Current thoughts on whether I should go magblade or stamblade?

Nyseto · September 2022

I know this had been asked many times before, but many of those threads were made 2 years ago. I’m also fairly new, I play as a khajiit NB. I run many dungeons and pvp on the side, as well as engage in a lot of stealth activities. Currently I’m playing as a stamblade. I want to know why should I switch to being a magblade? I run 7 medium because I love the sneak and speed bonuses it gives. My magicka is sitting at 12.9k however….

I’m always at stage 4 vampire as well if that helps

Eiregirl · September 2022

Why not try both out and decide for yourself or maybe a hybrid would be best?

If you have tried all three, then which one do you have the most fun with?

Have you tried running a hybrid? Maybe you will like it more than a straight up magblade or stamblade.

Testing things out and deciding for yourself is the best thing to do especially for a new player. This way you get to see how things work and match up different skills that compliment not only the gear you wear but the other skills you use. Look at all sides and try everything then decide for yourself what is best for you.

I say this not because I do not want to tell you what would be best but because what someone else does with their character may or may not work well for you.

Personally, I prefer mag but I know people who swear by stam or hybrid but that is what someone other than yourself prefers...which do you like the most?

Snamyap · September 2022

I'd say go hybrid. Since all skills scale with your highest stat it just works great. No reason not to use both stats, easier on sustain as well.

geonsocal · September 2022

I have 17 toons cuz I wanna experience all the races, classes and stuff...

I would say: why limit yourself, enjoy both types of builds...

Finedaible · September 2022

NB 'Stamina' setups are semi-hybrid anyway since most use Dark Shade and Mirage sometimes. On my stamblade I use Twisting Path on stam build because having high mobility makes the game much more enjoyable in my opinion. Some use Refreshing Path for the heal and recovery buffs.

Finedaible · September 2022

What will really determine whether you dedicate to Stamina or Magicka is your main spammable (which is likely Surprise Attack or Concealed Weapon in the case of NB). Heck, you could even choose Relentless Focus on Mag for easier management of the buff and arrow.

Paralyse · September 2022

Best thing about armory is you can build both stamblade and magblade setups and just switch back and forth to see which one you like. You say you prefer magblade, so there's no real reason to switch to a more stamina-focused build.

Stamblades are using Rapid Strikes as their main spammable (with Concealed Weapon as a bar buffer for the flat damage increase that procs off Path) - this setup outperforms using surprise attack as a spammable.

You CAN run Concealed as your main spammable on a stamblade but the sustain is incredibly difficult to maintain. It's much better suited to magblade builds.

My stamblade front bar (dw) is concealed weapon, deadly cloak, rapid strikes, relentless focus, killer's blade
Backbar (2h) is trap, shade, stampede, carve, path

Main reason you want path is that it triggers concealed weapon damage passive (which procs when major expedition expires) in addition to being a pretty solid AoE dot tick with low maintenance.

Parses around 100k-105k on 21m with relequen, nirn, zaan, kilt, at cp1870, can probably get better, but it's an alt. No problem doing 50-60k+ on low movement boss fights in 4 man pugs.

Psiion · September 2022

Greetings,

We have gone ahead and moved this thread to the Combat and Character Mechanics section as its a more appropriate area for this discussion. We appreciate the understanding.

dmnqwk · September 2022

Go Stamblade.

I have two Nightblades - one is a stamblade with 2 tanking specs (1 trial and 1 hybrid for easy dungeons so I can be a tank with 20-30k dps) and the other was going to be a healer and magblade but...

Right now the Magblade and Stamblade, outside of weird parsing builds that slow concealed weapons they never use, pretty much use the same abilities outside of a spammable and a couple of morphs.

AoE:
Sap Essence (magicka morph) versus Power Extraction (stamina): Sap Essence having a heal is fantastic... for healers! But Power Extraction buffs actual damage.

Execute:
Impale (magicka) vs Killer's Blade (stamina): One lets you execute from range after 25%, the other lets you execute from 40% plus scales.

Spammable:
Stamina: Either Surprise Attack (10k, auto crit every 4s) or Rapid Strikes (13k) are the two primary choices here when you're only looking at the damage of it; or Silver Shards (9k and 6.75k to other nearby targets plus 3% weapon damage boost)
Magicka: Either Concealed Weapon (10k, 10% overall damage boost for 5s by using twisted path to gain then lose major expedition buff) or Swallow Soul (8800, heal for 35% of it every 2 seconds for 10)

Trial Set worn to get Minor Slayer:
Stamina: Relequen
Magicka: Whorl
(I think Relequen is slightly stronger, but they're both fairly decent)

Other than that, both will want to use Nirn, both will use Merciless Resolve (the magicka morph) and Stampede on the backbar (stamina) and use DW/2H and Incapacitating Strike ultimate and the same DoTs (whichever magicka or stamina dot that does the highest damage to support you)

Because Magblade ended up seeming a carbon copy of Stamblade, except slightly fewer options on dots (It's a LOT harder to run Cleave as a Magblade since you're definitely running Stampede) I didn't put Magblade build on my Healer and just gave her a second healer build (1 for vet dlcs and the other focused on 25k+ dps while still being able to pull healing numbers where necessary)

LittlePinkDot · September 2022

Nyseto wrote: »

I know this had been asked many times before, but many of those threads were made 2 years ago. I’m also fairly new, I play as a khajiit NB. I run many dungeons and pvp on the side, as well as engage in a lot of stealth activities. Currently I’m playing as a stamblade. I want to know why should I switch to being a magblade? I run 7 medium because I love the sneak and speed bonuses it gives. My magicka is sitting at 12.9k however….

I’m always at stage 4 vampire as well if that helps

I love my dark elf vampire magblade.
I play her as a ranged pvp gank build with crippling grasp/ swallow soul/ Impale. I stay at vampire stage 2 though. I do not like the increased cost to my class abilities from vampire.
With mag you can use shadowy disguise continually.

fred4 · September 2022

Most nightblades are hybridised, at least in PvP. Question is by how much and which direction they lean in.

If you are a stage 4 vamp, then you might almost be another class. The attraction of stage 4 is that sprinting makes you invisible, so you arguably don't need cloak. That said, you are a stamblade. It's typical for a stamblade to juggle different approaches to stealth, due to sustain issues. A pure magblade doesn't have to do that. A pure magblade at it's sustainy extreme - which is what I play - can spam Shadowy Disguise at will and indefinitely. For that type of build it helps to be a Breton and not a vampire, since vampire increases your regular skill cost. You don't need to crouch anymore, so the speed penalty is a non-factor on a magblade, and there are other ways to reach the speed cap in cloak, green and red CP, the Wild Hunt ring, Concealed Weapon, Swift jewelry.

As far as PvP, a perma-cloaking magblade in IC feels superior to a stamblade or hybrid in terms of cloaking. Crouching doesn't make you invisible to players, nor to NPCs. Both will see you, once they get close. Flag guards will see you from quite a distance, regardless of whether you crouch. The only way to loiter invisibly near hostile flag guards is by spamming Shadowy Disguise, by using an Invisibility potion, or by sprinting as stage 4 vamp. Sprinting has it's limits. You run out of stamina for one thing. You may run into obstacles and become visible. It's not sustainable. A perma-cloaking magblade, on the other hand, gives you almost total freedom to engage or disengage with players and NPCs alike, while you also have almost total freedom of movement. A stamblade is more cumbersome, because it has to juggle different stealth methods. You have to be more circumspect. For me personally, a magblade is joy, a stamblade is hassle in this regard. You have to get the 3 second cloaking rythm down though, which I did years ago.

There is kind of a way to have the best of both worlds, the Darloc Brae set as a vampire. It will give you the sustain to move indefinitely in crouch, while cloaking with Shadowy Disguise at the same time. A subtle distinction, but one that makes the difference between retaining aggro from NPCs and removing all aggro. The problem with Darloc Brae is that it's a cumbersome set. It's hard to tell whether you are still crouching when you cloak at the same time. I hate the set, because it's so unergonomic.

In terms of dungeons, I'm not sure what's better. I suspect both class variants have strong damage. Magblade has an edge in automatic self healing from Swallow Soul and Sap Essence, giving it an edge for solo play. Dungeons are 4-man content. You won't be cloaking there, nor in arenas. Cloaking (solo) can accidentally reset fights and delete progress. On the other hand it can allow you to bypass trash mobs, but that's mostly a solo thing. You didn't mean delves and public dungeons, did you?

As for effectiveness in PvP, gotta give it to stamblade, like in so many patches. A stamblade or hybrid build tends to have more damage than the pure magblade speed / sustain build I run at least. Light armor has never done you any favors. Your resistances as a light armor magicka player are unbalanced. You are so vulnerable to physical attacks and Dizzying Swing is meta. You can avoid those players, but you can't go toe to toe with them, at least not with my build, and that's a problem. Better luck with a stamblade, possibly a bow build.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2022

In PVE at least, I truthfully dont even think its much of a debate. Learn real end game as a mageblade. Yes we are in a hybrid meta, and yes, a mageblade might not look quite how they did a few patches ago, but I still think think magic is the way to go out of the gate. It may not break records on a dummy, but a classic mageblade with Swallow Soul and Sap Essence is very strong, and really not that hard to play at first, but it has a lot of room for growth in your abilities as a player. My mageblade is my go to for farming, pickup runs, really just about any PVE activity, all the way to vet arenas and HM trials.

Bars look something like this:

Front Bar(Fire Staff):
Swallow Soul, Merciless Resolve, Impale, Sap Essence, Inner Light, Soul Harvest.

Back Bar (Fire Staff):
Twisting Path, Unstable Wall, Shades, Siphoning Strikes, Flex, Destro Ult.

-Flex can be a shield, heal, cloak, or a minor force skill if not running something like Tzogvins.
-Learning how merciless works will help your weave, much easier to do with a staff from range at first.
-Both your single target and AOE spam will heal you. This alone, lets you solo just about any overland boss or normal dungeon.
-Really no need to worry about switching bars for Trash and Bosses, one setup works just fine for both when learning.
-The combo of Sap Essence and Inner Light means you dont need to worry about spell pots, as you will get major Sorcery and Prophecy.
-You have both and AOE and ST Ultimate, plus the ulti gain from Soul Harvest allows you to drop destro ults really quickly.

Down the road:
-Swap Swallow Soul for a Spammable with more DPS (ele weapon, concealed weapon)
-You can swap 2H hand in for your back bar if you want a little more single target (change unstable wall to stampede).
-Swap front bar to daggers on fights you know you can stay melee.
-Swap from Impale to Killers blade if you are comfortable with melee and stam managment in execute.
-Add 1-2 more DOTs in place of skills like siphoning and Sap for single target fights.
(None of this is remotely necessary outside a reasonably competitive trial setting)

Mageblade is an excellent platform to learn end game and the basics of weaving. Stamblade is a rough class to learn. You need to be in melee, they are pretty squishy as you lose your built in heals, the rotations are more unforgiving to mistakes. On a target dummy, they actually play very similar, but stamblade is much harder when you have to deal with mechanics and incoming damage. Learn Mageblade, and once you get it, you can lean as far into a melee stamblade as you are comfortable with in the hybrid meta.

People say Templars and sometimes Sorcs are the "training wheels" class? Well mageblade is the "I am going to actually get good at this game" class. There is no better practice for PVE DPS than parsing on a mageblade. Its like going to the ESO version of a DPS gym. You will be better at every class you play after mastering mageblade.

When I made an alt account a few years back, first thing I did was power level a mageblade. If someone told me I had to start over in ESO, I would do the same thing. I can take that above bar setup and do any PVE content in the game with no more than swapping out 1, maybe 2, flex skills.

Sidebar on Vamp: Learn to control your vamp stage for the combat you are playing. Only go as many stages as the passives you are after. Stage 4 is rarely to your advantage in most endgame PVE. PVP is certainly a different story. That said, if the RPer in you needs to be stage 4 all the time, knock yourself out. Make sure you keep up siphoning strikes for sustain.