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The Undaunted Duelist - Magplar Heavy Attack PvP build
RiskyChalice863
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This is a follow-on thread to my thread from 2019 about heavy attack PvP builds (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/492160/undaunted-heavy-attack-pvp-build-magplar-and-magdk/p1). Much of that thread is still relevant, but it was originally written when quite a lot of the relevant mechanics and items were different, so I think it’s worth an updated thread.
Basically, I think you can create a really good PvP build that focuses on heavy attacking with a lightning staff and doing massive damage with it. As before, this can be done with any class, but I think the MagDK is the theoretically hardest hitting, while the Magplar will have the least clunky gameplay. I personally prefer the Magplar version and have therefore focused on that here.
The Basics
The basics of this build is that you run sets that massively buff lightning staff heavy attack damage. You then massively buff that heavy attack damage even further by keeping empower up at all times and proccing off balance whenever possible. This does a ton of single-target damage, but also lots of AOE damage.
Since it’s a heavy attack build, your magicka sustain will be extremely good.
Meanwhile, since it’s basically a proc build without high stats, your healing won’t be that great (though Magplars have good healing in general and you’ll be using Pale Order for lots of additional healing). However, since you don’t need to worry much about max magicka, spell damage, or magicka recovery, you can actually build resistances and stamina sustain into your build without sacrificing much. That will allow you to mitigate much more damage than a normal magicka build with similar damage could. Furthermore, since your magicka sustain is inherently so good on a heavy attack build, you can actually go Vampire and have Undeath and Elusive Mist for even more survivability, without the extra ability cost being an issue. Finally, in terms of defense, since your attacking phase won’t really drain magicka, if you are put on the defensive, you’ll typically have the vast majority of your magicka pool to work with to defend yourself.
Items
Basically, the concept is to run Noble Duelist, as well as either Undaunted Infiltrator or Undaunted Unweaver. UI + ND will be the least clunky since you won’t need to use a stamina ability every 10 seconds to proc UU, and you’ll also have some extra stamina to work with, and you can run a Mythic jewelry item without losing the full Undaunted Mettle bonus. But UU + ND will have higher damage output and healing (though, note that the extra damage output is actually fairly small because max magicka doesn’t affect the sets’ damage). I prefer the UI + ND combo, but it is personal preference. Note you could also do the UI + UU combo too. It will do a bit less damage and be clunkier, but will allow you to stay at range and still do massive damage.
Besides running two out of those three sets, the final two item slots are up to you. I tend to think Pale Order is probably ideal with this build, since you will heal while heavy attacking. If using Pale Order, you’d just put on a final one piece item just for stats (so, something like 1pc Domihaus, Stonekeeper, Skoria, Iceheart, Bloodspawn, or Pirate Skeleton or for example). Zaan is a potential alternative option, especially for a build using Noble Duelist since you’ll want to be up close regardless. Valkyn Skoria would add further damage for a more ranged build. You could also use a defensive monster set. All are viable options, but I am going to assume use of the Pale Order ring and a Domihaus piece. If you go with Pale Order, feel free to replace 1pc Domihaus with whatever you want—1pc Skoria would increase damage the most by far, while other options are certainly viable.
One further concept one must understand for this build is that it essentially functions like a proc build, in the sense that magicka and spell damage don’t affect the damage from the sets. And since the sets constitute the vast majority of the damage, you definitely maximize damage by trying to maximize stats that actually affect the set damage, such as penetration (with crit chance or crit damage being solid too). You also don’t really have to care about magicka recovery, since your damage will primarily come from heavy attacks—which actually gain you magicka back. Between this and the above point about max magicka and spell damage, it actually makes sense to focus traits and enchantments and glyphs on things besides max magicka, spell damage, and magicka recovery. I’d suggest trying to pump things like stamina recovery (very helpful for PvP defense), extra resistances, tri-stats, and/or speed.
So, as an example, the items might ideally look like this:
Head - Noble Duelist: Well-Fitted + Tri-Stat
Shoulders - Domihaus (Heavy): Well-Fitted + Tri-Stat
Chest - Undaunted Infiltrator: Impenetrable + Tri-Stat
Hands - Noble Duelist: Well-Fitted + Tri-Stat
Legs - Noble Duelist: Impenetrable + Tri-Stat
Feet - Noble Duelist: Impenetrable + Tri-Stat
Waist - Noble Duelist: Impenetrable + Tri-Stat
Necklace - Undaunted Infiltrator: Protective + Stamina Recovery
Ring - Undaunted Infiltrator: Protective + Stamina Recovery
Ring - Pale Order: Protective + Stamina Recovery
Front Bar Weapon - Undaunted Infiltrator Lightning Staff: Sharpened + Shock Damage enchant (or a poison)
Back Bar Weapon - Potentates Restoration Staff: Defending + Absorb Health enchant (but the enchant here doesn’t matter much)
In terms of Mundus, I think The Lover is the best, since spell penetration actually affects the Undaunted Infiltrator and Noble Duelist set damage.
In terms of race, I’d go with High Elf here. While the max magicka and spell damage don’t actually increase your heavy attack damage much, they affect your healing, and the Spell Recharge passive is really good since you’ll get 5% damage reduction while heavy attacking, and get some extra sustain (likely stamina sustain). Dark Elf, Khajiit, and Nord would work fine too though.
In terms of food, I think tri-stat is best, since you really don’t need magicka recovery.
For potion, it will depend on your skills. Since you can cover Major Prophecy, Major Sorcery, and immovability with skills, I’d say use tri-stat potions.
I play this on no-CP so I don’t have many thoughts on the CPs.
Skills
For skills, here’s an example of what would work:
Front Bar: Toppling Charge, Solar Barrage, Degeneration, Inner Light, Living Dark, Crescent Sweep
Back Bar: Extended Ritual, Honor the Dead, Restoring Focus, Rapid Regen, Elusive Mist, Life Giver
How it Works
The basic attack combo would just be Solar Barrage —> Toppling Charge —> Heavy Attacks. Solar Barrage would give you empower for 10 seconds, proc Undaunted Infiltrator for 10 seconds, proc minor sorcery, and obviously give you AOE damage. Toppling Charge will gap close (to put you in range to proc Noble Duelist), put the opponent off balance, and stun them. So, this basic combo would proc both sets, give you +110% extra heavy attack damage due to empower and off balance (assuming off balance is off cooldown), and leave you attacking a stunned opponent. You could/should use Degeneration prior to that combo for a bit of extra DOT damage and Major Sorcery. Crescent Sweep can be used as a finisher if someone is low health. You’ll want to keep in melee range as much as possible to keep Noble Duelist up, so you should make sure to keep gap closing people who try to run away.
As an example of the damage, based on my calculations assuming epic gear, I believe that for this build the base damage of a full lightning heavy attack in no-CP when you’ve got empower on and the opponent is off balance is about 40,100. You’ve got 10,789 spell penetration in no-CP (as well as the 10% penetration on lightning heavies due to the destro passive), along with 32% crit rate, and 60% crit damage. You’d also have damage from your shock enchant, along with potentially minor vulnerability proccing from that. So let’s take as an example an opponent with 20,000 spell resistance, and 28% crit resistance, and assume they also have minor protection. This would be a pretty average no-CP opponent. I’ll spare you the math, but a full lightning heavy attack would do 16,966 damage to that person. That’s 7,712 damage per second. When taking into account crits, enchant damage, and the chances of getting minor vulnerability off your enchant, you’re looking at about 8,940 damage per second from heavy attacks. When you add in damage from Solar Barrage and Degeneration, you’re looking at more like 9,605 damage per second. Of course, it’s lower when off-balance isn’t up on someone (more like a bit below 7k per second in that case). This is more damage than a no-CP Sweeps-focused build (a bit lower when no off balance, but much higher when there is off balance).
On defense, you’ve got decent enough resistances (in no-CP, over 23k spell resistance and almost 19k physical resistance on front bar, and over 26k and 22k on the back bar, along with minor protection and the High Elf’s extra 5% resistance when heavy attacking, and Potentates resistances on the back bar) and health (in no-CP, about 22k) that you won’t be overly vulnerable to one-shots. Meanwhile, you’ve got a lot of sources of self healing (though your relatively low stats limit the size of some of the heals). When you’re in the thick of a fight, you’ll have self heals from Pale Order, as well as heals from Living Dark and Extended Ritual. When put on the defensive, you’ve obviously got a cleanse, the big burst heal from Honor the Dead, as well as Rapid Regen, and a fight-reset button with Life Giver. Elusive Mist is a great escape, as well as snare removal. You also have the Undeath passive when you’re low, which synergizes very well with the Templar and Resto Staff abilities that give extra healing while low, as well as 300 extra spell damage after using Elusive Mist (increasing the potency of Honor the Deads coming out of mist form), such that you’ll be hard to finish off when you’re low health. Very importantly, you’ve also got absolutely enormous stamina sustain for a magicka build. In no-CP, you can have over 1600 stamina recovery along with the 240 stamina per second from Restoring Focus, and a stamina pool of over 18k. So, even in no-CP, you should never be caught unable to break free and should be able to dodge and/or block a lot. Consider that Elusive Mist doesn’t cut off stamina recovery and you’ll see that you can kite for a very long time.
Conclusion
Overall, this is an easy-to-play build, in which the damage combo is very simple and doesn’t take much preparation and the magicka sustain is easy, and you’ve got boatloads of stamina and Elusive Mist to work with for defense to get out of sticky situations.
Edited by RiskyChalice863 on December 14, 2020 1:01AM Basically, I think you can create a really good PvP build that focuses on heavy attacking with a lightning staff and doing massive damage with it. As before, this can be done with any class, but I think the MagDK is the theoretically hardest hitting, while the Magplar will have the least clunky gameplay. I personally prefer the Magplar version and have therefore focused on that here.
The Basics
The basics of this build is that you run sets that massively buff lightning staff heavy attack damage. You then massively buff that heavy attack damage even further by keeping empower up at all times and proccing off balance whenever possible. This does a ton of single-target damage, but also lots of AOE damage.
Since it’s a heavy attack build, your magicka sustain will be extremely good.
Meanwhile, since it’s basically a proc build without high stats, your healing won’t be that great (though Magplars have good healing in general and you’ll be using Pale Order for lots of additional healing). However, since you don’t need to worry much about max magicka, spell damage, or magicka recovery, you can actually build resistances and stamina sustain into your build without sacrificing much. That will allow you to mitigate much more damage than a normal magicka build with similar damage could. Furthermore, since your magicka sustain is inherently so good on a heavy attack build, you can actually go Vampire and have Undeath and Elusive Mist for even more survivability, without the extra ability cost being an issue. Finally, in terms of defense, since your attacking phase won’t really drain magicka, if you are put on the defensive, you’ll typically have the vast majority of your magicka pool to work with to defend yourself.
Items
Basically, the concept is to run Noble Duelist, as well as either Undaunted Infiltrator or Undaunted Unweaver. UI + ND will be the least clunky since you won’t need to use a stamina ability every 10 seconds to proc UU, and you’ll also have some extra stamina to work with, and you can run a Mythic jewelry item without losing the full Undaunted Mettle bonus. But UU + ND will have higher damage output and healing (though, note that the extra damage output is actually fairly small because max magicka doesn’t affect the sets’ damage). I prefer the UI + ND combo, but it is personal preference. Note you could also do the UI + UU combo too. It will do a bit less damage and be clunkier, but will allow you to stay at range and still do massive damage.
Besides running two out of those three sets, the final two item slots are up to you. I tend to think Pale Order is probably ideal with this build, since you will heal while heavy attacking. If using Pale Order, you’d just put on a final one piece item just for stats (so, something like 1pc Domihaus, Stonekeeper, Skoria, Iceheart, Bloodspawn, or Pirate Skeleton or for example). Zaan is a potential alternative option, especially for a build using Noble Duelist since you’ll want to be up close regardless. Valkyn Skoria would add further damage for a more ranged build. You could also use a defensive monster set. All are viable options, but I am going to assume use of the Pale Order ring and a Domihaus piece. If you go with Pale Order, feel free to replace 1pc Domihaus with whatever you want—1pc Skoria would increase damage the most by far, while other options are certainly viable.
One further concept one must understand for this build is that it essentially functions like a proc build, in the sense that magicka and spell damage don’t affect the damage from the sets. And since the sets constitute the vast majority of the damage, you definitely maximize damage by trying to maximize stats that actually affect the set damage, such as penetration (with crit chance or crit damage being solid too). You also don’t really have to care about magicka recovery, since your damage will primarily come from heavy attacks—which actually gain you magicka back. Between this and the above point about max magicka and spell damage, it actually makes sense to focus traits and enchantments and glyphs on things besides max magicka, spell damage, and magicka recovery. I’d suggest trying to pump things like stamina recovery (very helpful for PvP defense), extra resistances, tri-stats, and/or speed.
So, as an example, the items might ideally look like this:
Head - Noble Duelist: Well-Fitted + Tri-Stat
Shoulders - Domihaus (Heavy): Well-Fitted + Tri-Stat
Chest - Undaunted Infiltrator: Impenetrable + Tri-Stat
Hands - Noble Duelist: Well-Fitted + Tri-Stat
Legs - Noble Duelist: Impenetrable + Tri-Stat
Feet - Noble Duelist: Impenetrable + Tri-Stat
Waist - Noble Duelist: Impenetrable + Tri-Stat
Necklace - Undaunted Infiltrator: Protective + Stamina Recovery
Ring - Undaunted Infiltrator: Protective + Stamina Recovery
Ring - Pale Order: Protective + Stamina Recovery
Front Bar Weapon - Undaunted Infiltrator Lightning Staff: Sharpened + Shock Damage enchant (or a poison)
Back Bar Weapon - Potentates Restoration Staff: Defending + Absorb Health enchant (but the enchant here doesn’t matter much)
In terms of Mundus, I think The Lover is the best, since spell penetration actually affects the Undaunted Infiltrator and Noble Duelist set damage.
In terms of race, I’d go with High Elf here. While the max magicka and spell damage don’t actually increase your heavy attack damage much, they affect your healing, and the Spell Recharge passive is really good since you’ll get 5% damage reduction while heavy attacking, and get some extra sustain (likely stamina sustain). Dark Elf, Khajiit, and Nord would work fine too though.
In terms of food, I think tri-stat is best, since you really don’t need magicka recovery.
For potion, it will depend on your skills. Since you can cover Major Prophecy, Major Sorcery, and immovability with skills, I’d say use tri-stat potions.
I play this on no-CP so I don’t have many thoughts on the CPs.
Skills
For skills, here’s an example of what would work:
Front Bar: Toppling Charge, Solar Barrage, Degeneration, Inner Light, Living Dark, Crescent Sweep
Back Bar: Extended Ritual, Honor the Dead, Restoring Focus, Rapid Regen, Elusive Mist, Life Giver
How it Works
The basic attack combo would just be Solar Barrage —> Toppling Charge —> Heavy Attacks. Solar Barrage would give you empower for 10 seconds, proc Undaunted Infiltrator for 10 seconds, proc minor sorcery, and obviously give you AOE damage. Toppling Charge will gap close (to put you in range to proc Noble Duelist), put the opponent off balance, and stun them. So, this basic combo would proc both sets, give you +110% extra heavy attack damage due to empower and off balance (assuming off balance is off cooldown), and leave you attacking a stunned opponent. You could/should use Degeneration prior to that combo for a bit of extra DOT damage and Major Sorcery. Crescent Sweep can be used as a finisher if someone is low health. You’ll want to keep in melee range as much as possible to keep Noble Duelist up, so you should make sure to keep gap closing people who try to run away.
As an example of the damage, based on my calculations assuming epic gear, I believe that for this build the base damage of a full lightning heavy attack in no-CP when you’ve got empower on and the opponent is off balance is about 40,100. You’ve got 10,789 spell penetration in no-CP (as well as the 10% penetration on lightning heavies due to the destro passive), along with 32% crit rate, and 60% crit damage. You’d also have damage from your shock enchant, along with potentially minor vulnerability proccing from that. So let’s take as an example an opponent with 20,000 spell resistance, and 28% crit resistance, and assume they also have minor protection. This would be a pretty average no-CP opponent. I’ll spare you the math, but a full lightning heavy attack would do 16,966 damage to that person. That’s 7,712 damage per second. When taking into account crits, enchant damage, and the chances of getting minor vulnerability off your enchant, you’re looking at about 8,940 damage per second from heavy attacks. When you add in damage from Solar Barrage and Degeneration, you’re looking at more like 9,605 damage per second. Of course, it’s lower when off-balance isn’t up on someone (more like a bit below 7k per second in that case). This is more damage than a no-CP Sweeps-focused build (a bit lower when no off balance, but much higher when there is off balance).
On defense, you’ve got decent enough resistances (in no-CP, over 23k spell resistance and almost 19k physical resistance on front bar, and over 26k and 22k on the back bar, along with minor protection and the High Elf’s extra 5% resistance when heavy attacking, and Potentates resistances on the back bar) and health (in no-CP, about 22k) that you won’t be overly vulnerable to one-shots. Meanwhile, you’ve got a lot of sources of self healing (though your relatively low stats limit the size of some of the heals). When you’re in the thick of a fight, you’ll have self heals from Pale Order, as well as heals from Living Dark and Extended Ritual. When put on the defensive, you’ve obviously got a cleanse, the big burst heal from Honor the Dead, as well as Rapid Regen, and a fight-reset button with Life Giver. Elusive Mist is a great escape, as well as snare removal. You also have the Undeath passive when you’re low, which synergizes very well with the Templar and Resto Staff abilities that give extra healing while low, as well as 300 extra spell damage after using Elusive Mist (increasing the potency of Honor the Deads coming out of mist form), such that you’ll be hard to finish off when you’re low health. Very importantly, you’ve also got absolutely enormous stamina sustain for a magicka build. In no-CP, you can have over 1600 stamina recovery along with the 240 stamina per second from Restoring Focus, and a stamina pool of over 18k. So, even in no-CP, you should never be caught unable to break free and should be able to dodge and/or block a lot. Consider that Elusive Mist doesn’t cut off stamina recovery and you’ll see that you can kite for a very long time.
Conclusion
Overall, this is an easy-to-play build, in which the damage combo is very simple and doesn’t take much preparation and the magicka sustain is easy, and you’ve got boatloads of stamina and Elusive Mist to work with for defense to get out of sticky situations.
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Mr_Nobody✭✭✭✭✭I will once again jump in and mention that stacking spell damage provides nearly 0 actual damage on to the lighting staff attacks. If you are not going Stamina, you may as well just stack health to 40k+.
Toppling charge in anything but a 1v1 is a free recall at a nearby keep.
Running Infiltrator and Unweaver provides better uptime and more consistent damage with your skills. Stamina Rune / Vigor / Binding Javelin.
Hope it helped! I have plenty of footage that I may sometime compile (PC-CP-PvP). Its a beast type of a gameplay that requires practicing and choosing the right fights.0 -
Husan✭✭✭✭✭Copy pasting my response from the other thread:
I am looking for a ranged templar build for a while now, as I feel too exposed on melee. Sure jabs does a metric ton of damage but I don't like the "call of duty" style of combat ESO has devolved into where I either explode people in 2 seconds or they explode me instead. It seems to me many other people feel the same way considering most people run defensive sets, heavy armor, 30k+ health builds.
Heavy attack build is something I have considered since it worked really well for me on magicka sorc. However I feel templar just doesn't have the toolset required for this. The biggest pros are burst healing with honor the dead fueled by constant magicka gains from heavy attacks, radiant destruction to finish low health targets and empower from solar barrage. On the other hand, to consistently proc off balance I need to toppling charge, which brings me into melee range anyway and by then the whole build kinda doesn't make sense because it's better to just spam jabs if melee. Which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Other cons are a lack of a strong ultimate, lack of strong defense options (shield and eclipse could fill this if they get buffed) and especially the amount of work I need to do before damage starts coming out, all while I'm taking damage myself. On magplar for example: cast solar barage, cast entropy, cast puryfing light, and only then toppling charge and start doing dmg.
In conclusion, heavy attack build for templar is something that has potential, but templar really needs his toolkit looked at to make it work again as many of the skills were overnerfed. Most notably nova losing 20% of damage mitigation while it was debatable if it's worth slotting even before that, sun shield not being viable choice for any build other than pure health stacking build (and even other health based skills vastly outperform it - arctic blast anyone?), vampire bane not being worth a slot for quite a while now, and eclipse which also used to be a defining templar skill when in it's prime while now it has been nerfed to the point it is not worth slotting anymore.0 -
Husan✭✭✭✭✭Also @RiskyChalice863 on that particular set up, have you considered running vateshran destro staff? For example drop living dark, bring honor the dead to the front bar and run vateshran destruction staff on the backbar along with elemental drain.0
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RiskyChalice863✭✭✭Copy pasting my response from the other thread:
I am looking for a ranged templar build for a while now, as I feel too exposed on melee. Sure jabs does a metric ton of damage but I don't like the "call of duty" style of combat ESO has devolved into where I either explode people in 2 seconds or they explode me instead. It seems to me many other people feel the same way considering most people run defensive sets, heavy armor, 30k+ health builds.
Heavy attack build is something I have considered since it worked really well for me on magicka sorc. However I feel templar just doesn't have the toolset required for this. The biggest pros are burst healing with honor the dead fueled by constant magicka gains from heavy attacks, radiant destruction to finish low health targets and empower from solar barrage. On the other hand, to consistently proc off balance I need to toppling charge, which brings me into melee range anyway and by then the whole build kinda doesn't make sense because it's better to just spam jabs if melee. Which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Other cons are a lack of a strong ultimate, lack of strong defense options (shield and eclipse could fill this if they get buffed) and especially the amount of work I need to do before damage starts coming out, all while I'm taking damage myself. On magplar for example: cast solar barage, cast entropy, cast puryfing light, and only then toppling charge and start doing dmg.
In conclusion, heavy attack build for templar is something that has potential, but templar really needs his toolkit looked at to make it work again as many of the skills were overnerfed. Most notably nova losing 20% of damage mitigation while it was debatable if it's worth slotting even before that, sun shield not being viable choice for any build other than pure health stacking build (and even other health based skills vastly outperform it - arctic blast anyone?), vampire bane not being worth a slot for quite a while now, and eclipse which also used to be a defining templar skill when in it's prime while now it has been nerfed to the point it is not worth slotting anymore.
I hear you regarding not wanting to be exploded by burst damage. As a light armor build, this build is not going to be the bulkiest build around. As outlined above, it’ll have resistances and health that are good for magicka builds with its kind of damage, and it’ll have the Undeath passive. I’ve definitely played less tanky builds. But it isn’t the most bulky, and it actually revolves a lot around using your really good stamina and magicka sustain to mitigate tons of damage using block/dodge and Elusive Mist.
That said, you have lots of options to raise your bulkiness quite a bit. For instance, let’s change the build to: (1) be Nord; (2) put 22 attribute points into health; (3) put health glyphs on the small armor pieces; (4) use The Lord mundus stone; and (5) go for a Max Magicka + Max Health food to squeeze out more health.
With that build, in no-CP, with only purple gear you could get above 30k health (with about 23k and 21k magicka depending on the bar and 14.7k stamina). You’d have 26.2k spell resistance and 21.8k physical resistance on the front bar and about 29.4k spell resistance and over 25k physical resistance on the back bar. Meanwhile, you’d have 1614 stamina recovery and Restoring Focus, so you’d be swimming in stamina to use for blocking and dodge rolling, and you’d have the Undeath passive, not to mention Elusive Mist. That’s a bulky no-CP build.
Would this bulkier build do way worse damage? Not really. Recall that I said the build listed in the OP would do 16,966 damage (assuming no crits) with a lightning heavy attack to an off balance opponent with 20k spell resistance and minor protection? This bulkier build would do 15,374 damage instead. Granted, part of that is that the original write-up assumed purple items, and this one assumed gold. So you could forgo roughly 10% of the damage on your heavy attacks (as well as having a notably smaller magicka and stamina pool, for what it’s worth), and get over 30k health in no-CP alongside some pretty high resistances, as well as massive stamina recovery, Undeath, and Elusive Mist.
That kind of build is going to have peak level sustained damage (i.e. the 7 seconds when off balance is up) that is still actually a decent bit higher than a reasonable Sweeps build would get, while being much more difficult to burst and having essentially infinite sustain in the attacking phase of a fight. Of course, there are also downsides compared to a Sweeps build. Those are: (1) lower magicka pool, lower magicka recovery, and worse healing tool tips could potentially make it harder to recover in a fight—though I think it’d be fine since you’ll start the defensive with a basically full magicka pool and have good ways to mitigate damage while healing; (2) you won’t self heal on attack as much since heavy attacks don’t heal you like Puncturing Sweeps does and Pale Order isn’t quite as strong as that; (3) less big burst from Crescent Sweep. But overall, I think if you want a Magplar that deals huge damage while not being exploded immediately, there’s potential for tha there.
Personally, I tend to be okay with gameplay in which I can absolutely explode other people, but can be exploded myself and have to play actively to mitigate damage. Building this towards a bit more damage gets that even more, since you get even higher damage and you still have huge stamina sustain and Elusive Mist. But I can totally understand wanting to be bulkier, particularly if you play against larger groups.0 -
RiskyChalice863✭✭✭@Husan
More generally, the point of this particular build isn’t really to be a vastly different playstyle from a Sweeps build. You still want to Toppling Charge into close range and use a channeled damage ability that does tons of damage and heals you based on damage done (this time, via Pale Order). The idea isn’t to be a different playstyle but rather to have a certain combination of pluses that a Sweeps build can’t actually match. That is, with this build you can get a combination of damage, sustain, and ability to survive burst damage (whether through health/resistances or stamina sustain allowing blocks and dodging) that a Sweeps build would not be capable of getting. A Sweeps build would have certain pluses over this build, though, of course. Namely, it’d have better significantly self healing (both in terms of healing skills like Honor the Dead but also in terms of Sweeps being more self healing than Pale Order gives this build). But that stuff kind of only matters if you aren’t exploded instantly, so there’s an argument that this build is better for a really high damage meta. It can do more damage while being harder to explode and having the ability to keep attacking for forever with no sustain issues.
All that said, if you are looking for a significantly different, more ranged playstyle, I think what you’d be looking for is more along the lines of a Undaunted Infiltrator + Undaunted Unweaver build, rather than Noble Duelist. That build would require proccing a stamina ability to keep Undaunted Unweaver up. For Templar, that’d probably be Restoring Focus. And then you’d get Solar Barrage up for Empower and zap people from range. For a DK, you’d up your damage with Molten Armaments, and while you’d have a harder time getting a stamina ability to work, options would include Inner Beast (for 5% extra damage as well) or the Psijiic stamina spammable (which will do nothing but be really cheap). But of course you’d need to be up close to do the Fossilize + Whip combo to proc off balance. Another option I’ve used for a purely ranged version of the build, though, is to go with a Warden. Your combo would then be to use Dive and Swarm—with one of them being the stamina morph to proc Undaunted Unweaver—and then heavy attack. Dive from range procs off balance, and Swarm procs minor vulnerability. Meanwhile, you put the Bull Netch and Bird of Prey on your bar for extra passive damage, and maybe even the bear too. Between all that, you could get a 94.25% damage increase on heavy attacks in no-CP when someone is off balance, which isn’t *that* far off the 110% boost a Templar would get with Empower + Off Balance or the 120% boost a DK would get with Molten Armaments + Off Balance. And, in general, Noble Duelist does a bit more damage than Undaunted Unweaver.
Overall, the damage would actually be pretty competitive on the ranged Warden version. Assuming you hit the enemy with Elemental Drain + Cutting Dive + Fetcher Infection (which is equivalently long a build up as Degen + Solar Barrage + Toppling Charge), you’re looking at about 8,900 total damage per second on that same off balance opponent with 20k resistance, minor protection, and 28% crit resistance, compared to 9,605 for the Templar version. And that is not counting the bear’s damage, which might even put it ahead. Since the off balance is a higher percent of the damage, it falls a bit more short when off balance is off cooldown. Ultimately, the damage is competitive to other version of the build and it is ranged. So if you want a ranged version of this, Warden might be the way to go.
That said, I’ve played a Warden version of this build a fair bit. It worked pretty well. The biggest problem, though, was that people can get out of LOS before the heavy attack finishes, and that robs you of sustain and damage (as well as the stun if they’re off balance). It’s not too hard for them to kite you like that either, since you can’t move very fast when heavy attacking. So, if possible, I’d suggest trying to play high ground where you can’t be escaped before the first heavy attack goes off. If that first heavy attack goes off, they get stunned from off balance and you are very likely to get the kill.0 -
RiskyChalice863✭✭✭Gameplay?
I don’t have any footage at the moment, but it has been working well in the several BGs I’ve played with it. I also have done UU/UI builds extensively—including with a Magplar—so I know that those work well. This really isn’t very different from a Magplar perspective, since I’d use Toppling Charge and get in close on that UU/UI build anyways (meaning the same playstyle procs Noble Duelist). This version will just do more damage than prior versions, because Noble Duelist adds a bit more damage than UU or UI, and Empower affects heavy attacks.
That said, I don’t have everything to make this work perfectly quite yet. My Noble Duelist items are virtually all blue, I don’t have a gold weapon (I never got a UI lightning staff, so I have made do with a UU one but don’t want to spend the resources to gold it out since it’s suboptimal to have UU be the weapon in a UU/UI build), I don’t have the Pale Order ring, and I don’t quite have enough Noble Duelist stuff to optimize things yet (basically, my necklace is Potentates and is doing nothing except lowering my back bar ultimate’s cost). I don’t have tri-stat armor glyphs either, and am running spell damage jewelry enchants when I am pretty sure I’d prefer stamina recovery. I’m also running Undaunted Unweaver at the moment. I know I would like Undaunted Infiltrator better with this build, but I guess UU isn’t really worse as much as it is different (more damage, better heals, bigger magicka pool, but lower stamina and the need to waste cooldowns on Restoring Focus every 10 seconds).
All that said, it has worked well so far. I just played a BG where I basically was melting everyone I saw. I just used Restoring Focus then Solar Barrage and then Toppling Charged into an enemy and proceeded to wreck most people. With ideal gear, I’d do more damage and be tankier, so it can only get better basically.0 -
ccfeeling✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭RiskyChalice863 wrote: »Gameplay?
I don’t have any footage at the moment, but it has been working well in the several BGs I’ve played with it. I also have done UU/UI builds extensively—including with a Magplar—so I know that those work well. This really isn’t very different from a Magplar perspective, since I’d use Toppling Charge and get in close on that UU/UI build anyways (meaning the same playstyle procs Noble Duelist). This version will just do more damage than prior versions, because Noble Duelist adds a bit more damage than UU or UI, and Empower affects heavy attacks.
That said, I don’t have everything to make this work perfectly quite yet. My Noble Duelist items are virtually all blue, I don’t have a gold weapon (I never got a UI lightning staff, so I have made do with a UU one but don’t want to spend the resources to gold it out since it’s suboptimal to have UU be the weapon in a UU/UI build), I don’t have the Pale Order ring, and I don’t quite have enough Noble Duelist stuff to optimize things yet (basically, my necklace is Potentates and is doing nothing except lowering my back bar ultimate’s cost). I don’t have tri-stat armor glyphs either, and am running spell damage jewelry enchants when I am pretty sure I’d prefer stamina recovery. I’m also running Undaunted Unweaver at the moment. I know I would like Undaunted Infiltrator better with this build, but I guess UU isn’t really worse as much as it is different (more damage, better heals, bigger magicka pool, but lower stamina and the need to waste cooldowns on Restoring Focus every 10 seconds).
All that said, it has worked well so far. I just played a BG where I basically was melting everyone I saw. I just used Restoring Focus then Solar Barrage and then Toppling Charged into an enemy and proceeded to wreck most people. With ideal gear, I’d do more damage and be tankier, so it can only get better basically.
Oic , heavy attack build is great at offense and sustain , but the defense may a bit weak without heavy armor .
In PVP , rare to play 1V1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt1kHIIUtus
Actually this is my pve char , I don't think it does matter lol
I run Noble , Pdoc weapon set and pale , that's all I have for PVP play .
2 light dmg sets sure better , but I dont wanna be a glass cannon
Look forward to see your new update .0 -
RiskyChalice863✭✭✭RiskyChalice863 wrote: »Gameplay?
I don’t have any footage at the moment, but it has been working well in the several BGs I’ve played with it. I also have done UU/UI builds extensively—including with a Magplar—so I know that those work well. This really isn’t very different from a Magplar perspective, since I’d use Toppling Charge and get in close on that UU/UI build anyways (meaning the same playstyle procs Noble Duelist). This version will just do more damage than prior versions, because Noble Duelist adds a bit more damage than UU or UI, and Empower affects heavy attacks.
That said, I don’t have everything to make this work perfectly quite yet. My Noble Duelist items are virtually all blue, I don’t have a gold weapon (I never got a UI lightning staff, so I have made do with a UU one but don’t want to spend the resources to gold it out since it’s suboptimal to have UU be the weapon in a UU/UI build), I don’t have the Pale Order ring, and I don’t quite have enough Noble Duelist stuff to optimize things yet (basically, my necklace is Potentates and is doing nothing except lowering my back bar ultimate’s cost). I don’t have tri-stat armor glyphs either, and am running spell damage jewelry enchants when I am pretty sure I’d prefer stamina recovery. I’m also running Undaunted Unweaver at the moment. I know I would like Undaunted Infiltrator better with this build, but I guess UU isn’t really worse as much as it is different (more damage, better heals, bigger magicka pool, but lower stamina and the need to waste cooldowns on Restoring Focus every 10 seconds).
All that said, it has worked well so far. I just played a BG where I basically was melting everyone I saw. I just used Restoring Focus then Solar Barrage and then Toppling Charged into an enemy and proceeded to wreck most people. With ideal gear, I’d do more damage and be tankier, so it can only get better basically.
Oic , heavy attack build is great at offense and sustain , but the defense may a bit weak without heavy armor .
In PVP , rare to play 1V1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt1kHIIUtus
Actually this is my pve char , I don't think it does matter lol
I run Noble , Pdoc weapon set and pale , that's all I have for PVP play .
2 light dmg sets sure better , but I dont wanna be a glass cannon
Look forward to see your new update .
Thanks for showing the video! Unless the three people you fought in that clip were really tanky, this build does quite a lot more damage than that. If both sets are procced and the Toppling Charge sets the person off balance, it’s not uncommon for this build to kill someone in one heavy attack (which basically occurs in the time it takes them to break free and try to dodge roll). Some people survive that but are low and get finished with a Crescent Sweep. And there’s honestly not many people who can survive two full heavy attacks if they’re off balance—even if they try to block the second. I have occasionally encountered people tanky enough to keep themselves up for a long time against this, but it is rare.
You are right that this build can be a glass cannon. The current version I’m playing with does sort of fit that bill. The resistances and health aren’t bad but they’re not good either, and there definitely were people able to burst me down pretty instantly using burst builds (things like Caluurion’s). I also had a bit of trouble sometimes with taking some sustained damage while attacking, since you don’t really have much healing in the attacking phase. I think that’s partly a bit of a L2P issue arising from tunnel vision problem on my part, though, and once I get Pale Order that’d go a really long way to solving the issue.
That said, you can actually build this to be reasonably tanky if you want. You can potentially put a decent bit of attribute points into health, because your magicka sustain is so good that a big magicka pool isn’t that important, and max magicka doesn’t increase your heavy attack damage much. For similar reasons, you can put Protective traits on your jewelry. And you can potentially go sword and board on the back bar. If you add maybe the health or resistance mundus stone to that, instead of penetration, you can end up with a reasonably tanky build without sacrificing a whole lot. You could also potentially go Nord to get quite tanky. Honestly, given how suboptimal my gear is, I think you could get similar damage while actually being quite tanky. Indeed, I quickly created a UU/ND build on the UESP Build Editor that pumps a bunch of attribute points into health and uses the resistance mundus but golds out the weapon and is epic gear otherwise, and it does similar damage to what I’ve been using, but has over 26k health in no-CP on the front bar (27k on the back bar FWIW), and 25k spell and 20k physical resistances on the front bar and 28k and 23k resistances on the back bar. And, remember, that build would have access to minor protection, would get 5% more resistances when heavy attacking on the front bar from the High Elf passive, would get 3% more resistances when on the Potentates back bar, would have sword and board blocking on the back bar, and would have the Undeath passive (not to mention Elusive Mist and great stamina sustain). It wouldn’t be a tank but it could survive some damage. And you could go even tankier than that by going Nord.
Edited by RiskyChalice863 on December 16, 2020 6:20AM1
