@WaywardArgonian what magblade weaknesses? Not being facetious honestly want to know what weaknesses does a magblade have that is solved by going stam?

@xDeusEJRx so I mean I agree with a lot of your points... Ulti cast times are dumb, merciless is slow... Lotus fan is really glitchy. I just don't think it adds up to making the class weak. I’ve been playing dual wield for a couple days and have indeed come to hate lotus fan… it basically just doesn’t work to be honest… probably just going to go back to inferno staff trying to land melee light attacks has always been impossible for me in pvp anyway.

Good players dodge the bow sometimes… a lotta times… when it’s important… yeah, they do. But as I said in the original post I think the magblade just has so much sustain and self healing that it doesn’t even matter you can just try again and again and again.

And uh… in response to @Udrath i use a different approach with my merciless resolve I do tend to hold it but not necessarily because I can only think of using it after my ulti but more because I’m aware of the 300-500 weapon damage it grants me and I like to hang on to that for healing.

In fact, so many fights stalemate these days, I find that the best way to kill good players is to let yourself get low on health so they’re selling out on offense, perhaps forget to reapply buffs, probably not on their ‘emergency’ bar and then just thwack them in the face with a merciless. It’s actually a rather big burst heal. And depending on which ulti you’re using… if it’s not incap then there’s no reason to use the ulti first… you can spectral bow and then soul tether them for an undodgable stun.

I dunno. It’s not important. My only point is I feel like I’m tanky enough to try lots of different things until something works.

Okay so yeah, I’m looking at the stat sheet about to do this write-up and I don’t see anything that special… which like, again, I’m not a super good player I just think the class performs well. We’ll just start off with the basics

High elf

Attributes - 44 magicka 20 health

29k mag - 632 mag recovery
31k hp - stage 3 vampire
18k stam - 591 stam recovery

5916 spell damage - 3516 penetration
20k spell resist 19k physical


^____ All of those stats are unbuffed, standing at the gate in ravenwatch. So the major resolve I get for free basically by using dark cloak and mass hysteria(which I didn’t do here,) I keep one on each bar for ease of access, besides which it adds to our overall hp through passives, but remember since I’m wearing 5 heavy so the buff lasts 13.5 seconds. The major sorcery I already have because of rattle cage. So the spell damage is true, but unbuffed by merciless resolve, continuous attack, weapon damage glyph, or war maiden. So we’re talking about 7k.

Okay what else needs explaining… the recoveries are garbage, right? Again that’s unbuffed… goes up a bit after potions and I normally use tripots. Resto staff heavies are your best friend for several different reasons, I use one infused reduce spell cost jewelry glyph, siphoning strikes, the constitution passive from heavy armor, and have incapacitating strike on one bar whether you use it or not so you can get mag and stam return on light attacks. Weaving is important to this build but it’s a magblade so you already knew that lol. Anyway you’ll find that your recovery is actually pretty good so long as you play patiently. Your out of combat recovery is another story lol.

Gear:
Shalks Resto Staff, powered, increase spell damage glyph. (Any other staff might be better but the 2pc bonus of +health is actually beneficial to maximizing our benefit of being vampire. Anyway it’s just what I had, this build isn’t min maxed it has lots of little flaws)
Dual wield war maiden swords, Nirn main hand sharpened off, flame and shock enchants. (Maces would be better, no heals really on the front bar anyway)

Heavy reinforced Tristat rattle cage helmet
“ “ “ “ chest
Light impen molag Kena shoulder, magicka
Light impen war maiden waist, health
Heavy reinforced rattle cage gauntlets, tristat
“ “ “ “ greaves, tristat
“ “ “ “ sabatons, health

War maiden necklace, spell damage enchant, protective trait
War maiden ring, infused spell damage
Markyn ring of majesty, infused reduce spell cost

Okay one last thing I guess my abilities… that’s kinda the key I think because, really, I’ve gone through lots of sets and it all works well. What I’m currently using is probably my least favorite… build lacks a little mobility, much easier sustaining with ranged light attacking I highly recommend an inferno staff and any set with bonuses to spell damage and max health. Whatever you choose, you’ll lose some damage front bar but gain healing power back bar most likely… and being able to use more than just magic damage isn’t a bad thing. I had good luck running black rose body, shalks inferno… sustain was even better, and with a charged inferno staff and force pulse (the one that interrupts is actually kinda cool, you find more and more uses for it even against just guards on flags,) as a spammable those 3 status effects were lethal to opponents in 1v1 scenarios. And still had like 6k spell damage.

FB: dark cloak, elusive mist, lotus fan, arterial burst, merciless, soul tether
BB: siphoning attacks, mass hysteria, healthy offering resolving vigor, rapid regen, incap

Last notes: again… highly recommend inferno staff, you can ditch lotus fan and use what’s it called mirage for major evasion instead and it’ll help you sustain by landing light attacks. You can ditch rattle cage if you want to use spell power pots constantly that’s what I was doing in the beginning it worked fine I just hated taking resources by myself without popping a potion because I was trying to save ap lol.

The point of this write up… well, the point is because someone asked, but it is also to show not the strength of me or my build but the magblade class. It is very flexible in my opinion… but, perhaps, restricted to a tanky subset. But then again the meta is what the meta is and that’s got nothing to do with magblades. I just think they have the right passives to warrant wearing heavy armor, built in sustain and access to buffs, and the ability to synergise with vampire.

It's not that magblade is bad, it's just that stamblade synergizes with the class kit better from a blow people up perspective

-Minor savagery only helps non ult physical skills
-Surprise attack has built in minor fracture
-you can get the mag scaling for damage on stamina skills now for free damage and bottomless cloaks at the cost of a small stamina pool
-Camo hunter was historically more of a stamina skill until now, still costs stamina. It synergizes too perfectly with the kit to not have front barred
-Rally/momentum was in a similar place to camo hunter and still is the only non pot way for the class to get brut/sorc out of combat
-Magblade bow proc makes a louder sound than stamblade bow proc meaning it's dodged more often
-For a long time, resolving vigor was the classes most reliable self heal. stamina skill
-impale has too much travel time to be useful
-Melee magblade is S-tier cool, but runs out of steam fast due to melee heavies not giving magicka.

The only advantages Magblades have over stamblades are move speed in stealth and the ability to go all in on Magicka. It can be argued that melee magblades have a better resource economy when it comes to breaking free, crouching and rolling since they don't use stamina otherwise, but they'll need to do that more often since they have a harder time dropping people in a single combo.

All that said though, Concealed weapon gives such good mobility that magblade isn't bad compared to stam especially if you care more about target access than extreme damage. You just give up a lot of damage for that lot of mobility