Nightblade "Warlock" Mana Management?

jambam817_ESO · April 2014

Greetings!

After toying with several builds on my Nightblade (PvE!), ranging from Caster to Tank, I have finally settled (read: ran out of respec money!) on my Nightblade Caster Warlock build.
Its fairly simple:
5 Light/2 Heavy armor, Destro Staves (i might drop a point or 2 in Bows lata),
Several abilities from Siphon, Assasination and Shadow trees, ie:

Soul Siphon Ult
Leeching Strikes (very situational, i use it on and off)
Swallow Soul (Health regen and increased heals)
Impale (ranged 300% damage finisher that regens minor amount of magika if enemy killed)
Refreshing Paths (Minor health regen for caster, DoT ground damage)
Destro Staff Unstable Elemental Wall (ground and exploding AOE)
Immovable (Heavy Armor Active, my OMG ITS HITTING ME skill)
Crippling Grasp (DOT, snare and caster speed)
Shadowy Disguise (70% critical strike while invis)
Silver Bolts (as a STA dump)... Just to name a few skills that i play around with

Only issue i have is Mana regen. As a Nightblade, there aren't as many passives that deal with magika resource regen, anyone have any tips? Sure, i could find armor that has it all but as i do not craft my own, I am at the mercy of drops. I guess i could also get my Provisioner to craft some yummy regen drinks... ugh farming food mats.

would love to hear what yall think!

timothynrwb17_ESO · April 2014

Morphed Active: Siphoning Attacks (Toggle that gives abilities a 10% chance to return 15% magicka and Stam)
Passives: Catalyst (20% more potion effectiveness - think mana pots), Magicka Flood (8% increase to max Magicka)

ahspear37 · May 2014

Aside from Magicka Flood and The Light armor passives I also have:
Breton passives that reduce magicka cost/increase magicka
Resto staff that recovers magicka with heavy attacks
Healing Springs (morph from the Resto staff) to help boost magicka quickly if I'm around allies.

I normally have no problem keeping magicka, but at least in my experience the biggest help is the Restoration staff. I wind up recovering a lot of magicka from the heavy hits, and yeah it doesn't do as much damage as a destruction staff but I remedy that in two ways:
1. Stay skill heavy (for solo mob, cripple or prolonged suffering + Soul Siphon spam, for groups I prolong suffering one - usually a melee fighter if possible since I run 4/3 light/heavy and while I'm not squishy my toon doesn't like getting hit much lol, cripple the other ones, and mix between Soul Siphon and my resto staff to finish them off). I used to play differently, but I've found this style makes it easy to take on mobs of 3-4 that are at least 1 level above me with no problem at all.
2. My swap weapon is a Destruction staff. I use Frost Staff for the snaring/slowing. I've noticed, at least in my experience so far, that slowing/snaring an enemy makes a HUGE difference if you are a Bloodmage/Warlock. I hardly ever use health potions now because I am able to keep myself far enough away from the enemies by slowing them down.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you I never die, because I'm not on here to try and brag. I do die. But I died A LOT more before I started playing like this, and I am sometimes amazed how some little tweaks to my style of play have paid off so much. Of course, I didn't do it on my own, I had help from other awesome people on the Forum offering me tips

Hope this helps!

jambam817_ESO · May 2014

@ahspear37‌ thanks for the feedback. I'd been debating trying out the Resto Staff since i only have one set of weapon skills. I'll have to give it a shot.

stimpy986b14_ESO · May 2014

I'm using a vamp stealth DPS + healer build but I went DW and resto instead of destruction. I swap between the two depending on what's needed in my group

DW set

1. Flying Blade - DW- Ranged snare and high spamable dmg, costs stam and is affected by drain power
2. Concealed weapon - high dmg sneak attack + stun (doesn't stun bosses but still does good spike dmg)
3. Invigorating Drain - heavy melee dmg, stun and self heal also builds lots of ult (used mostly for ganking healer adds) - also doesn't work on bosses
4. Power Extraction - used before spamming Flying blade to cap the dmg (it always caps with groups of 4-9 even with zero points in stam)
5. Shadowy disguise - useful when tank leeroys into a group without giving me time to get into position (with concealed weapon + vamp stealth speed bonus, it's like sprinting undetected to my target)

Ult - Devouring Swarm - aoe dmg and massive HoT for when I'm the last man standing vs a group

Resto set

1. Rapid Regeneration - Powerful team HoT
2. Funnel Health - dmg and minor team HoT
3. Healing Ward - dmg shield and heal for when someone is near death
4. Mass Hysteria - fears nearby targets (because I tend to pull aggro alot on anything not taunted)
5. Siphoning Attacks - I leave this toggled on because the heal reduction is minimal compared to the prolonged benefit of 15% magicka recovery almost every other staff heavy attack

Ult - Soul Siphon - AoE stun and powerful team heal

I use 5 medium and 2 light armor pieces with 2 spell cost reuction + max magicka rings and a fire resist + max health necklace

Bhakura · May 2014

Strange have almost similar build but hardly ever come into mana problems. Started with light armor aswell but found it was just overkill and switched to heavy armor for more defence and its still working fine.
Pulsar, to give mobs a drop on max hp, fire of soul tether, 2 - 4 pulsars depending on the type of enemy and then finish everything off with killers blade.
Killing groups of 3-4 enemies takes my mana to 20-30%, the mana leech from assassination and natural regen brings it back to full by the time i reach next group.
If it so happens i run out, theres always potions or switch to resto staff with siphon strikes which fills it up in two or three hits again.

Jeddahwe · May 2014

So you guys don't agree with those who say NB is weaker than Sorcerer and DK when it comes to solo VR content?

00Serval · May 2014

I can think of four things worth mentioning:

1. Leeching strikes (or siphoning attacks) are your best source of regen if you constantly weave light attacks into your skill use (ie. click to fire a light attack but after maybe half a second 'interrupt' it with another spell and both attacks will still go off.)
2. If you recast swallow soul before it runs out then you refresh its current heal value (based on the damage of the first cast) instead of replacing it with the value of your current cast. This means that if it crits (you'll need a ui addon to actually see if it does) then you should definitely refresh it instead of recasting after it's run out. This also means that it's probably worth toggling of leeching strikes for your first cast, then you refresh it and not lose some healing because of the reduced damage.
3. Refreshing path is actually a bigger heal that it says (probably a bug,) with combat ui addons you can see that it can actually have its heal affect you up to four times in one second (that's the highest I've seen, anyway.)
4. The crit bonus from the shadow cloak morph doesn't affect spells as far as I know.

jambam817_ESO · May 2014

@00Serval‌ Actually in regards to #4, i've watched the Character screen (quickly bring it up after i Shadow Cloak) and both Spell and Physical crit rates are at 70%. Now if it actually DOES that, i don't know. But i can see that it increases both on the UI

In regards to #2, thats some good advice, i didn't realize that. I actually use Swallow Soul as my main class skill "nuke" as it does decent damage, not really worrying about how its refreshed. Early on when i first started playing i thought it was a DoT, but later read it correctly.

Refreshing Paths is one of my favorite abilities... AOE DoT and a decent heal. I don't use addons but i can tell its a huge boost compared to Swallow Soul

I've taken some time to play around with what I'm doing and have found that if i use my skills smartly there isn't really an issue, and siphoning strikes is the bomb diggity if i do run out.

kelebra · May 2014

Soul tether is a great ultimate for aoe. As a NB I use siphoning strikes which gives me plenty of mana and I can basically hold block non stop. I have unstoppable but never use it,going to swap out to refreshing path. Keep swallow soul slotted for the extra healing from the passive. Power extraction for damage boost and melt everything with pulsar. Point is mana isn't an issue if you use siphoning strikes.