Battlegrounds, IC, no CP IC, Cyrodiil, or no CP Cyrodiil?

Each one of these areas of pvp benefit from different builds and playstyles.

Dr_Con wrote: »

Battlegrounds, IC, no CP IC, Cyrodiil, or no CP Cyrodiil?

Each one of these areas of pvp benefit from different builds and playstyles.

Preferably battlegrounds and CP IC for starters, never really played in Cyro tbh.

I don't know where you read NB is in a great spot. This year has been confusion for me personally, but by all accounts Dizzying Swing brawler specs are at the top, e.g. DKs and stamdens.

I'm wearing Rallying Cry and Mara's Balm on my magblade now. Damage-wise it's weak, but what else is new. It's the only thing that has felt reasonable lately, despite me being very used to playing squishy, low health, high mobility builds. In other words for the magblade with the high sustain and speed that I love, this patch is not great at all.

Was talking to a stamblade who has much more damage than me while running old gear, New Moon, Clever, Balorgh basically, with which he seemed happy. Recommended weapon damage: 6K+. He situationally topped out at 8K+. High (weapon / spell) damage builds net you high healing from Shrewd / Healthy Offering, while Resolving Vigor now includes Minor Resolve, and Mirage / Phantasmal Escape yields gradual roll dodge cost reduction. Those are nightblade buffs alright. You can retain Shadowy Disguise and have good defense in a medium armor build, whereas I feel light armor is hampered by the double whammy of low physical resistance and it's additional physical damage penalty. You don't need Rally, if you can find Major Brutality elsewhere, Oakensoul or a potion basically.

As to the patch overall, people say burst is in, because of Mara's Balm and the weakness of DOTs. I'm not convinced of that. I've run into stamblade poison DOT builds, e.g. Blackrose bow, Acid Spray, poisons, probably Swamp Raider and another poison set, along with Kjalnar. That certainly seemed effective in hunting down other nightblades (me), not least because Shadowy Disguise doesn't suppress DOTs anymore. This is the thing. DOTs last a long time. It's probably fair to say that DOTs only work, if you stack a lot of them and choose stronger ones. On the other hand, the same is true of healing. Yeah, if you run a very high weapon or especially spell damage spec, I've heard claims of up to 20K crit heals from Healthy Offering. This is not borne out in my much lower spell damage build. On that build I struggle.

When Shrewd / Healthy Offering was introduced, I found I could frequently extricate myself from being focused by block-spamming that skill with 1H+S a few times. This is no longer true. Not on my build. I've basically been forced into Mara, despite using both Shrewd Offering and Vigor, until I figure something out. So, for now, I disagree. The changes that were made to the game may be good for a bow-wielding vamp stamblade or some drastically different (high damage / low sustain?) magblade, but they haven't been good for my magblade.