I'm not a mag DK expert, though. Burning Spellweave may still be a thing, but I'm not sure. Mist Form may be an option to compensate for being squishy. Race Against Time (Psijic) is something I find it hard to get away from on classes without mobility and without Mist Form. If you are a player who LoSes and blocks a lot, letting enemies come to you, mobility may not matter though.

Everything is possible these days. Build for weapon damage, not spell damage. DK has Minor Brutality, so any damage jewelry enchants should be weapon damage, even when you are a mag DK. By the same token, something like Plaguebreak shoiuld be entirely viable, as is building with a mixture of light and medium armor. The game is almost completely hybridised and you may well choose to hybridise your DK. Corrosive works for mag builds now, but so does Noxious Breath. The kind of compromises I've seen "mag" DKs make might include Burning Embers for the heal, Noxious for the pen, and Shattering Rocks over Fossilize for another heal. Cauterize doesn't seem to be all that good anymore, but Flames of Oblivion is strong. To execute players you will typically want to leap into a fully procced Molten Whip, coinciding with a Flames of Oblivion proc.

People complain, as usual, about the meta being too tanky, but I think while the options are there, healing isn't all that easy. You may well experiment with Vigor and Coag in addition to situational heals, such as from Shattering Rocks. It takes stacking heals, esp. with Mara, to become tanky.

Stinkyremy wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

What about gear weight now, with the hybrid type of thing going on is there a variable meta for that, I mean does a magika char still have to wear at least 5 light and stam wear 5 medium to compete or is it fine for either just to wear 5 heavy, or 5/1/1 or 5/2 of whatever?

You need light for the sustain. I personally wear 6 light and 1 medium on my magblade, for example. For mag DK, though, I think I've seen players use 1 heavy, 3 medum, 3 light. Anything goes, really. The drawback wearing too much light is the vulnerability to physical damage.

Sorry if it is a bit of a noob question, I just don't really understand the whole idea of the hybrid stuff yet, obviously each weight gives passive buffs in the skill line so we always need a 5 set of whatever,

Nope. That's gone. The only reason to wear 5 (or more) of a particular weight is to use the armor skill, e.g. the light armor shield, Shuffle, or that heavy armor skill no one uses. However, magicka stacking and shields are kind of dead and you wouldn't likely use Shuffle on a magicka build. Therefore you're free to use anything.

I just don't understand if now a magika can wear medium or heavy armour (in PVP) and still compete.

If you wore all medium you couldn't sustain. If you wore all heavy, you'd sustain via the Constitution passive. All medium is not really an option on a magicka build, IMO. All heavy might be, but I can't speak to that. Heavy was nerfed long ago, because it used to be meta in PvP. I don't think it has much left to recommend it. More health. Healing buff. More resistances. Constitution passive. But also vulnerability to magic damage and increased dodge cost. Meh. I personally never liked it. One thing to bear in mind as a DK is that it's medium armor that has the block cost reduction. The Impenetrable trait is so nerfed, Well Fitted (dodge rolling) and Study (blocking) are more important and, while heavy armor increases block mitigation, the hammer for blocking in PvP is mostly the cost. For me it's light and medium all the way, with at most one heavy. More heavy only if I made a set choice that forced the issue.

I have always been a PVE player and seeing meta builds now where most dds even magika are using duel wielding daggers and/or 2 handed weapons in trials is sending my understanding of the current game and meta out of whack with what the game has always been like.
Even if the game was originally marketed as "be any race, any alliance, use any weapon and do any role" which is kind of what it is in line with now.

My PvE magplar does perfectly fine with a lightning staff front bar and Maelstrom fire staff back back bar. I don't parse too well, maybe around 60K, but it doesn't matter, at least not in normal PUG trials and dungeons. I look at Combat Metrics. I'm average to above average. Good positioning and knowledge of mechanics is also important in actual content.

The last I checked, earlier this year, there wasn't that much in it between dual-wield and staves. Bear in mind that the meta is typically marginally optimal, but everyone jumps ship as if the new way is the only way.