowy Disguise and Concealed on the same bar to avail of the speed is a greater issue for non-vamp characters, such as mine.

Dorkener · October 2020

Outside of Calu ganking and bombing mag NB kinda sucks. Melee mag NB is especially pointless, cause stam simply outperforms it in every way (at this point only stubborn people do it / "it looks cool"). Even the permacloak niche of the past is lost - with the powercreep introduced via new items stam can do it too (if you really want to) with minor sacrifices.

JayKwellen · October 2020

fred4 wrote: »

@fred4 As regards the Major Sorcery, Sap Essence is not something any magblade other than a bomber has room for by and large. However a bomb typically starts off with Proxy Det plus ultimate with Sap Essence only being cast afterwards. Having Major Sorcery on that skill neither suits bombers nor gankers nor any magblade I can think of, not even in PvE. If it's a trash fight, attack power usually isn't a problem. If it's a boss fight, would you really want to cast Sap Essence at all?

Yes, you can get 100% uptime on Major Sorcery via potions, but this limits you to certain potions, notably not Immovable potions and not tri-pots. It also affects the timing of your potions. Rather than reserving them for emergencies or simply when your resources are down, you will tend to quaff them at the beginning of fights. This is something I do anyway, because I find immovable potions before ganking invaluable, but it's another limitation that decreases magblade survivability options or that compromises their damage. A stamblade can get Major Brutality from Rally upfront. That means potions aren't on cooldown and they are free to use tri-pots as a "get out of jail" card later.

Sap is just, so bad.

The thing that triggers me the most is probably the fact that you have to hit someone with it first for it to even work. As you said in your post, in you're preparing/buffing up before a fight (bomber, ganking, just paying attention, etc.) then sap is useless anyway, because you're going to prebuff yourself with a spell power pot anyway, or just sacrifice it all together to use an immovable.

I get that somewhere in the convoluted power fantasy of whatever it is magblades are supposed to even be these days is that of the shifty magblade -- getting in close (where sap would actually be possible to use), doing their thing, and quickly getting back out. Problem is this playstyle hardly works already unless a character is built explicitly for a speedy elusive build like you have, and even if you do build that way...where exactly does sap fit in your rotation or even on your bars? Nightblades already have so many sparse underwhelming skills and need so many abilities for survivability that we already have to sacrifice a number of class skills already to make a workable build. Do you want a snare? Gap closer? DOT? Execute? Major Sorcery? Well you only have 1 flex space left after rounding out the rest of your build, so good luck and choose wisely.

It's not even that great on it's own merits. The damage and healing it provides is anemic, so much so that it's really only useful for trying to finish off low health people after a bomb hoping to proc your VD and finish off the rest.

You know, a few days back while I was half delirious at work at like 2am I had this thought that I was gonna try and make a sort-of pseudo sap-tank and try and keep the dream alive. I totally tried it too. Made a tanky high health/healing/health recovery dark cloak magblade, threw a build together using sap and ventured into Cyrodiil trying to tank my way to glory. I don't think I even made it an hour before I realized how truly unfortunately misguided that idea was and took sap right back off my bars and consigned it to the trash bin.

But just like having a heal that doesn't heal you, a DOT that's a slow and dodgeable projectile, a burst skill that punishes you for using it, a CC that's weaker than it's guild equivalent, an ultimate that's a meme, and a mobility/speed skill that traps you inside of a small box, sap just follows the same illogical 'logic' used to balance the rest of our classes abilities.

fred4 · October 2020

Yeah, that they decided to leave the speed only on Path gets me too. Another nonsensical decision. In the distant past there was a bug where Path would give you 30s of Major Expedition, if you had Skooma Smuggler active. In other words, it would refresh the Skooma Smuggler buff and you could even take the set off and maintain it indefinitely. Remind you of something more recent? Hehehehe.

Trashs1 · October 2020

mageblade main here,

i agree with the most mageblade is underperforming right now, but in my opinion its the most skillbased class right now...

if u play your mb well u cann still do alot!

Ecfigies · October 2020

The class has a healing problem and it's a big issue, everyone who played magicka nb for long time know that one of the BIG issues with it it's the healing at least for pvp the rest we can manage, but not the healing. zDan already talked a lot about this, Nyassa as well and no changes were made.

There's no fix for this, if you play in OW PVP with a Magicka NB get ready to get rekt, what can make it easier it's using BRP Resto and yet it's not a fix.

Also coming from a Stam DK, which i've no trouble to dealing against other players, even when get rekt with it, i complety understand that was my mistake or because an entire zerg above me, but trying rn Magicka NB it's THE MOST frustrating experience i'm having, the amount of buffs too keep up and having no potential healing to leave the execute range besides these weaks HoT it's an absurd, i've to tell for whom have sucessul played this class, you're nearby of a god in this game, can't express myself here of how much frustrated i'm, everyone has to try to see how ridiculous this class in PVP it's for at least once, for bombing and gank they are ok'ish tho.

StevieKingslayer · October 2020

Im currently playing an altered version of a build going around (altered for personal preferences/playstyle) of cal's/flame blossom.

It has it's moment of godlike power, but 90% of the time I run into fights I can't win knowingly. Then again, Im just playing for fun so it doesnt bother me.

Im too stubborn to get off this class and playstyle tbh. I just swapped to this build recently after eyeing it for a long time. Sure, I could improve it, but honestly it does well enough how it is - Enough to almost burst kill, but not quite, gives other's a chance to fight back as well. Im not the best player though, so for me it's all just for fun.

WaywardArgonian · October 2020

It can still be fun, but you have to be really selective with your targets. Like, with tanky Wardens and such builds I don't even bother attacking them, even if I still have the element of surprise.

On my magblade I currently stick to simply countering other Nightblades and snipers. Sadly, having a proc set like Caluurion is a bit of a must because if you can't kill someone with one combo, odds are they'll just roll dodge like Neymar off into the sunset. That so many players build tanky this patch doesn't help the odds either.

More skilled players will still often be able to dodge Caluurion if they are at all able to see it coming, so with such a build your pool of potential targets is usually more limited than it would be on other classes.

Mind that I'm an average skilled player whose main skill is catching others off-guard and anticipating movement rather than sick skill combos and reaction time, so your mileage may vary.

xI_The_Owl_Ix · October 2020

fred4 wrote: »

pauld1_ESO wrote: »

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

@Deathlord92

Magblades are bad, that being said due to the proc changes you can build a strong proc - magNB. I usually win 90% of the fights with this set up, and people keep asking me in game what Im running etc.

Frontbar - Caluurion (Inferno in precise with Shock enchant)
Backbar - Armor Master (Restro in defending with mag steal enchant or poison)
Monster Set - Kjalnar
Mythic - Wild hunt (in Swift)

It pretty much plays like your usual magblade (Dark Cloak, Rapid Regen, Shields, Fear, Swallow Soul, Soul Harvest etc). You fear you target right at 4 stacks of Kjalnar. If you manage to proc Caluurion, Kjalnar and Spectral Bow it can "1-shot" a lot of people, while youre sitting at around 30k resistances (in 5light - 2 heavy) on backbar with 30k HP. Its cancer, but thats unfortunately the meta we are currently in.

Bad.....but you win 90% of fights and can practically one shot? Okay.

And yea, I've been a victim of this type of build many times.

What he's doing is actually quite involved. Caluurion is controllable with Shadowy (which he is not using, though), Kjalnar less so. Lining up the spectral bow with Fear and Kjalnar takes skill. The spectral bow mechanic means it's not a gank. This nightblade has been outplaying you - or someone - for at least 5 seconds.

I play a Caluurion ganker / brawler who uses a defensive back bar and a lot of sustain. The people I can one shot with a Caluurion gank combo are pretty much limited to lowbies, PvEers and bad stamblades. It's quite possible that people build more offensive gankers, but they pay for that in survivability or, like The Owl, they give up Shadowy Disguise and are no longer gankers.

Its actually quite easy to control both procs. My caluu proc is on the frontbar which means I can LA weave on my backbar and get kjalnar proc to 4 stacks as well as my spectral bow, then bar swap to frontbar LA with soul harvest which should proc caluurion (have 57% crit chance) then fear asap to make sure kjalnar doesnt cc but does the dmg and directly after the fear fire the spectral bow. So you can pretty much hit soul harvest and caluu proc + spectral bow + kjalnar all within one GCD. Making it really bursty.

xI_The_Owl_Ix · October 2020

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

pauld1_ESO wrote: »

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

@Deathlord92

Magblades are bad, that being said due to the proc changes you can build a strong proc - magNB. I usually win 90% of the fights with this set up, and people keep asking me in game what Im running etc.

Frontbar - Caluurion (Inferno in precise with Shock enchant)
Backbar - Armor Master (Restro in defending with mag steal enchant or poison)
Monster Set - Kjalnar
Mythic - Wild hunt (in Swift)

It pretty much plays like your usual magblade (Dark Cloak, Rapid Regen, Shields, Fear, Swallow Soul, Soul Harvest etc). You fear you target right at 4 stacks of Kjalnar. If you manage to proc Caluurion, Kjalnar and Spectral Bow it can "1-shot" a lot of people, while youre sitting at around 30k resistances (in 5light - 2 heavy) on backbar with 30k HP. Its cancer, but thats unfortunately the meta we are currently in.

Bad.....but you win 90% of fights and can practically one shot? Okay.

And yea, I've been a victim of this type of build many times.

Yes its bad, proc meta doesnt require skill or a good class toolkit. That being said Im pretty sure you play a stamBlade and stamBlades are much much better, they dont even require you to play proc sets just because of how good the toolkit is.

You can clearly see that the build is a very tanky build, 30k resistances with 30k HP, I run around with 34k max mag and all magicka recovery glphys, which in return means that my non proc abilities actually hit not that high. My Swallow Soul for example only has a tooltip of 7511 Magic Damage, which is low. (very low compared to my StamBlades 12k Surprise Attack...)

You seem to know a lot about the nightblade class. Could you share your stamblade build please?@xI_The_Owl_Ix

Im running new moons + eternal vigor + balorgh + perfected master bow on backbar. My surprise attack has a 13k tooltip without balorgh or the 300 dmg from master bow.

Torbschka · October 2020

Deathlord are u still playing on ps4 eu?

I got a ps5, worth checking it out? Havent played for years LOL.

Cheers torbschka

Deathlord92 · October 2020

Torbschka wrote: »

Deathlord are u still playing on ps4 eu?

I got a ps5, worth checking it out? Havent played for years LOL.

Cheers torbschka

Nice I didn’t know ps5 was even out yet lol I will definitely get one as soon as possible hhh

Metemsycosis · October 2020

Has anyone tried kjalnar with galerions? Seems like crazy amount of damage ?

wsmith97ub17_ESO · October 2020

I cry in my beer over this nightly...

Zos, just do freds changes, then job done.

Dorkener · October 2020

Metemsycosis wrote: »

Has anyone tried kjalnar with galerions? Seems like crazy amount of damage ?

While I haven't tried Galerion's, I've messed around with Kjalnar's quite a bit. While it's a fun set, with a nice synergy with the bow procc and fear (trap) it's a lot harder to actually get use out of it than it might seem.
Main issues:
- Debuff duration is too short. Outside of a duel, too many things mess up the stacking (dodge, cloak, ball of lightning, LoS, pet in the way, need to play defensive for a bit... etc)
- Only stacks on simple light attacks (not partial or full heavies) / weaves
- Worst one - the 1 sec cooldown on gaining stacks. If you light weave perfectly (0.9 secs), you get a stack every second LA... combined with the point above (can't use partial heavies to "slow down"), the required rhythm can be aggravating...

Can be a lot of fun, just a lot of jumping through hoops compared to Zaan/Skoria/Cal which just sorta "derp happens".

xI_The_Owl_Ix · October 2020

Metemsycosis wrote: »

Has anyone tried kjalnar with galerions? Seems like crazy amount of damage ?

Seems good on paper but sucks in combst. Galerion is weak and has a no CD compared to kjalnar so they will end up being out of sync after the first cycle. It was something like 3-5k dmg whenever galerion procced which is worse than caluurion which hits for 6-8k and almost hast the same proc time. Its not worth it imo, it got doconstructed really fast.